“GOOD ENOUGH IS NEVER GOOD enough!” Coach shouts as my teammates and I stand at the goal line, preparing to run another killer. “We only have three matches left in the season, and I see a lot of you prancing around like this is for fun and relaxation! Tomorrow is a home game, and I refuse to let our disappointment over not getting promoted this season earn us a loss. Now fucking run!”
He blows the whistle and we sprint toward the closest line, then turn back and hit the midfield line. Then farther still. Then the rest until we’re all the way to the end of the field and back.
“Harris!” Coach shouts. Both Tanner and I stop midstride to look at him. “Not, you…You! Well, hell, both of you is fine. Get over here.”
We jog up to Coach and he hits me with a stern look. “Now, Booker, you have the best hands in the Championship League, but I’d like to see you work on becoming more explosive. Keep pushing the areas that aren’t your best and soon we’ll have nothing left to push, all right?”
I nod and head over to the net where my gloves are as he yells, “Do sixty-second sets of ab killers. Tanner, you shoot for him. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
I glove-up and drop down on the goal line with my legs straight out in front of me while Tanner positions himself ten yards out. I gesture for my right side first and he kicks the ball three feet over. I stop it and toss it back. Then he switches to the left.
After the first set, Tanner waggles his eyebrows and asks, “How’s the roomie?”
Frowning and chucking the football back at him, I reply curtly, “Fine.” I pause to squeeze a drink of water into my mouth before resuming my position on the goal line.
“That’s it? Just…fine? It’s been almost a week of living with her, and that’s all you have to say?” He kicks the ball at me again.
I catch it and shrug. “She started her new job. I’m at practice. We haven’t been seeing much of each other.” I throw the ball back to him and try to ignore the fact that Poppy and I have been avoiding each other. I’ve been working out more than usual. She’s been going into work extremely early. Hell, she could be sleeping at her parents’ house in Chigwell for all I know. I’ve been checking for evidence that she’s still staying at my flat, and the fresh groceries and occasional dirty dishes in the dishwasher lead me to believe she hasn’t been abducted.
“You’re bloody flatmates!” Tanner stops the ball I fling at him and stands with it below his boot. “Don’t your paths cross on the way to the toilet? My fiancé is a high-risk baby surgeon and we still manage to find time for morning shags.”
“Will you just shoot the bloody ball?” Tanner’s playful smirk drops and he jukes me out, drilling one the opposite way I was expecting. I flinch as a muscle in my side pulls. “Fuck!” I growl and punch the ground in frustration.
A nervous expression breaks across his face. “Sorry, broseph. Are you all right?”
I stand up and grab my lower back on one side. “Yes. I just tweaked that fucking muscle in my back again. That was a cheap fake-out, you prat. It’s a fucking strength training drill.”
“Well, you know I get agitated when you don’t answer my questions.” Tanner’s bearded face looks apologetic, but it’s too late. He’s a fucking wanker.
“What’s going on, guys?” a female voice interrupts.
I turn to see Camden’s girlfriend, Indie, stride up to us in her Bethnal polo and trousers, a med kit in hand. “Tanner’s a moron,” I answer.
“That’s nothing new.” Indie grins and pushes her bright green glasses up her nose. She gestures for me to sit down where I’m at and drops down on her knees next to me. “You tweak that same muscle again?”
I nod and she begins rooting around in the kit for the Deep Heat. “You need to be stretching this out every night, Booker. I’ve told you this. This muscle needs strength training for a solid six months. Playing with injuries isn’t necessary if we do things to prevent them instead.”
“I know. I keep forgetting,” I groan.
Tanner eventually gets yelled at by Coach to rejoin the team. I exhale heavily, relieved to see the back of him.
“Tanner getting on your nerves again?” she asks, looking up at me as she squirts the cream into her hand and twirls her finger in front of me so I turn around.
Indie and Camden have been together for nearly a year, so she’s practically part of the family. I think he would have proposed already if Tanner hadn’t stolen his thunder by proposing to Belle first.
“He’s trying to wind me up about rooming with Poppy.”
She chuckles. “Oh yes, the childhood friend I’ve been hearing so much about. I don’t know why you’re surprised by Tanner. He has a go at people for much lesser things. You shacking up with a girl is high-level gossip in the Harris family.”
I flinch as Indie rubs the cream on my side, working out the knot that’s already formed. Indie is good at this—sports medicine. She’s been with Bethnal for less than a year and has already been promoted from shadowing our team doctor to assisting and travelling with us on a regular basis. She’s quick, she’s efficient, and she has a great way of knowing exactly what we need before we even need it. Injury numbers have gone down since she joined the team because she knows all these strange new stretching techniques for injury prevention. We all laughed when she first demonstrated how to do them. But after one session, we all felt an ache in muscles we didn’t even know we had.
“Poppy and I are not shacking up,” I sigh. “Actually, we’re hardly speaking.”
“Oh?” Indie asks. “Did you do something to piss her off?”
I shrug my shoulders and remain mute because I’m not proud of what I did. I can’t believe how far it went, and it’s all my fault. I was the one who kissed her first. I was the one who climbed on top of her. And I can’t stop replaying it all in my mind in vivid detail. I can’t stop seeing that fucking nipple ring of hers.
“You going to bring her to Sunday dinner?” Indie asks, applying a warm bandage over the affected area.
I clear my throat, annoyed by my graphic memory. “I’m not sure she’d want to come. We’re kind of in a strange place.” It’s amazing how much easier it is to reveal even half-truths to Indie. I think she must have her degree in psychology, too.
She tsks and replies, “Well, get out of it and invite her. Harris Sunday dinners are great at bringing people back together. It’s where you both grew up. This seems like a no-brainer.”
That’s actually not a bad idea. I’ve been avoiding her because I don’t know what to expect from her. I’m afraid that if I push her too soon, she might bolt. But maybe going back home will help us remember what we were like as kids and not focus so much on how different we are as adults.
Indie caps the cream and stands. “Stretch and ice that tonight. Other than that, get your arse back to work. We have a game to win, and we won’t be able to do it without you.”