I swallow nervously as Coach sets down the semla and dusts off her hands.
“In your three seasons,” she says, “you have demonstrated true leadership and incredible work ethic.”
Nerves clenching my stomach. “But…?”
She frowns, swiping her finger through the cream filling and popping it in her mouth. “But nothing. I’m giving you a compliment.”
“Uh. Okay.” I shift uneasily on the chair. “Well, thank you, Coach.”
“You’re welcome. And it’s because of that dedication and leadership you’ve demonstrated that you’re our new co-captain.”
My eyes widen. My gaze snaps toward Gavin, who’s boring holes into Coach’s head with his stare. “What?” I whisper.
Coach leans in, flashing a wide, bright smile. “You’re. Our. New. Co-captain. Congratulations.”
“B-but, no. Wait. I—” Clearing my throat, I shift to the edge of my seat and lean in. “I’m not. That is, Hayes is—”
“An incredible presence on the field,” Coach finishes, smiling at Gavin, whose only tell that he’s two seconds away from flipping the desk she’s leaning on is a vein pulsing furiously in his temple. “Brilliantly skilled. But so are you. You two have…complementary technical strengths, leadership styles, and field presence.”
Now his jaw is ticking.
Her gaze meets Gavin’s calmly, then slides my way. “Given that, management and I agree our team will be better for both of you leading it, our team’s rising star and our illustrious veteran player. The pressure’s on. We won our first MLS Cup in years this past December. Now we’ve got to keep that momentum, pick up in this preseason right where we left off at the end of last year, and do it all over again. I’m counting on you two to get us there.”
I’m stunned. And honored. It’s the kind of opportunity I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. And yet my stomach’s a knot of worry. What if I mess up? What if I get it wrong? What if I fail the team? What if—
“You don’t look as happy as I thought you’d be.” Concern tightens Coach’s features as her eyes search mine.
“You kidding?” I sit back in my chair, lacing my hands behind my head and smiling my breeziest smile, hoping I hide my terror well. “Happier than a polar bear after the UN committed to taking concrete action to prevent global warming from exceeding two point seven degrees.”
“They haven’t done that,” Gavin grumbles, staring resolutely ahead. His voice is gravel, his speech crisp and neat, betraying that while he’s American, up until two years ago he’d been living in England since age seventeen.
“True,” I tell him. “But what do we have if we don’t have hope!”
Coach’s mouth quirks. “It’s okay to be nervous, Oliver.”
“Who, me?” I wave a hand. “Psh. Cooler than a mini cucumber shoved all the way back in the vegetable crisper. You know what I’m talking about? Those little ones that get so cold they’re practically tiny veggie popsicles. That’s how chill I am. Cucumber popsicle coo-ool.”
She smiles, eyes narrowed. “Mhmm.”
For a second, I could swear I feel Gavin’s eyes on me, but as soon as I glance his way, they’re trained over Coach’s shoulder. Bored, annoyed, already beyond this moment, this threshold we’re about to cross.
Becoming co-captains.
Taking a slow, deep breath, I force a smile. Then I say, “Coach, I’m honored.”
She smiles back. “I know you are. One of the many reasons you deserve this. You don’t see yourself as entitled to captaincy. You’ll treasure the opportunity for what it is—an honor. It is an honor to be a leader.”
Is that somehow meant for Gavin? She throws him a sharp glance and tears off a corner of the bun, then another, topped with marzipan whipped cream, and offers one to each of us. “It’s also a responsibility.”
Gavin shakes his head. I take the piece of semla and tell her, “I understand.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, Hayes,” Coach says as she tosses back the bite he declined.
As I pop the bun in my mouth, I feel Gavin’s eyes on me again. I glance his way, licking the whipped cream off my thumb, and Gavin stands so abruptly, he sends his chair scraping across the floor.
“Excuse me,” he says.
“Excuse you where?” Coach says, arching an eyebrow.
Gavin clutches his lower back. “Ow,” he deadpans. “Back needs treatment. Common ailment, for an old veteran player,” he snaps, before throwing open the door, then slamming it shut behind him.
Groaning, Coach shoves another bite of semla in her mouth. “That went well.”
“Due respect, did you expect it to?”
She smirks, offering me another bite of semla. “No. But at least there’s the world’s best cream-filled buns.”
“True. Semlor can fix almost anything.”
“Except poorly timed due dates,” she mutters.
“Aw, Coach. It’ll be all right. We get you for the preseason at least. We’ll manage a few regular season games, then you’ll be back here, whipping us into shape again before you know it.”
“I know. It’s still annoying that I can’t just snap my fingers, pop out a baby, and get back to it. However, I suppose you’re right—it’s just a few games. Not the worst. And I’ve been told this kid’s cuteness will make the professional inconvenience completely worth it.”
A smile warms my face, thinking of how Linnea upended not only Freya and Aiden’s ordered world, but our whole family’s, beyond our wildest dreams. How superhero capes and playdough and miniature soccer nets, tiny sticky handprints and finger-paint pictures and endless photographs of a perfect dark-haired, ice-blue-eyed baby, then toddler, then preschooler, fill our homes, cover our refrigerators and walls. “I don’t believe you’re being misled.”
Sighing, Coach sits back and sets the semla in its container on her belly. “You and Hayes will work it out,” she says. “I’m confident. And with you two leading the team together, along with Rico and Jas, you’ll be fine without me.”
Our assistant coaches are solid, good people and excellent at their jobs. I have no doubt we’ll be in good hands until she comes back. The part about Gavin and I leading together, that’s what I’m not so sure about.
“He barely talks to me, Coach. It’s all grunts and fucks.”
She laughs. “He does swear like a sailor.”
“I’m ready to work with him…” I rake a hand through my hair. “But he does not seem to share my willingness.”
“Now come on,” she says, taking another bite of bun. “Don’t act like you’re entirely innocent.”
I gape. “Moi?”
“Uh-huh. Toi. I’m onto you. You put it real sweet, but everything you say to him is like it’s specially designed to get under his skin.”
I blush. Scrub the back of my neck. “I’m the second youngest of seven kids. It’s in my DNA.”
“Mhmm, well, you may just have to alter that genetically predisposed approach.” After a beat, and another bite of semla, she says, “Hayes has a…tough shell. And, yes, he’s intimidating. Stubborn—”
I laugh quietly. “No kidding.”
“He’s old and set in his ways,” she concedes. “I mean, old for soccer. Who knows, this may even be his last season.”
I hadn’t considered that. Gavin’s thirty-four, and he’s been playing world-class soccer since he was seventeen. A lot of players retire by this age, especially after playing as physically and sustaining as many injuries as he has. That said, I can’t imagine Gavin retiring, or that he can imagine retiring either, for that matter. At the end of last season when a reporter asked him about the possibility, he glared at them so long and viciously, they ran out of the room crying.
Coach pops the last bite of semla in her mouth and snaps the container closed. “There’s more to Hayes than meets the eye. You just have to…” She grimaces, stares up at the ceiling. “Hell, I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I’ve barely seen that ‘more’ myself, and I’ve known him for over a decade.”
Coach and Hayes played around the same time, and both made appearances for the US National and Olympic teams, though she was further along in her career than he was and a bit older. I knew this, but it’s funny to think about them as peers. Gavin’s never acted like he’s her equal, never referred to their history. He listens to her, respects her, even if his eye twitches sometimes when she’s barking orders that include him.
“I know this is hard,” she says. “But you two won’t be co-captains forever. While you are, why not try to…give him another chance, make the best of it, right?”
I contemplate what this is going to look like. The monumental task ahead of me to find a way to share leadership with the man who loathes me to my core.
Meeting her eyes, I force my widest smile yet. “Right.”
3
GAVIN
Playlist: “Lo/Hi,” The Black Keys