Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
Smith was trying his damnedest not to stare at Kenna. But it was hard to look away when she looked even more beautiful than usual tonight.
Of course, he’d always thought Kenna was beautiful no matter what, but seeing her in that summer dress was a revelation. The light green garment was flowy, with shoulder ties, and sprigged with tiny white flowers.
A far cry from the elegant trouser suits she liked to wear to work, and the only slightly less formal wide-legged slacks she preferred to wear at home.
Seeing her in this simple, sweet dress was a rare treat, and he couldn’t look away.
At least three of the nine goals he’d conceded in the first half of this terrible, terrible match had only happened because he’d been surreptitiously checking out his wife. She seemed so relaxed tonight. Free with her smiles and with her laughter.
She was fucking gorgeous.
“Hey. Hey, you…Jenson! Watch the goddamned ball, will you?” somebody yelled and Smith jerked his focus back on the game, where the second half had already begun.
Shit.
He looked up just in time to catch a ball right in the face.
The force of the shot whipped his head back, the ball bounced upward, and his hands instinctively reached for it even while his feet flew out from under him.
But the ball was already gone, having bounced off his face, over his head, and across the goal line, where it rolled to a gentle stop just shy of the back of the net.
Smith, meanwhile found himself sprawled flat on his back, arms and legs spread, while he stared up at the starless night sky.
His face was on fire and throbbing unpleasantly. He prodded his teeth with his tongue, checking for any loose ones, but thankfully everything seemed intact.
Who the hell had taken that shot? Fucking Ronaldo? No teen should have that much power behind their kick.
“Shit, man! You okay?” Harris’s face popped into his field of vision. Grey’s identical, not-quite-as-concerned face appeared next to his brother’s. The other men and the kids all gradually came to huddle around his prone body as well, some faces concerned, others clearly fighting back laughter.
“You should’ve been paying attention, really,” Grey said without any real inflection in his voice. But his eyes, sparking with amusement, gave his feelings away.
“Shut up, Greyson. I’d love to see you do better.”
“Okay,” Greyson said with a shrug before unceremoniously bending down to tug Smith’s gloves from his hands. “I’ll stand in as your substitute. You need to ice”—he waved an airy hand at Smith’s face—“that.”
“Is it bad?” Smith asked, still trying to assess the damage, even though his face was mostly numb now.
“Let me have a look,” a familiar voice proposed from behind Spencer Carlisle’s bulk. The man moved aside and allowed Kenna to step into the circle of gathered players.
Smith made a soft protestation and struggled to sit up, but Harris got to his haunches and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Stay down, Smith. Let the doc take a look.”
Kenna graced Harris with one of the beautiful smiles that she’d been so lavishly dishing out all evening and sank to her knees on the damp grass beside Smith.
Well, this was fucking humiliating. And yet, Smith was so goddamned happy just to have her within touching distance again.
He met her eyes mutely, hoping that she had a smile to spare for him as well. But her face had closed up again. There clearly would be no smiles for him.
Her brows knit and her lips pursed as she did a swift visual assessment of his face.
“Is my nose broken?” he asked, still not able to feel much, but worried that it was worse than he’d initially thought.
She prodded delicately at the bridge of his nose and shook her head.
“It doesn’t appear to be, but you’re going to have a nasty bruise around your left eye.” Her fingers carefully pushed at the skin around his eye. “I don’t think you have a facial fracture though. Just a few broken blood vessels in and around your eye. Do you know what day it is?”
“Saturday.”
“Who scored last?”
“My face.” There were a few scattered chuckles from the surrounding group.
Kenna’s face remained stony.
“What’s your name?”
“Smith Jenson.”
“Follow my finger.”
She waved her right index finger from left to right and back again.
“I don’t think you’re concussed. But you do need to sit out the rest of the game.”
“Why? Is it because I’m so terrible at it?”
More chuckles, but not even the ghost of a smile from the only person he’d hoped to amuse.
She shifted her gaze from his face to Harris’s and nodded. Harris immediately released his hold on Smith’s shoulder, and grabbed one of Smith’s elbows to help him sit upright.
“I can manage,” Smith protested mildly, and Harris’s hand fell away.
Kenna pushed to her feet and joined Tina who’d been hovering anxiously a little off to one side. She didn’t spare Smith a backward glance.
He got up and got a few pats on the backs from the other guys.
“I’m sorry about that, mister,” one of the taller teens—a gangly girl of about fifteen, with dark brown skin and a braided bob—apologized. “I didn’t ’spect you to take it right in the face like that. I thought you would duck out of the way like you did with the other shots.”
There were a few sniggers from both teams, and he cast a jaundiced eye over the group. See if he’d ever play with this bunch of ingrates again.
“No harm done,” Smith told the girl with the iron foot. “That was a great shot. Well done.”
The girl smiled and hung her head bashfully, while her teammates all gave her good-natured shoves.
“Lindiwe is one of our best players,” one of the boys bragged. “She’s being scouted by a big Italian team to play on their junior girls’ team.”
“Well then, I suppose having my face smashed in by a future superstar isn’t too bad,” Smith said, with a grin that hurt his burning cheeks. “One day I’ll be able to brag about this moment.”
A streak of dark red burned its way onto the girl’s cheekbones and her shy smiled widened, while a couple of the other kids ribbed her in Xhosa.
The teens dashed away to retrieve the ball and the group of men disbanded as well, leaving Smith with nothing left to do but take the long, solitary walk of ignominy back to the bleachers. Tina and Kenna were already back in their seats, and Tina waved him over to sit beside her.
He hesitated, eyeing Kenna, who sat on his sister’s other side. She was steadfastly ignoring him and having an animated conversation with Libby on her left.
He walked over to Tina, who handed him his lightweight zip-up hoodie. He took it gratefully, dragging it on over his rapidly cooling muscles, and sat down next to his sister.
Tina passed him a bottle of water and a couple of aspirin.
“Did that look bad bad or badass?” he asked Tina in a low voice. His sister snorted then chuckled, and turned her head to look at him.
“What do you think, man?”
He grimaced.
“I was hoping it didn’t look as bad as it felt.”
“You went arse over tits, Smith. It wasn’t at all impressive. In a team with a history of really terrible players, you’re possibly the worst one they’ve ever had.”
“Come on, I can’t have been that bad.” As he said it, a cheer went up from the stands and he looked up just in time to see Greyson leap up, one arm extended, to save another lethal shot from the dangerously talented Lindiwe.
“He’s got no business being that good,” Smith complained. “He was never great at team sports.”
“I know, right? He’s like a soccer savant or something. Easily one of the best players on the team. And Greyson and Harris play off each other really well too, which is a little surprising considering how often they clash or bicker.”
Flynn—who had startled awake after that last big cheer—began to fret in his stroller, which was parked with the other strollers right next to their corner of the small stand.
Smith quickly retrieved his nephew before he could start wailing and wake Jamie and Libby’s twenty-month-old Pippa, who was fast asleep in her stroller.
He rejoined Tina, who handed him a bottle of formula. The bottle worked like a charm and Flynn quickly settled against Smith’s chest.
“I should take him from you,” Tina said without much conviction. “You’re all sweaty. My baby is going to smell rank, thanks to you.”
“You don’t mind do you, my love?” Smith whispered against his nephew’s downy hair. Both babies had a sleek, skull-hugging cap of bright red hair, the exact same shade as their mother’s.
Flynn’s only response to Smith’s question was to curl a chubby fist in Smith’s neck.
He was kicking lazily as he drank, eyes drifting shut.
Smith, who held the thirteen-month-old cradled in one arm, wrapped the fist of his supporting arm around one fat little thigh, while his other hand held the bottle.
Flynn was apparently dissatisfied with the way Smith was holding the bottle and curled his own hand around it. Smith let him have it and pressed an affectionate kiss on the baby’s head, enjoying the clean, warm, powdery smell of his nephew.
He looked up from the drowsy baby to say something to Tina, but all thought fled from his brain when he locked eyes with Kenna instead.
She was watching him. And from the hectic flush that settled on her face, it was clear that she hadn’t meant for him to catch her watching.
Her eyes shimmered with a depth of feeling that made him silently gasp. He didn’t know what was behind that look. And he definitely wasn’t sure why the unfathomable, unreadable emotion in those beautiful eyes grabbed him by the throat and squeezed tightly.
All he knew was that he was caught in a stranglehold, trapped by that stare. When the first fat, cold drop of moisture plopped onto the hand wrapped around Flynn’s leg, it diverted him enough to finally break the hypnotic hold she’d had over him.
As he watched, another drop landed next to it.
Shit. He looked up to check the sky and a third raindrop fell directly in his injured eye.