by Sophia Henry
The lesson: Don’t write down your feelings about a guy. And if you do, don’t ever share them with him. Unless, of course, your heart is made of rubber and you can bounce back from the embarrassing backlash unscathed.
I traded my pj’s for a Liverpool F.C. T-shirt and soccer shorts, then pulled black warm-ups over that. After shoving my cleats and shin guards into my duffel bag, I threw it over my shoulder and wandered into the living room to wait for Drew.
Grandpa was lounging in his recliner when I dropped my bag and parked myself into the chair across from him.
“What are you doing with that?” Grandpa asked, eyeing my soccer duffel.
Evidently, when you’re cut from a team, you can never play that sport again.
“I’m heading over to Kerby to play with some kids from high school.”
“What kids?”
“Drew and the hockey guys,” I answered, knowing my answer would end Grandpa’s interrogation. Drew was on the approved-friends list because our families had known each other since our parents were in high school.
When I heard the three quick honks signaling Drew’s arrival, I grabbed my gear and ran out the door, calling goodbye to Grandpa over my shoulder.
“Hey, Drewseph!” I said, sliding into the passenger seat of his faded red SUV. Drew came from a large Italian family where everyone was a Joseph, except him.
“What’s up, Aud?” Drew asked, alternating looks over his shoulder and in his mirrors as he backed out of the driveway.
“Not much.” I shrugged. “Just working. Viktor set me up with a job for the month.”
“Translating The Communist Manifesto?”
I laughed. Drew knew all about my previous projects. “No. He let me work with a real person this time. I’m a translator for a hockey player.”
“Really? Who?” Drew, a hockey player himself, had taken the college route. He chose State for their Landscape Design program.
“Aleksandr Varenkov from the Pilots.” I kicked an empty water bottle rolling back and forth on the floor.
“No way.” Drew glanced at me.
“Way,” I replied, happy to be around a friend I’d known so long that we had inside jokes. When we were in eighth grade, we’d had a movie marathon. Since neither of us could drive, we had to choose movies from his dad’s collection. We’d picked Wayne’s World, Tommy Boy, and Billy Madison. Absolute classics. People still quoting them today is totally understandable.
“I heard he’s—” Drew began.
“Douchey?” I supplied.
Drew snorted. “Exactly.”
“He’s not so bad. I’ve learned how to rein him in.”
“I bet. He’s got a reputation with you ladies.”
“Oh my gosh, Drew! That’s not what I was talking about.” I smacked his thigh. “I meant, Viktor will kick his arrogant Russian ass if he steps out of line.”
“Okay, good. I don’t want to hear that you were one of his conquests.”
“He knows I’m not a bunny.”
“You’re a hot girl hanging around hockey players. To them you’re a bunny.”
Frowning, I gave Drew a sidelong glance. “For my job,” I emphasized.
“Don’t get involved with him, Auden.”
The big-brother role, which I’d appreciated every other time he’d played it, annoyed me now. Where did he get off trying to interfere in my dating life? I held back my anger, as I always did with my friends. I didn’t have very many, so there was no reason to rock the boat with the close ones I had.
“You don’t have to worry about that. I called him out in the locker room in front of his team. It was in Russian, but I think he got the point.”
“The bunnies say he’s a total dick afterward.”
“Oh! So this is really about you trying to hook up with Varenkov’s leftovers? No wonder you’re mad,” I joked, massaging his shoulder in an attempt to ease the tension between us.
“Just looking out for you.” He shrugged off my hand. And my comment.
“Thanks, Drewseph. I appreciate your concern,” I said, hoping my sincerity was apparent.
A few silent minutes later, Drew whipped his Explorer into a parking spot at Kerby Field.
Instead of following Drew toward the group of guys warming up near one of the soccer goals, I scouted out an empty patch of grass on the sideline near the white chalk line and sat down. The dry, brittle blades prickled my calves when I tugged off my warm-up pants. Though the ground was hard and frozen, the grass’s earthy scent was so ingrained in me, the memory of the smell alone brought me close to tears.
Being cut from Central State’s soccer team hadn’t been a hit only on my college finances. It majorly bruised my entire sense of self. Soccer, the one thing I excelled at and never gave up on, had been taken away from me.
Coach Tamber’s words still echoed in my head: There’s no easy way to put this, Berezin, but we’re gonna have to cut you. We’ve got some talented upcoming freshman, and we need to make room. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to walk on next year. I just can’t hold your spot.
Or my scholarship. Or my pride. Or how I’d defined myself for the last fourteen years. See ya, Soccer Girl.
I should have realized my dismissal was imminent, having sat the bench for both of my two seasons on the team. Most players sat as freshmen, but when sophomore year came and went and I still hadn’t been subbed in, I saw the writing on the wall. Still, I hung on to that last optimistic thread of the severed rope I’d been grasping, hoping I’d get my chance. Was I the most talented player? No. But I worked my ass off and practiced harder than anyone on the team.
Shaking my head to dismiss the thoughts, I checked out the crowded field. Guys I’d known for years scattered across the grass. A few went to high school with Drew and me, but the majority were guys that Drew had played with on travel hockey teams. As the only girl who’d ever been invited to play, you’d think I’d have dates for the rest of the year. But no. None of the guys had ever expressed interest in me. Granted, I’d been shy in high school, but still, not one of them found me even remotely attractive?
No wonder I went boy crazy when I got to Central State.
A few feet away from me, a guy jumped up and down tapping the top of his ball in an alternating pattern, left foot then right foot. It was someone I hadn’t seen at the field before but recognized immediately.
Aleksandr, in all of his soccer-shorts-wearing, Mohawk-pulled-back-in-a-ponytail, ridiculously muscled glory. His thighs and calves alone were a testament to how much time he spent working out off the ice. As my gaze traveled upward, my mind flashed an image of his half-naked body. I blinked a few times as if that would erase the memory of the magnificent work of art under his shirt.
Without thinking, I ran up behind him and stole the ball he was tapping on.
“Hey!” Aleksandr called, looking up with narrowed eyebrows as I darted away. His annoyance faded, and he smiled. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“I play with these guys all the time.” I waved to a guy I’d gone to high school with then spun around and passed the ball back to Aleksandr. “Who invited you?”
“Your twin.”
“Excuse me?” I didn’t have any siblings.
“Landon’s brother, Jason. He looks just like you.” He nodded to the circle of guys juggling balls. The one next to Landon Taylor had dirty-blond hair very similar to my color, but I couldn’t get a good enough glimpse to see if we had more similarities.
“Not mad at me anymore?” Aleksandr’s question caught my attention in time for me to see him send the ball back to me.
I stopped it with my left foot. “I’m over it. I just want to finish out the month.” Which was true. I’d taken Kristen and Gram’s advice to heart. His prank could’ve been a hundred times worse. I could handle a few more weeks of his immature shenanigans.
“You’re going to get back at me by kicking my ass out there, aren’t you?” He nodded to the field.
“Scared?” I asked. I can’t be sure, but I think I puffed out my chest—chimpanzee-challenge style.
“Stand down, Berezin.” Aleksandr held his palms up in front of his chest. “I deserve whatever you give me.”
“It’s all in good fun, Sasha,” I said, rocketing the ball at him. He jumped, and the ball bounced off his broad chest and onto the ground near his feet.
I’d be using the Russian diminutive of his name in public from now on. If anyone noticed that Audushka, the diminutive he’d created from my name, sounded like a feminine care product, they could tease him because his sounded like a girl’s name.
Aleksandr kicked the ball. I followed it as it sailed over my head and dropped in front of Drew.
“Game on!” Drew yelled. He gave Aleksandr an evil-eye assessment. It reminded me of an overprotective father meeting his daughter’s date for the first time, just before telling the poor kid he had a shotgun.
“That’s English for, I’m about to kick your ass out there,” I said to Aleksandr, then turned my back and darted to the other side of the field.
I wondered if any of the guys knew he understood English. Not that it mattered. They probably just figured that even a foreigner could pick up curse words and soccer slang.
“Good luck!” Aleksandr called to my retreating figure.
“I’m not the one who’ll need it,” I sang over my shoulder. Confidence was so easy on the soccer field. Out here, I ignored the ridiculous way my heart pounded around him.
The group divided into teams in a quick, militaristic manner. I would be playing opposite both Aleksandr and Drew. In any other situation in my life, I would’ve been timid and nervous about not having a friend on my team, but this was soccer. On the field, I stepped out of my body and ignored my hypervigilant, overanalytical mind. On the field, I talked trash and kicked ass. If Aleksandr thought he could beat me at my own game, he’d better think again.
It was an intense and fast-paced match. I played center midfield for the first half, setting up one goal and scoring another. I’d railed through the defense without having to throw any elbows, as I’d expected. This group played no-referee soccer. No red or yellow penalty cards. The boys never took it easy on me, which I learned the hard way the first time I’d played with them and left the field with a set of bruised ribs. The injury taught me to defend myself better and I learned a few dirty tricks.
In the second half of the game, I moved back to play defense. Despite both of my team’s goals in the first half, Aleksandr’s team had scored three against mine. The score held at 3–2 through most of the second half. We didn’t have a time keeper, so the game would end when both teams decided we’d played long enough. And my teammates weren’t finished yet.
Jason, the dirty blond that Aleksandr had called my twin, had taken my place at center mid. He booted the ball up the field to catch one of our forwards on the fly. Drew sprinted between the forwards, intercepting the pass, and soon he was in our zone, dribbling the ball down the field with a burst of speed and intensity. He passed the ball to a teammate on his left without even a side glance. The ball went out-of-bounds off the foot of our defender.
As I walked backward toward the goal, I noticed Aleksandr was my man to cover. We jostled for position as his teammate got ready to throw the ball inbounds. If I did nothing else the rest of the game, I would not let Aleksandr beat me. It didn’t look as if Aleksandr would let me win either. Fair enough.
When the ball came sailing inbounds, both Aleksandr and I jumped up to head it. I planted my hands on his shoulders, hoisting myself higher since my five-foot-four frame couldn’t beat a six-foot-tall man to the ball. After smacking the ball away with a brutal flick of my head, it sailed up the field and into the possession of one of my teammates. He was gone with a breakaway.
“That was bullshit,” Aleksandr said between labored breaths, as we jogged together up the field.
“All’s fair in love and war.”
“Which one is this?” he asked, lips tilting upward.
“War,” I growled, watching the play develop at the other end of the field.
“I disagree.” Aleksandr raced up the field, leaving me in the dust. Literally. He’d kicked up so much dry dirt as he sprinted, I felt like Pig-Pen.
My teammate missed the breakaway, at which point many of the guys started calling for the end of the game. Aleksandr and I walked to the side of the field together. I took a long swig out of my water bottle and offered it to him. Drew and a few other guys came over as well, teasing and congratulating one another. A few guys slapped me on the back or rustled my hair, welcoming me back and telling me they missed me.
It was irritating how little they cared about messing up my ponytail. I patted my hair down as if my palms held magical smoothing powers.
“Are you getting a ride home with your friend?” Aleksandr asked.
“Yep.” I pulled on my warm-up pants.
“Hang out with me. I’ll drive you home.” Aleksandr dragged a tattered gray hooded sweatshirt over his head. On the upper-left chest, there was a small red flag with a yellow hammer and sickle below a star in the left corner.
“You know the Soviet Union is no longer, right?” I joked, rubbing the goose bumps on my arms beneath my warm-up jacket.
He looked down at his chest and laughed. “It was my father’s.”
“Daddy-o still stuck in the Soviet era?”
“No. He’s dead.”
“Oh my gosh, Sasha, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun of it.” The silly smile slipped from my lips—it had to, so my foot would fit in.
“It’s okay.” He grabbed both of my hands and tugged me to my feet. “It’s the most comfortable sweatshirt and it makes me think of Papa.”
“I understand,” I said. “I have an old softball shirt of my mom’s. The fabric is so thin, you can see straight through it now, but I love it.”
“Can you wear it to the next game?” The skin around Aleksandr’s eyes wrinkled with his smile.
“With anyone else I would be totally embarrassed right now,” I admitted. My brain jotted a mental note to wear the shirt next time I’d be around Aleksandr outside of the arena. Then I mentally smacked my brain upside the head.
“But not with me? Why not?”
“I’m used to your sense of humor.”
“Are you sure that’s it? Maybe you just want to parade around me in a skimpy top.”
His teasing, but true, comment struck a major embarrassment geyser, because I felt a burst of fire to my face. Drew interrupted our conversation before I mustered a weak verbal protest that Aleksandr would have never believed.
“Ready, Aud?” Drew asked. He jumped up and down to keep warm, and just looking at him in his sweat-soaked gray T-shirt and blue soccer shorts sent shivers through my warm, covered limbs.
I knew I should catch a ride with him, because staying with Aleksandr would get me into trouble.
“I’m gonna hang with Aleksandr,” I said. “He’ll give me a ride home.”
“Auden?” Drew’s voice lifted, scolding me like I was a child.
I shooed him away with a wave of my hand.
“Fine.” Drew shook his head and knocked into Aleksandr’s shoulder as he blew past him.
“Should I let that go?” Then, without waiting for an answer, Aleksandr nodded to himself. “Yes, I’m just gonna let that go.” He watched Drew jump into his Explorer and slam the door.
“I have protective friends,” I said as if that was an explanation for Drew’s rude behavior.
“He’s just a friend?”
“So, you guys won last night.” I ignored his question.
Aleksandr chuckled. “How did you know?”
“Read it in the paper.”
“I like that you keep track of me when I’m on the road.”
“All part of the job,” I assured him.
We traded the grass of the soccer field for a wood-chip-covered playground. A tall metal slide loomed in front of us
. A swing set with six black U-shaped seats swaying in the wind sat empty a few feet away from the slide. I dropped my duffel bag on the dirt and claimed one of swings. I took a few steps backward to push myself off, but I didn’t get a good start. Strong hands on my back propelled me forward. Aleksandr gave me a few more pushes so I could get moving.
Sailing through the air with the wind against my face was magical. No matter how long I lived and how jaded I became, I hoped I could always appreciate a good swing. Forcing myself higher and higher by using the pumping power of my own legs was liberating.
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you the other night. I thought I was being funny.” Aleksandr’s voice interrupted my childlike euphoria.
“It’s fine.” I dragged a foot in the wood chips to slow me down. “I blew it out of proportion. Sorry for yelling at you in front of your team.”
“I deserved it.”
“No you didn’t. What I did was totally unprofessional.”
“Unprofessional, of course,” he said, a wry smile on his lips.
“This is the first time I’ve ever gotten to work with a real person. Grandpa always had me translating documents before. I just want to prove I’m good enough.”
“Good enough? You speak Russian better than Gribov.” Aleksandr laughed.
“Don’t even talk about that guy.” I shuddered at the memory of Aleksandr’s teammate’s toothless sneer and rude gesture.
“A woman who doesn’t want to talk about Pavel Gribov? Can’t wait to tell him.”
“He was mean to me for no reason. I don’t even know what I did to piss him off.”
“Maybe because you don’t stare at him in the locker room. Most women want to see Gribov naked. He gets fan mail about it.”
“I don’t stare at anyone.” I didn’t want him to think I was a perv.
“Not true.”
“Who, I—” I started, but realized he was talking about himself and chuckled. “When he has his teeth in, Gribov is hot. But I know some hot guys who aren’t nice people. Now all I see is the ugly. It works the opposite way, too.”