Kickin' It (Red Card) - Rachel Van Dyken Page 0,18

hope.” He laughed. “I was just in the neighborhood, so . . .”

Matt looked at Jagger then at me, then back at Jagger. “Too bad you’re leaving the neighborhood. You got your gear at the stadium?”

Jagger gave Willow an apologetic look when Matt turned around to grab a water. “Sure do.”

“Road trip.” He nodded to me. “Get your shit, Cheetah Girl, practice starts this afternoon.”

“Wait.” I held up my hand. “Practice? What do you mean practice?”

“I mean”—Matt was already walking down the hall and yelling over his shoulder—“that you have to impress the team at your tryout, and the only way you’re going to do it is if you have the best in the world training you.”

Made sense. “So, Jagger’s just going to train me out of the joy of his very Russian heart?”

Jagger put his hand over his chest and nodded solemnly.

“Nope!”

“What?” We said in unison, Willow included.

“I said the best.” Matt stopped and didn’t turn around. “Which means I’m training you while you kick as many balls as you can at Jagger’s face.”

I snorted out a laugh while Jagger glared. “Bring your cup.”

He eyed me up and down. “Think I’ll wear two.”

“Good man.” Willow elbowed him a bit while Matt disappeared around the corner.

I was too focused on Willow and Jagger, all of a sudden whispering under their breath, to realize it too late.

Until I heard cleats on the slate floor.

Until I felt a sickness rush over my body.

Matt, older Matt, didn’t just become my agent.

He was in joggers and a white vintage shirt with some sort of soccer graphic on the front.

No. Because an agent I could handle.

An agent meant that it was all business.

But he’d just made it personal . . .

By stepping into a position of a mentor, someone I would need to respect, to look up to in order to learn from.

And history suddenly felt very much like it was repeating itself as he tied his cleats and looked at me with a dangerous amount of heat that shot straight through my body.

“What?” He jerked his head up at me and smirked. “Intimidated?”

“Yeah,” I croaked then swallowed back my emotions. “Something like that.” I tucked my hair behind my ears as the sting of tears made itself known. “Let me just go grab my gear.”

He stood and crossed his arms. “You have three minutes.”

He didn’t see my tear-stained cheeks. I wiped them as soon as the tears fell, catching a few between my fingertips before they even touched my skin.

He didn’t see my bloodshot eyes. I grabbed sunglasses for that.

And he didn’t see the way my heart shook in my chest at the thought of training one-on-one.

With another man.

An older man.

An experienced man.

A man not used to the word no.

Chapter Nine

MATT

I wasn’t sure what possessed me to offer to train Parker other than my severe lack of tact when it came to the conversation she overheard. Why the hell should I feel guilty for doing my job? And for saying or doing anything to get her what she wanted while at the same time getting what I wanted, which was her and my sister out of my space?

She’d been there two days and she was everywhere.

Taking over everything.

The most annoying thing being all the rational space in my head.

Off-limits.

In every way.

Not to mention she tended to apparently hate the male race, if what I read in every newspaper report was accurate, not to mention the reports from two of the other team captains and the coach himself.

He sounded like an arrogant piece of work.

But every single female on that team looked at him like a soccer god. He was a good-looking European dumbass who I remembered playing maybe once or twice before we both left the league for our own reasons.

Mine was my injury and inability to come back from it, even with the right drugs.

And his?

At this point it looked like the general consensus of his teammates was that he was a selfish asshole who wanted all the glory in a team sport that needed every single player for every single goal.

I had no space for assholes in my life.

I already had my clients.

And between Jagger and Slade I had my hands full. Then again they were getting along a lot better since Slade was getting laid on a regular basis and had a wife who put up with him.

Jagger on the other hand made me want to sleep with whiskey under my pillow and a Xanax clutched in my left hand just