He drops his hands from his head and then crosses his arms across his chest. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. That we’re okay.”
“But we’re not okay Mack. I’m not okay.” I kick off the door and take a few steps towards him. “You’re my coach. I’m your student. Not just your athlete. Your student. I have less than a year left before I graduate, and half of my world rests on the scholarship I get for playing on this team. Playing for you. Do you not see how that makes us not okay?”
“Of course I see it,” he barks in frustration. He lets out a deep breath and drags his hands up and down his face, which I’m beginning to recognize as a sign that he’s trying to find the right words to say. “What I meant was, are you going to be okay to play? Are you going to be able to play with me as your coach?”
I give him a short nod. And he nods back.
“Jeremy thinks you can go pro,” he says suddenly, and I’m a little thrown by the topic.
“Jeremy also thinks the Black Eyed Peas are The Beatles of our generation. He’s been known to think stupid things.”
Mack just smiles. “I’ve been listening to him rave about you playing soccer since you were just starting to play in high school. He said you had the natural ability where he always had to work hard at it.”
“He has that backwards,” I say, shaking my head and looking down at the ground as I roll a small rock around with my shoe. “Jeremy’s the star. He’s good at everything. He’s confident, smart, attractive, popular, an amazing athlete. He’s the golden child.” And even he couldn’t satisfy my dad. What chance did I ever have? The thought is fleeting, but it immediately settles over me like a dark cloud.
“To hear it from your perspective, it sounds like you think you aren’t any of those things. And I can tell you that from my point of view, that is the farthest thing from the truth.”
“Thanks.” My response is quick, my brief smile disingenuous. I don’t react well to compliments as they typically make me feel more inferior rather than lift me up. I was barely okay with Mack’s tendency to lean towards me and say something about my eyes or my smile.
Damn, that man can lean.
“Anyway, he’s always had wonderful things to say about you. I’ve been hearing about the infamous ‘Rachel Jameson’ for years. I’m excited to see what you can do on the field.”
I plaster on a fake smile. “Well, you’ll get to see me in action this afternoon.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Don’t force a fake smile.” My face immediately drops as he closes the distance between us. He isn’t inappropriately close by any means, but I can feel the tension radiating between us. “That’s two times in just as many minutes that you’ve done it. Your real smile is too amazing for anyone to believe you when you aren’t being completely sincere.”
I feel confused and I’m sure it’s probably reflected on my face. He’s complimenting me. Again. I feel confused because maybe I do want him to say these things. But I know he shouldn’t, and ultimately that is the feeling that takes control.
“Yeah, well, sometimes you just have to smile, even when you don’t want to. Even if life deals you a shitty hand. You grin and bear it.”
Mack just looks at me. “So, earlier, in my office,” he starts, but I quickly cut him off.
“Did you seriously leave to chase after me as soon as I left?”
He’s silent for a moment, looking out to his right with a hint of a smirk. “Yeah, that might not have been the brightest thing for me to do on my first day. I’ll need to reschedule meetings with all the girls I didn’t meet with.”
I shake my head slightly. “Meh, they won’t care. Just let that one go.” I pause, wondering how to broach the conversation from earlier. “I wasn’t making a slight at you or your past. Earlier, I mean.”
His head bobs in a short nod. “I know. It was a knee-jerk reaction.”
“Well if your knee-jerk reaction is to assume that I would make an off-handed comment at your expense, you obviously don’t think very highly of me based on our previous interactions.” He frowns, but doesn’t say anything. I let out a sigh and look back at the rock I’m still playing with on the ground. “Mack, you don’t need to do this. You don’t need to come here and try to fix things or make us ‘okay.’ If you’re worried I won’t play, you don’t have to worry.” I look up at him and try to give an unaffected shrug. “I’ll be totally fine. No big deal.”
His frown slowly morphs into a scowl. “You’ll be totally fine.” He says it like a statement, not a question.
I give him another shrug and just stare at him blankly, willing him to leave so I can go lay down on my bed and pretend the past few days never happened. And as I stare at him, I can feel the shutters begin to close in my body. My need to explain myself, my desire to ensure that he and I are ‘okay’, my wish that we could navigate whatever this is in light of our new relationship as coach and athlete… they’re beginning to fade to the periphery. I don’t want to have these feelings, and shutting them out is easier than dealing with them.
It’s always easier.
It’s how I deal with attention from men when I don’t want it.
Apathy.
It speaks volumes more than dislike or snappy responses or frustration or any other emotion. Keeping my face unaffected and neutral, as if I couldn’t care less. Because apathy demonstrates a complete lack of care, as if the person doesn’t even mark a blip on the radar.
But I also know apathy is destructive. And Mack’s facial expression is a clear demonstration that my apathy is impacting him.
But when he doesn’t say anything else, I take his silence as an invitation to end the conversation, maintaining my calm demeanor. “I’ll see you at practice this afternoon, Coach McIntosh.”
His scowl deepens and he flexes his fists at his sides, then spins abruptly and stalks down the path to his truck. He doesn’t look back, and I’m thankful. Maybe if I pretend I’m fine for long enough, I actually will be.
I just wish I could get my heart to agree.
* * * * *
Piper and Ruth-Ann are running alongside me when I hear the whistle blow, indicating that practice is about to begin. I jog quickly over to the bench and pull out my water bottle, splashing a quick swig into my mouth before turning and focusing on Mack and Coach Johnson.
“Alright ladies, I don’t want to waste a lot of time talking at you,” Mack says, focusing on the women standing in the front of the group.
Of course, Gina is front and center wearing what I can only assume are hot pants and a sports bra. My eyes roll so hard they might detach from my body.
I keep my eyes trained on my water bottle, not hearing a lot of what he says until he mentions that he’ll be working with the goalkeepers.
My head snaps up and our eyes collide. Coach Johnson has always worked with me directly. Why the sudden change?
I look over at Erin Thomas and Kristal Agnes, the two other keepers on our team.
“Did you know about this?” I whisper. Both of them shake their heads. “What’s the deal? He shouldn’t be making changes like this without at least talking to us about it.” Erin shrugs, but I can see that Kristal is as irritated as I am.
“Did you have something to share, Rachel?” I hear from the front. I look quickly up to the front and see Mack looking at me.
I clear my throat, suddenly nervous as all eyes turn to look in my direction.
“We were just wondering why we’re making a change to GK training so late in the season.”
My reply is cautious, as I want to ensure I don’t implicate that Mack is doing anything wrong. He is the coach, after all. But I also suspect that he’s doing this on purpose. There’s no reason for Mack to focus on our training. Coach Johnson and I have a system, a schedule, a plan. I don’t want to throw a wrench in it right now.
“Coach Johnson has expressed an interest in focusing mor
e on offensive training and strategy, as that's where his interest lies. I’ll be focusing more on the defense. We can talk more about it when the four of us hit the gym in a few.”
His reply, while answering my question, is like a slug to the gut. I’m surprised and slightly disappointed to know that Coach Johnson asked to change his focus. Did he not like working with us?
“Alright ladies, let’s get started.”
Everyone disburses into groups on the field while Erin, Kristal and I turn and head to the training room, talking softly about the change on the way there.
We normally only work out in the gym in our free time, as Coach Walker always wanted us to feel cohesive as a team during actual practice. It made sense to me. It spoke of her having a vision. Splitting the GKs off on our own feels wrong. But I know I can’t risk voicing my opinion, especially when things with Mack are so tentative.
When Mack walks in fifteen minutes later, we’re jogging lightly on the treadmills with weights around our ankles.
“I like the weights,” Mack says, standing with his arms crossed in front of our machines. “It plays perfectly into what I want to do with the three of you over the next few weeks.” He reaches over to his bag and pulls out more weights, walking over to each of us and strapping them to our wrists. “From now on, I want you to wear these as often as possible.”
I glance quickly at Erin and see her face break out into a smile. Erin read online over the summer that a lot of pro players wore light weights around to increase their speed and reflexes. If you could move quickly and accurately with an extra twenty pounds on your body, imagine how fast you would move once those weights were removed. She put together a bunch of research and took her findings to Coach J, but ultimately Coach Walker didn’t like that method and told Erin it wasn’t going to happen.
“I can see from Erin’s reaction that I won’t get much of a fight from you on this. It’s a technique used in the professional level in a lot of different sports, and I’ve heard great feedback so far.” Mack is standing in front of us again. “But I do mean as often as possible. I know it isn’t fashionable…”
“We aren’t concerned about that,” Kristal cuts in. “We spend a lot of time covered in sweat and dirt.”
I let out a little laugh, picturing our practice last week after the one day it poured rain in California. The three of us were basically standing in pits of mud. Once practice was over, we spent a good twenty minutes in a mud fight. Jeremy had refused to let me in his car when he picked me up for dinner that night.
“Sweat and dirt,” I breathe out, with a smile. “The glamorous life of a keeper.”
I look back to Mack and see him watching me intently. My smile quickly drops and I replace it with an unaffected expression. Mack clears his throat, averting his eyes. After giving us further instructions and pulling us off the treadmills, he heads back out to the field, leaving us to train on our own.
“Damn that man is a fox,” Erin says, once he’s finally out of the gym. “Think he has a girlfriend?”
I let out a snort of laughter.
“Laugh all you want,” Kristal pipes in, “but Gina said she wants to hit it. Hopefully he’s taken so we can throw her off his scent.” She sits on the ground and begins doing sit-ups while throwing a medicine ball at the wall at the same time, catching it before it drops. This bitch is a tank and I wish I could train as hard as her. She might be a backup GK, but she’s one of the ones who will go pro, without a doubt. She just needs a little time to develop more.
“Fucking Gina.” Erin slams her ball to the ground, picks it up, and then slams it down again. “If that bitch tries to crawl into Coach’s pants, we could have a huge issue, and our team doesn’t need that.”
“If he’s really as much of a ladies man as he looks online, she won’t have a hard time getting him between her thighs,” Kristal adds.
“He’s a ladies man?” I ask, my stomach turning just a bit. I remember the pictures I saw on his Facebook page, but those weren’t very recent. I thought maybe he had grown out of the nameless hookups phase, unlike my brother.
“Oh yeah,” Kristal says through heavy breaths, lying on the ground, still throwing the medicine ball at the wall. “Ruth-Ann said she couldn’t find anything about him online. But I did a little digging. His last thing was that Victoria’s Secret model with the sexy body. What’s her name?”
Erin lets out a bark of laughter. “The Vic model with the sexy body? You’re really narrowing it down, there, Kris.”
Kristal makes a face but continues with her workout. “You know who I’m talking about. She has those huge boobs and recently did a movie.”
“Ooooooooh,” Erin says, recognition hitting her. “Are you talking about Ronnie Kade?”
My stomach plummets and I hear a slight ringing in my ears. His last girlfriend was Ronnie Kade?
“He dated Ronnie Kade?” My voice comes out a little harsher than I had planned, but neither of them notices.
“He didn’t date Ronnie Kade. He fucked Ronnie Kade. They’re like, friends with bennies or something.”
I stare at Kristal, unsure how to process that information. How did this not register for me? I went on a date with a guy who was so sweet. I remember how affected he looked by our kiss, how connected we seemed over bullshit texting. But there’s no way I even clock on his radar if Ronnie Kade is sexing him up on the regular.
“How do you know that? Is it still going on?” I grit my teeth as I throw the medicine ball against the wall. I don’t want to be affected, and I definitely don’t want to seem too nosey.
“There are a lot pictures of him leaving her house early in the morning, looking rumpled and thoroughly sexed, but both of them say they’re just really good friends,” Kristal replies. It sounds like she has done a thorough check on his dating history. “Supposedly she’s dating a B-list actor, but there was a photo of her and coach together in People just a few weeks ago at a movie premiere in New York.”
“Hopefully Gina can’t sink her claws into him if he’s used to hooking up with people on that level,” Erin says, swigging from her water bottle.
Erin and Kristal shift away from Mack and instead begin discussing one of our other teammates’ recent flings with a player on the men’s soccer team. But my mind is firmly entrenched in picking apart my interactions with Mack in light of what I’d just learned.
I’m a confident woman. I’m comfortable with who I am. It has taken me a long time to get to a place where I don’t judge my life or my worth based on a man’s perception of me, in spite of my father’s constant barrages of insults aimed at my choice of clothing, body type, or anything else I do.
But knowing I’m following Ronnie Kade is messing with my stomach. She’s everything I’m not. Everything I told Mack I wasn’t. And what blows my mind is that he seemed to like that I wasn’t one of those girls. Was that all a lie? Was I just a girl that he thought would be easy to play with when he was bored?
My thoughts roam all over the place during the remaining ninety minutes of training. When practice ends, we join the team back on the field, and I know I’m in a sour mood that’s visible on my face.
As hard as I work to be unaffected, sometimes the Jameson attitude drips from my every pore and I can’t help the sass.
I keep my eyes from Mack’s as he addresses the team, letting us know we’ll be playing with the men’s team tomorrow in our regular pre-game day scrimmage.
When we finally wrap up, I turn quickly towards the parking lot. Hopefully some distance from Mack and a happy dinner with my brother can sort out my mind and help me get back to where I was before.
Comfortable.
Calm.
Confident.
I don’t need to measure myself to any model. That type of thinking is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention the fact that it will get me nowhere. And you’re not even dating him! I roll my eyes at myself.
A quick honk yanks me from my t
houghts, and I turn to see Jeremy’s SUV pulling up. My face breaks into a smile and I run to the passenger door.
“Hey Rach,” he says as I climb inside. I lean across the center console and land a smooch on his cheek. “Thought I’d pick you up for dinner instead of meeting you there.”
“As long as you don’t mind my funky sweat smell,” I reply with a smile.
About forty five minutes later, after sitting in traffic and shooting the shit about how things are going with the Galaxy and catching up on our favorite TV show - Fixer Upper is literally amazing - Jeremy and I pull into Ricardo’s. We rotate between our favorite restaurants every Monday, and Ricardo’s is this delicious little taco shop in Hollywood taking up a tiny lot space at the end of a long line of ritzy restaurants. It is literally twenty feet wide and only has about a dozen tables inside. But they have some of the most legit tacos ever. After placing our order, we take a seat by the window.
“So,” Jeremy starts, rubbing his hands together, “tell me about your first practice with the new coach.”
I groan internally. I need this dinner with Jeremy to distract me from Mack, not to sit and gab about him.
“It was fine.”
“That’s it? It was fine?” Jeremy’s eyebrow lifts up and I immediately realize my mistake. I keep my opinions guarded for the most part, except with Jeremy and Charlie. They’ve been witness to some of my most ridiculous rants over the years. Not having an opinion on Mack as my new coach is equivalent to telling Jeremy that I’m hiding something, so I scramble for a response.
“Okay it wasn’t fine. Coach Johnson doesn’t want to work with us anymore and we were split off from everyone else. I don’t like feeling segregated. It’s a dick move.” I grab my soda cup and begin chewing on the straw.
“Maybe that’s just his style,” Jeremy says with a shrug. “Coach Mitchell used to split off the goalkeepers, but Coach Norman wanted us all together. It’s just a difference in philosophy.”
I think back to Jeremy’s high school and college coaches, nodding my head with his statement.
The Keeper Page 8
