Marked (Playing Games Book 1)

by Rebecca Barber

  “You ready, Oliver?” Coach asked, breaking me out of my trance.

  “Yep,” I agreed quickly, falling into place behind the captain and accepting the ball tossed in my direction.

  A minute later the drums started, our team song blared through the speakers and my feet were jogging down the race, out onto the grass. The moment we stepped out into the sun, a cheer erupted, and it was on. Everything else was wiped from my brain for the next three hours.

  ***

  Sitting in the dressing room with a bag of ice strapped to my thigh, I hadn’t felt this good in forever. Not only had we won, we’d smashed them. And even better still, I’d played an awesome game. I’d kicked four goals, laid eight tackles and had a season high thirty-two possessions. I was flying high.

  “Dude! That was awesome!” Jack yelled, high-fiving me before slumping down beside me and starting to peel the tape from around his ankle.

  “It was a good game.”

  “A good game? You were untouchable.”

  “I wasn’t untouchable. The bruises all over me prove that.”

  Bumping his shoulder against mine, he added, “You know what I mean.”

  And I did.

  For the first time all season, we’d finally gotten it together. It was one of those days where everything just fell our way. Every fifty-fifty ball seemed to bounce straight into our hands. It felt fan-fucking-tastic. Nothing was going to bring us down. Not even when coach announced tomorrow’s recovery session was starting at dawn down on the beach. Again.

  By the time I made it home, I was starving and sore. While I may have had an awesome game, it didn’t mean I’d avoided taking the heavy hits. The punch to my collarbone was the most painful. Although I’d had a quick shower in the locker room, walking through the front door I headed straight for the bathroom. I wanted to let the steam work its magic on my aching muscles while I waited for my food to arrive. Thank fuck for Uber Eats.

  Stepping out of the shower, I towel dried my too-long hair, making a mental note to try and fit a haircut in next week. Pulling on a pair of sleep pants, I shuffled out to the lounge room right in time to answer the door and get the Chinese I’d ordered.

  Flopping down on the lounge, I opened the carton and dug in. I’d managed three mouthfuls before Bryce fell through the door rambling on about nightclubs and women and tequila. There was no way I was moving off this couch for the rest of the night or putting on pants.

  “We’re in. See you in a few hours,” he said before hanging up and flopping down beside me.

  Snagging one of my Dim Sims, he explained what he had planned for us tonight. Apparently, we were supposed to be somewhere at nine. Not bloody likely.

  “Bryce, I’m not going.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “No.”

  “We don’t have a game until next Friday now. That’s almost a week away.”

  It was both a blessing and a curse having the early game on a Saturday afternoon. Blessing because the weather was usually better and you could be home in time for dinner. Curse because when Bryce was bouncing, he was determined to get me out of the house to celebrate. He’d find any excuse. Birthdays, Saturdays – it didn’t matter. It was like it never occurred to him that he had to be up before the sun for recovery.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re such an old man these days!” he complained, plopping his feet on the coffee table.

  “I feel old.”

  “Ever since you hooked up with that chick, you’re no fun.” I hated that Bryce was right. But just because he was right, it didn’t mean I had to admit it. Or like it.

  “That’s bullshit!”

  “Fuck off, it isn’t. When’s the last time you went out?”

  Thankfully I was the world’s worst orderer when it came to Chinese food, because if I hadn’t been, the way Bryce was inhaling it there’s a very good chance I’d end up starving. “You right there?” I asked as he grabbed another carton and dug in.

  “This is really good,” he garbled with a mouthful. Bryce was a good guy mostly, but man he was a pig sometimes. It was no wonder a woman couldn’t put up with him for more than a few hours. And it was even less of a surprise that none of his so-called ‘dates’ involved actually eating. He was strictly a drinks guy. Watching the way he inhaled his food, the way he chewed loudly with his mouth open, I was actually slightly relieved for the girls.

  With my patience running out quickly, I turned up the volume, so I didn’t have to listen to him chomping away as his words bounced around my head. It may have been true I hadn’t been out since I’d first run into Tasha, but it wasn’t for the reason Bryce thought. Lately I’d been playing like shit and on top of that, I’d completely fucked up on a test. Rationally I knew it wasn’t the end of the world to get an eighty-three on an exam, but for someone who had consistently stayed in the nineties all the way through school, eighty-three felt like a kick in the balls. The truth was, I wasn’t going out because I was trying to focus all my energy on the things that matter. My game. The team. My studies. Then, like a freight train it hit me. Tasha was in that list. I had been spending time with her, and somewhere along the way, I wasn’t sure when it happened or where or even how, but it was undeniable. Tasha mattered. Shit!

  With a loud belch, Bryce set the now-empty carton back on the table, rolled his shirt up his stomach and rubbed it like an old man. He really was all class.

  “So, you’re really not coming out with me?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “What are you gonna do instead? Sit in your room and hang out with Mrs Palmer?”

  “Who?”

  “You know…Mrs Palmer and her five daughters?”

  Bryce was looking at me like I should know exactly what he was carrying on about. The truth was, I had no fucking idea. He’d completely lost the plot.

  “Spank the monkey? Flog your log?”

  Ah, now I knew where he was going with this. Arsehole.

  “Choke the chicken? Jerkin’ your gherkin?”

  Holding up my hand, I begged. “Please! Enough. Please stop.”

  “So touchy. Maybe you should try giving the old slug a tug. You never know, it might relax you. You know, take the edge off. Relieve some of that pent-up stress.”

  “Oh my god, Bryce. Would you just shut up?”

  Bouncing off the lounge, he headed for the hallway and it couldn’t have come soon enough. If he didn’t shut the hell up soon, I’d do something to help him. “Someone’s touchy,” he added before disappearing, the sound of his deep laughter following him. When I heard the groan of the pipes as the shower turned on, I embraced the reprieve from his incessant bullshit.

  Scooping up the empty cartons, I tossed them in the trash and grabbed another bottle of water from the fridge before hoisting my backpack over my shoulder and heading back to the couch. Even though I had a perfectly good desk set up in my room, sitting on the couch studying seemed less lonely than in my room. Even if the house was completely empty, I felt like less of a loser studying out here on a Saturday night.

  When Bryce’s terrible singing started echoing down the hallway, I gave up trying to start reading until he left. What was the point? Between the singing and the talking and god knows what other shit he’d pull before he made it out the door, my mind just wasn’t in it.

  Grabbing my phone, I logged into my social media account and started scrolling. Very rarely did I brave going online on game day. It was basically mental suicide. If I’d played badly, they crucified me. If I played well, they’d just ask why I didn’t play like that the week before. I couldn’t win.

  Today had been mostly a good day, so I wasn’t expecting to be strung up, but people were just down right arseholes when they could hide behind vague screen names and keyboards. Although, one thing I did have to give them credit for was their creativity. Some of the names they called me, some of the insults they hurled in my direction were out of another world.

  “Hey, Loser
. Last chance?” Bryce offered as he tucked his navy shirt into his slacks. I could barely look at him. He was insane. The hair! Oh my god the hair. He looked like he’d just stepped out of one of those cheesy mafia movies with the Italian guys whose hair had been drowned in olive oil.

  “I’m good. Thanks,” I replied, dropping my phone beside me. If he was leaving, it was time to get to work.

  “You googling yourself again?” Bryce asked as he sat down beside me.

  “Enough already!” I begged. One more wank joke and I was going to strangle him.

  “What? I actually meant it. Surely you wanna know what your girlfriend had to say about your performance tonight?”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. Now he’d planted the idea, I wanted him to be gone so I could do exactly that. “Would you just leave already? Don’t want to keep your boyfriends waiting.”

  Flipping me the bird, Bryce scooped his keys and wallet off the table, stuffed them in his pocket and headed out the door. “Have fun playing the five-knuckle shuffle,” he tossed out as the door closed with a soft click.

  I managed to wait a whole five minutes after he was gone before I grabbed my laptop and impatiently waited to boot up. Why is it that whenever you’re in a hurry you always get those bloody updates? The ones that say they’ll take five minutes and twenty-five minutes later you’re still staring at the same blue screen trying not to throw the damn thing out the window.

  Unable to wait, I set my laptop down and went back to my phone. I was pathetic. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I knew her blog web address off the top of my head, when I started typing it into the search engine, it auto filled the rest. I’d looked at the site so many times my browser already knew where I was going before I did. Bloody stalking technology.

  A second later there it was. Staring me in the face. Part of me was afraid to read. ‘T’ whoever the hell she was had always been especially harsh on me, and I wasn’t sure I was up for another knock tonight. But I’d played well. We’d won. I’d tried hard and I’d done okay. Really, what could she say about me?

  Nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  Not one word.

  Not even a mention.

  My name was not even in her last post.

  A five-hundred-and-twenty-three-word post, yep I counted every single one of them, and I didn’t even get a mention. Bryce was hailed a hero. Jack got rave reviews. Even Nick had good things said about him, but not one word about me.

  I’d never been more pissed in my life.

  Throwing down the phone, I stomped away, all thoughts of study forgotten. What was with this bitch? I’d now definitively concluded, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever, the author of this weekly dribble was a chick. One who had no fucking clue what she was on about and clearly had no taste. I was the highest paid player in the league, and I’d kicked arse today but still didn’t even rate a mention. I bet if I fucked up, missed a tackle, gave away a penalty or god forbid missed a goal, I bet then I would’ve been mentioned. Probably a headline and a photo too.

  “Fucking bitch,” I muttered to the empty room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  TASHA

  “How was I being too harsh? I didn’t even mention him.” I argued down the phone at Giselle.

  It’d become our weekly tradition. I wasn’t exactly sure when or why it started, but it had just developed over time. I’d write my blog post and send it live. She had the alerts set and as soon as it popped up, no matter what she was doing or where she was, she stopped what she was doing and read it before immediately calling with her very honest, very unfiltered feedback. More than once I’d offered to send her a copy of the article for review before I hit publish but she refused to look at it. She wanted to see the same finished post that the world got to see.

  “That’s exactly the point! What’s the guy got to do to get the Natasha North seal of approval?”

  “Nothing. There is no seal of approval. He just…he didn’t stand out today, that’s all.” It was a lie. A blatant, barely concealed lie.

  “Yeah, I’m calling bullshit on that one, Tash. I think you’re overcompensating.”

  “Overcompensating for what?”

  “You’re stroking his ego in the bedroom so you can’t on paper.”

  “No one is stroking anything, Giselle.”

  “Come off it, Tash. Why can’t you just admit it?”

  “Admit what?”

  “That you like him. That the reason you didn’t include him in today’s article isn’t because he played badly or even that he played well, ‘cause we both know he killed it today. Nah, the reason Logan didn’t even get a mention is you couldn’t keep your bias out of it, so instead you left him out of it.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “And you’re delusional.”

  After a few more minutes arguing back and forth, I hung up, feeling like shit. I know she hadn’t done it on purpose, but a few minutes chatting with Giselle and I was feeling extremely guilty.

  Booting up my web page, I read and reread my blog article trying to see what Giselle and everyone else leaving comments was seeing. I hadn’t been harsh. I hadn’t been mean. I’d been me. I just couldn’t see the problem.

  Frustrated, I poured myself a glass of wine while I popped a frozen dinner in the microwave and waited for it to defrost. I was starving but I couldn’t be bothered to wait for something to be delivered, let alone trying to decide what I wanted. Standing over the sink, I ate the unappetising lasagne. It tasted like cardboard coated in tomatoes. Tossing the container in the bin, now not only was I still hungry; I was also disappointed.

  Climbing up on the bench, I stood on the counter and stuck my hand into the copper vase tucked away in the corner cupboard. It was where I hid my secret stash of chocolates. Mum thought I was crazy hiding it from myself, but it was my way of trying to avoid binge eating them. If I was forced to actually make an effort to climb up on the bench to get them, I’d be less likely to follow through. I was using my laziness as a strength. But some days a girl just needed her fix. And today was one of those days.

  Digging my phone out of my pocket, I opened my music app and pumped it up. Barely a moment later my head was bopping and my booty shaking. It was a wild Saturday night at my place. Dancing around the kitchen in my pyjamas with my hair a matted mess piled high on my head while the wooden spoon from the dish drainer became my microphone as I let loose.

  Four glasses of wine, an empty bag of chocolates and my boy band playlist coming to an end, I flopped onto the lounge sweaty and out of breath. Finding a splotch of chocolate melted on my top, I erupted. Laughing so hard at my own expense, I laughed until tears streamed down my face. This was why I lived alone. I could be as clumsy, as awkward and as messy as I liked and there was no one here to judge. Stripping off my chocolate-stained night gown, I let it fall to the floor, checked the door was locked, flicked off the lights and headed for bed.

  Lying there staring at the ceiling, I noticed the flaky paint there. Snatching my phone from the bedside table, I set a reminder to let the landlord know about it tomorrow. I guess that was the upside of renting. Something went wrong, ultimately it wasn’t my problem. Someone else could deal with it. All I had to do was make a call and my responsibility ended there. One day I’d like to own my own place, but until then I was quite happy to not be a slave to the local hardware shop.

  Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. Then twenty. I was tired. My eyes were sore, but sleep was eluding me. When it hit the thirty-minute mark and I was no closer to drifting off, I picked up my phone again and checked my blog post. It was becoming a habit, almost an addiction, one I knew I had to kick and soon.

  Stunned.

  Completely and utterly fucking stunned.

  In the past, my posts had received a decent amount of attention. Hell, that’s how Gerard found me, and I landed my job. I got a few hundred comments, a few thousand likes and even some shares. But today’s numbers were blowing me away.
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  The post had been live on my site barely three hours and already it had over ten thousand views, two thousand comments and almost one thousand shares. Re-reading the post for the millionth time, I was trying to figure out what I’d done differently that had garnered so much attention. What made this post stand out over others? I thought it was one of my more boring, more blah posts if I was being honest. No real fire, no real substance. Just a light-hearted report on what was a pretty one-sided game.

  Opening the comments, I took a breath, sat up a little higher in the bed and clicked on the bedside lamp. There was no way I was getting to sleep anytime soon. Not now. Forty-five minutes later I looked up, bleary-eyed. A lot of the comments had been complete dribble. Many supporters just making sure I knew, and the whole world knew, how good their team was. If Giselle thought I was overcompensating, then I’d love to know what she thought of this crowd. After a string of pretty shitty losses, they beat one of the teams below them on the ladder and now they were celebrating like they just won the whole damn competition. Sure, they’d won convincingly, and they played well, but the one thing missing from many people’s comments was a little perspective.

  Then there was one comment that caught my eye. I told myself that the reason it captured my attention was because of the sheer number of replies on it, not the fact Logan’s name was mentioned. After rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand, I rooted around in the drawer and pulled on my glasses. I hated wearing them. I looked like a nerd when I had them on so resisted whenever possible. But I knew, as soon as I went down this rabbit hole, it wasn’t one I was coming up from anytime soon.

  Clicking on the comment, I began reading.

  ‘Hey, T. What about Logan Oliver? Come on, girl! Not only did he play an awesome game, but did you see his arse in those shorts? What I wouldn’t do to have a piece of that!’ LOLUV17

  Unable to stop the giggle that snuck up and escaped, I bit down on my fist. Well, she wasn’t wrong. Logan’s arse, those short shorts, it was a pretty delicious package. Fluffing my pillows, I settled back and started scrolling. Many of them agreed with LOLUV17’s comments. Hell, I agreed. But then about halfway through the thread, the conversation turned and no longer was the focus on Logan’s butt and arms, but instead questions were being asked of me.