She needs a ride to school or practice? I’m there ready to take her or pick her up.
She needs help with her homework? There’s no subject I won’t spend the night before Googling so I can recall from back during my days of high-school and try and help her as best I can. But high school was a long time ago for me. I graduated twenty-one years ago…three years before she was even born.
Damn, I’m old, but I prefer to think of it as experienced. I know what I want and what I want is her.
I want to protect her, love her, make her mine.
Hell, she’s already mine…I just need to grow some balls and tell her.
I’ve never had a problem telling anyone how I feel about anything. I shoot from the hip and I always tell the truth.
Why is it so hard to tell her then?
I watch as she dribbles past a defender, kicking the ball perfectly and watching it go into the corner of the net.
Goal.
Her teammates give her high fives as they celebrate.
But this is more than just a goal. This is an in-my-face reminder that I’ll never score if I don’t take a shot. It sounds cliché, but it’s true.
And making her mine is my one and only goal in life, and I’ve got to take a shot no matter the consequences…because being her soccer coach, her dad’s best friend, and everything else I was to her wasn’t enough anymore.
CHAPTER 2
Morgan
He’d always been my dad’s best friend, but recently he’d become so much more.
I’d developed a crush on him a couple years ago, but there was something about spending the night of my eighteenth birthday with him when I knew everything was going to change, and become real.
I had to grow up quick, and it’s still a work in progress, but without him by my side I don’t know where I’d be right now.
As I kick the ball up the sideline it’s like he’s there, running along with me, encouraging me, as he always does.
Even though the other side of the field was wide open, I subconsciously ran up the sideline that he was on…my mind willing me to be close to him, always. And when the defense collapsed around me, and I looked over at him out of the corner of my eye, I could see he was dealing with a very different kind of defense of his own…or lack thereof. His pants were providing little to no resistance for his need, which I could see even running at full speed and from ten yards away.
I didn’t want to make eye contact, afraid of what it might do to me. It wasn’t that warm out, but my body was wet…at least in one place.
I summoned all the positive encouragement he’s given me over the years, the amount only multiplying since my birthday, and stormed down the field and scored…for him.
My teammates mobbed me, congratulating me, but what I really wanted was to run and jump in his arms, him kissing me hard.
But that can’t be. I don’t think he sees me like that, despite what his tented pants are revealing. Plus, what would everyone that sees the two of us together with their own two eyes think? Plus, this is just practice, not a game and a real reason to celebrate to the extreme.
Practice…that’s what my life has felt like looking back on it now. It’s been practice, waiting for that perfect moment to take a shot…at becoming his.
As my teammates high-five me I look over at Myles, Coach Mason to everyone else, and smile.
His reaction is delayed, but a small smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth before he looks away, kicking at the ground.
Is he fighting this too? Does he want this just as much as I do?
My heart races, but I’m not running anymore. This has nothing to do with the long route I just took down the field to score. This has everything to do with him.
If Myles wants me why doesn’t he say it?
Why don’t I come out and say it?
What’s holding us back?
I can’t come up with an answer, especially when the answer to, ‘Who’s the perfect man’, is the same man who wants me…I think.
Sometimes I just think he’s being overly protective because of everything I’ve gone through recently, plus I think he feels like he owes it to my dad.
But as the days became weeks and weeks became a few months, I can feel it’s more than just that.
I know he’s wrestling with this just as much as I am. I see how little he eats in the training room now. I see the way he rubs his hand through his hair, those graying patches down by his temples are new. Does the agony he feel because he can’t, no shouldn’t pursue me have anything to do with that?