Page 3 of Studs Up
“You’re gonna get the call,” he said again. Alex was definitely getting the call. He had been called up nearly every year since he’d signed with Atlanta in his rookie year. His job was to be solid in the midfield and control the field. He was very good at his job.
A phone rang, and I leapt out of my skin, but it wasn’t mine.
Alex picked his up from the coffee table and gave me a complicated look.
“Coach,” he answered, and I dragged my hands down my face. I should be happy for him. It was my job as a friend to be thrilled that he was getting another call up. I wasn’t. I wanted that phone call.
“Yeah,” Alex said, and he couldn’t help the smile. I left the room and went to the kitchen. I had a bottle of whiskey somewhere. I didn’t drink often, but when I wanted one, I could never find it.
I had complicated things by deciding at four in the morning to reorganize my kitchen. All of the pots and pans were stacked on the counter. Every glass was lined up and waiting for a new home, every can and spice bottle was in a box ready to be sorted.
It was chaos. With every single cupboard empty, it shouldn’t be this hard to find the bottle. I remember pulling it out but I didn’t remember where I put it.
“Great,” Alex said after a long moment of listening. He had a place on the national team.
“Got it,” he said. I was desperate to tell him to ask Coach about me, but that was immensely childish. Instead, I bit my lip and continued my search for alcohol.
“Thanks, Coach,” he said with an air of finality. Ask him about me. I screamed in my head. “I appreciate the opportunity.” Coach was probably saying something nice like ‘You’ve earned it’ and ‘You’re a great player, Alex Prince; we’re happy to have you.’
Alex walked into the kitchen.
“I am sure you’re next.” How very placating. He slid into a stool across the bar, and I lowered my head to the counter. It was cool and hard, and I wanted to bang my head against it.
“You had a great season,” Alex said in an encouraging voice that was usually wanted. At that moment, I wanted to punch him in the face.
“A great season means nothing when you fuck up the final.”
“You didn’t fuck it up,” he said, holding back an impatient sigh. I had been in the same exact mood for weeks. Alex was my best friend, and he didn’t deserve it. The problem was, he was the only one who knew the real me and the only one I could be around and not give anything away.
He handled his closet better than I did. Probably because he still got laid. I had taken a vow of celibacy. I didn’t want to. It had been forced on me, and I accepted it as a part of my life.
I rolled my head on the counter and glared at him.
“I missed the fucking goal,” I said. He sighed and frowned at me like I had missed a point or something.
“You are a whole player,” Alex slid off the stool and walked around the bar to pull me into a comforting hug. I dropped my head to his shoulder. It wasn’t as hard, but I couldn’t bruise myself if I used his neck to bang my head. “Not a single moment player.”
“You’re being an ass,” I muttered. He laughed.
Alex stayed for another thirty minutes and then carefully announced he had to go home. Code for, he was going to hook up with a discreet man and get off to celebrate. I hated him. I hated that he could do that. I hated the deep, dark place where I had to hide.
He was at the door when my phone finally rang.
Nolan
What I should be doing was reviewing the final match footage to see where we went wrong. What I should not be doing was replaying Holden Monroe’s failing to pass the fucking ball.
I hit play, then rewind, and then play again. I backed up further and reviewed the game from the moment he scored to the moment I tackled him. I paused it when the camera captured his eyes on me. Anger, resentment, shock. All of it in one frozen frame.
If he had laid the ball off, dropped it to Prince, and gotten into the box, their chances of leveling would have been much higher. Almost guaranteed, seeing how out of position Marcel had been.
If he had scored, it was possible that we would have lost in penalties, and the shelf with the trophy would be empty.
The shelf had exactly one trophy on it. I had other awards in a box somewhere Ma kept. None of them were on the list of the trophies allowed on that shelf.
The only ones allowed were the Western Conference Cup, Supporters Shield, the MLS Cup, and one day, the daddy of them all, the World Cup. My hopes on that one weren’t exactly high. But I would fight to get as far as we possibly could.
My phone sat on the coffee table, and I waited. There were a lot of names to go through, and I wasn’t expecting an early call. But it came just after ten in the morning.
