His to Win (The Alpha Soccer Saga #1)

by Alison Ryan

  Patrick looked sharp early, snuffing out the Dundee attack wherever it germinated. He’d redoubled his efforts in training, and he seemed to have rediscovered the Mad in his game.

  By halftime, the game was scoreless, Celtic dominating possession but unable to score. Meg was well on her way to being completely hammered, despite the clock not having hit 8:00 a.m. yet. She somehow wound up on the lap of a strapping blond guy from Edinburgh who claimed to be in a graduate degree program at Georgia Tech, and she seemed quite pleased by the arrangement.

  Just before halftime, Ellie felt a tap on the shoulder and turned to face a grizzled-looking man waving a newspaper in her face.

  “This is you, isn’t it? Eh? You’re the one getting under the Monk’s kilt, eh? Ruin the whole fucking season, why don’t you?”

  “Excuse me?” Ellie replied, struggling to understand the inebriated ranting and to see the rolled up paper in the man’s hand to figure out what he wanted.

  The man steadied himself on her chair and opened the paper, showing Ellie the same pictures Patrick had seen sitting on his porch in Glasgow.

  Ellie took hold of the edge of the paper, straightening it so she could make out the words and images more clearly in the darkened pub.

  As Ellie read, Meg climbed off her new friend’s lap and snatched the paper away.

  “Holy shit! You’re famous, El!” Meg slurred to anyone who would listen.

  “Famous? She’s Yoko bloody Ono, you daft hen!” shouted the man who’d produced the paper in the first place, raising the hackles of the man onto whose lap Meg had returned.

  “Oi! Watch your mouth around the ladies, friend,” he said, rising to his feet as he slid Meg off to the side.

  Tabloid Man and the Scholar from Edinburgh were nose to nose before staff broke things up, sending the older man on his way and apologizing to Ellie, Meg, and their new friend by buying them a round. Meg was hanging all over him again, his chivalry clearly a Meg-magnet.

  Ellie, for her part, was shaken by the incident. What had he called her? “Yoko Ono”? She tried to laugh it off, but she found it hard not to think there might be a grain of truth in there somewhere.

  As the second half wound down, Celtic clung to a 1–0 lead, but Dundee United was pressuring, trying desperately to equalize before time ran out. In the closing moments, Patrick challenged a fleet-footed Dundee striker in front of the goal. The men collided, both wound up on the ground, and the whistle blew. The referee pointed to the penalty spot as boos rained down around him. Dundee was awarded a penalty kick, likely the final kick of the match. From twelve yards out, one shot to tie the game. Television replays were inconclusive. There was contact between the players but nothing that could be overtly identified as a foul. Had Patrick been a step too slow? Too aggressive?

  Thinking of me when he should have been thinking about the game, worried Ellie.

  The Dundee striker calmly scored the penalty kick, and Celtic limped to a disappointing home draw against the worst team in the league.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Patrick’s performances in a Celtic jersey hadn’t been downright dismal, but they were worrisome. He certainly wasn’t solely to blame for the squad’s slow start to the season, but much more was expected of the veteran defender.

  He’d heard stories of athletes, boxers especially, “getting old overnight.” A fighter looking great, having a great training camp, and then getting in the ring, as a heavy favorite against a younger opponent, and getting clobbered. The hand and foot speed gone, the once rock-solid chin now as fragile as a soap bubble.

  He didn’t feel any different than he had the past few seasons, no new aches or pains, his diet and stretching regimen kept him loose, he was careful to lubricate his joints by drinking water like a camel, but something had changed. It couldn’t just be playing in a new league or system; the style of play and climate in Scotland were very similar to what he’d navigated successfully for more than a decade in England. So what had changed?

  The only thing he could think of, and he kicked himself for letting himself fall so deeply into the crevasse that was Ellie’s heart, was that he was in love. Not teenage puppy love or the fleeting “love” Shelton seemed to find whenever he hit the clubs in London, Port of Spain, Miami, or—as he’d recently described in graphic detail over the phone to Patrick—Lisbon.

  Patrick was hopelessly in love. He fell asleep wishing Ellie was wrapped up in his arms and he woke up each day disappointed that he couldn’t spend a few minutes watching her lying next to him, her chest rising and falling in angelic slumber. A hundred times a day he wanted to say something to her, kiss her, grab her, and spin her around.

  Patrick shared his concerns with his disappointed mother back in South Carolina, almost as reluctant to tell her as he was to talk to Ellie about the whole thing. When he’d first described Ellie to his mom, she’d been ready to jump in her car and drive to Conyers to meet the girl she hoped would finally bless her with the grandchildren she’d not-so-subtly hinted to her son about for years.

  Patrick managed to talk her down off that particular ledge, but telling his mom that he was thinking of breaking things off with Ellie, or at least postponing them until the summer, would break her heart. Not to mention what it would do to the Georgia peach who consumed his thoughts.

  “So that’s it then. I don’t see any way around it. I’m letting down my manager, my teammates, and whatever legacy I’ve established by playing like this.”

  “Patrick. You’ve had slumps before. Everybody does. Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t score a goal every time he plays; Chipper Jones had games where he went 0–4; heck, every once in a while a Tom Hanks movie bombs. Nobody’s immune to a bad stretch. It’s no reason to throw away something as good as you tell me Ellie is. And, Patrick, I promise you, telling her you want to ‘take a break until summer’ isn’t going to work. For either one of you,” Sarah Sievert said to her only child.

  “What are my options, then? Quit? I’d be such a miserable bastard. Sorry, Momma, I’d be no fun to be around at all if I did that. We’d break up anyway.”

  “I never said ‘quit,’ but come on, Patrick; you’re going to be thirty-five by the end of the season. That’s not old, but it is old to be a professional athlete. And to be a new father!”

  Patrick and Sarah both laughed, the seriousness of their conversation broken by his mother’s indefatigable desire to become a grandmother.

  “And besides, you tell me she’s a distraction to you now. What sort of a distraction will she be if you can’t call her and Skype with her and all the rest of the stuff you two do? I know you’re excited about her visiting you over the Christmas holiday. And I wouldn’t do this to anyone else, but as your mother it’s my right: I was planning to invite myself to visit you at Christmastime as well.”

  “Mom. Slow down. Stop it. I’d love for you to visit at Christmas. And I’d love for you to meet Ellie. I promise, I just need to postpone things a bit with her, slow things down, refocus on football,” Patrick pleaded.

  “Have it your way, but you’re cutting off your nose to spite your handsome face.”

  “Thanks for listening. I love you, Momma.”

  “I love you, too, Patrick. Miss you, my boy.”

  ********

  Ellie was worried. Since the disastrous Dundee United game, she’d noticed a change in Patrick’s demeanor. They’d still chatted on the phone, but his text messages had shrunk to sometimes one- or two-word replies, and he hadn’t asked to Skype in days. Her mind kept going back to the rude man at the pub calling her “Yoko bloody Ono,” and she wondered if maybe Patrick felt the same way.

  She’d talked it over with Meg, although all Meg wanted to talk about lately was Daniel, the rugby-playing Scottish Georgia Tech grad student she’d met at the bar. Meg had even gone so far as to suggest that maybe the three of them go to Scotland together over the holidays, although Ellie was sure Meg was putting the cart about a hundred miles ahead of the horse thinking
Daniel wanted to take Meg home to meet his family at Christmas. As much as Ellie loved Meg, she knew that it was as likely Meg would go through three other boyfriends by the end of the year as it was that she’d still be speaking to Daniel, much less in some sort of a committed relationship with him.

  “Els, no offense, but what you have between your legs can’t possibly be so magical that it’s ruining the season of a soccer team in Scotland. Yeah, I’m so sure that every time Patrick goes to kick a ball he gets distracted by the memory of going down on you and misses completely. Hell, if it’s that great, you might talk me into switching teams,” Meg teased.

  “Shut up, Meg. You just don’t understand what it’s like to be in love. I mean really in love. I daydream about Patrick all the time. I know it’s had an effect on my performance at work; I mean I’ve been late to work because I was Skyping with Patrick, and I’ve never been late in my life.”

  Meg playfully threw one of Maisie’s chew toys at her friend. “Oh yeah, I’m sure the two of you were having a really in-depth conversation about world history or macroeconomics and you just couldn’t bear the thought of disconnecting before you felt you fully understood the issues. Either that, or neither one of you had a stitch of clothing on, which is totally fine and understandable. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Either way, Megan Marie, something has been weird with him ever since that game on Saturday. I haven’t told him about the guy with the newspaper or anything, but I can tell something’s different.”

  “Megan Marie? Did my mother just walk in here? Ugh! Why don’t you just call him and hash it out? Just tell him what happened, see if he laughs or how he reacts. Cowboy up, girl!” Meg replied.

  ********

  The next day on her lunch break at work, Ellie figured Patrick would be home from training, maybe fixing dinner, so she called him.

  After exchanging pleasantries and catching up on what news each of them had about their day, Ellie presented Patrick with a blow by blow account of her experience at the Green Terrier, about the newspaper, and the Yoko Ono insult. She told the tale sans editorial comment, with as little emotion as possible, wanting to hear his genuine reaction.

  “Well, that’s disappointing. The last thing I need, that Celtic needs, is ‘fans’ like that. I’m glad that guy Meg met—Daniel, was it? I’m glad he was there to defend your virtue. But, Ellie, the whole thing is something I’ve been trying to find a way to discuss with you.”

  “Oh?” Ellie’s voice quavered with emotion, the single syllable speaking volumes.

  Patrick cleared his throat and felt a sting in his eyes.

  “There’s no easy way to say this. I’ve racked my brain trying to come up with any way to say this that would make sense, but I keep coming up empty.”

  Then don’t say it at all! Ellie’s mind screamed, willing Patrick to swallow whatever awful, heartbreaking words he was preparing to speak.

  “It’s no secret I haven’t performed up to expectations this season—my own, the club’s, the supporters’—we’ve all been left wanting. The team, likewise, or maybe because of me, has also been nowhere near the quality we were supposed to have. I’ve stayed up nights trying to figure out what’s different, what’s wrong, what I can change to get things turned around. Now, I’m not blaming you—”

  Ellie cut him off.

  “No, it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re doing, Patrick.”

  “What I mean to say is that you, personally, have done absolutely nothing wrong. You’ve been terrific, all the way through,” Patrick insisted.

  “Patrick, please don’t pull the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ bullshit. Don’t placate me,” Ellie stated coldly.

  “Ellie, I wanted to make this easy for both of us. . .” Patrick’s voice trailed off, emotion choking off the words.

  “Was this whole thing just a joke to you? Do you find a new girl to wine and dine every season? How many other girls have you done this to? This sucks, Patrick; this whole thing sucks!” Ellie was a blubbering mess, somewhere between angry and sad, and the time together with Patrick in Glasgow seemed a distant memory. Or a fraud.

  Patrick sifted through the hurt and found his composure, his voice as icy as his eyes. “Ellie, that’s absolute bollocks. I’ve never once lied to you. There are no ‘other girls.’ Just you. Only you. I’ve never felt about anyone else the way I feel about you. You can choose whether or not you want to believe me, but it’s the truth. What I wanted to say to you is what I’ve always known: I can’t perform at my peak and be in a relationship at the same time. For whatever reason, I just can’t do it. I can’t be successful at both. So if this breaks your heart, I apologize. From as deep a place as I have, I apologize. I’m breaking my own heart—not that you seem to care. But until the season ends, I can’t, I won’t, be in love. I don’t expect you to wait around for me; I’m not even asking you to. But until my season is over, this has to be good-bye. When it’s over, I hope we can resume somehow. Or when I retire, if I’m lucky enough that you’re still single, we can start over again. But if you never want to speak to me again, I understand.”

  “I’m glad you understand,” Ellie said angrily, and with that she hung up and threw her phone on the passenger seat next to her, head in her hands, sobbing.

  Across the Atlantic, a stunned Patrick stared at his phone. The conversation didn’t go anywhere near as well as he hoped it might. Whatever hope of future reconciliation he envisioned hanging up with, it had completely evaporated.

  Ellie and Patrick were no more. Now there was just Ellie. And just Patrick.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  During his coaching days, Al Peavey subscribed to the subversive philosophy that “the best defense is a good offense.” It ran counter to what nearly everyone else in football, and in sports for that matter, believed—that offense wins games, but defense wins championships.

  The doctrine he taught his teams he likewise emphasized to his children, and Ellie, much to her chagrin, had fallen back on it when Patrick tried to have a decent adult conversation with her that looked certain to wind up going to a place she didn’t want to go. She went on the attack, turned things around on Patrick, and wound up hanging up on him, rather than hearing him out.

  She felt sick over the whole thing, but what was done was done. She was probably living a fantasy anyway, she figured, and the clock had struck midnight. Her glass slipper was somewhere in Glasgow, she was back home again in dreary Conyers, Georgia. The only thing missing was a pair of wicked stepsisters.

  Ellie picked up her phone and stared at it, willing it to ring, hoping to see a text message, a Skype request, something, anything, from her Prince Charming.

  ********

  Growing up, if there was one thing Patrick’s father, Ben, had drilled into him, it was that you don’t let your unit, in Ben’s case, or your team, in Patrick’s case, down. Team outweighs individual every single time.

  It was a lesson that served Patrick well in basketball, soccer, and life. Keep your head down and grind, and your effort will eventually be rewarded. Allow for no distractions, and certainly nothing as silly as wants and desires. A rising tide lifts all ships. If the team excels, everybody shares in the bounty. If the team fails, we all suffer together. In Vietnam, Ben taught Patrick, one man’s momentary distraction could have meant death for the entire unit.

  But this wasn’t war. It was football. And Patrick was devastated. Going into the conversation with Ellie, he half hoped something she’d say, or the sweet sound of her voice, might change his mind about the whole thing, that he might have the courage to stand up to the ghost of Ben Sievert, that maybe his personal happiness didn’t have to be derived solely from the success of the team.

  But it was too late for that now.

  After giving it much thought, and staring at his phone, willing it to ring, hoping to see a text message, a Skype request, something, anything, from Ellie, he decided he’d let football solve the problem for him. Celtic were sc
heduled to travel to league leader Aberdeen in two days. If that game went well for Patrick and the team, he’d made the right decision. If not, Ellie wasn’t the problem after all, and something else was causing the Celtic jigsaw puzzle to not fit together quite right.

  ********

  The sound of his phone ringing woke Patrick late that night, and as he fumbled for it in the dark, he expected to see Ellie’s smiling face on the screen. Instead, it was his mother calling.

  Calls in the middle of the night from a loved one are rarely good news, so it was with a feeling of dread that Patrick answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Patrick, I’m sorry to call you so late. I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

  “Mom, this isn’t about Ellie, is it?”

  “Ellie? No, dear, not at all. It’s about Amina Seck. Tacko’s mother. She’s passed away.”

  Patrick sat up in bed. “What? Wait a minute. She wasn’t, Mom, she wasn’t that much older than me. What happened?”

  “I don’t have many details, I’ve kept in touch with the family, with Amina and Jawara, Tacko’s father and I got a message from the family. She was forty-two. It happened late last week. She’s already been buried, their tradition calls for a very quick burial. But the family is in mourning, there will be a prayer service on the eighth day, which is Saturday. I’m leaving in a few hours for Dakar, it’s almost an entire day of travel. I’ll arrive Friday evening. I feel called to be there. I know you have a match, but maybe the team could put you on, what do they call it again?”

  “Compassionate leave, Mom. And yes, probably so, but do you have any details? If there’s a way I can play and still make it, I’d—”