Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Maddy didn’t know what was happening.
She was in a stadium she’d never been to, wearing a jersey for her team’s biggest rivals, walking side-by-side with her own biggest rival, and the part of her brain in charge of figuring out what the hell any of it meant had been spinning in a tight circle for the better part of an hour.
Aspen was walking half a step ahead of her through the concourse, weaving through the crowd.
And she knew exactly where she was going because she came to this stadium roughly twenty times a year for her job.
Her job where she was the official rehab PT for a professional sports team.
That was a fact Maddy was still working to fully integrate.
That, along with the fact that Maddy was here, with Aspen, on something that was appearing more and more to be an actual date. Or at least, date adjacent.
Aspen had arrived to pick her up fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.
Maddy had been in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom with one earring in when she heard a car door close in the driveway.
Aspen said she would arrive at four. And every other time over the past few weeks when Aspen had given a time of arrival, she had been precisely on time. Never early, never late.
After glancing at the bedside clock to confirm it was indeed only 3:45, Maddy thought perhaps it was someone else popping by unannounced to visit Bunny.
She heard the knock on the door, followed by Bunny’s muffled yell through the floor, “Darling, can you get that?”
And sure enough, when Maddy got to the bottom of the stairs and opened the door, there stood Aspen with a smile on her face, wearing a white San Diego Wave FC jersey with blue, orange, and pink waves on the front.
That part had also been surprising. Because the two other times Aspen had picked Maddy up, she’d sat idling at the curb. She’d never come up to the door and actually knocked—which they had well-established was something Aspen never did at Bunny’s anyway.
The only other time Aspen had knocked was when she had shown up unannounced after dark to invite Maddy to the aquarium. It was late, and they weren’t expecting her. So that time made sense. This time…was just strange.
Aspen herself, especially, was acting strange. Aspen stood there, grin on her face, hands behind her back, rocking slightly on the balls of her feet, as she said: “Hello, Maddy.”
“Hi,” Maddy said carefully back.
Aspen’s eyes had very quickly swept down Maddy’s body and then back up to her face. “You look nice.”
It had not at all been in the slow, deliberate way she had done when she told Maddy you look good twenty four days ago. There was no hint of teasing, no smirk, just a gentle smile. And Maddy did not know what to do with that.
Maddy cleared her throat, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and said, “Thanks.”
Then Aspen pulled her hands from behind her back, and held out a piece of white fabric with blue, orange, and pink waves that appeared to match the jersey she herself was wearing. “I figured you didn’t own a Wave jersey, so I brought you a spare.” She paused. “If you want.”
Maddy looked at the jersey in Aspen’s hands, then Aspen’s eyes, then back at the jersey. The refusal was already forming when Aspen had quickly cut in.
“You don’t have to wear it. Obviously. You look great in what you’re wearing. I just—thought.” Aspen shifted on her feet. “Yeah. I just brought it. In case you—you know, wanted to look the part.”
Maddy had slowly reached out, pinched the top of the jersey with her index finger and thumb, and very carefully lifted it from Aspen’s hands.
Maddy held the jersey up and examined it.
She was an Angel City fan but she had never actually been to a game, so she hadn’t really known how to dress for the occasion.
She went professional-chic given that she was accompanying Aspen to her job.
She shifted her eyes from the jersey to the hopeful, nervous look on Aspen’s face and rolled her eyes.
“Give me five minutes.” Maddy closed the door and went back upstairs to change into the stupid jersey that she was now grateful for, as she looked around at the thousands of Wave fans around her wearing some version of the same thing.
Her original outfit definitely would not have blended in with the crowd.
And the last thing she wanted to do in a sea of thirty thousand people in San Diego was draw attention to herself.
There was surely at least one other person from Coronado somewhere in this stadium, and if she were spotted, the whole island would know about her little…
outing…with Aspen St. Claire by morning.
And the last thing Maddy needed was the island rumor mill churning about what this outing was, when Maddy herself had yet to figure that out.
When they’d arrived and made it to the main concourse, Aspen had asked Maddy if she wanted a beer, and Maddy said sure.
She thought it might help loosen the knot in her stomach that she’d had since she first said okay to this outing on the porch two nights ago.
Aspen also seemed wound pretty tight since picking her up, so maybe a couple beers would help them both just… chill.
At the beer stand, Aspen ordered Maddy an IPA and a kombucha for herself.
“You’re not getting a beer?” Maddy glanced at the kombucha.
“I’m technically working, remember?” Aspen said with a smile as she dropped her card on the counter for the cashier.
Right, Aspen was working. Maddy was just tagging along for the free ride. Definitely not a date. The knot in her stomach squeezed tighter. “You know you don’t have to keep paying for me.”
Aspen shrugged, casually. “I don’t mind.” She thanked the cashier and handed Maddy her beer. “Come on.” And she guided them back through the crowd.
Aspen led them down the stairs into the seating bowl. A kid in a #24 jersey in Row 3 jumped up to high-five Aspen as they passed by. “Hey Aspen!”
“Hey Luca.” Aspen high-fived back without breaking stride.
They approached Row 1 and squeezed past the people already seated.
Aspen stopped in front of a seat and motioned for Maddy to pass her and take the seat beside her.
Maddy didn’t think much of it until she saw the seat number: 13.
Maddy’s favorite number. She froze. It had to be a coincidence.
There was no way Aspen could have known that was Maddy’s favorite number.
Thirteen had been Maddy’s lucky number since she was six years old. Every year, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Coronado hosted two events on the same day: the Little Miss Coronado Beauty Pageant and the Junior Lifeguard Sand Sprint.
The pageant was held inside a hotel ballroom that smelled like hairspray, carpet cleaner, and a suffocating blend of expensive perfumes.
The Sand Sprint was held on the beach, where the kids ran barefoot through the sand, climbed over low obstacles, crawled under ropes, dragged weighted buckets around cones, and finished with a sprint to the flags while the island’s dads screamed themselves hoarse.
Bunny, naturally, had wanted Maddy in the pageant.
She had already bought Maddy a white dress with puffed sleeves and pearl buttons and spent three full weeks telling anyone within earshot that her baby girl had excellent stage presence.
Maddy had not known what stage presence was, only that it seemed to involve a lot of fake smiling and standing still while adults called her ‘precious’.
The boys in her class were doing the Sand Sprint. And her dad was the volunteer officiant, holding the stopwatch at the finish line every year.
This year, Maddy was finally old enough to qualify and wanted to race.
Bunny had objected, loudly, repeatedly, and in several categories. Maddy was too young. Too small. Too pale. Too likely to burn. Too delicate to be shoved sideways by a second-grade boy.
Maddy had begged. Then she had performed a demonstration of her abilities by jumping over furniture and crawling under the coffee table without knocking over a single decorative object, which, in Bunny’s house, should have counted as elite obstacle training.
Her father had watched with his elbows on the kitchen table and his mouth trying, and failing, not to smile. She didn’t know what conversation her parents had that night, but the next morning her dad told her she could do the race.
At registration, a volunteer had handed Maddy a paper bib—#13. Bunny gasped. “Absolutely not,” she’d said, already reaching for the bib. “My baby girl is not running with a cursed number pinned to her chest!”
Maddy had not cared about the number until Bunny tried to take it from her. Then she cared very much. “No!” Maddy said, clutching the bib to her chest. “I want this one.”
James crouched in front of her, took the bib from her careful fingers, and pinned it to the front of her shirt.
Then, Maddy ran like her life depended on it.
She crawled under the ropes so fast that sand got into her mouth.
She dragged the bucket around the cone with both hands and a level of fury that probably should have concerned someone.
She passed two boys on the final sprint, one of them Tommy Castillo, who had told her at recess that girls only did pageants because they were bad at running.
Maddy beat him by three steps. She crossed the finish line red-faced, sandy, and missing a barrette.
One of the volunteers had been standing at the finish line holding the gold medal like a dangling carrot. At some point, they placed it in her hand.
The next thing she knew, her father was shouting her name as he ran towards her and scooped her up so fast she nearly flipped over his shoulder. He spun her around, and Maddy’s hand that held her medal shot into the air like she had just won the Olympic Gold for Team USA.
Bunny had snapped a photo. And that photo was now hanging on her string lights.
Ever since that day, number thirteen was hers. But Aspen wouldn’t know any of that. Maddy chose not to address it and took her seat.