Dangerous Play

36 » the spirit of competition

 I wasn't a morning person. Anyone who knew me—Finn, my friends, my parents, Kieran—could attest to that. But when Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, I was already awake and ready to go, despite the fact that the game wasn't for another seven hours.

We won our second game yesterday with surprising ease. To be fair, the team we were playing looked dead on their feet, with a depleted roster and only three substitutes available. While we were sore from playing earlier that day, we had enough players that most of us were able to get rested at some point during the game as Coach rotated us to prevent injuries.

With three wins and no losses under our belt, we were undoubtedly competing for the championship today. Unfortunately, according to the tournament website, the Blue Devils had the same record. Which meant we would be playing them in the final—one last showdown with Marissa Cunningham. And this time, I was determined that it would be our last.

After eating a full breakfast, I glanced at my watch and realized I had only managed to kill half an hour. That was great. Only six and a half more to go until the game. I would try to show up an hour early, and if it took another hour to get ready and drive there, that was still... another four and a half hours I had to occupy.

Well, some mindless social media scrolling would undoubtedly do the trick. I sat at our kitchen island and flipped through my phone. Nothing stood out to me until I saw a picture of Kieran from last weekend that ESPN had posted. I blinked in shock, and it took me a second to register the caption. Real Madrid interested in signing seventeen-year-old forward Kieran Valencia from Kansas City.

I opened the post fully to read it. The article described Kieran's background as a Spanish and U.S. dual citizen, mentioning that this would make his transition to the Spanish club easier while also highlighting the growth of U.S. soccer. They also noted that he was eligible to choose which national team to play for, though so far he had represented the U.S. in some of the youth competitions. There was a brief mention of Mercedes Valencia's former supermodel days, and a one sentence note about his father—mostly that no one knew who he was.

I paused. I'd known Kieran's dad wasn't in the picture, considering I had never seen the man in all the years of Finn's and Kieran's friendship. The only thing I knew about him was that he was a former soccer player, and that was only because Finn had asked him once and that was all Kieran had said.

The rest of the article focused on Kieran as a player and why he had caught Real Madrid's interest. Finn was mentioned toward the end, accompanied by a picture from their tournament that also included Charlie and Cairo. Clearly whoever wrote this article had done their research.

I felt a twinge of unease. I knew professional athletes lived under a microscope, but for there to be this much interest before Kieran had even officially signed? It was hard to imagine how much more extreme things could get. At least this article had been positive and complimentary. I sent him the post with an exclamation mark emoji.

He texted back instantly. that's insane. And then, I can't believe you're up this early. wanna hang out before your game?

That sounded great to me. Twenty minutes later, Kieran rang the doorbell. I let him into the living room, where he flopped on the brown leather couch and patted the spot next to him. Despite myself, I laughed as I made my way over and sat next to him. "Wow, make yourself right at home, why don't you."

He snorted and sank deeper into the cushions. "Abby, I've been coming here for years. This practically is my second home already." That was true enough. I couldn't count the number of times I'd gone into the basement when he and Finn were hanging out and found them passed out on the carpet with a blank screensaver on the TV screen. "Of course, now I have another reason to come visit more often." His cheek dimpled as he smiled at me.