Scoring Wilder

  I cracked a small smile. "And now?"

  "Still a terrible idea, but I can't blame you. If he were interested in any of the rest of us, we would have done exactly what you're doing. You’re just the lucky… or maybe unlucky one."

  Relief settled over our small group. It felt good to have my secret out in the open and I trusted Emily not to tell anyone.

  “I swear this is the last time guys. I feel disgusting from washing the bathroom. We'll take her down. We just need to figure out how…"

  The three of us were focusing on pushups when I heard Liam’s harsh tone ring through the air.

  "Tara, I thought I warned you about this last time? What the hell do you not understand about treating your teammates with respect?"

  I paused mid push-up to see Tara turn to him with a conniving grin.

  "Liam! Just the man of the hour..."

  It didn't escape my notice that she called him Liam instead of Coach Wilder. She was proving how in charge she was in that moment. She held all of our fates in the palm of her pretty little hand.

  "Excuse me?" Liam asked, standing to his full height. He looked lethal. He'd never looked at me the way he was looking at Tara. Unabashed rage masked his beautiful features, and for one moment I was scared something very bad was about to happen. I tried to shoot him a weary gaze that could somehow sum up how fucked we were now that Tara knew about us.

  "We've got to go get ready for practice. Excuse me," Tara said, waving sweetly and walking away without bothering to answer him.

  Liam eye’s followed her movements for a moment and then tugged his hands through his hair. He looked helpless and in a sense, he was. Going to Coach Davis was his only option.

  Would he do that?

  If he did, would Tara tell Coach Davis about our relationship?

  "Are you guys okay?" Liam asked, bending down to where we were all sitting.

  Emily nodded, but stayed silent.

  "Oh yeah! We had a wonderful morning. I'll let Kinsley fill you in though," Becca said as she pushed up off the ground with Emily so they could head into the field house after the seniors.

  "Kinsley, why the hell are you letting her treat you like this? I'm taking this to Coach Davis."

  The last sentence spurred me into action.

  "She knows," I began, but I could hardly get the words out through the emotion building behind my eyes. I was in way over my head and I couldn't see which way was up anymore.

  Liam nodded, slowly grasping the seriousness of the situation. His hand reached down for mine so that he could help me up just as Coach Davis pulled into her parking spot. She hopped out of her car and eyed us warily for a moment before heading inside. Just fucking great. Her suspicion was the last thing we needed.

  "I've got to go to practice. We'll talk later," I promised, turning on my heel and running inside before he could say anything else.

  Our relationship was poison for my career. The media would spin us into whatever sold the most magazines and “happy soccer couple” wouldn’t sell shit compared to a soccer bad boy going after a naïve girl that he was supposed to be coaching at the time.

  We were royally screwed.

  …

  Liam: Is everything okay? Can you meet me tomorrow before practice? Call me.

  "You're going to talk to him, right?" Becca asked after having read the text over my shoulder. We were in my room later that night trying to come up with a plan on how to handle Tara.

  "Yes. Of course. I just need to think about it for a second. If I go to Coach Davis myself she'll pull Tara into the office and Tara will throw Liam and me under the bus. But if I tell Liam, maybe he'll have a better plan?" I chewed on my bottom lip like I'd been doing all afternoon.

  "I think you should tell Liam because he has the right to know about what’s going on."

  "Yes, god, I know that. I just don't want to get him involved if I don't have to. He has enough on his plate without adding this, too."

  "What about you?" Becca pointed out. "You have just as much on your plate.”

  She had a point, but then I glanced at my clock. 11:00 P.M. Too late for a phone call considering I had practice at 6:00 A.M. the next day, right? That's what I told myself.

  Kinsley: Yes, but we shouldn't meet before practice. Don't want to be suspicious.

  Liam: What about after?

  Kinsley: I have that interview.

  He didn’t bother texting back. A moment later, his number illuminated my screen and I panicked. I swiped my finger across the screen and flew into my closet, shutting the door behind me. I felt like a secret agent. Albeit a very amateur one.

  "Hello?" I asked, not even bothering to turn the closet light on.

  "Kinsley, tell me what's going on. How did Tara find out?" He sounded tired.

  I sank down onto the carpet and pushed back behind the clothes so that they fell in front of me like a curtain.

  "She and a few other people saw us go into your room at one of your parties and she said it was clear we'd just had sex. Coach Davis told me to stay away from you and I didn't listen."

  Liam didn't speak right away. I could hear his steady breathing and then he finally groaned. "I've dealt with assholes before, but she's cunning."

  "Yeah, well you can tell her how ‘cunning’ she is when we're both kicked off our teams."

  "I won't let that happen, Kinsley. Tara is the not the end-all be-all. She can’t do shit to me, and I won’t let her touch your career. Let's just cover our bases at practice. Act normal and try to deal with Tara's shit for a few more days. I'll get everything figured out."

  I nodded in the darkness.

  “Sounds good, Coach.”

  He laughed. “I’m sorry our relationship is such a fucked-up mess.”

  “Hey! It’s our fucked-up mess, okay?” I joked.

  “Do you remember when I asked if you regretted us?” he asked.

  I smiled at the memory. “Yes. I said I’d let you know in a few weeks.”

  “Have you made your mind up?”

  Of course, I’d made up my mind. I didn’t regret us for a single moment— not even when my hand had slipped into some questionable fluids in the field house bathroom that morning.

  “Nah. I think I need a few more weeks to think about it still.”

  “You’re just stringing me along, Kins.”

  I laughed. “Gotta keep you on your toes.” Then I thought of something that had been bothering me all day.

  “You know, I don’t really understand what Tara has to gain from all of this. I’d understand if I was vying for her position or something, but I’m not. She made Emily cry today.”

  He sighed. “She hit on me last year at a party. Well, she did it a few times, but she finally came straight out and laid her invitation on the table. Obviously, I turned her down. I don't know if she's still pissed about that or not."

  "Ew. Ew. Ew. I do not want to picture you and Tara together."

  "There was no together.”

  “She’s like the villain in a Disney movie.”

  He laughed. “Worse.”

  I smiled for the fiftieth time since I’d answered his phone call, which brought my grand total of smiles for the day to fifty-one, because I was smiling then thinking about smiling.

  "Can we talk about something else before I go to bed? I don't want to dream about her."

  "My mom is visiting in a few weeks," he said.

  "Oh really? Where does she live?"

  "England. My dad relocated for work when I was young.”

  “Ah.”

  “She is coming in for one of my games. I'd like you to meet her."

  I sucked in a breath of air. "Oh god, that was your way of calming me down before bed? Casually dropping the fact that I'll have to impress your mom in a few weeks?" I laughed.

  "My mom is awesome and laid-back. You don't have to earn her approval. You'll already have it if I like you."

  "Ooohh, so you like, like me?"

  "I like you, like
you."

  "Do you like me more than M&Ms?"

  "How do you know I like M&Ms?"

  I laughed, thinking back to the drive-in movie. "Last night you inhaled the entire bag before I could even take some."

  He chuckled into the phone. "Ah, my M&M blinders were on. Excuse my poor manners."

  "You didn't answer my question."

  "Kinsley, I've never liked any girl more than I like M&Ms."

  I laughed and let my head fall back against the wall. "Am I getting close?" I joked.

  "I'd say I like you more than regular M&Ms, but you're going to have to really step it up if you want to beat out peanut M&Ms."

  "I have a tough road ahead of me."

  "I think you can do it," he joked, and I smiled against the phone.

  "Challenge accepted."

  Chapter Seventeen

  The coffee shop was crowded when I arrived for my interview with Brian King the next day. I ran my hand down the front of my pencil skirt and tried to appear confident as I traversed the table looking for a smile that was bright enough to catch my reflection. Brian King would be attached to it.

  Becca had helped me pick out the perfect outfit. I was wearing a pretty silk blouse tucked into a modest skirt that was tight but fell just above my knee. My kitten heels clapped against the hardwood floor until I came to a stop in the back of the coffee shop.

  Brian was sitting there at a table with a photographer, but I couldn't process the fact that Josh was also sitting at the table with him in a nice button-down shirt and slacks.

  "Oh, hello?" I muttered with a soft scowl as I made my way over to them.

  Josh looked up at me and beamed while Brian gave me a hesitant smile.

  "Hi, Kinsley. Please, please take a seat. As you can see, there's been a slight change in plans."

  I shifted my gaze back and forth between Brian and Josh.

  “What’s going on?”

  "The editor at the magazine called me this morning and informed me that Josh would be joining us for the interview. The magazine wants to go in a different direction with the piece."

  I dropped my purse onto the ground next to my chair and took the seat that Brian offered me.

  "What direction are they wanting to go in exactly?" I asked, eyeing Josh skeptically. His smile was a little too wide for my taste… like he was the cat that finally caught the canary.

  "Oh, just having two rookies spotlighted instead of one,” he began as if the whole idea was fairly innocent. “Josh is a rookie on the Stars and you're a rookie at ULA, but you'll both be trying out for the Olympics in the coming months. It makes for a more well-rounded piece." The way Brian explained it, the article seemed harmless enough. If they wanted to include us both, I didn't have a problem with it.

  Both men sat there waiting for my reply. "Um, okay, I suppose that's fine?" What was I going to do? Storm out over a slight change in plans? Josh was a good soccer player; he deserved the spotlight, too.

  "Okay, great!" Brian clapped his hands together and pushed some paperwork toward me. "There are just a few things we need you to sign before we get started. It basically states that any photographs the photographer takes during the interview may be used by the magazine and that we’ll post your words verbatim so that you’re protected in the editing phase."

  I chewed on my bottom lip as I scanned over the documents, suddenly wishing I had my mother here with me. Signing contracts of any kind feels intimidating.

  "Did you already sign yours?" I asked, glancing up at Josh.

  "Just before you got here. It looked fine to me," he shrugged and offered me a small smile.

  "You take your time, Kinsley. I'll go get you both some coffee."

  Brian wandered off and I tried my best to read the details of the contract. It was brief and simple enough, so I signed on the dotted line and then pushed the paperwork back toward Brian's side of the table.

  "How have you been?" Josh asked, leaning toward me. I saw the photographer's camera shutter open and close in quick succession. I guess the photographs started immediately upon signing the contract.

  I leaned away from Josh so that it’d be harder to get us in the same frame.

  "Fine. Just really busy."

  He smiled and reached out to touch the back of my chair. "You're obviously doing well if the magazine wants to interview you."

  I smiled tightly and nodded. Thankfully Brian returned right then, saving me from anymore awkward small talk.

  "Here you go, you two," Brian said, handing us our coffee and flashing me his giant smile. He’d blind people with those teeth if he wasn’t careful.

  "Thank you." I smiled tightly and concentrated on pouring cream and sugar into my mug while Brian fiddled with the paperwork and set out a recorder.

  "I'm going to start recording now, if that's all right?"

  Josh and I both agreed.

  The interview passed quickly and I learned early on that I didn't have anything to worry about. The questions were similar to the ones that Brian had sent the other day. I answered them the way that Coach Davis and I agreed upon. Toward the end, Brian started asking questions about my relationship with Josh. I answered simply, routing around our messy breakup and focusing more on our friendship. Josh, thankfully, followed suit.

  "That was great, you two. Thank you so much. Let's get a few photographs and then we'll be all done here."

  …

  As soon as I left the coffee shop I texted Liam to let him know about the last minute change.

  Kinsley: Josh was at the interview.

  Liam: What? Why?

  Kinsley: They wanted to highlight two rookies instead of one. It seemed okay. I read the contract before I signed.

  Liam: You should have called me or Coach Davis.

  Kinsley: Why?

  Liam: I don't trust reporters – I'm about to have dinner with my coaches. We'll talk later.

  For a split second I was angry with Liam for being dramatic… but then his concerns set in. He’d been a part of this industry for years, so maybe I should have run the new interview style with him or Coach Davis first, but I hadn’t even thought about it.

  The worst part was that Liam was absolutely right. Later that night, Emily ran into my room with wide eyes and her computer cradled in her arms. Becca and I had been watching Bridesmaids, but we paused it when we saw the look on her face.

  "Did you have that interview today?" she asked warily.

  I sat up off the bed. "Yes, earlier. Why?"

  She twisted her computer around and showed me the front page of a popular sports website.

  "Romance Between Olympic Hopefuls" was spelled out in giant letters across the top of the screen. The photo that accompanied it made me want to throw up. Josh had his arm around the back of my chair and we were both smiling wide. The worst part of all was that he was glancing toward me affectionately. While at the time, I’d wanted to kick the legs out from under his chair, to the untrained eye, the photo was damning evidence.

  "What the hell!?" I shouted, hopping off my bed to get a better view. I had to hand it to the magazine. In less than four hours they’d started putting up teasers and photos to promote the article that would run sometime in the next few days. Those scumbags were timely.

  "That fucking reporter! This article was supposed to be about soccer, not about me and Josh."

  I wound my fingers through my hair and squeezed my eyes shut.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Liam was right. Reporters were not to be trusted. On top of everything else going on, I could now add this article to the top of the list.

  I snatched my phone, called my mom, and filled her in.

  "Can we fight it?" I asked, pacing back and forth as Becca and Emily watched on with shocked expressions.

  "We'll have to wait and see what the article talks about. Perhaps they wanted to play up a potential romance in the teasers so that the article will be more popular. Don't worry about this. The photo was harmless and you look beautiful
. Try and get some sleep and we'll deal with everything once we know more."

  "I just feel so used, Mom. They said it would be about soccer and my tryouts. I'm beginning to realize that no one actually cares about my soccer career. They're making me famous the same way reality stars are famous. Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, and Kinsley!”

  "Don't you think that's all the more reason to focus on the Olympic tryouts? Remember this when you're pushing yourself to train harder. I think it's best if we steer clear of any more articles and I'll have your father's PR people release a statement explaining that you're single and your main focus right now is on soccer and nothing else. We'll clear this up."

  I sighed, already feeling better. "Okay, thanks Mom."

  "Love you, hang in there. It'll get better."

  When I hung up, Becca and Emily didn't say a word. They were both looking for me to make the first move.

  "Let's pretend that this isn't happening and go back to watching the show."

  "Sounds like a plan," Becca nodded and hit play. I went back to my bed, grabbed the covers, and huddled underneath them. For the rest of the night, I pretended that my life was very simple, like all that I had to focus on was laughing at the jokes on Bridesmaids and hanging out with my two friends.

  I would not become Kinsley Kardashian.

  …

  The full article was released the next day and was plastered across every website I could find, from TMZ to the New York Times. I didn't bother reading it. I knew it would be bad based on the accompanying photos. They'd cropped and manipulated every single one to make it appear as if Josh and I were together. A happy, Olympic couple. Gag me. Or better yet, gag Josh.

  I'd let my father's PR team take care of it from my end. They'd release the statement about the false claims and I'd worry about the things I could actually control, which at that point was one thing: soccer.

  I went to the fields early and ran sprints. I did some weight training and tried to use all my pent up energy on something productive. By the time practice started, I was pensive and tired.

  Liam was in a terrible mood as well, worse than I'd ever seen before. When we split up into positions, he was snappy with all of us. His mood was distracting me and I kept mixing up the formations.