In Your Corner | ✓

Fifteen

Still, she lets me take her on a detour, so that we're standing in front of Reuben, Carlos, Chase and a few of the other guys I'm not so familiar with. I think they're freshmen.

"This is Miriam, my co-worker's younger sister," I introduce her, still holding onto her hand tight. "She's just coming to practice with me tonight."

Chase looks down at the young girl. "I bet you'll have a great time. The girls are lots of fun."

Miriam positively beams at him, her sour mood from Carlos' words disappearing as soon as it came. "I'm going to beat them all."

The boys chuckle at this and Reuben crouches down to high-five her. "You're definitely a lot better than Natty here," he teases, winking at me.

Not minding that they're bonding with her at my expense, I just laugh along.

"I bet that we'd be a lot better than you," Miriam challenges, tipping her chin up and eyeing them all, daring them to counter her.

Chase's eyes light up. "Okay, kiddo, how about we have a competition once practice is over? We'll see who the real winners are."

I'm so enthralled at the situation and the way Miriam has opened up to these guys, that I almost miss Josh sidling up to us, his face curious.

Almost.

"Okay," Miriam agrees stubbornly. "Nat's on my team. Us against you."

My eyes catch Josh's and he winks at me, his mouth curving into an affectionate smile.

My stomach bursts into flames, of course.

"We'll get a few more of the girls involved, so that the teams are a little bit bigger, how about that?" I suggest, reaching down and smoothing Miriam's dark locks and trying so, sohard to ignore the heat creeping across my face at Josh's actions.

She twists to look at me. "Only if they're nice. Otherwise they're on the boys' team."

I toss my head back in laughter, unable to help myself. Feeling Josh's eyes on me, I keep mine trained on the girl in front of me. "Don't worry, all the girls are great. All girls are, you know."

"I know," Miriam agrees without persuasion. "It's boys that suck."

I stick my tongue out at the boys in front of us, my eyes lingering on Josh's smouldering eyes for a second too long. "So there."

"Challenge accepted, Miriam," Reuben counters enthusiastically. "We'll see you after practice."

It's Miriam that starts to drag me away and as we leave, I twist my head over my shoulder and mouth a thank you at the boys, who just send me a few dismissive waves.

Practice itself goes pretty well and all the girls are adorable with Miriam, as I expected.

Coach includes her in the drills and when she's too tired, she just sits on the sidelines and watches over us as we work ourselves hard.

She actually ends up helping Coach to ref our game at the end, calling all the shots.

We spend a lot of the session just laughing at how adorable she is. I can't believe that Andrei was worried that it would be hard having her here.

Coach corners me at the end of the game, when Miriam is helping Grayson put the footballs away in the bag. "Your sister's a delight, Choi."

Miriam and I look nothing alike, and clearly have different ethnicities, but Coach doesn't discriminate based on that.

I laugh, shaking my head. When I phoned her to ask the other day if I could bring Miriam with me, I didn't really explain myself very well. "She's actually my co-worker's sister, Coach. I just offered to help out for the evening. I hope it was okay."