Chapter 37
Hunter
The big exhibition game against the San Francisco Strikers has been sold out for weeks. Tickets on resellers are going for exorbitant fees. Our teams have different strengths and weaknesses, so basically anything can happen.
In some ways, it feels like any other home game. Fans are tailgating in the parking lot. Lines at concession stands are epic. The roads are jammed with cars trying to get to the stadium before kickoff. But this game is different.
Fans love a rivalry, and this one is legendary. Even though this game doesn’t count because it’s still preseason, people have been talking about it as if it were the World Cup.
We can feel the fierce competitiveness the moment we enter the stadium. Fans are on their feet and shouting before we leave the tunnel. It sounds like an ocean roaring and crashing, and that kind of game lifts me to another plane. It’s electric. My adrenaline races in my veins.
As we prepare to take the field, I swear the crowd cheers louder than I’ve ever heard. They’re waving flags and shaking their fists. Looking up at them always lights a fire in me.
I start feeling the aggressive need to prove something on the field. The fans want a win. I want it more.
The Strikers came out before us, and they’re doing warm-up drills and getting ready for the coin toss.
I’m standing in a line of players in the hallway from the locker rooms to where we’ll enter the field through the tunnel, when something catches my eye. It’s not any fan wearing a Devils jersey, it’s my fan.
Gracie is walking down the hall toward the physical therapy room, which isn’t unusual before a game because player health stats are part of her analytics, and she’s thorough about gathering up-to-the-minute data from the trainers.
I’m more amped than usual, super fired about my feelings for her, especially since she told me she loves me. Like the dolt I am, I’m waiting for the right time to say it back instead of telling her I’ve loved her for longer than she fucking knows.
It’s not the first time Gracie has passed by the team on our way out to the field.
But it’s the first time I’ve felt so charged and impulsive that I loop an arm around her waist and pull her toward me.
One kiss on her temple. I need her positive energy to meld with my own.
It feels right to claim her for a quick second before a high-octane game. A kiss for luck.
Her eyes are as wide as dinner plates when I release her. She straightens up and keeps walking down the hall. I hear a “Good luck, guys,” in the distance as she retreats.
Dumb idea? Probably.
But I’m too gone for her, too high on my own vibes to worry about it. Or to notice if anyone besides the couple of guys near me saw anything. It’s not like I did it on camera.
“And the home team…the Los Angeles Devils!” The announcer cues us to exit the tunnel, and all thoughts leave my mind except soccer.
We play a near-perfect game.
We win with an impossible shot in the last three minutes, and the fans absolutely lose it.
We beat our rival.
And all anyone wants to talk about is my personal life.
“Hunter! Hunter, one question! You’ve been spotted canoodling with someone new. Your fans, especially the female ones, want to know if it’s serious.”
“I don’t comment on rumors about my personal life,” I say. It’s what I was taught to say after going through a media training seminar Ashley held for the team. Normally, it’s enough to get people to move on and take no for an answer.
“I understand she works for the team. Can you confirm that?”
Are they talking about the kiss from earlier? Impossible. No one even saw it.
I need to control the narrative, like Ashley always warns me. Now I’m wishing I hadn’t always been so smug about knowing how to handle myself because I’m not certain what to say now.
“If someone has a question about the game or the Devils defense, I’m happy to oblige. Otherwise, I think that’s it for questions,” I say, leaving the podium and moving toward the door of the press room.
The issue should be dead now. I’ve made it sound like a rumor that isn’t worth commenting on, or at least I think I have.
Apparently, this reporter hasn’t received the memo. Or she smells a story where there doesn’t need to be one. She persists, shoving her tiny, fluffy mike in my face and walking alongside me as I exit the room.
“Hunter, a few more questions. Are you in a romantic relationship with someone working for the Devils?”
Her camera guy points his little setup toward me and backs down the hallway as I walk forward. I look away from him, annoyed that someone from Ashley’s team hasn’t swatted him away like a bug.
I’m about a second away from smacking the camera out of his hand, but I work to restrain myself.
I don’t need a new fiasco where I’m in the flames for messing up a guy’s face.
I pick up the pace and lengthen my stride, making it harder for the reporter to keep up and for her camera guy to keep his footing.
He’s forced to step aside so he doesn’t fall over, and I move past him.
“No comment. Are we clear?”
She does a good job of staying on my heels. If I wasn’t so damn annoyed, I might be impressed. “Not quite. I’m also hearing that the woman in question is Gracie Albright, the data analyst who some people credit with saving your job. Sure you don’t want to comment?”
Fuming and desperate to put the issue to rest, I whirl around and put a finger in her face. I make sure to position myself so the cameraman gets me in the middle of the shot as I spit out the words.
“I told you, I don’t comment on relationship rumors, and that’s the entirety of what this is.
Gracie Albright is an employee of the Devils organization, and as such, we are occasionally photographed together.
But any rumors about a romance between us are exactly that—rumors.
Whatever anyone thinks they know or saw means nothing. Zero.”
Pushing past them, I continue down the hallway toward the locker room, still fuming that I let her get the better of me.
But before I make it halfway to the lockers, Ashley comes speed walking down the hallway in that way she does when she’s angry but doesn’t want to run. She looks like a corgi moving on tiny legs with her tail on fire. “Hunter!”
The fiery expression on my face should tell her not to mess with me right now, but Ashley has never been afraid of me or anyone else. It’s probably what makes her so good at her job. Arms crossed, I turn and face her.
“Yeah?”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “Follow me.”
I don’t want to follow her orders when I’m dying to head into the locker room and take a cold shower. That’s the only thing that will begin to temper the hotheaded ire burning in my veins, and I start to protest. “I don’t—”
“Goddammit, Reyes, for once do what I’m asking.”
I blow out a breath and let her lead me outside the clubhouse. She doesn’t say a word until we’re alone in the empty training room. “What the hell were you thinking? How hard is it to say ‘no comment’ and keep on walking?”
“I did that. Maybe you didn’t hear, but I did that three fucking times, but that woman wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“She’s not in charge! You are!” It’s not the first time she’s shouted at me, but I can see now why she wanted us to be alone. Her face is red, and she looks like she’d like to take a swing.
Ashley cracks her neck and exhales her frustration. “She can ask all the questions she wants, and they’re all bullshit until you go spouting your mouth off, and now people have something to talk about, and it has nothing to do with soccer.”
I nod. She gives this speech multiple times a year because, apparently, we are a bunch of dundering meat heads who don’t know enough to shut our traps. Or maybe that’s me.
“I know.”
“You do?” Her eyes take on an incredulous roundness.
“Yes.”
My rage has cooled in the couple of minutes since my confrontation with the reporter, and now I’m no longer seeing red.
This is the problem with being a jock and not someone who thinks things through.
Gracie always has a plan when surprises arise.
I guess it’s part of her job to think everything through and play out all the possibilities in order to analyze what could happen with specific players.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that way.
I go on instinct. Block the shot, move before my opponent knows what hit him. If I wait that extra second to think things through, the moment is lost. The ball is in the net.
Instinct is all I have.
And today, it’s fucked me.
“What do I do? Tell me what to say and I’ll say it. I’ll blow out the smoke before it catches fire.” I start pacing the room, thinking. “Can we get that reporter back in here? Offer her some other story if she doesn’t go live with what I said?”
Ashley shakes her head. “She’ll never go for that.
If we start protesting, it’ll convince her even more that she’s got a scoop.
Best thing you can do now is go silent. Stay home other than coming to training.
I’ll instruct Gracie to make a statement putting the rumor to rest, and if you behave yourself, it should go away. ”
“You need Gracie to make a statement? Why?”
“Because she’s the one whose job is on the line.
No one’s gonna fire you for parading around with yet another woman, but she’s new here and has a high-profile position.
The fact of the matter is that she did basically save your job on the team, so the optics are pretty bad if now you’re thanking her with your dick.
She’s a wonky numbers girl. Even the idea of you dating someone like that gets tongues wagging, so we need to shut it down. Shut. It. Down.”
I scrub a hand over my face as the enormity of the situation hits home. Gracie could lose her job. I know how hard she’s worked to get where she is, and the idea that I could torpedo that because I can’t control myself makes me feel worse than ashamed.
Ashley is right. We need to handle this properly for Gracie’s sake. “Tell me what to say and I’ll say it.”
She nods. “Good. You need to get ahead of this. The sooner you’re ‘caught’ on camera with another woman, the sooner this whole thing goes away.”
“Wait, what? I thought you said I needed to stay home and let Gracie make a statement.”
Ashley snaps her fingers as she paces the room, as if ideas are popping up like popcorn.
“No, no, this is better. Cleaner. We live in a visual world. People believe what they see. So let them see you with another woman. Two within a week, even. That’ll cool the other rumor right down, and Gracie will be off the hot seat.
Better for her anyway. She’s not media trained. ”
“Yeah? You really think that’ll work?” I’m too confused to know what’s right. I need to talk to Gracie, at least before I commit to this crazy plan. As long as she’s in on it, I’ll do whatever is needed to save her credibility.
“I really do. And Hunter…” She shakes her head at me. “Don’t fuck this up.”
I close my eyes, regretting how much I’ve already done to throw things off the rails. “I won’t. I promise.”