I worked harder than just about anyone for a reason. I was fast, but I wasn’t getting any younger, and my bad ankle wasn’t getting any better either. Then there was my knee, which had been a problem for the last decade. You had to make up for stuff like that by never getting soft, putting your well-being first, and not taking things for granted.

I’d just finished dropping my things on the side of the field when it finally happened.

It was the “Oh. My. Godddd” out of one of the girls I wasn’t familiar with that suddenly snapped me into paying attention.

I spotted him. He was there. There.

Oh hell. I was dead.

All six-feet-arguably-two inches of brown hair, five-time World Player of the Year, was right there talking to the team’s fitness coach, a mean old woman who had no pity on anyone.

Oh snap. I reached up to make sure my hair hadn’t frizzed up in the five minutes I’d been out of my car and then stopped. What the hell was I doing? I dropped my hands immediately. I’d never cared what I looked like when I was playing. Well, I rarely cared what I looked like period. As long as my hair wasn’t in my face and my armpits and legs were shaved, I was good. I plucked my eyebrows a couple times a week and I had an addiction to homemade face masks, but that was usually as much effort as I put into myself. People asked me why I was dressing up if I wore jeans, it was that bad.

I’d worn lip balm and a headband on my last date, and here I was fixing my hair. Sheesh.

For the record and for the sake of my pride, I don’t think I’d ever fan-girled outwardly in my life. There were a few soccer players I think I’d gotten a little red-faced over and there was that one time when I was fourteen at a JT concert, he’d touched my hand and I’d swooned a little bit… but that was the extent of it. But seeing the master of ball control standing out on the side of the soccer field in a blue and white soccer training jersey and track pants was just… too much.

Way. Too. Much.

Reiner Kulti nodded at something the old, sadistic demon said, and I felt… weird.

To my absolute horror, my inner thirteen-year-old, the one that had planned on marrying this guy and having soccer-playing super-babies with him, peeked in and reminded me she’d been around once. I’d swear on my life that my heart clenched up and my armpits started sweating simultaneously. The best term to describe what was going on with me: star struck. Totally star struck.

Because… Reiner Kulti.

The King.

The best player to come out of Europe in…

All right. This wasn’t going to work, not at all, not even a little bit. Rationally, I knew that mooning over him was stupid. I was too old for this crap, and I’d gotten over my crush on him a decade ago when I said ‘screw you’ to the man who had married someone else, and then nearly ended my brother’s career right after it started. Kulti was just a man. I closed my eyes and thought of the first thing that could get me out of my holyshitit’sKultistandingrightthere.

Poop.

He poops.

He poops.

Right. That was all I needed to snap out of it. I pictured an image of him sitting on the porcelain throne to remind me he was just a normal man with needs like everyone. I knew this—I’d known this for the longest. He was just a man with parents that pooped and peed and slept like the rest of us. Poop, poop, poop, poop, poop.

Right.

I was good. I was really fine.

Until Jenny tapped her elbow against my lower ribs unexpectedly, her face getting up in mine while she did these huge goofy eyes, barely tipping her head in Kulti’s direction. It was the universal friend sign for there’s that guy you like. Do you see him?