Kickin' It (Red Card) - Rachel Van Dyken Page 0,48
more tired than usual.
The nerve of the guy, I mean really.
I kicked a ball toward his junk and shrugged when he deflected it and shot me a glare. “Sorry.”
“Was that necessary?”
“What crawled up your ass and died?” I fired back, kicking another ball. “You’ve been like this since Monday. It’s Wednesday, and my tryouts are this Sunday. Could you try to be more . . . cheerful?”
“No,” he said in a deadpan voice. “This”—he pointed to his face—“is all the cheer I have right now.”
“Is it Willow?”
“No,” he growled.
“Is it me?” I stopped kicking. “You can tell me if it’s me, just tell me what I need to do, I can do better. Just—”
“Shut the hell up!” he roared. And then his face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
I put my hands up toward him.
He flinched. “It’s not you, it’s Erik.”
I dropped my hands immediately. “Wh-what?”
“He’s called me three times about you. The last message was to warn me against girls willing to spread their legs for opportunity, and just this morning there was a letter sent to the house with your name on it, no return address. It looked suspicious so I opened it, and inside was a picture of you with your college team with a heart drawn around your face.”
The breath whooshed from my lungs, and I fell to the ground on my knees.
“I didn’t delete the messages and I kept the letter,” he admitted, walking over to me and putting an arm around my shoulders. “And you know I don’t believe him. I already let the commissioner know what he was doing, and they’re looking into it and his past behaviors to see if anyone else has come forward. And nothing. Nobody has said anything—”
“I’m not lying!” I yelled. Tears poured down my face, and when I swiped them from my cheeks, my hands came away wet and gritty with the dirt from practice.
“Parker, look at me.” He gripped my chin. “I know that, don’t you know I know that? This isn’t about you. This is about the other girls who are silent. Because if he’s bold enough to do this to you, he’s bold enough to do it to others, and what makes you think he isn’t threatening them? Isn’t making them think that he can make or break them? And not just women your age, young girls too. I just found out Sunday night he taught an Olympic-development soccer camp last week. I can’t . . . I can’t imagine him at a camp with underage girls, it makes me want to vomit, and all they have is speculation, since I haven’t mentioned your name other than the threatening messages . . .”
My hands shook as I stared down at them. “My greatest fear is saying something and having everyone call me a slut just like he did.”
“They may do just that,” he said. “But you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it. Is it worth it—if you save one girl? If you save two?”
“MATT!” Slade’s voice carried across the stadium. I jumped a foot as Matt cursed under his breath and turned to the two approaching forms. I’d forgotten they were going to practice with us later today.
Jagger and Slade, two of the best male soccer athletes in the world. Both infamous playboys, although Jagger was clearly still in that category while Slade was happily married and, according to Matt, trying for baby number one.
They dropped their duffels on the sidelines and peeled off their shirts.
“Apparently they’re skins?” I offered lamely.
Matt put his hand on my shoulder. “Do you want to do this another time?”
“Nope. We’re training, so let’s train. We can talk about this later?”
He nodded.
He also looked disappointed in me, but he didn’t know what it was like to be pushed so far, to be told that everything you had to offer the world had to do with what you could offer one man.
I stood, wiped the dirt from my cheeks, and flashed the guys a smile. “Ready to lose?”
“Ah, I see she hasn’t lost her arrogance.” Slade winked and then shared a knowing look with Matt.
Something passed between them, something that seemed like it was about me, and my chest felt a bit heavy.
Did Slade know about the kiss?
Did Jagger?
As if I had summoned him, Jagger walked by and mussed my hair. “Aw, now you look like you’ve been playing hard. Alright, kiddo, let’s do this.”
“I’m not your kiddo,” I fired back. “Plus Willow, you know her, right?