The Thing About My Rival (The Boston Commoners #1)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

HUGO

My God, this city can feel like sitting in a bucket of sweat some mornings.

And given that no one’s shown up to training yet, I might as well have stayed inside enjoying the air-con.

Where the fuck is everyone, anyway?

There’s just me and the intern—I keep forgetting his name—who’s getting out the balls and the rest of the gear.

I’ve been standing on this sideline for twenty minutes without a sign of a single player turning up for practice.

Wilcox isn’t here either. Thank God. Best she keeps her widely spaced cones, fine arse, and sharing circles as far away from me as possible.

Sharing circles .

Jesus.

I’ve been standing here for so long my bad knee’s aching from inactivity. As sticky and humid as it is, I’m going to have to go for a bit of a jog to loosen it and stop it from seizing up .

I’ve already been to the gym this morning. Training before breakfast is a lifelong habit broken only during those first dark your-career-is-over days last year. And I’m never going back to that hellhole in my mind.

I head toward the north goal of the training field, away from the intern who’s now passing the time by kicking balls into an open net—badly.

Can’t remember the last time I ran around a pitch on my own. Probably not since I was a kid at Man United and would show up before anyone else. I was so in awe of even being allowed into the training ground that I wanted to spend as much time there as I possibly could. It was the stuff of dreams.

And it was nowhere near as bloody hot as here.

But still, there’s something magical about an empty pitch. Whether it’s a giant, glossy international venue or the slightly grotty training field next to the Commoners’ slightly grotty stadium. It’s like you’re one of the privileged few granted permission to be here when no one else is. All quiet and peaceful. Can even hear the birds singing. It’s almost meditative.

Christ, now I’m starting to sound like her .

Wilcox has been taking up way more of my head space than I’d like. And not just because of this whole job fiasco.

No matter how much I’ve tried to rack my brains I cannot, for the life of me, remember exactly what happened in that cleaning closet in Paris. And that is one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever known—other than Wilcox herself, of course.

I remember chatting up a woman, who I now know was her, on the dance floor. And kissing her. But it’s driving me nuts that I don’t remember what it felt like. She does have pretty nice lips, so it might have been good. Why I’m so desperate to recall what it was like to have my tongue inside the mouth of the most irritating person I can imagine, whose methods are the exact opposite of mine, I have no idea.

But still, it would be nice to know.

It would be even nicer to know exactly what the fuck happened in that cupboard.

It’s so hard to stop thinking about how I’ve had my hands and mouth all over the woman I have to work with every day, the woman I have to beat to keep this job. Hell, it’s even possible Mr. Happy was inside her.

It’d be a damn shame if that’s what happened and my memory’s blanked it out.

Not because I want to shag her now. God, no. It’s just that if that’s what happened, it would be a terrible waste to not know what it felt like.

Did I hold onto those curved hips? Or have my mouth on that cloverleaf birthmark below her left ear?

I reach the goal, turn, and head back toward the other end. Still not a player in sight.

I gaze up at the vibrant, cloudless sky.

Maybe I took a bit too much of my frustration out on her over that whole circle situation yesterday.

I’d vowed after punching that reporter that I’d keep a handle on my temper. And while I didn’t lump anyone in the face, I suppose I didn’t have to charge in there like a starving bull who’d just had his dinner stolen.

I mean, the main point of me taking this job is to prove to everyone that I’m not the dick they think I am.

I am better than that. Just like Wilcox said.

At least I want to be.

And I definitely want her to think I am. Which is weird, because why should I give a shit what my rival for the job thinks about me?

Maybe I’m being lazy. Maybe I’ve been able to fall back on my natural physical skills, the ones I don’t have to work for, for so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have to try to be good at something.

Christ, it’s not like I don’t have the talent and the experience to keep this job without resorting to wankerish behavior like sniping at Wilcox and putting her down. I can beat her fair and square on skills alone.

I can win this job with dignity.

And that will make victory even sweeter.

And yet there I was yesterday, dickishly raising my voice to a room full of people, including a complete stranger. A complete stranger who is, indeed, one of the best sports psychologists in the country—I looked her up last night.

Perhaps I should apologize the next time I see her.

Need to be careful, though. Can’t totally blow the famous Hugo Powers reputation and let people realize I’m a softy who wants people to like me.

A strange squawky squeal jolts me back to reality. My eyes shoot toward the intern and the direction of the sound right as something feathered falls from the air and lands on the ground a few feet in front of him. Meanwhile, the ball he’s obviously just kicked veers off, closer to the corner flag than the goal.

He’s concussed a fucking bird.

I pick up the pace to get to it just as the kid arrives at the feathered lump on the turf. He pulls back his right foot and takes aim.

“Oi.” My already very hot blood takes only a fraction of a millisecond to reach boiling point. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“It’s dead,” he says with a shrug.

“You don’t know that.” I crouch down and examine the poor little fella who’s lying on his side, completely still, eyes staring blankly.

“Go fetch that ball you have no control over while I sit here with it a minute,” I tell the kid.

“Sit with it?” He laughs.

I look up at him, hoping every ounce of disgust I’m feeling is written on my face. “Yes. If this guy’s alive, he needs protecting while he pulls himself together.”

“Protecting from what?”

“Well, your inability to kick straight for a start. But also, any passing hawk that might fancy it for breakfast.”

“Hawk?” he asks with as much bafflement as if I’d suggested an elephant might fly by.

“Yeah. There’s loads of red-tailed hawks around here.” Movement near my feet catches my eye. The bird’s legs are twitching. “I see them flying over the common all the time.”

Then a wing flickers. And his eyes move, like he’s coming around. “See. I told you. We just needed to give the little fella a chance.”

“How did you know?”

“Birds used to fly into the back window of our house all the time when I was a kid. Think it was something to do with the reflection of the trees or something. The first time I saw it happen I thought this wren thing was dead. But as I was carrying it over to a flowerbed to bury it, it sprang into life on my hand and flew off.

“After that, every time I heard one slam into the window, I went out to protect it till it came around. Well, I mean, some of them I did have to bury. But not as many as you’d think.”

The robin’s up on his feet now, still a bit stunned or he wouldn’t be standing this close to us. But there’s some life in his eyes, and he’s moving his head from side to side, taking in where he’s landed.

“Look at all of his different colors,” I tell the kid. “That always surprised me. You don’t realize how many they have until you get this close.”

The bird suddenly puffs himself up and ruffles his feathers, and with a good shake they all fall neatly back into place like nothing ever happened.

“He’s back.” The endorphin hit from seeing him recover brings on a smile I wasn’t expecting.

And with that, the bird takes a couple hops away from us, spreads his wings and flies off.

“Whoa,” the intern says as if I’ve performed a magic trick.

“Right,” I tell him. “Now go fetch that ball. And if you must play with the equipment, be more fucking careful.”

I stand up and stretch my legs, rubbing my bad knee that’s not enjoyed the crouching.

Still not another human in sight.

What the hell is going on? Has someone called a meeting and I didn’t get the memo?

I check my emails as I march through the tunnel and head toward the locker room.

The janitor and one of the grounds crew look the other way when I pass them. But then they’re among the long-serving members of staff who hug Wilcox whenever they see her.

Yeah, maybe I should apologize to her for being a dick. I should be the bigger person and show we can have different ideas but still be on the same side. I mean, ultimately we both want this team to win, right? We do have something in common.

I open the locker room door to find it empty. There’s not a single sign anyone has even been in here today. No clothes hanging up, no shoes or kit bags on the floor.

The only person in the vicinity is Wilcox, sitting at her desk on the other side of the large plexiglass panel, typing on her laptop.

On the wall behind her, she’s now hung a photo of the US women’s team and staff taken right after they won the World Cup three years ago. The captain is front and center, holding up the goddamn trophy.

Swear to God she’s put that up just to annoy me.

But if I’m going to be Nice Hugo, I should think that if I’d been involved in a World Cup win I’d also want to shout it from the rooftops. So, much as I’d like to criticize her for that, it’s probably not fair.

Yeah, I’m going to say sorry for bursting into her session the way I did yesterday. I could have achieved the same thing and gotten the guys out and onto the field without behaving like that.

Wilcox glances up when I open the door from the locker room to the office. Her eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second, then immediately turn back to her computer screen. An image of her looking up at me like that in that Paris club, but with smiling eyes and blond hair cascading over her bare shoulders, flashes across my mind.

Those thoughts need to take a fucking hike.

And it’s easier than expected to shake them off when my ears are assaulted by the voices of the world’s most incompetent TV football commentators, Frank Sharpe and Gilbert Rossi, spouting forth from her laptop .

“Well, my sources tell me the two head coaches thing is anything but forward-thinking management,” Sharpe says. “I hear it’s all due to an administrative snafu and they never wanted Drew Wi?—”

She’s stabbed the mute button.

“Why are you listening to those two arseholes?” I ask her.

“It’s their new podcast. Thought I’d give it a try. Keep up with the news.”

“Seems we are the news.”

She shrugs.

“Anyway,” I say. “Where is everyone? They were due out for training half an hour ago.”

She starts typing, her eyes firmly fixed on the screen. “At Downward Dogma.”

“At what ?”

She sighs like she can’t believe how dumb I am. “Yoga studio, downtown. The guys will be going there once a week from now on. I’d prefer twice, but I figured the vein in your neck that throbs every time I speak might combustat that idea. So I’m trying to keep the peace.”

Jesus Christ. She’s done it again. Gone behind my back and arranged some new-age nonsense. Well, I’m definitely not apologizing now. Nice Hugo can fuck off.

“Training is every morning.” I step up to her desk and rest my hands on the edge. “On the pitch, Monday to Friday. That’s how it works.”

She doesn’t look up, leaving me staring down at the top of her ponytail that’s held together with sky blue and orange ties.

“If you want to do other things with them,” I tell her, “like baring their souls and downward fucking dogging, then that needs to be done at other times. ”

She leans back to meet my gaze and, keeping her eyes locked on mine, slowly closes the laptop and clasps her hands on top of it. Hands that have been Lord knows where on my body.

Christ, I wish I knew whether we’d shagged.

“Flexibility is a vital part of training.” She’s obviously trying to control her anger too, because her voice is like an emotionless robot. “It prevents injury. It’s good for their long-term careers.”

I push off the desk and stride along the tape line toward the window, shoving my hands through my hair and gripping my skull to try to stop what’s inside it from exploding.

“My only concern is for the game on Saturday. It’s only forty-eight hours away, for fuck’s sake. We need to come out of the gates fighting and win the first match with us in charge.”

“Exactly.” The serenity of her tone is a sharp contrast to the words I just spat out. “The first match with us in charge. Not you . Us . And if you want to win and go on winning, you’ll want them flexible, resilient and less prone to injury. Something yoga gives them that skills training doesn’t. Not only that, it also nurtures them, and they need that too.”

“Nurture?” I spin around on the line. “I’m not their fucking mother, and neither are you.”

“Yoga’s good for their mental as well as physical health.” How is she remaining so impassive?

I bet under that calm, still exterior, she’s suppressing a rabid desire to slap me in the face. I saw that fire, that passion in her, in our fight during yesterday morning’s training. I know it’s in there. Not least because, right now, the flames are leaking out of her pink cheeks—something she can’t control.

“We’re caring for all aspects of them as humans.” She reopens her laptop and taps some keys.

It’s impossible not to be impressed by the self-control it must be taking not to blow her stack at me. It’s also really fucking maddening.

“I stretch them out in training.” My attempt at calming my tone isn’t going so well. “That’s all they need. They don’t need to be as bendy as fucking pipe cleaners.”

I turn away again and stare out of the window at the rubbish bins and old cars.

“Not to mention,” she says, “it’ll do them good to have some training that doesn’t involve you yelling at them to push themselves further and further until they break.”

My attention is suddenly caught by the plant on the windowsill. It’s been moved so it’s sitting directly on top of the line I taped down the center.

“You don’t fucking kidnap my team and send them to yoga without telling me about it.” I stride up to the plant and shove it back to her side of the line, its long curly tendrils trembling from the movement.

“They are not your team, Hugo.” Her voice is louder, closer. “They are our team. Yours and mine. We are co-head coaches, remember?”

I turn around to find her standing behind my shoulder, just about still on her own side of the line.

“I’m doing my best to forget.” I rub the spot on the back of my neck that’s been a ball of tension since the moment Drew Wilcox walked into the locker room wafting the exact citrus scent that’s filling my nostrils with her proximity now.

Unable to meet her eyes, because the last thing I need is another flashback to what little I remember of that Paris club, I stare past her. “You can’t have the players engaged in all kinds of hippie bullshit without telling me and then in the next breath say we’re supposed to be working together. Strikes me, it’s you who’s not the team player.”

“I didn’t tell you I was sending them there because it’s obvious you’d never agree to it.” She flings her arms wide and thrusts her defiant chin toward me—a chin I’ve probably cupped in my hand. “But if we don’t have this stuff running in the background to support your hard-as-nails physical training, we could lose any one of them any second to injury or some sort of breakdown.”

I lean so far toward her that my torso must be over the line. “Are you deliberately trying to screw up my comeback?” Now I force myself to look into those green eyes. “Because I’m not going to let you.”

“I am not responsible for your comeback. My only responsibility is to this team.” She moves directly opposite me, squaring off in a head-to-head battle of wills. “So you can try to stop me all you like, but I know what I’m doing. I have credentials too.” She points at the photo hanging behind her desk.

I can’t say that seeing her in the same shot as that trophy doesn’t hurt my pride, but I’ll be damned if I let it show. “It’s not the same. What you’ve done is nothing like being out there on the field, with everyone’s hopes pinned on you, with the crowd roaring for you to take a strike at goal, and then hurling abuse when you miss. You have no fucking idea what that responsibility feels like.”

“I know how the business is run.” The angrier she gets, the more her eyes sparkle. “And I know how to take care of the players. So they don’t crack under pressure like you clearly did. ”

Okay. Below the belt. All bets are off. Nice Hugo is over the hills and far away and probably never to be seen again. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“The drinking, the clubbing, the…” She circles a hand in the air, searching for the word. “ Womanizing . If that’s not someone acting out because they can’t cope, I don’t know what is.”

“Oh, I see. It’s all about that, is it? You’re bitter because?—”

The sound of a throat being cleared comes from the doorway.

We both turn our heads to find Miller standing there, his brow furrowed with disapproval. “Sorry to interrupt your, er, meeting. But the four of us would like to see you upstairs.”

“When?” Wilcox asks through an innocent smile as she smooths down some strands of flyaway hair.

“Right now,” he says. Then spins on his heels and leaves.

“Fuck,” I say under my breath, at exactly the same time she does.