Son of a bitch.

If I were a lesser person, my lower lip would have started trembling. I might have even blinked and batted my eyes so that I wouldn’t cry because we were both well aware of the fact I couldn’t tell him no. I wouldn’t tell him no.

Even if it killed me, I’d do what he wanted. He was banking on it, too. Because I was that idiot that didn’t back down from a taunt. A broken arm after someone said I couldn’t climb up this massive tree when I was eleven, should have taught me that backing down every once in a while was the right thing to do, but it didn’t.

I mentally stepped into my Big Girl Socks—the equivalent I’d been given as a kid instead of Big Girl Panties because my dad thought that was a creepy expression.

“I’ll do it.” I grimaced, more than likely looking like I was getting an enema. “But… G, why isn’t Grace doing it? Or Jenny? You know they usually do all of the interviews and stuff.” Because I sure as hell avoided them, at least the ones in front of a camera.

“I didn’t ask Grace because I think it’d be a good idea for you to do it,” he explained, referring to the team’s veteran captain. “And Jenny isn’t arriving until Sunday.”

I blinked some more at him, on the verge of puking and shitting myself at the same time. My leg had already begun shaking and I palmed it, trying to get it to stop.

Gardner smiled tenderly, leaning across his big glass desk, hands clasped. “You haven’t even asked me what the conference is for.”

Like I freaking cared. It could have been because someone had found a cure for cancer, and it wouldn’t matter. I’d be trying not to lose it all the same. My heart just started beating faster at the mention of the ‘c’ word, but I forced myself to look like I wasn’t fighting back a panic attack. “All right, what’s it for?” I asked slowly.

Our soccer team’s preseason training started in a week and a half, so I guess I’d subconsciously assumed that was it.

But the question had barely left the head coach’s mouth when he started smiling, his brown eyes wide. He leaned forward and said something that was just as bad, if not worse, than asking me to do a press conference. Sixteen words that I hadn’t been braced to hear. Sixteen words that I had no clue were about to change my life.

“We just got confirmation that Reiner Kulti is taking the team’s assistant coach position this season,” Gardner explained, his tone implying ‘this is the best thing to ever happen.’

My face said ‘no, it’s freaking not.’

It took a minute for his smile to fall and a confused look to take over, but it happened. It fell like a Jenga tower, slowly and surely.

He gave me a look. “Why are you making that face?”

* * *

I was seven years old the first time I saw Reiner Kulti on television. I can remember the exact moment he came on the screen. It was the semi-final for the Altus Cup—the tournament that happened every three years and included every national soccer team in the world eliminating each other left and right over qualifying rounds. It was the most highly televised sporting event in the world.

Why wouldn’t it be? Soccer, also known as the ‘real’ football or futbol, was the most widely played sport across the inhabited continents. It didn’t discriminate. You could be tall, short, skinny, poor or rich. All you needed was a ball that was at least sort of inflated, and something to make a goal, which could be anything. Coffee cans. Coke cans. Trash cans. Anything. You could be a girl or a boy. Have a uniform, not have a uniform. And as my dad said, you didn’t even need shoes if you really wanted to get technical.