Page 61 of Rumor Has It

Wren swallowed, but she nodded. One wasn’t too bad. It was just below her elbow. That had been their first game ever playing against each other. Rebecca had openly pushed her from behind, sending her down hard into the dirt. Wren didn’t know it, but that had been Rebecca’s first collegiate yellow card. It had almost called for stitches, but Wren didn’t torture Rebecca with that information.

Rebecca leaned forward and pressed a featherlight kiss to the scar. She didn’t stop there, though. She also leaned forward and kissed the perfect circle on Wren’s hip. Wren had to fight the urge to moan for that one. They weren’t going to get carried away tonight. They had a game tomorrow. They couldn’t have lesbian time-warp sex that started right then at nearly nine o’clock and somehow lasted until four in the morning.

Admitting their feelings was one thing, and to Wren’s understanding of their contracts, not actually a violation of any kind. Sex was explicitly forbidden. And they’d already violated that rule once. They absolutely could not do it again.

“Anywhere else?” Rebecca asked.

Wren scrunched up her face. “I don’t think you’re going to want to kiss my ankle.”

Rebecca laughed and gently—by Rebecca standards—tackled Wren back onto the bed. “I’m not afraid of your ankle,” she said, though she made no move to kiss it. Instead, she wrapped her arms even tighter around Wren’s body. “Are there more?” She asked, her voice obviously pained.

Wren shook her head. “No. My ankle is the last one.”

“Are you just saying that so I don’t cry?” Rebecca asked.

Wren let out a soft laugh. “Nah. That’s really it. Well, I’m sure the new one is going to leave something. But what remains to be seen.”

Rebecca sighed, sounding defeated. “Why do you like me?”

Wren was afraid to answer. She was afraid to say because despite everything, Rebecca was still who she wanted to turn to every time shit hit the fan, that that week at camp all those years ago had been the best week of her life until now. Until being forced to share a room with Rebecca again. That Rebecca’s interest in whatever cheap sci-fi book she was reading meant the world to her. The fact that whenever one of them was having a rough time, the obvious solution was a sapphic rom-com and pizza. Or that no one had ever learned the way that Wren played like Rebecca had. No one could slot her through balls as perfectly or consistently. And none of that even touched on how truly electric their sex had been. Not just their sex, every time they touched. Sharing a bed the night before, all tangled up in each other, had brought a peace and comfort Wren didn’t even know she could feel. Even a simple hello hug improved Wren’s mood tenfold.

“Well,” Wren said, not really knowing how to respond. “It just seems impossible for me to not.”

There was a nervous energy buzzing around some of the veteran players the next day in their locker room. Coach Jameson spent more time reiterating set pieces and contingency plans. Wren had never heard him say, “if this happens, I need you to—” more times than she had heard him that morning.

Homework was an important part of their job, though, and the reason behind the difference in the mood and the tone of their pre-game talks and warm-up wasn’t lost on Wren. They had lost the last time they played Sweden. Wren wasn’t someone who felt like she needed to be an undefeated player. It sucked to lose, certainly, and she never would have made it to this level if she had let losing become a habit, but she was fully aware that it was a part of the game. Sometimes the other team just played better, or were actually better, or just downright got luckier, or some combination of the three. But at the national level, losing wasn’t something that anyone took lightly.

Everyone took everything more seriously that morning. Their warm-ups were sharper and a little bit longer. They all tried to get as many touches on the ball as possible. They stretched for two extra seconds every position. And still that nervous buzz hummed around them.

Wren looked out into the stands, knowing that there wouldn’t be many American fans out there rooting for them. That was an additional change that she hadn’t fully thought about before. Sure, it had been that way in college and at the PWSL level, too. When her team played in away matches, they rarely had people there cheering for them. But the scale of the crowd was so vastly different.

This stadium was packed, the crowd roaring and chanting in a language Wren didn’t understand. Everyone in the audience was wearing Sweden’s bright yellow and blue. Wren didn’t let it get to her, though. She took a few deep breaths. She came here with a job to do, and she knew damn well that she was really good at her job.

Sweden won the coin toss, much to the crowd's delight. Wren watched from the infield huddle with the rest of the starting players—minus their captain, Courtney, of course. They all collectively held their breaths as they waited for Sweden's choice.

As expected, Sweden chose which side to attack. It was a late afternoon game, and the sun was brutal at the moment. Forty-five minutes, plus stoppage time, plus a fifteen-minute half-time, meant they were sure to not have to deal with the sun in the second half.

“Okay. We’re all going to be staring into the sun for this one,” Courtney said as she squished into their huddle. “But we get the kickoff in the second half. We can do this.” She put her hand in the middle of their huddle, and everyone else followed suit.

Rebecca locked eyes with Wren from across the circle, subtly making sure that her hand ended up on top of Wren’s. It made Wren grin, just a little goofy. They could do this.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

BECKY

Something that Becky hadn’t really expected from Sweden was just how rough their forwards would play. She’d watched a lot of Sweden’s matchups over the past two weeks, and she hadn’t seen anything to indicate their forward’s willingness to slam an elbow into her ribcage completely off the ball.

Her hazel eyes scanned the field, looking to see if any of her other teammates were experiencing anything similar or if it was just this one player. She hoped it was just the forward on her side of the pitch. She had no problem putting someone in their place, but she didn’t want to do something too early if her whole team was being roughed up. If it was everyone, Becky would need to be a little bit more strategic in who she retaliated against and when she chose to strike.

For as aggressive as she was, patience was actually something Becky had a lot of. She was fine to spend most of the first half calculating.

Play was wilder than she had expected, too. A lot of broken up passing segments, a few attempted breakaways, but their teams were frustratingly well matched. And maybe for the first time in her career, Becky got to witness a defender who was as fast as Wren. She was almost jealous. She was definitely frustrated. Her usual leading pass for Wren proved to not be smart play. Two of them had been cleared away before Wren had even gotten her foot on ball.

Courtney seemed obnoxiously well-contained, too. At nearly six feet, she was barely the tallest player on the field. Sweden had a defensive center midfielder who was damn near the same height and was definitely hanging back to keep anything in the sky away from Courtney’s forehead.

Becky almost wanted them to call a timeout just to strategize and regroup. She and the rest of the defensive line seemed to have solid coverage against their forwards, but this type of matchup always came down to a lucky breakaway or, worse, penalty kicks. Both sounded awful.