CHAPTER EIGHT
Hardy
“ H ello?” I call out and knock on the office door yet again.
I glance at my watch. It’s ten in the morning on a Saturday. Where the hell is everyone? I take another walk around the facility. It’s... okay . And that’s being generous.
The pitch is decent in grade, flat across its plain. The grass is green with a few dirt patches, but I can tell those have been seeded. Someone cares for it.
The nets are worn but patched properly, and the painted lines have faded so you can see delineation in some parts and not so much in others.
There are a few bleacher-like stands on one side. They’re painted the same Columbia blue to match the club’s colors, but no amount of paint can hide the worn wood planks or how they bow in the center. I can only imagine every fan sitting there is aware of every other fan as they move across them by the way they bounce with each footfall.
There are a few small outbuildings, and one is the office door I’ve been knocking on. The sign on it says as much. To its left is a much larger building with garage roll-up doors—no doubt for gear and equipment. Then there’s another larger building that runs the stretch of a field, dotted with windows, in what looks to be an old dormitory perhaps.
I know more than enough about those fucking places.
A chain-link fence surrounds the perimeter. Some sections are silver, others black, and still others a dark gray where it’s clear the metal has been painted over to hide what I can assume is graffiti.
There’s no major signage except for a few vinyl posters fastened to the fences, rectangular in shape with the Prestige Soccer Academy logo and website. They are most definitely the newest things out here.
I walk around, more curious about the academy than I thought I’d be and even more so about the woman from last night.
Who exactly is Whitney Barnes? What is she to this program? Where does she fit in? Does her boss know she walks around insulting guys like me who could make or break a place like this?
And bloody hell, she was right—I just might be here in the hopes of getting laid.
I chuckle. You’re pathetic, Hardy. Fucking predictable and pathetic.
“Hello,” I call out again feeling like I’m in an echo chamber, but there isn’t a sign of life here.
Not. A. One.
What the hell?
With one last glance around, I head back to the car park and am behind the wheel when my mobile rings.
One glance at the screen has me grinning and wincing at the same time. Took him long enough . I can play this one of two ways. I opt for the apologetic player route. “Rush Mackenzie. Long time no talk, mate.”
“You’re avoiding me.”
“Bullshit.” I so fucking am . “Why would I be avoiding you?” I sound like the picture of innocence because that’s not ironic or anything.
“Did you forget to do something yesterday?”
“There were some issues.”
“Issues?” He chuckles. “I had a whole team there. Ari. Reporters. Media. You stood them all up.”
“Yes. And I apologize. It was...I’m here at the academy right now, actually.”
Silence greets my response and has me shifting in my seat. I wait him out. He clears his throat. “So you were trying to right the wrong before you talked to me. I get it. I see you for it. But you were still fucking wrong, and I’m calling you on it.”
“C’mon, mate. I had plans I couldn’t change. It wasn’t like you gave me a chance to explain that.” And the lies keep coming . “I’m here now. What else do you want from me?”
He chuckles and it’s not the nice, soothing one he uses with fans but rather the one that has a competitor looking over his shoulder in dread. “I was specific in what I wanted and needed from you. Ari laid out a whole marketing plan on how to maximize this opportunity for you,” he says as I glance at the blue folder sitting on the front seat that she handed me. The one I never opened because I don’t need to be told how to smile pretty and entice the press. “You didn’t deliver on it.”
I’m a grown man. I don’t need fucking lectures .
I pick up the folder, thumb through it without really reading it, and then shove it under the front seat. Out of sight. Out of mind.
“I thought you were on a flight back home,” I say.
“I am.”
Huh. Typically when people leave me, they don’t care what I do so long as I perform.
“Like I said, I’m here now.”
“Only after realizing you were in trouble.”
“But am I though? I mean, I made a donation. I showed up. I’m playing the part you asked me to.”
“You don’t get it, do you? You’re in Miami because of me. I’m the one who pitched the idea to MLS. I’m the one who sold you to my fellow owners. All in the hopes that you could grow the sport like I once tried to years ago when I first came to promote it. But the cold, hard truth, Hardy? The MLS? Man, they loved your star power but questioned if you could pull it off. My co-owners? They were sold on your talent but thought you were too much of a risk. The Hardy we all know on the pitch is a sure thing. The one off the pitch? He’s too much of a wild card to put this kind of money and trust behind. So if you ask if you’re in trouble, no, not yet. You blowing this academy off yesterday? That turns that not yet into a very big possibly.”
“Come on.”
“You want to be the laughingstock of football? Take a ridiculous contract with the team but never get to finish the season because you’re a liability off the field? This isn’t back home. This is how it is here in America. Cancel culture is real and that’s the door you’re knocking on.”
“Rush ... I’m man enough to admit that I made a mistake. I’m here right now trying to fix it. Can you let ... whoever you need to let know that I am?”
“I’ll let Ari know. She’s been tasked with reporting to everyone how yesterday went. It seems now she’s pivoting to a new strategy.”
“Well, that should be—”
“Enjoy the full week of camp there, mate.”
“What the fuck, man?” I groan and tilt my head up to the sky. He can’t be bloody serious.
“That’s what I had to promise my co-owners and Major League Soccer. You should thank me because I talked them out of suspending you from practice for the week too.”
“ Rush .” His name is a plea and a rejection all in one. A whole week? “How the hell am I supposed to practice if I have to be at some damn football camp all week?”
“Your team has to take the hit for that. Their whole schedule has had to be adjusted, no thanks to you.”
“This is fucked. You can’t get me out—”
“Don’t ask,” he warns. “You’re lucky this is all that’s being asked of you. What you keep forgetting to learn is that part of getting to live this dream of ours is that we’re to pay it forward. There’s a responsibility that comes with it.”
“I know, but you’re hurting the team.”
“No,” he shouts, grabbing my attention. “You’re hurting the team.” And when I start to talk, he talks right over me. “Save whatever it is you’re going to say or else I’ll make that week a whole fucking month on my own accord.”
“Christ.”
“You can save your excuses for some interviewer with a short skirt and low cleavage. She’ll listen to you. She’ll buy it. She’ll post the story so she can be connected to you. I won’t. Be there Monday at 8 a.m.”
“I’m here now though.”
“At your convenience. When the place is a fucking ghost town.” He chuckles. “Yes, I know no one is there, but just like one would expect from Alexander Hardy, you keep asserting how you’re there and let me assume you’re putting in the work. You’re not.”
“Mate—”
“Lying by omission is still lying. Don’t lie to me again or you will find your arse back on a plane and really put your teammates in a pinch.”
“It’s not like you’ve given me a second to explain anything, so there’s a lot of omitting going on.”
“Bottom line? Don’t fucking let me down again.”
Or else, what ? I think to myself but don’t voice.
And in perfect Rush McKenzie fashion, he reads my thoughts. “Or else the resulting public scene will be much more than a scuffle outside a club. Imagine what it will look like if you’re sent home, leaving your team in a lurch and being excused from your contract with the MLS? Not a very good look for the person they were banking the face of American soccer on.”
“Yep, got it. Not a problem.” My words are as clipped as my attitude is crappy.
“Good. Glad we’re on the same page. Put in the time there. Put in the work on our field. Show me you’re worth the fucking faith I’ve put in you.”
He ends the call before I can respond and leaves me staring at an empty school. I voluntarily came here today and fucking hate it.
But I said I’d be here and I’m fucking here.
That’s good for something, isn’t it?
So I pick up my phone to make sure I get the brownie points I deserve for it.