Page 154 of Made Better Together

My sixth in a row. Unbelievable.

Everyone I care about is plugged in for the game too. After arranging with the Waves to have today off, Dad’s going to be here. It’s a Monday, so a little easier for him to miss a day than later in the week. Mom and the entire California family are gathering at her house for a massive viewing party. “You’ll hear us cheering all the way from the West Coast,” she promised.

Then there’s Connor. I’m going to be at the match, he vowed. He’s driving, a six-hour trip each way, but the game is at seven so he didn’t miss that much Waves practice. Having no scrimmages on Mondays helped, and I don’t want to know how he got out of whatever meetings were happening this afternoon.

His plan, like we joked, is to hide in the shadows. Literally. In a hallway across the stadium from where my dad has seats.

“You’re quiet,” Bree says from her bed. Roommates at the hotel, just like at home.

“I’m getting locked in. We need to leave, don’t we?”

“Yeah, bus heads to the stadium in fifteen.”

“Let’s go.”

She smiles. “Let’s fucking go, Larsson.”

Clank.

I miss the shot, too high, and it hits the crossbar.

The crowd collectively gives an “oooooooh,” the sound repeated when the play is shown again on the jumbotron. The stadium in Atlanta hosting the championship seats around 10,000.

“No worries, nice try,” Bree shouts.

Crap. This game has been a grind. We’ve had plenty of opportunities but haven’t converted.

It’s 0–0, in the seventy-ninth minute. If we can’t find a way to win in regulation, we’ll go to extra time, and I don’t want to risk that.

The action restarts as the Stanford goalie kicks it to their right back. She quickly dumps it to their center mid, but it’s a slight miss-hit, giving me the perfect angle to cut it off. I sprint to intercept it and gain possession.

I hold up the play and wait for my teammates to shift forward into attack position. April is the speediest on the wing, and as soon as I see her on the move, I dribble a few feet until it’s the perfect time to hit her a through ball.

She makes a great first touch, controlling the ball, and I truck it down the middle while she cuts toward the goal. Like a flash, she shoots on her inside foot, aiming for the top left corner. Only the goalie gets a hand out, blocking it, the ball dropping to the ground.

Loose.

The goalie searches for it, twisting around.

Fucking run, Eden.

The feet between me and the ball close as quickly as the thought comes.

I sweep the ball to the right side, a perfect angle given the goalie’s orientation after blocking April.

It goes in. It goes in.

“GOALLLL,” Bree screams as she comes and hugs me, my teammates following suit.

“1–0, Tolliver, goal by Eden Larsson,” says the announcer across the stadium.

“Hell, yes,” April says. She didn’t do anything wrong—her aggression got the goalie out of position in the first place.

“Let’s manage the clock,” shouts Bree to the group as we break up.

Once action restarts, we trade possession in the midfield for the next few minutes. Finally, our right winger, Chloe, gets the ball to me, but we’re not in risk-taking mode with the clock counting down. So I dribble twice and pass the ball back to April, who in turn passes it to Bree.

Soon, there are only five minutes left on the clock. Stop Stanford from scoring for just five minutes, and the College Cup is ours.