With the Assist (Boston Playmakers #1)

1 - Wesley

Wesley

I’m fighting with a dress.

It’s black, expensive, and currently winning.

“You look hot,” Avery says from my bathroom doorway, her mouth tilted into a smug grin as she admires her handiwork. Also known as me. “Headline-worthy hot. If the Boston City Athlete Awards had a Most Likely to Get Hit On category, you’d win.”

“I look like I can’t breathe.” I tug at the fabric that’s digging into my ribs. “And I don’t need to get hit on. I need to survive three hours of forced mingling and get eight hours of sleep before training tomorrow.”

Harper snorts from the edge of my bed, scrolling through her phone and eating the last of the Oreos. “Most people don’t schedule early morning training after an awards banquet. Especially not after just winning the championship.”

I don’t have the luxury of being like most people.

“Most people aren’t trying to get picked up for the U.S. Women’s National Team.”

Our season ended this week, but I have no plans to slow down. My off-season training starts tomorrow morning with cardio and weightlifting, followed by yoga in the afternoon, then ice baths and massages in the evening to help with recovery.

Not tonight. Tonight I have this stupid ceremony that probably won’t even serve anything within my diet plan.

It’s not my figure I’m worried about. My grueling exercise regimen takes care of that, leaving me toned in all the right places.

My concern is ensuring optimal performance.

Everything in my life, down to what I eat, is centered around guaranteeing my excellence on the field.

This year, the National Team is within my reach, and I can almost feel that jersey on my skin. I want it more than I want to breathe. Events like tonight’s are distractions I don’t need.

In theory, one night off shouldn’t matter. Except the last time I let myself forget my priorities, I’d almost blown everything. I won’t make the same mistake twice.

Avery pushes off the doorway and saunters across the room. Her confidence is the perfect accessory for her backless emerald dress. She looks like she stepped out of a magazine, not off the same field as me, with her bright red hair pulled into a slicked-back bun. She’s showstopping and knows it.

“Coach Bennett would be so proud of you,” she says. “Captain of the team. Face of the franchise. Hates dresses.”

Next to her, I feel like a troll. A well-dressed troll, but still a troll. She claims confidence will make my dress work. I claim confidence is impossible while wearing five-inch heels and a dress this tight.

“I don’t hate dresses,” I say. “I hate clothes designed to be uncomfortable while serving no real purpose.”

“This dress serves a purpose,” Harper mumbles around her mouthful of cookies. “It makes men forget how to think with their heads. At least the one on their shoulders.”

Avery howls and high-fives her. They get sick enjoyment out of my misery. I need new friends.

“That’s exactly what I want to avoid.” I latch a bracelet around my pale wrist. “A room full of male athletes boasting about how big and strong they are.”

Avery grins, sliding on her heels that are somehow even taller than mine. “You think that’s all they talk about?”

“I think they’ll take one look at us.” I motion between Avery and me. “And think we’re just girls, not professional athletes.”

“I like being both.” Avery turns to the mirror, fixing her cleavage as if it wasn’t already impressive.

We’re opposites in every sense of the word. She might be small, but her personality is huge, and she knows it. The girl takes outgoing to another level. We have a running joke, that it’s why we work so well. When I go anywhere with her, I don’t have to say a word.

I catch my reflection in the mirror and grimace. My brown hair is curled into large waves that end midway down my back, and my makeup is dark. Since I prefer my hair up and my face bare, it feels like I’m pretending to be someone else.

It’s fitting considering that’s exactly what I’ll have to do to get through the night. Be someone friendlier. Be someone who enjoys the attention. Be someone less intimidating.

“I don’t understand why I have to go. I already thanked them for the nomination. That should be enough.”

“You’re the team captain,” Harper says, offering me the last Oreo. “You can’t send a fruit basket and call it leadership.”

“I could,” I argue, taking it from her. “I should.”

I crawl up onto my bed and rest my head on her shoulder, the way I have since we became friends.

The Oreo crumbles as I take a bite, scattering crumbs across my dress.

I don’t care enough to swipe them away. Screw the diet plan, Oreos are delicious.

Besides, tonight is shot to hell anyway.

Now, at least I’m enjoying one thing about this day.

“Send the fruit basket after you win.” Her hug is warm, and it calms the storm of anxiety brewing inside me. She’s always believed in me more than I believe in myself.

My commitment to soccer has nothing to do with ego or believing I’m the best. It’s necessity. It’s been my life for so long that I don’t know how to carve it out of me. I stopped trying to a long time ago.

Avery leans in, fixing a loose curl near my temple. “Coach Bennett would hunt you down if you skipped.”

I sigh. “She already threatened an extra conditioning session.”

Harper winces, tucking a piece of her blond hair behind her ear. “That’s cruel.”

“Ha. That’s supposed to be a deterrent?” Avery jokes. “Extra training for you is like orgasms for me. Never enough.”

Harper and I both choke on our cookies.

“You are so wrong.” I slap her shoulder. “Even if you aren’t actually wrong at all.” I sigh. “She knows I wouldn’t let the team down, even if I do hate this.”

Avery rolls her eyes. “You hate social events. You secretly love winning awards.”

“I love winning games,” I correct. “Awards are for the ego.”

Harper laughs. “God, you’re exhausting.”

“You’d think after seven years together, you’d be less averse to fun.” Avery brushes more blush onto my cheeks.

She’s been my glam expert since freshman year, back when we both played for Boston College. I wish I could say I had more fun back then, but I wasn’t much better. Still, we fell in love with this city together.

After college, I managed to get a contract here, and after one season apart professionally, the soccer gods shone down on us, and Avery signed with Boston, too.

Now, as she touches up my makeup for the hundredth time, I realize it isn’t the makeover that I hate. It’s what the night represents. Shaking hands with people who don’t even know what a center midfielder is while standing next to one.

As women in sports, we’re expected to mix and mingle, always wearing a smile on our faces while people act like they know more about our sport than we do.

The mansplaining at these kinds of events is usually out of control. And while I prefer to stay quiet, I have a hard time biting my tongue when people deserve to be put in their place.

“I have fun.”

“What’s the last fun thing you did?” Avery challenges.

Shit. My mind actually comes up blank. Empty. That should be the only sign I need to know that they’re right, but I refuse to acknowledge it.

“I ran that 10k for the animal shelter.”

“You mean the one you took so seriously you trained for it?” Harper asks, standing and curling her shirt up to catch the falling cookie crumbs.

“Says the girl who married an accountant,” I fire back.

Harper shoots me a look as she dumps the crumbs into the trash. “James is a very exciting accountant.”

“Name one exciting thing he’s done,” Avery demands.

“He proposed to me at midfield, during my last collegiate soccer game.”

Avery and I exchange a look, silently acknowledging how little we understand her choice to give up her dreams for a guy utterly undeserving of the sacrifice.

A brief silence settles over the room, and I regret prodding at her. Talking about her soccer career and early retirement makes her nostalgic. It’s like when a song you haven’t heard in years comes on, and you still know all the words.

She’d been more talented than Avery and I combined despite being three years younger. When James, her high school sweetheart, proposed, she gave it all up and married him the second she graduated this past summer.

Considering she would’ve been able to play anywhere she wanted, I’d be lying if I said her choice didn’t bum me out. All three of us playing on the same team, kicking ass and owning the field together, would’ve been a dream.

But underneath it was a bite of jealousy because she could choose a lower-paying career as a teacher without consequences. I’d never tell her that, though. If she is happy, I’m happy for her.

I clear my throat, throwing myself back into the line of fire. “Okay. What about when we wrapped every single thing in Coach Bennett’s office with Christmas wrapping paper?”

Harper’s quiet demeanor is replaced with laughter. Mission accomplished.

Avery’s face lights up. “Every single paperclip. It took her hours to unwrap it all.”

“And it took us a week of suicides to pay for it.”

“Worth it, but that was a year ago. If you're counting that as your most recent fun, we have a problem.”

I don’t want to unpack that. Not tonight. Maybe, not ever.

“You’re twenty-five,” Avery says. “Single and hot. The room will be filled with professional athletes who have stamina.” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“I have stamina,” I say, knowing that’s not what she means.

“You know what you don’t have?”

Harper cuts her off. “She means a partner who’s not battery-operated.”

“You know nothing about my vibrator.”

“You mean the one over here?” Avery sprints toward my nightstand drawer, but I stop her by launching a pillow across the room.

“Leave him alone!” I squeal, cheeks flushing when I realize I gave it a gender.

They both turn their heads to me, eyebrows raising, before we dissolve into a fit of laughter. For a moment, all the pressure and expectations fade.