out of position
I CAN SEE YOU BY TAYLOR SWIFT
I hardly know what day it is.
I’m staring at a calendar filled with events and post-it notes, but it might as well be blank.
I’m meeting with the media team to go over the next few weeks of community outreach plans. Sebastian and Carlos are visiting a children’s hospital next week. Brennan is involved with a charity event for veterans. My pen is in my hand, but I’m not writing anything.
My mind isn’t here. It’s on him.
Oliver.
It’s been weeks since the weekend in Stratton Wood. Weeks since we almost—
“Addison?” Simone nudges me gently. “You alright?”
I blink and look around. Everyone’s staring.
“Right,” I say, plastering on a smile. “Sorry. Thinking logistics. Where were we?”
Simone repeats it—something about an ad campaign—and I nod.
I steer the conversation back on track without skipping a beat, like I didn’t just drift off to another planet while they’ve been talking.
Like I’m not reliving some highlight reel of every time Oliver and I have been dangerously close to something more.
My rules were built for a reason, but I’m hanging on by a thread. A very frayed, worn-out thread that slips further from my grasp every time I see him.
Pippa and I head down the hallway, coffee in hand, at Ashdown Park toward the locker room.
Match day always has an electric buzz, but today is even more elevated.
The team is on a hot streak, and if they win today, they’ll have racked up eight straight.
It would be another club record to add to what’s shaping up to be a historical season.
We round the corner to the locker room, and Luke spots us immediately, beaming like an overexcited golden retriever greeting its favorite humans. Pippa hands him his coffee and leans in for a quick, affectionate kiss.
I look around awkwardly while they chat until my eyes find him.
Oliver.
He’s across the room, one leg up on the bench, bending low in a way that weakens my already fragile sense of professionalism.
He looks up, mid-stretch, and catches me staring. His mouth curls into a soft grin, as if fully aware of what he’s doing to me. I whip my gaze away so fast I nearly spill my coffee.
“You alright?” Pippa asks, noticing my near mishap.
My gaze goes right back to him. He’s standing up straight, flexing his hips as he leans back with a lazy confidence.
His kit rides up with each movement, exposing his toned body.
His abs—a trail of muscle leading down beneath the waistband of his shorts in a perfect V—make my brain short-circuit.
He doesn’t even look like a snack, he looks like the entire goddamn meal.
I bite down on my lip, trying not to stare.
I fail.
I clear my throat. “I’m fine.”
Get it together.
I’m about to suggest to Pippa that we go find our seats so the team can finish getting ready, but then I see Matt striding over with a self-important smile and his camera crew in tow.
“Well, I didn’t expect to see you down here before the game,” he says to me with surprise.
“We were just dropping off Luke’s coffee,” I mutter, nodding my head toward the evidence.
“Big day today,” he says with forced enthusiasm. His hand brushes my arm as he steps closer. It’s not enough to look deliberate to an innocent bystander, but it’s intentional. He knows what he’s doing.
“So, I’ll see you for the post-game interviews?” he asks, his voice low, like this is just between us.
I open my mouth to respond, some polite but sarcastic way of reminding him that it’s literally my job to be present for interviews, but I feel some shift in the air.
I glance across the room and Oliver’s eyes are locked in on Matt, his jaw tightened. His chest rises and falls slowly, like he’s putting every bit of energy into restraining himself from going full Terminator. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him that still and that angry at the same time.
Matt says something else, some thinly veiled flirtation about the camera loving me, but I tune it out.
Pippa doesn’t though.
“Hey, Matt?” Pippa says, her voice sweet but sharp.
“Yeah?”
She smiles, but it doesn’t go to her eyes. It’s deadly. “You know how I don’t work for the club, right?”
He blinks, confused. “Right…”
“So, I don’t have to be nice to you.” She leans in slightly, her voice dropping any sign of being friendly. “And I won’t be if you don’t back the fuck up right now.”
Matt laughs awkwardly, but I can see his jaw tighten as he tries to act like she hasn’t hit a nerve.
“Pips, let’s go find our seats,” I say, already pulling her away. She falls in step behind me, casually walking out of the locker room like she didn’t just verbally assassinate him.
I glance back over my shoulder, but my eyes find Oliver, not Matt.
He’s standing there, surrounded by his teammates, but somehow completely apart. His eyes are locked on me like I’m gravity.
My stomach flips, but I look away before I do something reckless—like go back.
Pippa and I settle into our usual seats, just a few rows behind the team. The crowd buzzes around us, the whole stadium humming with anticipation. It’s cold outside, but my skin is warm with leftover tension from the interaction with Matt.
I watch as he makes his way toward the bench with his crew. Pippa’s eyes follow, and she lets out a breath like she’s been holding it in since the incident in the locker room.
“God, he’s such a fucking asshole,” she says, dragging out every syllable with deliberate venom.
I smirk. “Damn. And I thought you really liked him.”
“I don’t know what you ever saw in him,” she says, shaking her head. “Seriously, Addison. He’s the biggest tosser I’ve ever met in my life.”
“I didn’t see it. Not at first.” I exhale, shifting in my seat.
“When we first met, he was charming. He sent flowers and gifts, showered me with endless compliments. He paid attention. At least I thought he did. It didn’t all shift at once, you know?
It was gradual—little things you don’t notice individually until they add up and become too heavy to ignore.
He chipped away at me piece by piece. It started with my friends, but eventually, it was just every special thing about me—my humor, my intelligence, and eventually, even my voice.
” I turn and look at her. “By the time he showed me who he really was, there was no one left to remind me I deserved better.”
Pippa blinks hard. “Addison…”
“Some of that is on me, Pips.” I shrug, a bitter laugh escaping me. “I let it happen. I accepted it. I believed if I was better, if I just became what he wanted of me, then he’d stop hurting me. I thought I could fix it, and once I realized I couldn’t, I was just too deep to crawl out.”
“You are not at fault,” she says fiercely. “He isolated you. He manipulated you. You’re not weak for staying with him. You’re strong for surviving him.”
I nod, struggling to hold back tears. “Thanks, Pippa.”
“And now look at you,” she says, gesturing toward the pitch. “You’re here now. You’re doing an incredible job, you’re thriving, and he’s just a tiny man who had and fumbled the great Addison Scott.”
I let out a wet laugh. “You’re the best.”
She shrugs, grinning. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”
The whistle blows, and the game explodes to life.
Rockford plays straight out of the gate with a fast, aggressive fire. The red and blue stripes of their kits blur as they sprint up and down the pitch. Within the first five minutes, Sebastian has scored and entertained the crowd with his corner flag kicking celebrations.
The heat of cheering and chanting is enough to keep me warm on this chilly December afternoon.
“Jesus,” Pippa mutters, eyes wide. “They’re fantastic today.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “This is insane.”
“Or maybe their captain gave them a strong pre-match speech,” she says pointedly, glancing sideways at me.
“What are you talking about?” I ask. I keep my eyes forward, but I can feel her looking at me.
“Seriously, Addison?” Pippa laughs and grows quiet. “If I hadn’t said something to Matt earlier I think Oliver was a few seconds away from throwing him through a brick wall.”
“What? No, he wasn’t.” My voice lifts up an octave as I try to hide the fact that my stomach flipped when she said that. Deep down, I like the idea of Oliver feeling protective of me.
She hums. “Mhmm.”
“Pips,” I say sternly. “I didn’t notice anything.”
She raises a brow. “Liar.” She tilts her head back and laughs. “You were practically purring like a cat when he was looking at you.”
I roll my eyes, but my cheeks are already flushing. “I was not.”
“You absolutely were,” she says, smiling. “But don’t worry, I’m not judging. If Oliver Bradshaw looked at me the way he looks at you, shit, I’d be purring too.”
I want to argue with her, but I don’t know what to say without lying. Luckily, Brennan heads down the wing with the ball, and the entire stadium leans forward in anticipation, so her eyes and mine go back to the game.
There’s less than ten minutes left. Rockford is winning 1-0, but the opposing team is putting on pressure, desperate to claw back into the game and snatch a point.
Our keeper, Harry, is on the verge of a clean sheet, and Rockford is doing everything in its power to hold the line for him, but also go after a second goal to seal the match.
The tension in the stadium is thick, and my body feels like it’s vibrating alongside the chanting.
And then Oliver gets the ball.
He’s just outside the box. Two defenders close in on him, and I brace for him to pass the ball up to Sebastian, but he doesn’t. He shifts his weight, pulls his left foot back, and strikes it.
The ball rockets off his foot like a missile, curling in the air. The keeper dives, but it’s hopeless. The ball is unstoppable. It slams into the top corner of the net, and the stadium erupts in a chant, all for him.
Heeey, hey O-li-ver!
Ooh, aah! I wanna knooow-oh-oh…
How’d you score that goal?!
Something about the chant just hits me. It’s electric.
These fans love this team. They love him.
They believe in him. Oliver doesn’t celebrate like Sebastian does.
He doesn’t kick the corner flags. He doesn’t slide on his knees, arms wide open like he’s some kind of football god.
He just stands there, breathing hard as each of his teammates pile on him.
I’m chanting along without even realizing it.
And then he looks up.
Past the fans. Past the noise. Straight at me, like in a crowd of thousands, I’m the only person here. Like that goal was meant for me. Like he could hear me chanting his name.
It’s only one second. Maybe even less. But it’s intense.
And hot.
Maybe it’s twenty thousand people chanting his name. Maybe it’s the way his dark brown hair sticks to the sweat on his forehead. Maybe it’s the way his chest rises and falls beneath the number 8 on his kit. Whatever it is, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to breathe.
“Addison,” Pippa says, nudging me in the side. “You can say it’s nothing all you want, but that man just scored a goal for you.”
All it took was one look, one strike of the ball, and those rules I wrote in ink suddenly feel erasable.