by Pratt, Lulu
“Awesome.” Blaire gave me one more delighted hug, grabbed her fiancé’s hand and then made their way over to a group of comedians milling around.
Overjoyed, I looked back to Cash and saw that his face was drawn, nervous.
“You can relax now,” I joked. “Everything’s perfect.”
“Not yet,” he replied, shaking his head.
I was about to ask questions, but then Cash slowly, with trembling hands, unbuttoned his navy collared shirt. I was confused — we still had guests! — but then I looked closer, and saw that there was a large new tattoo on his breastbone, right over his heart.
He’d inked our names on his chest, intertwining like an infinity symbol.
“Cash—” I began, unsure, but he cut me off.
“Spend the rest of your life with me,” Cash said as he knelt swiftly down on one knee. “I love you, Cybil. I don’t want anyone but you. Marry me.”
I laughed and started to cry. “You said the night we met that I declared I wanted to follow you past the ends of the earth, and into the universe. I’ve already chased you across California and brought you home where you belong. Of course I will marry you.”
Coach Me
(Preview)
One look at my new soccer coach and my panties melt.
Then he opens his mouth and his English accent sets them on fire.
Nothing could ever happen between us, but I feel his eyes on me.
I can’t take my eyes off Catya during practice.
Her pert tits bouncing as she runs around the field.
Those luscious legs as she kicks the ball.
I need to get my head between them.
But she’s off limits.
I’d lose my job and she’d lose her college scholarship.
We have a championship to win but first I’m going to win her.
*** A steamy STANDALONE contemporary romance with a smoking hot hero. No cliffhanger, no cheating and a guaranteed happily-ever-after.***
Chapter 1
Catya
“YOU BITCH!” Tanya said with a laugh.
Steam filled the locker room and Sharon-Ann, unwilling to ease up, cupped her hands one over another and using the hot water from the shower head, sprayed Tanya again.
“So it’s like that, huh?”
Sharon-Ann crowed, “Yeah, it’s like that. What are you gonna do about it?”
Tanya grinned and grabbed a water bottle from her duffel. “Guess I’ll just have to dunk on you.”
I sighed.
I’d seen this play out before. Tanya was gonna take off at a running start at Sharon-Ann, and in the process, forget how fast she was. Being fast made her a good winger, but as a freshman and one of our newer recruits, it also made her a bit like a newborn foal, quick but unsure on her legs. In the damp mist of the locker room, I could just picture her tearing at Sharon-Ann, water bottle on high, then slipping on the white tile, landing hard, cracking her tailbone, and being benched for the rest of the season.
Being team captain, or really any kind of leader, gives you the undesirable ability to see into the future, and to find the grimmest possible outcome. You know how they say that the difference between teenagers and adults is that teenagers think they’re invincible, and adults know they aren’t? That was what being captain had taught me — that invincibility was a myth. I had to protect my team, usually from themselves.
“Tanya, Sharon-Ann,” I called out, already weary. “Be careful, the floors are slippery.”
God, twenty-one-years old and I already sounded like somebody’s mother. All I needed was an ill-fitting J. Crew peplum and a secret, vodka-filled flask in the back pocket of my Old Navy jeans.
“Aw, come on Catya, we’re being safe,” Sharon-Ann replied back, her voice ringing off the lockers.
Unable to help myself, I rolled my eyes. “Sure you are. Can you just like, sit on the floor and spray each other? It’s all of the water without any of the running.”
Tanya’s sigh was nearly audible across the entire locker room, even through the laughs and light chat of the other twenty-three girls. She was disappointed in me, in my unrelentingly strict ways. I’m bored of it too, I wanted to reply. Being straight-laced might have been my responsibility, but it certainly wasn’t my identity. When we were off the clock, and I wasn’t in charge of everyone’s well-being, I let my hair down with the best of them.
But with the championships only a few months away, my hair had to stay firmly up at all times.
“Never mind,” Tanya said, openly annoyed. “It’s not fun anymore.”
I briefly debated lampooning her for being so uncooperative, but decided against it. After being promoted to captain last year at the age of twenty and only a sophomore, I became the youngest women’s soccer captain ULA had ever seen. Some of the older girls were miffed that I got the spot, saying that it ought to go to a more senior team member. Which was to say, I had to fight like hell to prove I belonged, that I earned what was given to me. I think they backed off because I was, beyond dispute, good at the job, and when people saw how much work it was, the position no longer seemed so desirable.
In any case, I’d earned the trust of the others — and maybe their pity, too, though I chose not to dwell on that.
Out of the corner of my eye, which seemed to have gained an extra fifteen degrees of vision since becoming captain, I saw Tanya and Sharon-Ann lay off the water fight. Good. A small victory.
“All right, girls,” I began. “Normal practice time tomorrow, I think with some gym training, so be sure to bring regular sneakers as well as cleats—”
“Ladies,” a male voice interrupted. “Are you decent?”
The girls looked around at one another, confused, and then at me.
“Who’s that?” Riri asked.
I shrugged, the voice was unfamiliar. “I dunno.”
“Should we let him in?” Neidin queried.
“Uh… I guess so,” I replied, faltering. I did a quick visual sweep of the locker room, checking for any visible tits or ass. “Ya’ll dressed?”
Nods all around, except for Sophia, who called back, “One sec, just need a shirt.”
She began pulling every single thing out of her duffel bag, and the team heaved a collective sigh. Sophia was chronically disorganized, is it shocked us one and all when she turned out to be an excellent center midfielder. Amongst ourselves, we wondered how she even managed to find the ball in order to pass it, let alone assist in so very many goals.
At last, she pulled on a tee, and triumphantly rejoined, “All set!”
“Okay,” I returned. Then, to the door, “We’re ready, you can come in!”
The team and I turned in unison to see whomever was standing on the other side of the wall. Through the steam came a short, portly figure, his hairline so far back that it didn’t appear to exist on the same plane as his face. And the face, when it did come into view, was a familiar one.
“Hi David,” I said with a forced smile. Behind me, the girls shifted. I turned over my shoulder, and explained, “Everyone, this is Mr. Drake. You haven’t met him before, but he’s the Athletics Director for all of ULA.”
In other words, David was the behind-the-scenes guy. I’d been introduced to him last year, as team captains, in conjunction with coaches, were considered to be the point people for any athletic team. A liaison, if you will. David stayed as firmly out of the light as possible, facilitating everything from the shadows. Even given ULA’s massive presence in the collegiate sports world, he somehow managed to avoid any public scrutiny. I found him a little creepy.
But all that to say, David turning up at our locker room on a weekday was not a promising sign.
“Hi there,” he said, interrupting my running calculations as to what, exactly, could prompt his appearance.
“Hi, Mr. Drake,” they replied in an unnerving unison only acquired after months, years of tight-knit practice.
He went on, “Thanks for the introduction, Catya.”
>
His pulpy fingers played with one another, his hands twining and untwining rapidly.
“So,” he continued, “like she said, I’m the Athletics Director. I don’t want to beat around the bush with you, so let me get straight to the point. Coach Alan Turnpick has… has been asked to step down.”
My eyes went wide and gasps ran through the room, murmurs of ‘no way’ and ‘he can’t be serious.’
Alan had been the ULA women’s soccer coach for fifteen years. In fact, we’d just celebrated the anniversary a few weeks ago. He was as much a part of the institution as the stadium itself, universally well-liked and a key ingredient in most of our championship victories in recent memory. Only half an hour ago, we’d been working on passing drills with him. Everything had seemed, y’know, normal.
And it wasn’t like he’d just voluntarily left, moved on to greener pastures. For one, this was about the greenest pasture there was — we had one of the best track records in our division, and the job came with a hefty bucket of cash. Besides, David had chosen his words carefully, he had said Alan was “asked to step down.”
However, in my heart, I knew what happened, and suspected the other girls did, too. But now wasn’t the time.
“Okay,” I managed to reply at last. Unsure of what else to say, I continued, “Thanks for letting us know.”
“No problem,” he replied, a bit too keen for my taste. He swiveled on his heel, and began walking back to the door. Certainly not one to dwell for the sake of sentimentality.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he added over his shoulder. “The new coach comes tomorrow.”
“Who is it?” Max demanded.
“Is it Ross Greenspan?” Rose piggybacked. “It’s totally him, right?”
But the door had already shut behind David.
The room broke into chaos.
“Oh my God, what happened?” queried Riri intently.
“No clue,” Sharon-Ann responded.
“There’s gotta be some explanation,” Beth said, desperate. “Shit like this doesn’t just happen.”
“Come on,” Grace offered. “We all know what happened.”
The team spun to face her, the smell of juicy gossip wafting through the room. I shot her a look, willing her to zip it. Grace raised her eyebrows at me, as if to innocently say, ‘What? They have a right to know.’ This wasn’t the hill for me to die on. Grace was one of my closest friends, both on the team and in my sorority. And as much as I loved her, I also knew that she couldn’t keep a secret to save her damn life. Generally, her candor was hilarious and captivating. At the moment, though, I was fervently wishing she could acquire a little discretion.
But it was too late. She’d already opened her mouth, and now there was no shutting it. I threw up my arms, relenting.
Grace took that as a sign of tacit endorsement.
Continuing languidly, she said simply, “Melanie.”
“Melanie?” someone replied.
Another continued, “What does Melanie have to do with this?”
Grace rolled her eyes, as if frustrated by their questions. In reality, I knew she was just enjoying the spotlight. She could be such a Leo sometimes.
“Melanie quit last week,” she said. “Alan gets fired today. Come on, do the math. You’ve probably heard the rumors.”
The room, in stark contrast to the chaos of only moments ago, went deadly silent. They had all, indeed, heard the rumor — that Melanie, a second string alternate goalie, was sleeping with Coach Alan.
There had been quiet jokes about it for months — the way she looked at him with wide doe eyes and made sure to respond to his every request with an eager nod and big smile. I’d told the girls to lay off, in part because I felt certain the little jabs were isolating, which isn’t good for team cohesion, and in part because I thought it was mean-spirited to make fun of a young girl for having an impossible crush.
Although, in retrospect, ‘impossible’ was the wrong word.
Anyways, they’d grown visibly more touchy over the past few weeks or so. He’d give Melanie little massages after practice or help her stretch in ways that nearly crossed a line. But even as their dynamic changed, the team avoided talking about it — which, for the record, was unusual for us. We spend a lot of time together, eventually covering nearly every subject under the sun, especially when the subject in question happened to be super salacious.
I think we all just knew that Melanie and Alan together was a can of worms we didn’t wanna open. Until now, that is.
Around me, the chatter picked back up. I could hear Max and Tanya conjecturing about the duration of the relationship, while Riri and Rose wondered aloud how far Melanie had gone with Alan. The din began to swell, and I could see that it was time to step in.
“Ladies,” I said quietly, and they all hushed. “Let’s not talk about this, okay?”
“But Catya—”
“Come on, now,” I continued, ignoring Sharon-Ann’s interruption. “Melanie might have left the team, but she’s still a Stallion. And we don’t talk about our fellow Stallions behind their backs, it’s just not how we do things around here.”
The girls hung their heads, ashamed. The “no gossip” rule was one I’d instituted within my first few days as captain, and one I’d stuck to firmly over the subsequent year. Having been the subject of some malicious gossip in high school and seeing how it divided people, I didn’t stand for that shit. Besides, it was hard for anyone to concentrate on nailing their headers if they thought the whole team was side-eyeing them.
That said, they were welcome to gossip about people outside of the team as much as they pleased. What? I’m not a saint.
I anxiously looked for another subject, and settled upon the obvious.
“Hey,” I said, distracting them with a verbal bright shiny object. “Who do you think the new coach is?”
“Ross Greenspan,” Rose replied, repeating her point from earlier. “Definitely.”
Nora shook her head, and jumped in the verbal melee to disagree. She picked mild fights wherever she could find them. In my experience, offensive midfielders are always looking for the next brawl.
I was nearly satisfied with my diversion tactics when I heard someone say, “Okay, that’s all well and good, but is he gonna be, like, hot?”
The team erupted.
“No way, college soccer coaches are never hot,” Max said.
“Yeah,” Grace continued, “especially not ones at this level. You gotta be old, have some prestige behind you.”
Sharon-Ann, ever the optimist, said hopefully, “Come on, let’s be optimistic. I don’t need a David Beckham, I’ll settle for a… uh… Scott Kay.”
Girls around her nodded thoughtfully, as if Scott Kay was a particularly thoughtful and wise choice. I snorted to myself. These kids were all incredibly smart — ULA was an academically competitive school, as well as an athletically competitive one — and between them, there were probably at least two or three future politicians, hedge fund managers and TV producers. But the minute you got them, even the gay ones, on the subject of comparing hot men, well, you could say goodbye to your afternoon.
I half-heartedly told them, “It doesn’t matter if he’s hot, just so long as he’ll take us all the way.”
A couple of giggles sprouted from the crowd, so I clarified, “All the way to championships. Geez, get your minds out of the gutter.”
“But we love the gutter,” Grace cried back, gleeful.
“I know you do,” I said, resigned to the subject at hand.
Their voices swirled in conversations about whether or not the new coach was, statistically as if this were a class at the business school, likely to be hot. I tried to listen, but my mind wandered. In truth, I was mulling similar questions. Who was this guy? What would he be like? We’d spend much of our waking hours with whoever he was, so it was only fair that we were pretty invested in his personality and, you know, his looks.
I shook my head, attempting to focus.
It didn’t matter who this guy was, or how good his ass was in a pair of soccer trunks. I came to this school to win. With only my junior and senior season left, my time at ULA felt like it was drawing to a quick close.
I remembered, with fondness, the moment I was accorded the ULA Super Star Scholarship, a full-ride scholarship for athletes that was given to only ten men and women in each incoming class. My mom cried. So did my dad, though he did a better job hiding it. I reminded myself that come hell, high water or hot coaches, I was here to make my family proud.
But that didn’t keep me from staying up late that night, wondering who exactly was about to take over my team.
Chapter 2
Simon
I THINK THE only constant in my life has been soccer fields. No, that was wrong — soccer fields and a good pint of Guinness.
The moon was high and the stars were bright. This new school, this ULA, as they called it, was in the middle of nowhere, a town had sprung up around the college, not the reverse. So there was little light pollution, nothing to obfuscate the midnight blanket that hung overhead. I guess there were three constants in my life — soccer fields, Guinness and the moon. It seemed to find me no matter where I go.
I breathed in the scent of the field, the newly mown grass, the faint smell of chalk you only learn to identify after centuries of playing the game. The fields change, but the smell and the game stay the same.
Even, somehow, in a stadium like this. In fact, calling the area a field was almost insulting, given what it actually was. The ULA stadium was the size of a small island, maybe larger. Officially, I was told, it could hold ninety-thousand people. Unofficially, the number was closer to a hundred-thousand. The high-powered nighttime lights that festooned the outer edges of the arena looked military-grade, like they might be strapped onto the underbellies of helicopters at the drop of a hat.
The last place I could call my home turf, the University in Boston, was nice. Fine. Decent size, decent team, decent wage. No complaints. But honestly? I knew I could do better. ULA’s stadium was my kind of soccer — big, brash, no holds barred. The task ahead was daunting, to be sure — ULA’s women’s soccer was some of the best in the country. I’d be training women who were likely to compete on the US Olympic team. They would, easily, be leaps and bounds better than the men I drilled in Boston.
