“Wrong.” I step closer. “You have years ahead of you, a decade, if you’re lucky, and you’re going to spend them underperforming unless you push yourself to step up, win fifty-fifties, and take the fucking shot.”
His expression hardens, that relentless smile dissolves. “Just because you’ve done it that way doesn’t mean it’s right for me.”
“Yes, and I’m such a terrible example. What an underwhelming career I’ve had.”
His eyes flash as he stares at me, then glances out to the field where Jas hollers at Ethan and Stefan as they scramble back on defense. “You’re thirty-four and your musculoskeletal system is wrecked,” he says. “You’re in pain all the time. Respectfully, there are more important things to me than scoring every goal I possibly could when someone else can do it without it costing me my body.”
“Careful,” I warn him.
“You started it,” he says, scrubbing a hand through his hair, exhaling roughly as he glares at the ground. “Is that all? ’Cause if so, I’ve got a game to get ready for.”
I’m taken aback by his sharpness. The agitation in his body language and tone.
“No,” I tell him calmly, hands in my suit pants’ pockets, dropping my voice as I stare out at the field. “You’re wise to be cautious. I’m not telling you to do what I’ve done. Believe it or not, Bergman, there is a happy medium and I fully support it. All I ask is next time you’re in scoring range, push yourself to hold on to it rather than give it away. You might be surprised to discover what exactly is motivating you to give up something you deserve. Maybe that impulse isn’t as ‘good’ as you think.”
His eyes meet mine again with an intensity I haven’t seen in three weeks. I drink in his gaze, careful to keep my expression neutral.
“Fine,” he mutters, before storming off.
A few seconds later, Rico joins me, watching Oliver. “What was that about?”
I watch him as he runs, doing my best and failing not to smile. “Putting a fire under his ass.”
Even not on the field, I’m still in pain. My back is wicked tight, my neck throbs, my knee audibly cracks every time I lunge on it, yelling. I’d rather be out there, doing it fucking right, but having carte blanche to scream at Ben is decent consolation.
“Benjamin, get your ass back. Get fucking central!”
I tug at my tie and loosen it, scowling at the field as the team does what I want but slower. It’s so goddamn frustrating, when my legs ache to run, knowing where to go, when my mind sees the pass Ben misses, the run Andre should have made.
“Fucking hell,” I growl.
Jas is quiet. Rico hollers at Ethan to tighten up on his mark.
I have a love-hate relationship with this fucking getup that I’m wearing. Crisp, white cotton shirt, lightweight, dark-blue Italian wool suit, yellow-and-blue diagonal-striped tie that honors the team’s colors. I hate it because of what it means I’ve lost. And I love it because it feels right. It feels like possibility. Like what might come next.
I didn’t use to want next. I wanted now to last forever. But now that next is here, all I can think is I want tomorrow and the next day and forever; I want life to move forward for the first time in so long. And I want it with Oliver.
Even if he’s poised to piss me off right now. I’m not holding my breath for him to take my advice and do what I told him to during the pregame warm-up. But as I watch him streak up the field, ball at his feet, that kernel of hope in my chest blossoms, small and delicate. Walking along the sideline, I track his progress. My heart pounds.
He’s closing in on the goal. His defenders collapse on him. I hold my breath, hands turned to fists.
“C’mon,” I mutter. “Fucking do it.”
I see the moment Oliver would typically make a gorgeous pass to one of our midfielders, even if they weren’t wide open, so long as they were more open than him. And then I realize that moment is history. He’s kept going.
As a defender closes in on him, Oliver executes a perfect inside step over, his man committing to the opposite direction and tipping to the ground.
“He’s wide open.” I clutch Rico’s arm. “He’s wide fucking open.”
Oliver takes one touch past his defender and cracks it into the net, wide and low, far beyond the goalie’s reach.
Goal!!!
“Fuck yes!” I pump my arm as Rico yells inside his cupped hands, as Jas claps and smiles.
Oliver beams, elated, sparkling eyes crinkled at the corners. I watch the team swarm him, leap onto his back, ruffle his hair, before they break apart and leave him to walk in long, smooth strides toward center field for kickoff. I shouldn’t stare at him, shouldn’t feel my heart trip in my chest as something powerful and petrifying floods my veins. Something that makes the world stand still as Oliver glances my way.
Our eyes hold.
And for the first time in my entire life, I can say there’s something as incredible as being out on that pitch, scoring the perfect goal:
Watching the man who holds my heart in his hands do it, too.
It feels like a lifetime but it’s only been a week since that moment. Apparently therapy can do that to you—warp time, mess with your head. I know it’s good, but right now it just feels exhausting, as exhausting as the meeting I just had, the papers I just signed, to formally end my playing tenure with the Galaxy.
Setting a gentle hand on my back, Mitch smiles up at me, eyes tight with concern and, hell, if it’s not a bit of fondness, too.
“Proud of you,” Mitch says.
I sniff and blink away the wetness in my eyes, shutting my front door, doing the visualization my fucking therapist, who I started seeing two weeks ago, taught me, a trick to tell my mind it doesn’t have to fixate on painful things, that it can focus instead on what makes it happy.
Load of shit, is what that is. Worse, it works. At least sometimes. It’s helped me focus on concrete plans, a to-do list of positive, forward-thinking tasks to complete before I felt I could in any good conscience ask Oliver to give me a chance—plans to show him I’m capable of being a supportive partner, when the natural tension between our positions in our careers, our health, our ages, could threaten to draw us apart.
“Thank you,” I mutter, letting Mitch hug me. “This feeling-my-feelings shit is shit.”
He laughs his wet ex-smoker’s laugh and pats my face gently. “It’s hard, but you’re doing it. And it’s not done being hard either, but it’s still worth it. He’s worth it. So are you, Gav.”
I dab my nose again and make myself straighten up to my full height, like a soldier readying for battle. “Right. Well. Here goes.” I throw a thumb over my shoulder toward Oliver’s house.
Mitch scratches the side of his head. “Yeah. About that.”
“About what?”
He eases onto a stool at the kitchen island with a groan. “He uh…left.”
“Left,” I growl. “And you know this how? You were going to tell me when?”
“Easy.” He lifts his hands placatingly. “I know because I am Oliver’s friend. We take a brisk sunrise neighborhood walk every Wednesday morning before lazy asses like you roll out of bed.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh heavily. “Of fucking course you do.”
Mitch doesn’t acknowledge me. “On our walk this past Wednesday, he told me where he’d be while you fellas have your bye week.”
“And,” I say between clenched teeth, “you didn’t think I’d value being told that little tidbit, given what I just fucking did? Given what I have planned tomorrow? Given everything I’ve been trying to do for the past fucking month so I have a goddamn chance with him?”
He arches a silvery eyebrow. “I’ll be honest, Gav, I wasn’t sure you’d follow through just yet, and frankly, you didn’t deserve him if you didn’t. So I waited.”
“Excellent.” I throw him a sour, sarcastic smile. “I appreciate your faith in me.”
“I do have faith in you. I knew you’d do it. I just wasn’t sure when. And until I did, I had to think of him, too.” He leans in, sets his hand on mine, which is splayed on the counter, my knuckles white. “I meant it, what I said. I am proud of you.”
I stare down at his hand, resting over mine. “I hope it’s enough.”
After a few reassuring pats, he says, “I hope so, too.”
“Where is he, Mitch? Please.”
“A wedding. His sister’s? No, his brother’s. I can’t remember.”
“Doesn’t matter. There’s loads of them. One of them is getting married. Fine.” I tug my hand away, pacing, thinking. “Where is it? When is it?”
“The when, I’m not sure. But the where, I can tell you.” He sits back and grins. “Better get packing and book a flight. There’s an A-frame in Washington State calling your name.”
27
OLIVER
Playlist: “Elephant Gun,” Beirut