Offside (3 page)

“You better. Here.” He thrust an envelope into my hands. “You know what that is?”

I looked at the printed envelope with my name on it and a return address that said Real Messini.

Holy shit.

“Did you read it?” I asked.

“Of course I read it.”

Figures.

I opened it up and glanced down at the letter. Wayne and Andrew Messini were coming here to scout me personally. Real Messini was one of the best freaking teams in the world, up there with Bayern Munich, Manchester United, and Barcelona. And they were interested in me—saw my video, checked out my stats. Their goalie turned thirty-five earlier this year, which was practically ancient for soccer, but Manuel Mario was still one of the best keepers ever to live.

“I’m counting on you,” Dad said. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

Reflexively, I flinched and held my breath. Even though I knew I was too built up now for him to really do any major damage to me, such habits die hard. Dad continued on as if there wasn’t blood running down around my eye.

“You know the plan. Now you just have to focus, Thomas. Don’t lose your focus. Classes okay so far? I don’t want anything distracting you.”

“They’re okay,” I told him. I shrugged a little, hoping it would get his hand off me. It worked, and I took a deep breath. “It’s only the first week of school, but they’re all okay so far.”

“I never should have let you sign up for those AP classes,” he grumbled.

I really, really didn’t want to have this fight again.

“It’s only two of them, Dad,” I reminded him. “Just Biology and English. It’ll be fine.”

“Well, if one of those teachers gives you a B on anything, you let me know.”

“I will,” I promised.

“And no girls,” Dad added. “If you want pussy, I’ll fucking buy you some pussy.”

“Geez, Dad,” I turned my head away, cringing. “Not a problem, okay? Seriously, I need to get to sleep soon.”

“Running tomorrow? Six AM?”

“Yep.”

“Good.”

He turned and walked into the kitchen, depositing his empty mineral water bottle in the recycling bin. I took the opportunity to get to my room as quickly as possible. Once the door was shut and locked, I could breathe properly again. I stripped down and grabbed some lounge pants before I went to brush my teeth in the hall bathroom. I checked out the cut on my forehead in the mirror. It wasn’t bad and certainly didn’t need stitches or anything like that. I washed it off and put a dab of antiseptic cream on it before I returned to my room and sat on the edge of my bed.

I reached down and pulled out a sketchbook from the bottom shelf of my nightstand and turned it to the last page, a black and white drawing of the US national team’s goalie making a save in the last World Cup qualifying game.

I’d been working on this one for a while, even before classes started. When Ms. Mesut, the art teacher, said there was going to be an art show next month…well…fuck. I thought it might be a good one to give to her and to see if it could get into the show. They were only picking ten pieces, and I didn’t have a lot of hope that mine would be picked. It wasn’t really very artsy or anything—it was a fucking soccer drawing—but I wanted to show it to her. I didn’t know why. I never showed anyone anything I drew.

I pulled out my charcoal pencil and started adding a little bit of shading off to the side, giving the ball a little more depth. The goal turned out pretty well, I thought, though it took freaking forever to get all the netting. I knew the angle on the right side wasn’t perfect, and I had ended up placing the keeper about half a foot away from where he had really been in the goal.

I closed my eyes for a second, picturing the game in my head as the striker approached and kicked. I could see Tim Howard as he moved to his left, bending at the knee at just the right angle before he jumped to get his hands on the ball. The imaged paused in my head, the ball just barely touching his fingertips, and I carefully looked over the placement of each of his gloved fingers before I began to draw.

I drew, and I drew, and I drew.

When I glanced up again, it was nearly four in the morning. Shit. I had to run in two hours. I placed the sketchbook and the charcoal pencil in their hiding spot under a few copies of
Goal
magazine. I rolled over, switched off my overhead lamp, and dropped onto the pillow.

In my head, the day replayed—every single moment from the time I woke up, through my classes, to warm-ups, to game time—in extreme fast-forward. Every single motion, every image, every sound. I remembered my morning piss had taken twelve seconds longer than the day before and realized I had drunk one extra glass of water with dinner’s spicy salsa. There was the book in my locker with the crushed edge that wouldn’t line up correctly with the others. I remembered the forward player—clearly offside—as his leg swung. I could have stopped it if I had tried. I remembered the angle of the ref’s eyebrow as he wrote me into the book. I remembered the feeling of terry cloth as I slammed into a girl in a hoodie and the slight indentation of her teeth in her lower lip as she stared up at me.

I shoved the palms of my hands into my eye sockets and rubbed. My head hurt. I rolled over onto my stomach and wrapped my arms around my pillow, burying my face into the Egyptian linen case.

I downed my homemade lunch with a big bottle of Gatorade before heading out to the practice field to kick the ball around a bit. There wasn’t anyone else out there, so I focused on juggling and ran a couple of laps before hitting the shower. I shook out my hair, yanked my jeans up over my damp legs, and threw on a muscle shirt. The second bell had already rung when I walked out of the locker room, but I didn’t rush. I sauntered into AP Biology and ignored the glare from Mister Bucher as I turned down the aisle to go to my seat.

The empty seat in front of me where I usually placed my feet was strangely occupied.

Long, light brown hair covered most of her back and shoulders. She had smooth, porcelain skin, an athletic build, and deep blue eyes. She looked up at me, her teeth sunk into her bottom lip, and I knew immediately who she was. It was the girl I slammed into after I was kicked out of the game on Friday, and she was sitting right in front of my seat.

I dropped down behind her and leaned forward and to one side so I could look at her better. She tilted her head down, which made her hair drop over her shoulder and hide her face. It kind of pissed me off, actually, though I wasn’t sure why. I reached over and pushed her hair away from her face and back over her shoulder. She looked up at me, eyes wide and sapphire blue.

“Hey,” I said as I smiled at her.

“Um…hi,” she replied. She pulled back a little, and her hair dropped away from my fingers. At least it wasn’t hiding her from me anymore.

“I’m Thomas,” I told her.

“So I’ve heard,” she said. Her eyes flashed up to Mister Bucher, who was beginning his lecture on blue-green algae.

“Have you now?” I smirked. I wondered just what she had heard and from whom. “You got a name?”

“Yes.” She turned to look toward the front of the classroom and narrowed her eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest and stiffened her shoulders.

I had to laugh.

“Want to tell me what it is,” I asked, “or do we get to play Rumplestiltskin?”

A few other games I could play with her flashed through my mind.

“Malone?” Mister Bucher snapped. I looked up at him. “You care to answer my question?”

The fucker thought he could trip me up. I blinked a couple of times, hit the mental rewind button in my head, and glanced up at the whiteboard.

“Oxygen production,” I said with a smile. He huffed and growled something about keeping my eyes up front.

Whatever.

I glanced back to the girl in front of me and saw the corners of her mouth turn up a little as if she was holding in a laugh. I shifted my desk forward with a scrape, moving a little closer to her and extending one of my legs so it was right next to her. She looked back at me and then quickly looked away.

I didn’t reach out to touch her again though it was a little tempting. I kept my leg just about three inches away from hers, shifting my foot when she moved so I could keep the distance constant. She had long, slender legs, but I could tell they had some muscle to them as well. I resisted the urge to immediately get out of my chair and run my hand over her thigh. No need to move too quickly on a chick that was obviously new. Maybe even a challenge.

I could feel that she was a little nervous—either because of my proximity or just because I kept leaning forward to stare at her throughout class. Bucher tried to catch me up a couple more times, even to the point of asking me where my book was and why I didn’t have a pencil. I told him I didn’t need them and noticed the girl in front of me glaring a bit.

I just smiled and winked at her. She rolled her eyes.

Yeah…definitely a challenge.

After class I sat there at my desk as she gathered her stuff and shoved it into her book bag.

“So…Rumplestiltskin,” I said. “Where are you from?”

“Very funny,” she replied as she stood up. “Minneapolis.”

“You must love the warm weather here,” I said with a friendly smile.

“Not really.” Totally deadpan answer. She didn’t offer anything else either. I followed her out of the classroom and down the hall.

“Enjoy it now—rainy season is on the way,” I added. She ignored me, so I pressed on. “What class do you have next?”

“Calculus.”

“Do you know where the math hall is?”

She stopped in the hall and looked up at me.

“Is there some particular reason you are being nice to me?” she asked.

Damn.

“Straightforward, aren’t you?”

“You were a complete jerk on Friday.”

“You caught me at a bad time,” I replied. It was at least partially true. She narrowed her eyes at me then turned and started walking away. “Hey, Rumple!”

She glared back at me.

“The math hall is this way.” I pointed over my shoulder, the opposite way she was going. She stopped in her tracks and sighed. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

She paused and seemed to consider before she finally started following me.

“This map is useless,” she mumbled as she shoved a paper into her book bag.

I just smiled and led her down the hall.

“So, Rumple,” I said, “why weren’t you here for the first week of school?”

“I just moved here,” she replied. “It was kind of a last minute thing.”

“Why did you come here?”

“My dad lives here,” she said.

“A little more info?” I prodded. I turned the corner and started down the next hallway, watching her the whole time. She gave me another big sigh.

“My mom got a new job as a journalist, and she’s going to have to travel a lot. It just made sense for me to come here. She’s very career-minded.”

“Sounds like a blast.” Sarcasm is a beautiful thing. I brushed my hand against her arm…accidentally, of course.

“I’m very happy for her,” she explained. “It’s exactly what she wanted.”

“Yeah, I can see how thrilled you are,” I noted. Her expression told me I was right.

“It’s only for a year.” She shrugged, and we turned another corner. My arm touched hers again. The first bell rang, and she glanced around as other kids started scrambling into classrooms. “Don’t you have to go to class?”

“I’ve got practice last bell,” I told her.

“Will you be late?”

“Maybe.” I smiled and watched her lip disappear behind her teeth again. Damn, that was hot. I started imagining other things I could do with that lip.

“What happened to your eye?” she asked.

I raised my hand up to my forehead and lightly touched the cut above my right eye. It wasn’t a bad one but certainly noticeable.

“Ran into a door,” I said with a half-grin.

“That’s a lame story,” she replied.

“How about underground cage-fighting, then?” I suggested. She continued to glare at me. It wasn’t like I was going to tell her what had actually happened, so I went with the ridiculous. “Actually, I was wrestling bears.”