Chapter 19
Iris
I wake up at three in the morning, and my blood goes cold when I see the left side of the bed is empty.
Two weeks without Paula have trained my body to react to the cold space where she should be. I reach out, grab the sheet, crumple it. No warmth.
I sit up. Scan the room. The dark. The bedroom door open.
Light in the kitchen.
I walk barefoot down the hall. The floor is freezing. It's always freezing in this apartment.
I find Paula sitting on the kitchen counter with her phone in one hand and a glass of water next to her. She's wearing my practice jersey from last year, the gray one, loose on her shoulders and short at the waist. Legs hanging. Bare feet.
“I didn't leave,” she whispers, and blows me a kiss.
“I can see that,” I say, stepping between her legs to kiss her.
***
Tuesday I show up to practice forty minutes early.
Tina is already there.
She's alone on the field, doing passing drills against a wall. Reps. Left foot, right foot, inside, outside. The sound of the ball steady and constant.
She sees me, waves, smiles, and goes back to her passes.
I just sit and watch. Tina, who started copying my worst habits because she thought being me was something special. Who sat in a locker room crying after Hades tore her apart and told me, “You do it all the time and nothing happens.” That sentence made me hear myself for the first time.
I grab a ball, stand next to her, and start hitting the wall too. The two of us. Side by side. A conversation that doesn't need words.
When Hades arrives, she watches us from the sideline. Says nothing. Nods and smiles. For her, that's a lot.
***
The last regular season game is at home. The stadium is already filling up, humming with that electricity that gets under your skin the second you step on the field.
Paula arrives with Tessa and Wesley. This time not as my bodyguard. This time as my partner. Someone who chose to be with Iris Vance not because she's paid to, but because she wants to.
I spot her from the field during warm-ups. South section, row seven. Wesley is wearing a tiny Emeralds jersey and throws his arms up every time I jog past.
“Iwis! Iwis! Goal! Goal!” he screams when he sees me. I love seeing him in our kit at every game.
“We haven't started yet, boss. But I appreciate the energy,” I joke, and kiss the top of his head.
The game starts, and the other team comes out to destroy us. High press, hard tackles, long balls over our back line. More tackles. They're good, and they're physical. Especially physical.
We go down one-nil in the thirty-second minute. A shot from outside the box that sneaks in almost by accident, with a lot of luck, but it all counts.
Hades's halftime speech is brutal. A couple of the younger players nearly cry.
The second half is a different game.
Sixtieth minute. Jade wins a ball in the middle of the park and finds me with a long pass that drops onto my foot like it has a magnet.
I receive with my back to goal. Trap. Spin.
Face the keeper. I shake one defender, the other can't get there, and I shoot without thinking.
Clean. Low. Left corner where the keeper doesn't reach.
Goal.
Twenty-five thousand people stand. From the field, their screams are a wave that lifts you off the ground no matter how deep you've been, and makes you give everything you've got inside.
This time I don't rip off my jersey to celebrate. I think about it for half a second, but I don't want Hades to have a stroke on the sideline. I raise my fist and scream toward the south stand. Row seven.
Paula smiles. I see her from the field. Wesley goes nuts clapping.
The game keeps going. The other team pushes, but Lucía is a wall in the back and Jamie wins aerial duels that defy physics. Tina runs like her life depends on it. Ninetieth minute. Three minutes of stoppage.
In the ninety-second, Zoe has the ball in the middle of the park and sends a perfect pass to Jade Herrera, who has joined the attack.
Two to one.
The stadium explodes.
Jade drops to her knees and stares at the goal. We all sprint toward her. The pile. The screaming. Tina jumps on Jamie. Lucía runs across half the field. I hug Jade so hard I feel her ribs.
“Jade! Jade, oh my God! You absolute legend! You just put us in the Playoffs!”
***
I burst out of the locker room with wet hair and my sneakers untied. Behind me I've left a couple champagne bottles I smuggled in for the celebration, but right now I need to hold Paula.
“We won,” I say against her lips.
“I almost had a heart attack. What a game.”
“Did you see my goal?”
“Of course I saw your goal.”
“What about Jade's?” I press.
“That too.”
“Which one did you like better?”
“Well… yours was good, but Jade's was a volley into the upper corner and…”
“Okay, okay, I get it. Tonight you're on your own, because you are officially cut off from you-know-what,” I joke, pressing a hand to my chest and faking deep offense.
“Get over here, you idiot. I'm so proud of you, even though your hair is wet and you're soaking my shirt,” she says, pulling me in for a kiss.
“Iris, team photo!” someone yells from the locker room door.
I start running, but stop halfway and turn around. There's a photo I've been wanting to take for a while.
“Borrowing the boss for a second,” I say, scooping Wesley out of Tessa's arms.
I call Paula over, we put Wes between us, and a reporter snaps a few shots. The kid claps like he's the one who won the game, and I'm sure that photo will be my lock screen until the day I die.