Blitzed by the Brit: A Secret Baby Sports Romance by Jessica Ashe Read Free Book Online

screams and a few seconds later he’s handing me the ball. I clasp it tightly and look for the gap. Sure enough, there is a small gap right where Sean said there would be. I set off on my run, going from stationery to full speed in less than two seconds. I’m too slow—a large guy moves into the gap blocking my way. I quickly swivel on my right foot and head for the sideline. There’s not much space, but I run anyway and somehow I make it past all the outstretched arms and flying tackles.
    There’s nothing but clear space in front of me, so I keep running and running until I’m in the end zone. I dive down and slam the ball down to the ground, before remembering I don’t need to do that for a touchdown. Force of habit.
    As I walk back to my teammates, I realize everyone’s looking at me. Have I done something wrong? I didn’t hear any whistle, so there was no reason for me to have stopped my run.
    “You’re fast,” Sean says, slapping me on the back. “You’re fucking fast.”
    “That’s why I’m here.” My speed is literally the only thing I have going for me when it comes to playing football. Hopefully it will be enough.
    The quarterback passes to receivers for the next couple of plays, so my only involvement is acting as a decoy, which actually gets me slammed to the floor more often than when I have the ball. A few plays later, I’m given a job to do again. This time I’m on the left-hand side, but the result is much the same. I run through the defense with almost embarrassing ease.
    This used to happen when I played rugby. At about the age of fourteen I’d been the oldest and biggest on the team and could run past everyone without much difficulty. My coach pulled me to the side one day and told me not to be selfish. After that, I passed the ball to teammates and let them score some of the tries instead of claiming them all for myself. That had worked well for team spirit when I was fourteen; there’s no reason why it won’t work now.
    I’m twenty-five yards from the end zone when I look over my shoulder and see a few teammates running five yards behind me. What the hell. I throw the ball back to one of them, but he is so stunned by my pass that it just hits him in the chest and bounces harmlessly to the floor.
    Oops.
    “What the fuck was that, redcoat?” the offensive coach yells as he storms onto the field. “You were clean through.”
    I shrug. “Figured someone else might want to score.”
    “Fucking socialist Europeans,” Coach mutters under his breath. “You’re in America now. Capitalism. Survival of the fittest. Greed. You don’t pass to a teammate to let them have a chance.”
    “Won’t happen again, boss.”
    Best to discover these little quirks in training, rather than in a game when it matters. I really should learn the rules of this game at some point.
    We continue training for another thirty minutes, and not a minute goes by without one of my teammates laughing at me for my mistake. Better they laugh at me than hate me though; this sort of thing is good for morale.
    The second that training ends, the head coach strolls up to me and demands I meet him in his office in fifteen minutes. I run to the sideline to grab my stuff when I notice for the first time that we’ve got a small audience. A group of five girls is sat a few rows up the bleachers and they’re all staring at me. I recognize the look of hunger in their eyes. It’s probably much the same way I look at Becky.
    “I thought that was really sweet,” a chesty blonde says.
    “Excuse me?”
    “The pass. People should pass more in football.”
    “I don’t think I’ll be doing it again,” I admit.
    “It’s good to share,” the blonde says suggestively. “We don’t mind sharing, do we girls?”
    The other girls all smile at me. “Sharing can be fun,” one of them says.
    “We wouldn’t mind sharing you,” the blonde says. “From what we saw out there, you have more than enough energy to satisfy us