Chapter 74: Training Ground Temptation
The evening air on the training pitch was cool and carried the clean, damp scent of freshly cut grass. It was a vast, empty silence after the roaring stadium, a hollowed-out bowl of shadows stretching toward the goalposts at either end. Dusk bled the sky into bands of bruised purple and gold.
Aurora leaned against the cold metal of the perimeter fence, her fingers curled through the links. She watched.
Callum moved across the center circle with a solitary, rhythmic intensity. He’d set up a neat row of footballs on the eighteen-yard line. No lights, no crowd, no cameras. Just the thud of his foot meeting the leather, the sharp whip of the net, again and again. Left corner. Right corner. Straight down the middle. Each shot was a controlled explosion of force, his body coiling and releasing with a kind of brutal grace she’d only ever seen from a distance, through a screen. Up close, it was different. The soft grunt of effort. The way his shirt clung to the planes of his back with sweat. The complete absorption.
He was in his head. She could tell. It was in the tight set of his jaw, the extra half-second he took before each kick. This wasn’t the joyful, fluid play from their backyard. This was work. Exorcism.
She didn’t call out. She just watched, letting the peace of it settle her own buzzing nerves. Her phone was a lead weight in her pocket, still blowing up with notifications—congratulations, interview requests, a staggering number from her agent about pre-orders. The world was shouting. Here, there was only the thump, the swish, the quiet.
He took a few steps back from the last ball. Prepared his run-up. Then, inexplicably, he pulled the shot. It wasn’t a miss. It was a hesitation. The ball skewed wildly off the side of his foot, dribbling pathetically wide of the post, not even reaching the net.
He stood there for a second, hands on his hips, head down. Then he turned and looked right at her. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face, cutting through the focused gloom.
“You’re putting me off my game, Bellweather.”
Aurora pushed off the fence, smirking. “That was all you, Nordskov. Looked like you got a sudden cramp. In your ego.”
He started walking toward her, the grin not fading. He picked up a discarded towel from the ground, wiped his face and neck as he approached. The smell of him—clean sweat, grass, the sharp citrus of his shampoo—hit her as he got closer.
“You’re a critic now? From all the way over there?” He tossed the towel aside. “Maybe you need a closer look. See the technique up close.”
“I saw the technique. It was flawed.”
“Flawed,” he repeated, a mock-offended laugh in his voice. He was right in front of her now, a wall of heat and damp cotton. The stadium lights flickered on suddenly, bathing them in a stark, white glow, elongating their shadows across the pitch. “Alright, coach. Show me.”
He took her hand, his palm still warm from exertion, and pulled her gently onto the pitch. The grass was springy under her boots. He led her not to the penalty spot, but to the goal itself. The white posts were chipped and scarred. The netting had a hole in the top corner.
He positioned her with her back against the cool, hard metal of the left post. “Stand here.”
“Why?”
“Best seat in the house.” He jogged back to the ball, lined it up. The focused look was back, but there was a new glint in his eye. He took his run-up, smooth and powerful, and struck the ball cleanly.
It rocketed toward her. She flinched, a tiny instinctive jerk, but the ball slammed into the netting right beside her head, the cords snapping tight with a violent thwack. The post vibrated against her back.
“Jesus, Callum!”
He was already retrieving another ball. “Don’t move. Trust me.”
He set it down. Another run-up. Another explosion of sound and motion. This one hammered into the netting on her other side, so close she felt the displaced air. The goal frame hummed.
He fetched the third ball, sauntering back with a look of pure, unadulterated mischief. This time, he placed the ball not on the penalty spot, but a few yards closer. “Last one.”
“This isn’t coaching, it’s intimidation,” she called out, but her heart was pounding, a thrill mixed with the fear.
“It’s focus,” he corrected, his voice low and carrying in the quiet. His eyes held hers. “You’re the only thing in my way.”
He didn’t look at the ball. He looked at her. And he ran.
This shot was different. Slower. Deliberate. It didn’t rocket. It arced, spinning, heading straight for the center of the goal. Straight for her. She braced herself, but at the last second, he’d curved it. It kissed the inside of the right post with a soft clang and dropped into the net, gently rolling to a stop against her foot.
He was already moving. He covered the distance between them not at a jog, but a purposeful walk, closing the space she hadn’t realized was so vast. He didn’t stop until his body was a breath from hers, caging her against the post. The sweat on his temples caught the light. His chest rose and fell with steady, deep breaths.
“You missed,” she whispered, her voice suddenly thin.
“Did I?” His hands came up, palms flat against the cold metal on either side of her head. He leaned in, his forehead almost touching hers. “Seemed pretty accurate to me.”
From the distant shadows near the tunnel, a loud, two-fingered whistle pierced the air. A voice, laughing, echoed. “Get a room, Nordskov!”
Callum didn’t even glance away from her. He just smiled, a slow, private smile. “See? Even my mates are critics.” He shifted, his body pressing flush against hers, melting the last inch of space. The heat of him was overwhelming. The grass-stained fabric of his training shirt, the solid muscle underneath, the rapid beat of his heart she could feel through her own layers.
“You did that on purpose,” she said, her hands finding their way to his waist, gripping the damp material. “All of it. To get me over here.”
“The first one was genuine frustration,” he admitted, his voice a low hum against her lips. “Thinking about you. About what you said on that show. How you saw it. The pressure.” He nudged her glasses up her nose gently with his own. “The rest was just an opportunity I couldn’t waste.”
He kissed her then, not with the desperate, celebratory passion of the stadium, but with a deep, claiming certainty. It tasted of the evening air and effort and a shared, silent understanding. Her back arched against the unyielding post, a contrast to the pliant, demanding warmth of him. One of his hands left the post to cradle the side of her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone.
When they broke apart, breathing the same charged air, he kept his forehead pressed to hers. “Your phone’s been buzzing nonstop since we got here.”
“So’s yours, probably.”
“I turned mine off.” He pulled back just enough to look at her. His green eyes were dark in the low light, serious. “They’re saying your book is number one in pre-orders in three categories. Did you know that?”
She’d seen the numbers. They hadn’t felt real. They felt like Monopoly money. “It’s… it’s because of this. Of you.”
“No.” He shook his head, a lock of his dark hair falling across his brow. “It’s because of you. On that sofa. Talking about dirty glass and warped stories. People heard you.” He brushed a stray curl from her forehead. “I heard you.”
A distant door slammed, the sound echoing across the pitch. The spell fractured, just a little. Reality, with its phones and expectations and whistling teammates, waited in the wings.
“We should go,” she murmured, not moving.
“Yeah.” He didn’t move either. “Your place or mine?”
She smiled. “Mine. Your toaster is a fire hazard.”
He laughed, the sound rich and easy in the empty stadium. “Deal.” He finally pushed away from the post, offering her his hand. As she took it, he pulled her from the shadow of the goal into the full glare of the floodlights.
“Come on, coach,” he said, his fingers lacing tightly with hers. “Let’s go face the noise.”