Page 29 of Couple Goals

Maeve will obviously be at a disadvantage, and knows this means she’ll have to take more of an ego bruising, but it is good for her to improve her ball control.

‘Fine,’ she says, begrudgingly.

But Maeve’s also exhausted, and in her tiredness and relentless challenge from Kira, she starts getting frustrated, and in her frustration, gets clumsier in her tackles, mis-timing them or not winning the ball cleanly.So when Kira makes a particularly annoying move nutmegging her and is clearly about to shoot even though that isn’t even the exercise, Maeve makes an aggressive tackle to stop her.

She overreaches, successfully knocking the ball from Kira’s possession, but in doing so, loses balance and slides hard to the ground, nearly taking Kira down with her. She lands nastily on her already sore wrist.

Maeve glowers up, angry and bruised, wanting to vent her frustration. What is Kira doing, just staring at her?

‘Wow, thanks for helping me up,’ grumbles Maeve. ‘Great team player.’

Kira rolls her eyes and with a sarcastic flourish, holds a hand out. ‘Please, m’lady, how may I be of further service.’

Maeve ignores it and gets herself up alone. She winces a little and rolls her wrist to check it’s okay. Maeve thinks she hid her reaction, but as they’re putting the cones away Kira looks at her sideways.

‘You hurt that wrist again?’

‘Oh, like you care.’

Kira snorts. ‘Come on, Murphy, I don’tactuallywant my new team to fall apart upon my arrival, do I? That would be no good for my reputation either, if I join a team that does terribly in the league.’

Maeve realises she’s been so obsessed about their rivalry for the captaincy that she hadn’t really thought about this.

‘I’m fine,’ says Maeve, grumpily.

‘Good.’

‘Thanks so much!’ says Maeve sarcastically.

Kira sighs. ‘You really think I hate you, don’t you?’

Maeve startles. She isn’t used to people being so upfront and is caught off-guard by it, yet another thing about Kira that disarms her.

‘Well… yeah,’ shrugs Maeve. ‘I mean, there’s good reason. And that is… the general vibe you give off.’

‘Well, I don’t hate you,’ Kira says softly. ‘I actually find you very impressive. I’m glad to have a worthy opponent to practice with.’

Maeve is flustered and doesn’t know how to respond. The thing is, she finds it reassuring to be able to be enemies with Kira because that’s easier to channel her confusing strong feelings into. It’s an outlet for her real complex feelings. So she tries to be sarcastic. ‘I’m not youropponent, Choksi, I’m on your team.’

‘Right. Maybe you should act like it sometime.’

Goddamit, how does Kira still manage to twist her way into winning the smallest and pettiest of fights between them? Maeve is even more begrudging now to follow Kira’s suggestion and do finishing exercises instead of Coach’s orders for weaker foot training, but annoyingly, she does think Kira is right. Kevin shrugs in agreement.

So they do some practice of Kira approaching goal. Maeve tries to block and tackle, but Kira’s simply too good. She is relentlessly fast, bold, and confident, managing to escape Maeve’s attempted blocks.

Maeve finds it both incredibly inspiring and painfully annoying. One after another, the balls hits the back of the net as she struggles to defend the goal by herself; and Kira,over and over, doing her stupid celebration, punching the air above her head and then in front, like a boxer, whooping with delight as if it’s the first goal she’d ever scored.

‘Oh get over it,’ Maeve exhales, after she can’t prevent yet another goal.

‘Ha!’ says Kira. ‘Never!’

Maeve kicks frustratedly.

‘You giving up?’ Kira asks, in a mocking voice. ‘Does baby want to finish early?’

‘Don’t call me baby,’ says Maeve, with gritted teeth.

‘Well, I think we’re done here, baby,’ Kira stretches her arms smugly. ‘Kevin, shall we call it there? I can’t keep watching Maeve lose forever. We’ll pack up, go have a nice Friday.’

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