Page 5 of Striking Heat
I shake my head. “This isn’t happening. I don’t want to be the center of his articles. I don’t want the team to be the center of any of them either.”
She sighs. “Mr. Cromwell has spared no expense in making this team well known and he will not stop. He believes in you women, and I believe in you too. But there will be plenty of people who will want to take you down, Danny included. You just need to be prepared.”
“Is that why you called me in here? To warn me to be prepared?” My tone comes out a bit more biting than I meant for it to. I grab for the braid of blonde hair hanging down my back and run the end of it through my fingertips, taking comfort in its smoothness.
“Yes, and to tell you that if you need to talk to anyone, I’m here. I’m here to help you.” Her features shift and soften. She makes her way over to me and places a comforting hand on my shoulder. “This will go away. You’re a great player—you have to know that. He’s just being his normal joyful self, but you just keep giving it back to him the way you did the other night, and I’ll back you one hundred percent.” She winks at me. “I think you could really give him a run for his money, and I want that so much.”
I giggle. “Thanks, Cindy. I enjoyed it too.”
“Good for you. Now get to practice before Watts comes looking for you.”
“Will do.” With that, I leave and wind through the building to make it to practice. I try to remember that I’m going to continue to be under a microscope, and maybe that just means my skin has to be that much tougher. And maybe I’ll just have to keep on giving it back to Mr. Taylor, especially if he is going to try and keep this attack going.
My lungs are burning. Coach Watts is in a terrible mood. I’m not sure what from, but he’s certainly taking it out on us. He made us run sixties, which are painfully awful in their own way. A player has sixty seconds to make it around the perimeter of the soccer field. If you don’t make it, the punishment is more sixties. And sometimes push-ups. It’s ungodly hard and I hate it, but I’ll never tell him that or else he’ll just make us do it more often.
“Mac!” he shouts when he finally gives us a water break.
“Go get ’em, tiger,” Cass teases me. “But for the love of god, don’t make him angrier. I don’t want to have to run anymore sixties.”
I wink and head over. “What’s up, Coach Watts?”
“Mac, are you doing okay? I heard Cindy needed a word before practice.”
“She did and I’m fine.”
“What was going on the other night? I’ve never seen you quite so flat,” he remarks.
He’s not wrong. “I don’t know, sir, but it won’t happen again,” I promise him.
“See that it doesn’t,” he says. “And I liked the spunk that you answered that jerk with. Don’t let him get you down. You’re a leader and you belong here.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
He nods and I head back over to the team.
“You good?” Henny asks me.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
The rest of practice goes on with more of the same. The offense and defense are split so that we can work on our mistakes from the game the other night. We have another one coming up soon, and it has to be a better showing. The fans will understand a loss, but not a loss with very little offensive action, especially after Danny’s article. It’s a home game, so the same fans—assuming they show up—will be in the stands.
I fire ball after ball at Hendrix, attempting shots from multiple angles so that I can get some good range and practice in. My legs are burning by the time we’re finished. The other girls must have noticed the power in my shots, because they’re firing harder as well. As a result, Hendrix gets a good workout. She switches out and our backup keeper, Miranda, takes over for her.
I look over at Hendrix, seeing her toweling off in the Tampa heat. She’s chugging some sports drink and working to control her breathing. When her eyes catch mine, I mouth, “I’m sorry.”
She just shrugs and smiles. I’m sure she appreciated the workout. The whole team needs to be on our game. Every one of us knows that the fans are watching our every move.
Coach Watts makes his way over to me. “You okay, Mac? You were really firing hard at the keeper.”
I flash him a sympathetic smile similar to what I sent Hendrix. “I didn’t mean to, sir. I just want to make sure we’re primed and ready for Saturday. It’s another home game. Another chance to show them what we’ve got.”
He beams at me and places a hand on my shoulder. “That right there, that spark in your eyes and in your shot, that is why you were chosen to be a captain. So don’t let anyone, even that prick, make you feel like you don’t belong here.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“That really got to you during the last game, didn’t it?”
I glance over at him, confused by the vagueness in his statement.
