Page 6 of Offside Rule

He let go of me, stepping back. "We will."

"You shouldn't have done that." Micah shook his head, and at the sight of the disappointment written all over his face, I knew I had let my team down. I wasn't their captain, but they sure as hell saw me as one.

Isaac entered last, his head hung low as he dropped onto an empty bench, refusing to interact with us.

"I know," I admitted, my shirt bunched as if Vane was still gripping it. "You won't lose the game.” I took a moment to think of a good plan. "I-I will train with you, we will prepare for it together, I just won't be on the field." The idea flew from my lips before I could stop it.

The entire team stopped what they were doing, hope shining bright in their eyes. Vane smirked, and glanced at me over his shoulder.

"You are fucking lucky we won today. Let's just hope we'll have the same luck next?—"

Before he could finish the sentence, and before I could curse them out for making me think we lost, Coach stepped into the room. His shoulders were near his ears, and it looked like smoke was ready to come from his nostrils.

He was mad?HEwas mad?

He marched up to me, stopping only when the tips of his shoes touched mine. “It seems to me that you forgot your role in this team, Xavier. You are a defender. Your role is todefend,not strike every time the goddamn ball rolls in front of you.”

My fingers curled into fists, and my teeth ground and slid against each other, the now-quiet room filling with a faint rasp. It felt like the ground was breathing under me, and with each inhale, it was ready to swallow me whole.

I couldn’t stop myself from talking back. “Ididmy job.” I pointed at my chest. “Don’t try to pin this on me, because what I did out there”—I stretched a hand toward the exit—“was for the sake of the team, even if my job doubled and I had to play as a strikeranddefender. And may I say, I was good as hell at both.”

His eyes almost bulged out of his head, and I noticed his hands forming a fist. I was half expecting him to punch me right in the gut, but instead he took the longest breath before he let himself speak.

"The referee decided not playing the next game is a fair price to pay. You are lucky, Xavier. She's the most ruthless I know. I thought she was going to suspend you for the entire championship."

The referee. The fire girl I met at that cheap bar right after our training. The fact that she hadn't fought me more on my comment last night bugged me. There was something about her, something challenging. She had made me look like a fool in the one thing I'm so fucking good at, and I had still wanted to fight more instead of retreating and accepting my loss. The shock of seeing those green eyes again so close to me, right on that field, as she tried to stop me from messing up what I'd managed to mess up anyway ...

She had looked hot as fuck, and when she’d given me that little smirk when I realized who she was, it had made the thin material of my shorts grow tighter on me.

What struck me was that I'd been nothing but rude to her that night, so why would she minimize my suspension when we both knew I deserved a longer one?

I nodded. "This still doesn't change anything I said, Coach," I pressed. "If you don't start training us properly, I can't guarantee the others—who we both know are the fucking best players you could have on that field—won't leave your ass as well. If we are going to lose, it should be because we suck, not because our coach can't handle his team," I said, before passing him and walking down the corridor.

It was time for him to realize we weren't going to simply obey everything he said from now on.

FOUR

ARIANNA

"Alright, cara mia," I smiled down at my phone where an image of my grinning daughter met me. "Mamma will be home tomorrow, okay? Now pass Nonna the phone."

She had chocolate all over her mouth, and my mother and I needed to have a word. Whenever I wasn't home, Giulia refused to eat anything that wasn't sweet, and most of the time my mamma fell into her trap. While I wasn't restrictive of her diet, she couldn't survive only on sweets, even if I wasn't away for long.

Giulia's smile widened, and she licked her top lip as she jumped from the couch and ran to find her grandmother.

"Giuli," I started, raising a brow at the phone.

"Yes?"

"Did you eat ice cream?" I tried to ask suspiciously, as if I didn't already know the answer by looking at her face. Plus, her ginger hair was entirely smeared with it. I didn't know how she managed it, but Giulia simply couldn't eat without staining her clothes, face, and hair.

My four-year-old daughter giggled. "Yes."

I heard my mother sigh in the background before she took the phone from Giulia. She looked down at her. "I thought this was a secret between us?"

"No secrets from Mamma," Giulia said, and I found myself smiling proudly. My mother pretended to poke her tiny butt playfully, and Giulia rushed away. "Ti amo, Mamma," she shouted at me before she disappeared from view.

My heart bloomed at that. She had started saying “I love you” three years ago, yet I couldn’t get used to it. Giulia was my biggest achievement, and if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have been here today. Without her, I would've most likely fed my ongoing ache with drugs or alcohol, but Giulia was my entire world. I didn't know what pain or sadness felt like when I was around my daughter.

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