FURY: A Rio Games Romance (10 page)

“So,” Solomon said. “We’re breaking up.”

He couldn’t deny it; he was hurt. The timing was just so odd. He’d made love to her all night. Hell, he’d been close to actually telling her he loved her, but now he was glad he’d resisted.

This was just… out of nowhere.

“No,” Logan said. “I just need a break from anything that isn’t soccer. But I don’t want to see anyone else.And it would kill me if you were to see anyone else.” She sighed. “I know I am being completely selfish and completely confusing and very unfair. But, Solomon, I have to make the Olympic team. For my dad.”

Solomon understood. He just didn’t agree with the way she was going about it. He had to focus on things too. But his desire for Logan was something he channeled into his sport. It helped him get better.

Maybe soccer was different. Or maybe just Logan was.

He leaned forward, taking her hand. “I hate this. After last night the very last thing I want to do is be away from you. This is going to kill me.”

Logan lied down next to him again, running her hands across his abs. “It’s not going to be easy for me either. I’m crazy about you, Solomon. If that helps. And I’m honestly not even sure I can stick to it. I think about you all the time.”

“Well,” Solomon finally said. “I will respect your wishes, Logan. But I’m not going anywhere. And in Rio, it’s going to be pretty hard not to want to spend a month with you in arguably one of the sexiest places on the planet.”

She leaned into him then, kissing him hard. He seemed to understand, but she couldn’t be sure.

But she had to try. They weren’t guaranteed another Olympics. Or even another day.

She knew it all too well.

So she had to give this her all. It was what might help her forget how broken hearted she still really was.

S
olomon respected
Logan’s wishes for now and admired her from afar, watching her games in person when Xavier was at home, following her exploits on the internet when they weren’t. He regretted missing the final home game of her season, but he was in Brussels at his judo tournament, a major event on the European circuit, where he finished fourth in a very competitive field. Adonis DeCarlo was in attendance, but he withdrew with a shoulder injury before a potential quarterfinal matchup with Solomon.

Gavin and Sensei Shinji plotted Solomon’s course, and he was doing well enough that he seemed to have a shot at clinching an Olympic berth four years ahead of schedule. To make his own dreams come true, the make Gavin and his family in Fiji proud, to compete on the biggest stage in the world under the Fijian flag, to potentially humble Adonis, all these things motivated him, but once he realized Logan would possibly be part of the United States Women’s’ National Team in Rio, he needed no further inspiration.

He fought like a demon through the spring of 2016, and in mid-June Gavin received the news from the Fijian Olympic Committee and the Fiji Judo Association: Solomon Jack Kano was formally invited to represent the nation of Fiji at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Gavin borrowed a tactic he recalled seeing on American Idol the next time he saw his nephew.

“Solomon, I heard from the FJA and the FOC today. I’m afraid it’s not good news.” Gavin’s demeanor was downcast, and Solomon practically physically deflated in front of him. “It’s. The best. News.
Ever
!”

Solomon looked puzzled, so Gavin let him off the hook. “You did it! You made it! You’re going to the Olympics!”

Confusion became joy, and Solomon lifted his uncle into the air and spun him in a circle as they laughed and hugged.

Solomon Kano, who by all rights should have perished in the same storm that claimed his parents, not only survived tragedy, he flourished. Being a product of two nations, two cultures, two clashing worlds, made him kailoma. It also made him a potential Olympic champion.

L
ogan touched
down at San Diego International Airport an uncustomary bundle of nerves. Throughout her athletic career, even making the leap from high school to college, she’d always been buoyed by an unshakable confidence; as a youngster because she was bigger and faster than most everyone else, and as she got older because she just
knew
she was better.

She never lorded it over anyone, she worked just as hard in tryouts as players who were sure to be cut, and she neither expected nor received any special treatment based on her last name, her looks, or her talent.

But this week would mark her first time training with the
national team
.

You’re the best in the county? Big deal. Top dog in your state? Who cares? The thirty-three women she’d be joining had spent, in some cases, over a decade playing at the absolute highest level – competing at multiple World Cups, professional leagues on three continents, Olympics, and more. Most of them had grown up playing for youth national teams, learning the international game in their teenage years.

Logan had spent those same years swinging a bat and dribbling a basketball in little Dayton, Ohio.

She was terrified. And there was also Solomon. Even though she’d been the one to insist they take a break, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Her body ached for him. Giving him up had been the largest sacrifice she’d ever been asked to make in the name of the game.

But she couldn’t focus on that now. Or on her father, who she still mourned every day.

This was what she’d been training her life to do. This was the time.

It was time to rise.

* * *

T
he first leg
of her trip took her from Dayton to Chicago, where she boarded a jet bound for California. For that portion of the trip, she made her debut in First Class.

She wore a blue Xavier Soccer t-shirt and jeans, with comfortable flats. Her feet bounced frantically, as they were wont to do when she had to sit in one place too long. Doctors had long ago promised her parents that all of their daughter’s excess energy would burn away at some point and she’d be able to focus more clearly and relax more easily, but that day had not yet come.

The plane sat and sat, waiting for one more passenger, and finally she arrived. A Middle Eastern woman dripping with jewelry and designer labels, a woman in her mid-sixties who could pass for late thirties, and who when she was in her thirties could have been a supermodel, Logan theorized.

She brushed past Logan into the empty seat beside her, seeming to regard her as one might a pest or a nuisance, giving her a sideways look through her expensive-looking sunglasses. She was one of those women who gave off a vibe of being annoyed by everyone and everything. First Class was probably as unfamiliar to her as it was to Logan, although in her case because it wasn’t a private jet.

Logan tried listening to her music and started going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole regarding the women she’d be meeting at national team training. Some of the names she’d known since middle school, women like Lori Gallagher and the DeCarlo twins, Angie and Allie. Others were like Logan, still in college, such as her nemesis from Notre Dame, Tara Rourke. There was even supposed to be a seventeen-year-old girl from Phoenix, Alyssa Guzman, who was being whispered about as potentially the best female American soccer player ever.

Reading the bios and resumes of the women she’d be competing against was doing nothing to calm her nerves, so she decided to strike up a conversation with her seat mate, extending a hand and introducing herself to the well-heeled woman.

“I’m Logan.”

Almost imperceptibly, the woman’s lip curled into a sneer as she shifted her gaze in Logan’s direction, holding it there just long enough to make clear her disdain before speaking, in heavily-accented English.

“Your hair reminds me of a young Shirley Temple.”

The woman made no motion to accept Logan’s offered hand, which she lowered back into her own lap.

“My grandfather used to say that all the time when I was little,” Logan replied. “May I ask your name?”

Taking so long to answer that Logan thought maybe she hadn’t heard her, the woman finally answered. “Zaynab.”

“That’s a pretty name. Where are you from?” Logan had never met a stranger and had the gift of being able to strike up a conversation with anyone, no matter the time or place. This was a trait that filled her mother with endless anxiety whenever she and her young daughter would leave the house. Many a time she’d go to place something in her grocery cart and turn around to find Logan had vanished. Inevitably, she was tagging along with another shopper, asking questions about things in their cart, talking to their children, or otherwise distracted.

“I’m from Persia,” Zaynab replied, dragging out the ‘r’ so long it sounded like a third syllable in the middle of the word.

“That’s Iran, right?” Logan asked, pronouncing the Middle Eastern nation as “Eye-ran”.

No longer trying to hide how irritated she was, Zaynab turned in her seat so that she was facing the effervescent young athlete. “Iran,” Zaynab countered, (pronouncing it “E-rahn), “is a word that denotes the caliphate. My husband and I, our ancestors, are Persian. Persian influence on world culture is undeniable and pervasive. Iran is nothing with which my family associates itself.” Her tone was sharp, and Logan was taken aback, having clearly struck a nerve.

“My family is Irish on my Dad’s side and English on my Mom’s, but there’s also Swedish and Dutch if you back a few generations. What’s taking you to San Diego?”

Zaynab didn’t quite know what to make of her seatmate. Her reticence to converse was being completely ignored, pushing her out of her comfort zone. “I’m visiting my sister. Will you be asking for my blood type or credit history or anything else?”

“No, sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m a little nervous, I guess. I’ve never flown First Class before. And I’m going to training camp for the national team for the first time. Soccer, I’m a soccer player,” Logan offered.

“I’d never have guessed.” Zaynab replied, nodding in the direction of Logan’s t-shirt.

Logan looked down and laughed. “If everything goes well, I might be in the Olympics. But some of the players at this camp I’ve looked up, they’ve been heroes of mine for years. I don’t know where I fit in.”

As was her custom, Logan’s seatmate stared at her a good long while before speaking, translating the words in her mind from Farsi to English and arranging them in the proper sequence before uttering any of them. Zaynab wasn’t the type to ever embarrass herself with poor grammar, a hair out of place, or shoes that cost less than Logan’s entire wardrobe.

“The tears of the roasting meat kindle the fire even more.”

Logan was caught completely off-guard and couldn’t have been more perplexed, but Zaynab offered nothing more, either in the way of explanation or conversation.

“I am fatigued. I’ll sleep now.”

With that, Logan’s window into the world and mind of Arab wealth was shut.

For the rest of the flight, she had but to ponder the proverb offered by her new friend. Was Logan the meat? Or the fire? Or the tears? Logan herself dozed off briefly somewhere over Utah, wishing she’d paid closer attention in Professor Chapman’s philosophy lectures.

* * *

T
he group
of thirty-four women wasn’t complete until after dinner on the eve of national team camp. Players had flown in from all over the country and a handful from overseas, where they played professionally. Many of them knew each other, whether from having played together in previous training with the national team or in college. The only faces familiar to Logan were assistant coach Megan Riffle and her rival from Notre Dame, Tara Rourke.

Logan’s roommate was as much a fresh face as she was, a midfielder from Atlanta who had just completed her sophomore season at Florida State, a girl named Savannah Reeves.

Logan had actually crossed paths with Savannah years earlier at a softball tournament in Virginia. Her team had faced an opponent from Georgia who had a tall girl with braids who seemed to hit a home run every time she came up to bat. Logan had never seen a girl hit like that, and she remembered her dad taking her to watch the girl play even after Logan’s team had been eliminated. They both marveled at her fluid swing and the way the ball flew off her bat like it had been shot out of a cannon.

When they’d met that afternoon getting unpacked, Logan knew she looked familiar, but couldn’t place her. It was at dinner over pasta that the she finally put the pieces together.

“Softball!” Logan exclaimed, clapping her hands.

“Hmm? What?” Savannah wiped her mouth with a napkin and looked at Logan quizzically.

“You played softball. I played against you in Virginia. In Richmond. When we were, I don’t know, like twelve or thirteen. You hit all these home runs.”

Savannah laughed. “You played softball? I loved softball. But I gave it up in high school. My school was terrible at sports. I didn’t even play soccer there. I just played select soccer. But yeah, we used to go to the big tournament in Richmond. We won it two years in a row. We played you guys?”

“Well, we didn’t put up much of a fight, but yeah, we played you. Even after we were knocked out, my dad took me to watch you play again. He was my high school coach. He was kind of obsessed. He said he’d never seen anybody hit like you. I guess he thought I’d pick up some pointers. It didn’t work though. He was so disappointed.” Logan’s heart fell a small bit, thinking of her father.

“I wanted to try to play in college, but my coach was always against it. Wanted me to focus on soccer, soccer, soccer. I guess she was right; I mean look where we are. But I do miss hitting. We should sneak out of here and find a batting cage if we have any free time,” Savannah said.

Logan and Savannah laughed their way through dinner, trading war stories.

After dinner, the team was assembled in a conference room and addressed by head coach Nina Pressley, a former national team player with a reputation as a hard-ass.

“Most of you I’ve met, some I haven’t, but I’ve seen all of you play. I’m Coach Pressley, this is Coach Riffle and Coach Stall. We’re here this week to narrow down this group of players into a team to play in the first round of Olympic qualifiers. If you make the squad, all that means is that you’ll have the opportunity to play in the qualifiers. Nobody is guaranteed a spot on the Olympic team. If you’re cut, that doesn’t mean you’re out. Injuries happen. Suspensions happen. Shit happens. If your name isn’t on the list at the end of the week, stay in shape and be ready. You may get a call. I’m not here to waste anyone’s time, I hope none of you are here to waste mine. We wake up and eat at 0600, bus leaves at 7:15, we’re on the field at 0800. The best way to get sent home is to be late. If you need the trainers for anything, Al and Jolene will hang around a bit after this. Any questions?”

When nobody raised their hands, she dismissed the women, who wandered off to their rooms or to the hotel lobby.

Logan and Savannah struggled to sleep that night, anxious to get on the field and show what they could do against the best of the best.