Page 35 of Ready to Score

Finally, they broke eye contact when Lim chuckled, looking down at her plate. “It’s definitely a big deal,” she said. “You know how everyone is always talking about their love languages?”

Jade had no food in her mouth, but suddenly her throat felt too thick to swallow. “Yeah.”

“Well, I feel like mine is ‘getting food made for me,’ whichever one that is.”

“Acts of service.”

“Yeah.” Lim smiled at her. “Just like you washing my dishes so I didn’t have to do it later.”

“I could have done that for my own benefit. Maybe I couldn’t navigate the kitchen with them in the sink.”

“Maybe,” Lim said with a shrug. “Either way. If you didn’t hate me so much, I might be inclined to kiss you after coming in here and seeing that you cooked and straightened up for me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Jade said in a rush. A few weeks ago, she could never have made that admission to the woman herself. No matter how true it was.

“You sure act like it sometimes.”

“I have to.” Jade shrugged. “I’ve got to keep my head in the game, and you should too.”

Lim turned one side of her mouth up, and her expression transformed into an unconvinced one. “I don’t have to pretend to hate you in order to get what I want.”

“Maybe not, but you definitely shouldn’t be trying to be buddy-buddy with me either,” Jade said. Jade placed her elbows on the table, leaning forward. “I’m not trying to be an asshole when I say this either, but this is a lot different from what you’re used to. It’s summer now and things are relatively chill, but the politics start when the season starts, and people like us have to show no weakness out there. We can’t second-guess, we can’t falter, and we can’t fuck up.”

She could tell by the look on Lim’s face that she knew what Jade meant when she saidpeople like us.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Lim said. “I just… I think there’s a way for us to both get what we want without all the animosity.”

“I don’t agree,” Jade said plainly.

“Whether you agree or not doesn’t negate the truth, Jade. I see you.” Lim pointed a fork at her. “I see right there through the middle of that fragile heart of yours.”

Jade didn’t know why, but she was willing to play along. “And what do you see?”

Lim hesitated before continuing, “It’s like I said earlier, you’rejust scared. You look at me and all you can see is somebody trying to take something you already view as yours. It doesn’t matter how much I try to tell you that it doesn’t have to be a competition; you can’t see the truth through that fear.”

“That’s my issue—you keep using the wordtruthlike you have all the answers to everything, and I’m not buying it.”

Lim shook her head. “I don’t have all the answers, I just know that there’s a reason you were so adamant about rushing me to the hospital today.”

Jade scoffed. “Oh God, don’t tell me you think I’m in love with you now or something.”

“No, but you do care about me,” Lim said, locking eyes with her. “And I think you care about me because as much as you refuse to admit it, you realize that all this shit works better if we do it together. I mean, come on, Jade, once Landry’s gone, who’s going to be your biggest ally on the team? Which one of those guys is going to step up and have your back when you need it? You thought a town hall was bad, what do you think folks will do if Landry names you as his successor? They’re not going to take that lightly. And this one-woman-against-the-world schtick is going to do nothing but burn you out—and fast.”

“It ain’t just me against the world,” Jade argued. “I have people who support me, people who have my back. And plenty of them at that.”

Lim’s gaze softened. “Maybe so, but they don’t know what it’s like the way I do,” she said gently. “They don’t know how it feels to have people assume you’re a team mom when you’re trying to lead tryouts or condescend to you and pretend like you don’t know the game. And that’s just the half of it. I know what you’ve been through because I’ve been through it in my own way.”

Jade thought back to the conversation they’d had at Minnie’s,when Lim told her about being assaulted by one of the dads on her old team. She hadn’t used that word, but that’s what it had been—an assault. It was obvious that Lim didn’t have as much coaching experience as Jade; she was good but a bit green around the gills. She still had a lot to learn in the way of leadership. But whatever experience she lacked on the field she sure seemed to make up for in trauma.

Jade wasn’t sure if that knowledge was supposed to be comforting or camaraderie-inducing. Because it wasn’t. Instead, it just made her sad. The thing about pretending like she was the only one was that it allowed her the ridiculous, naive hope that no other women were experiencing the things she that was—let alone worse.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Jade’s words were brittle and weak, even to her own ears.

“You don’t need to say anything. Just keep what I said in mind the next time you think of me as your enemy.”

Lim stood up, grabbed her empty plate, and put it in the sink, leaning back against it with her arms. Jade didn’t know why, but she felt called to stand up too, going to press her back up against the cold refrigerator. She was only a couple of feet away from Lim. The woman had spent all morning sweating on a football field and a lot of her afternoon in an ER; she should have smelled rank. Instead, she smelled heady, deep. No perfume or even shampoo wafted off her body. Jade bit down on the inside of her lip when the desire to bury her nose in Lim’s neck rose up fierce and demanding.

Quickly, rudely, she pulled her phone out of her back pocket and sent Olivia a ping to her location and a desperate request for her friend to pick her up. “Five minutes,” Olivia responded, apparently just leaving the Piggly Wiggly.

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