Chapter Five #2
Marcee rolled her eyes. “There won’t be a next time.”
“There might be. We’re wiping the slate clean, remember?”
“Fine, it was a draw,” she retorted, sitting up. The backs of her arms itched after lying in the grass, dandelion tufts sticking to her shirt. “A tie. No clean slate.”
He shook his head incredulously and chuckled. “A spoilsport, eh? Never lost at anything, I wager.”
She hated that accent. She hated it so much she wanted to bottle it up and keep it in her bedside drawer at home.
If he only knew just how much she’d lost. Those second-place finishes were the ones that kept her up at night, agonizing over all the things she could’ve done better to change the outcome, even when it’d been years.
“Everyone has lost at something,” she replied, unable to tear her eyes away from his. Damn, what was this between them? She hadn’t felt anything like it since… well, since Eli.
Voices floated on the air from across the quad, a group of coaches and trainers with smoothies coming back from the cafeteria.
The last thing she needed was for someone to see them together and get the wrong idea.
Especially if they were both stretched out on the grass like a damn romantic picnic. “Gotta go.”
“What? Wait a second, Pemberton! We didn’t agree on what happens if it’s a tie. Marcee!” His voice had an undercurrent of something she was sure she would overanalyze later, but since she was already sprinting off in the opposite direction, she’d never know for sure.
Marcee gave the next two days of camp her undivided attention, determined to throw everything she had into soaking up Neal and Colby’s knowledge while bonding with the girls.
It was long days of training and conditioning and late nights of team building that involved movies and junk food and the usual team camp pranks.
In some respects, it felt like college all over again: tired all the time, but deliriously happy because soccer was once again life.
It was as if her place in the universe had been reestablished.
What hadn’t been settled by Thursday morning was where things now sat with Remy after their race.
For a moment, she wanted to believe what he said—that he wasn’t a bad guy.
It was precisely that feeling which sent her into intermittent bouts of confusion, though.
They’d both kept their distance, limiting their interactions as if neither of them knew what role to take.
She was exhausted with the mental warfare and, frankly, not even sure it was intentional on either side.
It was a clusterfuck, much like the scene which transpired on the sidelines in the early morning heat.
“It’s not how we do things at this camp, Coach Lockley.”
Marcee had to give it to Neal. He stayed firm, even though Remy’s persistence had started to wear on everyone within earshot.
The sun was blazing down on them, and with the lack of a breeze, it was all too easy to succumb to irritability without having a pushy know-it-all forcing his ideas down everyone’s throats.
“Bollocks. It’s just a scrimmage. What better training is there than actual play?” Remy reached out and squeezed Neal’s shoulder. Beside her, Colby huffed out a sigh and rolled her eyes skyward. Marcee wasn’t the only one fed up with Remy’s attitude. Who did the man think he was? Lionel Messi?
“Rules are rules,” Marcee chimed in. “If the man said no, that’s what it means. I realize that’s a foreign concept for you.”
It was as if she hadn’t even spoken. Remy completely ignored her, dropping his hand. It took everything in Marcee not to childishly stick her tongue out at him, just to get a rise.
“What if I can get approval from the camp director? What then?”
Neal ran a hand through his hair and cut his eyes to Marcee. “Technically, it would be fine.” Before Remy could run off, he added quickly, “But Coach Ackerman would have to agree first. It’s her team. If she doesn’t think it’s best for them, then it won’t even be considered.”
Great, just great! Remy had worn him down like a used car salesman and everything suddenly fell on her shoulders.
She had no doubt the camp director would give Remy permission to hold a scrimmage.
They’d probably give him a job if he asked.
Which meant she had two options: back down and look like a scared little girl, or woman up and risk her girls getting stomped before the season even started.
She wasn’t saying it was impossible they’d win, but Marcee had also watched the Alpha girls all week.
Pemberton needed the coming weeks of training at school before the spring season.
She was stuck between a rock and a hard place—also known as Remington Lockley.
Nicole was running the girls through warm-ups. She couldn’t seek her advice without conceding what little edge she had left. Remy would never get advice on this from his assistant coach (a position that hadn’t even been filled).
“What do you say, then?”
Her gaze zeroed in on the English soccer god, his eyebrow cocked, arms crossed. Even through the irritation, her traitorous mouth went dry as she looked him over. Well, well, well. Guess someone was talking to her again.
“We’re in.”
Fifteen minutes later, the girls were huddled around Marcee, getting their first pep talk with her at the helm. She was two seconds away from throwing up. She hadn’t been this nervous since her first varsity game as a freshman.
“Okay, let’s remember what we’ve been working on the past few days: intentional passes, spacing, endurance. They do not get the first touch, ever. Understood?”
“Yes, Coach!”
“This may be practice, but I want you to give a hundred percent. You have everything you need to win this; you just have to stay out of your own heads.” She turned to their goalie. “Harper, nothing gets past you.”
“Not a thing, Coach!” Harper clapped her hands together, the sound muffled by her gloves.
Nicole shoved her hand into the circle. “All right, Pemberton on three. One, two, three, Pemberton!”
“Pemberton!”
Halfway through the scrimmage, Marcee knew she’d made a mistake. She’d let her pride get in the way and her team was getting their ass handed to them by Alpha. Fuckity fuck.
“Challenge the ball!” she yelled, her voice cracking at the end.
It was like no matter what she said, they did the exact opposite.
Alpha’s center-mid faked left, nutmegged her defender using the outside of her foot in the process and sent a smooth-as-butter pass to their center forward. Her defender didn’t recover.
“Watch the cut!” Nicole bellowed, running down the sidelines after Marcee.
Their girls were slow to react. It was textbook, really. Alpha’s right wing cut to the middle toward the goal, driving the ball into the upper left corner of the net after accepting the pass. If Marcee weren’t so upset, she’d be impressed.
The scrimmage wasn’t a complete loss in the end, even though they did lose. In the last minute, Harper made a save worthy of the National Women’s Soccer League. Even when the whistle blew, the girls gathered around her, cheering.
“Thank God for that,” Nicole breathed, cheeks flushed.
“The save or the whistle?” Marcee retorted.
“Both.”
She plastered a smile on her face for the girls’ benefit. “I feel ya. Time to eat some crow.”
She patted shoulders and backs as the team lined up and slapped hands with the other players, then took up the rear.
“Great job,” she told each girl, even though her stomach was sour and gurgling the closer she got to the end of the line. It was coming and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
“Fair showing, Coach.”
Say what?
Her hand slid into his, but when he went to immediately drop it, she held on.
“Come again?” Marcee asked. Her ears must’ve been stuffy from all the humidity. It was his moment to brag and rub it in her face, and yet, nothing.
“I said, fair showing. Good effort.” Even though the words weren’t exactly complimentary, it was the detached, can’t-be-bothered tone that threw her.
He tried to tug away, but she held firm.
“That’s it? No better luck next time, Pemberton?” She glared at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. What game was Remington Lockley playing?
He tugged his hand away, lips pressed briefly into a flat line.
“This is what you wanted, right? To go on hating me? You’ve avoided me most of the week, so what do you expect?
” He straightened and leaned in enough to keep his words for her alone.
A shiver went down her spine as his breath fanned her face.
“I stand by who I am, even if I’ve made a mistake, and I’ve admitted I was wrong.
I’ve tried to make amends. Can you say the same? ”
Marcee gaped up at him, at a loss for words. The flame of her righteous indignation sputtered out.
“See you on the pitch tomorrow.” He walked off, calling his team to the sidelines for a post-scrimmage chat.
“Are you okay?” Nicole asked, resting a hand on her arm, eyebrows knit together.
“No.” She brushed her off and clenched her jaw so hard her dentist would be appalled.
Was this the new game, then? Gaslight her into feeling like she was the bad guy in the scenario?
Behind her, the girls were milling around, swigging from water bottles and gathering their gear.
Did they hear their conversation? Heat flooded Marcee’s cheeks and neck as a pounding sensation bloomed behind her left eye.
There were plenty of things in her life she could feel bad about, but calling out Remy was not one of them.
“Come on. Let’s get the girls and go over everything in the quad before we eat. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
And work they would. That was the first and last time Alpha outclassed them on the pitch.