Saving Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

  Fifteen minutes to run and Miami redoubled their efforts to score a second goal, clearly seeing a chance to win a match in which a draw would otherwise have been a decent result for these two top-ranked teams. They had a high-profile, American striker whom Brendan had briefly played alongside in the national team, and although he was quick and powerful, he was as subtle as a low-flying police helicopter.

  “Shift up,” he commanded his teammates under his breath. He could already see the path through which Miami could route the ball, the angles left uncovered by sluggish Skyline players, the striker’s positioning to head one into the net. Yet one of Skyline’s Brazilian center-backs, Guedes, threw himself downfield at a Miami midfielder.

  “You’re too late, Guedes,” he insisted, wringing his hands between his knees. “Forget him, the ball will be halfway up the pitch by the time you get there.”

  Unfortunately, he was right. Guedes slid into the midfielder with a sloppy tackle that was so late the referee had no choice but to call a foul.

  Brendan slapped his hands over his face. A collective groan rippled along the bench. The Miami players arranged themselves to take a free kick.

  A quick sweep of the two teams’ formations—including Oz’s blank stare and the two Miami forwards’ totally readable efforts to conceal which one of them would take the kick—and he knew this wouldn’t end well. He slid his hand over his eyes and listened to the reaction of the crowd. The sharp intakes of breath and exhaled sighs of relief suggested the ball got dangerously close to finding its mark.

  Eyes open again, he watched Miami press hard into Skyline’s area. He fisted his hands and drummed his cleats on the concrete slab beneath the substitution seats, his gaze moving restlessly. Skyline and Miami were likely choices for the league final, and a one-one finish meant both teams walked away on equal footing.

  “Don’t drop a point now,” he urged his teammates, glancing between the dwindling time on the clock and the tight, consolidated play in Skyline’s half. “Ten minutes. You can hold them off for ten more minutes.”

  Ten minutes plus extra time, he considered grimly. But surely the referee wouldn’t give too much for the disruption earlier. That would be a distinct advantage for Miami, considering Skyline were the victims in that incident and their traumatized, targeted player was still staggering around the pitch. The ref couldn’t possibly—

  “On your right,” he shouted uselessly, anticipating Miami’s winger’s run toward the goal half a second before Pavel did.

  Pavel raced out to meet the winger, diving to stop the ball as it left his opponent’s foot. In the same instant, one of Miami’s central midfielders broke free from Kojo’s effort to mark him and hurtled toward them.

  Brendan saw the impact before it happened, practically felt it in the millisecond between knowing the midfielder’s momentum was unstoppable and then watching it happen.

  Pavel caught the ball on the ground and curled over it. The Miami midfielder twisted to avoid him but caught the goalkeeper with his boot, inadvertently kicking him squarely on the side of his head.

  Brendan shot to his feet, his nerves alight with concern. He craned his neck to get a glimpse of Pavel, who lay flat on his back, unmoving.

  The midfielder responsible for the blow waved over the medics, who jogged across the pitch wearing latex gloves. Both teams stood in loose, idle formations, worry for the goalkeeper obvious in their stiff shoulders and nervous glances. There were two injuries that haunted players more than any others: broken legs and kicked heads. No one could stand at ease on the pitch or the sideline, as each one of them realized it could just as easily be their body prone and motionless on the grass.

  “They’re taking a long time,” the academy player on his right remarked. “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Brendan muttered, worry tightening his chest.

  The clock ran down to single digits and still the medics didn’t give the signal for play to resume. With their backs facing him, Brendan couldn’t tell what was happening, but he suspected it wasn’t anything good. A glance at Roland’s face confirmed his fears. The manager frowned deeply behind his glasses.

  Finally, one of the medics twisted, but instead of nodding to the referee he motioned for a stretcher.

  If the mood in the stadium had dropped any lower it would’ve been underground.

  The match resumed listlessly as four medics carried Pavel off the field. Brendan stood at the edge of the substitutes’ area, trying to get a glimpse of his friend as he was taken down the tunnel, but all he could see between the medics’ navy jackets were his teammate’s gloved hands folded on his chest.

  The substitutes eased into their seats as center-back Paulo took Pavel’s place in goal. Both teams were visibly shaken and even though the referee added six minutes of extra time, neither side made much use of it. Skyline passed backward amongst themselves and Miami didn’t press for possession. Between the Islamophobic attack and what looked like a catastrophic injury, it felt like everyone in the stadium just wanted to go home.

  A ripple of hushed murmurs began at the other end of the sideline at the same time as one of the assistant managers stepped up to Roland’s elbow and muttered something in his ear. Players shifted and fidgeted as information spread down the line, and after a couple of minutes, Brendan twisted to look at Nico Silva, seated behind him.

  The Uruguayan midfielder’s face was white.

  “Skull fracture,” he said hoarsely. “They had to call an ambulance. He needs emergency surgery.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Brendan crossed himself and closed his eyes, taking a second to send up a prayer that Pavel would be okay. He thought of his teammate’s wife, his preadolescent daughter, the domestic niggles Pavel always complained about in training. Only two days earlier Brendan heard all about the problems he was having with algae in his pool.

  It hadn’t been a terrible tackle, a late challenge, or even one of the accidental but harmless collisions they all had with other players, including their own teammates. By all accounts the angle was innocuous—a midfielder running down a ball, a goalkeeper leaning out to stop it.

  A second’s calculation. A fluke impact. Now Pavel’s life may be changed forever.

  He shared a sickened head shake with Nico, then turned numbly back to the pitch, where a minute remained on the scoreboard. As he redirected his gaze he happened to make eye contact with Roland. The manager’s face was stony but resigned.

  They both knew what this moment meant.

  Skyline’s number-three goalkeeper was now number one.

  * * * *

  “Oh my God.” Erin set down her glass with such force that red wine sloshed over the edge. She bent forward to mop it up with the wad of paper napkins that arrived with the Chinese food while keeping an eye on the TV.

  Her sister glanced up from her phone. “What happened?”

  “Atlanta’s goalkeeper just got nailed in the head.” She sucked in air between her teeth, watching medics rush out onto the pitch.

  “This game is totally wild,” Maggie decreed, putting down her phone and picking up her glass of wine. “We’re still going out after this finishes, right?”

  “Sure,” Erin promised distractedly, her gaze fixed on the screen. Maggie had flown down for the weekend, ostensibly to check out her older sister’s new home, but mostly because her newlywed husband was away for a two-night bachelor party. They’d relocated to St. Louis for his biotech career a few months earlier and although Maggie insisted she loved it, Erin knew even before their boxes were unpacked that she hated it. She missed her friends, her job, and her horse, and although she was halfheartedly looking for a new role in events management and her husband was working on the logistics of relocating her champion show jumper, she seemed to be striking out in the friend-making initiative.

  Now that Maggie realized Atlanta was only a ninety-minute flight
—and that her sister had a reasonably comfortable pullout couch and a host of nightclubs on her doorstep—Erin suspected she’d be having a houseguest fairly often.

  “He looks really badly hurt,” Maggie commented as the goalkeeper stayed on the ground.

  “Getting kicked in the head like that is every player’s worst nightmare.” Erin shuddered at the thought.

  “Will he be okay?”

  “I hope so.”

  For a few minutes, they watched in silence, sipping their wine as the goalkeeper was carried off on a stretcher, picking at what was left of their Chinese takeout until the game finally reached its conclusion.

  “And news from the Skyline camp is that goalkeeper Pavel Kovar has been taken to the hospital by ambulance with a suspected skull fracture,” the announcer shared grimly. She and Maggie winced in unison.

  The camera swung to show various players from both teams shaking hands over the one-one score, the managers embracing briefly, and then a quick shot of the substitutes’ bench as the sidelined players stood to exit down the tunnel.

  It was barely a second’s glimpse, but it confirmed the suspicion that had gnawed at her from the moment Skyline’s goalkeeper went down.

  Brendan had sat in reserve for this match. Peter Lucas must not be expected back this season.

  And with Pavel Kovar appearing to be seriously injured, that automatically bumped Brendan into the starting lineup—the starting lineup of a team on a nearly certain trajectory to the league final.

  Power streamed through her, heady and intoxicating. In her office Brendan said she couldn’t take anything more from him than was already gone. He had nothing left to lose.

  Now he had everything. She could take it all.

  “See that guy?” Erin pointed to Brendan’s distant, departing back. “I went to college with him.”

  Maggie squinted at the screen, then leaned back in recognition. “Oh, yeah. Bradley Young?”

  “Brendan.”

  “I remember you talking about him. I think I met him at one of those family things on campus. And didn’t you see him at that wedding you went to in Vegas at New Year’s?”

  “I did,” Erin affirmed. “I didn’t realize I’d mentioned that.”

  Maggie nodded enthusiastically. “You definitely mentioned it. In fact, I believe you said he was even hotter than in college.”

  “So hot.” Erin unlocked her phone and quickly searched for photos of him. She swiped to a good one and passed it to Maggie, who whistled her appreciation.

  “He’s tall, too. Like six-foot-four.”

  “Nice.” As above-average-height women, they shared an appreciation for sky-high members of the opposite sex.

  “Sad news, though. He’s a gigantic dick.”

  “He has a gigantic dick? Why is that sad? And how do you know this?” Maggie demanded, passing back Erin’s phone.

  “No, he is a giant dick. We had a professional run-in this week. He’s the guy who was caught up in that gambling thing at the beginning of the year.”

  Maggie waved a dismissive hand. “Soccer crap, not interested. You should sleep with him.”

  Erin nearly choked on her wine. “Excuse me?”

  “You should,” her sister insisted. “You don’t want commitment anyway, right?”

  “No, but—”

  “So he’s hot and local and you can ignore his personality.”

  Erin shook her head, marveling at her sister’s characteristic failure to take almost any element of life seriously. “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  Erin almost laughed out loud at Maggie’s unknowing question. Because he’d all but blackmailed her. Because he was an obsessive gambler oblivious to the severity of his addiction. Because she’d already slept with him and hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.

  Good reasons. Why weren’t any of them convincing?

  She twirled her wineglass by the stem, sitting with her surprising lack of distaste for the idea. Brendan was in a position to singlehandedly derail her entire career, and on some level she hated him.

  Then why was another level toying with the notion of recruiting him for duty as a friend with benefits?

  An enemy with benefits, she corrected.

  She thought of his big, empty house. Sterile room after sterile room eventually giving way to a few signs of life like the thumbed books in the bedroom, the ridiculous pub in the basement. That crazy chart, the time and expense that must’ve been required in building such a personal, private place to pursue such a destructive hobby.

  Then again, if the figures leaked in the SportBetNet scandal were any indication, it wasn’t destructive for him at all. His replica pub and handwritten chart generated some decent income.

  Quite the opposite of her compulsive, frivolous spins on her slots app.

  She sat back on the couch, aware of her sister’s curious stare as she parsed through the emotions pushing her thoughts in a few different directions, finding the shape of the place where they all intersected.

  The answer came to her suddenly, as clear and bright as the first star in the night sky.

  Maggie raised a questioning brow. Erin tapped her glass against her sister’s.

  “You’re absolutely right.” She grinned. “I should sleep with him.”

  Chapter 7

  Brendan could swear the church basement smelled worse than usual, but he filled a mug with coffee and took his seat nonetheless.

  He checked his watch, already impatient to get his weekly hour of grudging self-examination over with. At least there was no cell reception down here, so he’d have sixty minutes free from resisting the temptation to return Erin’s call.

  In fact, avoiding her was exactly why he’d opted to join the Monday-morning meeting instead of his usual Sunday-night one. He had a rest day with Skyline and he was ninety-nine percent sure there was no chance that Erin could be here. She was probably in her big, fancy office, staring out her big, fancy windows, scheming up ways to hold his newly revived career over his head until he did anything she wanted.

  “Like this?” He drew lazy lines between her legs before slipping one finger inside and asking, “Or like this? Tell me what you want.”

  “Anything you’re offering,” she purred, writhing in the vast expanse of the hotel bed.

  He slapped his hand over his eyes and then shoved it through his hair, willing his thoughts to go anywhere else. Yet his mind drifted back to that night in Vegas, the woman she’d been then, her body under and over and beside his.

  Against his better judgment, he took out his phone and reread the text message she’d sent yesterday morning.

  Hi. It’s Erin. This is stupid. Can we talk?

  He would’ve mercilessly deleted it if it weren’t for the voicemail that followed when he refused to answer her call.

  “Hi, Brendan.” Damn, just the way she said his name was… “I’m sure you got my text, and I’m sure you’re screening my call. I don’t blame you. I saw the match last night and I know what’s on the line for you now. Let’s stop doing whatever we’re doing and be friends again, at least.”

  He had no reason to believe this was anything other than a new twist in her self-advancing professional strategy. Yet something in the tone of her voice, its openness, its hesitation—no. He wasn’t going there. She wanted to screw him over. He had to protect himself.

  He took stock of the other participants filtering into the meeting. He didn’t know any of them except Lenny, who nodded a greeting as he pulled up a folding chair. There were more attendants than he expected for nine o’clock on a Monday, but then again, few of them looked like they had jobs to go to. As he watched a man with few teeth pour coffee into a mug clutched in a shaking hand, he decided this meeting was definitely more depressing than the one on Sunday night. Another reason to resent Erin—she’d chas
ed him out of his preferred Gamblers Anonymous meeting.

  Lenny offered what appeared to be recognizing smiles to most of the people in the room, and shortly after nine o’clock he brought his hands together to signal that it was time to begin.

  “Let’s start with a recitation of our twelve steps.” Lenny trotted out his well-used line at the same time as he opened his well-used pamphlet. Brendan swallowed a groan. He was so sick of this shit.

  He muttered his way through all twelve steps and the introduction of a new attendee, who wasn’t really new at all but had fallen off the wagon after two years bet-free. That story concluded, Lenny looked around the room, waiting for someone else to offer to share.

  After a long, awkward minute of silence in which everyone studied the floor, he prompted, “Brendan. I know you, but I don’t think anyone else here does. Would you like to share your story?”

  I’d like to head butt that overgrown beard off your face. Brendan forced a smile, flattening his palms on his thighs. “Okay.”

  Eight sets of eyes turned on him, reflecting a combination of interest, relief, and sympathy.

  He cleared his throat. “Hi, my name is Brendan, and I’m an obsessive gambler.”

  “Hi, Brendan.” His name echoed around the room.

  “I’m a professional athlete.”

  He paused, scanning the room for any sign of recognition.

  Nothing.

  Typical.

  “I’m a professional athlete,” he repeated. “And I—”

  The clatter of high heels descending the stairwell made him stop. Attention in the room diverted to the door, which promptly opened.

  Erin stood in the frame, firelight-red hair drifting in thick waves over the shoulders of a crisply ironed blouse.

  Their eyes locked and held for a second. Then she smiled.