28. Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“You said it, too, kid. Don’t tell your parents on me and I won’t tell them on you. Deal?”
After I get done bribing the kid, I whirl around, clutching the back of my skull. “For crying out loud, Croix! Seriously?”
Croix just holds his hands up, a look of faux-innocence plastered on his face. “They’re kids, Captain! I’m trying to coach them, but I can only account for so much tiny-human error!”
I check my watch and realize it’s time for the next phase of the event. I decide to take the lead, pushing off the bench with a grunt I try to disguise as a cough.
As gracefully as I can, I make my way over to where Croix is standing. To my surprise, Manny doesn't stay on the bench. He follows me, a silent, pint-sized shadow.
“Everyone, take a knee!” I command.
The rambunctious swarm of neon jerseys collapses into a circle around me. I remain standing as I look down at their eager faces.
“Being a great player isn’t just about the goals you score,” I begin, my voice projecting across the field. “It’s about being a good teammate. It’s about discipline. It’s about respect for the game and—”
Thwack.
This time, a size-three soccer ball bounces off my shoulder. I stumble, my knee buckling for a terrifying micro-second before I lock it back into place. I glare at the group. A small boy with his shoelaces undone looks at me with wide, innocent eyes.
“Sorry, Mr. Luca!”
I clear my throat, adjusting my stance. “As I was saying. Respect is—”
Oof. Another ball catches me square in the lower back. I whip my head around, but Croix is busy showing a little girl how to lace her cleats.
“Okay. Seriously,” I growl, taking a sharp breath and making a conscious effort to keep my mouth tight. I’m acutely aware of the cameras circling us, so I swallow the mountain of curse words I want to hurl at these little fuckers.
“Seriously, who is doing that?”
It’s like a coordinated assault. Every time I open my mouth to talk about sportsmanship, a fresh projectile comes flying from a different quadrant of the circle. If I get a second alone with one of them, I swear to God, I’m tripping them the first chance I get.
I’m so focused on scanning the crowd for the next tiny insurgent that I don’t see the final blow coming.
A ball, kicked with surprising velocity for an eight-year-old, strikes the side of my injured knee. The pain is a white-hot explosion. My balance, already precarious without my crutches, vanishes instantly.
I go down. Hard.
For a moment, I just lie there, staring at a blade of clover, wondering if my career just ended at the hands of a second-grader named Timmy.
“Luca!”
I hear Croix’s voice, suddenly stripped of its mocking edge. He’s by my side in an instant, his face pale with genuine alarm as he drops to the grass. “Dammit, brother. Are you alright? Get up.”
“I can’t...I can't put weight on it,” I wheeze, the agony making my vision go blurry. I’m trying to maintain some semblance of dignity, but my knee is not being a team player.
I see him shifting, bracing himself, and I realize with mounting horror exactly what he’s planning.
He maneuvers himself in front of me and starts to crouch.
“Croix! Stop it! No! Don't you dare!”
“Shut up and let it happen, Captain!”
“For fuck’s sake, stop calling me that, you condescending prick!”
“I’ve got you,” Croix grunts. Before I can protest any further, before I can maintain even a shred of my carefully curated clout, he hauls me up. He turns his back to me, hoists my arms over his shoulders, and hitches my dead-weight legs up with a practiced grip.
I can practically see the tabloid headlines scrolling behind my eyelids as the cameras flicker in a rhythmic, mocking strobe lights. The children are pointing and squealing with delight as the future Captain of the Strikers is being given a piggyback ride across Chapman Park.
I’m clinging to Croix’s neck like a disgruntled, over-muscled toddler. “You don’t have to do this,” I grumble into his shoulder.
“Shut up, cupcake,” he snaps back, his breathing ragged from the effort.
“You shut up,” I counter. “Keep being a dick and I’ll fart in your face.”
“Do it, and I’ll drop you right here on the concrete.”
I glance down at the passing pavement and decide to take the threat seriously. “Fine. But still…thank you.”
“Seriously, Luca. Shut up. Don’t make it a thing.”
For some reason, I decide that while my friend is literally cradling me with my ass in his face, it’s the perfect time to settle our differences. “But I want to, Croix. I really need to apologize for—”
“Look, I know there are things that need to be said,” he interjects. “But your arse is currently in my face, you’re not exactly a featherweight, and I’m about to come face-to-face with my ex-girlfriend, who, for the record, has been playing nursemaid to you for weeks.”
I frown, the internal sting of his words competing with my knee. “How do you know she’s been helping me?”
He lets out a harsh breath. “Tatum. It slipped out.”
“Since when are you and Tatum close enough to gossip about my marriage?”
“It wasn’t like that. It came up when she was going over the logistics for today. Look, the point is, I know she’s there. I know she’s been helping you.”
“I haven’t made a move, Croix,” I say, the honesty bleeding through. “She wants nothing to do with me like that anymore. I’ve respected her boundaries.”
“So you’re telling me you don’t want her back?”
“I didn't say that. I said she’s done with me. I’ve been trying.”
Croix grunts. “Have you tried flowers?”
“No, but Aspen is more complex than that. The average stuff won’t do.”
“Have you tried just giving her your heart?”
I let out a grunt of my own. “I said I’m trying! She’s a brick fucking wall.”
Croix shifts my weight, moving me higher with a grunt. “Well, you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought. Try harder! No woman would let you break her heart like that and then agree to be in your life if she wasn’t holding onto at least a shred of hope. She wants you to fight.”
I pull back slightly to look at the side of his head. “And since when did you become an expert on women?”
“Not women,” he says quietly. “Her.”
He really does care about her.
“I know you let her go because of me,” he continues. “Because of the pressure and the politics of this whole shit show.”
“It was a bit more complicated than that,” I say, though I don’t fully deny it.
“Still. I admire the loyalty, Luca. Truly. But enough is enough.” He pauses, and though he speaks it in his native Gaeilge tongue, I understand the phrase perfectly. “What is past, let it be past.” Something his mother used to say often.
“I will always have love for you, brother. I never meant to—”