"She cheated on me. He cheated on you. What do you say? Want to settle the score?"
***
Kate Wilson, a hot-headed Dragon striker, and Rosie Connelly, an uncredited behind the scenes Sea Lion captain; witness Kate's...
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Of fucking course the Sea Lions won the coin toss.
They chose to start the first half in possession of the ball. The glare of the sun didn't annoy me half as much as their captain boasting that "tails never fails" or the ribbon girl showing her captain support by raising a cocky eyebrow at me.
That settled it. They would not keep the ball for long.
Our opposition's captain nudged the ball toward the prankster and sprinted into our half. I let others on my team monitor the runner. I charged toward the ball and toward the girl who hadn't moved a muscle like she had all the time in the world.
Screw that.
She (embarrassingly) easily sidestepped me at the last second and thumped the ball down the left side of the field. It soared in the air, got lost in the sun's rays and landed a yard ahead of her running captain.
The blonde gained control of the ball before anyone else. She bypassed our defense one by one, starting by shouldering Liza out of the way, leaving Eoghan in the dust, then she spun to get by Dan, whacking him in the face with the end of her ponytail.
She shot the ball with a scary precision and force that even Eduardo never stood a chance.
The ball hit the back of the net.
We were already down one-nil in under fifteen seconds. It had to be a division record.
"Shit, shit, shit," I muttered.
"Couldn't steal that, huh?" the ribbon girl asked, jogging backward to get repositioned before we resumed the match.
Clearly not.
I didn't give her the satisfaction of stating the obvious.
My silence either made me look like a dumbass or my red eyes glaring at her meant she'd caught on that it'd been me who'd fallen for her immature prank.
The obnoxious girl marked me, so where I roamed halfway toward the middle of the small field, she followed and had the pleasure of getting me all to herself. Their much tamer defender set their sights on Izzy. It didn't matter how many times Izzy and I switched sides, the Sea Lions' defense clung to us and refused to swap markers.
I tried to ignore the defender for the next fifteen minutes, but it proved impossible. The sunshine made the blue fabric in her hair sparkle like she'd doused it in glitter before the game.
The shiny material set me off.
She spun, she twirled, and she danced her way from my grasp like she somehow knew that my goal was to yank the stupid looping ribbons from her hair instead of chasing after the ball.
My antics didn't go unanswered. She'd busied herself by messing with me.
She'd scooped the ball out from under me and saved their team from an attack, she'd knocked shoulders with me when the ball was on the other side of the field, and she'd dug the back of her heel into the ground in strategic spots, so I'd trip at the most inconvenient times.
