Page 17

Kira snorts. ‘Come on, Murphy, I don’t actually want my new team to fall apart upon my arrival, do I? That would be no good for my reputation either, if I join a team that does terribly in the league.’

Maeve realises she’s been so obsessed about their rivalry for the captaincy that she hadn’t really thought about this.

‘I’m fine,’ says Maeve, grumpily.

‘Good.’

‘Thanks so much!’ says Maeve sarcastically.

Kira sighs. ‘You really think I hate you, don’t you?’

Maeve startles. She isn’t used to people being so upfront and is caught off-guard by it, yet another thing about Kira that disarms her.

‘Well… yeah,’ shrugs Maeve. ‘I mean, there’s good reason. And that is… the general vibe you give off.’

‘Well, I don’t hate you,’ Kira says softly. ‘I actually find you very impressive. I’m glad to have a worthy opponent to practice with.’

Maeve is flustered and doesn’t know how to respond.

The thing is, she finds it reassuring to be able to be enemies with Kira because that’s easier to channel her confusing strong feelings into.

It’s an outlet for her real complex feelings.

So she tries to be sarcastic. ‘I’m not your opponent , Choksi, I’m on your team. ’

‘Right. Maybe you should act like it sometime.’

Goddamit, how does Kira still manage to twist her way into winning the smallest and pettiest of fights between them?

Maeve is even more begrudging now to follow Kira’s suggestion and do finishing exercises instead of Coach’s orders for weaker foot training, but annoyingly, she does think Kira is right. Kevin shrugs in agreement.

So they do some practice of Kira approaching goal. Maeve tries to block and tackle, but Kira’s simply too good. She is relentlessly fast, bold, and confident, managing to escape Maeve’s attempted blocks.

Maeve finds it both incredibly inspiring and painfully annoying.

One after another, the balls hits the back of the net as she struggles to defend the goal by herself; and Kira, over and over, doing her stupid celebration, punching the air above her head and then in front, like a boxer, whooping with delight as if it’s the first goal she’d ever scored.

‘Oh get over it,’ Maeve exhales, after she can’t prevent yet another goal.

‘Ha!’ says Kira. ‘Never!’

Maeve kicks frustratedly.

‘You giving up?’ Kira asks, in a mocking voice. ‘Does baby want to finish early?’

‘Don’t call me baby,’ says Maeve, with gritted teeth.

‘Well, I think we’re done here, baby,’ Kira stretches her arms smugly. ‘Kevin, shall we call it there? I can’t keep watching Maeve lose forever. We’ll pack up, go have a nice Friday.’

Kevin seems taken in by Kira’s utter confidence, and perhaps he’s influenced by the way Kira seems an extension of Coach. He heads off, already calling someone on his phone.

Maeve wishes she had a Matilda-like power to shoot lasers with her eyes and explode Kira’s smug face. Kira is up in her personal space now, post-goal elation making her even cockier.

Maeve grabs up their training equipment and throws them into the store herself, and heads off to shower in the privacy of her secondfloor locker room. But Kira just follows her, still goading.

‘Go on, say what you’re thinking,’ Kira tests her.

‘What I’m really thinking?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, what I’m really thinking is that I wish your smug face would explode. Now fuck off and stop following me.’

‘Ha! But the thing is, Murphy, I can’t fuck off, can I? We’re in a team together, we train together, we’re going for the same goal, together…’

Maeve’s so riled up that it’s only when the door closes behind her and Kira leans confidently back on it, that Maeve realises Kira’s followed her to what she still thinks of as her private shower room.

They study each other in a moment of silence, the only sound a light dripping of the shower and the whirring of an extractor fan.

Kira drops her training bag from her shoulder, and takes a slow, confident step towards Maeve.

‘I also trust my instincts,’ she says slowly. ‘And my gut tells me that you really don’t hate me as much as you’re trying to pretend so hard you do.’

Maeve turns sharply away, trying to open her locker, but she can’t undo her padlock because her hands are shaking. Just like she’s been dreading, Kira has seen through her.

Maeve turns when she hears Kira’s step behind her. Maeve’s breathing is shallow and fast. Kira’s so close now, and Maeve automatically steps back to maintain their distance – but her back lands against the hard and cold lockers. She can’t move away.

Kira leans a hand over Maeve’s head, and Maeve feels dizzy.

‘If you tell me to stop, I’ll stop,’ Kira says softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

Maeve swallows.

‘But I don’t think you want me to stop, do you, Murphy?’

In all Maeve’s conflicted feelings about Kira, about their rivalry, about her jealousy and admiration, lust and frustration, she hadn’t ever contemplated what she would actually do if Kira wanted her too.

Maeve feels the same charged tension between them as when they’re on the pitch competing against each other, electricity in the air.

Their faces are very close now. She should know that Kira won’t back down from a dare.

‘You talk a big talk, don’t you,’ Maeve tries to sound confident. ‘But you’re all bark, no bite.’

‘Oh, don’t you worry,’ says Kira, her voice low. ‘I can bite.’

Kira’s staring at Maeve’s mouth. She instinctively wets her lip.

And then Maeve leans in and kisses her.

Kira responds instantly, pressing her body into Maeve’s pulling her face in closer to hers. Her mouth is warm and hungry, her lips soft but intense, their movements immediately matching each others’ wanting.

All the thoughts that have been racing around Maeve’s mind suddenly still.

It’s like when she’s in full flow on the pitch, her focus completely honed to the game, moving in synchrony with her teammates, testing the limits of what her muscles can do.

All she is aware of is Kira’s body, so close, but not close enough.

Kira’s as good a kisser as she is a football player. It would almost be annoying if Maeve weren’t enjoying it so much.

Their bodies press into each other’s, a tangle of limbs. Maeve’s hands pull Kira closer into her, one hand clutching at Kira’s back, the other stroking the back of her shaved head.

Kira’s good on her word. Kira bites down on Maeve’s lower lip. Maeve gasps in pleasure and faux indignance.

‘Hey!’ she says. Kira pulls back, eyebrow raised.

‘Well, you did dare me.’

Kira’s eyes sparkle. ‘Where’s that fighting spirit? Go on, I know you want to try to win.’

She’s lit up even more brightly than when she’s on the pitch. Maeve thought that playing football was Kira’s natural habitat but now, she feels privy to seeing that really, it’s this.

Maeve goes to kiss her again, and this time pays Kira back, biting her lip until Kira makes a gutteral sound in the back of her throat.

Maeve desperately wants to hear her do that again.

She kisses down her neck, grasping at her shoulders, her waist, her chest, her bum, tugging at Kira’s training top.

Kira doesn’t need telling twice – she whips her shirt off with the unabashed speed Maeve had noticed that first time she saw Kira, but this time, she gets to act upon her desire to stare, and lift off Kira’s sports bra too.

Maeve takes in the view. Kira topless, her lithe shoulders look more muscular now they’re bare, contrasted as they were with the softness of her small chest, her nipples like dark hickies, the colour of Kira’s well-bitten lips.

Kira has washboard abs, the kind that don’t come naturally from training, even intense as theirs, but must be deliberately worked for.

Over her abs are the loose string of her black sports shorts that Maeve had been tugging on so relentlessly when they were kissing, revealing the white waistband of what seem to be tight boxer-style pants.

Kira looks right back, biting her lip and, as if in exchange, pulling down at Maeve’s sports shorts.

At Maeve’s eager nod, she slips them off, and then runs her fingers brazenly up the inside of Maeve’s thigh, to the edges of Maeve’s pants.

Maeve feels momentarily embarrassed at how wet she is, this evidence exposing how much she’s enjoying Kira’s touch, but for once, Kira’s cocky smile as she looks up at Maeve just elicits a smile from Maeve too.

She’s too turned on to deny it, and from the way Kira closes her eyes in pleasure as she pulls Maeve’s pants aside, she knows that they’re in this together.

Then they’re kissing again, heavy and hot, while Kira’s fingers are still making their firm, confident strokes and Maeve’s unable to stop herself from moaning at how good it feels.

The sensation of it all happening at once is overwhelming, like every part of her is on fire.

Kira knows exactly what she’s doing, she’s there with her, her thumb on her clit, her fingers slick as they move up and down.

Maeve can’t stop herself from grinding into her, pressing herself harder against her, wanting Kira to fuck her.

Kira senses what she wants but seems to be playing with her, denying it, until Maeve groans.

Kira’s mouth is against her ear. ‘If you want it you’ll have to ask nicely.’

Maeve moans in frustration and pleasure.

‘Choksi–’

‘Say please.’

Maeve melts.

‘Please,’ she says urgently. ‘ Please .’

‘Fuck.’

It feels so good that unbidden, Maeve’s head flops back and smacks against the locker. She barely notices.

‘You okay?’ Kira, pauses with her fingers in exactly the right place.

‘Don’t stop,’ says Maeve urgently, almost angrily.