Once Upon A Half-Time: A Sports Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,11

knees. “Take the pic. I need a breather.”

“Piper says you’re not really that beastly, Cole,” I said. The dozen pictures I had of him hugging his step-daughter on the sidelines proved it. “One picture. Sean, move in a bit.”

“Don’t think I should.”

“But there’s a gap—”

Sean wavered. “Breakfast isn’t sitting good.”

Paxton snickered. “You ate eight hard-boiled eggs. Can’t imagine why you’re sick.”

“That was cause…” He swallowed. “I already ate leftover…left…over…”

“What?”

“Corn…chowder.”

Oh, God.

Mistake. Huge mistake.

The sun beat down on the field, and even in my white shirt and shorts, I roasted in the huddle. The guys sweated, exhausted, working on their drills and routes all morning in the heat.

One wavering step, and Sean nearly crashed into me. His muscles weren’t the only things bulging. Nothing cute was coming out of those chipmunk cheeks.

Paxton shouted. “Oh shitttt….”

I tried to bolt, tripped over my feet, and tumbled into the grass. Cole reached for me.

Too late.

My life might have flashed before my eyes, but I couldn’t see it, not while staring directly into the remains of Sean’s egg and chowder disaster.

The hot day was made hotter by the splash of liquid hell on earth. But, somehow, I froze.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t try to brush away an unfortunate chunk of egg that had rolled onto my shoulder.

The field silenced.

Well, except for Sean. He had the decency to heave away from me this time. Nothing came up. The big guy got most of it out on the first go-around.

On me.

All over me.

Hair. Clothes. Skin. I panicked and pushed the camera away before it landed in the pile of misfortune that was my life.

And then…the chorus began.

Paxton had the first solo, diving beyond the fifty to gargle his breakfast with the team. A harmony of retching coughs cascaded down the field, like a single domino toppling the entirety of the Rivets in a wave of ninja-quick sickness. Blitzed from the shadows…and the stomach.

The only thing worse than throwing up? Watching someone else do it.

Or, in this case, the entire organization.

First the linebackers. Then the corners. The safety.

It crossed into the special teams when our punter tried to do the right thing. Unfortunately, he projectiled his politeness beyond the garbage can on the sidelines.

From there the bile bomb spread, barraging unsuspecting players in the early-afternoon heat until the only sound echoing over the field was Jack Carson’s bewildered bellow.

“What the fuck just happened?”

“Elle, I’m so sorry…” Sean collapsed into the grass.

It was Cole who helped me up, surprisingly resilient. I held my arms out and pretended I wasn’t…dripping.

Instead, I silently screamed in abject horror while I faced the team with a smile.

This day could not possibly get any worse.

Whistles blew, trainers burst onto the field, and I reevaluated the life choices which brought me to this moment. It had taken a long time for karma to find me after running away from home at sixteen, but here it was. Fate was one chunky come-uppance.

“Elle?” Louisa was the team’s only female trainer, and she understood most of the difficulties women faced on the team. Usually. This was not one of those moments. She handed me a towel the size of a dishcloth. “Are you…ew.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s a lot of…”

I didn’t want to look at myself, but I felt it on me. Tried not to smell it either.

“Wow.” Louisa and the linebackers stared at me. “You should…go clean up.”

“Yeah...”

The team didn’t have enough water bottles on the field to fix this. Jumping in a tub full of hand-sanitizer wouldn’t fix this.

“Why don’t you…go take a shower?” Louisa couldn’t even look at me. “I don’t think anyone’s in the locker room.”

And it wouldn’t matter if they were.

Nothing could be worse than quivering in the sick of a three-hundred-pound linebacker and his foolhardy choice to eat eight hard-boiled eggs for breakfast on one of the hottest days of the year.

I hobbled off the field, ignoring the squish that followed me. It wasn’t the grass. Something soggy mushed in my shoe, but keeling over dead was preferable to fishing out whatever trespassed around my tootsies. The squeal of a baby stopped me.

Leah Carson bounced her son, Sammy, on her hip as she took a phone call. Sam gave me a devilish grin, inherited from his father.

She lowered her phone, too busy to look up. “Hey, Elle, do you have those pictures of Lachlan? We were going to give them to the Sports Nation producers for his interview today…” Her words choked. She stared in horror, her mouth gaping as she backed away. “What…what happened?”

“We had