Free Offside: A Bad Boy Sports Romance by Abbey Foxx

from every single side that comes at me, and concentrating on the book bible Harrison gave me for homework at any other free moment, even though it’s obviously had zero effect. Why the fuck they’d even bother bringing me in if they weren’t going to play me beats the hell out of me.
    “Not ready.”
    “Not ready is bullshit, Harrison, I’m ready.”
    “If Topher says you’re not ready, you’re sitting out until he says you are.”
    The trouble is, Topher knows I’m a better athlete than he is, and twice as good as everyone else. He’s not going to stick me in the team so I can embarrass him, not for as long as he can avoid it.
    At least Penny’s on my side. She can see my potential even if her dad and her boyfriend can’t. I reckon she can see more than she’s allowing herself to let on as well.
    The game is a fucking mess. I’ve learned more in the last two days from Harrison’s book than I knew at all about American football before coming here, and if this is the strategy they are supposed to be following, they are absolutely butchering it. I’d say something, but no-one’s asking my opinion. The girls I’m sat with are pretty, but they don’t give a fuck about what’s going on. They know even less than I do about the game, which is really saying something.
    At the end of the first quarter Topher has been sacked three times and the Jaguars are 14-0 up. We get like two running plays that go nowhere, and the rest of the time we’re on the back foot. Mosley and Jackson move with the speed of pensioners running for a bus. Mosley looks like he’s carrying an injury too, although no-one seems to be doing anything about it. It’s awful. It’s embarrassing. It’s fucking shocking and I know I could do way better than half of the rest of the team, especially if they just passed me the ball and let me run with it. That’s what Mosley is supposed to be doing, but every time Topher lets him have it, which isn’t all that often he ends up at the bottom of a pile of opposition players, all of which are far too strong, and much faster than he is.
    Rugby is split into two halves and for the rest of the time the game kind of flows naturally, so it’s pretty weird seeing it get broken up so much. As soon as the teams get going, something happens and the referee blows his whistle and all of a sudden they stop again and reset formation.
    At half time we are 28-0 down and I decide it’s time to go and have a word with Harrison. In the locker room the mood is downbeat. No-one is saying anything, which is bullshit. Someone should be saying something, and if it’s not Harrison it should be Topher.
    “That how you normally play?”
    “They’re a better team.”
    “Bullshit they are. Put me on.”
    “And lose by even more? I don’t think so.”
    If Dougie saw his team like this he’d sack us all and start again the following week with a whole bunch of fresh players. No wonder this lot don’t win, they seem like they’ve left their confidence at home. They seem like they don’t want to be here at all.
    I sit down next to Topher and he gives me a scowl.
    “Switch it up to the offside, their number sixteen is week. I’ve been watching him throughout the first half.”
    “You giving me advice, English?”
    “I’ve been through the plays. I’ve memorised a few. Atlantis and The Switchback. Anything on the left hand side of the field.”
    Topher can’t help but laugh.
    “You know those are plays they give the kids to work on. That whole fucking book is a basic manual every ten year old knows inside out. Harrison only gave that to you to make you feel better.”
    “You’re bullshitting me.”
    “Carter. What’s The Switchback?”
    “The Switchback? You mean the play the switchback on the left hand side of the field when you pass the ball to the twelve year old and he thinks he’s the king. That Switchback?”
    Carter flashes a grin at me that shows off a whole row of gold teeth implants.
    “Go back