Scoring Wilder

  "What's that supposed to mean?" I laughed, splashing water on her.

  "You wear a grungy friendship bracelet next to an uber-expensive Cartier bracelet. You couldn't be more LA if you tried.”

  "Damn," I laughed. "I should give you more credit, Emily.” The three of us were each from opposite ends of the country and had wildly different upbringings. In any other setting we might never have been friends, but as rookies on a team, we were all the other had. Hell, we'd just watched each other barf. If that doesn't form a quick bond I don't know what does.

  "Well now you both know how I lost my virginity. Spill," Emily demanded, bringing the topic back to where it was a few minutes earlier.

  I didn't think about Trey often. He was my boyfriend during junior year, and while I don't know who won prom queen, I do know that he won prom king. He was the king of my high school in every sense of the word. When we had sex for the first time, I thought I was in love with him, but it was awkward and over before I'd even felt anything but pain. We did it a few more times, each just as awkward as the first. It was only a few weeks later that I’d found out he’d been cheating on me with a girl from another school.

  I tried to tell them the story as best as I could without bringing the mood down or playing the victim card. Just because I’d been cheated on twice didn’t mean I’d spend my life exclaiming, “Woe is ME!”

  "What? Are you kidding me? Was Josh any better?" Becca asked.

  “He was… okay? I think? It looked like he was giving the bimbo a good time." I guess there was no point in being coy at this point.

  "What about you?" Emily asked, turning toward Becca. I smiled thinking how good her story would be in comparison.

  Becca coughed and glanced toward her arm still resting on the side of the tub. "Oh, well, I've never had sex."

  "What?!" Emily and I both exclaimed. I would have bet my life that she was the most experienced out of all of us. I mean, she was gorgeous and funny and what else is there to do in Texas other than fool around? Isn’t everyone just banging on barrels of hay?

  "It’s not a big deal. I was kind of a loser in high school. Soccer wasn't a cool sport at my school and I had braces until the eleventh grade."

  "Ouch," I noted. "Well, Becca, you're freaking gorgeous and who cares when you have sex for the first time. Mine sucked anyway, right?”

  She nodded, and I knew the discussion was over for the time being.

  “Let's get out of here!" I hopped up and out of the ice bath, but when I stepped down, my foot didn't hold my weight and I collapsed onto the concrete.

  "Oh my god! Are you okay?" Emily asked.

  At least she was worried about me. Becca was laughing hysterically, just as I would have been.

  "Guys, I can't feel my limbs. We stayed in too long!" I exclaimed, lying on the cold concrete floor.

  We didn't stop laughing until our legs thawed out.

  "Want to shower and then go grab lunch?" I asked the girls as we walked up to the front door of the rookie house. Just before we went inside, Emily noticed a little package sitting at the foot of the porch.

  "This has your name on it, Kinsley!"

  I narrowed my eyes on the box. It was so small that I’d completely walked past it.

  "Oh, I bet it was part of my mom's package from earlier," I said as she handed it over. "All of her gifts have multiple parts."

  Becca pulled open the front door before yelling, "Last one to shower buys lunch!"

  "Ah!" I shoved past her and ran for the stairs, only to have her take my legs out from under me midway to the top. My knees banged against the carpet as I fell forward and loose carpet fibers found their way into my mouth. Blech. Why did it seem like I would leave this house with way more bruises and scars than I’d brought with me?

  "It's not fair! You're a defender! You'll win every time!" I shouted as Becca crested the top of the stairs.

  She just laughed and headed to her room. Quiet Emily trekked casually up the stairs after us, clearly uninterested in the competition.

  Luckily, we didn’t all share one bathroom. The house had been renovated a few years ago so that it felt more like a dorm than a normal home. Each room was connected to a bathroom that two people shared. Emily was my suitemate.

  "You can shower first, Em. I'm going to open my gift and call my mom." I smiled and closed the door to give her some privacy.

  That was when I finally studied the package. My name was written on the top in hand writing that definitely didn't belong to my mom. She pretty much wrote everything in calligraphy. As a kid, she would send me to school with napkins in my lunch that she'd scrawled long, perfectly lettered notes onto. They'd always tell me something positive about myself: you're intelligent, talented, beautiful, etc. And then she'd add a little joke to make me smile, like:

  Question: What did the snail say while he rode on the back of the tortoise?

  Answer: Weeeeeee.

  Have I mentioned that my mom might be insane, but also the most loving person in the world? Too bad she and my dad were living it up without me in Aspen. I guess they deserved it. I’d been a hellion to raise.

  But that's how I knew that my name wasn't written in her handwriting. It was too messy. I turned the package over and ripped open the parchment paper. There was a little box inside, and when I opened it, a small piece of paper fell out along with a gift certificate.

  I scrunched my brows and picked up the gift certificate first. It was for a high-end Los Angeles Day Spa and it included an hour long massage and a few other optional treatments. I would absolutely be using the gift certificate at the end of my week. They'd probably need a team of masseuses to work out the knots in my muscles if we kept practicing like we had that day.

  I reached down for the note.

  "Birthday Girl,

  You'll need this after today. Sorry it's a little late, but I thought you deserved one more gift."

  No signature. No name. What the hell? My first guess, and the guess from the 5% of me that lived in la-la land, was that Liam sent it. He'd called me Birthday Girl a few times and even once that morning… but then I realized he hardly knew me. Damn. That meant it was probably from Josh. The handwriting sort of looked like his.

  The idea suddenly dropped a rain cloud over the entire gift. Did I really want to think about him while I tried to relax in a spa? I reached for my phone and texted him.

  Kinsley: Did you drop something at my house today?

  Then I closed the text and called my mom. She answered on the fourth ring and hearing her voice instantly made me miss her.

  "Kinsley, how was practice?!" she asked.

  I sank down on the floor next to the bed and smiled against the phone.

  "It kicked my ass. Like literally, my ass is sore as I sit on the phone with you."

  "That sounds... painful. Why is your butt sore?" she laughed.

  "They made us run a kajillion sprints… aaand I suppose I might have gone a little crazy last night for my birthday, so I paid for it this morning."

  "Ahhh, the truth comes out. Did you go out with your new teammates? And if you were drinking, you better not have been driving. Also, you better not have been drinking."

  Right, because what US college student wasn’t drinking? I chose to just skim by the topic.

  "We took a cab, and yes, actually two of the other rookies and I have pretty much formed a little love triangle, sans lesbian tendencies. Becca is from Texas and looks like she could be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, and Emily is from Minnesota. She’s a little quiet, but super sweet."

  "I can't wait to meet them." I could tell she was smiling. "I'm flying in for the first game no matter what, but maybe I'll come to a scrimmage or something? If that wouldn't be too embarrassing?"

  I smiled.

  "Yeah, you should. I'll let you know when we start getting things on the schedule. But I have to go shower, Mom. I'm going to lunch with Becca and Emily."

  "Oh good! Use the credit card I gave you and buy them
lunch on me since we couldn’t throw you a fun birthday dinner."

  I smiled, thinking that since I was most likely the last person to shower, I owed them lunch anyway.

  "Sounds good, thanks. Love you!"

  "Love you, too!"

  When I hung up, I looked down and checked my phone. Josh had texted back immediately.

  Josh: No? Just the flowers yesterday. You said you got those, right? The pink roses reminded me of you. How was practice?

  He'd mistaken my question as a peace offering. He was sorely mistaken. But if he hadn't sent the gift card... No, I couldn't even think about it. There was no way it was from Liam, and if it was, then that baby was getting framed and mounted on my wall.

  "Shower is free, Kinsley!" Emily called through the bathroom door.

  Saved by the shower.

  I tucked the gift certificate in my wallet and decided not to tell Emily or Becca about it until I had pinned down its sender.

  …

  "Wake up, Rookies!" a voice shouted just before a fog horn ricocheted through the house the next morning.

  "What the hell!" I scrambled to sit up and catch my bearings just as the fog horn rang out again. A glance at my cell phone told me it was barely 5:00 A.M.

  "You have three seconds to get downstairs everyone or you'll be running laps around the block!" Tara called. I could imagine the sardonic smile taking over her features. If anyone was power hungry, it was that girl.

  I threw the sheet off my legs, which were feeling the effects of the previous day’s workout, and slipped out of bed. I banged on Emily and Becca’s doors on the way down to make sure they heard the commotion. They both shuffled out after me and we hustled downstairs only to stop dead in our tracks when we saw the upperclassmen lined up in front of the small fireplace. They each had a camo bandanna tied around their head and black stripes beneath their eyes.

  They were dressed for war. I was dressed in fuzzy socks and a long sleeping shirt.

  "Line up!" Tara yelled. Becca and I exchanged knowing glances. Was this normal or was Tara actually going off the deep end?

  Either way, we listened. All the rookies lined up and faced the upperclassmen without saying a word.

  "Today is the first day of your initiation onto our team. It's a rite of passage. It was done to everyone that came before you, so suck it up and take it like a champ." Why did that sentence seem so foreboding? Like she was about to ask us to bend over.

  That's when I saw the costumes laid at their feet, and I groaned. We were going to have to dress up.

  "Excuse me, Kinsley, is there a problem?" Tara asked with a hard stare.

  "No," I answered quickly, glancing at the array of colors and fabrics on the living room floor.

  "Are you sure? Because you don't seem to want to be here." She was picking a fight and I knew it. She wanted an excuse to go harder on me than the rest of the girls, and I wouldn't give it to her.

  "No, I'm excited," I answered, looking up at her with a small smile. It was like looking into the face of the devil and accepting his challenge.

  "Good, then you'll be thrilled to see what you're wearing to practice today, Bryant." She reached down and picked up a hideous bright yellow spandex leotard and tutu. Seriously, whoever made it had perfected the exact shade of puke yellow.

  "You'll be our snitch."

  Oh god. My eyes took in the other outfits, suddenly realizing the theme. There were wizard robes and scarves from all of the houses in Harry Potter. Some of the other stuff I didn't recognize, but I'm sure, like my spandex outfit, they all served some kind of purpose.

  I was at once impressed with the idea and also dreading having to put that outfit on. I didn't really have a choice, though. I didn't want to be the whiny rookie. I wanted to accept Tara's challenge and up the ante any way I could.

  Tara threw the outfit toward me and I had to think fast to catch it.

  "Pass out the rest of the outfits," Tara instructed, and her little minions quickly began following orders.

  I thought mine would be the worst, but when they handed Becca her outfit, I couldn't help but burst out laughing.

  "You'll be a quaffle," Sofie explained as she handed Becca a ridiculous outfit made up of a brown tutu that spanned from her chest down to her hips. She'd look like a giant shower loofah.

  "What is a quaffle?" Becca challenged as she reluctantly took the outfit from Sofie.

  "It's some sort of quidditch ball from Harry Potter. Who cares, just wear the dumb outfit." Sofie waved her hand and dismissed her.

  "Go change and be back down here in five minutes," Tara yelled.

  Emily, Becca, and I all ran up to my room so we could change and complain in silence.

  "What the hell? Are they allowed to do this!?" Becca asked as she stood in front of my mirror, taking in her ridiculous getup. I couldn't stop laughing long enough to answer her.

  "I'm sorry. You guys definitely got the worst outfits. It doesn't seem fair," Emily answered as she finished putting on her fake glasses and wizard robe. The bitch got to be Harry Potter and she looked cute in her fake glasses.

  "Emily, you suck," I joked, pulling the spandex leotard up over my sports bra. It was supposed to be my size, but the spandex was tight enough to make it hard to breathe.

  "At least they gave you a tutu. You'd look ridiculous just wearing a leotard," Emily offered, trying to show me the bright side. The bright side was that I wasn't dressed as a giant brown loofah.

  "How about when we get back from practice, we burn our outfits and use the ashes to put a curse on Tara," Becca suggested as we put on our long soccer socks and running shoes.

  "Rookies, thirty seconds to be back down here!" Tara’s voice rang out.

  The three of us rolled our eyes and hopped up, slinging our cleats over our shoulders. One glance in the mirror was too much. Puke yellow was not my color and the tutu made me look like a nine-year-old.

  When we made it back downstairs, it was clear that Emily had been right. Everyone else was wizards. Well, most everyone. One girl was dressed up as a broomstick. Or maybe just a stick. It was hard to tell.

  A senior girl walked up to Emily when we were in line and drew a lightning bolt on her forehead with a fat Crayola marker. Then she moved on to me and Becca. She put a giant "S" on my chest and a giant "Q" on Becca's chest. Seriously, were the costumes not enough at this point?

  "We’ll give you breakfast when we get to the practice field, but only if you make it there. The upperclassmen will drive next to you guys while you run a designated route that ends at the fields. If you fall behind, the entire team has to run extra, so stay with the group."

  I fought back a groan.

  “Oh, and everyone will grab a broom on the way out,” Tara declared.

  “For what?” one of the rookie girls asked.

  Tara scoffed at her. “Because you’re dressed up as people from Harry Potter, dumbass.”

  So, yeah, the entire time we ran, we had to carry a broom between our legs. Have you ever had a splinter on your inner thigh? Neither have I. Because that’s not where I got them. Think a little higher. It wasn’t pretty, people. When I got home, I was going to tear apart this itchy yellow material piece by piece.

  "At least you both have boobs," Emily pointed out as she ran next to Becca and me.

  "What does that have to do with anything?" I asked between breaths.

  "Liam will definitely notice them in that leotard, believe me."

  "Oh shit!" I'd completely forgotten that he would see us like this. Crap. Crap. Crap. Tara had probably done it on purpose. I looked over to where she was driving the car next to us. She was in a cute workout outfit and had even applied a light layer of makeup. That scheming whore.

  If only we actually were in Harry Potter. I’d totally Crucio her ass. Yeah, that’s right, I’d use one of the Unforgivable Curses. Come at me, Ministry of Magic.

  Chapter Five

  Five minutes before six o’clock, we finally made it to the practice fi
elds. We all fought to catch our breaths while the upperclassmen parked their cars and hopped out looking like they’d just returned from a relaxing vacation.

  "Here, Rookies, eat up," Tara said, tossing a box of granola bars onto the ground where we were resting.

  "Why am I finding it hard to like her?" Becca murmured. I nodded with narrowed eyes. I wondered how far she’d take the rookie initiation.

  We all grabbed a granola bar and our water bottles and trekked into the field house for our morning meeting.

  "I'll meet you guys in there, I'm going to the bathroom," I nodded to Becca and Emily.

  I splashed water on my face and redid my messy ponytail in the bathroom. There was really nothing I could do to fix my appearance at that point, which was quite a shame because when I pushed the bathroom door open, Liam was leaning down, getting a drink from the water fountain. The second he caught my yellow leotard out of the corner of his eye, he straightened up and took in the entire outfit.

  He had on a dark grey shirt over black sweatpants and somehow he still looked like he was modeling in a GQ ad. I looked like a drugged out ballerina.

  "Wow. Is that what girls are wearing to practice these days?" he asked, rubbing a hand across his strong jaw.

  I looked behind him to make sure we were alone in the hallway.

  "It's part of rookie initiation," I answered. "I'm a snitch from Harry Potter."

  His eyes glanced down to the "S" written across my chest, and Emily's earlier mention about my cleavage ran through my mind.

  But when he glanced back up, I couldn't discern the emotion behind his eyes.

  "I think I liked the birthday crown better," he smirked.

  I mashed my lips together and nodded. What was he thinking? Did he remember me flirting with him at the party? Or was he flirted with so often that I was merely a blip on his radar?

  "No kidding. I could use a day at the spa when I get out of this thing,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant while simultaneously seeing if my comment had any effect on him.