Floored - Karla Sorensen Page 0,46

read earlier. The doorway to his room, with its big masculine bed and sturdy wood frame, looked just about right. I'd set the timer on my phone and be back downstairs before he got home, I promised myself, as I crawled onto the perfectly firm mattress.

I groaned in bliss, pressing my face into a pillow that smelled like him.

My eyes fell shut, and with the phone call behind me and the smell of Jude surrounding me, I fell fast asleep.

Chapter Fourteen

Jude

Everyone had left the pitch, dispersed to various meetings or treatments, so before I went home, I found myself standing in the middle of the endless stretch of green by myself.

It was hard to remember moments when this job wasn't complicated and didn't come with a metric ton of entanglements. All day, I'd faced various aspects of exactly how I was slipping from my long-held perch. The physio working on my hamstrings commented on all manner of issues she'd noticed in my play the day earlier. Declan cornered me in the weight room and had a chat with me about my attitude. But honestly, what kind of attitude did he expect when we were playing like shit and all eyes turned to someone new to fix our problems?

He'd struggle too if someone asked him to step down as the captain.

My manager sat across from me, the barrier of his desk impossibly wide as he discussed exactly why I was looking old and slow and distracted, and I was slowly whittling down all my chances at being in the starter position. With our upcoming match at Aston Villa, we had a chance—and a very good one—to earn three points and move higher. Behind me were players younger, faster, and in his words, had the focus that I used to be famous for.

Complications.

A hopeless mess that I wasn't even sure how to go about untangling.

The only thing that felt clear was the grass beneath me, the white lines lining the space, and the ball that sat in front of me. Digging my toe underneath it, I bounced it on the top of my foot once, twice, three times, and when the fourth bounce hit the grass, I pulled back my left leg and drilled it as hard as I could toward the goal.

It hit the back of the unguarded net, and the sound of the ball rattling the woven fabric of the net made me smile. Thought fairly innocuous to some, it was one of my favorite sounds in the entire world. Buried in that sound was my legacy.

And as much as I didn't want to admit it, that legacy was fading to everyone except me.

I walked off the pitch, nodding to the security guard stationed at the tunnel, and made my way to my car. The drive from the facility back to my house was less than twenty minutes, and as I got farther away, the knots surrounding my day loosened around my chest. It was the first time in a very long time—maybe ever—since I'd headed home with the knowledge that someone was waiting for me.

Someone I wanted to see, someone I wanted to spend time with, and not only because of the baby.

I was still wrapping my brain around the future, and how the addition of a child inevitably altered it. Lia wasn't just in my future, some concept I couldn't quite grasp. She was flesh and blood, and right in front of me as somehow the least complicated part of my life.

Her easy acceptance of what I needed to do today and the way she was able to face the reality of my life without flinching were attractive options to be presented with. I smiled as I pulled my car next to hers, thinking of how happy that scone had made her. Her ability to find pleasure in those small moments was something I could learn from her. I used to be able to.

Like the sound of a ball hitting the back of the net, normally drowned out by the roaring of the crowds. They were intertwined, to be sure, but maybe the lesson I needed to learn by this sudden veering my life had taken was to appreciate the building blocks when I was faced with them, instead of stepping my full weight on top in order to get to the next one.

The crowds wouldn't be there without the ball in the net.

I wouldn't either.

Unlocking the front door, I called out her name, wondering if coming home