The rambunctious swarm of neon jerseys collapses into a circle around me. I remain standing as I look down at their eager faces.
“Being a great player isn’t just about the goals you score,” I begin, my voice projecting across the field. “It’s about being a good teammate. It’s about discipline. It’s about respect for the game and—”
Thwack.
This time, a size-three soccer ball bounces off my shoulder. I stumble, my knee buckling for a terrifying micro-second before I lock it back into place. I glare at the group. A small boy with his shoelaces undone looks at me with wide, innocent eyes.
“Sorry, Mr. Luca!”
I clear my throat, adjusting my stance. “As I was saying. Respect is—”
Oof.Another ball catches me square in the lower back. I whip my head around, but Croix is busy showing a little girl how to lace her cleats.
“Okay. Seriously,” I growl, taking a sharp breath and making a conscious effort to keep my mouth tight. I’m acutely aware of the cameras circling us, so I swallow the mountain of curse words I want to hurl at these little fuckers.
“Seriously,whois doing that?”
It’s like a coordinated assault. Every time I open my mouth to talk about sportsmanship, a fresh projectile comes flying from a different quadrant of the circle. If I get a second alone with one of them, I swear to God, I’m tripping them the first chance I get.
I’m so focused on scanning the crowd for the next tiny insurgent that I don’t see the final blow coming.
A ball, kicked with surprising velocity for an eight-year-old, strikes the side of my injured knee. The pain is a white-hot explosion. My balance, already precarious without my crutches, vanishes instantly.
I go down. Hard.
For a moment, I just lie there, staring at a blade of clover, wondering if my career just ended at the hands of a second-grader named Timmy.
“Luca!”
I hear Croix’s voice, suddenly stripped of its mocking edge. He’s by my side in an instant, his face pale with genuine alarm as he drops to the grass. “Dammit, brother. Are you alright? Get up.”
“I can’t...I can't put weight on it,” I wheeze, the agony making my vision go blurry. I’m trying to maintain some semblance of dignity, but my knee is not being a team player.
I see him shifting, bracing himself, and I realize with mounting horror exactly what he’s planning.
He maneuvers himself in front of me and starts to crouch.
“Croix! Stop it! No! Don't you dare!”
“Shut up and let it happen, Captain!”
“For fuck’s sake, stop calling me that, you condescending prick!”
“I’ve got you,” Croix grunts. Before I can protest any further, before I can maintain even a shred of my carefully curated clout, he hauls me up. He turns his back to me, hoists my arms over his shoulders, and hitches my dead-weight legs up with a practiced grip.
I can practically see the tabloid headlines scrolling behind my eyelids as the cameras flicker in a rhythmic, mocking strobe lights. The children are pointing and squealing with delight as the future Captain of the Strikers is being given a piggyback ride across Chapman Park.
I’m clinging to Croix’s neck like a disgruntled, over-muscled toddler. “You don’t have to do this,” I grumble into his shoulder.
“Shut up, cupcake,” he snaps back, his breathing ragged from the effort.
“You shut up,” I counter. “Keep being a dick and I’ll fart in your face.”
“Do it, and I’ll drop you right here on the concrete.”
I glance down at the passing pavement and decide to take the threat seriously. “Fine. But still…thank you.”
“Seriously, Luca. Shut up. Don’t make it a thing.”
