Page 18 of Forbid It

“I’m good to go.” I try to ease the harshness of my voice, but can’t help the bitter edge that sentence holds.

Paul nods warily before thankfully walking away. I spray the last of my water over my head and wait until his back is turned before I stretch out my leg. It’s fine. And it will stay that way.

The smell of sweat in a locker room is the same stateside as it is in Europe. The locker rooms are the same, open lockers for each player to keep their training kits in and a trolley full of cleats fresh off the pitch.

Everything is the same, except for me.

“Here.” Santi hands me an ice pack. “Physio told me to give this to you.” He doesn’t wait for me to reply, but I rasp out a, “Cheers”, anyway, wincing as I place it on my left knee, right across the puckered skin of my surgery scar.

My hand shakes, but I force myself to place it flat against the lycra of my practice shorts. The ice doesn’t do much. Probably mostly psychological at this point.

I can hear the loud laughter coming from the shower cubicles, the steam sticking to my skin. I’ll shower in a minute, when the ice in the permanent ice pack melts.

“Nah, did you see her in that ‘Try Me’ video,” I hear one of the guys say on the other side of the room. “She was literally naked. They just blurred out her tits.”

Snickers erupt and I clench my jaw. This is the worst part about locker room ‘banter’. There’s always a line, and it’s almost always crossed. I don’t know what video they’re talking about, and I don’t care to find out.

“Gingers don’t do anything for me though,” another guy, Hunter, replies.

My hand squeezes on the icepack. Are they talking about Cassie?

Hot fury races through my chest as the guys snicker around me. I want to cross the room and flatten Hunter to the tile floor for talking about her, maybe shove my icepack down his throat for good measure.

I’m never going to escape her. I need to focus on the game. Put on enough of a show to get butts in seats. Keep my head down until I get the call from Geraint, go home, and play for a home team again. I need to focus on my career this year more than I ever have.

“Bro, you can’t say that about the boss’s daughter,” one of the goalkeepers hisses, and I nod to myself that at least someone is putting this loser in his place. I stand up, letting the ice pack slide onto the bench as I turn to my locker, clutching the sides tight enough that my knuckles whiten.

“I don’t care who her dad is,” Hunter scoffs with a grin. “Bet you I can find out if the curtains match the drapes before the end of the season.”

“Enough!” I punctuate my order with a crack of my knuckles across the wall, loud enough to reverberate around the room.

All heads turn in my direction as I spin in place, catching the eye of Hunter and holding his stare with a steely one of my own.

Florent pokes his head out of his office. “Everything okay in here?”

I keep my eyes locked on Hunter, arching my brow. My blood is boiling underneath my skin, but I don’t look away.

“If you want to repeat what you just said.” I gesture between him and Florent before crossing my arms across my chest.

Hunter looks down at his feet, shuffling like a small child. My eyes nearly roll into the back of my head. Fucking typical. Big man crowing with his buddies until there's a whiff of confrontation and he becomes as spineless as wet spaghetti.

Florent looks at me expectantly.

I glance at him. “It’s all good.” The words feel like glass as I spit them out.

“Keep it that way,” Florent announces to the room. “I’m managing a MLS team, not fucking Little League.”

The guys start to filter out. From my position, Hunter has to cross in front of me. I make sure to come to a stop in front of him on the way to the showers.

“If I hear you say one more word about Cassie—fuck it, any woman—like that again, I’ll personally make sure you’re off this team and your balls are so far up your own arsehole you’ll be swallowing your own kids for the rest of your days.”

Hunter glowers. “Oh yeah? What are you going to do? You’re not the captain, you’re just a washed up wunderkind slumming it with us.”

I bark a laugh. Does he understand that he just dissed himself? “I might be slumming it, but how many trophies have you got? Participation doesn’t count.”

Santi slides up next to me, towel slung around his waist. He was in the showers so probably didn’t even hear any of this.

“Captain,” I say deliberately, watching Hunter get red in the face with anger.