Crossing Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

So here she was, uniquely unprepared for what she realized was more important than a bank balance or an IQ score: the raw, unforgiving, unrelenting push-and-pull of love.

  “I’ve got to head off, make sure the PR guys don’t need me again,” Olivia said, jerking Eva from her reverie. “Providence brought their mascot. Apparently he has a tendency to start fistfights.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Let’s go Skyline.” Olivia stuck a thumb in the air, already typing on her phone as she walked out of the lounge.

  “Or something,” Eva muttered, swirling the remains of her coffee in the cup. In a few minutes she’d have to walk down to the dressing room and sit in the row of chairs outside the door, ready and waiting should Roland and Rio need one more pre-match conversation. It was an element of her job she normally adored—being part of the match-day machine, moving amongst the high-energy players, finding exactly the right way to communicate the manager’s most important pep talk.

  Today she would’ve rather scrubbed stadium toilets.

  She sighed, crumpled her cup, and chucked it in the recycling bin. Who knew being in love would be so miserable?

  Rio had never been so grateful for the half-time whistle. The ache in his knee that had previously only bothered him at night and at the end of training sessions had decided to make its first match-day appearance for Skyline as they took on the Providence Colonials.

  Inevitably his knee couldn’t have chosen a worse time to give him grief. Skyline’s first team had returned from the international break with a slate of injuries, and to say the talent on the field was thin was generous.

  Brian was playing for Nico, who’d injured his hip in Argentina. Swedish defender Oz was out with a hamstring sprain, Paulo had pneumonia, and their third-string goalkeeper looked suspiciously ready to be subbed on. Brian’s careless own goal equalized Deon’s one-nil lead, Providence’s striker had two near-miss attempts, and Roland looked like he was on the verge of a heart attack.

  Supposedly soccer players ran about seven miles during a ninety-minute match. As he trudged off the pitch, Rio felt like he’d run at least fifteen.

  His spirits lifted when he saw Eva on the sideline. Instead of making waves, news of their relationship had barely rippled the sea of Championship League gossip, which was preoccupied by the pregnant mistress of a French forward who played for Cleveland. He was almost disappointed—if he so much as looked sideways at a woman in Chile it made the tabloids—but for Eva’s sake he appreciated the lack of fanfare.

  He paused in the tunnel to take her hand before following his teammates to the dressing room. Her eyes were soft with sympathy.

  “That first half was brutal. How are you holding up?”

  “Fine,” he said automatically.

  She didn’t need to reply—her expression reminded him in no uncertain terms that she expected honesty.

  She was right. She deserved the truth.

  “My knee’s a little sore,” he confided quietly.

  “The same one as last night?”

  He nodded.

  “Was it that tackle from the big blond guy?” she asked, referring to one of the Colonials’ defenders.

  “Maybe.”

  Her fingers tightened around his. “Do you want to see the medic?”

  He did. Desperately. He wanted Tony to wrap his knee, work the muscles above and below, give him a batch of painkillers and send him home to bed. He was tired and sore and terrified that his throbbing joint was going to end his career with Skyline. He’d only had a couple of months to prove himself—no way would Roland renew his contract if he spent the same time again on the injury list.

  Which is why he shook his head. “After the second half. It’s not that bad.”

  Her tilted head said she didn’t believe him.

  “Roland’s already used half of the subs’ bench,” he protested.

  “And he’ll have to keep using them if you overdo it and hurt yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t play if I didn’t want to.”

  “You wouldn’t play if you couldn’t play,” she corrected. “Even then I think you’d try it on one leg.”

  “You know me too well, querida.” He flashed her his big grin, but wasn’t too surprised when it failed to charm away her palpable concern.

  She nodded down the tunnel. “Come on, or you’ll miss Roland’s rousing half-time team talk.”

  “Promise?”

  She rolled her eyes and he backed her against the wall, indulging in a single, lingering kiss that he didn’t have time for yet couldn’t resist. He should be stretching, rehydrating, changing out his soaked undershirt. He should be icing his knee, refocusing his mind, readying himself for the second battle of this ninety-minute war.

  All he wanted to do was take her to bed and show her how much he loved her.

  “This morning—”

  “We have to go,” she urged, dragging him down the tunnel toward the changing room. “You’ve only got ten minutes and Roland’s going to be furious.”

  “I don’t care.” He halted their progress, anchoring her in place with his hands on her upper arms. “Did you hear what I said this morning?”

  “I heard you.”

  “And?”

  She glanced over her shoulder, ensuring they were alone. “Can we talk about it later? You need to—”

  “The only thing I need is for you to tell me three words.”

  She hesitated. His heart stalled.

  Then she smiled.

  “I had five words in mind, but I guess I can lose two.”

  “I’ll take as many as you want to give me.”

  She planted her hands on his chest, leaned up to press her lips beside his ear and whispered, “I love you too, Rio.”

  “Vidal!” Ross appeared at the end of the tunnel. “Bzzzbzzzbzzz Roland bzzz!”

  Eva dropped back onto the soles of her feet. “He says you—”

  “I can guess.”

  “Have a good second half.” She squeezed his hand once more before dropping it.

  “I will,” he promised, to her and his team and the fans and anyone who’d ever believed in a scrawny kid from the strip of civilization between the ocean and the desert. He would make his country proud to call him a native son. He would make his mother proud to have borne him despite his paternity. He would make every poor child kicking a ball in bare feet proud to be starting from the same place he did.

  He would make Eva proud to love him.

  He charged onto the pitch for the second half with the energy of a tidal wave sweeping up the shore and consuming everything in its path. His knee hurt but he didn’t care, too buoyed by adrenaline and excitement to feel anything except pure joy.

  She loves me. He drove the ball down the pitch and shot it to Laurent.

  I’m in love—we’re in love. He received a pass from Brian, negotiated around one of Providence’s defenders, and sailed the ball to Guedes.

  Holy shit, she loves me! He tackled a Colonials defender, took possession and crossed to Deon, who made an attempt on goal.

  The crowd exhaled collectively—the shot went wide. Still they were off to a good start, and the momentum was on their side.

  Laurent jogged nearby as the goalkeeper booted the ball back down the pitch. He pointed toward one and then another of Providence’s midfielders, using the crude but effective form of communication they’d developed as they played together.

  “You, left, push right,” Laurent suggested, employing a couple of the words in Rio’s growing English vocabulary.

  Rio nodded, replying in English, “It’s okay.”

  As they charged down the pitch to put their plan into action, Rio was overtaken by an unusual sense of contentment.

  For all his success, his life had never felt perfect—until now. He was still sailing on the high from his trip to Chile, where playing for his country gave him more bone-deep satisfaction than any degree of fame. He’
d found his place at Skyline, had earned the trust and respect of his teammates, and was on his way to league title contention in his first season in the Championship League. His brother and sister were secure and happy. His mother was taken care of. Even the void that was his real father’s identity had stopped bothering him.

  And of course there was Eva. Her Virgin’s eyes and all the secrets they contained. Her confidence and strength and gentle core. Her laugh. Her smile. Her tender, noble heart.

  He lifted his eyes to the heavens, offering his gratitude to God or the Virgin or whoever happened to be listening. Then he sprinted toward the midfielder he was marking, one eye on his target and the other on the ball.

  His knee gave out.

  His hands hit the grass before he could fully process what happened. It came back to him in a disjointed sequence: a sickening crunch, a tilting view of the stands, a wave of pain so intense he felt nauseous.

  He rolled into a sitting position and stretched his leg in front of him, shivering from the stabbing ache that rolled up his thigh from his knee. Laurent knelt beside him, frowning his concern.

  “Bzzzbzzz, okay? Bzzzbzzzbzzz.”

  Rio shook his head automatically. “It’s nothing, I’m fine.”

  But Laurent raised his hand for the medic. Providence kicked the ball out of play as Tony jogged to meet him, Eva at his side.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Rio gritted his teeth against a shock of pain as Tony probed his knee with rubber-gloved hands. “I twisted my knee, but it’s all right. I can get up.”

  To prove his point he started to push himself back to his feet, but Tony stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

  “Bzzzbzzzbzzz,” the medic said, then turned to Eva. “Bzzzbzzz bzzz bzzzbzzz.”

  “He wants to know if you heard or felt anything in your knee, like a pop or a crunch.”

  Rio shook his head.

  Tony studied the joint, then spoke to Eva. “Bzzzbzzzbzzz. Bzzzbzzz?”

  “Can you bend it? Does it feel stiff or loose?”

  “It feels fine. It hurt when I first fell, but it’s getting better by the second.” Rio hauled himself into a standing position, trying not to let the agony show on his face. He wasn’t completely lying—it did feel more stable than when he first went down. He could put weight on it. Barely.

  Eva translated for Tony, whose expression was unreadable. When she spoke again he knew her words were meant only for him.

  “Tell me the truth. Are you injured? Do you need to come off?”

  “One more goal,” he confided. “We look good to push it up to two-one but it won’t happen with me on the bench. One goal. Then I’ll be done, I promise.”

  “It’s not worth it.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Trust me.”

  She darted an anxious look at Tony, who watched their exchange with interest. “Don’t put me in this position. Don’t ask me to lie so you can be reckless.”

  He blinked away the sting in her words, her revelation of what he was asking. He couldn’t worry about that now. One more goal. His knee would last until then.

  “I’m not asking you to lie. I’m telling you I don’t need to come off.”

  The look she shot him was black as fresh tar and twice as hot.

  He didn’t care.

  He turned his back on Eva and Tony and limped toward the center of the pitch. He was dizzy from pain and adrenaline and anxiety, but he forced himself to jog toward the direction of play.

  Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. His knee felt loose and wobbly. He wouldn’t last another half-hour. He might not even last another five minutes.

  Suddenly he was ten years old again, raw with grief at his father’s death, bewildered by the revelation he wasn’t his father at all, peering through wary eyes at his teammates. He was the newest, the smallest, and by far the best player on his school soccer team. His outsider status had been obvious the day he’d turned up to practice without boots—a boy from a rural slum trying to make his way among the city kids. In the classroom he was held back, barely able to read and write, but on the pitch the coach pushed him forward until he was playing against thirteen-year-olds twice his size.

  Every time he stepped onto that patchy grass he had something to prove. Whether it was about soccer, or money, or that his very existence was evidence of his mother’s shame, those ninety minutes carried so much more weight than the score on the board at the end. He had to win. Otherwise he was nothing.

  “Rio.” Guedes called his name to get his attention, then pointed toward the sideline.

  The fourth official raised the digital substitution board. Number seventeen was in red.

  His match was over.

  He scowled as he hobbled off the pitch, frustration and disappointment and panic at the implications of his departure building into uncharacteristic rage. He didn’t thank the fans, he didn’t acknowledge the second-team player who would take his place, and he refused to look at Roland, shaking off the manager’s attempt to grab him by the arm.

  Instead he limped over to the giant plastic bucket full of water bottles and kicked it as hard as he could, sending bottles rolling into the tunnel on a wave of melted ice as the bucket ricocheted off one of the concrete walls.

  “Rio!” Eva came up beside him, her hands on her hips. Fans seated in the stands above the tunnel had their phones out, and he was sure his outburst had already gone viral.

  Whatever. His reputation wouldn’t matter if he had no career.

  Tony and two members of the training staff tried to usher him into the tunnel but he jerked out of their reach, whirling on Eva.

  “Did you do this? Did you tell Roland to take me off?”

  “Damn straight I did,” she shot back, eyes flashing.

  He slammed his hand through his hair, so angry he shook. “That wasn’t your call to make. You had no right.”

  “You can barely walk. If it hadn’t been me it would’ve been—”

  “But it was you,” he interjected, his own words registering bleakly as they left his mouth. “After everything we’ve talked about, everything you’ve seen, this is what you do to me?”

  Her fierce expression faltered. “Rio, I didn’t—”

  But he was on a roll, carried by the momentum of his fury. “You’re the only person who understands the weight on my shoulders. I’ve never trusted anyone else with what I showed you in Antofagasta—my story, my legacy, the stakes I play for every time I set foot on the pitch. And how did you reward my trust? By undermining me. Interfering with my career. Telling my manager exactly what I told you not to. You betrayed me, Eva.” He practically spat the word. Then he pivoted on his good knee and charged into the tunnel.

  Tony rushed to join him, and as the pain in his knee overcame his receding frustration, he allowed the medic to put a comforting hand on his elbow.

  Tony indicated his bad leg. “Bzzzbzzz bzzz?”

  Automatically he glanced around for Eva. She stood at the entrance to the tunnel, staring after him, her expression so stricken he almost had a pang of regret.

  Almost.

  Tony looked between him and Eva, and raised his brows as if asking whether they should wait for her.

  Rio shook his head and continued forward without her.

  Chapter 17

  Eva opened the kitchen cabinet, took out a wineglass, plunked it on the counter. She moved to the refrigerator, picked up a mostly full bottle of white wine, put it on the counter, changed her mind, put it back and shut the fridge door. She replaced the wineglass in the cupboard and walked back to the couch, but didn’t sit down.

  “Fuck it. Desperate times.”

  She returned to the kitchen and repeated the same sequence, again changing her mind at the last minute and shutting the door to the refrigerator without pouring the wine.

  She’d been home from the matc
h for over an hour and this was her third round of to-pour-or-not-to-pour. A whole evening of this and she’d wear grooves into the tile floor.

  This time she sat on the couch instead of standing in front of it, and the relief of being off her feet was so instant she flopped down onto her back. She stared at the ceiling, resolved to finally replace that light that had burned out, and wondered what the hell she was going to do about Rio.

  She didn’t regret telling Roland he was injured, not for a second. Tony would’ve done it anyway, but that wasn’t the point—she wasn’t going to lie to protect his crazy self-destruction. She cared about him too much to do that.

  His insistence on continuing when he was obviously hurt wasn’t only crazy, it was stupid. When your body is your career, why jeopardize it? Why push yourself so far beyond your limits that you risk losing everything?

  She recalled that match against Tucson, when Rio practically vibrated with nervous energy on the bench and begged to be allowed to play. Visions of him in the gym flashed through her mind, as did his ongoing arguments with Roland about overtraining. She thought of his reception at the airport in Santiago, the inches of height separating him from the rest of the national team, the pure bliss in his expression when he scored for his country.

  Maybe he was blind to the danger he put himself in by playing through an injury. Maybe he couldn’t see past his fans’ adoration to the reality that they were as invested in him as a player as in the numbers he put on the scoreboard. Maybe he was still that barefoot kid in the slum, jostling his friends for possession of a half-inflated ball beside the gates of the cemetery.

  She flattened her hands over her eyes with a sigh. And maybe she didn’t even need to waste her time thinking about it. After their exchange on the sideline she could very well be out of his life and out of a job.

  That was the unspoken angle she’d been too in love to consider. Sure, her job would be safe if she was keeping her player boyfriend happy. But what happened when it all fell apart?

  Unemployment was the last thing she needed on top of a broken heart. The emotional implications of breaking up with Rio—no. She couldn’t even go there yet. That was the huge, droning wasp in the bedroom she was too afraid to approach, let alone kill.