25. THIRTEEN
THIRTEEN
ALEX
Coach has been grinning at me like a proud father across the soccer field all day. It’s off-putting. Not only because it’s creepy, but the guilt I feel for lying to him is a heavy weight in my stomach that makes it difficult to play.
This morning, before I’d even set a cleat on the dew-glistened grass, he’d pulled me aside to show me a TMZ article that had been released over the weekend. It displayed a photo of my kiss with Eden with the headline Seattle Strikers’ Alex Wolfe is Off the Market!
It’s funny, seeing it from the outside.
I’d kissed her because I knew it would end up splashed across the internet.
That was the goal, wasn’t it? I’d wanted the team to see it.
I’d wanted the investors to see it—and believe what they were seeing.
The tenderness in my hand as I cradled her face, the soft fluttering of our lashes as we closed our eyes, the way we melted into each other as if we’ve been kissing all our lives.
I engineered it all. And yet…when it was happening, it didn’t feel engineered at all.
But that’s something to unpack another time, probably with Dr. Sharma. But that would entail me having to admit that I’m faking a relationship to save my career, and I’m not in the mood to face her disapproval right now.
“The party went well, then?” Roman asks, cocking his head toward Coach, who still hasn’t looked away from me. Surely his cheeks must be hurting from smiling by now.
“It went as well as it could have.”
He smirks, flicking up a ball to do knee-ups. “TMZ seemed to buy it. That was one hell of a kiss you gave her.”
He passes me the ball, and I toe it, rolling it over the muddy turf. “I did what I had to do.”
“Was it good?”
“I mean, look at her.” I shrug. “Can’t say it was a hardship.”
Understatement.
The woman must have taken some kind of class for how good of a kisser she was. The little mewling sound she made when our tongues touched. The cherry taste of her. The way she’d run her fingers through my hair.
Damn, I wanna do it again.
Roman hums a sound that pisses me off, so I pick up the ball and throw it at him.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“What did that noise mean?”
He has the audacity to act oblivious. “What noise?”
My eyes narrow. “You know what noise.”
Roman has never been the type to stay quiet when he has something to say. He’s always the first to call someone out or share his opinion. It’s obnoxious, actually, but at least he’s reliable that way.
This, though? The weird humming and knowing looks and secretive smirks is new territory for him. I don’t like it. Not one bit.
“Spit it the fuck out.”
He shoves his hands into the pockets of his training kit, his breath misting the cold February air. “It’s just weird seeing you in a relationship, that’s all.”
“It’s fake, remember?” I cover my mouth with my hand, just in case Coach has the ability to lip-read, even from this distance.
“Even so. It kind of suits you.”
I mean, he’s only seen us together once, and for barely five minutes at that. “Lying and deception?”
“No.” He shakes his head with a laugh. “You suck at that. You sweat every time Coach looks at you. It’s giving you away.”
I wipe the back of my hand across my forehead and scowl when it comes away damp. “It’s hot.”
“It’s forty degrees.”
“Well, I’ve been working hard today. It’s the first game of the season tomorrow, and I’m under a lot of pressure. I’m sure Jacqueline would jump to drop me from the team if I didn’t bring my A game. You know that.”
“Sure.” His lips twist into a shit-eating smirk that, the longer I look at it, the more I want to throw another ball at his face.
I was too soft on him the first time.
Coach blows the whistle, signaling the end of practice. Thank fucking Jesus. If I have to stand here for a moment longer, trying to decipher whatever the fuck Roman is hinting at, I’ll have an aneurysm.
“Thanks for the chat, Ro.” I slap him on the back as I pass him. “It was entirely unhelpful.”
“Anytime, bro. You know where I am if you need me.”
I flick him my middle finger and pretend not to see Coach waving me over from the sidelines as I make my way across the turf to the locker room. I can’t deal with him right now. I don’t want to hear how proud he is of me again or what a beautiful couple Eden and I make.
It’s been less than a week, and the guilt is already eating away at me.
Roman was right. I do suck at this. Not the lying itself, but the living with it. And lying to Coach feels like lying to my dad.
This is the man who has championed me from the beginning of my career, the one who scouted me from the youth academy I trained with as a teenager, and the one who made me captain.
I underestimated how much deceiving him would weigh on me.
The door to the locker room clangs shut behind me, and I immediately undress. We’re all so desensitized to nudity at this point that Theo, who’s been lingering on my bench, doesn’t bat an eye when I approach with my balls swaying at his eye level. “Hey, man.”
He shakes out his shaggy brown hair and looks at me with a boyish smile. At twenty-three, he’s one of the youngest on the team but a damn prodigy in defense. I can barely get past him when we’re running drills against each other, and I’m the best striker on the team.
“Everything okay?”
He nods. “Just wanted to say it was really nice to meet Eden on Saturday. You guys seem really in love.”
Theo, as well-meaning as he is, could not be trusted with the truth about our relationship. It isn’t his fault. He just doesn’t always have the best control over his words, and I can’t risk him accidentally letting it slip to Coach or, God forbid, the Wicked Witch of Purview.
“Appreciate it.”
“Does she, um, have any friends or sisters that you could set me up with?” He looks down at his lap. “You guys just seem really happy, and Leo has Brynn, you know? It’d be kind of cool if I had someone too, and then we could all go on double dates. Or triple dates, whatever.”
I think of Aspen. She’s a year younger than him and single to my knowledge. But that little hellion would eat Theo alive and drain his bank account before he even had a chance to send her a Good morning, beautiful text, which he’s absolutely the sort of man to do.
He needs someone gentle and calm, something Aspen is the antithesis of. Where Theo is a spoon, Aspen is a damn machete.
“She’s got a sister, but I don’t think she’d be right for you.”
Theo wilts, tilting his head to one side. “Why?”
“She’s a handful, to put it lightly.”
He straightens, lighting back up. “That’s okay. I’m fine with boobs of all sizes. All bodies are beautiful.”
Huh?
I think back over what I said and stifle a chuckle. “Oh, dude, no. That’s not what I meant. I meant that she can be difficult to handle.”
“Oh.” He nods then shrugs. “I don’t mind that either.”
I clap him on the shoulder, my dick swinging with the movement. “Trust me on this one. Aspen is not the one for you.”
“Aspen,” he sighs. “That’s a pretty name.”
“Try Raya or something else instead.”
I leave him to it, heading for the showers to wash away the sweat Roman so kindly pointed out to me. I’m conditioning my hair—man buns require a lot of upkeep—when the man himself strides in and takes a shower beside mine.
“Hell no,” I tell him. “Get that monster dick away from me and go shower somewhere else.”
He glances down at his crotch with amusement. “Don’t be jealous, Alex.”
Jealous? It’s not as if I haven’t also been blessed in the cock department, but there comes an inch where the line is crossed from impressive to terrifying. And if I were a woman faced with the thing between his legs, I’d run for my life screaming.
“I’m quite satisfied with my own junk.”
One eyebrow quirks upward. “But is Eden, though?”
Water floods into my mouth and makes me splutter. “We haven’t slept together, asshole,” I tell him once I’ve recovered. “And we’re not going to.”
“That’s probably a good thing.”
“Why’s that?”
“It would complicate things. And from the looks of that photo on TMZ, the situation is already complicated enough.”
I’m sick of this man’s riddles today. “There’s nothing complicated about our situation.”
Apart from Coach…and the investors…and Eden’s prick of an ex-husband.
He huffs a disbelieving laugh. “Whatever you say, man.”
“No, seriously. What would it complicate? Sex is sex.”
He looks at me like I’m the dumbest man alive. “For you, maybe. But it might not be for her. I’m just saying, sex makes things messy, and the last thing you want out of this is to break her heart, right?” He pauses. “Or for her to break yours.”
I almost laugh. “That’s not going to happen. Eden and I both know what this is. Our hearts have nothing to do with it.”
He gives a non-committal jerk of his shoulders. “That’s fine, then, so long as you’re both on the same page.”
Of course we’re both on the same page. There’s only one page to be on. This relationship isn’t real, and neither of us wants to make it that way.
There’s no risk of our hearts getting involved, and to be honest, I don’t think Eden likes me all that much anyway. She’s not going to fall in love with me, and I’m not capable of falling in love with her, no matter how beautiful and extraordinary she might be.
I trust her to keep her heart safe from me.
And mine? Well, it’s already so damaged that there’s nothing of it left to break.