Chapter 15
Austin
The bustle of the city outside was silent on the pitch at the Stade.
The last time I was here, we lost the men’s World Cup semifinal. A surprise to no one because, even though the American men’s
team was getting more competitive by the year, the talent pipeline was no match for the other global leagues.
A few months later, I didn’t extend my contract with Farnham, and after that, I went home and signed with the New York Lightning.
Going from the Premier League to an American league was all the proof anyone in the business needed that I was becoming irrelevant.
Honestly, it felt like a relief.
This place was a reminder that nothing lasted forever.
“Checking on ghosts?” a familiar voice called loudly from behind me.
I didn’t bother turning around. Before I left Manhattan, Jesse set up this meeting with the team owner, so I knew the word would eventually get to Wes.
I’d finished talking to the team management about an hour ago.
Since then, I had been sort of stuck here, unwilling to leave the pitch.
So, I ditched my suit jacket and kicked the ball around.
“Nah, I’m just wondering how you managed to miss that penalty kick in the first half,” I answered. I took a deep inhale. The
warm summer breeze swept across the pitch as I ran the tip of my shoe along the top of the ball and popped it up in the air.
A quick swipe with my foot, and the ball skimmed the back of the net seconds later. About three inches to the left of where
I expected it to go. My knee wasn’t back to where it needed to be.
“See?” I looked over to him—Wes Turner—with my head tilted patronizingly. “Easy.”
“That goal you managed to make.” Wes, currently part of the coaching staff team at FC Remy, grabbed a ball and volleyed it between
his knees. Wes took emerging talent and got them ready to eventually fill holes in the starting lineup. “I was tired that
day. Our striker—the great Austin Cade—kept missing and relying on the defense.”
Wes was a few years older than me, and after that World Cup, he played one last season in the Premier League before joining
the coaching staff here, the French football club, starting in the B teams and making his way up.
In the world of football—soccer—American players who played in the European leagues had a little social circle. We checked
in on each other.
He chuckled. “Anything different about being back here?”
“Fewer cameras.”
“Nice, right?” Wes gave a wide, knowing smile. He walked over, tossing another ball between his hands.
“Yeah . . .” I sighed, looking out to the empty stands.
“Our owner told me you were thinking about moving into coaching.”
“I am.” I shifted my weight between my legs. I wasn’t chasing that rush anymore—adrenaline that poured into your veins when
thousands of people cheered in unison, and then it all went quiet in your head, and you started to play. It was fun but it
was short-lived. I wanted the feeling that came directly after. The incredible high that came along with being proud of what
you’d accomplished. That was what I wanted again. “Seems like the perfect time.”
“I was actually a little surprised.” He dropped the ball between his feet and began to shuffle it slowly. “I always figured
you’d stay Stateside after you went to play for the Lightning.”
The reminder of why I was here whistled in my ear. I’d spent the last few years trying to figure out some direction. All I’d
managed to do Stateside was get injured and let the Mistry Foundation fall into a precarious position.
He kicked the ball over to me and I volleyed it between my feet. “And let the international soccer world believe you were our legacy? Besides, there’s nothing happening Stateside that compares to . . .” I looked around the stadium. The empty
stands. The soaring walls that appeared to touch the sky. “This.”
A part of me, a very small part, missed the idiot eighteen-year-old kid that I’d been.
He’d made a lot of mistakes, prioritized the wrong things, but one thing he’d done right was walk through the world with a “how hard could it be” mentality—made easier by a best friend pushing him forward and literally nothing to lose at that time.
I had been so sure everything would work out.
But I couldn’t shake the urge to find that mentality again. I was hoping it was here.
“I think I might be chasing a feeling that’s gone,” I admitted. But at the same time, I wanted to escape that feeling of failing.
I failed the foundation, Theo. I got injured. This was a way to turn things in a direction I knew I could do.
I shuffled the ball, a tightness in my knee reminding me I wasn’t going to be playing for much longer.
“You think you’ll find it here?” he asked. “Coaching?”
I shrugged. “I’d be good at it.”
“You would. I’d love to have you here.” Wes dropped the ball and shuffled it between his feet. “But there are other things
you can do. Remember when Rivera started that winery?”
I chuckled. An old Premier League teammate from Spain had retired and gone home to buy a vineyard and run it. “I think I’d
miss the game too much.”
“There’s still a lot more than coaching for a former footballer.”
“Soon-to-be-former footballer,” I corrected him and tried not to laugh at all those other options. “And I think I’d need a lot more media training before sportscasting, so staff on a team makes a lot more sense.”
There were a few routes I could go but coaching got me back to what made sense.
“I guess, but you were the eighteen-year-old upstart thrown into a mess of a relegated team. Led them to victory and promotion the next season. The championship the season after that.” He spoke like he was narrating a sports documentary.
“If there’s something else you want to do, I’m sure as shit betting you’ll do it. ”
I smiled, remembering how I used to live in that feeling. When nothing felt impossible.
He kicked the ball over to me, challenging me to join him.
“I can’t really play right now.” I stopped the ball and rolled it back and forth under my foot a few times. “I’m on a schedule.”
“Where do you possibly need to be in Paris right now?” Wes scoffed, shifting his weight, moving around me in an attempt to
steal.
I turned, popped the ball up with my heel, and kept it in my possession. “I’m a wedding guest, actually. At the Amari wedding.”
“No way.” He chuckled, taking a step back. “How’d you manage that? Aww . . . are the happy couple fans?”
“It’s sort of a long story,” I grumbled.
He ran, then tracked it back, and suddenly became uninterested in the ball. “Wait. Are you here with someone?”
“Sort of.” I crinkled my brow.
“Well, why didn’t you bring her here? I could have met her and warned her,” he quipped sarcastically.
“She’s busy.”
It wasn’t anything like what Wes imagined. Last night made that very clear.
She said all she wanted was to be over it and leave with her dignity intact. But the way all the blood drained out of her
face when she saw him—that wasn’t someone who was over it.
It was a look that made me sure whatever I felt last night was one-sided. Besides, complications weren’t what I needed right now. I finally had a clear vision for the future after years of blurriness. I had to hold on to that.
I threw more power behind a kick than I originally planned, and the ball spun perfectly around Wes and whipped against the
net a second later.
Like the last time, a few inches off from where it was supposed to go.