“I’m not an idiot, despite what you and Hannah might think. I knew she was cheating on me, just not with who. It’s easy to buy a spy-cam these days. Even easier to hide it on a shelf pointing at the bed.” Lia was bluffing, but Carol didn’t need to know that. And she could lie well when she needed to. “I have evidence of it all. Screenshots of your messages, too.” That part wasn’t a bluff. She also had evidence that some of her teammates had known about the affair but hadn’t deigned to tell her. Another reason Lia wanted out. “If you don’t get me transferred, I will go to the board, and the press, and you will never manage a game in England again.”
Carol’s face drained of all colour, her mouth gaping open.
“You know my agent’s details. She’s expecting your call.” One conversation down.
Now she just needed to confront her cheating fiancée.
Lia spun on her heel and strode from the room before she ran to the closest bathroom and emptied her stomach.
* * *
As a chorus of “Happy Birthday” rang around her apartment, Erin tried not to squirm in discomfort.
Though it was hard to feel anything other than joy with the way Maisie gazed at her, green eyes wide and a huge grin on her mouth, like Erin was the greatest aunt in the whole wide world. Maisie had her mother’s eyes, and it reminded Erin of the way Jessica had looked at her when she had been nine years old. Hard to believe that was nearly twenty years ago. Time really did fly.
“You have to blow out the candles, Aunt Erin!” Maisie pushed the chocolate cake toward her like it was the most valuable thing in the world. “I put thirty-one on there.”
At the reminder of her age, Erin winced. Most people panicked on the approach to thirty, but it was a different kind of fear when you were an athlete, racing toward retirement with each passing year. Still, she put on a brave face for Maisie, blowing out the candles to applause.
Maisie was too young to understand Erin’s panic. To her, she was still the great Erin Finch, best striker in the women’s game. But in Erin’s mind, she saw the headlines that had circulated at the end of last season after she’d suffered a serious injury.
Is Erin Finch finished?
Will Erin Finch ever be able to recover back to her best?
Will we see Erin Finch play in a Salford Albion shirt again?
The headlines made Erin furious, feeding into the doubts that had surfaced ever since she had torn her ACL two months ago. When she should be focusing solely on her recovery, she was plagued with fears that she might never set foot on the pitch again.
Already, she was reaching the end of her lifespan as a professional player. Advancements in sports technology and the impeccable shape Erin kept herself in had maintained her position as the best of the best, still able to play full matches with ease, but an ACL injury could curtail the career of even the youngest of players. And without her career, without the sponsorship deals, without the ability to continue to support the rest of her family…Erin didn’t know what she’d do. Football was her whole life. She hadn’t ever considered failure, hadn’t ever had a plan B. She thought she’d have a few more years to figure it out.
Hopefully, she still did.
“I’m going to go cut the cake!” Maisie raced off to the kitchen with the cake held aloft.
At least she’d broken Erin out of dark thoughts.
“And I’m going to make sure she doesn’t cut herself.” Jessica climbed to her feet and wrapped a hand around Erin’s shoulder. “Happy Birthday, Erin.”
Erin covered her sister’s hand briefly with her own before releasing her to hurry after her daughter as she wielded a knife much too large for a nine-year-old.
Soft laughter came through the speakers of her laptop, balanced on the coffee table. Erin turned to the smiling face of her dad, her stepmother sitting beside him. Despite their weekly family video calls, it had taken some time for them to figure out how to point the camera at their faces and not at the ceiling.
“How are you really doing, sweetheart?” Her dad’s forehead was crinkled, deepening the lines already there. “I know the past few weeks can’t have been easy for you.”
“I’m okay.” She wasn’t, not fully, but she didn’t want him to worry. He’d spent so many years of his life worrying about her already. Left as a single father after his wife had walked out on their family, he’d worked two jobs to make sure she and Jessica were never hungry and that Erin always had everything she needed for football.
He shot her a look. “No, you’re not.”
With a wry smile, Erin grabbed her laptop and balanced it on her good knee, careful not to disturb the slumbering black cat snoozing on her lap. Not that Gerrard seemed to notice. “I will be. Promise.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t make it out to be with you in person, sweetheart.” Behind him, the sun loomed high in the sky, lighting his apartment and making him and Isobel glow. Or the glow could be due to being able to retire in sunny Spain. “But Isobel wasn’t feeling up to travelling, and I didn’t want to leave her.”
“I did tell him to go without me.” Isobel turned a stern glare her dad’s way. “But he wouldn’t listen.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sensing the chance to change the subject, Erin seized it with both hands. She was tired of thinking about her injury; she didn’t want to talk about it, either. “How are you doing? A stroke trumps an ACL.”
Isobel waved a hand. “Oh, I’m fine, mija. Recovering well. We’ll definitely be out to visit you at Christmas.”
