Chapter 15 #2
One Lia still couldn’t get off her mind, no matter how hard she tried. “Maybe we should start fresh. Pretend the last six months never happened.”
“You think you can do that?”
“I don’t know.” But what they were doing now wasn’t working. And if Erin was nearly back to a return, ignoring one another wasn’t going to fly. They needed to work together for the good of the team. “But I think I’d like to try.”
* * *
“We have two things to celebrate tonight.” Shanice stood at the head of the table and raised her glass of wine.
Around Erin, their teammates did the same, and Erin lifted her own.
“First and foremost—happy birthday, Lia. I’m sure you’re thrilled to be spending the evening with all of us.”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be.” Lia sat on the opposite side of the table from Erin, a few seats down. The smile she flashed at Shanice seemed forced. She hadn’t been herself all night, quieter than usual, keeping to herself and only speaking when spoken to.
At team dinners that was usually Erin’s approach, not Lia’s. But though things between them had improved somewhat over the last week, Erin didn’t know if they were in a good enough place for her to ask Lia what was on her mind.
“And second,” Shanice said, turning her gaze toward Erin, “congratulations to our star striker, who’s back in the matchday squad this weekend for the first time in nine months.”
Whoops and hollers echoed around the table, and Erin couldn’t hide her smile. Unlike Lia’s, hers was genuine, cheeks aching with the force of it.
Shanice lifted her glass higher. “Can’t wait to see you back on the pitch, Erin.”
“Thank you. I can’t wait, either.” Being in the squad didn’t necessarily mean she’d get any minutes on Sunday, but it was one step closer. She’d sit by the side of the pitch instead of in the stands, inching her way toward her long-awaited return.
Even five minutes would be enough. Five minutes of hearing the cheers ring out around their stadium, of gliding over the grass, of dodging and weaving around players she didn’t know inside and out.
She could almost taste it.
Shanice sat, and around Erin conversations resumed or were started, providing a hum of background noise as she finished her glass of wine.
But her focus—as it always was these days—was drawn back toward Lia. Her eyes were downcast; she was staring at her hands. Not the behaviour one would expect from the birthday girl.
Erin felt that way about her own birthdays, but she was on the wrong side of thirty. Lia had seemed fine—if embarrassed—at training earlier when she’d walked into a canteen full of balloons and been serenaded by a chorus of “Happy Birthday” during lunch.
On the training pitch, she’d been fine, too, moving with her usual tenacity. For the past week, they’d trained exclusively together, and Erin had to admit she relished it. As when they’d both been injured earlier in the season, Lia pushed her every day to be better.
When they shared the pitch together, she hoped they were going to make a formidable pair.
Lia lifted her head, catching Erin looking her way. Her lips twitched into the ghost of a smile, but it was the farthest thing from convincing.
You okay? Erin mouthed, knowing none of their teammates were paying any attention to her.
To her left, Alex was locked in an argument with Cerys about which of them was would have notched the most assists by the end of the season, and on her right, Adrianna was gushing about the night she’d spent a few days ago with an Everton defender.
A small shake of her head was Lia’s answer, but Erin had already known that. It was clear on Lia’s face. Something was bothering her, souring what should have been a happy day.
Erin inclined her head toward the bathroom before climbing to her feet and slipping away from the table, fighting the urge to look back to see if Lia was following her.
* * *
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Lia said as she stepped through the bathroom door.
Inside, Erin leaned a hip against one of the porcelain sinks. “I do have a habit of cornering you in bathrooms when you’re upset.”
Lia didn’t deny being upset, though she was surprised Erin wanted to talk to her about it. She didn’t strike Lia as the type. But she supposed Erin had done a good job of it back when Albion had played Wanderers.
She hovered a step inside the door, drinking Erin in. They’d been training together all week, but it was rare for them to spend time together without a coach or a teammate present.
Erin wore a dark-blue blouse, the top two buttons undone to reveal her sharp collarbones and the tempting curve of her breasts. It was unfair for her to look so delectable when Lia was trying so hard to put that night behind them.
But how could she when Erin looked so damn good?
“Want to talk about it?”
With a sigh, Lia drifted closer but was careful to keep a few inches of space between them as she faced the mirror. “It’s dumb.”
“If it’s upsetting you, it’s not dumb.”
Lia tapped a finger against the sink beside Erin’s, forcing herself to focus on that and not the intensity of Erin’s eyes.
“It’s my father. He forgot my birthday. Again.
My grandmother used to remind him, but obviously, she doesn’t even remember anymore.
” She shook her head. “My dad and I haven’t spoken in months, but I thought he might reach out.
I don’t know why I still let it bother me after all these years, why I let him and my stepmother get under my skin.
Why I think they’ll ever stop disappointing me. ”
Erin reached out a hand, her fingers brushing the back of Lia’s shoulder, left bare by the cut of her shirt. Goose bumps erupted there in the wake of Erin’s touch. Her skin burned so hot, it felt like being touched by a naked flame.
Lia’s breath caught, so affected by Erin’s closeness that it became hard for her to think. “I know it’s just a day, but I hoped they’d at least send me a message. At least remember I exist.”
“You deserve so much better than that.” Quiet and resolved, Erin’s voice was as soothing as the patterns she continued to draw across Lia’s back. “And they don’t deserve you.”
Lia closed her eyes, trying to fight off the tears that had been threatening to fall all night. “It’s easy to push it down most of the time. Easy to ignore the fact that I don’t have anyone. But on days like today…”
“You do have people.” In the mirror, Erin met Lia’s gaze and jerked a thumb toward the bathroom door.
“You have a whole team of people out there who care about you. Who want the best for you. I know you haven’t been with us for long, but you must know by now that one of the team’s values is family.
That family can be what you make it—and not what you’re born into. ”
“And do you consider yourself a part of that family?”
Erin shrugged, dropping her hand back to her side. “Reluctantly. Every family has to have a black sheep, doesn’t it?”
Lia missed the heat of her touch acutely.
“And is that why you wanted to talk to me? Because I’m part of your family?
” Lia was pushing and prodding at things that would be better left alone.
But she was raw and lonely, and her resolve to ignore everything that had happened and keep Erin at arm’s length lessened with every second they spent breathing the same air.
Erin’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “I don’t think familial sums up any of my feelings toward you.”
Lia’s eyes closed because what the hell was she supposed to say to that? “Erin…” She curled her hands around the sink, tried to use the shock of the cold porcelain to ground herself.
“If you didn’t want to hear my answer, why did you ask the question?”
“I don’t know.” Lia ran a hand across her face, not daring to open her eyes. She didn’t trust herself not to lean further into Erin’s orbit. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“But you did.”
“I did.”
When Erin’s hand returned to her back, gently tracing the bumps of her spine, Lia jumped. Such a simple touch, but it burned through the cotton of her shirt, made her breath surge from her chest as a quiet gasp, as her heartbeat thrummed loud in her ears.
Flicking her eyes open, she found Erin’s gaze on her, her eyes dark and focused on Lia’s mouth.
“What are we doing?” Lia was afraid to whisper the words aloud, terrified to shatter whatever moment they hung inside. But she couldn’t handle the uncertainty, the push and pull, the back-and-forth.
Ignoring Erin hadn’t made things any easier. A fresh start hadn’t done anything to lessen the ache whenever Erin stepped close in training. Pretending nothing had ever happened wasn’t working, and Lia didn’t know how much longer she could act like it was.
“I don’t know.” Erin’s voice was breathless. “But I do know that I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Lia’s own breath caught.
“I keep telling myself to ignore it. To push it away. That it’s not a good idea—that it wasn’t a good idea in the first place.
You know I have rules, and that they’re there for a reason.
I don’t want distractions; I don’t want anything to take my focus away from anything but the game.
But it’s even more distracting not being able to touch you.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to concentrate in Ayla’s meetings when all I can think about is kissing you? ”
A buzzing filled Lia’s ears; she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All those weeks, had Erin really been feeling the same way? “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying…” Erin’s hand dropped to Lia’s hip, fingers curling around the denim of Lia’s jeans.
Lia remembered the strength of those hands guiding the movement of her hips against Erin’s mouth, and her throat went dry. The way Erin’s fingers tensed, digging in, made Lia wonder if she was thinking of the same thing.
“Maybe it shouldn’t be a one-time thing. Maybe it should be a regular thing. If you can trust me again,” Erin suggested.
Finding words was so difficult with Erin’s hand on her. After so many weeks without it, even the simplest of touches made her ache. “I think the real question is if you can trust me.”
“I can. I do. I’m sorry for how I acted—you seem to have the rather unique ability to get under my skin.”
Lia laughed, turning to face Erin fully. “Well, if it’s any consolation, the feeling’s mutual.” She opened her mouth to ask what happened now, where they went from here, but footsteps sounded nearby.
They sprang apart, Erin knocking on the tap to pretend to be washing her hands, and Lia desperately tried to catch her breath as she turned back to the mirror.
Behind her, the door opened to admit Adrianna, who raised an eyebrow as she glanced between them.
Worst timing ever.
“Thought you’d gotten lost, Ashcroft.” Adrianna batted her eyelashes, reaching out to brush a hand across Lia’s bicep. “Birthday girls aren’t supposed to hide in the bathroom. I’ve missed you out there.”
Beneath her touch, Lia struggled not to flinch away. Though at least it doused the flames Erin’s hands had ignited.
“I’ll be right out.”
“Better be.” With a wink, Adrianna strode into one of the stalls, and Lia tried to control the frantic beating of her heart.
Once the stall door was shut behind Adrianna, Erin leaned close, whispering into Lia’s ear. “What are your plans for tonight?”
“Nothing.” Cerys would try to persuade her to go out, but Lia hadn’t wanted to earlier in the evening—she sure didn’t feel like it now.
“Come over to my place when we’re done here, if you like. We can talk some more.”
Lia caught Erin’s eye. “What if talking’s not what I want?”
“That can be arranged, too.” After a quick glance over her shoulder, Erin leaned in, pressing a fleeting open-mouthed kiss to the skin just beneath Lia’s ear.
She shuddered, her knees shaking, reduced to a quivering mess by the simple brush of Erin’s lips.
Erin walked away, a self-satisfied smirk on her mouth, and Lia was quick to follow her out before Adrianna emerged, hoping her flaming cheeks wouldn’t be noticeable by the time she made it back to the table.