Under the Lights by Kate Christie

Author:Kate Christie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: womens soccer, nonbinary, soccer romance, uswnt, nwsl
Publisher: Kate Christie

Chapter Eight

Jenny Latham leapt into the air, swinging a triumphant fist while the pro-Kansas City crowd at Providence Park erupted in cheers. Up in the Thorns’ private suite, Jamie shook her head in disappointment. How the Portland crowd could prefer a Kansas team to Seattle she would never understand.

While Jenny’s teammates swarmed her and Avery dug the ball out of the net, Jamie clasped her hands behind her head and stared down at the field, searching for Emma. There she was, hands on her hips, chin low. Emma didn’t think they could come back, Jamie realized. Or maybe she was just tired. Since winning the World Cup twelve weeks earlier, Emma had logged nearly 30,000 air miles while playing in a total of fourteen NWSL and national team matches. Meanwhile, Jamie had been almost relieved when the Thorns hadn’t made the playoffs. Well, not really. Of course she would have liked a chance to play for the league championship. But for the last month, it had been kind of nice only having to worry about the Victory Tour.

Beside her, Ellie shifted restlessly. “There’s still time. They could still come back.”

They could, but Jamie knew this situation was Emma’s worst fear. Seattle had been outscored in the last fifteen minutes throughout the season while Kansas City had outscored their opponents at the end of most games. “As long as we don’t give up a late goal,” Emma had said to her before the match. But in the eightieth minute, the Reign had done just that. After a scoreless match, they had let Kansas City sneak in a quick goal off a long ball, and now they were faced with trying to tie up the game and make it into overtime against the defending champs.

At least the mistake hadn’t been Emma’s. A substitute had deflected the long ball directly into the path of Bella Chapman, veteran striker from the Australian national team, who had placed a beautiful cross toward Jenny at the back post. Emma’s mark had been on the near post, and she could only watch the ball float over her head to Jenny, who had slammed her shot home. She didn’t often miss from point-blank range.

But the Reign weren’t about to give up. For the next ten minutes, Seattle threw everything they had at KC’s goal. There was chance after chance, including a Megan Davies header off a corner kick that Jamie was sure would go in, but Phoebe was still in World Cup form. She shut down every opportunity and almost single-handedly gave her team the chance to defeat Seattle in the league final for the second year in a row.

Which, after four minutes of injury time, they did.

As soon as the final whistle ended Seattle’s desperate attempts to tie the match, Kansas City began to celebrate, cheered on by the anti-Seattle crowd. Jamie watched Emma head for the bench, where she ripped her shin guards out of her socks and threw them to the ground. Her body language screamed barely controlled anger.

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