Page 103 of Play On

“What other injuries have you had?” I ask, needing to know.

“The worst one was a hamstring injury before I was playing in the Premier League,” he says, dropping the ball back to the grass and dribbling it with his feet. “That took a long time to recover from. It was painful, but even more painful was being off the pitch.”

I swallow. I can see that. Football has been his salvation, and I can’t imagine how he coped when that was taken away from him.

“I was driven like mad during my recovery,” Noah continues. “It was a fixation with me. How can I heal in the fastest way possible? How can I get back to the squad? Because being away from the team was killing me inside.”

His found family, I think.Noah found his family in that changing room, even if he didn’t know it.

“It had to be so hard,” I say.

“It was. One of the hardest times I went through because I felt isolated again.”

Again.

Just like how his mother and brother isolated him, he felt taken out of the routine with the team. They went on to play, and he had to stay back, working on recovery—with only trainers and the thoughts in his head for company.

But that is changing now.

The life Noah had before didn’t have Camden in it as his best friend, on and off the pitch.

And now he has me.

I make another promise to him, one I will only tell him later if we continue to build what we are building now. I promise he will never go through anything like that alone again. I’ll be by his side. His champion. I’ll listen when he needs to talk and tell him what he needs to hear.

I’ll be there for him. For as long as he wants me to be.

“All right, Butterfly,” Noah says, juggling the ball on his knees, then his feet, and back to his knees again. “Let’s see what you can do.”

I practically shout with laughter. “I can tell you what I’m not doing. I’m not bouncing that hard thing off my head. It’s ridiculous you guys do that in the first place.”

He grins. “That’s fair. What else is a no?”

“Well, there’s no way I’ll ever be able to do what you just did.”

“No, you can.”

“No, trust me, I cannot.”

“What are you going to do today?”

“I’ll kick it.”

Now Noah is the one shouting with laughter. “I’m glad to see you are going to go out of your comfort zone.”

I back up from him, putting a good bit of space between us. “Kick it to me here, and I’ll kick it back to you.”

“You really did hide on the pitch, didn’t you?”

“Oh, shut up!” I giggle.

He flashes me a teasing smile. “I’m going to go easy on you.”

“For now. I don’t intend for you to go easy on me when there’s no football involved, Saucy Shorts.”

Noah’s eyes dance with interest. “I have made a note of that,” he says, kicking the ball directly to me so it lands perfectly on my foot.

I somehow manage to stop the ball. Then I take a few steps back from it and study it.

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