Outside the Lines

by Kate Christie

  Get up, she thought. Get up!

  She needn’t have worried. Emma popped up, spun around, and took a few steps toward Isabela, emanating barely controlled fury. Or, you know, not at all controlled fury, Jamie amended as Emma’s momentum carried her into the Brazilian player’s body space. Isabela immediately clutched her face and went down, rolling around as if she had been head-butted Zinedine Zidane-style. Jamie huffed inwardly as she reached her teammate. Acting classes had to be a required part of the Brazilian training regimen.

  Before anything else could come of it, Jamie grabbed Isabela under both armpits and hauled her to her feet. “Knock it the fuck off,” she hissed, pretending to brush off her teammate’s jersey.

  Isabela shot her an irritated glare, but at that moment the referee stopped before them, hand on his pocket. Isabela received her yellow card for the tackle; Emma got hers for retaliation. That was one of the first rules Jamie had learned as a young player: Officials might not always catch the initial foul, but they rarely missed a retaliation.

  Emma stalked away, and Jamie forced her gaze from her retreating figure. If Ellie had been playing, no doubt she would have smacked Jamie upside the head for checking out her hot girlfriend in the middle of the game. But the Thorns captain and leading scorer was currently on the bench, resting up after a national team friendly in Winnipeg two days earlier. A game Emma had played in, Jamie might add.

  Game going on here, Maxwell, she reminded herself as she jogged back into position for the free kick. Focus, idiot.

  Avery Jones, Seattle’s starting keeper and Phoebe’s longtime back-up, waved her team up the field for the kick. Jamie was still jogging backwards when the ball sailed into the Thorns defensive end with pinpoint accuracy, straight onto the foot of the Reign’s captain and leading scorer, British international Megan Davies. A Thorns defender stripped her and started to clear the ball, but Davies quickly recovered, stole the ball back, and one-touched it to an overlapping midfielder. Jamie sprinted toward goal, but she was too far away and it was too late, anyway. With a beautiful first touch, the Reign player nudged the ball past Greta, Portland’s Swedish keeper, and slotted it coolly into the empty net.

  Seattle’s small but vocal fan contingent burst into cheers while Portland’s fans, still angry over the foul call against Isabela, whistled their displeasure. Jamie stood in the middle of the field, hands on her hips, watching as the Seattle players mobbed Davies and the midfielder. She checked the clock. One minute left in regulation time. Christ. They had been so freaking close.

  There would be stoppage time, she thought, turning toward the center circle. The game wasn’t over yet.

  The next few minutes were frenetic, with Portland redoubling their offensive efforts and Avery continuing to make mind-boggling saves to keep Seattle on top. The officials awarded three minutes of stoppage time, and the game went end to end for most of that time. Jamie had a late shot tipped over the crossbar, and a teammate’s header on the subsequent corner kick narrowly missed the frame. Avery floated the resulting goal kick well into Portland’s defensive end. As the Thorns center back brought the ball down, Jamie heard it: the three shrill whistle tweets that signaled the end of the game.

  That was it. Coming into today’s game, their first match-up of the 2014 season, Seattle and Portland had been the only undefeated teams left in the league. Now Seattle alone could claim that title.

  A fact that Emma didn’t rub in too much at the bar that night.

  It was their second night in a row together—a rare occurrence—and despite the fact that Emma’s team had beaten hers, Jamie felt warm and happy squished onto the bench of a picnic table at the back of a brew pub a short walk from the stadium. With Emma on one side and Ellie on the other, a lager shanty on the table before her, she couldn’t help thinking of the last night of January camp when she and Emma had smiled into each other’s eyes and held hands under the table.

  Kind of like they were doing now.

  “Ah, I see now why you defend the other team,” Isabela said from the other side of the table, lips twisted in a smirk. Freshly showered and coiffed, she barely resembled her on-field persona. “I didn’t realize this was the Blake of whom everyone speaks.”

  “Oh. Well, yeah, this is Emma. Emma, this is Isabela.”

  “We already know one another, Maximillian,” Isabela said, employing her nickname of choice for Jamie.

  Of course they weren’t strangers. They must have come up against each other a dozen times or more at Olympics and World Cups, in friendlies and not-so-friendly grudge matches. Now that Jamie thought about it, that was probably why Emma had gone from zero to red-card-angry so quickly earlier. Isabela had broken Tina Baker’s foot a few years back in a spiteful slide tackle much like the one she had executed tonight.

  “We know each other,” Emma agreed, and tilted her head in a gesture that Jamie recognized as one of her frostier glares. “Isa.”

  “Emma.”

  The stare-off continued until Ellie said, “So, Isa, are the rumors true? I hear Marisol’s considering leaving Tyresö to join the NWSL.”

  Marisol was Brazil’s star player of the last decade, with no fewer than four FIFA World Player of the Year awards to her name. But for all her brilliance and renown, she had never won gold in an Olympics or World Cup.

  “Don’t believe everything you hear.” Isa tipped her glass at Ellie. “For example, it is almost unfathomable that you are giving up the single life in order to settle down.”

  Like Jenny Latham, Ellie had a bit of a reputation in the soccer world. Unlike Jenny, who supposedly fell toward the hetero end of the Kinsey scale, Ellie’s conquests had been strictly girl-on-girl. And geez, Emma had told Jamie, had there been a lot of girls before Jodie.

  Ellie shrugged. “What can I say? Everyone has to grow up sometime.”

  “I am not certain I agree,” Isa said. “But the woman who can tame you must be fierce indeed.”

  “She is,” Ellie said, the smile she reserved for Jodie and newborn babies softening her features.

  “Why isn’t she here tonight?” Megan Davies put in from beside Isa, her street clothes and make-up also on point, as Angie would have said.

  “She had to fly to New York for work.”

  “What does she do?”

  As the conversation moved on to significant others and their careers of choice, Jamie felt Emma lean into her side and murmur, “How much longer are we staying?”

  She glanced at Emma, noting her girlfriend’s narrowed eyes and the way she touched her tongue to her lips. And, right. Okay.

  Jamie rose abruptly, nearly tipping Emma over, and tossed a few bills on the table. “It’s been fun, kids.”

  Isa lifted a sculpted eyebrow. “Better things to do with your time, Maximillian?”

  “Well, actually, yes.” Jamie hoped she wasn’t preening too much, but it was hard not to, given who she was dating.

  At her side, Emma tilted her own eyebrow at the Brazilian. “Nice game, ladies. Better luck next time. You’ll need it.”

  Before the boos and hoots could reach a crescendo, Jamie grabbed Emma’s hand and pulled her away, laughter and the occasional whistle following them.

  “I didn’t mean to make you ditch your friends,” Emma said as they left the bar.

  “I can hang out with those guys anytime. You, on the other hand…” She trailed off, checking outside for rain before zipping up her fleece and tugging her baseball cap lower.

  “I know exactly what you mean.” Emma shrugged into her puffy vest and stepped out onto the sidewalk, where groups of people had gathered to share cigarettes and certain other smoking products.

  Jamie moved past quickly, amazed as ever by the boldness of anyone who smoked weed in public in a state where its use was still illegal. They couldn’t all have medical marijuana cards, could they? But this was the Pearl District, where hipster restaurants and microbreweries attracted liberal, wealthy patrons—the Oregonians most likely to support women’s
soccer, gay marriage, and the legalization of recreational drugs.

  The rain began when they were halfway back to the stadium. Laughing, Emma linked their hands and tugged her along the wet streets back to the players’ lot. Soon they were shivering in the front seat of Jamie’s hatchback, defroster blasting as they exchanged smiles on their way back to Ellie’s house. For once it would be just the two of them at home.

  It didn’t take long to reach Ellie’s street. Heart racing in anticipation, Jamie parked out front and led Emma inside. Emma’s lips were on hers the second she closed the front door, and Jamie returned the kiss feverishly, backing Emma towards the stairway. They paused long enough to make it downstairs safely before Jamie guided Emma toward her bedroom, hands and lips wandering as they stripped off each other’s clothes. This coming together was different from the night before, when they had kissed almost shyly at first, relearning each other’s bodies. Tonight the energy flaring between them was bolder, more demanding.

  Emma pushed her back on the bed and finished shimmying out of her skinny jeans before reaching for Jamie’s belt buckle. “May I?” she asked, voice low, smile sly.

  “Yes.” Jamie gazed up at her, taking in the lovely sight of Emma in boy briefs and a lacy push-up bra. The contrast in underwear choice, she decided, summed her up perfectly.

  And then Emma’s hands were on her belt buckle and her lips were on Jamie’s neck, and the briefs and bra? They weren’t necessary at all.

  #

  “I can’t believe I have to go home today,” Emma said, her breath warm on Jamie’s shoulder.

  Jamie trailed her hand up Emma’s arm, scratching her skin lightly and feeling her shiver. “You don’t, though, do you?”

  “Does that mean you’re planning to hold me hostage in your basement lair?”

  “Hello, it’s a daylight basement lair. And no, I’m saying we could hang out today and you could leave tomorrow morning and still be back in time for practice…”

  She hesitated. “I have to lift, and I was going to run a few drills, too.”

  Jamie grinned at her, turning on all the charm she could muster. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I happen to know an excellent soccer academy. I bet they’d even let you train for free in exchange for a bit of publicity.”

  “Jamie…” Emma propped herself up, brow creased.

  “What?”

  “You know what. If a video gets out of us training together, it could break our little corner of the Internet.”

  “And that’s bad because…?”

  “Because you could still make the national team. You know how the federation feels about players dating each other.”

  “Hasn’t stopped Maddie and Angie.”

  That was an understatement. More than once Angie’s New Jersey-based trainer had posted videos of them running a scoring drill while wearing each other’s USWNT shorts, the numbers clear as day. Angie played for Sky Blue in Jersey and Maddie played for the Washington Spirit outside DC, but the two hundred-plus miles between them hadn’t prevented them from working out together semi-regularly.

  “They’ve already got contracts,” Emma pointed out, her hand splayed against Jamie’s ribs. “Are these new?” she added, caressing her abs.

  “Improved, anyway.” She flexed, smiling as Emma hummed in appreciation. That sound made all the hard work worth it in a way that even leading the assist column in the NWSL couldn’t. “See? I’m telling you, babe, the guys at Next Level know what they’re doing.”

  Emma pushed the sheet away and scooted down her body. “If I stay, it definitely won’t be for the guys at Next Level.” And then she dipped her head and began lazily kissing her way across Jamie’s mid-section.

  Jamie stared up at the paint swirls on the bedroom ceiling, sighing in contentment. Being together in real life definitely kicked Skype’s cyber-booty. She could get used to waking up like this. Or, she could if they ever lived in the same city. For now, she would take Emma when she could get her. She started to laugh at her own pun, but then Emma’s head dipped lower and she gasped instead, bunching the sheets in one fist while thoughts of puns and the Internet skittered away.

  #

  The scent of breakfast cooking finally lured them out of Jamie’s room.

  “Holy shit, you’re both alive,” Ellie commented, expertly flipping a pancake as they took seats at the kitchen island, their hair still wet from the shower. “I wasn’t sure from the sounds I heard down there.”

  “You should talk,” Jamie blustered, pretending she didn’t feel her face turning red. “Not like you and Jodie don’t do the same thing!”

  “Well, I hardly think they do the same things, babe,” Emma said.

  She’d pulled on Jamie’s Stanford T-shirt and her old 49ers cap before trekking upstairs, and now Ellie grunted as she reached for her phone. “Wait until the Seattle fans see you flaunting your loyalty to the Niners, Blake.”

  “Hey!” Emma hid behind Jamie. “No cameras, Ellison!”

  Ellie set her phone back on the counter. “Fine. No need to get your panties in a bunch.”

  Jamie decided not to inform her that the likelihood of that happening was significantly reduced by the fact that Emma wasn’t currently wearing underwear.

  “So what do you two have planned today?” Ellie scooped scrambled eggs and pancakes onto a trio of plates and slid them across the island. “Or do you have to head home, Em?”

  “This one here has invited me to stay,” Emma admitted, spooning a generous helping of cut fruit onto her plate. “Assuming that’s okay with you?”

  Ellie nodded as she drowned her eggs in hot sauce. “I told you guys, you’re welcome as long as you like. Both of you.”

  “You’re a good egg,” Emma said. “Even if you do play for the second-best team in the Pacific Northwest.”

  “Second-best? Pretty sure the fans would disagree with you on that one.”

  Jamie shoved food in her mouth as the other two traded insults. She appreciated Ellie’s generosity, she did, but it was hard to have to depend on the kindness of others. Whenever Jamie apologized for mooching off Ellie, she would launch into her own stories of starting out back when Americans were still high on the ’99 World Cup and WUSA was the first fully professional women’s soccer league in the world.

  “Pay it forward and it’s all good,” she’d told Jamie more than once, tsk-tsking whenever Jamie hunched her shoulders and replied darkly, “Assuming I get the chance.”

  Sometimes Jamie wished she had Ellie’s faith in her. Emma’s, too, while she was at it.

  “Wait,” Ellie said suddenly. “Does that mean you’re coming to train with us?”

  Emma shrugged. “I might scout out the competition. Although after the game yesterday, I’m not sure that’s necessary.”

  “I have two words for you: Defending champs. Besides, if I had played, you know the result would have been different.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Emma drawled. “I’m fairly confident I could have shut you down too, Ellison. As usual.”

  “Sure, Blake.”

  “Why weren’t you playing, again? I managed to and I went a full ninety against Canada.”

  As Ellie blustered a response, Jamie’s attention grew fuzzy. Sometimes in moments like this, her reality still felt unreal. She was living with Rachel Ellison, one of the greatest players of all time, and dating Emma Blakeley, the woman she had been half in love with for most of her adult life, and here they all were having Sunday brunch together in Ellie’s beautiful new kitchen in her beautiful new house overlooking an almost sunny Portland. And yes, she was technically living “off” Ellie instead of “with,” and maybe she and Emma only saw each other in person rarely, but the fact remained that her life was pretty great even without a spot on the national team.

  Almost as if Jamie had conjured it, Ellie’s phone rang, caller ID blinking “US Soccer.” Ellie grabbed it and walked into the living room, where Jamie heard her say, “Hey Fitzy… Yep, I got the email.
Thanks for the heads-up. When will the announcement go out?... Got it... See you next month. Oh, and give Eli a high five from me.”

  Jamie glanced at Emma, whose eyebrows had risen. Fitzy was Carrie Fitzsimmons, the USWNT manager, Eli her first grader who, like Steph Miller’s son Brodie, had grown up around the team. In fact, Eli and Brodie were best buds and often gave their parents heart attacks with their on- and off-field capers. Eli’s worship for the players was equal opportunity for the most part, but he admired Ellie especially because, he said, he’d been named after her. Obviously.

  “What was that about?” Emma asked as Ellie reclaimed her spot at the island.

  “Captain’s business,” she said cryptically, and took a large bite of a Nutella-smeared pancake. She claimed she’d picked up the habit years before while playing pro soccer in Sweden, and now that Amazon would deliver the jumbo size right to her door, she planned never again to go without.

  Before Emma could press further, Jamie’s phone rang. She stared at the name blinking up at her: US Soccer. “Oh my god. OH MY GOD!”

  “Well?” Emma said. “Are you going to answer it?”

  Jamie hit talk and spun away from the island. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Jamie?”

  Jo Nichols. Jo Nichols, former star striker and current head coach of the US Women’s National Team—interim, she reminded herself—was calling her.

  “Yes. Hi.” She jogged downstairs to her bedroom, careful not to trip despite the anxiety and hope cluttering her nervous system.

  “Jo Nichols here. Do you have a minute to chat?”

  “Absolutely.” She dropped onto the edge of her bed, ignoring the tangled sheets and other signs of her morning activities with Emma. Who was a contracted player on the national team. Who was officially her girlfriend, and unofficially off-limits to other contracted players.