Chapter 15
Erin crouched on the grass, fighting to catch her breath after thirty minutes of running drills.
“Killed it today.” Alex ruffled her hair as they walked past, nowhere near as affected as Erin. “Can’t wait to have you back.”
“Might need a new set of lungs before that can happen.” Straightening, Erin couldn’t keep the smile from her face. As much as every part of her body ached, she’d managed to run her fastest time since her injury and achieved another tick on her checklist for returning to the squad.
Her hamstring had healed well, and she’d relished the return to full team training. It gave her something to focus on, something to build toward, because watching the team fight on four fronts week in and week out while she sat on the sidelines was starting to drain her.
But soon she’d be back out there with them.
A few feet away, Lia and Cerys were laughing together. It grated on Erin’s nerves. In the six weeks since Erin had left Marbella—and the five weeks since Erin had overheard Lia’s phone call with Hannah—she and Lia hadn’t spoken, and though she’d never admit such a weakness aloud, Erin missed her.
Whenever Erin had glimpsed Lia over the past few weeks, she’d seemed chipper, a contrast to Erin’s sourness over what had happened between them. Was Lia’s perkiness a result of her and Hannah smoothing things over?
Why did Erin care if it was? She had no right to Lia at all.
“There’s one last thing I wanted to mention today before I let you go.” Ayla called the team to attention once the last players had finished the drill. “I’m sure you’ve all noticed by now that a certain star striker is getting back to her best.”
At her side, Alex nudged Erin with their shoulder.
“So it’s about time we started to think about our formation.
We’ve always used one lone striker up top, but once Erin is available, I think we should be playing her and Lia together.
So we’re going to need to change some things.
The coaching team have been talking about this for a long time, and we have a plan for how to do it that we’re going to introduce over the next few weeks.
Just giving you a heads up now.” Ayla clapped her hands together, her usual sign of dismissal.
“That’s all for today. Get yourselves showered, and enjoy the rest of your day—apart from Erin and Lia.
Please, can the two of you stay behind for a few minutes? ”
Dread sat low in Erin’s stomach as the rest of the team dispersed, leaving her and Lia alone with Ayla.
“Come closer, will you? Don’t make me shout.”
Reluctantly, both Erin and Lia shuffled closer to where Ayla stood.
She glanced between the two of them, a crease between her eyebrows. “How are you both feeling about what I said?”
Lia shrugged. “Hard to say until we’ve tried it, but I’m always happy to try new things. And it’ll be better if we can both play together.”
Ayla glanced at Erin.
“I agree.”
A few moments passed while Ayla waited to see if she was going to say anything else. When she didn’t, Ayla sighed. “Okay, excellent. Well, this is an awkward thing to say, but I’m not going to skate around it.”
Erin stiffened, and she clenched her hands into fists, nails digging into her palms. She did not like the look on Ayla’s face one bit.
“I’ve noticed some tension between the two of you lately.”
A laugh nearly bubbled past Erin’s lips. Tension. Like that summarised what had happened between them in Spain.
“I know you didn’t get along when Lia first joined us, but I thought you’d put that behind you.”
“We have,” Erin said. And then they’d slept together, and Erin had ruined all their progress because she was too guarded. Now she couldn’t look at Lia without wanting to pull her close and tell her she was sorry.
Or push her against the nearest wall and kiss her senseless.
Erin was trying so hard not to notice Lia at all that she noticed every damn thing about her: the ripple of the muscles in her thighs when she sprinted to meet a long ball; the curl of her talented fingers when she did bench presses in the gym; the arch of her neck and the dip of her collarbones when she shrugged out of one shirt and into another.
It was maddening.
Erin was more distracted now than she ever had been. More distracted than she would be if she wrapped herself in Lia again.
She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. If she’d never let this happen in the first place, she’d not be in this position now.
Ayla pursed her lips. “So what’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
“Lia?” Ayla turned toward her. “Anything you want to add?”
“No. Things between us are fine.”
Another hysterical laugh threatened, and Erin bit hard on her bottom lip. The first words she’d heard Lia say in six weeks and they were a gigantic lie.
From the look on her face, Ayla knew that, too. “Very well. You don’t have to talk to me about it, but you do have to figure it out. Starting tomorrow, you two are training together. Alone. I need you in perfect harmony on that pitch.”
Well, wasn’t that fantastic?
* * *
Lia trudged onto the training pitch without a modicum of her usual enthusiasm. Her feet dragged, and it was all because of the person who walked alongside her.
“Look, I know this isn’t ideal, but we were going to have to figure out how to play together eventually.” Erin broke the heavy silence that had settled between them. “Can we just be civil about it?”
Turning to look at her, Lia shook her head. “This is me being civil.”
“Ignoring me?”
“That’s what you did to me for the first few weeks I was here. What’s the matter—you can give it, but you can’t take it?”
“I think we both know that’s not true.”
Closing her eyes, Lia forced the memories of Marbella away. She’d had enough practice by now because they crept into her mind at the most inopportune moments. Distance had done nothing, and now Lia was going to be forced to spend a few hours a day with her? How was she supposed to handle that?
How was it that even now, weeks later, even after the way Erin had treated her the morning after, Lia still wanted her?
She didn’t know how people had casual sex. Lia sure wasn’t built for it, couldn’t look Erin in the eye without thinking about her naked.
“Hey, you two.” Perry, Albion’s head striking coach, waited for the two of them on one of the training pitches. “I’ll be working with you for the next few days. We’ll start out with our usual warm-ups and then move on to some simple drills.”
It was a relief to get started. To—temporarily, at least—push all thoughts of Erin away, focus on the ball at her feet, on the angle of her shots, on making the back of the net bulge.
“You need to be aware of one another,” Perry said, watching them both from the sidelines. “You need to be in sync. Need to know exactly where the other will be at all times, so much so that it becomes second nature. If one falls back, the other needs to press forward.”
Be aware of Erin? Lia was always aware of Erin.
They’d never worked closely together on the pitch, but it didn’t take her long to adapt. Erin had too much presence for Lia not to notice her, to be hyperaware of where she was standing, like her body was fine-tuned to Erin’s frequency.
Erin moved with an easy grace and a fluidity that Lia envied—had always envied, had always tried to emulate in her own play—and being able to play with her, and not against her, was a privilege despite their history.
“All right, ladies, that’s enough for today.” Perry called them to a halt after a set of passing drills, Erin finding Lia with ease every time. “That was a longer session than usual, but you were doing so well, I didn’t want to call it earlier.”
Glancing at the other training pitches, Lia was startled to realise that they were alone. The rest of the team must have already finished.
“Get yourselves into recovery, and I’ll see you at the same time tomorrow.”
Breathing heavily, sweat sticking her shirt to her skin, Lia trudged to the gym to do her usual warm-down stretches. Inside, it was quiet. They must have been out on the field for a long time. Not that she minded. In spite of everything, she’d had fun out there.
As Erin walked into the gym after her and began a set of stretches, some of Lia’s good mood faded.
Erin’s shirt rode up as she leaned forward to stretch her hamstring, revealing the notches of her spine and the smooth, toned muscles of her back.
Hastily, Lia turned her gaze away, chastising herself. Do not check her out, do not check her out, do not—
“We worked well out there today,” Erin said, her voice soft in the otherwise quiet. “Looks like we make a good team. Who would’ve thought?”
“I don’t know, Erin. Everyone other than you?”
Erin winced at the tone of her voice.
Lia sighed. “Sorry. I’m still having some trouble handling this.”
“Our mistake, you mean?”
The words were bitter enough to make Lia regret saying them in the first place. Especially because, even knowing what had come after, she would do it all over again if she could go back in time. “Are you telling me you don’t regret it?”
Erin’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “The only thing I regret is how I treated you after. I’d take it back if I could. And if there was a way I could make it up to you, I would. Not that it matters now, anyway.”
The tone of Erin’s voice made Lia tilt her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No.” Folding her arms across her chest, Lia met Erin’s gaze head-on. “Tell me.”
Erin’s teeth flashed white as she bit at her bottom lip, a rare display of uneasiness. “I overheard you talking to Hannah on the phone a few weeks ago. It seemed…friendly. I thought maybe you’d got back together.”
Not what Lia had expected at all—she was so surprised, she laughed. “Are you joking? Is that why you’ve kept your distance these last few weeks?”
“No. I kept my distance because you asked for space. Because we made a mistake.”