I WAS INFATUATED with Freddie. I was hopelessly obsessed with him. No matter how much I tried to get myself ready for my game, I kept replaying our night. Every time one of my Americanisms had confused him, he glanced up at me with an arched brow and I had to remind myself not to gape. For a man who regularly induced gawks and whispers from random passersby, he acted so normal.
“You have PRINCE HARRY’S phone number?” I asked as we lay on his bed.
He shrugged. “Prat hardly ever rings back.”
I held up my hands, my mouth hanging open. I blinked and blinked again. My brain was short-circuiting and Freddie sat there, amused.
“So it’s true then? You’re a count, or prince or something?”
He reclaimed his spot beside me in bed, tossing the blankets over us and getting comfortable, leaving me hanging for what felt like a thousand hours.
“Freddie!”
He laughed. “No, I’m not a prince. My father was a duke, which made me a lord. My brother, as the eldest, was an earl, before he inherited the dukedom, but now—”
“You say it like it’s so normal!”
“Andie, non-royal dukes aren’t even in line for the throne. It hardly means anything anymore.”
It was just like Freddie to downplay the glamour of his life. He wanted to be Freddie, just another normal swimmer, but he was Frederick, handsome duke with a phone full of numbers I could only dream of having.
“May we text him?” I asked politely, royally.
He glanced over. “Harry?”
“No! Baby George.”
“Tired?” Kinsley asked from across the aisle of the bus, tearing me from my thoughts.
I shifted in my seat and shrugged. “No, not really.”
“What time did you get in?”
I thought back to the night before when Freddie had yanked the clock off his nightstand and showed me the blinking red lights. “12:01 AM and I promised I’d have you back by 9:00 PM.” I’d begged him to keep going, promising that great sex was a close enough approximation of a good night’s sleep, but he’d kissed my head and pushed me out as politely as possible. He knew I needed rest. He knew that if I had an off game, he’d be the first person I blamed. So even though I would have happily stayed in his room all night, I’d reluctantly dragged myself back to my condo and slept alone. Luckily, I was so physically spent that I fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.
“Andie?” Kinsley asked.
“Oh.” I shook away my thoughts. “Not late,” I promised.
“Did you have fun?”
I tried desperately to keep the slow-crawling blush from staining my cheeks. “Yup,” I said nonchalantly, turning back toward the window.
“Ten more minutes!” our coach yelled from the front of the bus. “Time to get your heads in the game, ladies!”
Shit.
Coach Decker was right. I needed to focus. I plugged my headphones into my iPod and turned the volume as high as it would go. “Drive” by Halsey blasted everything else to the wayside.
The game against Colombia wouldn’t be easy. They were rumored to be one of the best national teams in South America, and they’d proven it by knocking out Mexico in the qualifying tournament. The day before, we’d spent hours watching game footage, and I still wasn’t sure our defense would be enough to stop their fast-paced onslaught on the goal.
I rolled my wrist left and right, getting a feel for the pain. The swelling had gone down since the last game, but I knew it’d puff right back up by the end of the day. I didn’t have a choice though. I’d tape it and deal with the pain.
I propped it up on my left knee and gently massaged it, feeling my nerves start to eat away at me. Colombia was sure to break through at least a dozen times, and Liam said they averaged about six shots on goal per game. There was no option. My wrist couldn’t take the day off.
THERE WAS NO getting around it. The team from Colombia was made up of superhuman cyborgs. They seemed to be built on size, each of them a giant, pumped-up killer I didn’t want to see close up. I SWORE one of them had a mustache (and I’m not talking about a couple stray whiskers—homegirl was rivaling Ron Swanson).
My defenders had played stout defense through the first half, only allowing the Colombians to test my reflexes twice before the whistle. Their defense proved to be just as good up until the 42nd minute, when Kinsley finally scored with a crafty header. By the intermission, my wrist was on fire. The constant throb hadn’t been as easily overcome by adrenaline as I’d hoped. Each time I connected for a block, I winced, and any attempt at covering up the injury was long gone. Coach Decker had pestered me about it during halftime.
“How bad is it on a scale of one to ten?”
Seven.
“Not bad. A three,” I lied.
“Are you prepared to play the second half? Should I put Hollis in that goal?”