I sniff, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Don’t do this for me. I know what Kluvberg means to you. Everything in the past few months has been about getting back here. You should be celebrating being cleared, not?—”
“Claire”—he reaches out, tucking my hands between his—“there is a reason I did not talk to you about this before I left Boston. I did not mean for you to find out during a press conference—it just sort of came out—but I did want you to find out after it was already decided. For you to know it was real and happening and something you could rely on. Yes, Kluvberg means a lot to me. Too much. I built my entire life around that club. And I do not regret it because it got me to where I am, but there will be a day when I cannot play for them. I will be replaced, or get injured again, or retire. It will end, someway, someday, and I want to decide when and how. And I do not want to live four thousand miles away from you. It is done. We can talk about what it means, but do not try to talk me out of it.”
“You’re going to resent me,” I whisper.
His grip on my hands tightens. “I am not expecting anything, Claire. I want to figure things out, but if you do not want me to try to end up in Boston?—”
“Of course I want you to end up in Boston. What I want isn’t the problem. It’s what you want that?—”
“Thisiswhat I want. I want to prove myself on a new team. I want to stop coming home to an empty house. One of us has to move. I am in a position to; you are not. It is simple.”
“It’s not simple at all, Otto.”
“I was not ready for us in Paris, Claire. I wanted to be, but I was not. I am now.”
“What about your grandfather?”
Otto exhales. “I still have some time left with him. We can discuss… Talk about things we should have talked about years ago. My staying here after he is gone will not change anything.” A small smile appears. “He knows I am moving. He wants to meet you.”
“He does?” I ask, startled and pleased.
“He does.”
We study each other. Him patient and me struggling.
I want so badly to believe him, to accept this. But it’s surreal. I’ve never allowed myself to believe it might happen. Me and Otto, real and permanent, never felt like anything approaching a possibility. I can’t think of a way to match the immensity of this gesture. To convey what him giving this up for me means.
“I will take the print down,” he tells me.
I blink at him, confused. “What? Why?”
He smiles sadly. “I know you regret parts of Paris. It is a reminder?—”
I interrupt him this time. “I don’t regret parts of Paris. I wish that final had ended differently. I wish we had ended differently. But you were right—that one missed shot doesn’t define my whole career. Not the years of work to get to the Olympics or all the practices and games and trainings since. And us… I wasn’t ready either. I hadn’t finished college. Hadn’t started my professional career. I would have wondered if every offer or opportunity I got was a way to get to you. If I’d signed with a German team, I wouldn’t have been in Boston to take care of mymom or gotten to play for the Siege. Is it all happy memories? No. But I don’t regret any of it. And I love that you bought the print. It—I—” Emotions threaten to overwhelm me again. “It makes me feel less weird about wearing your T-shirt for the past six years.”
Otto smiles and straightens, using our clasped hands to pull me off the stool toward the living room.
“Where are we going?” I ask, uncertain.
He didn’t give me a chance to reply to what he said when we were in the stands, and he hasn’t brought it up since. That was the only thing I came here certain I’d tell him, and I was close to summoning the nerve. They’re only three words—I just managed four—but I’ve been waiting a long time to say them to him. The perfect moment feels paramount.
“I am showing you my favorite part of the house,” he answers.
“Let me change first,” I say.
I showered and napped at the hotel before the game, but my hair is undoubtedly a mess from the humidity and chaos during the game. I can’t do anything about the photos that were likely taken when Otto ran off the field, but I can at least brush my teeth and tame my curls now. Confirm I wasn’t too bleary-eyed to select matching lingerie.
Otto laughs. “Not that. Yet.”
Yetstirs warmth deep in my pelvis. I don’t know how to be around Otto and not want him, and it’s slowly hitting me that I might not have to. That we might end up in the same place and stay in the same place. Based on what Coach Taylor said, there’s an excellent chance Beacon FC will make him an offer.
Otto leads me through a side door I didn’t notice, out onto a deck with stairs that lead down to his backyard. It’s much cooler out now than it was earlier. Once we reach the grass, I discover his yard extends even farther than I realized. It’s tranquil,like he said. After seeing the commotion around him earlier, I understand even more why he’d need that escape.
He turns left, and that’s when I see the soccer field tucked behind the garage I’m assuming houses his car collection. It has lines, two goals, flags.
I gape at it. “You have a soccer field in your backyard?”
Logically, I know he’s rich. But I didn’t realize he was private-field rich.
