Practice ends, and I take a seat on the turf to stretch my tired muscles. The downside of the taxing practice is I had no time to plan out what to say to Beck. I hate the paralyzing feeling that accompanies uncertainty. I can feel it creeping over me right now, making my skin itch and my insides crawl.

Especially when the source of the anxiety appears in the doorway.

“You need to work on your left touch still,” Beck informs me as he walks over to where I’m stretching, loudly enough for most of my teammates to hear.

“I only take advice from footballers who have won a gold medal,” I retort. I know Germany getting silver two years ago is a sore spot.

Beck grins, and it’s an easy, carefree one that adds a dash of nostalgia to the complicated feelings swirling inside of me. It’s been a while—a lot longer than just since I departed Germany—since there was any easy banter between us, since everything wasn’t seeped in secret feelings and hidden meanings.

“Nice to see you, Adler.” Coach Taylor approaches to shake Beck’s hand. I drop my gaze back to my calves to finish stretching.

“You too, Elaine,” he responds.

“Wasn’t expecting it to happen quite so soon,” Coach says.

“Me neither,” Beck states.

Coach nods, and then shifts her attention to me. “Good work today, Scott.”

“Thanks, Coach.”

Coach heads off the field, followed by the last of my teammates finally trickling off as well. I’m unenthused by the prospect of facing them in the locker room, but I’ll have to deal with their questions eventually.

“So, I should probably…”

“Want to work on that left touch?” Beck asks, tossing my ball in the air with a practiced flick of his toe and bouncing it on his knee.

“You want to play?”

“Something else you had in mind?”

A flirty comment referring to some of the other activities I think about involving him is on the tip of my tongue, but I bite it back. “I don’t want to play games with you, Beck.”

The ball bounces three more times then falls to the ground. I’m mentally patting myself on the back for acting the part of an adult, not a sex jokester, so it takes a moment for his next words to sink in. Or more specifically, their tone.

“Seems like all you do is play games, Saylor.”

I suck in a sharp breath. “That’s not fair.”

“You sail along doing whatever you want, whenever you want to do it, and don’t bother to think about how it might make anyone else feel.”

I jerk back like he just slapped me. “Excuse me? Let’s not pretend you’re doing all of humanity some sort of personal favor by chastising me. You’re mad at me and—”