Kickin’ It

by Van Dyken, Rachel

  “You brought that thing?”

  “What?” I held the whistle out. “This?”

  She tried to snatch it.

  I backed up and ran onto the turf, holding it above my head. “What? Did the run not knock you out? Tell you what, if you can take the whistle from me, you can have it.”

  I’d never seen her look so competitive, so ready to rip me apart limb by limb.

  And then I winked and blew it.

  Bad idea.

  She charged me.

  I stumbled backward and ran, putting a bag of balls between us. She jumped them and came barreling toward me.

  She jumped again, and I caught her midair then twisted her around as her body wiggled against mine, her ass bumping me in the best possible way.

  I almost groaned when she finally broke free. Thank God for small miracles.

  “Hand it over and I won’t kick you in the junk,” she teased with a smirk.

  “Kick me in the junk and I guarantee I’ll never father a child. Don’t do that to a man.” I tossed the whistle from hand to hand above her.

  “I’ve got chops, old man.”

  “Oh yeah, Cheetah Girl?” I burst out laughing while she jumped in front of me and tried swiping it from my hand, it was so adorable that I grabbed her around the waist, tossed her over my shoulder, and ran toward the goal line.

  “Maaaaatt!” she yelled, smacking my back, my ass, every piece of skin she could access.

  “Gooooaaaalllllll!” I boomed once we reached the goal, and then I tossed her on her feet and ran around her in circles. “Ahhhh, and the crowd goes wild!”

  She put her hands on her hips, laughing. “Matt Kingston, did you just score with me?”

  And because I was too happy to lie and completely uncensored with that same happiness, I just shrugged and whispered, “I wish.”

  She didn’t show any surprise or shock, just sauntered over to me like she was about to give me everything I wanted and needed in that moment. She wet her lips. God, I wanted to taste her. It was at the top of my bucket list and would be even after I did it.

  A task I would never tire of.

  Something that my heart and body would never consider completed.

  A box that could have a million checks next to it and still have room for one more.

  She leaned up on her tiptoes and brushed a soft kiss across my lips, then swiped the fucking whistle from my right hand and jumped up and down. “WINNER!”

  I clapped. “Wow, good job, cheater.”

  “It’s not cheating if you were planning on it anyway. That’s what I like to call opportunity.”

  “Really?” I nodded. “Opportunity, huh?”

  She kept dancing, so I tossed her back over my shoulder while she blew the whistle then dropped her on her ass next to the bag of balls. “Guess that means we’re starting with burpees. We were going to start with drills, but someone stole my whistle.” And my heart, and my everything. “I want thirty.”

  “I thought whoever held the whistle held the power, like the Ring but not near as flashy?” she grumbled as she started her first burpee.

  “Power is always equal between us.” I shrugged. “The whistle was just a reason to get you to fight back. If you lose your fight, you’ve lost the game.”

  She stopped doing her burpees, chest heaving. “You’re too smart.”

  “Yeah.” I stared her sweaty body down. “That’s what I’m feeling now.”

  After ten, she pulled off her shirt.

  And I was welcomed back into hell again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  PARKER

  “I can’t move my legs!” I yelled at Matt. We’d had two more days of training, and the guy had gotten more and more grumpy as the days went by. Sunday’s practice had been so playful and fun.

  Then Monday happened.

  Willow warned me not to get in his way.

  The man was like a bear who found out all the honey sources in the world had been completely depleted.

  Like a vampire who didn’t have his True Blood.

  I even gave him back his whistle, wondering if his attitude was some weird thing about a girl beating him.

  But he barely even said thank you.

  And now?

  Now I was kicking balls toward his face with glee.

  He’d called me slow.

  And then he asked if I was on my period because I was getting more tired than usual.

  The nerve of the guy, I mean really.

  I kicked a ball toward his junk and shrugged when he deflected it and shot me a glare. “Sorry.”

  “Was that necessary?”

  “What crawled up your ass and died?” I fired back, kicking another ball. “You’ve been like this since Monday. It’s Wednesday, and my tryouts are this Sunday. Could you try to be more . . . cheerful?”

  “No,” he said in a deadpan voice. “This”—he pointed to his face—“is all the cheer I have right now.”

  “Is it Willow?”

  “No,” he growled.

  “Is it me?” I stopped kicking. “You can tell me if it’s me, just tell me what I need to do, I can do better. Just—”

  “Shut the hell up!” he roared. And then his face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  I put my hands up toward him.

  He flinched. “It’s not you, it’s Erik.”

  I dropped my hands immediately. “Wh-what?”

  “He’s called me three times about you. The last message was to warn me against girls willing to spread their legs for opportunity, and just this morning there was a letter sent to the house with your name on it, no return address. It looked suspicious so I opened it, and inside was a picture of you with your college team with a heart drawn around your face.”

  The breath whooshed from my lungs, and I fell to the ground on my knees.

  “I didn’t delete the messages and I kept the letter,” he admitted, walking over to me and putting an arm around my shoulders. “And you know I don’t believe him. I already let the commissioner know what he was doing, and they’re looking into it and his past behaviors to see if anyone else has come forward. And nothing. Nobody has said anything—”

  “I’m not lying!” I yelled. Tears poured down my face, and when I swiped them from my cheeks, my hands came away wet and gritty with the dirt from practice.

  “Parker, look at me.” He gripped my chin. “I know that, don’t you know I know that? This isn’t about you. This is about the other girls who are silent. Because if he’s bold enough to do this to you, he’s bold enough to do it to others, and what makes you think he isn’t threatening them? Isn’t making them think that he can make or break them? And not just women your age, young girls too. I just found out Sunday night he taught an Olympic-development soccer camp last week. I can’t . . . I can’t imagine him at a camp with underage girls, it makes me want to vomit, and all they have is speculation, since I haven’t mentioned your name other than the threatening messages . . .”

  My hands shook as I stared down at them. “My greatest fear is saying something and having everyone call me a slut just like he did.”

  “They may do just that,” he said. “But you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it. Is it worth it—if you save one girl? If you save two?”

  “MATT!” Slade’s voice carried across the stadium. I jumped a foot as Matt cursed under his breath and turned to the two approaching forms. I’d forgotten they were going to practice with us later today.

  Jagger and Slade, two of the best male soccer athletes in the world. Both infamous playboys, although Jagger was clearly still in that category while Slade was happily married and, according to Matt, trying for baby number one.

  They dropped their duffels on the sidelines and peeled off their shirts.

  “Apparently they’re skins?” I offered lamely.

  Matt put his hand on my shoulder. “Do you want to do this another time?”

  “Nope. We’re training, so let’s train. We c
an talk about this later?”

  He nodded.

  He also looked disappointed in me, but he didn’t know what it was like to be pushed so far, to be told that everything you had to offer the world had to do with what you could offer one man.

  I stood, wiped the dirt from my cheeks, and flashed the guys a smile. “Ready to lose?”

  “Ah, I see she hasn’t lost her arrogance.” Slade winked and then shared a knowing look with Matt.

  Something passed between them, something that seemed like it was about me, and my chest felt a bit heavy.

  Did Slade know about the kiss?

  Did Jagger?

  As if I had summoned him, Jagger walked by and mussed my hair. “Aw, now you look like you’ve been playing hard. Alright, kiddo, let’s do this.”

  “I’m not your kiddo,” I fired back. “Plus Willow, you know her, right? The one who got naked and—”

  “Son of a bitch.” Jagger looked up at the sky. “Nothing happened, Matt, I swear.”

  “Yet,” Slade coughed.

  “I’m uninviting you for Christmas.” Jagger glared at him.

  “Fine, you can’t come for Thanksgiving.” Slade grinned.

  Jagger’s face fell. “But Mack makes the Hawaiian bread stuffing.”

  Slade kicked him the ball. “Exactly.”

  Matt was staring off in the distance, and then looked back at me. “Footwork drills, then a bit of two-on-two.”

  “Losers take ice baths!” Jagger announced.

  I gave him the finger.

  “Ah, I love your girl, just love her.” Jagger chuckled to himself, and Matt and I both froze. Slade hid a laugh behind his hand while Jagger looked up and gave a lazy shrug. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said quickly. “We doing this, or are you ladies just gonna talk all day?”

  “Oh, we’re doing this.” Slade kicked the ball to me, I stopped it with my cleat. “Now get past me with your best, girl.” He taunted me with a smirk, so I answered with a middle finger and swift fake to his left, then right, and then danced around him a bit before getting by and having to face Jagger.

  I went at him hard and ate grass; one minute I was up, the next I was down. I jumped to my feet, wiped dirt on my shorts as sweat streamed down my chin. “Again.”

  I could feel Matt’s smile from the sidelines as he blew his shiny new whistle at me.

  We repeated drills for the next hour, and then we had to scrimmage, which wasn’t going to be all that exciting since it was two of the league’s best against Matt and me, not that we couldn’t hold our own, but still.

  “Ready for this, Cheetah Girl?” Matt kicked the ball to me as I stretched my hands in the air.

  “Are you?” I teased.

  He licked his lips, his gaze traveling from head to toe before giving me the smolder of all smolders.

  All talk of Erik forgotten with one lazy look from Matt.

  The guy wasn’t human.

  How did he do that to me?

  I instantly felt the buzz from his look and then attacked. Fake and side kick ahead as Matt bounced it between both guys and then fired it back to me. It was like we could read each other’s minds.

  We had no plan, except to score.

  And every single time I needed him to be downfield he was there, every time I needed a block he was there. It was incredible.

  Like working with a teammate who knew me inside and out.

  Now if only I could wipe the grin from my face as I careened toward Jagger.

  He naturally blocked my kick and then gave me a Nice try look.

  It didn’t matter, because the journey to that kick had been invigorating. It had breathed life into my soul and made me think that maybe even with all this Erik business, things were going to be okay.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  MATT

  “It’s like they knew we weren’t going to win,” I said as we stared at the two metal troughs filled to the brim with ice and water.

  Slade wrapped a sweaty arm around me. “Should we light a candle for this special moment?”

  “Chilled wine?” Jagger teased.

  “Yes, please,” Parker said sarcastically, chewing her bottom lip as she stared at the water. “It’s going to feel good, it’s going to feel good.”

  “Your girl’s resorted to chanting,” Slade joked.

  He really needed to stop calling her that in front of me.

  People might get the wrong idea.

  Then again, she might get the right idea.

  I jerked my shirt over my head and then pulled my joggers down to the ground. “Fuck it.” I went all in to my chin and nearly lost my balls in the process.

  Parker’s movements were even faster as she got down to her sports bra and black Nike underwear and then jumped into the tub next to mine. Ice spilled over the edge.

  Slade grinned down at both of us. “We should do this again next time.”

  And then he gave a serious look toward my bath, my knee. “Make sure you ice it later too, okay, man?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off and closed my eyes as the door shut behind the maniacs.

  “Must have been hard, getting an injury that severe,” Parker said in a calm voice that got my full attention. It was cold as fuck in that tub. I couldn’t even feel my spleen. At this point I wasn’t even sure I had one.

  Funny how she’d given me her entire life story from the past year, and all she knew about me was my job and that my sister was obsessed with shoes. “Yeah, knee injuries are never fun, especially public ones.” She nodded her head as I gripped the side of the tub. “It’s not really a sad story, just a normal tale of what happens when you turn one way and your body wants to turn the other way.” I laughed. “I remember falling to the turf and thinking, ‘Thank God,’ which sounds horrible. I loved the game, I just knew that I wasn’t cut out for it, not the way Slade and Jagger were. I loved the stats. I loved watching. And honestly, I made a few mistakes with some illegal substances. The team doctor slipped me some things that were supposed to help. Nobody found out but I hated myself for it. And then I realized I was playing a game I didn’t enjoy anymore. I loved the behind-the-scenes stuff, so when I opened up my own agency it just seemed natural to represent my friends, and it grew from there.”

  “How many games did you play, you know, after the whole illegal-substances thing?” she asked in a backward way, skimming past Why drugs, Matt? It just made me want to talk more, open up, then pull her into my arms and ask her to stay.

  “I played two seasons,” I said thoughtfully. “I probably would have retired after three. My heart just wasn’t in it, the drugs did the opposite of helping me since I felt so damn guilty. And Slade’s talent—well, you’ve seen him play—is next level. That guy plays like you, he plays with his soul. I never did.”

  She was quiet except for water sloshing over the tub, and when I turned she was leaning over it. “You think I play with my soul?”

  “I feel it.” I locked eyes with her. “Every time you’re out there, even during practice, you may yell at me, curse me—but you love every minute of suffering, admit it.”

  “I admit nothing.” She smiled prettily. “Is our time almost up?”

  “I hope it’s soon, before I lose a toe or all function in my lower body.”

  “That would be a shame.” I grinned and she added saucily, “Losing a toe.”

  I splashed her with cold water; it went directly into her face. “Whoops!”

  “Whoops, my ass!” she yelled, splashing me harder, taking basically half of her water and tossing it in my direction. Before I had a chance to think about it, I was getting out of my tub and pulling her into the air and falling back into my tub with her in my arms. She squirmed, letting out a shriek before we splashed in together. I took her completely underwater.

  She gasped for air and then smacked my frozen body with her hand.

  “I feel nothing.” I laughed harder.

  Her teeth chattered as the sounds of foo
tsteps neared, only to move past. I exhaled. Damn it, I was playing with fire, just begging to get burned over and over again.

  The door opened. “Time’s up!”

  My first thought? Damn.

  And I could tell it was hers too, as she slowly rose up over my body. I hooked my hands around her hips and moved to a sitting position as icy water slid down my body, down hers. I helped her out, setting her on her feet. She grasped my biceps for strength and then helped me out.

  Both of us had chattering teeth.

  Her lips were trembling and blue as she looked up at me with a question in her eyes. And like a coward, I backed away. “Let me get you a towel.”

  She hung her head. “Yeah, thanks.”

  I wrapped it around her body and held it there, steadying my breathing while she warmed up.

  The sound of footsteps neared again.

  I frowned. “Slade?”

  No one answered.

  She just shrugged. “Probably one of them or the janitor. It is getting late.”

  “Right.” The hair on the back of my arms stood on end as I quickly grabbed my towel. “I’m going to hit the steam room.”

  “Ohhhh, me too!” She followed me before I could tell her that both of us in a small, enclosed space with sweat running down our bodies was a really bad idea.

  Once we were both trapped inside the room, I sat down and almost whimpered when she sat down across from me. Next to me would have been better—next to me and I wouldn’t have seen the sweat drip down her chin, I wouldn’t be waiting for the fog to clear so I could count each successive drip onto her naked thigh.

  I wouldn’t be wondering what it would look like if she had nothing on at all.

  I wouldn’t feel like the worst sort of man for wanting to cover her body with mine, spread her legs, do all the dirty things my mind could conjure up—but it was Parker, hurt Parker. Parker who needed gentle. She needed that and time.

  Disgusted with myself, I looked away.

  “How did you manage to start the agency all on your own? I mean you only played a few seasons.” Her voice filled the room like a soothing balm. I exhaled, inhaled, repeated the process, greedy for more air even if it smelled like her.

  After a few seconds, I answered. “Willow and I both have trust funds. Our parents died when I was still in high school. I practically raised Willow, which is also why seeing her naked with Jagger made me want to grab a knife and throw it at him. I used the trust fund to put myself through college and open the agency. The rest is history, right along with Jagger’s body once I find an accomplice.”