Peering back down, I keep my eyes on my task and scour my brain for something horrible to knock down my erection, but nothing—nothing—is working. If Oliver’s trying what I am, he’s just as unsuccessful.

  We’re both as hard as when all this started, which I try very much not to think about.

  Unfortunately it’s all I can think about.

  Finally, the knot gives. And then Oliver Bergman moves faster than I have ever seen him, flying in a tangle of white sheets streaking behind him as he races toward the bathroom. “First dibs on the shower!” he yells.

  The door slams.

  I lie on the floor, willing my dick down, praying my body can forget what just happened.

  It’s absolutely hopeless.

  I’m dressed and ready when Oliver reemerges from the bathroom, a towel slung low on his hips, his cheeks flushed. I tell myself that’s from a hot shower, though the chances he took a hot shower when it’s still sweltering in our room and he had an iron-hard erection are virtually nil.

  I turn away, giving him privacy while pretending I’m actually reading the emails that roll in on my phone.

  And then a few minutes later, he’s there, close behind me, that familiar clean, warm scent wafting from his skin, chewing the last of a banana.

  I turn back as we both say, “Sorry.”

  Oliver shakes his head as he tosses the peel in the wastebasket. “It’s okay. It was an accident.”

  I nod. “Right.”

  He glances away, cheeks heating, an infuriating smile on his face. He snorts a laugh.

  “It’s not funny.” I grab the keycard and my bag, then wrench open the door.

  He hikes his bag higher on his shoulder, strolling past me out into the hallway. “It’s kinda funny.”

  “We’re never talking about this ever again. It didn’t happen.”

  He wrinkles his nose, staring up at the ceiling and completely ignoring me. “What I wanna know is, how did we move that many pillows? I mean you had a veritable pillow Fort Knox between us.”

  “Bergman. Drop it.”

  He lifts his hand in surrender, and we stroll down the rest of the hallway in silence. When we get to the elevator, there’s music playing, a funk song that Oliver starts shimmying to, before he transitions to the chicken dance and uses his elbow to hit the button.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Lots,” he says matter-of-factly. “But while using my elbow might look funny, it is good hygiene. Buttons, handles, doorknobs are germ central.”

  The elevator door opens with a ding, and I gently shove him in. “Captains of professional soccer teams don’t do the chicken dance.”

  “This one here does. And the moonwalk.” Oliver slides backward across the elevator. I am dangerously close to smiling.

  “I’m embarrassed for you.”

  “C’mon, Hayes.” He starts doing the floss. “It’s the only way we’re going to get past the awkward. We gotta dance our way there.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  He spins on his heels and starts the running man.

  I bite my cheek and stare up at the ceiling. “You’re a menace.”

  “But a smooth-moving one,” he says on a wink. The door dings, and he moonwalks his way out of it, then promptly spins and straightens up professionally, a breezy smile in place. “Good morning, Donald!” he calls to the guy at the front desk.

  “How the fuck do you know his name?”

  “He’s got this thing he’s wearing called a nametag. You need spectacles, Hayes?”

  I squint at it. The nametag’s a blur. “The fuck you can read that.”

  “Believe it, my friend. Believe!”

  “Bergman.” I yank him by the collar toward the breakfast room. “Food first. Football later.”

  “Ah, right.”

  From there, the morning is a merciful blur of a bus ride and my pregame ritual of Tiger Balm and ice, wraps and braces, then warming up at the stadium.

  Oliver is incorrigibly upbeat by the time we’re out on the field, making the guys laugh, even putting Coach at ease long enough to smile at him before she returns to huddling over her clipboard with Rico and Jas.

  Out of habit, she looks my way when it’s time to round everyone up.

  I’m about to holler my usual and get the team together, but watching Oliver, I pause. And then I call his name instead.

  He glances up, then jogs over. “What’s up, co-cap?”

  I blink at him, searching his expression. That’s when I see it, what’s hiding beneath the wide smile, the dance moves, and nonstop chatter. He’s nervous.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Nope,” he says between clenched teeth. “I think I’m about to puke up that second plate of scrambled eggs. I knew I overdid it.”

  I set a hand around his neck, steadying him. “You can do this. Go puke if you have to, then come back here and say a word to the guys.”

  His eyes widen. “What? But you…you normally—”

  “Grunt something threatening about how I’ll knock their heads together if they don’t leave it all on the field? Yes, I do. But now you do this, too.”

  He swallows thickly. “Okay, now I’m definitely gonna go puke.”

  I squeeze his neck, sliding my thumb along his skin. He stares at me as I tell him, “C’mon now. You’ve got this.”

  “Promise?” he says quietly.

  I gently shove him away toward the toilets. “Promise.”

  “What was that about?” Coach asks.

  I stare after Oliver, itching to follow him, to hold his hair out of his face, to rub his back, to squeeze his neck hard in reassurance so he doesn’t start hyperventilating over a toilet. “Just fortifying our captain-ly bond.” I throw her a blank look, hiding everything.

  I hope.

  Coach searches my eyes for a long moment before she turns back to the team, who’re doing their normal warm-ups. A faint smile tips the corner of her mouth. “About damn time.”

  While I shut my eyes and stretch all the places Dan gave me hell this morning for not stretching well enough lately, I try not to stress over Oliver, but by the time he’s jogging back my way, I’m about to shake him for taking so long and making me worry.

  “Okay,” he says, smiling tightly, his skin damp from splashing it off. “Wasn’t too bad. Just a few rounds of hurling, threw some cold water on my face, and now I’m ready to go.”

  “All good, fellas?” Coach asks as she joins us.

  I ease upright from my stretch. “Bergman’s going to say a little something before we start,” I explain to her.

  She smiles wide. “Very nice. They could use a little upgrade from ‘Don’t fuck up or I’ll knock your heads together until you forget that shit effort you had the audacity to call soccer.’”

  “Hey, it worked,” Oliver says, “considering where we ended up last season.”

  “Mhmm.” Coach flicks her braids over her shoulder. “Yet I’m sure Gavin would tell you that what works at one point in your career does not always work. Change is inevitable. And all good things come to an end.”

  I stare at her. She throws a fleeting glance at my wrapped ankle. And knee. My back, which is still periodically spasming from electrostimulation and is wrapped beneath my jersey, too. I decide I’m going to ignore what I know she’s saying without saying.

  “Oi!” I yell, calling the men in.

  Once they’re gathered around, Oliver throws on his widest, most reassuring smile. A twinge of guilt hits me. His optimism, his blithe always-all-right-ness—I gave him such shit for it, called it a lie. But I realize now it isn’t a lie. It’s…coping. It’s how he survives.

  I bend my knee slightly as my leg spasms, and a white-hot bolt of pain snaps up my leg. I peer down at my bandaged body, registering the aching soreness that’s only about to get much worse, focusing on that instead of this fervent rush of something I won’t name, won’t admit, softening me, drawing me closer to Oliver as he clears his throat, stands tall, and addresses the team.

  “Well, folks,” he says. “This is it. We’ve got to start all over. We ended on the highest high last season. Feels pretty logical to think there’s nowhere to go from here but down.”

  Coach gives him bug eyes.

  He flashes her a smile. “But the truth is, we got ourselves to this highest height, and we can stay here.” Glancing around, he clears his throat, sets his hands on his hips. “Where we get hung up is when we tell ourselves that we individually aren’t at the level of play that we were last season. We fret that, personally, we aren’t what we were, as fast as we were, as sharp with our shots, as quick with our reflexes.”

  Something twinges inside me. The words I confessed to him last night, my limitations, my weaknesses, it’s like he’s laying them in front of me one by one. And yet, glancing around, I’d say it looks like all of the men feel that way.

  “Guess what, though?” he says. “That’s the beautiful thing about soccer. Soccer isn’t won by a ‘me.’ It’s won by an ‘us.’” He looks around. “You’ve got a weakness. Maybe a few. I know I do. But that doesn’t matter. Because what I lack, he has.” He points to me. To Ethan he says, “When you miss, who’s got your back?”

  “Andre,” Ethan says.

  He nods. “That’s right. Amobi—” He turns to our goalie. “When it gets by you, what does Coach say?”

  “It had to get past everyone else first,” he says quietly.

  “Yup.” Oliver smiles wider. “I know you’re nervous. I am. It’s hard to start at the coveted height that everyone’s hungry to get to so they can knock us off. Sports psychology tells us it’s always easier to be the underdog than to be the one who’s made it to the top and has to fight to stay there. Cool thing is, even though you’re not where you were last season, someone else on this team is, and that game out there takes all of us, with all our weaknesses and strengths, to win.” He glances around. “I have every belief we will.”

  Ben sniffles.

  Carlo blinks away wetness in his eyes.

  Amobi looks alarmingly emotional as he stares down at his big goalie gloves.

  Oliver throws a panicked glance my way as he realizes his truly beautiful pep talk hit perhaps a little too close to emotional home.

  I hold his eyes and hope he sees what I want him to. Well done.

  “You heard him!” I bark, setting a hand in, watching more hands, every color and size, slap on top of mine. “Get your asses out there and get it done.”

  13

  OLIVER

  Playlist: “Here We Go,” WILD

  Well. I talk a nice talk. Don’t think it made much of a difference, though.

  To say we are a tad…out of sync, would be generous. It’s in the eightieth minute, we’re down 1–0, and we’ve messed up so many offensive opportunities, even I’m pissed, though of course I’m not showing it.

  Neither is Gavin, and that’s all you need to know. That’s when you know it’s bad—when Gavin Hayes is being quiet, eyes narrowed in fierce concentration, strategizing, wracking his brain for what he can do to save this. He squints, black-coffee eyes sparkling with flecks of toffee as the sun hits them. A frigid wind flies through the stadium, whipping back his dark hair. He breathes out a puff of steam that I see as he backtracks in the midfield, receiving the ball, not even watching it to his feet as he stops it with one flawless touch that’s as natural to him as that exhale from his lungs.

  Finding me, he sends a pass that’s perfect, threaded between two defenders, both of whom turn and run after me. They’re fast. But I’m faster.

  Unfortunately, they’re onto me. New England’s read our formation like a book and has every man marked. Santi’s covered. Carlo, too. Ethan’s fighting to give me something along the wing as he flies up from midfield, but his defender is right there, tight on him. I have nothing. It’s just me.

  That’s when I remember what I told everyone. This game isn’t won by one person. It’s not all on my shoulders. It takes all of us.

  Glancing back, I find Gavin, knowing exactly what I’m going to do.

  I fake out my defenders and slip through them, pulling the ball in a Maradona and cutting central. I catch Gavin’s eye, wishing we’d practiced this, wishing I’d said something when he told me not to expect him to be fast enough to be right behind me.

  You can still get there, I should have told him. I can buy you time.

  But then I realize, I didn’t have to tell him. He knows. Gavin knows exactly what I’m doing. No one’s on him. He plays a commanding role that’s pivotal in midfield but not the most vital position to cover when defending an offensive attack, at least, if that position’s being held by anyone but Gavin. New England should know better, but they seem to be flying on autopilot, acting like he’s some regular player who’s not a threat outside thirty yards from the goal. Which he is. Oh, he is. And that’s why I’m about to give him the ball.

  I know Gavin Hayes’s career better than I care to admit. I know his every goal, his every iconic game. I know the man has thighs like a goddamn truck for a reason. He might not have the speed that he used to, but he still has power; that man can crack a ball into the back of the net from here, easy.

  As Gavin barrels down the field, I nutmeg my defender, cut past a guy chasing after me, and come face to face with Bryce. It’s shocking, how much nothing I feel as he bears down on me, as we hit bodies and I spin away with the ball, taunting him out of position, exposing the center of the field. I don’t look at those russet curls of his and miss threading my fingers through them. I don’t look into his bright blue eyes and remember staring into them as he touched me and begged me to touch him.

  It's a sweet victory to feel nothing for someone who once made me feel everything I didn’t want to—self-doubt, hurt, betrayal, loss. It’s going to be an even sweeter victory when Gavin scores because of it.

  And now he’s here, having read me perfectly, exactly where I need him to be, as I send the ball in a lateral pass across the field where it lands one step in front of him. I hold my breath, freeze as he plants his left foot and cracks the ball with one touch, a bullet through the air that hits its target at the top of the goal, rippling gloriously beneath the crossbar and down the back of the net.

  Goal!!!

  I sprint toward him, the whole team does, a crush of bodies throwing our arms around him.

  As if he’s soaking up the moment, Gavin’s eyes are shut, his head bowed, as Amobi, the only one taller than him, ruffles his hair. But I see it when no one else does.

  His smile. Small, private. The faintest tip of his mouth, but I’d swear if he’d shaved his beard down to scruff, I’d catch a deep dimple flashing in his cheek.

  After he shoves the guys away good-naturedly, the group breaks apart. Gavin and I walk toward the center of the field.

  I smile down at my cleats, watching them side by side with his. This camaraderie is what I dreamed might be possible when he first signed with the team. This is what I’ve been waiting for, for two long years.

  We’ve scored together before; it’s not the first time. But it’s different today. Because of what he trusted me with, the way I knew where he’d be and what he needed, the way he leaned into my strength and leveraged it with his, and together we made something better than both of us. Because of that trust, the kind of partnership I’ve wanted with him and almost gave up on having, we’ve tied up this game.

  “Perfect pass,” he says gruffly.

  My head snaps up. I smile at him. “Perfect shot.”

  “That it was,” he says, gaze trained ahead.

  I roll my eyes. “Humble as ever.”

  “Nothing wrong with taking pride in what you can do, Bergman. You gain nothing by understating your abilities.” He spins, stopping where I’ll stand, just outside the circle as we get ready for New England to kick off. Leaning in, he lowers his voice. “He’s looking at you.”

  “Who?”

  “That wanker.”

  “Ah. Bryce.”

  Gavin glances over my shoulder, locking eyes with him, glaring death. “Next time you have the ball, we do that play again,” he says. “But this time you’re going to keep running. I’ll feed it back to you, and you do what you do best.” He leans in, his mouth a whisper from my ear, the memory of this morning flooding my mind, his mouth against my neck, his breath warm and soft against my skin. His hand interlaced with mine.

  I shiver.

  “Put the ball in the back of the fucking net,” he says quietly. “Remind that inveterate ass what he let get away and will never ever get back.”

  I stand there, speechless at the top of the circle as he turns and strides deep into the midfield.

  I’m still on a cloud as we walk to our cars in the parking lot back home in LA. After Gavin’s goal to tie it up, I scored. We won. Not even another cross-country flight could bring my mood down.

  “Will you ever stop dancing?” Gavin grumbles. There’s amusement in his voice, faint, hidden, just like the smile after his goal.

  I two-step my way across the parking lot, then spin, because there are honestly few things I delight in more than watching Gavin Hayes try to act like he doesn’t enjoy the heck out of my dance moves. “Not anytime soon.” I bounce to the rhythm of Carlo’s music, which has started blasting in his car’s stereo. To the beat, I tell Gavin, “Because there’s no I in team, no me in we. You and I scored, got ourselves a victory!”

  “And that’s when you know you’ve watched too much Hamilton.”

  “Too much Hamilton?” I shimmy my shoulders while looking for my car. “No such thing.”

  Gavin rolls his eyes, brushing past me to unlock his gas guzzler. “Why the frown?” he asks.

  I’m scanning the parking lot, and I don’t see my hybrid anywhere. “Can’t find my car.” I pull out my phone as suspicion dawns and dread creeps through my limbs. My missing car has Viggo written all over it.

  And there it is. A text as soon as I power on my phone, after having turned it off for our flight.

 

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