her cleats beside Mia in a locker room gone unusually quiet

tomach disagreed with her rather loudly on that poi

sco

ht asking if I'm 'seeing someone inappropriate.'" Mia said, counting

Priya asked, eye

I finally called her back." M

d you te

cing her boots with more force than strictly necessary. "Which is either a very ma

ered, and Mia laughed despite herself, grateful for e

n impossible situation with a decent amount of

ight want to work on the grace p

remember what her body felt like before any of this... before benched openers and burner accounts and a fan f

enough to leak sound across the room, someone else pacing the same six feet of floor over and over, the collec

steady in a way that made half the tension in the air

e-match nerves settling into something more focused. Mia fell into step near the back, close enough to hear

efly, right before they stepped

outhed, no sound, just

st steadied just enough to carry her

dable from this distance. Mia made herself not look at him more than once. She had ninety minutes to prove something, and

lt of something like gratitude, that Daniel's scouting report had been exactly right about their tendencies. She used it in the eighteenth minute, cutting inside w

t looked effortless on television and felt like the entire seas

forgot about the scout, the forum, her mother's eleven texts, all of it there was just the ball in th

led as ever, but there was something in his face pride, unguarded and pla

e, and Mia found herself in space twice more without quite converting either chance, the kind of near-misses t

f a corner that squeaked through a gap in Ironbridge's defense. The stadium groaned as one. Daniel's jaw tightened on

more often than not. Mia felt her legs starting to burn somewhere around the seventy-fifth minute,

before it crossed the line, nothing like the clean strike from the first half but it counted e

tle blew four

idge h

happy. Her teammates surrounded her, someone lifted her briefly off her feet, and somewhere in the chaos she caught Daniel's eye across the p

throwing an arm around Mia's shoulders like the tension of t

joy of a har

y know how to make an entrance, Torre

ly." Mia said, still

was something almost proud in it, almost entirely genuine, enough that

ffer approached, tablet in hand, expression caref

before he leaves." The staffer s

ettled from ninety minutes of exerti

ed, drenched in sweat, absolutely nowhere near presen

already turning to lead the

ld possibly want to say to her in person that couldn't wait until after she'd showered and whether, somewhere in the b

Daniel near the touchline as she passed, still deep in a conversation with one of the assistant

atch satisfaction still written plainly across his face, that whatev

t could stay that w