Page 18 of Couple Goals

‘Fuck!’

They end up on the floor. Maeve lands hard, her wrists painfully crashing down to stop her, her shins getting jabbed by Kira’s studs. And somehow, there they are – Maeve on top of Kira.

This turn of events seems to surprise even Kira, who blinks rapidly up at her, for once lost for words.

But then, as their panting ceases and they’re still for a moment, Kira whispers, ‘Huh, I wasn’t imagining it this way round.’

Maeve’s face flushes scarlet.

And she’s trying to struggle up, she hears a sharp, furious double blow of the referee’s whistle.

‘Murphy!’ comes the call from Coach. ‘Tackling when game wasn’t in play! Go and cool off!’

‘But– ButCoach–’

‘You donotanswer back to the referee, Murphy,’ Hoffman says, her voice low and sharp. ‘Off the pitch – now.’

Maeve’s vision blurs. She can’t believe it. The pain in her wrist from the way she landed combined with the humiliation, the shock, the anger, the shame, brings tears to her eyes and a heavy lump in her throat. She feels like she’s going to cry, or scream, or faint. But none of those responses would be at all appropriate. She can’t bear the thought of losing control again,not in front of Coach, the team, – or worse, in front of Kira.

Maeve manages to bring together all twenty-two years of controlling and repressing her emotions, to walk off the pitch.

She feels like a child sent to have their tantrum on the naughty step. A puppy kicked for not executing the correct trick. She feels like… a complete failure.

But Coach Hoffman just blows her whistle, and the game continues without her as she walks down the tunnel.

She is drawn with both hatred and something teetering on obsession to watch Kira. She’s like a firework on the pitch, with seemingly endless energy despite all the runs she makes, ruthlessly going for that goal time and again, no matter how improbable it is to get a shot away. Maeve watches Charlie, who has taken her place marking Kira. She watches as Charlie tries to defend against Kira, Kira backing into her so that their bodies jostle together, shoulder to shoulder. Kira easily overpowers her and darts away, but each time Maeve watched Kira tackle someone else it was like she could feel her own body being touched, like some kind of phantom limb. Maeve is left feeling like she’s on fire with jealousy. Some crazy part of her thinks, ‘That should beme, it should bemedefending against Kira, I’m the only one who can match her.’ But she shouldn’t be thinking like that, they’re supposed to be on the same team.

She messed up. Maevenevermesses up. So she isn’t used to having to deal with her mistakes, and it feels way, way too big right now to think she could ever get over it. She’s never going to be renamed Captain now, she feels like she’s completely blown it. Her mum is going to be so disappointed.

The tears start to fall down Maeve’s cheeks and she hurries back to the dressing room.

She tries desperately to stop it, but her body doesn’t seem to be obeying her command right now, and this terrifies her. She can’t be seen like this. Praying that no one is watching her, Maeve heads as fast as she can to the second-floor locker room that no one uses. Then she shuts the toilet door behind her, and breaks down.

Chapter 7Adriana

Adriana needs to find Maeve. She has shaken off her hurt from Maeve snapping at her earlier, and now she wants to comfort her friend, because she knows she’ll be beating herself up for getting told to cool off. But also because she needs to tell her the crazy news, that she had an incredible one-night stand with their new club manager, and ask what the hell she thinks she should do about it. Plus, she wants to ask what’s really going on between her and Kira. After months of having no gossip at all to discuss, Adriana can’t believe how much has happened in one day.

Adriana had tried many times in the past, with varying levels of success, to get her friend to score off the pitch, but after her last relationship with a fellow footballer had ended (when Maeve had got a transfer to the Tigresses, a higher league), Maeve hadn’t dated anyone since. That was over two years ago now. Adriana is excited at the thought of Maeve finally loosening up with some good old-fashioned snogging.

Adriana assumes Maeve would be waiting in the dressing room, but she isn’t there, which is surprising because it’s where Coach Hoffman would have expected her to go. There’s only one place she could be and Adriana runs into the fitness suite,thinking Maeve must be on her favoured Peloton bike to work off some of her anger. But she’s not there either. Adriana remembers another spot she could be – the barely used showers on the secondfloor.

But as she races up the stairs and opens the door to the long corridor, Adriana almost runs right into–

‘Jacob!’ she gasps.

‘Adriana.’

He’s holding a stack of papers and a briefcase, presumably just leaving some kind of meeting up here. But he’s alone. They stand awkwardly facing each other. Adriana catches a waft of that cedar cologne. The last time she’d smelt that, less than forty-eight hours ago, she had been smelling it on his naked chest as she kissed his neck. It must be expensive, she thinks, to make him smell so incredibly attractive.

‘Well,’ she grins, trying to recover herself. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

But Jacob doesn’t smile. ‘This isn’t funny, Adriana.’

‘Really? I think it iskindof funny. When the last time we met, you were practically begging me to see you again.’

‘I was notbegging-’ He corrects her.

‘You’re a lot cockier now that you’re wearing clothes.’

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