Page 13 of The Game Is Afoot

“AndLUVis spelled with aU,” I mumble.

Jasmine’s face folds into a grimace. “Yeah,annoying. There’s something they just love about you.”

As if summoned, Florence waves to us from behind her iPhone as she slowly pans it across the field, gathering content. I can already picture what it’ll look like in her Instagram stories, with a filter to make the sky even bluer and a “Happy Saturday!” GIF.

She’s going to have to put some music over it, though, to block out Axel’s quickly escalating tantrum.

“I don’t want to wear it!” Axel crosses his arms over his white tank top and stomps one of his cleat-clad feet as his dad, Hank, shakes the team jersey in front of him. “No! No, no!”

Hank looks…exactly like who you’d expect to be married to Florence. He’s wearing jeans cuffed over expensive-looking boots, with a beige Henley shirt and leather bracelets tied to his wrist. His longish brown hair is tucked under a wide-brimmed hat that I’m not convinced isn’t the same one Florence was wearing yesterday. Even with the shadow it casts over his scraggly-bearded face, though, I can still see the twitch of his jaw and the bulging vein in his neck.

“Just put the dang thing on already, Axel.”

“But—but…it doesn’t feeeeel like an aquamarine day!”

“It doesn’t matter how you feel. Now, it’s time to get your head in the game, son, so you can win this thing.”

Florence quickly cuts her content session short and dashes between them. She drops to a knee in front of Axel, cupping his face in her hands. The 19.564-month-old in her precarious-looking wrap turns to eye Axel like,What is your problem, man?

“I hear you and I see you, my boy. You get to decide what you put on your body. That’s so valid.”

Hank mutters something and rubs his hand down his face, and Florence waves him away.

“I’m wondering, what—” Marigold slaps Florence, and she quickly takes her out of the carrier, putting her down on the grass. “What do you think is leading to such big feelings about aquamarine this morning?”

I can’t hear Axel’s response because he’s drowned out by Marigold’s shrieking cries as Hank throws his hands up in a little adult tantrum of his own and stalks away.

Hank and Florence both seem to have the same end goal. It’s unquestioned, an inarguable fact for them, that Axel is a gift to the world—but what they want to ensure is that everyoneknowshe’s the best. They go about it in very different ways, though. Florence seems determined to gentle parent that kid right to the presidency, and she has a tight-gripped control on his narrative through her momfluencer account in the meantime. But Hank’s approach is much more WWE than gentle, like he’s going to piledrive square-peg Axel through the round hole of whathisdefinition of the best is.

Like, with this soccer team. Axel is much more invested in constructing his spring/summer collection of daisy chain jewelry. (He gave me a bracelet last week—the craftsmanship was impressive!) But Hank’s convinced he’s the next…well, some famous soccer star that I would name if I actually knew famous soccer stars. Whenever Coach Cole puts Axel on the bench—which, for the record, Axel seems to love as much as Pearl does—Hank is at his side in seconds, arms crossed high at his chest, as he demands an explanation. And it’s even worse when Axel is on the field, because then Hank starts pacing with his hands at his hips, yelling out plays like he’s the one in charge,getting increasingly agitated as Coach Cole then proceeds to ignore all of those plays. Last week, I swear he was gonna sucker punch Coach Cole in the middle of the end-of-game parent tunnel before Florence expertly pulled him away. I’m getting sweaty already thinking about what’s coming today if the tension is starting this early over ajersey.

“What’s her username?” Jasmine whispers, motioning to Florence. She appears to be singing Axel a song to get the jersey on while Marigold screams at the sky. “I gotta see how she spins this.”

“It’s like…Flo and babies? No, Flo plus babies two.” As if I haven’t hate-scrolled her account more times than I could count.

“What kind of Rumpelstiltskin-ass name is that?”

I snort out a laugh, and she quickly joins in, but our cackles are tempered by Coach Cole himself striding up to the field.

“Good morning, Ms. Miller, Dr. Hammonds,” he says with a salute. “It’s a great day to play the greatest game in the world!”

He pulls down his wraparound sunglasses from the top of his buzzed head and jogs the rest of the way to the quilted Aquamarine Alligators banner, taking a swig from the energy drink that seems permanently connected to his hand.

“Let’s go, Alligators! Huddle up!” he shouts, clapping three times. “Axel, wipe your face and get your jersey on! Let’s go!” Then he lets out a loud, piercing whistle with his fingers as if he’s showing off to the metal one hanging around his neck. That seems to do the trick with Axel—he’s shrugging the thing over his head while Florence looks on in shock. And even my feet start moving all on their own to follow Coach Cole’s directions, but Jasmine gently tugs my elbow, holding me back.

“I meant to text you. How did your performance review go yesterday?”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Her eyebrows press together in concern, and I can tell that she wants to say more. But with our touchy past conversations over this same subject, she doesn’t push it. “Okay.”

In the seconds it takes us to reach the group, the kids are already in a perfect circle, with Coach Cole pacing around them as they stretch to reach their toes. I can’t even get Pearl to put her dirty plate in the sink half the time, but here she is, following this guy’s every command—and with a smile on her face!

Like I said, soccer is so not my thing, but apparently it’sa lotof families’ things—and Coach Cole has this market on lock. Apparently he’s a former pro player—though where he played and why he’s not doing that anymore instead of coaching players who might still need their grapes cut into halves is a mystery to me. But he must be some big deal, with the way he’s built this kids’ soccer empire in the past year. What was just a fall sport has now taken over Brady Park for Saturday morning games and weekday practices year-round. There’s a mile-long waiting list Jasmine told me people are trying to get on with their first positive pregnancy test to even have achanceof forking over hundreds for a spot on the toddler league.

Honestly, though, the way some of these moms—and dads—watch him from the sidelines, their eyes locked on his muscular, tanned thighs in those breezy navy shorts he wears instead of the goal that their little Penelope just made…I don’t think they care where he used to play pro soccer either.

“Hey, my man!” Coach Cole jogs over to where Leon is standing and daps him up.

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