Scoring Wilder(105)

But I loved every second of it. I loved training alongside Liam after we both finished our team practices. He pushed me to become better, and I tried to do the same for him. I’d finally made the final transition to move in with him and I loved coming home to his house every day. I couldn’t feel the exact moments when our relationship began growing into something more, but one night as we laid in bed recounting our days and cuddling around one another, I realized that this was it.

He was it.

I buried my face against his chest and I kept my thoughts to myself. After all, we’d only been together four months and I was still nineteen… a baby in the eyes of most people.




Early the next morning, I woke up to my phone vibrating on the nightstand beside Liam’s bed. I rolled over and reached blindly for the traitorous device, hoping in vain that my spidey senses would kick in. Nope, nothing. I had to actually blink my eyes open like a real person.

Emily’s named flashed across the screen and I groaned before answering.

“Emily? What’s up?” I asked with a sleepy voice. Why the hell was she calling me so early? I’d see her at practice in an hour anyway.

“KINSLEY! You got a letter!” She squealed into the speaker so loudly that Liam shifted in his sleep next to me.

“What are you talking about? My mom sends me stuff all the time. Just bring it to—”

“No! Kinsley, you got the letter. It’s from the USA Soccer Association. I haven’t opened it, but it’s a thick packet and I know it’s your invitation!”

That sentence woke me up as if I’d just downed five espresso shots. My mouth fell open and my fingers loosened around the sleek phone. In slow motion I watched it clatter to the hardwood floor.

“Kinsley! Kinsley?!” Emily called through the speaker.

“HOLY SHIT!” I screamed, and jumped out of bed.

“What? Kinsley, what’s going on?” Liam shot up, rubbing his eyes and trying to piece together the strange wakeup call. I was too busy dancing around his room to care that I woke him up.

“Liam! I got a letter this morning from the USA Soccer Association! Emily called—”

“Yeah… I’m still here by the way.” I heard her muffled voice through the speaker of my phone and started laughing.

I ran back over and grabbed the phone. “Ah! Will you bring the letter to practice, Emily? I’ll open it there.”

“Okay. I’m so happy for you! I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“Thanks Em,” I hung up, dropped my phone on the bedside table, and slowly turned to Liam.

He was sitting there shirtless with the comforter bunched around his waist. His hair was sticking in every direction, but his smile caught my breath.

“You did it,” he murmured with a scratchy voice.

I mashed my lips together to quell my emotions. “I don’t know if it’s actually the letter. It could be something else.”

He dipped his head and gave me a little smirk. “Babe, you did it. They don’t bother sending letters of rejection. If you got a packet, it’s an invitation.”

“Liam…”

His smile widened, and he tossed the blankets off his body before reaching for me. His fingertips caught my waist and I squealed as he pulled my body onto his.

“You’re amazing,” he whispered into my ear as he pinned my body to his.

I propped my hands on his chest so that I could look up at him. The smile he was wearing was so genuine that I had to suck in a quick breath.

“So amazing that I probably can’t date you anymore.”

“Mmm…” he murmured, pulling me closer so that I could feel the rumbling in his chest. “Are you going to trade up?” he asked before placing a kiss right behind my ear.

Hah.

I tried to think of a single person that I could trade up to… let’s see… there was… nope. No one. Liam was it. He was the person at the end of the day made me laugh the loudest and swoon the longest. He kept me on my toes and I liked hanging out with him— chatting, working out, and cooking dinner just as much as I enjoyed having rockin’-out-of-this-world sex. No really, I’m talking about some primo horizontal tango action.

There was no trading up.

I’d scored Liam Wilder.

I let my body collapse onto his and smiled into the warmth of his neck. “On second thought, I think I’ll stay right here.”

He laughed before wrapping his arms around me. “I’m so proud of you, Kins.”

“It doesn’t feel real,” I whispered into his neck.

He was quiet for a moment, and then finally he answered, “She believed she could so she did.” He was reminding me of the ink inscribed over my ribcage. Ink that I stared at every morning as I resolved to work harder than I had the day before, to push myself past my limits, because in the back of my mind I thought that maybe I was just crazy enough to reach my dream.

And today, in that very moment, I realized that all of the work had actually paid off.

“I did it.”





Epilogue





On the eve of my 20th birthday I sat in a plush limousine, watching the city lights blur together as we continued to drive toward downtown LA. So much had changed in the course of one year. I’d been on a rollercoaster ride and there was still no end in sight.