Page 125 of The Thing About My Rival

Maybe I shouldn’t let that destroy everything I’ve learned about him these last couple months—that he’s not the selfish, ego-driven man I’d originally pegged him as.

And what my eyes have just witnessed shows he’s exactly the man I hoped he was.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

HUGO

“Andthat”—I take a cool slurp of beer—“is why Wilcox wasn’t at the game yesterday.”

I put the bottle onto the coffee table next to Tom’s face staring out of my phone, which is propped against the weird doughnut-shaped vase thing that the designer who furnished my Boston apartment thought needed to be here.

Telling Tom the story of me getting the job for next season or, perhaps more pointedly, Wilcoxnotgetting it, and everything that led up to her telling me she never wants to see me again, made me so parched I had to get up partway through to fetch a second beer from the fridge.

“It’s been quite the thirty-six hours, huh?” Tom says.

“That’s quite the understatement, my friend.” I lean back on the sofa and stretch my legs out on the table, my feet coming to rest near Tom’s head.

Since we walked off the pitch yesterday, it’s been one interview after another. What with everything thathappened on the pitch and the announcement of me taking over the head coach role solo, I felt like I was on a carousel of revolving sports and news reporters.

There was just time for what felt like a quick nap between the news on the West Coast wrapping up last night and the East Coast waking up this morning to start it all over again.

I’m absolutely fucking exhausted.

Beyond my feet and phone, the Boston city lights shine against the dark sky that stretches forever outside my windows. It might only be eight-thirty, but I am about ready to turn in.

“Have you heard from Drew since the game?” Tom asks.

“Nope.”

“Are you going to contact her?”

“Nope.”

“I thought you liked her.”

“I do. But she, quite clearly, does not like me.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“How do Ifeelabout it?” I reach for my beer bottle. “The California air really must be getting to you if you’re going around asking people about their feelings.”

“Not people.You,” he says. “But if you’d rather talk about the match,what made you change your mind after the team stopped playing? Because, to start with, it looked like you were yelling at them to carry on.”

“I was. Couldn’t believe what they were doing. I mean, one-nil up with twenty minutes to go and they refuse to play, knowing it could forfeit the match?” I shake my head. “Thought it was bonkers, mate.”

“So what changed your mind?”

I take a long slug of beer. There’s absolutely no point discussing this part with Tom.

I shrug. “Just seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Riiiight,” Tom drawls, giving me one of his wise man looks.

“What?” I rest the beer bottle on the arm of the sofa.

“You did it for her, didn’t you? For Drew? Because you knewshe’dthink it was the right thing to do.”

“Oh, fuck off. What’s that music in the background? Sounds live. You got a band there or something?”

---