Chapter 20
Connor
I’d been on the pitch for long enough to pretend I was settled into the morning routine, long enough to stretch, to joke lightly with the boys, to look as though I was present in more than the most surface-level way.
But none of it sank in. Everything since Friday night had been slightly out of sync, like my mind had stayed behind somewhere while my body kept moving forward out of obligation.
The lads were scattered around as they finished mobility.
Jake was beside me, talking about some protein experiment he’d made in his kitchen, but I barely registered any of it.
My thoughts kept drifting back to Teddy.
To the way she’d kissed me. And to the way she’d left so fast I barely managed to get a full breath in before she was gone.
“Con,” Jake said, nudging my arm. “Blink twice if you can hear me.”
“I can hear you,” I said, even though I’d caught maybe five percent of his story.
Head tilting, he eyed me. “You look rough. Didn’t sleep?”
“A bit.”
Coach’s whistle cut across the pitch. The Knights shifted automatically, running toward him. “Valkyries are on their way out. I mean it when I say play nice. Coach Em and I talked Friday night about starting a tradition of group training every other week in season.”
There were a few groans behind me—good-natured ones, more theatrics than genuine protest. Coach Knox told me as soon as I got in this morning that he and Coach Emery had talked to a couple of investors who suggested the idea.
With our new photography guy, Jay, involved too, it could look great for the optics of both teams. The new media team sure had their work cut out for them, that’s for sure.
Mixed sessions were usually chaotic in all the predictable ways: too many egos, too much competitiveness, and half the lads forgetting that the Valkyries could likely run circles around them, if given half a chance.
“I’ll play nice with them,” Jake said, raising his hand. I batted it down.
“Put your hand down, you fool.”
The lads laughed, but my attention snagged on the tunnel where Valkyries appeared from, then a shadow moved just out of the sunlight, a familiar silhouette taking form.
Teddy walked onto the pitch with that steady, composed stride she always had—head high, shoulders square—but something about the set of her mouth, the tightness around her eyes, told me she’d forced herself through those stadium doors this morning.
She didn’t look panicked, she wouldn’t allow that, but she looked…
braced. I had no doubt she’d spent the weekend building walls again.
I figured we wouldn’t be best buds today, given that she’d ignored my texts.
Still, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to make an effort to talk to her.
The sun caught the curve of her cheek, making her skin flush with light, and then she blinked, adjusting to the brightness, and lifted her gaze to scan the pitch.
When her eyes found mine, it was brief, but enough for awareness to pass between us.
And I hated that she was in avoidance mode.
I wasn’t expecting her to walk right up to me and hash it out, but her walls were so much higher.
My jaw locked as I shifted my stance, scuffing my boots against the grass, rolling my shoulders, feeling a need to burn off some energy.
Jake let out a low whistle. “Someone looks like they’d rather be anywhere else.”
For a second, I wondered if he meant me, but when I shot him a glare, he was already rubbing his hands together, looking at the Valkyries, probably thinking up what mischief he could cause. I had bigger problems than him today, though.
Coach Em caught up with Teddy, exchanged a few mumbled words, then nodded toward me. Coach Knox then called my name too. “Captains are running warm-ups. O’Riley, let ’em have it.”
This was the first time the Valkyries and Knights had ever trained side by side, after weeks of insisting the teams should train separately, without distractions.
I wondered how she felt being out here with us, with me.
She’d pushed hard for separation. I’d understood it.
And yet, here we were, stepping into new territory with coaches who apparently thought tossing us all together in a blender was the right move.
The lads jogged into a loose formation, shaking out their shoulders, adjusting grips on water bottles, all trying to look unfazed by the novelty of it. But there was curiosity rippling through everyone.
As Teddy finished speaking with Coach Em, she turned, ready to join me, and there was something imperceptibly rigid in her posture.
Some would just see that as her taking the lead.
This was her stepping into a situation she hadn’t architected herself.
The control wasn’t in her hands, and I knew that would rattle her.
“Teddy,” I greeted her, but as soon as her name left my mouth, my thoughts scattered, snagging on half-formed questions and the flash of her closing the distance first, of her mouth finding mine.
My hands twitched at my sides, useless and impatient, and I had to shuffle my feet just to stay where I was.
“Connor,” she returned, voice crisp. I wanted to corner her, ask her why she ran after kissing me. Why she—
She lifted her chin, speaking loud enough for both teams. “We’ll start simple. Dynamic mobility to halfway. High knees out, jog back. Then A-skips, side shuffles, and carioca.”
Teddy and I remained to the side of the pitch. I fell into stride beside her without thinking, muscles warming, breath syncing into an easy cadence.
As we crossed into side shuffles, I edged half a step closer. It wasn’t enough to startle her or enough for anyone watching to notice—if they even were—but just enough to try for a moment she couldn’t immediately outrun.
“So are we really ignoring each other?” I asked.
She didn’t turn her head. Instead, her shuffles sharpened, hips dropping lower, the shift in her tempo subtle but unmistakable, as if she’d rather outwork me than acknowledge me.
The energy between us crackled, and my fingers itched to touch her again. I wondered if she felt it too. I wondered if she’d spent the weekend replaying the kiss like I had. Part of me hoped she had, if only so I wasn’t alone in this strange, restless pull in my chest that refused to settle.
My gaze held fast, unwilling to let her go.
Every time she shifted, every line of her strong body was a reminder of my hands on her hips, her breath in my mouth, the way she’d pressed into me like she needed something only I could give.
In that moment, she wanted me, and I’d wrestled with that thought all weekend.
Amongst other things. My cock twitched, and I discreetly pulled at my boxers so nothing would show how much I was feeling.
I tried again, pulling my focus back to the drill, attempting to keep my voice calm. “Teddy, we—”
She cut me off with a harsh exhale. “Not. Here.”
“So later?” I asked with heavy breaths.
Her reply was a hissed whisper, “Connor, I have to focus and so do you.”
She surged forward into carioca like she’d been waiting for an excuse to accelerate, weaving seamlessly across the line, arms relaxed, legs crossing in that fluid motion that made her look untouchable in all the ways she worked so hard to be.
She didn’t look back, not once.
I hated how badly I wanted her to.
***
Sweat poured down my back and into the waistband of my shorts as air burned in my lungs. Thankfully, a cool costal breeze swept most of the heat away, tempering the sun’s bite, but that salty Southern Californian warmth still curled around me.
A whistle shot through the air, shrill and loud. “Water break!” Coach Em called. “Two minutes.”
The team dispersed. A few players jogged off to the sideline, but most dropped in a heap where they were. Lola collapsed dramatically onto the ground beside Evie. “Okay,” she announced, “I’ll need a year to recover from this.”
Evie snorted, glancing over at her as she stretched her hamstrings. “It’s been forty minutes.”
“And? My body has endured enough.”
Delany wandered over, nudging Lola’s boot with hers. “You’re being dramatic.”
“You do know Lola, right?” Evie grunted as she pulled her leg in closer.
Ramirez passed behind them at that moment, shaking out his legs. “You’re all soft,” he said, wiping his brow. “Try running inside lines on Nate’s call. Man nearly sent me into retirement in my rookie year.”
Nate scoffed, wiping his face with a towel. “If you can’t handle one acceleration drill, that’s on you, not me.”
“It wasn’t one,” Ramirez fired back. “It was five.”
“Exaggerate again,” Nate said, “and I’ll make it ten.”
Lola pointed at them, laughter rippling across the group. “See? Abuse. I’m delicate.”
“Delicate?” Ramirez echoed. “You flattened Jake earlier. His ego will never recover.”
“He got in my way.” Lola shrugged.
Unfortunately for all of us, Coach Knox walked by to deliver more news. “We’re going to do something that requires trust. Partner crawl for the length of the pitch.”
There was a chorus of groans and protests.
“Partner crawl?” Teddy asked.
“Think of it like an adjusted sled push, one partner is in crawl position,” Knox explained, pointing to the green, “and the other wraps around them underneath, using body weight for resistance. Knights on top first.”
Jesus, would I survive this? My pulse was already on the fritz, as was my body around Teddy, and now there was a chance I’d have to touch her again, have her draped all over me in a very different way than Friday. I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the heat spiking there.
Then Jake raised both hands. “I just want it noted that I’m more of a woman-on-top kind of guy.”
Ramirez groaned. “Jesus Christ.”
“Are you telling us you’re a bottom?” Nate heckled.
Jake’s jaw dropped. “I never said that.”
Lola snorted. “Oh honey, baby, sweetheart.”
“He’s cute when he’s flustered.” Evie grinned.