CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hardy
T he day has been long. Eventful. And ... altering. At least to my schedule and plans for the next four weeks.
As I run from my car back onto the academy grounds to grab my sweatshirt I left ... somewhere, I’m not exactly surprised when my phone rings.
“Rush. Mate. Keeping tabs on me, I see,” I tease by way of greeting.
“Not hard when you’re all over the bloody internet. Christ, Hardy. I asked you to go for a week to make amends for your no-show, and now you tie yourself up for a whole goddamn month?”
I cough out a laugh. “Can’t say when I commit, I don’t commit fully, now can you? The league should be happy.”
“They will be, but your teammates may throttle you. Night practices aren’t exactly loved and now you’ve just strapped them with a month of them.”
“Good thing we have two bye weeks in a row then,” I say, referring to our Mayhem schedule.
“How are you going to manage this?” he asks like he didn’t put me in this situation to begin with.
“The same way you would. Train any way I can before, after, and in between what I’m now roped into here.” The idea is daunting. The sudden urge to blow off all of it and become even more of a villain is enticing.
“You’re the one who made the bet so don’t even think about going back on your word.”
The irony. She made the terms and went back on hers. But Rush doesn’t fucking care about Whitney Barnes or her lies. He only cares about what protects his investment.
And I’d like to think he cares about me as well.
“I’m not going back on shit,” I lie as I continue to try and figure a way to negate this whole obligation. It’s all I’ve thought about over the past few hours.
Wasn’t my goal in coming here to avoid pissing Rush off and to possibly get laid?
Failed on both of those.
Rush isn’t exactly pissed, but he isn’t exactly happy either. Does that count?
And I can fucking get laid by the snap of my fingers, so why did I even consider pursuing Whitney?
Because that’s just it. Easy doesn’t always equal satisfying. She’s not batting her lashes at me, trying to win me over. When’s the last time I had to work to get pussy?
I snort and roll my eyes. I’m not used to being frustrated at shit like this.
“I’ve got it handled, Rush. I’ll figure it out. You know me. I live and breathe this damn sport so I won’t let you or the club or the league down. I promise you that,” I say as I spot my sweatshirt hanging on a fence at the opposite end of the pitch.
“So you say but if that’s the case, you wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place.”
“Touché,” I mutter, his words a direct hit.
“Look, mate. That was ... a low hit.”
“But honest.” I nod. “You’re right, and I’m paying the price for it. Worst-case scenario, I’m one tired motherfucker trying to balance it all. Best case, we finish strong, win the championship and use this ... whatever this experience is to elevate football’s appeal here in America as desired. You look good. I look good. Contract fulfilled.”
“Those public relations classes are showing,” he says, referring to the mandatory training my club makes all its players take on how to respond to the media.
“At least they were good for something.” I chuckle, but it fades off when I see the little boy standing at the edge of the fence. “Hey, Rush? I’ll figure it all out. It’s not the best-case scenario, no doubt, but I’ll figure it out.”
He snorts. “Maybe overbooking your diary was a surefire way to keep yourself out of trouble.”
I bark out a laugh. “Clearly, you don’t know me well enough then.”
I end the call and smile at the kid. He’s—who the fuck knows how old he is because that’s far from my forte—small? About ten? Eight? Maybe ... who knows? He seems too little to be here alone.
“Hi.” I glance around for a parent, but none is to be found other than a few of the older players milling about at the far end of the pitch. I can see their phones angled my way, so pictures are being taken, and social media is being updated. I’m fine with that, but I’m not good with this little guy being all alone. “You okay, bud?”
He stares at me with huge brown eyes. He has a row of freckles across the top of his nose, and his hair is a little too long and in need of a haircut. His lips are lax and he keeps blinking his eyes as he nods rapidly almost as if he thinks I’m about to disappear.
I’ve seen this look before on fans, so it doesn’t scare me, but there is something about this freckly, gawky boy that holds my attention.
“So you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” It comes out in a broken croak, and he immediately blushes with embarrassment. “I just ... I ... you’re my idol.”
I chuckle. “Thanks, but I’m far from anyone’s idol.”
“No,” he says emphatically. “You are.”
“You don’t even know what that means.”
“I do. I promise. It means I want to be just like you when I grow up.”
If he only knew the real me, he wouldn’t be saying that.
“What about your mom or dad? Why aren’t they your idols?” But the minute the words are out of my mouth his expression falls, and I wish I could take the words back.
Tears well in his eyes and he shakes his head so subtly I don’t know how to respond. “I don’t want to be like them.”
“Oh.” Oh . “Okay. Um.” I’m so far out of my league here. “Is everything okay?”
He bites his bottom lip and without warning, reaches out and wraps his arms around me. I freeze, maybe even say something in response, but all I know is I’m at a loss for what to do. All I can come up with is to pat his head and ruffle his hair. It’s touching without touching, and the last thing I want to do is be accused of shit as I stand here with this little boy.
With each sniff of his nose, he squeezes me a little tighter. “It’s okay.” His voice is muffled. “I just want to be like you, and not like them.”
I nod although he can’t see it and struggle with what else to say or how much I can ask. “What’s your name?”
“Joey.” He looks up at me as he steps back but leaves his hand on the side of my waist as if I’m going to disappear.
“Joey. That’s a good name. Do you play soccer here?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“Very cool. Do you want to take a picture or something?”
He twists his lips and pulls his phone from his pocket. The damn thing is shattered in a million pieces. The screen, the camera lens, everything. It’s clear he’s embarrassed by it by the way he tries to use his hands to hide the cracks.
He can’t.
“It’s just for texting home. It doesn’t have anything else on it. No internet or—”
“Don’t need any to take a picture now, do we?” I say to try and make him feel better. “Here. Let me see it. I have longer arms.”
“Okay.”
I reach for his phone and then squat down beside him. We look at our image reflected back at us. We look like a mosaic in the shattered glass—broken pieces—but our smiles are genuine, and his excitement is alive in his expression. “Perfect,” I say as I hand his phone back to him and then shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, Joey, I’m Hardy.”
He giggles like a kid his age should, and it makes me smile. “I know who you are, silly.”
“Maybe, but I had to at least have some manners,” I say. “So you play here? That means we’ll get to see each other over the next few weeks then, right?”
“Promise?” There is so much emotion in those two broken syllables that my tongue feels thick in my mouth.
Promises. A thing that has never been kept when made to me, and yet ... this promise feels necessary . And for the first time in forever, it’s one I want to keep. There’s no goddamn way I’m going to break this one to Joey.
“Yeah.” I offer a tight smile that I swear I can feel all the way in my chest. “I promise.”
I barely know the kid, but I swear to God, I know that look in his eyes, I have felt that look in his eyes, and I know my arse isn’t going to let him down.
Looks like I’m fucking stuck with my decision.
I cough to relieve the pressure in my chest.
“Are you waiting for someone to come pick you up?”
“No. Yes.” He looks down and then back up. “They forget. A lot .”
“So did they forget?” I shrug away how those words make me feel.
“Looks like it.” He glances over his shoulder. “Their medicine ... it makes them so funny they forget.”
Medicine? More like drugs if what I’m reading from him is right. My heart aches for this little kid when I like to think I don’t have one.
I clear my throat. “How are you getting home?” And how can I want him to go home when he’s going home to that?
Not your problem, Hardy. Just ... don’t get involved.
He points over his shoulder to a beat-up BMX bike. “I ride. It’s not far.”
“You sure?”
He nods. “Yeah. I do it almost every day.”
I glance around as if that’s going to make the neighborhood I drove through to get here any safer. “You sure?”
“Yep.” He backs away, his smile wide. “I still can’t believe you’re here.” The astonishment in his voice digs deep down inside of me and reminds me of that feeling when I first met one of my idols. How my dad stood with me for an hour after a game on the off chance we’d catch the team walk out to their cars.
“I’m here.”
“You’ll be back? You’re not going to break your promise?”
How many times did I ask my mum that same question in one form or another?
You’re not going to break your promise?
And how many times did I know when she promised me she wouldn’t break it, that she would?
“No. I’m not going to break my promise.”
He stares at me with an intensity I don’t expect, almost as if he’s trying to determine if I am a safe bet or not, before nodding. “Okay. I believe you.” Joey’s smile is still plastered, and his head is rocking from side to side as if he’s afraid I’m going to disappear when he looks anywhere else.
“I’ll be here. See you tomorrow?”
He nods as he takes a step back, that lopsided smile crawling over his lips and making his freckles dance. “Yep.”
I watch him walk toward his bike, his head down as he scrolls through the photos we just took. He then gets on his bike and whoops loudly as he rides down the street, his carefree laugh floating back toward me as I watch him pass beneath the glow of a streetlight.
Fucking kid. In one fell swoop he just roped me into this place—more than figuring out Whitney Barnes.
I yank my sweatshirt off the fence and head back to my car. It’s then I notice the light on in the window of what Whitney referred to as the clubhouse earlier today. It’s on the back half of the building that one could consider an office. The window is large and allows me a glimpse into the sparsely furnished room.
There’s a leather couch on one side that has clearly seen better days with its worn patches, and it has a few framed motivational posters hanging above it. There’s a foosball table in the center of the room, what looks like a pinball machine against the far wall, and a few other items I can’t exactly make out from where I’m standing.
But it’s the woman who walks into the room blowing on a Cup Noodles container who holds my attention. She takes a spoonful and then shakes her head, clearly scalding her tongue. She sets the food down and moves toward the foosball table, where she begins to spin the handles with what looks like the weight of the world bearing down on her shoulders.
She seems sad, conflicted, but why? She has had more attention on this club in the past twelve hours than she’s probably had in years. She has ten thousand more dollars in her bank account than she did a week ago and maybe more rolling in because of the broadcast. And she has me coming back to do it all over again for the next few weeks.
What possibly could be weighing her down?
But for the first time since I walked into this fucking place, I think I understand. She has a hundred more Joeys that she’s worried about. That she feels responsible for.
And while I can meet one, take a picture, and promise to be here for a few weeks to try and cheer him up, it feels like she carries much more of their burdens than that.
“Who are you, Whitney Barnes?” I murmur into the darkened night.
The bigger question is ... what about you makes me want to know you better?