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“Hi, Maeve,” I reply, surveying her back.
Her green eyes are almost the exact shade of the lush grass we’re standing on, and I quickly get lost in their bottomless depths.
“Are you—um, are you ready to play?” Maeve asks, and I realize we’re still just standing and staring at each other. She’s definitely blushing now.
“I’ve been ready to play with you for a long time, Stevens,” I reply.
“I hope you know what you’re in for, Cole,” she flirts back, smirking. She drops her water bottle on the sideline and dribbles toward the center of the field.
I jog after her. “First to ten?” I suggest as we stop on either side of the white line drawn across the very center of the field. It’s a fitting metaphor for our relationship. Or lack thereof.
“It’s going to be a short game,” Maeve predicts confidently.
She dribbles forward, and I match her pace as I move backward, giving her enough space to move but staying close enough to make my presence felt. She maintains eye contact with me rather than looking down at the ball, but her steps don’t falter as we reach the penalty arc.
I make my move as soon as we cross the line, pressing forward and attempting to swipe the ball away from her. She dodges my sad attempt at a steal easily and moves to sprint past me. I stay in front of her, but only barely.
Maeve grins, showcasing the dimple in her left cheek. The last time I played against a girl was in elementary school, and my eight-year-old self certainly wasn’t thinking about any of the things I want to do with Maeve Stevens besides playing soccer during recess basketball games. Maeve spins, somehow taking the ball with her.
My distracted brain takes a second to catch up, and it’s a second too long. She sends the soccer ball slamming against the white netting of the goal, and even if I was paying close attention, I doubt I could have stopped. it. It’s a seamless, practiced move, one I’m quite certain she could have demonstrated as soon as we started playing.
Maeve starts jogging backward. “Your ball, Cole!” She winks.
I retrieve the ball, and this time I’m the one who starts dribbling forward. Maeve doesn’t give me a chance to move more than a few feet before she snags the ball and starts sprinting toward the goal I’m supposed to be defending.
I run after her, but to no avail. She doubles her lead.
It turns out Maeve was right. It doesn’t take long for her to reach ten goals, and I only manage two in the same stretch of time. But we keep playing, employing a lot more physical contact than I think the rules of soccer allow for.
Not that I’m complaining.
Eventually, we come to a mutual agreement to call it. I dribble the ball over to the spot where Maeve left her water bottle, and she follows. We flop down on the grass side by side, both panting.
“This is a nice park,” Maeve remarks, glancing around after she takes a long pull from her water bottle. “I’ve never been here before.”
“I used to come here with my dad,” I admit. “When we’d visit my uncle and his family at the cabin in the summer. The two of us would play football for hours.”
“It’s nice that you have those memories,” Maeve says softly.
“Don’t you? Coach Stevens totally seems like the type of dad who would start training his kids to catch the football as toddlers.”
“Yeah, he was,” Maeve replies. “With Liam.”
I wish I could shove my question back in my mouth. “Maeve—shit, I’m sorry, I’m the last person who should be making assumptions—”
“It’s fine, Wes,” she assures me as she picks at blades of grass and drops them on her long, tan legs. “Don’t worry about it. That’s just always how it’s been with us. In some ways, I feel worse for Liam. The pressure on him is relentless.”
“Doesn’t your dad support you with soccer? I mean, Maeve, you’re good. Really good.”
She smiles at my compliment. “He comes to my games when he can, but he spends most of the time talking to the other parents there about his season. Every sport except football is basically just a hobby to him.” She shrugs, as though it doesn’t bother her, but I’m getting better at reading her. I can tell it does. And it should.
“Did you used to be closer to him?” I ask.
“Not really,” Maeve replies. “He was gone a lot when I was little, and—I mean, you’ve met him. He’s hardly the warm and fuzzy type.”
I snort, recalling some of the shouts coming from Glenmont’s bench at our last clash. “True.” After a brief pause, I ask another question. “Is it because of the drinking?”
Maeve’s eyes flash from her knees to meet my gaze, and I wonder if she forgot she told me about her father’s alcoholism freshman year.
