Four months later

Dex

Game time.

Again.

We left the locker room, the team and me, walking down the narrow cement hallway of the stadium single file. There were people everywhere, media and staff and hangers-on, watching us go. The closer we got to the opening beneath the stands that would send us out onto the field, the louder we could hear the crowd. That’s one of the things you never hear about from athletes: How fucking loud the crowd is. There are times when you’re playing that you can’t hear yourself think. The faster you train your mind to tune it out, the better a player you’ll be.

And I was still the best. My knee was tight, my knuckles were healed, and I felt absolutely nothing. Nothing but the need to win. It made me better than ever.

I rolled my shoulders, loosening them, as we approached the entrance to the field. On the surface I was the same Dex Carter as before, but down deep I wasn’t. I was doing things differently for my career, for one. No more underwear ads—Espana had wanted me back after I was reinstated, but I’d severed the contract. My clothes would stay on from now on. Everyone else who had approached me for ads or talk show appearances or in-depth interviews or publicity shit had gotten a flat No. I wanted to play soccer. Otherwise, I was done talking.

A few days after Sophie dumped me and moved out, I’d gotten a call from Michelle, of all people—the woman I’d met briefly at Eric’s agency. She’d gone out on her own as a new agent, and she was hungry for a big client like me. She had the balls to call me up out of the blue and pitch me her services. I admired that, and I liked her ideas. When I told her about all the offers I wanted to turn down, she agreed with me. She said that simple was best. “Play,” she said. “Do your thing. Let me handle the rest of it.”

So I’d hired her. A new, green, completely inexperienced agent. A woman. It just wasn’t done in my dick-heavy business, and everyone had predicted failure. I didn’t give a shadow of a fuck. I played, and she fielded all the bullshit. It worked. It had nothing to do with sex—Michelle was interested in business, not fucking. That was fine with me, since the only woman I was interested in fucking was not interested in me. Michelle still reminded me of Sophie, in a non-sexual way, and I thought they’d probably get along if they ever met. They had a lot in common. Both of them were ambitious. Both of them had the quiet nerve to call someone up and pitch them. Both of them figured my cock was bad for their career, and they were both right.

The only corporate types I agreed to talk to were the Osatori watch people, because they weren’t complete assholes. I met them face to face, like they asked for, and I pitched them an idea. They loved it. We’d just shot it, it was about to come out, and it was going to be the best campaign they’d ever done.

Then I went back to the game.

I’d played harder than ever these past four months pushing my body over its limits, and it had taken a toll. I could feel it, that little message from my body: Ease up, dumbass. There were nights I couldn’t sleep because of the pain from various bones and joints. My muscles were freezing, and hot and cold packs had become my friend. I jarred my shoulder so hard during one game that my arm was numb for nearly six hours. I ignored it and kept playing. No drinking, no drugs. No painkillers or Tylenol 3’s. Just my body on the field, doing everything it could for as long as it could.

Three and a half years to the World Cup. There was no way I would make it. I didn’t tell the doctors that, or Michelle, or the journalists or the watch people. I didn’t tell my father. My body would give out long before the next World Cup came along. The only person I could ever confide that to was Sophie, and she had her own life. She was done with me. She’d made that crystal clear.

She hadn’t texted me in four months, and I hadn’t texted her. Jim had told me briefly that she was fine. She’d moved to a suburb of San Francisco, working for a law firm that helped people who couldn’t afford it. It was a job she’d heard of through her girlfriend Dana. I pictured her spending her days helping people, guys who’d been injured on their crappy jobs or women trying to get their kids away from their abusive husbands, and I knew she must be happy. I hoped so.

The music was blaring, the voice shouting over the loudspeaker in the stadium. We were the away team, so we would come out first, so the home team could have longer for their flashy introduction. We weren’t the favorites here, but still the fans were rowdy, banging their feet in the stands, ready to cheer.

“We’re up,” Coach said.

I jogged out onto the field with my team, and I raised my arm, and I looked up at the crowd. And everything shut down, and it was just me and the game again.