Chapter 10 #2
"Sure. But he's an asshole whose company is paying Hamish a lot of money. I can handle him. That's my job."
"And... the option if I'm cleared ta play again?" Hamish's voice is quiet.
Jody's eyes flicker.
"Nothing in this contract precludes you from returning to play if the right opportunity comes. It's just... unusual."
Unusual. Not impossible. We're dancing around a giant elephant in the room, one that's shaped like an injured knee.
"Talk it over," Jody says. "I'll send the full contract and the PR proposal. And Amy—you'll be looped into the entire process. This is your life, too."
"Thanks, Jody," I say, and the call ends.
Our reflection stares back from the black laptop screen: me with my hair in a messy bun, Hamish with shoulders rounded, both of us waiting for one of us to be an adult and tell us what to do next.
"So," he says.
"So," I echo.
We sit there, still holding hands.
"You looked... happy," I say, finally, and his throat bobs.
"On the telly?"
"Yeah. Comfortable. Like you were where you're supposed to be."
He scrubs his hands over his face. When he stops, his expression is naked in a way that makes my chest ache. Those deep green eyes, framed by long lashes with a hint of red in them, look pained and yet excited.
"I like it," he admits, as if he expects me to be upset. "I love the banter, the analysis, feeling like I still ken the game. Like I'm part of it, even if ma knee isna. I like when the producer says, 'We're live in five' and ma brain goes clear."
"Clear?"
"Aye. Like on the pitch. All the chatter stills. I'm absorbing whate'er I see on the screen and joining it wi' ma body, muscle memory, every game I've played or seen, and the pieces all start connecting. And when I speak, it's all so good and joined, the pieces in alignment."
"But...?" I prompt.
"I want ta play."
The words are so simple, they hurt.
"I know," I say softly.
He looks down at his knee, at the brace lying by my foot, at my hand, then back at the brace.
"They keep saying I'm lucky. Could've been worse. Could've been career-ending straightaway. And it is comforting, in a way. I am grateful. I'm breathing, I can walk. I have ye. We have this baby."
He swallows, eyes shiny.
"But it still feels like someone took the part of me that makes sense and put it behind glass.
I can look at it, talk about it, point at it, but I canna touch it.
And now there's this door that says, 'Ye can have this other life.
It'll be good. It'll be stable.' And if I walk through it, I dinna ken if I'm closing the other door forever. And I'm scared, Amy."
"Hamish."
"Lemme finish." The saddest smile I've ever seen on him.
"I feel like a selfish bastard fer feeling this way when ye're carrying our child and being erased because of ma career.
Ye're strugglin' wi' motherhood, and giving so much of yourself to this new life of ours, growing a life wi' yer body, fer goodness sake.
I should be grateful, and I am, but I feel so much confusion. "
"Hey," I say sharply. "Do not beat yourself up for having feelings. That's my job."
He huffs out a laugh that's half sob.
"My heart's breaking," he says plainly. "Right when it's supposed ta be bursting wi' joy. I feel like a lad who lost his ball and canna admit it wasna just a toy. It was his whole—"
"Identity," I venture, and he nods.
"Aye."
My own heart feels tight and messy and full.
I could cry. I could throw my laptop out the window.
Part of me—the ugly, scared part I don't like looking at—wants to scream that he has no idea how lucky he is, that people are fighting to hand him opportunities while I claw for every scrap of recognition.
But that impulse isn't fair. I know it isn't fair. His pain doesn't cancel mine, and mine doesn't cancel his.
"I need you to hear something," I say.
He looks at me like he's bracing for impact, which is valid. I'm hormonal and a Jacoby woman.
"I am not going to be the default parent just because society expects that of mothers. I love this baby already. I would kill for her or him. But I also worked hard for the pieces of myself that have nothing to do with diapers or cartwheels or 'Dance Moms'."
"You hate 'Dance Moms'," he says automatically.
"Exactly. I want to still be able to hate 'Dance Moms' from a professional standpoint, not just from the couch while covered in spit-up. I want a career, too. I like my work. I'm good at it."
I twist my fingers in his.
"I don't want to wake up in a year and realize we built our lives on an assumption that your thing matters more than my thing because yours is on TV and has a sizzle reel. I never, ever want to resent you."
He flinches.
"I dinna want that either," he says quickly. "I want ta be the da who takes night feeds and does bath time and knows the name of every pediatrician and stuffed animal. I want ta be yer life partner, no' a business partner who flies in fer conjugal visits."
"Then whatever we decide, we decide together. Jody thinks 'family first' is a slogan. It's not. It's what we value."
"So... we say yes only if we can put those things in writing."
"Yes if there are limits on travel. Yes if they treat you like a human, not a hot content machine."
"Ye think I'm hot?"
"I marrit ye fer yer pretty face," I reply in my butchered accent as he winces.
"Dinna do that. Ye sound like an Australian doin' a British accent while eating peanut butter off a spoon wi' no water nearby."
"Sorry." But I laugh.
He doesn't. "And if they dinna respect yer boundaries?"
"Then we say no," I answer, even though my stomach clenches at the idea of closing a door with that many zeroes behind it. "We figure out something else."
He lifts my hand and presses it over his heart.
"I promise ye, Amy. Whatever happens, I'm putting this first. Ye, her, him, us. I dinna want ta blink and realize I've become a man who knows every club's pressing stats but missed his daughter's or son's first steps because he was arguing about xG on-air."
"That means expected goals," I say. "I listened to your podcast episode."
"Of course ye did." He gives me a look that's all love and exasperation.
"I'm holding you to it. That promise. We write it into our operational lives, not just your contract."
"Deal." He presses his forehead to mine. We sit like that, breathing the same air, my hand feeling the solid, steady thud under his ribs.
It should feel settled now. It doesn't, but it feels honest.
I'll take honest.
Hamish's phone, on the desk behind us, starts pinging. Not one ping, not two. A chorus.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, overlapping so fast, it sounds like an electronic pinball meltdown. The screen is lighting up like it's having a seizure. WhatsApp, Messages, Instagram, apps whose icons I don't even recognize.
"What fresh hell?" I murmur, reaching for it, but he grabs it first, thumbs swiping.
His eyes widen.
"Uh," he says, and my stomach drops.
"What?"
He turns the screen toward me. The top notification is from Luis, one of his teammates.
brO CONGRATS!!!! Little striker on the way!!!
Another from Brandi: You were going to tell me before IG did, right???
One from a number I don't recognize: So you figured out how to use your dick after all. Proud of you. Call me.
That must be Vince.
"Scroll," I whisper.
He does, and there it is.
A Str1kecast Sports push notification, sandwiched between two gossip accounts:
Injured Soccer Star Hamish McCormick Expecting First Child
A photo of us in Love You, Maine. My not-even-there baby bump circled in red like it's a crime scene.
"Who knew, Hamish? Congratulations on being pregnant."
He gives me a confused look.
I point. "See? YOU are expecting your first child."
Hamish just sighs and squeezes me gently.
Another notification, from Jody. The PR tweet, already live, already moving:
Football, family, and the future. Congratulations to @HamishMcCormickST and Amy Jacoby McCormick on their upcoming arrival. More to come soon. #NextChapter
I have a social media handle of my own. Notice how Jody didn't use it?
Hamish and I look at each other across the tiny office nook.
"So," I say faintly.
"So," he echoes.
Outside our window, Boston keeps moving.
Inside our condo, the kaleidoscope turns, the pattern shifts.