Page 30 of Scoreless Nights

When I finally turned away, all I felt was pissed and bothered. I walked out toward my spot in the goal and realized my head wasn’t even in the game at all. It was in the stands with her, hoping she saw all the emotions on my face before I had to turn away.

“Hey,” Tripp yelled at me while I put my gloves back on. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What makes you think anything is wrong?”Was I that transparent? Was I wearing the wrong shirt?

“Well, for starters, you always laugh and jump around, then tell us it's going to be another scoreless night for whoever we are playing.”

“I’m not in the mood to be cocky.”

“And the second thing, I saw your sis…” I cut my eyes up at him, making sure he knew before he even kept talking that he needed to reroute whatever noun he was about to use. “Yourroommatein the stands. You didn’t seem happy to see her.”

“I didn’t invite her,” I snapped at him. “She’s here with friends.”

“And?”

“If I wanted her here, I would have invited her.”I should have invited her. I should have told Deon I’d help him get laid another way.

“Not sure how I feel about this new and improved Cruz Martin,” Tripp laughed with sarcasm as Rhys ran up to join us.

“Hey, what's your deal?” Rhys asked, not realizing Tripp had just asked the same thing.

“Nothing!” I yelled, looking down at my shirt to make sure I wasn’t wearing one that said, “In a mood to be rude.” Then I considered getting one made just so those fuckers could be warned to leave me alone.

Tripp may have let me get away with shrugging him off, but Rhys was the leader of the team and he didn’t let anything slide. Grabbing my shoulder, he turned me back around and made me face him. Right there in front of all the fans and players–and Lily–he leaned down and spoke low.

“It's a mindfuck, isn't it? You can barely think straight, and you want to punch someone because it's the only emotion you can process?”

All I could do was look at him with my eyes beaded, and nose scrunched up. We both knew what he was talking about, but I thought playing dumb was the better option.

“Show her why you’re a pro, and worry about why you care later. Got it?”

Slapping my gloved hands together, I turned away from him and walked toward the goal. I jumped around, warming my body up and letting go of everything but the game. There was a reason Rhys was the captain. He was right, I was a pro, and I got there because I knew how to focus and play my game. Despite outside noise and feelings about Lily being at the game, I knew I was capable of zoning in on what was important.

The whistle blew and I watched as Rhys and Tripp passed the ball around for a while. They were dominating, which made my job easy. Most of the first half was spent on the other side of the field, and when the ball was kicked out of bounds, I took glances at Lily, just to feed that defiant side of me that even soccer couldn’t cure.

She was standing and clapping. Pretty sure I even saw her high-five a stranger when Tripp scored a goal. The girls next to her were sitting, and I could tell the one in the middle, the one I asked my cousin to help me get a date with, was not as excited to be there.

The third one was more animated, definitely happy to be there, but she wasn’t standing with Lily. She seemed torn between indifference and excitement, like she was trying to be a chameleon in that odd group of friends.

A corner kick by Rhys got headed by Austin FC, and with a lucky break, their midfielder raced toward me with no other defender nearby. He was going to take a shot on the goal, and for the first time all night, I was going to be challenged.

He broke left, then right, and before our best defender, Otto, could catch up to him, he took aim at the top right corner of the goal. I jumped and dove, skimming the ball with the tips of my fingers and kept it from getting in. But just like the last game, I couldn’t hold on, and Austin FC was there for the rebound.

Otto was finally there, though, and kicked the ball toward the crowd. It was a close one, too close, and I looked up wondering what Lily would think if I couldn’t keep Austin FC scoreless when they were supposed to be a cakewalk.

“Fuck!” I yelled, mostly at myself.

“Let it go,” Rhys hollered back as he lined up for the throw in.

Everything was moving at a quick pace, and the ball was being kicked back down toward the other goal before I had time to tell Rhys to mind his own business. The ball stayed down on that end of the field until the whistle blew for half time, and I jogged ahead of Rhys, not wanting anymore of his dumb words of wisdom.

Lily and her friends were right above our bench so I kept my head lowered, and tried not to look as I went down the few steps. But right at the last second, my eyes shot up and connected with hers. They were big and bright as always, and the smile on her face, and the way she held her hands together against her chest, made mine almost explode.

It may have finally been time to admit that I had issues when it came to Lily. Ones that I constantly thought I could control, and never seemed to get a grip on. She would always be the girl that looked like an angel from heaven, but would send me straight to hell.

Or to the timeout chair in the corner of my dad’s living room.

“Good block,” Tripp tapped me on the shoulder as I sat at my locker.

---