Settling the Score (The Summer Games #1) - R.S. Grey Page 0,27

me. He was in his coaching gear, his soccer shorts in place and his whistle around his neck. The notion that we were supposed to take him seriously had been hilarious to me when I first joined the team. Before he met Kinsley, Liam Wilder had been painted a notorious bad boy, but after a nagging knee injury forced him to retire, he returned to the life of a reluctant coach. He’d settled down with Kinsley, and with time really came into his own in a coaching capacity. Even so, there was no suppressing the fact that he was still young, tattooed, and incredibly good-looking.

“How’s your wrist?” he asked, eyeing the tape.

“It’s fine.”

He nodded. “Good. Three days left before our first game; I want to make sure you’re ready.”

“I am.”

Training for the Olympics had been a fulltime job for the last few years. Once I’d earned a spot on the Olympic roster a few months earlier, I’d moved to L.A. and taken the spare room in Kinsley and Liam’s house. Every morning, I woke up and had breakfast by 5:30 AM. I joined my team for practice by 6:00 AM, and we would spend a few hours working through drills and reviewing game footage. After that, we’d get a short lunch break before reconvening in the afternoon for strength training and workouts.

The only social life I’d had outside of soccer was fifth-wheeling on dates with Liam, Kinsley, Becca, and Penn. It was fun, but the days were long and regimented. That was part of the reason why I’d clung to the idea of Rio.

It’d been months since I’d had any sort of real date, even longer since I’d last hooked up with a guy. Sure, there was Tinder and hundreds of other dating apps, but those things took time, which was always in short supply. Unless stolen glances in the grocery store checkout line count, I hadn’t so much as locked eyes with a guy since college.

Swimming with Freddie had literally been the most interesting afternoon I’d had in months and that’s why I had to be smart, keep my distance, and maintain control of my heart and my head. It’d be too easy for the ground to crumble and wash away beneath us.

Coach Decker started us on drills and I lost myself in practice. It felt good to run, sweat, and concentrate on something so simple. For three hours, the only thing I had to do was draw a line in the turf and keep a soccer ball from crossing it.

“Good work, ladies,” Coach Decker said as we huddled together at the end of practice. We sat in a circle, guzzling water and trying to catch our breath. I ripped my shirt off over my head and tossed the sticky thing aside. The cold air felt good against my skin as I leaned back on my palms, listening to our coach. “You all are more than ready for the game in three days. Many of us know France well from last time around, so we know that they’re going to come out of the gate with speed and aggression, but if we stay focused, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t come out on top.”

Kinsley leaned closer and bumped her shoulder against mine. I turned and she nudged her chin in the direction of the stadium doors. When I glanced over, it was just in time to see Freddie take a seat on the first row of bleachers. He was dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, and he’d thrown his baseball hat on as if to stifle his shine. He smiled when he saw me glance over and my already rapidly beating heart pounded against my breastbone so hard I thought it’d be visible when I glanced down.

He’d come to my practice.

Why the fuck had he come to my practice?

I turned away with the image of his sharp features burned into my memory.

Coach Decker wrapped up, we broke from the huddle, and every single woman on my team took in Freddie Archibald sitting and waiting for me. God, he was good-looking. He had those old world, classic features, the kind of face that took generations of good genes to create. No matter how far he tugged that hat down on his head, there was no hiding his beauty.

“I didn’t realize we’d invited a royal audience,” Becca said as I trailed her and Kinsley to the row of bleachers where we’d dropped our bags. I took my sweet time gathering