Crossing Hearts

by Rebecca Crowley

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Rio muttered. The six-foot-plus Californian clutched his shin, rolling back and forth on the grass.

  The ref jogged over and Rio held up his palms. “Come on, he’s twice my size. There’s no way I could’ve—”

  Of course. He sighed as the ref blinked at him and looked away. He has no idea what I just said.

  Steel players crowded around the ref as Skyline players also joined the conversation. Rio stood to one side, feeling increasingly superfluous as voices rose, fingers pointed, and the referee raised his arms to encourage everyone to calm down.

  The Californian pointed to his calf, then indicated the studs on his shoes, implying that Rio had deliberately spiked his leg—an offence punishable with an automatic sending-off and a three-match ban.

  He rolled the waistband of his shorts, unrolled it, rolled it again. His stomach tightened as what he thought should’ve been an obvious overruling seemed to take much longer. The ref looked angry, the Steel forward even angrier, and players from both sides gestured and shouted and squared up to each other.

  On the plus side, he wouldn’t need an interpreter if the ref sent him off with a red card. Too bad he’d probably never start for Skyline again if he got booked for violent conduct in his first appearance.

  “Rio!”

  Her voice sliced through the cacophony like the first drops of rain arcing through a hot, dusty afternoon.

  Eva stood beside Roland on the sideline, waving for his attention. When he made eye contact she cupped her hands around her mouth.

  “Roland says that guy always dives. Keep up the pace, don’t let him put you off.”

  He knew they were Roland’s sentiments, but hearing them from Eva’s mouth somehow made them much more important. Then she smiled, and he knew nothing would stop him from putting that ball in the net.

  When play resumed—with no cards given—he was calm, calmer than he’d been since he boarded the plane to the United States. He saw everything, missed nothing, read the opposition’s moves long before they made them. He was in his element, doing what he loved, never doubting he was one of the best players on the pitch.

  One of the Steel players faltered near the midline and Laurent captured the ball, steaming it into Steel’s half. Nico powered into the area to receive the pass and was upended by a Steel forward. Nico slid across the grass and Rio saw his opportunity.

  He dropped his shoulder and booted the ball into the goal. It slammed into the top-right corner, the net shaking and shimmying from the impact.

  Rio fell to his knees as the stadium exploded into cheers and his teammates piled on top of him, hugging him around the neck and slapping his back and mussing his hair. He couldn’t understand what they said, but he didn’t need to. There were times when action meant more than words, and this was one of them.

  He’d proven himself.

  For now.

  He grabbed his teammates’ arms and pulled himself to his feet. The clock was still ticking—the game was far from over. He waved his thanks to the crowd. Then he kept running.

  Chapter 6

  Eva nodded to her fellow parishioners as she slid down the pew to take her usual seat at Sunday-morning Mass. Third row, far right-hand side. Terrible view of the altar, but within touching distance of a six-foot-high statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

  Most of the time Eva made a concerted effort to listen to the Spanish-language sermon. She liked Father Diego and she respected the way he engaged with the mostly Mexican, mostly undocumented parish community. He was smart and progressive, and she usually left his Masses with interesting food for thought.

  But some Sundays—like this one—she stared at the Virgin’s serene expression until her eyes lost focus and she sank deeply into her thoughts, wading through fears, anxieties and dreams.

  Today she’d checked out of Father Diego’s sermon before she’d passed through the doors of the church. There was so much on her mind to parse through she didn’t know where to begin. Rio, yesterday’s match, her career, her mother—always her mother.

  At least the hour-long Mass gave her space to think. Sixty minutes to reflect, to analyze, to figure out how she felt about the events of the last week and what she intended to do about them.

  She smiled, mentally humming the tune she couldn’t shake after yesterday’s match. In the seconds after Rio scored what turned out to be a game-winning goal the crowd had burst into song: “Rio” by Duran Duran. Despite a lifetime as a soccer fan she’d never quite understood how thousands of spectators knew what to sing and when, especially for a brand-new player like Rio. Was there an online message board where these things were debated and decided? Was there an email newsletter? How had these things been agreed in the days before the Internet?

  She was still puzzling when she became aware of a hushed commotion at the back of the church. Whispers spread in waves across the pews, and the high-ceilinged building echoed with the rustling of turned heads and shifting bodies. Everyone was trying to get a glimpse of something, or someone, and she glanced over her shoulder to see what the fuss was about.

  Oh, just Skyline’s latest import from Chile.

  Rio caught sight of her before she could swivel back toward the front. He flashed his trademark lopsided grin and soon every set of eyes in the church was following his path straight to her. She hunched her shoulders and stared intently at the base of the statue, cheeks burning.

  The whispers crept closer and grew louder, and then a familiar pair of legs appeared in her line of vision. She followed the slim-cut dark slacks up to a gray button-down shirt, finally meeting Rio’s brown eyes.

  He nodded to the stone Virgin. “Friend of yours?”

  “We go back a long way.” She slid down the pew to make space. “Looking for somewhere to sit?”

  “Not anymore.”

  He squeezed into the end of the row, and Eva had to force herself to keep breathing as her shoulders pressed against the hard muscle of his bicep.

  “What brings you out to Chamblee?” she murmured as he settled into the tight space. “I’m sure they have Catholic churches in Buckhead.”

  “I know a lot of people would say the sermon is secondary to the socializing, but I have this thing about being able to understand what the priest says. José, the gardener, suggested I come here.”

  She was about to ask another question when the priest entered from the side of the altar. The parishioners quieted as the service began.

  Father Diego was a soft-spoken man in his mid-forties. His parents had come to America from Oaxaca and he’d spent his childhood barely a stone’s throw from the El Paso neighborhood where she’d grown up. He opened his sermon with a recollection of a candy store in El Paso, and although she listened intently, she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

  Because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find room in her brain for anything other than the man wedged in beside her.

  Despite what ended up being a winning performance, yesterday had been hard for Rio—and for her. When he was confident on the pitch, he was a thing of beauty. He never stopped moving, running at a blistering pace until he seemed to be everywhere at once. His energy was unflagging, almost chaotic at times, yet he made cleverly weighted passes and took clear-headed shots that belied his constant, frenetic motion.

  She wasn’t sure why he lost focus at the end of the first half, but it was obvious when he did. He slowed, hesitated, wore his self-doubt so prominently that she knew the opposing team could read it as clearly as she could.

  The Rio she saw at halftime bore no resemblance to the charming, self-assured flirt who’d found every excuse to meet her eyes during the team dinner on Friday night. His face was drawn, his forehead creased, and she’d wanted nothing more than to fling her arms around his neck and tell him to stop worrying, he was one of the most beautiful players she’d ever seen, and that he belonged in the Championship Soccer League.

  I
nstead she’d given him the space he seemed to need. She’d paused in the hallway outside the dressing room, where the walls were lined with photographs of the players in action. This was Rio’s first appearance for Skyline so the only photo of him was from the press conference when he signed his contract, smiling as he held up his new Skyline jersey.

  She stared at her feet beside the kneeler, her cheeks reddening as she recalled that moment in the corridor. Checking both directions to make sure no one saw her, she’d quickly put her fingertips on the number seventeen in the picture, shut her eyes, and said a quick prayer. Blessed Virgin, I’m sure you have much more pressing issues to deal with, but if you found a way for Rio to regain his confidence and help win this match, I would be super grateful. Amen.

  She’d crossed herself and instantly felt foolish. Did she really just waste the time of a Catholic deity—a deity she wasn’t even sure she believed in—praying for the outcome of a soccer match? Ridiculous!

  Now, as Father Diego’s voice droned at the back of her consciousness, she snuck a suspicious glance at the stone Virgin.

  No way. Despite her regular attendance at Sunday Mass, she was a pretty terrible Catholic. She doubted she was on the top of any saints’ lists for answered prayers, soccer-related or otherwise.

  Then again, maybe Rio was the good Catholic? He shifted at her side and she resisted the urge to look over. Was he listening to the sermon? Staring blankly into space? Or was he like her foster mother, Juana, craning his neck to look at the other parishioners and assess their outfits?

  She slapped a hand over her mouth just in time to smother a hysterical giggle at the image of Rio squinting down his nose at the underdressed worshippers. She faked a cough before she put her hand back in her lap but Rio didn’t buy it. She could feel the weight of curiosity in his gaze, although she refused to meet it.

  What if he turned out to be a super-serious Catholic? Maybe she was destroying her credibility, sitting here blatantly not listening to the sermon. Maybe he thought she was disrespectful and rude. Maybe he was so religious that despite appearances he was actually a virgin.

  Heat roared up her neck. That was the dirtiest thought she’d ever had in church.

  Plus she was almost certain it wasn’t true. The Chilean tabloids were full of stories of Rio’s supposed conquests—most of whom were models several inches taller than him—and in the months before his arrival in Georgia they’d detailed what had apparently been his acrimonious break-up with his blond, beauty-queen girlfriend. If the articles were to be believed she’d become too clingy, too sexually demanding, and he needed to focus on his newly international career, and—

  She shook her head sharply to shut down that train of thought. It was stupid tabloid gossip, and unfair of her to give it any air time. Rio would show himself to her in due course.

  Which part he chose to show her, well…

  She cast a sidelong glance at the Virgin’s disapproving face, and mouthed “I’m sorry” as Father Diego led the congregation in the Our Father.

  * * * *

  Rio stretched as the service ended and the parishioners rose from their seats in the pews. It had been years since he’d regularly attended Mass, but after spending a couple of weeks before flying to the States with his twice-a-week-attendee mother, he thought he’d try to get back in the habit.

  If his performance on the pitch yesterday was any indication, he’d take all the help he could get.

  Eva looked up at him, her expression as unreadable as ever as she nodded to the crowd lingering outside the door. “You’ll have a few requests for autographs, I imagine. Hope you weren’t planning on a quick escape.”

  “People asking for my autograph has never gotten old. I should’ve brought a pen.”

  “I’ve got a spare in my purse.”

  He followed her down the side aisle. He’d been having sinful thoughts ever since he caught sight of her in her modest yet fitted gray dress, hair gathered in a clip at her nape, exposing the long line where her shoulder met her neck. He’d spent the priest’s entire sermon in vivid awareness of her scent, her proximity, each minute motion of her body.

  This Sunday morning had turned downright unholy.

  Just as Eva predicted, when they reached the entrance he was besieged by autograph seekers. With the exception of one openly flirtatious young woman—whose smile he didn’t dare acknowledge in case she had brothers watching—the fans were mostly children and teenage boys who’d watched him in the South American Cup.

  It only took ten minutes to pose for selfies and sign everything in sight, but it was refreshing to chat in his own language for a while. The priest—who by comparison had relatively few parishioners vying for his attention—shot Rio a not unkind half-smile, which Rio interpreted as tacit approval. As the last fan departed, proudly tweeting his selfie, Rio thought he just might find his place in Atlanta.

  He met Eva’s ever-watchful gaze. “Can I take you out to lunch? We haven’t celebrated my first goal for Skyline.”

  She shook her head, checking the time on her phone. “I run a drop-in center after Mass. In fact I’m late to open it up, but since you just signed an autograph for the son of my first appointment, I’m not sure she’ll mind.”

  “Drop-in center?”

  “Behind the church.” She thumbed in the direction of a double-wide, prefabricated trailer at the end of the parking lot. “On Sundays we run an open-door session where people can come for advice. The rest of the week we try to offer appointments, depending on how many volunteers we have.”

  “What sort of advice?”

  She shrugged. “Legal stuff, mainly. Questions about eviction notices, debt programs, employment.” She lowered her voice. “Most of the people who come in are undocumented, so they’re afraid to ask for help through normal channels.”

  “Got it.” He looked at the rundown trailer, where a line was already forming at the door. As soon as he’d seen Eva in the church he’d decided he would invite her out to lunch, and he’d spent a significant portion of the Mass deciding where to go and what to order. His racehorse metabolism meant he could always find an appetite, and after an extra gym session this morning he was starving. He’d already done pretty much all he could do for the parishioners at this church—sign scraps of paper and pose for photos they could post on social media. He was tired and stiff and his stomach was growling. He wanted a steak, and he wanted it ten minutes ago.

  He also wanted to spend time with Eva, however he could get it.

  He grinned. “I’ll help you.”

  “Help me with what?”

  “As you said.” He gestured toward the trailer. “Advice.”

  She blinked several times, clearly taken aback and unsure how to dissuade him. “It’s boring. People bring legal and financial documents in English and I read them out in Spanish.”

  “Good. I need to practice my technical English.”

  She laughed, rare and musical. “You need to work on your basic English first.”

  “Come on,” he goaded, walking backward toward the trailer. “What if someone has a specific question about being a Chilean in America? I’m your man.”

  “I can’t remember ever having a Chilean drop in,” she countered, but started toward the trailer. “Here’s an idea. I let you sit in on my sessions today, and you agree to pose for some photos we can pitch to a couple of local newspapers to generate some publicity for the center. Deal?”

  That was easier than a penalty kick against a third-team goalkeeper. “Deal.”

  “Follow me.”

  He smiled inwardly as she led him to the trailer, ignoring his protesting stomach. He had to satisfy his curiosity about this woman, figure out why she intrigued him so relentlessly. His appetite could wait.

  Two hours later his stomach was the last thing on his mind as he listened to yet another parishioner seeking help to stop a deportation.

  “My husband was an emergency-room doctor
in Tegucigalpa,” Virginia, a fifty-something Honduran, explained in crisp, well-educated Spanish. “One night he saved the life of a young woman who’d been stabbed and left on the side of the road. The following night someone shot a machine gun through our front window, because it turned out she was a witness against one of the local gangs. The next morning we applied for tourist visas for the United States, and we moved around different hotels each night until they were issued, so we didn’t put any of our friends or family at risk. We hoped the violence would die down by the time our visas expired, but when that day came my husband was still a known target in Tegucigalpa. So we overstayed.” She threw up her hands with an apologetic sigh.

  “My husband took odd construction jobs and I found work as a cleaner. For two years we thought we might just survive, then last year one of the sites where my husband worked was raided and he was arrested. He was deported, and a week after he arrived in Honduras he was shot on a local bus.”

  Rio swore under his breath. Eva cast him a sharp-eyed glance before turning back to Virginia. “I’m so sorry.”

  She waved a dismissive hand, her face stony and unemotional. “The issue now is my son. He turned eighteen in the fall and is in his last year of high school. Over the Christmas break he was in a car with some friends and they were in traffic accident. It should’ve been nothing—just a stupid fender bender—but the other driver was an off-duty police officer and he reported my son to the immigration service. Now we’ve gotten notice that removal proceedings have been initiated against my son, which is how my husband’s deportation began.” She scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “We spent all our savings and most of our extended family’s savings on my husband’s case, and now I don’t know where else to turn.”

  “They can’t send him back.” Rio turned his outrage toward Eva, disbelief and fury vying for dominance in his chest. “Not after what happened to his father. It’s inhumane.”

  Virginia looked at him as though seeing him for the first time, her eyes dragging into focus. “Oh, yes, are you the soccer player? You took a photo with my son after Mass. Thank you for that, he was so excited.”