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

Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

DREW

Looking down on the training field from the owners’ office window and watching Hugo put the guys through their paces has taken on a whole new meaning this Monday morning.

Mostly because I’m watching him way more than I’m watching the players.

And also because I can still feel where he was on Saturday night. Which is hardly surprising since not only has it been a while, he’s also so goddamn big.

I call up his text from yesterday and read it for the four hundredth time.

HUGO

Morning, Wilcox. I’m texting you the next day so you can’t say I didn’t text you the next day. And because last night was amazing.

ME

It was. See you Monday.

I needed to cut off the conversation to buy some time for my head to stop spinning enough to let me think. And I knew if I’d seen him again yesterday that the second he looked at me my clothes would spontaneously fall off and my brain would cease to function again.

I should be down in my own office working on my plan to develop a Commoners’ youth academy, but I couldn’t stop myself from sneaking up here to take advantage of the view while none of the Fab Four are in.

I’m still staring at my phone when a fresh text pops up.

SUZANNA

Is 7:30 good this evening?

Shit. I’d totally forgotten. I’m supposed to be having dinner with my dad and stepmom tonight. As if my brain needs another uncomfortable relationship to handle. All I actually want is some peace and quiet to try to figure out how the hell to resist the man I want even more now that I’ve had a bit of him, despite the fact he’s the last man on earth I should have.

But there’s no way I’m canceling and giving my dad something to complain about. And Suzanna means well, so…

ME

Perfect. See you then!

Lord knows why I’m compelled to add the exclamation point. I’ve rarely felt less exclamation-pointy.

“Oh, shit. Sorry.” Amelia bursts through the door. “Didn’t realize you were in here. ”

“It’s okay. I’m just watching training. Since none of the bosses are here, I thought they wouldn’t mind me using their window.”

She moves toward the desk. “Wouldn’t you get a better view from out there?”

“Promised Hugo I wouldn’t interfere with his methodology.” I nod toward the field where he’s joining in with the high knee sprints, which can’t possibly be any good for his bad knee.

Amelia rounds the desk and rummages through one of the drawers. “He was weird this morning.”

“Who was?”

“Hugo.”

She’s suddenly much more interesting than the training session. “What do you mean he was weird?”

“There it is.” She takes a soccer ball-shaped stapler out of the drawer and holds it up. “Lent this to Leo last week and I guess he forgot to give it back.”

“But in what way was Hugo weird?”

“He called me early this morning.”

“Called you? How come he has your number?” My blood runs cold. Jesus Christ, has he been hitting on every woman at the club? Did the pub thing happen just because I was there and available? Am I an even bigger fool than I thought?

Amelia wrinkles her brow and looks at me like I’ve just asked her my own name. “Everyone has my number. And yours. And his. They’re all on the club call list.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Of course.” My cheeks heat. That must have sounded ridiculous.

And where the hell did that flash of jealousy come from? That’s not okay. That needs to go away and never come back .

Amelia walks back around the desk, running her fingers over the stapler. “Hugo wanted to know what you have in your travel mug in the mornings.” She looks up at me. “Weird, right?”

If my face wasn’t red before, it absolutely must be now because every inch of my skin is caught by a wave of warmth. Oh my God, that’s absolutely fucking adorable. And totally explains the cup of black coffee with two creamers and two sugars next to it that was on my desk when I got in this morning.

I’d wondered whether it was him. Maybe even hoped it was.

How do I find the heart to tell him I hate coffee and always drink tea.

I fight back the smile threatening to spread across my face and do my best to look puzzled and serious. “Yeah, that is a bit odd. What did you tell him?”

“I said, how the hell would I know? And if he wanted to know he could just ask you himself. I mean, why does everyone think I’m suddenly the expert on fetching people drinks and knowing what they like? I’m not a goddamn waitress. Though these guys want me to be.” She waves the stapler around the room.

“What do you mean?”

“The Fab Four have asked me to be their server in the owners’ box during games. For privacy reasons. They don’t want just any old restaurant staff waiting on them. They want someone they can trust. Particularly Leo. So they asked me. Me .” She pulls a baffled face and gestures at herself, a person no better suited to waitressing than I am to flying rocket ships to Mars.

“The extra cash though,” I say. “It would come in handy, what with?— ”

“Yeah, they did offer me a lot to do it. So I might.” She heads for the door. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to the training.”

I turn back to the window. The guys are now engaged in a five-a-side game. Just as I focus on what’s going on, Ramon slide-tackles Bakari, cleats up, and takes him down.

“Fuck no. Oh, fuck. No!”

“What’s up?” Amelia rushes to my side—my voice must have sounded as panicky as I feel.

“Terrible tackle. Appalling.” I jab my finger toward the pitch where Ramon and Bakari are getting up and dusting themselves off.

“They look okay,” she says.

“Luckily.” And it is only luck. “Ramon could have broken Bakari’s ankle. You’d get sent off in a game for that. You certainly don’t do it to your own teammates in training and risk their careers and the success of the club.”

“Sounds like he’s going to get a piece of your mind.”

“He should be getting a piece of Hugo’s right now.” The cute cozy feeling I just had about Hugo drains right out of my toes as he stands on the sideline and blows the whistle for play to continue.

“What’s wrong with him? Why isn’t he doing anything?” Now I’m clammy all over. “He yells at them all the time for not pushing hard enough, not trying hard enough, not winning enough, and this is what it results in—dangerous tackles. Look at him. He doesn’t care that one of them could have just jeopardized the other’s future. He’s completely fucking silent.”

Amelia stares at me while I stare at the players on the field. “Maybe it’s Hugo who’s going to get a piece of your mind.”

The sound of chatting players and a bouncing soccer ball move along the hallway, past our closed office door and into the locker room.

The blind is drawn, of course, but I can hear them laughing about a video Martinez posted yesterday of himself hiding in Schumann’s locker and scaring the crap out of him when he opened it.

It was funny, and Schumann, our older, solid captain, took it with good humor. In fact, the whole team spirit is coming along well.

At least I thought it was until Ramon’s selfish behavior earlier.

I decided to give Hugo a chance to deal with him—give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he would take him aside after training and talk to him quietly. So I’ve been sitting here at my desk trying to concentrate on my youth academy business plan. If the Fab Four see I have solid ideas for the future it might swing them my way.

“Hey!” Hugo bursts through the door, a ball tucked under his arm.

I might be furious with him, but that doesn’t stop me noticing his delicious lips spread into a wide happy-go-lucky smile. Nor does it stop the instant tingle in my lady bits. I squeeze my thighs together in an effort to shut it down.

He drums his fingers on the ball. “Did you like the coff?—”

“Have you given Ramon a talking-to?” I can’t let my nonprofessional feelings for him get in the way of the all- important professional issue at hand, so I resolutely refuse to smile back.

Hugo stops in his tracks, puzzled. “For?”

“That outrageous tackle on Bakari.”

“You were watching?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t see you out there.” He gives me a flirtatious side eye, and damn those butterflies in my belly for waking up. “I would definitely have remembered.”

“I was upstairs.”

“Ah. I see.” He bounces the ball a couple times, smirking. “Secretly watching. Me, rather than the training, I hope.”

“Shush.” I slam my finger against my lips. Anyone walking past that open door behind him could have heard that.

I’m definitely not telling him that yes, the reason I went up there in the first place was to watch him in action. The way he struts around a field like he belongs there more than anywhere. The way he so elegantly handles the ball and kicks it like it’s a part of him, like he and it are one and the same, in total harmony. Add that to his tall, muscular physique and natural swagger and it’s a beautiful sight to behold.

“Of course I was up there to watch training. And I saw what Ramon did.”

“He was a bit overenthusiastic, that’s all.” Hugo shrugs and returns to bouncing the ball.

“It was more than that, it was dangerous. Are you going to talk to him?”

“God, no.” He catches the ball and rotates it between his hands. “I’m not doing anything that might dampen that lad’s enthusiasm. He’s the best we’ve got. ”

A rising tide of anger lifts me to my feet. “You’re seriously not going to talk to him about putting other players at risk of serious injury? Putting the team at risk?”

He steps over to his still completely empty and unused desk and rests the ball on top of it. “You’re overreacting, Wilcox. Nothing to worry about.” His furrowed brow says he’s baffled as to why I’m making a big deal of it.

He places one hand on top of the ball, the other on his hip, and his sexy as hell smile returns. “But, more importantly, did you like the coff?—”

“If you’re not going to talk to him, I am.” Before I know it, I’m around the other side of my desk and face to face with him over the line he taped along the floor.

“Oh, hang on a minute.” The flirtiness falls from his expression which is now all business. “You said you wouldn’t interfere in the on-the-pitch training.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Hugo Powers? Have you forgotten what happened to that ?” I point toward his left knee. “Have you forgotten that the injury that finished your career came from a reckless training tackle from a teammate who was showing off?”

“It’s not the same. The guy who did that to me was a dick. Ramon is not.”

“But he could become one. If left unchecked.”

“I’m not checking him for something like that.”

“Well, I am. He’s benched for the next game.”

“Whoa, no.” Hugo holds his hands up and takes a step back while shaking his head, his jaw tight. “Hell, no. You don’t get to make a unilateral decision to bench a player.”

“Oh, so now you suddenly think we should work as a team, do you? You and me?”

I freeze, my own words telling me what I should have already realized .

Shit.

It’s like a veil has been lifted from my eyes. I see it clearly now, see what game he’s actually playing.

An icy, furious, and disappointed-in-myself chill runs down my spine. “So that’s what…what Saturday night was about. Bring the little woman on side and she’ll do whatever you want, roll over and give you the job.”

I turn away, blowing out my disgust in something between a snort and an incredulous laugh. My whole body is on fire now, hands trembling, armpits damp. “No fucking way. I love this club. I care about the players’ futures. And Ramon has no future if he gets carried away with everything, just like you did.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Hugo spits out the words.

“That’s your problem here, isn’t it? You see yourself in him. You see that young brash player full of natural talent and ready to take the world by storm, and you think, ‘That was me.’”

“I had no idea you admired my skills so much, Wilcox,” he says with a flirtatious flick of his eyebrows. “But since you mention it?—”

He cannot sexy his way out of this one. “That’s why you won’t discipline him. Because it would be like saying the way you’ve lived your life was wrong. That letting your ability go to your head and getting carried away with the money and the success and the fame, and banging the current hot model or the latest pop star, wasn’t a good way to live.”

“I don’t have many complaints, to be honest.” He shrugs, a vision of calmness in the face of my frustrated fury.

“No? So this is what you dreamed of, is it?” I gesture to our shabby little office with the paint peeling off the concrete walls and his unloved desk and empty bookshelves. “Because perhaps if you hadn’t slept with the daughter of every coach who signed you, hadn’t shown up for so many training sessions hungover, and hadn’t been so quick with your temper, perhaps you wouldn’t be stuck here now. With me.”

Christ, yes. I should never have allowed myself to think there was anything special between us. It wasn’t that he wanted me that badly at all. It’s that he wants this job badly. And he thinks if I’m getting naked with him, I’m more likely to do whatever he wants at work and make it easier for him to get his contract renewed.

Well, screw him. “Any coach worth his salt would bench Ramon for what he did today. And I’m going to do it. He has to learn. There has to be consequences for bad behavior.” I stare hard into Hugo’s eyes. “On and off the pitch.”

“Oh, I see.” He gives me a superior, knowing nod, and pushes his fingers through his hair—the hair I so desperately hung onto when his face was between my legs. “Is this about Saturday night?”

“It’s about needing to take care of the players. And sometimes that means they have to learn a hard lesson.”

“Not playing Ramon on Saturday would be suicide. We’ll never beat DC without him. We need to win as many of our remaining games as possible to have the slightest chance of making the playoffs.”

“This team”—I point at the door to the locker room, which thankfully is buzzing with enough chatter and noise to drown out our raised voices—“is more than just one player. And this team has more than one coach. I stepped back and let you do things your way on the field. I gave you that. But today you made a big mistake. And for the sake of the team and Ramon himself, this one is mine.”

I spin away from him and move toward the locker room door.

Grabbing the handle, I close my eyes tight before opening it just a crack so I can shout through. “Ramon. When you’re done, in here.”

“He’s in the shower,” Schumann’s voice calls back.

“Tell him when he’s ready he needs to come and see me.”

“Sure,” Schumann says. “And thanks for closing your eyes.”

“It’s as much for my benefit as yours.” I close the door behind me and open my eyes to see Hugo standing in the doorway to the corridor, the ball back under his arm.

“You’re on your own with this one,” he says, calm now.

“Good. It’s probably better that I’m on my own with everything.”

His face drops. But then he’s probably never had a woman turn him down before. He looks genuinely dejected. Like he might even be hurt. But does Hugo freaking Powers even possess the capacity to be hurt?

He shakes his head and moves into the hallway in the direction of the exit.

“Oh, and by the way,” I call after him, “I drink tea.”