There were going to be a hundred parties I could go to when I was older and past my athletic prime, but I only had the first half of my life to do what I loved for a living. I’d been fortunate enough to find something that I enjoyed and that I could work toward. I wasn’t going to blow this chance I’d been given.

Sometimes though I didn’t feel like having to defend what I liked doing, or why I made sure to sleep so much, or why I didn’t eat that greasy meal that would give me indigestion on a run later or why I didn’t like to hang around smokers. This guy was one of those people I’d rather save my breath on. So I didn’t elaborate.

The blogger’s eyebrows went up to nearly his hairline. “How are your soccer camps going?”

“Great.”

“How do you feel about critics saying that the Pipers should have gotten a coach with better qualifications than Reiner Kulti?”

I knew exactly how the little sister on the Brady Bunch felt. Kulti, Kulti, Kulti. Holy shit. Honestly, part of me was surprised I wasn’t dreaming about him. But could I ever say that? Absolutely not. “I’ve been told I was too short to be a good soccer player. You can do anything you want to do as long as you care enough.” Maybe that was a bad thing to say when Kulti didn’t actually seem to care a little bit about us, but the words were already out of my mouth and I couldn’t take them back. So…

“Kulti’s notorious for being a one-man show,” he stated, matter-of-factly.

I just looked at him but didn’t say a word. If there was a way for me to answer that, I didn’t know how.

“He also broke your brother’s leg.” At least this guy wasn’t pretending to have amnesia when bringing up Eric, unlike the last guy I’d talked to.

“It happens.” I shrugged because it was the truth. “Harlow Williams dislocated my shoulder once. Another friend of mine broke my arm when I was a teenager. It’s not unheard of for stuff like that to happen.” And then there were the dozen other injuries my brother had caused me over the years.

Was I full of shit? Only about half. While it was true that Harlow had dislocated my shoulder and that a teammate had hit me so hard during a scrimmage game that I got a hairline fracture, they had been accidents. What happened between Eric and Kulti… not so much, and that was the problem. Kulti had played dirty—real dirty—and all he got was a yellow card. A yellow card in that situation was pretty much a warning after you’d hit someone with your car, backed up to hit them a second time and driven off afterward. It was insulting.

He had almost ruined my brother’s career, and all he got was a miserable yellow card. It was the biggest bullshit call of the last century. People had gone nuts over it, claiming that he’d been forgiven because of his status and popularity. It wasn’t the first time a superstar had gotten away with something, and it wouldn’t be the last.

But could I say that on record? Nope.

“I really need to start warming up,” I said carefully before he had a chance to ask anything else.

“Thanks for your time.” The writer for Training, Inc. smiled as he extended his hand out for me to shake.

“No problem. Have a nice day.”

This guy had done enough in my life.

* * *

“What’s going on with you?” Jenny asked me while we were off to the sidelines, waiting for the rest of the team to finish their ball-touch drills.

I pulled my shirt up to use the bottom to wipe my upper lip and mouth off. The temperatures and humidity were out of this world in Houston—no surprise. The tension headache I’d been rocking all morning didn’t help any either; the conversation with the reporter kept picking at my nerves. “I’m fine,” I told her before snatching a bottle of water off the floor.