My nose scrunches up. “Like with face paint and big signs at your games?”
“More like 4 a.m. wake-up calls to practice and run drills from the time I turned five. Happy birthday to me.”
“What?” It’s a question filled with shock, but also disbelief. What kind of person makes a five-year-old run drills?
“On holidays we didn’t watch old family vacation movies. We analyzed recordings of my games.” He stops his futile attempt to dig a hole through the cave and this conversation. "I couldn’t wait to get away. When it came time for college, there weren’t any major scouts interested. Soccer isn’t really popular in Iowa.
“I accepted an academic scholarship to Stanford but couldn’t resist the open try outs. Soccer is… was my life. Being on the field, playing, it's become a drug for me. The only one I need.”
“That’s when you walked on the team?” I put down my controller and let loose some of my knowledge. Ryland lifts an eyebrow in my direction. "What? I Googled you.”
He shakes his head at my admission. “Yeah. I walked on as a freshman and after my junior year had a few local teams scout me, but my coach had connections with United. I accepted the first offer they made me. You don’t pass up a contract in England. Plus, it was an ocean away from my dad.”
I’ve never been good at consoling people. Aspen said after I didn’t give her lip service about the death of her parents, she knew we’d be best friends. I didn't do anything special. But what do you say to a story like that? She took my silence as enough. Ryland must do the same because he carries on not waiting for me to chime in.
“Teams in England generally pay more than teams in America, but my first contract was peanuts. I signed a one-year deal and worked my ass off to stay on the team. The next year they offered me a three-year contract at a hundred and fifty.”
“A hundred and fifty thousand a season? That’s good right?” Don’t most non-football sports players make their money from endorsements?
He laughs and this time it contains real humor. “One fifty a week. Plus, I’d started to sign endorsement deals.”
I try to do the math in my head, but lose track somewhere around a million, my eyes going wide with the realization. “They pay that much for soccer?”
Ryland shakes his head and grins causing small lines around his eyes. I want to reach over and smooth them out. “You really don’t know. Do you?” I shake my head, but don't speak. “You’ll also never have to buy me underwear.”
“What? Why not? Wait… why am I buying you underwear?” The thought of Ryland’s underwear forces my eyes to shift to his groin. Images of what he’s hiding under there make my face go red… what if he doesn’t need underwear because he's commando?
From his light laugh he doesn’t miss my reaction. “A free supply came as part of my endorsement deal. You’re asked to use the products that pay you and they pay a lot to see my pretty face in their underwear.” One side of his smile tips up further than the other in a sexy smirk. “Also I’m lazy and don't want to spend time buying my own.”
“They haven’t dropped you …” My sentence trails off after I’m unable to think of a way to mention his recent departure from the team.
“Not yet.” I regret my decision to ask as his face falls, the humor from our earlier exchange lost to my stupidity. “The sponsors I have left will wait to see what team I'll go to next. They’re sure I’ll get picked up quickly.”
“But you’re not?” I’ve already ruined the atmosphere in the room. I might as well get the answers to the questions I’ve listed out in my head.
Ryland sighs and leans back on the couch, sinking into it. “Soccer is part of my life, whether or not I want it to be. I’ve lived soccer since before I was fully potty trained. I’m not sure I know hownotto play. But do I want to go back… I don’t know.”
His words don’t make sense to me. How can he love soccer but not want to play the game? The question obviously weighs on him as he stares at the empty white wall, lost in thought.
“Once you reach a certain level in the pros, it’s no longer about the game. Reporters don’t focus on how you play. I could score one hundred goals in a half, but they'd report on what type of suit I wore or who I’m dating.”
“But most athletes go through that, right?”
“Not most soccer players in America and trust me, not everyone. The guys who don’t get the endorsements or press become the first ones to rat you out to a tabloid. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes regardless of the cost.”
His comment makes me think of his last incident with the team where he punched the goalie. What are the odds goalies don’t get as much press as they think they deserve?
I’ve pushed away the question, but with Ryland being open and honest, I can’t hold back any longer. The need to know has eaten away at my resolve for days. “What will you do?" Each time we’re together my body burns to spend more and more time with Ryland, but I can’t let myself get too attached if he’ll jump back across the pond soon.
“No clue. I left my gear in England. I couldn’t stand to look at it, but now… now I don’t know. I love soccer, but I don’t want the extras. While I’m here I need to get tips from Finn on how he avoids the press.”
My chest deflates at his answer. He said “while I’m here” meaning he won’t alwaysbehere. Ryland hasn’t admitted it to himself yet, but he’ll return to soccer. And when he leaves I’ll be left here alone. It should be a good thing. He’ll go back to a sport he loves and I’ll get to break any of the rules I want, but rather than happiness, his admission leaves me hollow.
I told myself not to get my hopes up. Not to get attached. Not to develop a crush. Yet, at some point I stopped listening and allowed all those things to happen. Now it’s going to come back to bite me like I worried.
“What about your mom? She must miss you.” Maybe a topic change will help me forget Ryland’s impending departure.
He sighs again and it circles the room around us. Apparently this wasn’t a good topic either. “I love my mom. The one reason I still talk to my father is because of her, but not once growing up did she stick up for me when my father hit a new level of obsession." He picks up his controller again so I do the same. “As long as our family looked the part of perfect, she turned an eye to the fact her husband made a six-year-old run suicide drills in the backyard for two hours before school started.”
