We exhaled our frustrations with twin sighs.
“Coach is absolutely furious with you, by the way.” Vincent sounded far too happy about that. “He’s going to flay you alive the next time he sees you.”
I grimaced. I foresaw a lot of punishing runs in my future, but I didn’t care. Much.
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll survive.”
“You always do.” A trace of bitterness ran beneath Vincent’s voice and reminded me of his reasons for not liking me. “You’re like Teflon.”
“Trust me.” I flashed back to the thousands of awful messages I received after I announced my transfer to Blackcastle. “I’m not as invincible as you think.”
“Maybe not, but let me think you are. It’s easier to hate you again that way.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “No matter what I did, I was always compared to you. We don’t even play the same position, yet there you were, always mentioned in the same breath as me when I know I couldn’t have gotten away with half the shit you did.”
“If it makes you feel better,” I said after a long pause. “You have a World Cup, and I don’t.”
Vincent barked out a short laugh. “It does, actually.”
As recently as yesterday, I wouldn’t have dreamed of joking about the World Cup. Seeing victory slip from my grasp during the last tournament would always be one of the defining moments of my life and career. I would never forget it.
But my earlier fight with Vincent allowed me to vent some of that pent-up anger, and our truce the past few weeks had softened the jagged edges of my resentment. He’d stood up for me against Bocci and Lyle, and like it or not, we were on the same team. Even if we weren’t, I’d have to interact with him regularly because of Scarlett.
All that made the World Cup incident easier to swallow. It really was time to put it behind us—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get my revenge the next time we played against each other.
“Don’t worry, though,” I said. “That’ll change in two years.”
The next World Cup was bearing down fast. Qualifiers for Europe started in the spring, and I could already taste the thrill. There was no way England wouldn’t make it into the tournament. Our national team was the best it’d been in over a decade.
“We’ll see about that,” Vincent scoffed, but his words lacked bite. This time, he was the one who paused before continuing. “I’m not proud of what I did. If I could go back, I would’ve done things different, but the past is the past. We can’t change it.”
I closed my eyes. Old memories resurfaced, as vivid as if they were happening right at that moment.
The shrill of the whistle. The cheers and boos of the crowd. The smell of grass and sweat, and my sheer, utter disbelief when the ref whipped out a red card.
It was the closest I’d come to punching someone on the pitch in my entire career.
Every time I trained, every time someone criticized me and I thought I couldn’t keep going, I relived that moment. I channeled my grievances and used them as fuel not only to be better, but to be the best. And it worked.
The red card had affected the trajectory of my career in many ways, and as much as I’d despised Vincent for it, not all of the consequences had been bad. It’d pushed me to where I was today.
“No, we can’t change the past,” I said. “The same way Scarlett and I can’t go back and tell you before today. But what’s done is done. There’s no use dwelling on it.”
Honestly, I was relieved our relationship was out in the open. The circumstances of the reveal weren’t great, and Vincent’s first response had been less than ideal. However, we’d needed that fight. We had too much bad blood for it to be smoothed over with words.
Vincent blew out a deep sigh. “No. I guess not.”
We didn’t say anything else. Instead, we took the moment to simply sit and acknowledge the closing of one long, rocky chapter in our shared history.
Coach, Holchester, the paps, the public’s inevitable discovery of my relationship with Scarlett and the ensuing fallout…that was the future.
The future would always be there, but today, we’d finally laid the past to rest.
CHAPTER 44SCARLETT
The hospital kept me overnight and discharged me the next evening.
That same night, an hour before I was discharged, news of my relationship with Asher broke.
Football superstar ditches match for his hospitalized girlfriend!
The thin line between love and hate: Asher Donovan revealed to be dating his biggest rival’s sister!
Who is Scarlett DuBois, Asher Donovan’s secret girlfriend?
It was pure chaos. My phone blew up with so many calls and texts that the battery couldn’t handle it, and it died before I made it home. Paps swarmed the hospital, hoping for a money shot, a sound bite, or even better, a video of Asher with me.
Fortunately, Sloane had flown in from New York last night to deal with the situation on the ground. She, along with hospital security, was able to usher us out a side exit and into a discreet black SUV without anyone stopping us.
A familiar man with salt-and-pepper hair waited in the driver’s seat.
“Good evening, miss.” Earl smiled at me in the rearview mirror, but his eyes were filled with concern.
“Good evening, Earl.” I mustered a half-hearted smile in response. I was happy to see him again, but it was hard to scrounge up much enthusiasm when my life had careened off the rails in the past hour.
The lingering consequences of my collapse didn’t help. Thanks to plenty of rest and medical attention, my pain wasn’t as debilitating as it was yesterday, but it was still there. It was in my muscles, my joints, and my bones—and in certain moments, it felt like it was in my very soul, tearing me apart from the inside out.
Dr. Ambani wanted to keep me in the hospital for an extra day, but I’d insisted on going home. I wanted the comfort of my flat, and there wasn’t anything more they could do for me that I couldn’t do at home.
