The noise that rocked the stadium swelled beneath my skin and filled my lungs as I joined seventy thousand people in watching the ball sail toward the goal in seeming slow motion.
Four.
Holchester’s keeper dived.
Three.
His fingers grazed the ball, but they didn’t find purchase.
Two.
The ball sank into the back of the net.
One.
A moment of pure silence.
Then the stadium erupted, its roar so deafening that my teeth and bones rattled from the sheer force of it. It built and built, climbing higher and higher, until the very ground seemed to shake beneath the jubilation of tens of thousands of fans celebrating Blackcastle’s first Premier League victory in ten years.
I stood there, too stunned to move until my team swarmed me with hugs and cheers.
“We won!” Samson shouted, shaking my shoulders. “We fucking won!”
“We bloody did it! Take that, wankers!” Gallagher yelled, flipping the bird toward the Holchester players at the other end of the pitch.
Not very sportsmanlike, but who cared?
We won. We won.
Exhilaration shattered shock’s hold on me.
I finally joined in the celebrations, my heart full to bursting as I hugged and clapped my teammates on the back.
After all the shit we’d been through and all the obstacles we’d faced, we were bringing home the trophy.
Christ, it felt good—more than good. It was euphoric.
Laughter rumbled through my chest when the team hoisted me and Vincent on their shoulders. From this vantage point, I spotted our exultant club staff on the sidelines with Coach, who wore his first real smile since 1995.
“Good thing you didn’t screw that up!” Vincent shouted over the noise. His face gleamed with a mix of perspiration and elation. “If you had, I would’ve banished you from the team myself.”
“Like you have the power!” I shouted back. I flipped him off, laughing again when the team set us down and Vincent attacked me with a bear hug.
“Fuck you, Donovan!” he yelled in my ear. But he was grinning.
We all were.
Well, all of us except Holchester, whose members skulked off the pitch with their heads down. Bocci shot me a baleful glare on his way out. He was already in hot water with Holchester execs after he got caught street racing last month. His arrest had resulted in a hefty fine and a twelve-month driving ban, and there were rumors his stay on the team was dependent on him leading them to another league title this year.
I didn’t know what would happen to him now, and I didn’t care. I was focused on finding someone more important.
Vincent went off to sing our team’s anthem with Adil and Stevens while I scanned the stadium.
Finding her should’ve been impossible given how many people were jumping and running about, but I spotted her almost immediately.
Even if there were seven hundred thousand instead of seventy thousand people here, I would’ve found her just as easily because a part of me would always be connected to a part of her.
Scarlett sat on the north side with Carina, Brooklyn…and my parents.
My heart stopped for the second time that day. I blinked to make sure I was seeing correctly, but there was no mistaking my mother’s curly dark hair and my father’s grizzled beard.
They hadn’t said a word about attending today’s match, but there they were, decked out in Blackcastle gear—even my father.
My mother beamed and waved when she saw me looking. My father didn’t smile or wave, but his short nod was the most affirmation I’d gotten from him since I transferred.
I doubted we would ever have a “normal” father-son relationship, but it had improved incrementally since his surprise visit to kick my ass into gear during the fall. Plus, the fact that he was here today in Blackcastle colors? That meant more than anything else he could’ve done.
I swallowed the emotion in my throat—if I teared up on the pitch, I would never live it down—and refocused on Scarlett.
She grinned and blew me a kiss with one hand. Her other hand carried a sign that said Kick Holchester’s ass from here to Pluto in huge, bright purple letters.
I burst into laughter. God, I loved that woman.
I winked and blew her a kiss back.
It was cheesy as fuck, but I didn’t care how many people groaned or how many front pages it would land on tomorrow.
I meant it with all my heart.
