“That’s not enough for them to kick Kean to the curb. He averages more saves than Brooker averages goals, they’d be insane to bench him in favor of a complete rookie.”
“Sure, he’s got good stats, but those aren’t selling tickets and that’s more important to the owners.”
“That’s —” True. It’s 100 percent true and it was also probably one of the reasons why Hansen assigned me to be his PA. He’d mentioned getting Kean on socials, but with Kean’s general asshole-ness, I was already putting that on the back burner.
But based on what Renee was saying, putting it off wasn’t an option.
Plus, I wouldn’t put it past this bitch to push Lunez harder to bench Kean and get back at me.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Renee said, patting my shoulder, her voice pitching higher, sweeter. “I can suggest Carlos takes you on as his PA if you want.”
“Like fucking hell I’d work for your player,” I said. Kind of growled. Renee’s eyes widened in surprise before her face relaxed into a pleased smile. I was falling right into her hands, but fuck her. “Kean’ll bring in the ticket sales. I’ll bet he can even get more followers than Lunez as once he gets going.”
“Yeah?” she said with a singular chuckle. “And how’s he gonna do that?”
“I’m gonna do it for him.”
Renee threw her head back and laughed.
“You can’t seriously think you can get Kean to a million followers before I can get him on the bench? I guess you haven’t grown out of the bad bets, have you?”
“It’s not a bet,” I said, even though the idea of getting a million followers from scratch made a pit form in my stomach. But I pushed through, idiotic though it may be. “It’s a promise.”
“Mhmm.” Renee crossed her arms and cocked her hip, that smile growing sinister. But then she just patted my shoulder, the soft two pats you give to a kid who just lost a game, and said, “Good luck with that.”
And even though I hadn’t made an actual bet, even though she had nothing to do with determining my career, and even though I knew she was just being a bitch to be a bitch, I got a sinking feeling in my gut that if I didn’t rise to this self-made challenge, I’d be fucked.
An Interrupted Practice
Olli
Practices before matches were always a full game where Christenson shuffled our names so we had a mix of first- and second-string players on each side. It was good practice and team building for when somebody got carded or injured. It also meant first-string got a chance to play against each other in a more competitive setting than drills.
And today, Brooker and I were on separate teams. HimandRicci, who was our attacking midfielder and arguably just as annoying to play against.
Both of them were heading my way, Christenson just a hair behind Ricci and the two second-string fullbacks even farther back. In a real game, this would be a shit situation. The stress would have my body tensing, making my reaction time slow.
But I knew these fuckers. I knew the tricks they liked to play, especially when they had this kind of distance from the defenders.
Ricci feigned a pass to Brooker, but I kept my eyes on him. He waited another few paces for me to look away beforeactuallypassing to Brooker on my left. I shifted my focus as they shifted their play, keeping my eyes on Brooker’s feet as he made his shot.
His feet shuffled, angling from an upper left shot to lower left, and I shifted my weight, hand going down just in time to block the ball.
“Ah, fuck you, Kean,” Ricci shouted before going off in a string of Italian that I assumed was more insults.
“Don’t be a sore loser,” Miller shouted back at him as he slowed to a halt, more out of breath than he should be for a young player. He needs to work on his stamina if he wants to be on the first-string.
“Miller,” Christenson called, putting an arm around the young player’s shoulder and whispering something.
That was probably another reason Christenson ran practices like this. He got a good look at what the second-string players were working with and could give them advice on how to improve. Didn’t matter if they took that improvement to another team, Christenson just wanted to look out for his fellow players.
“Right, let’s go,” Christenson said with a clap, slowly jogging back into the field with the others as I stepped up to the box line to kick the ball out.
I dropped the ball and angled my foot to kick it out to the left center of the field, where Gallagher jumped to headbutt the ball towards our second-string striker, Derderian. Derderian took the ball and ran with it, weaving past Sosa and Taylor before passing the ball backwards to Jimenez, who scored on the second-string keeper, Lunez.
Derderian and Jimenez high-fived each other and Lunez joined them, congratulating his teammate. They chatted for a few minutes before Coach blew his whistle in warning and everyone got back into place.
The game continued on, following a fairly normal pattern.
