Page 15 of Close Knit

Liv Parker:Sounds like you’ve got it all planned out.

Daphne Quinn:Totally.

Liv Parker:So, what’s next for Daphne Quinn?

Daphne Quinn:At the moment, I’m doing this thing called a Yes Year, which started on my twenty-sixth birthday two days ago, June twenty-ninth. My first order of business is moving to London at the beginning of August.

Liv Parker:Yes Year? Say more.

Daphne Quinn:My work, as fulfilling as it is, requires that I spend a lot of time at home, or deeply homed in on what my fingers are doing. I want to break out of my comfort zone and say yes to anything that’ll set me up for adventure. My family has an apartment in London, so it’s not completely new, but it’s exciting.

Liv Parker:I think a lot of us could use a Yes Year. Do you have any inspiration for our readers?

Daphne Quinn:After the night of yeses I had yesterday, my biggest advice would be to just go for it when an opportunity presents itself.

Liv Parker:Well, now I’m intrigued. But that’s all the time we have for today. Thank you for speaking with me.

Chapter 4

Cameron

August 2nd

Lyndhurst’s New Keeper, Cameron Hastings, Hastily Slips Up in His Embarrassing Debut

August 10th

Mal Kelly Thrives onLust IslandWhile Not-Such-A-Keeper-After-All Hastings Is an On-Pitch Disaster

The teamsilently floods the locker room after our loss against Fairview.

Tamu Okafor, our captain and an impeccable striker from Nigeria, claps his hands together. “It’s all right,” he says with a confident grin. “We’ll get them next time, team.”

It’s only the second match of the season, and we got pummeled again.

Premier League football is composed of England’s top twenty teams, hosting the finest talent from around the world. Each team plays each other twice during the season—a home and anaway match. The team with the most points after thirty-eight matches wins the title and gets crowned champions.

A win is three points. A draw is one. A loss is unacceptable.

I ignore him and walk to my empty locker, passing the others filled with personal effects. At Overton, leaving valuable items behind meant they’d be destroyed or gone for good.

“Hastings, the save after halftime was ace.” Okafor’s voice roils in my ear. “Fairview’s counterattack was impressive, but you had them pinned. Good stuff.”

I grunt.Is he being sarcastic?We lost. I let a goal in. The sound of the ball hitting the net swooshes through my head.

Coach Robert Thompson attempts a motivational speech at the center of the room, near his office. He shares the space with my goalkeeping coach, Frank Murphy—the former England national team keeper known for his record number of clean sheets, which means he had no goals scored on him for over twenty matches.

Whether we lost or won, my previous coach, Mateo Rossi, would squeeze all twenty-five of his players into a windowless room with a flatscreen TV and break down how we could’ve done better through video analysis.

There were occasions when younger players would burst into tears, and he’d throw tissues at them, telling them to stop being babies. At one point, our lead defender set our striker’s cleats on fire after he missed a penalty shot.

Military-level hazing.

Rossi condoned and encouraged it. It was how we became better footballers.

I learned to keep my guard up and avoid mistakes. I turned numb.

After my first friendly match with Lyndhurst, I expected the same routine. To my surprise, my new coach cheered for us in the locker room like we were onTed Lasso. What a joke.

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