I glowered as we walked up a set of stairs.
“PureFootball is a gossip site,” Bruno explained, once again mistaking the reason for my angry look. “Perhaps you have never heard of it somehow?”
“I sussed what it is,” I snapped before he could finish his careful explanation. “Just don’t like the idea of her being on some waste gossip site.”
Bruno nodded sagely. “I see. You are really forming the heart connection with this woman. It is the romance, not only the sex. I am assuming she is the true reason you missed the first part of our morning practice. And I am guessing she is the one you think of even now as we go to speak with Coach Ollie and Monsieur Zaman. Perhaps it is not a holiday fling, as PureFootball suspects? Perhaps you really like her?”
“Yeah,” I admitted against my better judgment. “It’s a long story, but yeah, I genuinely like her.”
“Oh, I like long stories,” Bruno assured me. “I read Victor Hugo’sLes Misérableswhen I was twelve. Two times. But alas, we are here.”
Bruno came to a stop in front of a closed door.
“Tell you what. I will wait out here to hear your long story!” he offered.
Then he knocked on the door before giving me a chance to answer.
“Come in!” Coach Ollie called out from the other side of the door.
And I put back on my game face as I walked in to face the firing squad.
Hold on. What the…?
My footsteps stuttered a bit.
Coach Ollie was standing beside a desk, behind which sat Zahir Zaman, the CEO of the Tourmaline Group. That, I was expecting.
But I wasn’t prepared for the two gorgeous Black women sitting on the couch closest to Zaman’s desk.
They appeared identical in every way. From the top of their waist-length silky hair extensions to the hemlines of their knee-length but body-hugging sweater dresses.
“Hold on, are you…?”
“Yes, I’m Sasha,” the one on the left answered, revealing a calm, mellifluous American accent as she and her twin sister stood up.
“And hi-hi! I’m Kasha!” the one on the right said, much more excitedly. “Oh, my God, we are such huge fans. When Zahir told us you were maybe going to join the team, we were like, oh my God, we have to meet him. Also, we’re on the European leg of our tour, so…”
“Okay, calm down, sis.” Sasha threw her twin a censoring look that made me see why Kayla chose Kasha to impersonate when those paps asked her name.
Sasha appeared regal and withdrawn, like an ice sculpture you could look at but not touch. Meanwhile, Kasha had a much more open energy.
Gerald would have called her “accessible.” But I supposed the American term would be “girl next door.”
I could only think of Kayla, though, as I gawped at the superstar duo. “So, ya don’t think this kind of football is borin’?”
“No,Americanfootball is boring!” Kasha insisted. “European Football islife!”
“We enjoyed watching you play,” Sasha said with a much more reserved tone.
“And we’re so, so excited about you joining our team!” Kasha added, all but jumping up and down beside her twin.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Kasha.” Zahir Zaman finally walked around his desk to join us. “Let us talk to Mr. Atwater about what we can offer him first.”
And that’s how I found out that Coach Ollie hadn’t gone straight to the owner’s office to suggest reneging on their proposed offer but proposing that they make an offer right away.
“Obviously, we want your Atomic Foot,” Zahir explained after Kasha and Sasha left the office in a flurry of cheek kisses and goodbyes. “But we had reservations about your ability to be a team player after the way you were trained up by Greenwich.”
“Did Gerald tip you off?” Coach Ollie jumped in to ask. “Because what you showed us straightaway at that practice was we didn’t have anything to worry about when it came to you working in sync with the other players. That was, hands down, the best practice we’ve had since I took over as coach!”
