Chapter 17
Austin
My grip along Isa’s waist loosened and my palm slid to the small of her back when we made a turn and were out of sight from
the terrace. The music from inside was a whisper muffled by the summer breeze and my blood rushing through my ears.
Isa might not have seen Blake’s reaction, but I had. Mostly, he looked surprised to see Isa and me together. But beneath that,
he looked like he’d just spotted something he’d lost only to realize someone else had found it, too.
Isa may have been too blinded by her own pride or her petty vendetta to see it, but I wasn’t. Even if it was fleeting, Blake
was jealous, or at the very least bothered. She’d gotten what she wanted. And it made my stomach turn, wondering why she wanted
it so badly.
My hand pressed against the small of her back. Walking on the two-by-two square stone grid path that led like a maze between
the tall green hedges, she was silent.
Passing a few more feet until we hit a dead end with a gray stone bench sitting at it, I stopped.
“Sit,” I told her gently. We could hide out for a little while in this secluded corner of the garden.
“Thanks for that, I guess.” Isa ran a finger along her lower lip, wiping her ruined lipstick.
I watched her movement in what felt like slow motion. I replayed that kiss in my head as I watched her touch the aftermath
smeared across her lips. A lightning bolt hurtled down my spine.
I cleared my throat. I needed to snap out of whatever it was I’d felt in that moment. I was just here to help the foundation.
In return, Isa needed one thing: for me to play along. I’d taken things too far back there, I knew that.
But kissing her felt like amnesia.
“It worked,” I reported awkwardly.
“Good.” Her lips curved up one side of her face as she looked forward. Then some silent realization swept over her, the smile
falling slowly with her shoulders.
We sat there like that for a few minutes, occasionally hearing a stray conversation here or there from party guests who wandered
in and out of the garden.
The silence became its own noise, getting louder and more noticeable with each second.
“How was the meeting with that football club?” she ventured.
Meeting with FC Remy at the Stade went better than I’d expected.
I would still be starting from the bottom, working with the B teams; but it was a newly promoted team with a lot of potential.
I should have been thrilled, and the practically exuberant call from Jesse right after confirmed that.
But in truth, the excitement never hit. I’d spent the entire time with the team thinking about getting back to Isa.
“Good, I think,” I said with less enthusiasm than I meant.
I needed to accept that this was the logical next step. I had a meeting with my old team tomorrow afternoon. I planned to
grab a high-speed train to London in two days.
“You don’t sound too enthusiastic.” Isa turned her gaze to me, confusion digging a frown between her eyebrows. “Isn’t coaching
what you want?”
Despite the ocean of differences between us, she managed to fish out a similarity. She envisioned her path into the future
like rungs on a ladder. I used to do that, too.
I’d started as a rookie in the Champions League, helping lead the team to promotion. Then a starting position on the Premier
League team at FC Farnham. A championship with them followed by getting closer than any other American soccer team to a World
Cup final. And now coaching the next generation.
But instead of running toward a second act, all of it was starting to feel like I was running away.
This was supposed to be fulfilling, but all I felt was hollow. Like a rotted-out tree trunk that toppled over, one step on
it and you’d fall right through—confirmation that nothing lasted forever.
“It is,” I admitted. Coaching was the logical next move, and soon enough my heart would catch up with my brain. “I get to
be around the game and have a legacy.”
“Cheers to that.” She stared straight ahead and tipped an imaginary glass in the air in the direction of the city just beyond the towering, finely trimmed hedges.
“So . . .” I began. “Blake?”
She let out a long sigh. “What about him?”
What happened between them? Why was she so surprised that he was engaged? Despite what she said, it felt like she was still
holding on to something. And it was hard to deny that if there was someone who fit perfectly with Isa, it would be someone
like Blake.
I’d spent enough time around high-profile people to know the type. One I never felt all that comfortable around. Ivy League
educated. Successful. Someone who’d be invited to this type of party. He could probably hold his own in an intellectual debate
with Isa and come out unscathed.
“What happened between you guys?” I asked.
Isa was too smart to let jealousy derail her like this. And he was engaged now, so they weren’t getting back together. Right?
She couldn’t possibly still want him back.
Maybe knowing would help me draw a more permanent line in my head and not let my imagination cross it.
“I told you, it’s not an interesting story,” she stated simply, staring at the ground. “We broke up. He moved on first.”
“You asked me to come to Paris, put on this performance, all to save your pride?” I asked disbelievingly, a little frustrated.
This was a lot more than that. She wanted to wound him. And if that was the case, then he must have done something to hurt
her so deeply that she felt the need to return the feeling. “It was more than that.”
After a few silent beats, she finally said, “We were together in college and long-distance in grad school. After that, we knew our careers had to take precedent, so we sort of came and went in each other’s lives.
I don’t know, I always assumed we’d figure things out.
We always stayed present for the big things; I assumed my finishing residency would be one of them.
In the meantime, he had the whole whirlwind romance and didn’t bother to let me know. ”
“Why’d you let him go if . . .” The question petered off because I wasn’t sure how to ask it.
Isa didn’t seem like the person that things simply happened to. If something was going on, she set it in motion.
“I didn’t have time to nurture a long-distance relationship; neither did he,” she defended pensively. “But I also didn’t want
to be one of those couples who were together since college and never matured on our own.”
“Maybe that’s what happened. You grew apart?”
She was twenty-nine, so she was past that part of life where every one of your friends stays close. It was a time in my own
life when I saw that reality play out. Friends fell away because it was the nature of things. No matter how busy or carefree
life was, weathering decades was a contact sport and not everyone made it.
Isa nodded. “I guess so.”
It was the first time there was any inkling of vulnerability that she shared willingly. In the lobby the other night, she
had faltered but recovered quickly, like she was trying to convince both of us she hadn’t stumbled in the first place.
Tonight, it was different. Maybe she was tired of holding up the mask: an uninterrupted stream of confidence and infallibility.
I paused for a beat, wondering if I should ask. Finally the urge to know pushed it out. “Do you still love him?”
It felt a little beneath her, Isa waiting on some guy.
Her eyes flickered around the gravel path. Another long pause.
“I know what I’m worth,” she said, not answering the original question. She took a deep breath and blinked away the emotion
from her eyes. “And it’s a lot more than wanting some guy who’s engaged. I just . . . I thought I knew how my life was going
to go, and I’d pinned all of my—” She stopped abruptly, blinking a few times. “I still have a bruised ego. And now, bruised
lips.”
I heaved a laugh, mostly from relief. Seeing the brunt her lips took from that kiss gave me a similar high to the one after
a win on the field.
“You didn’t call offsides, so I kept going,” I confessed, leaning in.
When she’d kissed me back, I was sure it was more than just trying to put on an act. It was a spark; she could feel it as
much as I could.
“Thank you . . .” She rocked to the side, gently nudging my shoulder. “For making all of that a little less humiliating.”
“Don’t worry about it. I love meeting a fan.”
She grinned. “See? If only you could be that nice on camera.”
“You think I should try making out with the reporters?”
Her shoulders rose as a laugh bubbled out of her. “Well, we do need to distract Malcolm.”
“Come on.” I stood. It had been a while. Whatever we were pretending to do out here was probably done by now. I looked down at Isa. “You know what you do when you fall down during a match?”
She glanced up.
“Roll around and scream like you’ve just been shot?” She delivered it so matter-of-factly that you wouldn’t have known she’d
just had a few vulnerable moments.
The laugh that barreled out of me shook my entire chest.
Isa was like scoring directly from corner kick. So rare that—if you didn’t see it with your own eyes—you’d question if it
was even possible. And here she was, right in front of me.
Beautiful, smart, independent, funny, and compassionate, while sort of mean at the same time.
“And when you’re done doing that,” I answered, “you get back up and keep playing.”
She’d eventually find some ambitious, well-read, scholarly, take-over-the-world type. Someone in her league who could keep
up. Her bruised ego would heal. And in the meantime, if she wanted to see Blake squirm, I’d make sure he did.
Isa took my hand and stood.
“It’s only been thirty minutes.” Isa took my wrist and turned it to check the time on my watch. “I would have thought a pro
athlete had more stamina.”