Page 83 of Rumor Has It

“Me, too, honestly,” Wren replied, taking a few deep breaths and clicking her seatbelt into place. “Now to make sure I don’t run any of these creeps over.”

That made Rebecca laugh. “How awkward would that be?”

Wren shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about the punishment Coach T could come up with for that.” She reached across the cramped cab of her truck and grabbed Rebecca’s hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she said out loud, more for herself than for Rebecca.

“Yes, it is,” Rebecca confirmed.

They had gotten to BMO stadium a little excessively early, but Wren wanted to ensure that the photographers were gone by the time her dad got there to get Barbara. For everything she had managed to mess up this year, she was not going to let it impact her baby sister, no matter how old she was now.

Wren was already suited up by the time Courtney arrived, but as soon as her captain walked through the locker room door, Wren was up and asking if she could talk with her in private.

“Hell of a bomb you dropped this morning, Rookie,” Courtney said as soon as they shut the door behind them in an unused office.

Wren flinched. “Yeah. So, um, how fucked are we?”

“At the club level?” Courtney asked. “Not at all. Congrats, honestly. I’ve been rooting for the two of you.” She grimaced. “As for the National Team? I really don’t know. For what’s it’s worth, I will absolutely fight for both of you to stay on the team. You’ve already picked up a match MVP award and Becky should have in Sweden. The team is really vibing right now, and we’re only a few months out from the World Cup. I really hope Coach Jameson and Coach T let it go. But I can’t promise you anything. Unfortunately, it’s not my call. I get like half a vote.”

Wren nodded, understanding. There was only so much her captain could do on her behalf. “Thanks for being willing to fight for us.” Her mind finally caught up to everything Courtney had said. “Wait. You were rooting for us?”

Courtney let out a rough laugh. “Me? Root for you and “Re-Becky?” Never. Definitely not since I caught her wearing your LAU sweater and sharing a bed with you.” Courtney crossed her arms over her chest. “And certainly not when you tried to sneak back into the hotel covered in hickeys the morning after we played against her last. And I definitely wasn’t cheering when you two happened to fall asleep on each other on the team airplane.” Her voice was so sarcastic it hurt. She laughed and clapped Wren on the shoulder. “I was just hoping that whatever was going on between you two was going to be worth the fallout. Good sex is definitely not worth missing the World Cup for. True love, though? Call me a sucker, but a good enemies-to-lovers?” she did the chef’s kiss motion with her hand. “That could be worth it.”

Wren’s heart was racing. That’s how it had felt since their trip to Sweden. Worth it. She didn’t really want to tell her team captain that, so instead she said, “Well, I mean, to be fair, we weren’t actually a thing for the LAU sweater-wearing incident.”

“Solid defense. I’m glad you’re a forward,” Courtney said with a laugh, but it quickly morphed into a more serious expression. “Okay. Riptide Captain moment, we’re not worried that she’s going to hurt you in the game today, are we? Because I am still a little concerned that you’re into some masochistic freaky bullshit that’s going to get you a broken bone right before your club team needs you the most. All National Team concerns can wait. I really need us to win today.”

A laugh startled its way out of Wren at that. “No. I swear to you I don’t have a pain fetish, and she has sworn to me that she won’t hurt me now that we’re actually together.”

“Hmmm, and how are we feeling about exploiting the fact that Becky won’t play dirty to try and beat us this time?”

CHAPTER

THIRTY

BECKY

Wren Eames (3:06 PM): Hey. I just chatted with Courtney. She’s going to do her best to fight to keep us on the team. Fingers crossed, but she seems to think we stand a chance at keeping our spots.

Wren Eames (5:12 PM): Good luck out there. Please play nice. :-P

Wren Eames (5:12 PM): I’ll see you after the game. My dad’s looking forward to seeing you again. So. There’s that. They got Barbs outta the apartment without a hitch. He said all the photographers had cleared out. So, one problem down!

Becky got the messages late. She’d taken their early arrival as a chance to try and meditate and recuperate as much of her game-day routine as she could. The rough start to their day had her all sorts of thrown off. She hadn’t even looked at her phone until right before their game so she could read her good luck texts from Katie, but the texts from Wren made her smile.

Becky Rothschild (5:37 PM): Good luck to you, too.

Becky Rothschild (5:37 PM): You can fill me in on your talk with Courtney after my team is done kicking your team’s ass.

Becky Rothschild (5:37 PM): I promise to play nice though

Becky Rothschild (5:38 PM):Also, for the record, I love you.

Becky stared at her phone screen. There was a really good chance Wren wouldn’t see her responses until after the game, but that didn’t bother Becky. Wren knew her well enough by now to know her routine. She knew Wren well enough to know hers. And that thought warmed Becky from the inside out. Her girlfriend.

She’d caught a few glimpses of Wren during their warmups since they were just on the other half of the pitch. One time she even caught Wren staring at her ass. That had made them both have to hide their laughter. Her routine that morning had been absolutely shattered. Both she and Wren had already had the worst kind of adrenaline spike twice that day. Becky didn’t have the highest of hopes going into the game. All she knew was that no matter what, she was going to play a clean game. She wasn’t going to give the media anything else to say about her, especially not with regards to Wren.

Wren was being intentionally distracting and obnoxiously busy on the pitch. Normally, she conserved her energy and dispersed it all in short bursts and one-off runs, but today she was moving constantly. Becky, more than probably anyone else in the world, knew that that wasn’t normal. She also knew that if she kept moving to track Wren, it was going to wear her out by the end of the first half.

“You little shit,” she muttered to Wren as she shifted her positioning again. At first she thought Wren might just be trying to work off some of her leftover anxiety from this morning, but the longer the half wore on, the more apparent it became that she was just doing it to exhaust Becky.