Me.
26
GAVIN
Playlist: “Cold Cold Man,” Saint Motel
It’s only been three weeks, but it feels like three years. I’ve spent them watching Oliver step fully into his role as sole captain now that I’m out of commission, though the team doesn’t know it’s for good. Three weeks I’ve watched him take command, lead by word and example. Three weeks I’ve warred with how deeply I want him, how badly I want to let him want me, fearing my baggage will overshadow us, worrying I have no business asking Oliver Bergman for anything except that recipe for the soup he brought and maybe, perhaps, any other musicals worth adding to my playlist because I have all of Sondheim stuck in my head and all it does is make me think of him.
Which is torture. I already think about him, see him, ache for him, enough, as it is.
Standing at the sidelines, I watch him, observing the tiniest things I never used to allow myself to before, when all I wanted was to avoid noticing him, being drawn toward him, actually liking him.
Now, I soak up everything. The way he listens with his whole body, eyes on whoever’s come to him, fully turned toward their way, brow furrowed in concentration, a comforting hand on their shoulder. His joy in the tiniest moments—when he tips his face toward the sun as it guts the clouds and pours across the field, the way he breathes deep and fills his lungs when a breeze picks up, his slow satisfied smile when he savors a bite of food.
Like pressing a bruise, leaning into a stiff joint, I force myself to see him. All of him. Young. Healthy. Happy. Team captain. Easily ten years left in his career. And to tell myself who I am now. Injured. Weary. Retired. Finished.
I stand and watch him, no longer his sneering, resentful enemy. I watch him with my heart in my throat, unfairly proud of every step he takes on his path toward greatness.
Though, he’d be a step further already if he stopped being so damn generous with the ball.
I scowl as he dumps it off to Santi, even though, with a simple step over, he’d have Stefan’s ass on the grass, the ball in the back of the net. It’s the pregame warm-up, so nothing’s exactly on the line, but it’s the principle that’s the problem.
“Bergman!” I bellow.
He glances my way, pale eyes narrowed against the glaring spring sun. My misbehaving heart drums against my ribs.
“What?” he yells back.
I jerk my head, signaling I want him to come my way.
He arches an eyebrow, then on a sigh, turns and jogs toward me.
“Hayes?” Assistant Coach Jas turns their head my way. “What happened to convene with the coaching staff first?”
“He needs to be more selfish.”
Jas nods. “Agreed. But Coach Lexi said protocol is you run it by Rico and me first.”
I roll my shoulders, chafing at the restriction. “Apologies, Coach Jas.”
Rico glances our way from where he stands at the edge of the box, talking with our goalie coach and Amobi. Knowing something’s up.
“Coaching comes naturally to you,” Jas says diplomatically, their eyes hidden behind the usual polarized lenses. “Lexi said it would.”
And of course she was right. She knew, when she visited me in the hospital after my injury, exactly what to say, how to nudge me toward this role. Because she knows me. Better than I’d like.
She knew I’d use this opportunity to fill in the gap left in her absence while on maternity leave, to exposure-shock myself to the full disparity between Oliver’s and my lives. To see if I can prove to myself and him that I can do this. Because, I have a sneaking suspicion, Coach Lexi Carrington is a giant, matchmaking meddler, and she’s rooting for us. She has been since the first moment she dragged us into her office after naming us co-captains and told us to play nice or else.
I’ve waited for the moment she’d be proven wrong, that my hopes would be proven false, too—for some revelation to come that the hurt will be too great, the juxtaposition of our situations, too painful.
Well, I’ve hurt. And I’ve ached. And I’ve wanted. And yes, some of it’s been for soccer, but more than anything, it’s been for him. Oliver.
I watch him jog my way, draw closer, eyes on his cleats, brow furrowed in thought. The sun glints off his golden hair, kisses his jaw the way I have.
My heart pounds in tempo with his feet as they strike the grass.
Love. Love. Love.
God, it’s horrible. It’s like an infection. A sickness. A fist around my guts. It’s so much more than wanting to sleep with him, to cook with him and watch musicals together and grumble about how my cat pisses in my shoes but does nothing but twine around Oliver’s legs and purr in his lap.
Just as my spiraling thoughts reach a fever pitch, Oliver arrives, scooping up a water bottle and squirting a long stream into his mouth. He smacks it shut and sets it down.
“Cap’n Coach,” he says with a salute.
I roll my eyes.
Jas’s mouth quirks. They stroll off toward the field, giving us privacy.
“You gotta admit, it’s got a ring to it,” Oliver says. “Cap’n Crunch. Cap’n Coach.”
“I’m neither a captain right now nor your coach.”
The music Oliver’s got everyone in the habit of playing to keep up morale switches to upbeat electric funk with rib-rattling bass. He spins and two-steps past me to the beat of the music. “And yet, here you are, gearing up to boss me around.”
“You need to take those shots,” I tell him. “And don’t give me that ‘it’s only practice’ bullshit. You’re warming up for a fucking game. What you do now, you’ll do then.”
He stops dancing, as if I’ve taken the wind out of his sails. Frowning, he glances over his shoulder toward the net. “My side scored, did we not?”
“Yes, but you didn’t. And you could have.”
He shrugs. “That’s not what matters most.”
“Wrong.” I step closer. “You have years ahead of you, a decade, if you’re lucky, and you’re going to spend them underperforming unless you push yourself to step up, win fifty-fifties, and take the fucking shot.”
His expression hardens, that relentless smile dissolves. “Just because you’ve done it that way doesn’t mean it’s right for me.”
“Yes, and I’m such a terrible example. What an underwhelming career I’ve had.”
His eyes flash as he stares at me, then glances out to the field where Jas hollers at Ethan and Stefan as they scramble back on defense. “You’re thirty-four and your musculoskeletal system is wrecked,” he says. “You’re in pain all the time. Respectfully, there are more important things to me than scoring every goal I possibly could when someone else can do it without it costing me my body.”
“Careful,” I warn him.
“You started it,” he says, scrubbing a hand through his hair, exhaling roughly as he glares at the ground. “Is that all? ’Cause if so, I’ve got a game to get ready for.”
I’m taken aback by his sharpness. The agitation in his body language and tone.
“No,” I tell him calmly, hands in my suit pants’ pockets, dropping my voice as I stare out at the field. “You’re wise to be cautious. I’m not telling you to do what I’ve done. Believe it or not, Bergman, there is a happy medium and I fully support it. All I ask is next time you’re in scoring range, push yourself to hold on to it rather than give it away. You might be surprised to discover what exactly is motivating you to give up something you deserve. Maybe that impulse isn’t as ‘good’ as you think.”