“When’s rugrats-with-soccer-balls season over?”
“That’s not actually any of your business.”
“You don’t like me at all, do you?”
She glances at me, still marching toward the parking lot. “Why did you sayhummingbirdright before you passed out on me?”
“What?”
“Right before you passed out at the blood drive, you looked at me and saidhummingbird. Why?”
“I didn’t say a thing.”
“You did. You saidhummingbird. Do you honestly not know why you said that? Because I have half a clue why you’d say it.”
Last time my ears went this hot, I was staring down my old coach while my heart hammered in time to the speed at which my career was spiraling out of my control.
“Is that your astrology sign or something?”
Sweet Pea snorts.
My dog.
My dogsnortsat me.
She, too, knows that I know exactly whathummingbirdmeans.
“It was my nickname.” Goldie’s speaking slowly, enunciating every word. “In college. When I played soccer. When I broke my hip.”
Confession: I’ve known Goldie Collins was a badass for a long time.
I’ve followed her on socials for several years, one of her hundreds of thousands of followers who tune in to watch her videos and feel like she’s speaking straight to my soul when she saystoday might be hard, but so was yesterday, and you did it. You cando it again today. I believe in you, and I want you to believe in yourself.
I own both of her books onbeing a better you. Even read one of them.
I know her nickname on the soccer field wasHummingbird. I’ve known it for years, and I’d prefer she didn’t know I know it.
What I didn’t know that makes me even more uncomfortable though?
What I didn’t know until three days ago, when I dropped at that dumbteam buildingevent that I went to for the publicity, was that Goldie Collins and Silas Collins have the same parents.
I swallow and pretend I’m not a Goldie Collins fanboy. “You played soccer in college?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, Fletcher. I played soccer for UCLA. Went to the college showcase in London my senior year and didn’t play because I had a broken hip. So I was in the VIP box.With you.”
I’m in a T-shirt in fifty-degree weather and I’m sweating.
I remember that VIP box. I willalwaysremember that VIP box. “I’m a big deal in London. Spent a lot of time in VIP boxes. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“It was the one where you told your buddyCollins is such a whiny-ass baby. Doesthatring a bell?”
My entire body jolts like I’ve been tackled by a fullback made of lightning, and I squeeze Sweet Pea hard enough that she yelps.
I loosen my grip on my dog, shaking my head. “No.”
“Shocking.”
“I didn’t say that.”
