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He’s just staring at me.
I smirk. “Glad you brought it up?”
“My mom made it work,” he replies, startling me. “She took a season off after having me, then started playing again.”
“For how many more seasons?”
“Three. She tore her ACL, had to have surgery. Chose to retire, then had my little sister Sophia.”
“And how many seasons did your dad take off?” I ask.
“None.”
“Exactly. Just admit it’s different.”
“I never said it wasn’t different.”
“You know, most guys are terrified about knocking someone up. Not asking girls if they plan on having kids.”
“I’m not most guys.”
“Does that mean you’re planning to have a soccer teams’ worth of kids?”
“A football team, you mean?” he responds. “I don’t know. It would depend what she wanted.”
I open my mouth to respond but snap it shut when a security guard steps out of the booth to the right of the gate, interrupting the fence that surrounds Kluvberg’s famous stadium. I was so focused on our conversation, I didn’t realize we’re practically atop it. The whole reason I walked was to appreciate the scenery, and I missed most of it.
Beck lets out a rapid stream of German and then the man responds, giving him a friendly smile as he waves both of us through the gate. Every other time I’ve entered the stadium this way, the guard made me swipe my temporary badge. And go through the metal detector.
My phone rings right as we enter the stadium. “Fuck,” I grumble, and Beck shoots me a curious glance. “Hi, Dad.” What is he doing up at this hour? He doesn’t have an infant to feed.
“Saylor. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Is something wrong?”
“No, everything is fine. I just?—”
“I’m running late for practice. I’ll call you later.” I hang up, immediately creating a list of possible reasons for his call. We mostly communicate through Hallie. The wedding can’t be off though, or she would have just told me.
Beck, grabbing my phone from my hand, snaps me out of speculating.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer, just hands it back to me. When I glance down, I have a new contact.
“In case you reconsider the rematch,” he tells me.
“What about my knee?”
He smirks. “You got cleared, remember?”
Beck’s gone, turning to the right, before I can respond.
I head in the opposite direction, down the hallway toward the room we meet in for film. A dark-haired girl is approaching the stairwell from the opposite end of the hallway. Annie? Ali? I’m terrible with names, and I can’t recall hers. It’s the second week, but I haven’t been spending as much time with everyone else, thanks to my knee.
“Hi, Saylor,” she says as we draw closer. Her voice is sweet and shy, with a distinctive British accent. And she knows my name, which makes it worse; especially since she’s the first person aside from Ellie to acknowledge me here.
“Hey,” I reply. “Ready for film?”
