Page 86 of The Thing About My Rival

“Nope. I see her parents, my grandparents. And they hear from her every few years. But not me.”

The crow’s beak opens and closes a few times in frustration, presumably producing loud squawks that are impossible to hear from here.

I let out a deep sigh. “So, the mother who couldn’t cope with me left me with a father who thought I was the wrong gender. Since his parents were long passed, my mother’s parents live in Wyoming, and he was busy throwing himself into starting the club, he got nannies. And that’s who raised me. Until I could raise myself.”

The crow picks up the chip bag from the bottom and flies a few inches off the ground to tip it up. Nothing comes out.

“Let me guess, you frantically learned to look after yourself at a ridiculously young age so your dad would get rid of the nannies.”

There he goes, being all perceptive and figuring me out again. I can’t help but chuckle at how on-target he is. “Yup. Fourteen.”

“That’s my girl.” He squeezes me against himself.

That phrase—the possessiveness of it, the ownership of it, the claiming his territory of it—is everything I always thought I would hate. But from Hugo it’s like a magical melody that makes my heart dance and my core sing.

Out in the parking lot, the crow tries again. And this time two broken potato chips fall out of the bag. He givesa little flap of delight, then munches on the first one. Clever bird.

“I haven’t known a life without the Commoners in it,” I tell Hugo. “After I’d shaken off the nannies, I hung out here as much as I possibly could.”

“Because if you were involved in the club, the thing your dad loved more than anything, he might love you too?”

And in seconds he’s figured out something it took me years of therapy to understand.

I twist at the waist to look up at him over my shoulder. “You’re very insightful for someone who doesn’t believe in talking about issues.”

He shrugs. “Just seems obvious. We might not have known each other long, but I’m sure I know how you tick.” He drops a featherlight kiss on my cheek and my whole body melts.

“And you’ve been doing the same thing ever since, right?” he continues. “You worked your nuts off to build a successful soccer career in the hope he might eventually see your worth. I know who you are, Wilcox. I knew who you were the moment you produced that contract from your bag in the locker room.”

Well, if there aren’t even more layers to Hugo Powers’s mind than I realized.

I let my eyes drift shut and my head rest on him again. “All I ever wanted was for him to pass this place to me so I could make something more of it.”

He turns me around in his arms and tips my face up to look at him.

“It’s a shame he couldn’t give it to you.” Deep truth and honesty fill those big brown eyes.

“You think I’d make a good club owner?”

“Of course,” he says, like I’m asking him whether the turf is green.

“That’s the biggest compliment anyone ever paid me.” I have never spoken truer words.

“And I know what’ll cheer you up.” He taps me on the end of my nose and gives me a cute smile.

“Look.” I glide my hands over his firm pecs. “You don’t have to try to be thoughtful just because of what happened in the pub the other night. I get that it was nothing.”

“I’m not.” He pulls his head back, looking surprised and hurt by my comment. “I’m doing it because I want to. And it wasn’t nothing. Well, maybe it was to you. But not to me.”

“Of course it wasn’t nothing to me. Do you think I just go around doing…stuff like that?”

His smile broadens as he shakes his head.

“But it doesn’t make any sense,” I tell him. “How can we have a thing when we’re fighting for the same job? It’s a conflict of interest.” I smooth out his T-shirt over the little bumps of soft hairs under it. “And, anyway, when I get it, you’ll go right back to England and we’ll never see each other again.”

He chuckles, his chest shaking under my hands. “Well, I have no intention of not getting it. But I can see whyyoumight want to leave town when I do. I mean, the shame of it, the professional humiliation of not getting the job of coaching the team you were raised with.”

“See…” I push off him, laughing. “It’s not funny though, is it? Because it’s true.”

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