Chapter 13 Claire
CLAIRE
PARIS
Six Years Earlier
Atext from Otto was waiting as soon as my phone’s black screen flickered to life, checking to make sure I’d made it back to my room okay. I replied—after screaming into my pillow for at least a minute about the fact that he’d texted. Since then, we’ve messaged constantly.
About soccer—football, as he relentlessly corrects.
But not only about the reason we’re in Paris.
The group stage commences, officially kicking off the Olympic competition.
Part of me expected that would be when our texts tapered off, when he started replying I’m busy or not responding.
No matter how often my phone dings, my heartbeat quickens every time.
If the message isn’t from him, I’m disappointed. When it is, I soar.
I’m a cliché—crushing on the rich, hot, famous superstar, alongside what I’m sure is a healthy percentage of Germany’s, if not the world’s, population.
I’ve never been adept at flirting. The few guys I’ve dated always pursued me.
And I was always flattered but rarely invested.
I was too focused on making it to this point.
Now I’m here, and I’ve been counting down the final minutes of practice so I can check and see if Otto texted me.
My phone buzzes in my pocket as I walk down the hallway toward my room. My pulse flutters, heart hoping it’s him, as I adjust the box under my arm—a care package from my mom—then round the corner. I nearly trip when I notice the tall figure leaning against the wall next to my door.
He’s facing away, head down, yet I recognize the broad shoulders instantly.
“How did you get in here?” I hiss, casting a quick glance over my shoulder as I rush the remaining steps toward my room.
There are plenty of spaces in the Village where athletes from different countries can mingle. Residential housing is supposed to be segregated.
Otto turns, flashing me a smile that I feel everywhere. “Hi to you too. I pretended to be American.”
His impression is impressive. There’s no trace of the accent that clips some consonants.
“You still need a badge,” I remind him, pulling mine out of my pocket to hastily unlock my room.
My teammates were downstairs, eating dinner, when I stopped by the post office, but that doesn’t mean none of them are on this floor by now. I’m frazzled—thrilled—he’s here, and I have no clue how to react to it. Again, I’m bad at flirting.
Otto motions for me to enter first, then follows. The door swings shut after us. My heart knocks against my ribs with the realization we’re together. And alone.
We’ve texted practically nonstop. I glimpsed him in the cafeteria two days ago, and I watched most of Germany’s match against Uzbekistan with Gemma and Mackenzie yesterday.
So, it’s especially surreal, seeing Otto—the central focus of a game watched by millions—standing in my messy bedroom.
I went yesterday out of curiosity. But I stayed out of necessity because it’s so obvious, watching Otto in goal, that it is where he’s meant to be.
I had known he was a big deal before. Witnessing it firsthand was different, and I’m suddenly shy.
If Otto notices my uncertainty, he doesn’t let on. He gives my room a quick once-over as he stands in its center.
“Nicer than yours?” I question as I collect some dirty laundry and toss it on the pile in the corner.
The space is smaller and sparser than the dorm I lived in freshman year, but it’s fully functional. A twin bed, a side table, a desk, and a metal frame with hangers that serves as a closet are the only furniture. I lucked out with a single since most of my teammates are sharing.
“It is cleaner,” Otto says, sprawling on my neatly tucked comforter like he’s been in here a million times before. “Wirtz is messy. And he snores.”
He’s on my bed.
“So, you came here to get some sleep?”
Otto smirks, making my rapid heartbeat even more irregular. “Not exactly.”
Is he here for sex? Does he want to have sex with me? I’m unprepared for that to take place. I would have showered and shaved and—
“These your family?”
I refocus on Otto, who’s picked up the framed photo on the small table beside my bed—the one personal item aside from the clothes, toiletries, and soccer gear scattered around the room.
“Yeah.” I take a seat on the edge of the foam mattress, leaving a foot between us, glancing quickly at the photo even though I could describe it from memory.
It was taken at my eighth-grade graduation from Arlington Middle School. It’s the final picture of my full family together. My dad dropped the divorce bomb a few days later.
“Are they here?”
I swallow hard before answering, “No.”
Mom would be cheering me on in person, if she could. She’s on tour for her latest book. Last I talked to Cassidy, she was “super busy,” studying for her real estate exam and dating a chef named Marcus. It’s entirely possible my dad doesn’t know I’m in Paris. I sure didn’t tell him.
Otto sets the photo back down, leaning back against the white plaster wall and crossing his ankles.
“What about you?” I ask. “Are your parents here?”
Our families are one of the few topics we haven’t discussed. I haven’t brought it up because I avoid talking about mine.
The pause before Otto says, “No,” suggests he hasn’t broached it for a similar reason.
He hesitates, and I think that solitary syllable might be his only reply, but he continues a few seconds later.
“My mom had me young. I have never met my dad. My mom died a long time ago. I lived with my grandfather until I was nine, and then I started training at Kluvberg’s Academy. ”
I stare at him, startled and unsettled by the matter-of-fact depiction of what sounded like an awfully bleak childhood. “I’m so sorry about your mom,” I say. “I-I didn’t…know.”
That second sentence felt necessary to add because people are invasive enough with celebrities. I’m guessing parts of his background are public information. I want to know Otto based on what he chooses to share with me, nothing else.
He nods. “I used to make up stories. I would tell people my dad was in the military or my mom was a spy. Sometimes, I would say they were happily married and on a trip. I never shared the truth with my teammates. Still avoid the question in interviews. It is in the past, and I am focused on the future.”
I frown. “You get asked about your personal life in soc—football interviews?”
He smiles when I correct myself. “Yes. Often.”
“I guess that makes me glad no one has ever wanted to interview me.”
“They will,” Otto says confidently.
Warmth unfurls in my chest. There are plenty of people who have encouraged me over the years.
Mom…teammates…coaches…friends…boyfriends, until they lost patience, have all offered support.
But that’s different from belief. From certainty.
Otto makes it sound inevitable that I’ll matter enough in this sport that someone will care what I have to say.
That faith would mean something coming from anyone. It means the most, coming from him.
“I don’t talk to my dad,” I confess. “He divorced my mom and married the woman he’d been cheating on her with a few months later. My sister, Cassidy, went to their wedding, but I refused to. Even my mom tried to get me to go, saying I’d regret it later.”
“Do you regret not going?”
“No. But I do…I do miss my dad. When I was younger, we were really close. I wanted to be a zookeeper—”
He smiles. “A zookeeper?”
“Shut up. I was six.” I knock my knee against his rock-hard thigh and sort of…
leave my leg leaning there. “My dad grew up in Detroit. Every summer, we’d go visit my grandparents for a week.
When I was in my zookeeper phase, he would bring me to the Detroit Zoo every single day.
I got a token from this souvenir machine, and I still carry it around with me everywhere.
I’ve never played a game without it in my pocket.
” I pull it out now, dropping the coin on the comforter between us.
Otto picks it up, peering at the impression stamped on the surface, shiny from years of being transferred around.
My stomach flips when I see the flat piece of metal dwarfed by his huge palm.
He might as well be holding a chunk of my heart—that’s how exposed I feel.
Even my mom doesn’t know I still carry that around.
I laugh awkwardly. “Please tell me you have a good-luck charm so I feel less weird about it.”
Otto carefully sets the coin next to the framed photo. “No good-luck charm. But not because I think it is weird. Nothing I care about enough to carry around.”
He hasn’t moved his leg away. Neither have I. An electric current is pulsing from that point of contact, wreaking havoc on my nervous system.
I like my body. I can run ten miles without stopping, and I always beat every boy in gym class during sit-up contests.
But my body isn’t the svelte sort of fit-but-not-too-muscular model frame most guys seem to fantasize about.
I beat one of Nolan’s buddies in a drunken arm-wrestling match, and the next morning, Nolan suggested I should lay off lifting for a while.
I broke up with him two days later, but I hate how that comment has stuck in my head for so much longer.
Now, I’m wondering if Otto likes my body. If he’ll care that I’m wearing a spandex sports bra or about the scrape on my knee from a tackle earlier that’s raw and red.
There was a moment, before I climbed out of his car, when I thought Otto might kiss me.
He didn’t. He hasn’t, and it’s feeding all my insecurities, which were already multiplied by the fact that he’s not only a hot guy, but he’s also an international soccer star who must attract attention anywhere he goes.
And I’m…me.
I fiddle with the flap of the box from Mom, searching for something witty to say. Swear when my thumb catches on the rough edge and cardboard scrapes a slice of skin away. Blood wells immediately, trickling down to my palm, and I curse again.
“Here.” Otto’s grabbed a handful of tissues, pressing them against the cut.
“Thanks,” I say, suppressing a wince. I’m annoyed at myself, more than in pain, for ruining the moment.
I climb off my bed, hustling into the attached bathroom to wash my hand. The cut is shallow, but it’ll scab. Possibly scar. I hunt through my toiletry kit for a couple of Band-Aids while Otto hovers in the doorway, repeatedly asking if he can do anything.
“All good,” I state, flashing him my bandaged thumb.
He catches my hand in his, which I’m not expecting, peering at my thumb. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” My voice is breathy, and I think he hears it.
He’s so close. I could—
Someone pounds on my door, followed by, “Claire!”
Mackenzie’s voice.
My stomach drops. Shit.
I glance at the window, and Otto laughs.
“No fucking—”
I slap a hand over his mouth, feeling his smile press against my palm. Shivers race down my spine in response.
“Don’t say anything,” I whisper, reaching for the hem of my shirt.
He stays silent after my hand drops. But I think it has more to do with surprise than the instruction as I slide the straps of my sports bra off my shoulders next. His Adam’s apple bobs once, and heat streaks through me.
“Claire!”
“One sec!” I call back.
I reach for the towel hanging on the back of the door and wrap it around my torso, taking the second smaller one and covering my hair with it.
I take a deep breath, then open the door a crack.
“Hey—” Mackenzie pulls up short, mid-step, when she realizes I’m not opening the door any wider.
“Hey. I just got out of the shower,” I lie. “What’s up?”
“We’re watching a movie in Lucy’s room. You in?”
“Uh…maybe.” My grip tightens on the door handle. “I’ve got to get dressed, and then I was going to call my mom.”
Mackenzie nods. “Cool. Stop by if you feel like it.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I close the door, then release a relieved exhale.
I glance at Otto, who’s leaning casually against the wall between the door and my bed, a wide smirk on his face.
I hang up the towels and fix my bra straps. “If Mackenzie had found out you were in here, the entire Village would have known by tomorrow.”
He nods. “I should leave before it gets late. Beck wants to meet. I just wanted to wish you good luck before your match tomorrow.”
“Oh. Thanks. You coming?”
His second nod floors me. That was a joke.
I laugh nervously. “No, you’re not.”
He grins. “Yes, I am. Beck changed our training time so he could support Saylor. I want to see you play.”
“I won’t play. I’m not a starter.”
“So? That does not mean you will not play.”
“You really don’t have to come.”
“Do you not want me to?” Otto looks uncertain all of a sudden, and it occurs to me that maybe he’s not as sure as he seems about everything.
I step closer, shrinking the distance between us down to inches. His gaze dips to my cleavage, and I get an answer to one question. He doesn’t care about my sports bra. His eyes are heated, hungry, as they scan my exposed skin.
“I want you to,” I whisper.
And then I rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him.