by ME Carter
I fall into position, knowing I need to make a solid play through the Dynasty defenders so Daniel can get a clear shot at the goal. Daniel is right where I need him to be, so I pass it to him. He taps it toward the goal but loses possession.
I get it back by putting pressure on their forward, riding number twelve’s back, but he’s quick on his feet and is joined by their fucking defender. We fight for the possession of the ball.
When that doesn’t work, my heel finds the toe of number twelve’s cleat.
He trips and falls.
Unfortunately, the ref isn’t blind and blows his whistle. That damn yellow card is raised on me and a penalty shot is awarded.
Shit.
“That was a dick move, Flanigan,” he says as we get in position.
“You’re a dick in general,” I respond.
“That’s not what your woman said last night.”
I ignore the dig and move back into position for the shot, trying to get back in the game. Our defenders build a three-man wall, side-by-side, ready to block the penalty shot.
“Calm the fuck down,” Christian says. “He’s trying to get into your head. Don’t let him.”
I keep my eyes on the ball as Santos, our goalie, dances between the posts. The kicker studies our goal, takes five steps back, three long strides forward. He is under the ball, sending it arching over our heads.
Too high.
The sound of leather meeting steel as the ball dings the crossbar ricochets around the stadium, and the ball is immediately back in play.
More back and forth challenges. More trash talking happens. More heightened emotions happen.
Once again, their forward gets past me, and this time our goalie tries to play the ball with his feet and doesn’t clear it up the field. The move almost costs us a goal, but I’m able to close it out down at the last second and save it. That doesn’t excuse the fact that they keep getting by me, and it’s pissing me off.
Number eighteen looks to pass to and once again, I’m a little late arriving, which allows him to slip into the box, and chip it just past our goalkeeper.
“Fuck!” I yell as their team cheers and congratulates each other.
“What the fuck, Rookie?” Funderling yells. “Pull your head out of your ass! He’s getting right by you.”
As much as I want to tell him to shut up, he’s right, and that just makes me more angry.
Christian cuts to the middle of the field, gets tangled in a sea of legs, and ends up giving the ball away.
When it comes my direction, and number twelve gets it again, I make my move. Hooking my leg around his calf, he goes down for the umpteenth time this game.
He pops up quickly and gets in my face. “What the fuck, man?” he yells, so close I can smell his nasty breath. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Why are ye being a pussy?” I yell back. “So ye went down. It happens.”
“You’ve been on my ass all day. You pissed I fucked your woman?” he says with a smirk.
“No. I’m pissed that we can’t fucking play soccer because yer pansy ass keeps crying anytime anyone touches ye.”
We’re screaming in each other’s faces, spittle flying everywhere. I don’t even hear the whistle.
“Bullshit. This has nothing to do with the game, asshole. Speaking of assholes, have you popped her extra cherry yet? Oh, wait. You can’t! ’Cause I did!”
That’s when I snap. The rage that flows through me in that moment is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Before I can react, one of my teammates pulls me away from him.
“Come and get it, motherfucker!” I fight, trying to get back to number twelve. My only goal is to rip his tongue out of his mouth so he can never speak about my woman again.
Suddenly the ref is in my face. “You need to calm down, boy.” He puts his hands on my chest while someone keeps holding me from behind. I think it’s Shahriary, but I can’t focus enough to know for sure.
“Fuck you!” I scream at the ref. “He needs to keep his arse shut.”
“Like I said, you need to calm down. I’ve been watching you all day, and you’ve been riding the fence on legal plays. Pull it together.”
“He’s just pissed we all banged his groupie whore,” number twelve yells a few feet away, and I lose it again. I break away from Shahriary and run to twelve. As he turns, my fist makes contact with his cheek, and he goes down again. “I’ll show you who the whore is when I make you my fucking bitch!”
I get tackled by a Shahriary again, and before I can blink, the ref holds a red card in the air. Between the punch, being tackled, and the red card, my rage finally starts to deflate.
As I realize I got kicked out of the game, I shake Shahriary off me and stand up. “Fuck off, man.”
“You cool?” he asks, gripping my shoulder but not holding me back anymore. No one else on my team approaches. They all know better.
I nod and walk to the tunnel. When I look over my shoulder and see Tiffany in the stands, hands over her mouth in disbelief, I veer off and jog in her direction.
I can barely hear the boos coming from the stands, and my coach yelling in the background. I’m singularly focused on getting to her.
I run and jump up on the railing and pull myself over. In two steps, she’s in my arms. I’m sweaty, I stink, and I just got kicked out of the game, but the second her arms wrap around me, I don’t care anymore.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I plead. “I was so angry, and instead of taking it out on the people who were pissing me off, I took it out on you.”
Her arms tighten around me.
“My job is to take care of you. To protect your honor. And instead I did the same thing I swore I would defend you from. I don’t know if I can forgive myself.”
“Rowen, I already forgave you for it,” she murmurs. “I just needed time to sort out my feelings.”
I pull away and rest my forehead on hers, breathing deeply for the first time in days. “I don’t know when it happened, Tiffany, but I’m so in love with you. I swear to you I will never, ever treat you like that again. Next time I touch you, it will be the way you deserve.”
I open my eyes and see the emotion on her face. Her fingers are in my hair, and I know I’m running out time before security gets frantic. “I love you, too, Rowen,” she says. “Stop worrying about defending my honor and my past. There’s nothing we can do about that. Start focusing on our future, okay?”
I smile at her and nod. “Okay.” I kiss her quickly on the lips. “See you after the game?”
“Come to my place. No parties. No chaos. Just you and me.”
“Sounds perfect.” I kiss her quickly one more time and jump over the railing to the field. Tiffany has a giant smile on her face and is wiping a few tears off her cheeks.
I’m in so much trouble, but it was totally worth it.
I sit in the red chair across from him, elbows on my knees, hands clasped. While I wouldn’t change what I did, I’ve never been one to put anything before the job at hand. Especially when we’re in the middle of a game. Shame runs through me, even though I know I’d do it again.
Coach sits in silence for what seems like hours. He’s rocking back and forth, fingers steepled and resting on his lips. He’s looking at me like he’s trying to get his thoughts in order before laying into me. I’d rather he yell.
“Which is more important, the girl or the game?”
I was expecting some harsh words but nothing could have prepared me for that question. “W-what?” I stutter.
He waves me off like this is an easy question. “If you had to choose one and lose the other, which is more important?”
I shake my head. “I… I don’t know how to answer that.”
“I didn’t ask if you knew how to answer it. I just want you to answer.”
“But….”
“No buts. Tick tock, Rowen. The clock is ticking. Girl or game?”
“I don’t—”
“Girl or game,
Rowen? You have to choose one.”
“That’s not a fair—”
“Girl or game. Now or never.”
“Fine! Girl,” I yell, sufficiently flustered, and a little scared I may have thrown my whole career away.
“Good,” he says and leans back. “I didn’t lose my starting midfielder for the next two games over a chick who’s just a piece of ass to you.”
“Huh?”
He sighs. “I’m not oblivious to the things that have been going on around here, Rowen. I saw the pictures on the locker room walls.” I slump, thinking about it. “I’ve heard about the skirmishes when you think she’s being disrespected.”
“She has been.”
“I’m not doubting that. You defending the woman you’re in love with doesn’t surprise me at all.”
I’m in love with her, and that’s why it’s so personal to me. That’s why I want to defend her honor and drag her out of parties. That’s why the thought of another man touching her makes me want to beat the shit out of a pony.
“What surprises me is that you’ve forgotten a big part of the game.”
“What’s that?”
“Psychological warfare.”
I cross my arms, realizing he’s right. A huge part of soccer is making the other guy look bad. Getting the refs to think a foul has been committed. It’s why soccer players tend to play up the dramatics. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. The outcome is all that matters.
That’s what Shivel has been doing to me for months. Playing up the dramatics. Riling me up. Taking a tiny incident and turning it into a foul that causes me to fuck up in a big way.
And it worked.
“Shit.” I scratch my head in frustration.
“Look, I get why you’re frustrated and upset. But here’s the thing,” he continues, putting one foot up on the desk. “Your competitors are going to find your weakness and go after it over and over again. You know your weaknesses on the field, and you spend hours fixing them so no one can use them against you. So instead they’ll use personal weaknesses to get to you. And that girl is your weakness.”
He’s right. He is 100 percent right. Who knows how much of what people are saying is even true? I believed it because of the few things I’d seen. But that doesn’t make everything true. More importantly, it doesn’t make it matter.
“You need to get a handle on it, because it will only get worse. Wait until you have kids. They’ll start talking trash about your teenage daughter.” My eyes widen. “I’ve seen a player or two get a six- or seven-game suspension over that shit.”
“Well, yeah. That’s crossing a line.”
Coach shrugs. “It’s the game. These guys didn’t get to the pros by throwing rainbows and unicorns everywhere.”
I grin.
“Now that we got that squared away, here’s what’s gonna happen.” He drops his foot to the floor and leans over, sorting through paperwork on the desk. “I don’t know all the exact details yet, but I expect you to be suspended for the next two games and given a $5000 fine.”
I wince. I was expecting that, but it’s a big chunk of change for a rookie, so it’s gonna hurt.
“Through the remainder of your suspension, you will be here early to help the equipment guys set up. You will do more drills and run more laps than the rest of the team. You will stay later to help with the laundry.” I grimace and groan. He smiles. “I see it’s been a long time since you’ve had to sort through practice clothes. Good. I think it makes my point nicely.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Well, I’m glad we had this talk. Stop letting them get in your head. You’re better than that.”
“Yes, sir,” I say and head for the door.
“Flanigan.”
“Sir?” I turn respectfully, recognizing that tone. He’s done feeling empathetic for me.
“I don’t care who your daddy is or what kind of strings he can pull,” he says, pointing a pencil at me. “You ever pull a stunt like that again, I’ll ship you back to the practice squad so fast, your cleats will catch on fire. You feel me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now go to the locker room. You’ve got laundry to do.”
I swing the door open when he knocks. As hurt as I’ve been the last several days, his public proclamation of love went a long way to heal some of those wounds. We still have things to discuss, but risking his new starting position to apologize to me tells me how serious he is.
“What the… what are you doing?” I ask. Rowen is standing in front of me holding flowers, helium balloons, a card, and what looks like a big box of chocolates. “You know it’s not my birthday, right?”
He gives me a sheepish grin. “I wasn’t really sure how to go about apologizing to you, so I may have gone a little overboard.”
“Ya think?”
“I wanted to cover all my bases.”
I pull him toward me. “Get in here.” Slamming the door behind us, I take the flowers from him. He follows me into the kitchen, and I pull out the only vase I own. “How many games are you suspended for?”
“Just two,” he says, putting all his presents on the counter. “And a $5,000 fine.”
I grimace. “Ouch.”
“That’s not the worst of it. For the duration of my suspension, I have to stay late every day to help do laundry.”
I laugh. “That sucks.”
“I know. I deserve it, but I think I would have rather had a bigger fine.”
I place the vase of flowers on the counter and lean forward on my elbows. “What happened out there, Rowen? You’ve always been so focused on your job. You’re amazing to watch, but tonight you fell apart.”
He jams his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and looks at the floor. “I got caught up in the trash talk. I let them get in my head.”
“This isn’t your first go-round. You know to let that stuff go.”
“I know, and it never used to bother me.”
“What changed?”
He sighs. “The trash talk was about you.”
I push off the counter and take his hand. “Let’s sit down.”
We sit next to each other on the couch. Rowen immediately pulls my hand into his lap.
“What bothered me most the other night,” I say, “Had nothing to do with what you said.”
“Really?”
“I never questioned the things I’ve done before.” I look at the balloons dangling in the air. “But then you came along, and I noticed people were getting hurt.”
“How so?”
“Messing around with a married man hurts his wife. I may have only been a body in that situation, but I participated in the action that hurt her. It might end up hurting their kids, too. I was trying to wrap my brain around that realization when this whole thing happened. Then you come over in a rage, and I find out Mack isn’t as much my friend as I thought he was.” I shake my head in disgust.
“I’m so sorry, Tiffany. I never should have told you what happened.”
“I’m glad you did. I needed to know. It sort of solidified what I was questioning about myself.”
“Which is what?”
“I’ve made some dumb mistakes with the wrong people. I mean, if I had done those same things with Christian or even Daniel, back when he was single, that would have been one thing. Because they wouldn’t have been using me to cheat on someone else and wouldn’t be using it against my boyfriend later, which is totally different than what ended up happening.” I quirk an eyebrow at him. “I also needed to know how much I was being used against you on the field, which is something you never mentioned. Quincy had to tell me.”
He shifts uncomfortably. “I didn’t want you to know what was being said about you. I knew it would hurt you, and I was trying to protect you from it.”
“But it didn’t. It only made the fallout worse when it finally came.” He nods. “I’m used to being called a whore and a homewrecker and all that stuff. It really, really doesn�
�t faze me. I think it bothers you more than it does me.”
“That’s because you don’t deserve to be called those things.”
“Whether I do or not isn’t the point. The point is words only have power if you let them. With the job I have, I know that better than anyone. You let those words have power on that field today, and it got you a huge penalty, including laundry duty. I let them have power when you came over last time, and I ended up with a broken heart.”
He winces.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m very, very upset with Mack. Taking a picture of me without telling me and passing it around, using it for entertainment and to get to you—that’s crossing a very humiliating line. But embellished trash talk by guys who were so drunk, it’s doubtful their memories are accurate… it’s not worth getting upset over.”
“That picture was the first time I’ve seen you naked,” he whispers. “I hate that he ruined that moment for us.”
“He didn’t,” I assure him. “When that moment comes, it will look nothing like that picture. Because it won’t just be about sex. It’ll be a moment where I’m expressing my love for you.”
I scrape my nails across the stubble on his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry I was a dick,” he says.
“You’re a guy. It happens.”
He smiles. “No more. I’m done being jealous of what I haven’t had. I’m going to make it a priority to focus on what I do have. Because I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He kisses me. It’s not gentle. It’s forceful and passionate and full of relief. It’s a make-up kiss. A kiss that could end in make-up sex, but it won’t.
I find myself on my back with Rowen on top of me, kissing his way down my neck. “Do I need to send you home for a cold shower?” I ask.
“No.” I feel his breath on my neck, and it makes me break out into goosebumps. “I’m not going anywhere tonight. I’m going to spend tonight in your bed with my arms wrapped around you, whispering how much I love you over and over until you fall asleep in my arms.”
“That sounds amazing,”
And so that’s what we do.