Scoring Wilder(7)

"Yes. I got them Josh, but I don't want to talk right now." I ground my molars together.

"Just let me make it up to you. Can I come see you later this week? Maybe we can get coffee after you're done with practice one day?" His voice was carrying over the party, and I was painfully aware of everyone's eyes on me. I couldn't very well make a scene in front of all those people. He deserved to be punched in the face, but seeing as how I had already incurred one injury on my birthday, I decided to give in.

"Fine. Just text me, but you need to realize we aren't getting back together." I turned away from him and started to make my way to the front door. I tuned out everything around me. I didn't want to hear if Josh said anything else as I walked away. I didn't want to know if Liam had heard that entire ridiculous exchange. I just wanted my pajamas and fuzzy socks.

…



"Are you serious?!" Becca screamed.

"Dude! If you scream in my ear again I will punch you in the uterus."

Becca, Emily, and I were lying on my bed back at the Rookie House. Four days before, I'd moved into the rookie house where I'd stay for my freshman year of college. It was within walking distance from the ULA campus and a few miles from our practice fields.

"Okay, I'm sorry, but you're not kidding, right? I can't tell if you're joking," Becca laughed.

I rolled over and gave her a dead-serious look, but I was still tipsy so I ended up laughing when she started making faces at me.

"Ugh, okay. Just believe me. He told me at the party that he was coaching us starting tomorrow."

"But why? He doesn't need the money and surely he's already busy enough," Emily protested. I’d been wondering the same thing. I wouldn't have believed it either if I hadn't heard it come out of his own mouth. A perfectly supple mouth, fyi.

"Oh, look at this!" Becca said, pointing to my computer’s scene. "This article talks about him volunteering as a soccer coach with the ULA team after a few of his sponsors got onto him for his ‘bad-boy’ ways. It says they gave him an ultimatum: get dropped from their labels or clean up his act."

"They couldn't drop him! He's the best soccer player in the US!" I argued.

"Obviously. But this article says he’s a huge liability," Emily muttered.

"Well, he seemed fine earlier and he wasn't even drinking," I defended him, trying to recall the scent of his cologne from memory. It was probably called Nectar of the Gods.

"Well the night is still young, so maybe he started partying hard after we left," Emily murmured. "He's really hot, though, I have to admit."

"She does have a pulse!" I joked, poking her in the lungs.

"Hey! Yes, okay. I'm not immune to Liam Wilder, but it doesn't matter— he's our coach now."

Ugh, she just had to kill my buzz.

"Not until tomorrow," I clarified.

"How old is he?" Emily asked.

"Twenty-five," Becca answered, having known it off the top of her head.

"Do you think he has a girlfriend?" I asked.

"Well according to Google images, he has about one thousand of them. Seriously, does this man sleep?" Becca clicked through photos, but I didn't look.

"Gross, close it," I groaned, lying back and staring up at my ceiling.

"He's never been linked to anyone in particular, though. He's photographed with women, but he's never gone public with a relationship. For being a media darling, his life is relatively private. These photos of him with women are mostly at fundraisers and parties," Becca explained.

I wasn't sure what to make of that information. Did he not have a girlfriend because he liked to play the field? Or did the media just not know about it?

"So, what happened with Josh? That was super awkward," Emily asked, trying to broach the subject lightly. There wasn’t time to fill Becca and Emily in about what had transpired with Josh, so I’m sure they weren’t prepared for the scene back at the party. Emily probably wasn’t sure how heartbroken I felt about the whole situation.

"I walked in on him cheating on me a few weeks ago.” I paused as Becca and Emily gasped Jerry Springer style. “We’d been friends for a long time, but only dated for a few months. He sucks major cojones, and we aren't getting back together. He still probably has that Bimbo on retainer."

"But he's really cute," Becca cut in.

"He's hot, but there's hotter..."

"Liam," Becca and Emily both inserted, and we started laughing all over again.

"You should date Liam to get back at Josh. Could you even imagine?" Becca started rambling. "If there is anyone on the team who even has a chance at dating him, it's definitely you.”

“Oh please,” I said, rolling my eyes at the idea.

“No, I mean it! Who gets offered sponsorships from Adidas when they're in high school? Beautiful people like you." She fake rolled her eyes and then I grabbed a pillow and bonked it on her head.

"Hey! What the—"

"I'm not dating Liam to get back at Josh," I laughed, hitting her again.

“So date him to not get back at Josh,” she suggested.

I bonked her on the head again.