Normal, until somebody came out of the wing, looking around the stadium with frantic eyes.
Kodi stopped at the side line, scanning the field as she chewed on her lip. She’d ditched the team clothes and over coverage Brooker said she’d been wearing for more athleisure wear, though this time the top had a V of see-through mesh that acted like a window to — distraction.
And what’s worse, her eyes didn’t land on me. They landed on fucking Lunez.
Now, I had no problem with the kid. He was a rookie, he needed to pay his dues before moving up to first-string, but he was nice. A little loud and jovial for my taste, but given the choice between hanging out with him or Brooker, I’d definitely choose him.
Until now. Now I might prefer Brooker’s company.
Why the hell would Kodi be out here? And why would she be eyeing Lunez of all players? She was my fucking PA, shouldn’t she be looking for me?
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Brooker barreling down the field towards me, this time with Vargas right on his tail, pushing Brooker to break a sweat, take a bit of a risk when it came to shooting sooner.
It was a good play for us, pushing him to act, make mistakes.
Except for the fact that I wasn’t ready for it. I was too busy looking at Kodi; I wasn’t braced, my footing was off. So when the ball went flying to the far right and I jumped for it, it hit the top pole and rolled into the net just a second before my fingers hit the air where the ball had been.
“Yes,” Brooker cheered, Ricci crashing into him for a celebration hug.
“You good, Kean?” Christenson asked and my eyes flickered back to Kodi on the sideline. She’d gone over to the coach, talking to him with her hands clutched together. He nodded along to whatever she said and blew two short whistles, singling for a pseudo time-out.
Everyone cleared the field, running over to wipe sweat from their brows and grab drinks. I would normally do the same, but instead, I headed straight for Coach, straight for Kodi.
“Kean, your PA needs your condo code shit,” Coach Boyd said nodding at Kodi. I turned to her, brow furrowed. All the information on getting to and into my condo was in the packet I filled out for her. And while we hadn’t actually talked in the last three days, she was doing her job well. She’d gotten through nearly half that list I made and even found a local place that did meal prep for me. In under seventy-two hours, she’d already made my life much easier.
Though I did now have several pieces of lilac clothes which I probably would never wear.
All that to say, there’s no way she hadn’t read through that binder. She knew how to get to my place, so why was she interrupting practice?
“I’msosorry to interrupt,” she said to Boyd, who waved her off.
“Just get it over with quickly,” he mumbled.
“Right.” She nodded, looking at me then back at Boyd, the indent in her lip deepening. “Could we —”
“Coach Boyd!” another woman shouted as she came up to us. She was some blond chick I hadn’t seen before, probably somebody’s agent. I didn’t really care to think too far into who she might represent until I saw how Kodi reacted when she spoke.
Her shoulders tensed at the woman’s voice, fists balling up at her side. She shook off the tension, but it quickly returned when the woman joined our little circle. Kodi glared at her, brown eyes narrowed to the point where I could barely see the color.
“I wanted to talk to you about getting Lunez on the field in the next game,” she said to Coach. Kodi rolled her eyes and let out a little huff. And while I had no clue what was going on, I was suddenly straightening my shoulders and shuffling closer to Kodi. Whatever was going on here, I was going to take Kodi’s side.
“I already told you, I’m not gonnaplanon subbing him in. The kid needs to get his average save up in practice before he gets on the field unless Kean is injured or some shit.”
That clicked things together. This lady was Lunez’s new manager and she was doing what a good manager did and pushing for him to get more field time. I couldn’t hold that against her or Lunez. Plus I was confident in my skills. Like Coach said, I wouldn’t be benched for nothing. My stats said exactly what kind of player I was, and that was a damn good one.
But after Boyd spoke, the agent hummed like she was considering what it’d take to get me to call out for an injury, and suddenly I was right there with Kodi, hackles raised. It was one thing to push for your player, it was another thing to push for something that could be detrimental to theteam.
“Coach Boyd, Carlos has an amazing following on his socials. The fanswantto see him on the field. They want —” At this point, I tuned the woman out and turned to fully face Kodi. As a player, my promise to the fans was to play well, and I did that. The whole social media bullshit was just that, bullshit.
“So, what is it?” I asked Kodi, whose eyes were still trained on Coach and the agent. I gave her a few seconds to break her glare, but as the silence stretched on, my heart rate skyrocketed, nerves trying to fill in the blanks to what was happening. And ina desperate attempt to get that feeling to stop, I tried again, my voice strained when I said one simple word, “Kodi?”
Her attention snapped back to me with a sharp inhale and having her eyes on me sent a wave of chills down the back of my neck and across my arms. She searched my face for something and my breath froze in my lungs. It stood to reason that anything could jog her memory, so why not this moment? We’d spent several afternoons out on the field, ‘playing’ soccer. The sight of me out here, the smells, it could jog a memory.
“Are you really okay with that?” she asked, voice sharp. She nodded back to the coach and agent talking, the woman’s voice rising with an aggressiveness that she softened with a smile. I looked over to the two, biting my lip to hide the way my heart sank.
“She’s just doing her job.” I shrugged. When I turned back to Kodi, I kept my eyes on the space just above her head and let my eyesight go fuzzy.
“Pft, she’s only beingthispushy because I’m your PA,” Kodi huffed and I refocused to meet her eyes and figure out what the hell she meant by that. But before I could even come up with a plausible theory, she moved on. “Whatever. She’s not gonna have her way anyways. Because her only leverage to get Lunez out on the field is because it’ll make the fans happy.”
