Page 25 of The Thing About My Rival

I’d vowed after punching that reporter that I’d keep a handle on my temper. And while I didn’t lump anyone in the face, I suppose I didn’t have to charge in there like a starving bull who’d just had his dinner stolen.

I mean, the main point of me taking this job is to prove to everyone that I’mnotthe dick they think I am.

I am better than that. Just like Wilcox said.

At least I want to be.

And I definitely want her to think I am. Which isweird, because why should I give a shit what my rival for the job thinks about me?

Maybe I’m being lazy. Maybe I’ve been able to fall back on my natural physical skills, the ones I don’t have to work for, for so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have to try to be good at something.

Christ, it’s not like I don’t have the talent and the experience to keep this job without resorting to wankerish behavior like sniping at Wilcox and putting her down. I can beat her fair and square on skills alone.

I can win this job with dignity.

And that will make victory even sweeter.

And yet there I was yesterday, dickishly raising my voice to a room full of people, including a complete stranger. A complete stranger who is, indeed, one of the best sports psychologists in the country—I looked her up last night.

Perhaps I should apologize the next time I see her.

Need to be careful, though. Can’t totally blow the famous Hugo Powers reputation and let people realize I’m a softy who wants people to like me.

A strange squawky squeal jolts me back to reality. My eyes shoot toward the intern and the direction of the sound right as something feathered falls from the air and lands on the ground a few feet in front of him. Meanwhile, the ball he’s obviously just kicked veers off, closer to the corner flag than the goal.

He’s concussed a fucking bird.

I pick up the pace to get to it just as the kid arrives at the feathered lump on the turf. He pulls back his right foot and takes aim.

“Oi.” My already very hot blood takes only a fractionof a millisecond to reach boiling point. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“It’s dead,” he says with a shrug.

“You don’t know that.” I crouch down and examine the poor little fella who’s lying on his side, completely still, eyes staring blankly.

“Go fetch that ball you have no control over while I sit here with it a minute,” I tell the kid.

“Sit with it?” He laughs.

I look up at him, hoping every ounce of disgust I’m feeling is written on my face. “Yes. If this guy’s alive, he needs protecting while he pulls himself together.”

“Protecting from what?”

“Well, your inability to kick straight for a start. But also, any passing hawk that might fancy it for breakfast.”

“Hawk?” he asks with as much bafflement as if I’d suggested an elephant might fly by.

“Yeah. There’s loads of red-tailed hawks around here.” Movement near my feet catches my eye. The bird’s legs are twitching. “I see them flying over the common all the time.”

Then a wing flickers. And his eyes move, like he’s coming around. “See. I told you. We just needed to give the little fella a chance.”

“How did you know?”

“Birds used to fly into the back window of our house all the time when I was a kid. Think it was something to do with the reflection of the trees or something. The first time I saw it happen I thought this wren thing was dead. But as I was carrying it over to a flowerbed to bury it, it sprang into life on my hand and flew off.

“After that, every time I heard one slam into the window, I went out to protect it till it came around. Well, Imean, some of them I did have to bury. But not as many as you’d think.”

The robin’s up on his feet now, still a bit stunned or he wouldn’t be standing this close to us. But there’s some life in his eyes, and he’s moving his head from side to side, taking in where he’s landed.

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