I, however, feel eight thousand times better already after having puked up my liquid bad decisions. I have a hankie in my pocket that I use to dab my mouth. Then I crouch and offer Freya my backup from my other pocket. She takes it listlessly, wiping her sweat-beaded brow, then her mouth, before she shoves it in between her cleavage and winces.
“Hit the wine too hard?” I ask.
She sets a hand over her mouth. “Please don’t talk about alcohol. The thought of it makes me nauseous.”
“What’s wrong?” I flop down beside her and lie on my back. Side by side, we glance at each other, same pale eyes and Mom’s blond hair, though Freya’s is still white blonde, while mine’s darkened, like Ryder’s.
Sighing, Freya glances up at the dusky sky, glittering with silver stars. “My boobs hurt,” she whispers, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “And my period’s late.”
Discussing this topic isn’t taboo in the Bergman household. When each of the boys got the puberty talk, that included my dad sitting us down and saying, “You don’t turn into a juvenile jerk about your sisters’ periods. You ask them if they need anything, and if they do, you go to the store and get them pads, tampons, pain meds, comfort foods, whatever they need to survive, then thank God your body doesn’t do that to you every twenty-eight days.”
“Last month’s was light, too,” Freya says, her voice soft. “Almost like…not a real one.”
I push up on one elbow. “Wait. Are you—”
“Pregnant,” she whispers, smiling so wide up at the sky, tears streaming down her face. “I’ve been so scared. It was too good to be true, after waiting and hoping… I couldn’t take a test yet.”
I clutch her hand because I know her. I know when Freya’s emotional, she doesn’t need you to fix anything for her, she just needs a hand to hold. So I hold it tight.
“Does Aiden know?”
She bites her lip. “He knows I’m a few days late and feeling wiped out. I promised him I’d take a test tomorrow morning if I still felt this way when I woke up, but…” She shakes her head, wiping away more tears. “I didn’t have high hopes. I didn’t think it could finally—” A half sob, half laugh jumps out of her. “I never puke. And my boobs never feel like this. It has to be a baby, doesn’t it?”
I laugh softly, but my throat’s tight with emotion. “Yeah, Frey. I think so.”
My sister’s smile widens. She starts to laugh through happy tears, and then I’m laughing with her, like I haven’t in months. My heart feels full, its cracks and bruises bandaged by hope.
The clarity of this moment feels surreal. How sure I am, how free I feel having made this decision—albeit under the influence of alcohol, but in vino veritas, the saying goes—to move on, to be brave, to step into this new season, believing in myself and the possibilities awaiting me.
No more brushing shoulders with Bryce. No more relationships complicating my happiness or risking my joy in soccer. My friends and family, playing the beautiful game, that’ll be enough for me. And soon, there’ll be a tiny Bergman baby to adore and pour my love into.
I’ll protect my heart, keep my head down, work my ass off. Those will be my worlds, two distinct ones—the people I love and the game I love. As I glance up, hope burning as bright and hot within me as those stars lighting up the sky, I make a promise to myself: I will never let them be one and the same again.
2
OLIVER
Playlist: “Simplify,” Los Coast
Four years later
“Tiny terror incoming!” I yell outside the training room.
The moment she hears the familiar rehearsed screams of fear, my niece, Linnea, slips through the door, a blur of youth Galaxy jersey and soccer socks, a size-two soccer ball glued to her feet.
“Watch out, folks.” I mime a sportscaster’s voice through hands cupped around my mouth. “She’s three—”
“And a third!” Linnie yells.
“Three and a third,” I amend. “Three foot three, and she’s here to make you—”
“Pee!” she yells.
Preschoolers are strange. Still speaking inside cupped hands, I tell her, “I was going to say ‘weep.’”
Linnie’s dark hair, which she inherited from Aiden, is braided back, her tongue stuck out in concentration. Those pale Bergman eyes Freya gave her narrow as she runs at Ben, one of our defenders. He stands with legs wide open for her, and she nutmegs him, sending Ben tumbling in an exaggerated defeat to the floor.
“She’s unstoppable,” I boom, as she does a step over, which Santi feigns falling for spectacularly, wailing in despair as she beats him. Next, she throws a shoulder into Carlo’s thigh and cuts past him, closing in on Amobi, our goalie. “And she’s going for the—”
“Kill!” Linnie hollers.
Amobi lowers into position, blocking off the entrance to the next room filled with treadmills. Linnie does a tiny rainbow, and Amobi lets it sail right through his open hands.
“Actually,” I tell her, “I was going to say—"
“Goal!” Linnea screeches, wide-eyed with adrenaline, fists high in the air. The room explodes in celebration.
Laughing, Amobi rolls the ball back to Linnea and tells me, “I’m scared, man. If I’d had moves like that at three—”
“And a third,” Linnie says, dribbling off with the ball.
“She legitimately got me last week,” Carlo says from behind me. “Maradonna-ed my a—I mean, butt—straight to the floor.”
“Yeah, I did!” Linnie yells. Everything she says is at FULL VOLUME. Wiggling her eyebrows, she grins up at me. “I’m gonna score on you, Uncle Ollie.”
I flick my hands in a give me your best shot gesture. Which Linnea does. She completes a few step overs, pulls back the ball, then cracks it straight into my nuts.
“Oooh.” A collective groan of sympathy echoes in the room.
I drop like a sack of flour. “Son of a biscuit.”
“Sorry, Uncle Ollie!” Linnie hollers, throwing herself on me.
Yanking her onto my chest, I tell her, “Good thing I know just how to get you back.”
Linnea shrieks as I tickle her, then quickly climbs off of me, shoves me onto my stomach, and gets my arm pinned behind my back. “No tickles!” she yells.
I spin, gently rolling her off of me, and give in to our typical wrestling match. As usual, the entire locker room starts cheering on my niece.
“Linnie! Linnie! Linnie!”
“Ack!” I’m in a chokehold that’s pretty impressive for someone so tiny when the noise abruptly dies away.
Slowly I glance over my shoulder. Linnea flops off, scrambling behind me as I sit up.
Coach stands, arms folded over her very pregnant stomach. And next to her stands Gavin Hayes. World’s best player in recent memory, grumpiest grump, curmudgeonly captain, and once upon a time, my idol.
After a stunning fifteen-year career playing exclusively for England’s most prestigious clubs, he moved home to the States two years ago to play for the Galaxy. Ever since then, he’s either ignored me or scowled at me, like he does now, eyes dark with disapproval.