STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF the pitch at The Cliff, I am pummelled by a memory of when I was about six years old and Mum had brought me out here to watch Dad practice. We were allowed on the pitch, and I remember picking several blades of grass and putting them in my pocket with big dreams of becoming a footy player just like my dad. He looked so massive out here with all the other players. I remember thinking how cool it was that they got to play football every day for their job.
And Mum looked so happy watching Dad play. Her eyes were so big and excited, like she was watching her own personal superhero save the world. I remember thinking I couldn’t wait for her to see me play someday so she would look at me the same way.
My memory fades as soon as I see my three brothers striding toward me. Tanner and Camden are mirror images of each other with their blonde hair and large frames. They aren’t identical twins, but they were difficult to tell apart until Tanner grew out his hair and beard. Booker looks a lot more like me. The two of us take after our dad’s darker features while the twins and Vi look more like our mum’s Swedish heritage.
The three of them are kitted out in warm, footy active wear. I smile and wave them over to where I’m standing with several bags of kid-sized footballs. This is a big day for Kid Kickers. I’ve been wanting to extend this program outside of Manchester for some time now, and we open our facility to potential sponsors today. They can check out the facility, see how camps are run, and decide what level of contributor they want to be. Helping with this has been a welcome distraction from Sloan.
Since I couldn’t handle today alone, I asked my brothers to join me in running a session. My agent thought it would be a good promo for the World Cup, which I could care less about. The Cup isn’t about promos. It’s about skill. Regardless, I knew having them here would help bring in the sponsors, and they were all too willing to jump on a train.
Tanner jogs ahead of the pack. I brace myself as he jumps up into my arms, wrapping his long legs around my waist in a ridiculous embrace.
“My broseph!” he bellows in a pitch similar to that of a whining dog.
I shove him off of me and grumble, “You are such a wanker.”
Camden smiles happily and claps me on the back in a big hug. Booker comes in next, giving me that small baby brother smile of his even though the prat is taller than me.
“Thanks for coming, guys,” I state with a big exhale, trying to expel my nerves.
“Anytime I can get out of training and see you, I’m all over it,” Camden says with a playful punch on the shoulder. “And it’s for a great cause, which is really cool.”
Tanner elbows me. “He’s trying to sound so mature and noble, but the creep was sexting his wife the entire time on the train. So embarrassing.” Tanner rolls his eyes dramatically like he didn’t just jump into my arms in the middle of a football pitch a minute ago.
Booker shakes his head at the two of them. “I was more mature than both of them as an infant.”
I clap Booker on the back and tease, “That’s not a huge achievement.”
Tanner stretches his arms out wide, clearly not the least bit put off by our jokes. “So, how is today going to go? Kids bloody love me, so all of you should prepare to be totally outshined.”
I smile and shake my head. “Well, we’re going to keep it nice and easy because they just got out of school, so they’re probably a bit knackered. Basically, we’ll each get sectioned off with a group of about ten kids. Two boys teams and two girls teams. We have five- to seven-year-olds, so just play some fun games and easy drills. No scrimmaging or anything competitive. The point of today is to have fun, and I asked you guys here because no one knows how to have a laugh better than you lot.”
“Too bloody right!” Camden states, pulling a piece of paper out of the pocket of his Tiro trousers. “I have the best games in mind.”
Tanner’s face falls. “You prepared?”
“That’s what Gareth’s email said to do.” Camden laughs heartily. “Plus, I’ve never coached kids before. I needed to read up on some ideas.”
“Shit!” Tanner mumbles, turning accusatory eyes at me. “I didn’t see an email!”
“I texted you to check your email, Tanner,” Booker chastises with a heavy sigh.
“I only read part of your text. You’re a wordy wanker. Who has time to read all of that?” Tanner grumbles and moves closer to Camden. “Share your notes with me, Cam.”
“No!” Camden jerks his paper back. “You were just bragging about outshining all of us. I’m not giving away my hard work.”
Tanner pins Camden with a serious look. “It’s for the kids, broseph. You should share.”
“You’re one to talk!” Camden exclaims. “You made an art form out of the Bacon Sandwich Rule! You licked stuff you hated just because you didn’t want me to have it!”
Tanner puts his hands on his hips. “This is for the kids!” he repeats, slowly moving closer to Camden’s paper with his hand outstretched.
Camden rolls his eyes. “God, why are you like this?”
Camden hands over the paper and Tanner begins scrolling through the list at lightning speed. “It’s a gift.”
Camden and Tanner each take one of the boys teams while Booker and I take the girls teams. The four of us divide into our own sections marked off on the pitch. The plan is to start with some fun games before diving into drills.
Several suits file into the sideline accompanied by Kid Kickers staff members who are there to answer questions about the daily running of the facility. I am here to be the headliner. Same goes for my brothers. Our positions in the sport of football give us the power to really make a difference, and that’s what we’re all here for today.
The little girls are all giggling and messing about, so I blow my whistle. Their wide eyes snap to mine curiously. Most of them don’t have a clue who I am, which makes things a lot easier. The older kids would have been too star-struck to perform appropriately for the potential sponsors, so we opted for younger groups today.
“I want everyone to take a football and form a line,” I state, grabbing the bag of balls and tipping it upside down to empty.
The girls flounce over with their swishing ponytails, bright-coloured socks, and shin pads. A few showed up without guards on, but our facility has a supply on hand for them.
I direct a couple of girls where to stand. The others begin to fall in line, but one girl stands back from the pack, frowning at the others who are fighting over various balls.
I squat down next to the little brunette. “Are you okay there, kid?”
She nods, but the puzzled look to her brows goes nowhere. “These are called soccer balls, too, right?”
She blinks her big brown eyes at me. The adorably serious expression lifts the corners of my mouth. “In some parts of the world, yes.”
She nods her head. “Do they play soccer in America?”
“Yes, they do,” I answer with a smile. “They call it soccer and we call it football, but it’s the same sport.”
She chews on the tip of her thumb and mumbles, “That’s what I was afraid of. I’m not sure I should be playing this.”
“Why not? Don’t you like football?” I ask, grabbing a ball and tossing it in my hands in front of her.
“Yes, I think so, but my mummy wouldn’t like me playing.”
“Did she not sign the waiver?” I ask, glancing over to the sideline for a staff member. If a parent didn’t sign a waiver, this little girl can’t play.
“My dad signed it,” she says, redirecting my focus to her.
I stand up and hold the ball out to her. “Then we should be okay. You only need one parent’s signature.”
She squeezes the green neon ball in her hands and stares down at it intently as she asks, “What if I get hurt? Mummy says football can be kind of rough.”
The sad slump of her shoulders nearly breaks my heart. I squat down in front of her again, and she pins me with her innocent eyes that are probably exactly what got her father to bring her today against her mother’s wishes. It’d be bloody impossible to refuse this little beauty anything she wanted.
I tuck a finger under her chin and lift it to me with a soft smile. “Cheer up, kid. Injuries are part of being an athlete, but we’re going to be taking it easy today. Today is just about fun. We won’t get rough, I promise.”
“Just fun?” She pins me with a look like she’s not sure she can trust me.
I smile and make an X over my chest. “Cross my heart.”
Her eyes alight with this new information “That is excellent news.” Without warning, she drops the ball and wraps her arms around my neck in an unexpected hug, nearly knocking me backwards in the process.
She releases me, grabs her ball, and jogs over to the hoard of girls all waiting. I give Brown Eyes a thumbs up when she finds a place to stand, then instruct the girls to have a seat on their footballs.
A photographer comes over and begins snapping photos as I squat down and explain what we’re going to do. “We’re going to play a game called Sharks and Minnows. The minnows will each have a ball while the sharks try to steal them. Now, who wants to be a shark?”
All the girls’ hands shoot up into the air, except for Brown Eyes.
“You can’t all be sharks, so I’ll have to count you off. Ones are sharks, twos are minnows.”
I begin counting them off, and Brown Eyes ends up being a shark. “I really wanted to be a minnow,” she pouts.
“Everyone will get a chance to be both.”
She sighs heavily. “Okay, I’ll just have to try extra hard to get a ball because I really want to kick a ball. I’ve never kicked a ball before.”
“You’ll have lots of chances to kick a ball today,” I huff with a laugh.
Sharks and Minnows is a mess. None of the girls know how to properly kick a ball. When I decide to join the sharks and try to steal from the minnows, the girls swarm me, asking me to steal their balls. Regardless, the game is full of giggles. I even end up falling on the ground in an attempt to not pummel a little girl I didn’t see under my feet.
When I’m down on the ground laughing and trying to figure out how to regain control of this horrid game, my eyes fall over to the sideline. My smile dies when a familiar figure comes into view.
Sloan is over there, thrusting an angry finger into the face of a suited man who’s standing amongst the other potential sponsors. At first, I think she’s interested in contributing. Then I recall the fact that she told me she was travelling this week. What the fuck is going on?
The man is clearly uninterested in what she has to say, barely looking away from his phone as Sloan continues screaming at him. She pauses for a second and the man finally looks up from his mobile and points out toward me.
Sloan’s eyes scan the pitch and go wide when they land on me. Taking a deep breath, she diverts her gaze to the right and marches out onto the pitch, her purse clutched tightly on her shoulder. She’s on a mission.
I assume she’s coming out to talk to me, but she veers right and heads toward the brown-eyed stunner who’s been charming me for the past thirty minutes.
“Sophia, we have to go.” Sloan’s voice is shaky as she reaches out and grabs her hand.
The little girl yanks her hand away and states firmly, “I’m finally a minnow. I just got a ball! I don’t want to stop playing. I like football.”
“Sophia!” Sloan shrieks, turning her back on me. “Do not argue with me. We are leaving.”
I stand up from the ground and make my way over to them, ready to help with whatever is going on. How does Sloan know this child?
“We’re just playing. It’s not a real game. I won’t get hurt!” the little girl whines, then adds at the end, “Please, Mummy!”
I swear my heart leaps into my throat. “Mummy?” I don’t realise I voice the word out loud, my tone sounding like it’s a hundred miles away.
Sloan twirls on her heel to eye me standing behind her. Her face a hard, emotionless mask, like I’m nothing more than a stranger to her. I’m close enough to smell her familiar scent, but she still won’t make eye contact with me.
“Don’t say a word,” she barks, lifting a finger my way to silence me. “I mean it. Nothing.”
“Mummy, please let me stay. I like football—I mean, soccer.” the girl quickly corrects herself. “It’s soccer, Mummy. I’ll call it soccer if you want. Please!”
“It’s the same thing, Sophia!” Sloan’s voice is shrill and panic-stricken. “And you can’t play it.”
“Sloan,” I state, my jaw tight with anxiety as a couple of photographers begin walking toward us. I move in closer to her, desperate to hide her. Hide the scene. Desperate to figure out what the fuck is going on.
This is the woman I’ve been sleeping with. The woman whom I’ve opened up to and have been intimate with on more levels than I’ve ever been intimate with a person in my entire life. But everything about her is so night and day different right now. The way she stands, her tone of voice. She’s not my Treacle. She’s someone I’ve never met before.
I reach out to touch her shoulder. “Just tell me what the problem is?”
She jerks away from me, her eyes swerving to the kids and people all gawking at us. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my brothers push back a couple of photographers to give us some space. Sloan’s chin trembles as she finally looks me in the eyes, dropping her shield. Her golden, watery eyes are mirror images of the little girl’s eyes staring up at her. I can’t believe I didn’t see the resemblance.
She is Sloan’s clone through and through.
“I’m so sorry, Gareth,” she croaks, wiping her nose and cheek in one swoop. “I don’t know what else there is to say.”
I move in closer, desperate to touch her. Desperate to take the pain from her. The sensation she’s putting out is like a phantom pain in my soul that I’ve worked my entire life to avoid, roaring back to life with a vengeance.
She inhales sharply and steps out of my reach. Jaw tight, she grabs the girl’s hand and hurriedly hauls her off the pitch. She passes the man she was talking to before, and he follows in their wake, looking agitated and pompous beyond belief.
I blink rapidly and fully process what’s just transpired.
Sloan has a kid.
What. The. Fuck.
My PR rep for Kid Kickers soothes the media’s curiosity about an upset mother, but my brothers aren’t as easily deterred.
Back in the changing room, I’m stuffing my clothes into my bag when I hear Tanner’s voice behind me. “That was your stylist,” he states, his tone more serious than it’s been all day. “Sloan, isn’t it?”
I look over my shoulder and see the three of them leaning against the lockers on the opposite wall. They all have their arms crossed over their chests like they are here for a fucking Harris Shakedown or something.
My voice is curt when I reply, “Yes.”
“Was that her daughter?” Camden asks.
I turn on my heel to see his grave eyes. “How should I know?” I snap. I hate that my two worlds are colliding. I hate it even more that I have no fucking clue what’s going on with Sloan.
Booker’s voice is timid when he speaks up next. “Why was she looking at you like that? It’s clear there was something significant happening between the two of you, even if you weren’t saying it out loud.”
“It’s none of your business,” I growl and instantly feel bad when Booker’s face falls. “I’m not discussing it with all of you.”
Camden’s face furrows with confusion. “You’re in our business all the time!”
“Because you put me in your business!” I exclaim.
Booker steps forward with determination. “We’re Harrises, Gareth. We’re all in each other’s business. Always. That’s just how it works in our family.”
“Oh sod off, Book. That may be true for you guys down in London, but the lot of you don’t have a clue what I do here in Manchester. None of you do.”
“That’s not our bloody fault!” Tanner roars, stepping forward and shoving his hand against my chest. I shove him back, but he’s undeterred as he continues, “You’re the moody sod who doesn’t say a word about your life here. We just assumed your life was still in London with us. Tell us what’s going on!”
“I don’t fucking know!” I roar, my hands thrusting through my hair in frustration. I squeeze the back of my neck and attempt to calm the fuck down. “I didn’t know she had a child.”
Silence envelopes the space as the unspoken words are processed. They know. They are my brothers and they’ve never seen me upset over a woman.
But me not knowing she has a kid makes it clear that our involvement isn’t cut and dry. Here I thought I had gained some ground with her when she told me I can take a kiss from her whenever I want. I thought it meant we were evolving. Changing. Maybe even for the better. But what happened out on the pitch just goes to show how dead fucking wrong I was about everything.
“Well, how do we fix this?” Camden asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We won’t,” I nearly growl. “There’s no we here. It’s just me. I don’t need you guys getting involved.”
“You solve all of our problems!” Camden retorts, his jaw ticking angrily. “Let us help you, Gareth.”
“I’ll be fine.” I slam my locker closed and turn on my heel to stare at my brothers. The three of them stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Legs wide. Chests out. Chins lifted. Like they’re ready for battle. My brothers—thick as thieves and willing to bend over backwards without knowing a shred of the full story.
How do I tell them what I’ve been doing with Sloan all this time? How do I tell them that I was so exhausted from my family, my responsibilities, football, everything that I wanted a woman to overpower me in the bedroom just to give my mind a fucking break? How could they possibly not take that personally? I’ve shouldered their burdens for years, yet I wasn’t willing to share mine with them.
This isn’t a battle my brothers can fight with me. They can’t see me like this. I can’t let them find out about my arrangement with Sloan. I also can’t show them how much it fucking guts me that Sloan chose to hide something—someone—so monumentally important from me. She kept a child’s entire existence from me. What the fuck does that mean?
I’ve spent my entire life using my head to handle things and look where that’s gotten me. Perhaps now it’s time to say “fuck it” and use my heart for once. My heart is not submissive, though. It will not surrender.
It will fight back.