Chapter 11
ELEVEN
I live my life by trial and error. Mostly error.
—Beau to Magnolia
BEAU
Court stood beside me as we watched the game.
“She’s really good,” Court mused as he watched Magnolia expertly stop the Texas Fusion’s star forward cold. “She knows all their moves. Why’s she retiring again?” he asked. “She’s not that old.”
“She graduated from college as a nurse anesthetist and wants to start her career with that,” I explained.
“She’s been doing clinicals and practices, schooling, and games.
She told me coming into this team that this would be her last season.
She wants the guaranteed income while also being able to take care of Iris. ”
Speaking of Iris, she was sitting directly in front of me watching the game with avid fascination.
She always did.
Usually I wasn’t the one in charge of her, though.
However, after this morning’s freak-out and tantrum on Iris’s end, we’d decided that it was better if Iris stayed with me.
This morning, when Iris had woken up, I’d been up for an hour.
I’d gotten my own workout in and was outside with a cup of coffee when she came out onto the front porch and stared at the mountain beyond.
There were deer in the field, and a couple of elk higher up, and she’d been enraptured.
We’d had breakfast, then tried to leave, and she’d freaked when she’d had to get into the car.
It’d taken us several minutes to get her calmed down enough that she knew she wasn’t going to school.
Then she’d seen the yellow fucking school bus that took us from the stadium to the airport and lost her mind a second time.
By the time we sat on the plane, we were all exhausted.
And I had a shadow.
Magnolia hadn’t strayed far from me because Iris hadn’t given me a single inch.
She hadn’t been in my arms, but she’d been as close as she could get without touching me.
“Your sister doesn’t seem to take kindly to you bringing kids,” he murmured, glancing at said sister.
“No,” I agreed. “She doesn’t. That was why half the team hated her. She wasn’t very kid-friendly, and let’s be honest. Women have kids. Even professional soccer players.”
“Your dad doesn’t look much better,” he mused.
I looked over at my dad, who was up in the press box with my sister, who would never be caught dead watching the team from normal seats.
“He likely found out that I sold my shares.”
“He doesn’t look good, though. Seriously.”
“Nope,” I agreed.
He didn’t, either.
He looked like he was as white as a ghost.
“He probably thought that the team would stay in the family forever,” I murmured.
“But the thing is, the rest of us—Mom, Lysander, and me—we didn’t have the same experience.
Mom had to raise four children alone because Dad was gone a lot with the Condors.
Then he goes and buys another team for Sonja, and she finally saw the writing on the wall. ”
“If you ever want me to sell it back…” Court started, but I interrupted with a loud grunt.
“Absolutely not. I don’t want anything to do with this team after this season.
I enjoy the players. I enjoy the part where I get to sit here and watch.
But I won’t miss the headache of running the team.
” I heard banging and looked up to see my sister pounding on the glass of the suite, her glare on me. “And I definitely won’t miss her.”
Court followed my gaze and said, “You think she just found out?”
“Probably,” I admitted.
Tugging on my pant leg had me looking down at Iris.
“She’s back in,” Iris signed.
I looked up to the field and saw that, sure enough, Magnolia was back in.
She’d had to come out due to a bloody nose.
Nettie toed the ball sideways after she’d received a throw-in, then switched the field to the left defender across the entire length of the pitch.
The ball came back to the midfield then back to the middle where Magnolia was.
She looked up, spotted Nettie free of any defenders, and launched the ball off her feet.
“She reads it so fast,” Court murmured. “I know why she’s quitting, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a shame.”
The ball landed at Nettie’s sprinting feet and the crowd started to roar.
Nettie passed it to the left wing, but the winger lost it, kicking it back down the field to Magnolia’s feet once again.
This time, though, Magnolia was wide open to dribble.
She took the ball up the field, not something that the defenders usually did, and kept dribbling since she was left uncontested.
“Here we go,” Court said, leaning forward so that his arms were on the railing in front of him.
Iris leaned forward, copying his pose, and I couldn’t help but smile.
Magnolia reared back to shoot it. Then the whistle blew.
Magnolia stopped and looked at the line ref with confusion.
Her hands were up, and everyone was yelling.
“Is he trying to call her offside?” Court asked, anger leeching into his voice.
“Sure looks like it,” I protested.
“There’s no possible way that that could ever be offside,” Court growled. “She was the middle defender. Not to mention, she was on her own half of the field when she received the ball.”
The jumbotron showed the middle ref going to talk to the line ref.
The line ref looked confident, but the middle ref was already shaking his head.
“Here we go,” I said, looking up to the other box beside my dad and sister’s to see the head ref over all the refs watching the game like a hawk.
I’d asked him to be here today just for this very reason.
I could already see him on his phone making a call down to the field.
The play would be reviewed, and while it was being reviewed, the honcho in charge would be talking to the ref.
As it was, this was already a disadvantage.
The entire team had already caught up, and the easy tap-in shot was no longer available to Magnolia.
At best, they’d get a PK.
And we needed the goal.
We were tied, 0-0, and only had twenty-five minutes left in the game.
We had to win this one with a shut out to advance into the semi-finals.
“There’s no way around this,” Court found himself saying. “Everyone knows this looks suspicious. There’s no way that they’ll be able to hide a call like this two games in a row.”
“Agreed,” I grumbled.
Exactly what I said would happen happened. They went to review the play, and the lead ref on the field got a call from the head ref in the box.
After a very quick discussion, and an even shorter look at the play, it was determined that the line ref was off.
“Guy’s fired,” Court said. “I won’t let this one slide.”
“You shouldn’t,” I agreed with him. “Plus, coming from you, this is going to be even better seeing as you’re an international soccer phenomenon.”
He snorted. “Some international phenomenon who was sent to jail for a crime that I do admit I committed, even unintentionally, that they then wrote me off indefinitely for. This’ll probably be ten times harder to deal with based solely on who I am.”
“Some part of you wants it,” I said. “Not even Charleigh could’ve gotten you to agree if you didn’t feel like it was right in your heart.”
He grunted.
The lead ref walked out onto the field and announced it’d be a drop ball right in front of the goal.
Nettie gestured for Magnolia to take it, who immediately shook her head.
The two had a discussion, then Magnolia was reluctantly walking up to the line and waited for the ball to be dropped.
It was a shit call, and an even shittier situation.
The ball was dropped, and like we fucking knew it would, the ball went to the keeper.
The keeper picked it up and booted it.
“Goddammit.”
Except, Nettie was there to receive the ball in Magnolia’s spot.
See, what Nettie knew was that this exact thing would happen, and she was the fastest player on the field.
Magnolia dropped back to an onside position and waited.
Nettie out-dribbled every player on the field, and she and Magnolia worked in tandem in the next two moves, one-touching it back and forth until there were the two of them standing in front of a wide-open goal.
Magnolia shot and it bounced off the keeper straight back to her feet.
The keeper dove for the ball, but Magnolia kicked it up over the keeper, did a flick of her foot, and the ball rolled into the goal.
The stadium went wild.
All I could do was smile.
“I like her,” Court said. “She has a cool head on her shoulders.”
“Wonder if that ref will be fired,” I mused.
“Yes,” Iris added in her two cents.
I grinned.
She had the cutest voice.
I also loved that she was so adamant.
That ref did deserve to lose his job. Especially after that call. And if a four-year-old could see it…
I hoped my sister’s money would get him some schooling, because he wasn’t going to be working as a ref ever again. Not if I had anything to say about it.
Also, based on how pissed Court looked, the man was literally fucked.
Magnolia finally made her way back to the center back and had a laughing word with the goalie before doing a squeal of excitement with her.
“Mama’s loud,” Iris called out.
I looked down at her. “Aren’t you Ms. Talkative today?” I teased.
She nodded but didn’t comment.
I loved hearing her speak.
It was so rare, I felt like I was given a huge gift.
I returned my gaze back to the game, my focus solely on number thirty-three in the back.
Boone, who’d been pretty quiet up until now, said, “They’re going to win.”
I looked over at him. “We still have twenty-five minutes.”
“We’re going to win,” he repeated.
And we did.
We won 1-0, and the home team booed us.
I had a grin on my face when I bent down to focus on Iris. “I need to carry you through this crowd. Is that okay?”
She held out her hands for me. “Yes.”
I picked her up so that she wouldn’t be trampled, especially after yesterday, and made my way downstairs to the locker room.
We didn’t go inside, though.
Court, Boone, Iris, and I waited outside until they came out after getting dressed.
Nettie was the first one to come out, followed by Eddie.
She frowned as she looked around. “Where’s Weaver? And Margie?”
“Margie had a blowout.” Boone winced. “Weaver took her back to the hotel so I didn’t miss the game.”