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“Boys,” Brooker said with a little laugh and shrug. “Anyway, Christenson said I should give you a tour since he’s busy catching up with the coach or something. You know, captain stuff.”
“I can hear him,” I said, cocking an eyebrow. The guy just chuckled and gave me a wink.
“Play along, yeah? We’re having some fun with him. It’s not every day we get to give Christenson a hard time.” He pushed the door wider with a kick of his foot and looped one arm around mine to guide me inside. “We’ll do the boring admin side first.”
“Well if it’s boring, why do it at all?” I asked, faintly able to hear Niall’s muffled shouts around a corner.
“Ah, that’s ’cause Kodi and Rosa wanna meet you. And Kodi works up in admin most days. She’s the team’s social media manager and is dating Kean, the goalie on the team. And then Rosa is Jimenez’s wife, he’s a center with Christenson,” Brooker explained.
“How many people are on this team?”
“Like total? Twenty-five.”
“What?” I gaped and looked around the bland halls like I’d be able to see signs of so many grown men in one arena.
“Oh, so like, you don’t know shit about soccer, do you?” he asked, chuckling a little. “At least you're with Christenson, he’s got the patience and ability to explain things well. Most of us get too hyped to be of any real help.”
“I’m not—” I started to argue before we turned into a large, open office area. Seated on one of the desk was a dark skinned, Latin American woman with tight spiral curls, in a cute, pleated tennis dress. And at the desk proper was a white girl, with long brown hair and in the type of athleisure wear I saw all over Instagram.
I couldn’t tell if their styles were a result of being professional players’ partners or if it was all them, but either way, my baggy romper, which probably had a marker stain or two somewhere, felt inferior in comparison.
“Rosa, Kodi, this is—” Brooker started to say, but the two women looked up and immediately bolted over, chairs and shoes squeaking on the tile.
“Nice to meet you!” they both shouted as they approached.
“Do you do hugs?” the Latina woman asked and when my face scrunched, she held her hands up and laughed. “All right, duly noted. I’m Rosa.”
“And I’m Kodi,” the other woman said.
“Nice to meet y’all. I’m Leah, which I guess everybody knows.”
“Uh-huh, your baby daddy is really excited. But how far along are you? You’re not showing at all,” Rosa said, eyes narrowing on my stomach.
“Oh, I’m just over two months now.” I put my hand on my stomach, self conscious.
Rosa turned to Brooker, smacking his arm before shouting a string of Spanish that made the other man pale.
He said something in the language that included an apology, little pauses between each word or phrase as he mentally translated. Rosa huffed and stomped out of the room.
“Damn,” Brooker muttered to himself. “I thought I was getting better.”
“I didn’t understand much beyond first trimester,” Kodi said, shrugging. “Might as well follow after her.”
“You done with whatever you were working on?”
“Yeah, I’m mostly waiting on responses from charities.”
“I’ve still got dibs on the shelter, right?” Brooker asked and Kodi rolled her eyes.
“Each of the first string players are picking a charity to feature in the team calendar next year,” she explained to me.
“Oh, like a firemen's calendar?”
“Exactly,” Kodi said, pointing at me with a comradic smile. I guess I might not share the same good style the two women had, but we did have one thing in common, the hots for a soccer player. And taking a side look at Brooker, knowing he was going to a shelter … yeah, I could see that calendar selling really well.
“We’re doing the shoots all throughout this month. Christenson is volunteering at a woman’s shelter, which is gonna be one of the trickier shoots.”
“How come?” Brooker asked and both Kodi and I turned to him with raised eyebrows.
