Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 120031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Emma poked her arm. “I told you you’d be picked. You don’t listen to me, I’m not sure why that is.”
“Well, when you insist on doing weird shit like making ‘lost dog’ posters and putting a photo of a hotdog on it—”
“I did lose one once.”
“—you sort of make it hard for me to really heed you in anything. It’s truly a good thing that you now have a mate to keep you out of trouble. I got tired of that job.”
“You were shit at it.”
Casey frowned. “Hey, I saved you from getting arrested multiple times.”
“But not every time. Slacker.”
Smiling, Casey snorted. “Fuck you.”
Donahue gave a hard clap. “Okay, ladies, let’s get moving.”
Everyone filed outside onto the wide, rectangular field. Casey’s tension slipped away as the oh-so-familiar scents of freshly-cut grass and warm earth swirled around her. Even the muffled, distant sounds of busy traffic, car horns, and engines rumbling were so much the norm here that there was something comforting about them.
After years of playing on the pitch, Casey knew it as well as she knew the back of her hand. She didn’t even need to glance at the white lines that defined the boundaries of each area of the turf. No, they were imprinted on her brain.
Casey took a swig of water from her bottle and then, like the other girls, placed it near the sidelines. She rolled back her shoulders. God, it was hot. The sun pricked at her skin.
As a tall, wiry shadow fell over her, she looked to see their team captain, Kristin, throwing her dark curls into a messy knot. The mink was an excellent midfielder who always did them proud. Until she lost her shit and lunged at someone. For a skinny female, she had some serious power behind her punches. No one on the team had been given more red cards than Kristin. The midfielder found a strange kind of pride in that.
“We’re going to win this year, Frost,” said Kristin. “I can feel it.”
“Just try not to get red-carded at the games, yeah?”
Kristin grinned. “Can’t promise anything.”
As always, Donahue led practice, though her assistants chipped in here and there. She barked and yelled instructions, throwing out the occasional insult if someone wasn’t trying hard enough—the insults only ever spurred the team on.
They did jump squats, push-ups, dips, sit-ups, lunges, and ran sprints until Casey’s muscles burned and sweat beaded her skin. The baking heat didn’t help. Before long, her uniform was so damp with sweat it clung to her body.
Midway through practice, clouds passed over the sun, casting shadows across the field and giving the players a slight reprieve from the scorching rays. The reprieve was far too brief. The sun was soon beating down on them again as the team executed high intensity ball-touch drills. After that came a short five-on-five game—Casey’s mini team won.
Tired, hot, and sore, she was more than relieved when Donahue announced that it was time for their cool-down. That amounted to a light jog followed by some static stretching exercises that mostly concentrated on the calves, groin, hamstrings, quadriceps, and lower back. Only then did their coach blow the whistle, signaling that practice was over.
“Thank God,” muttered Emma.
“Yeah,” sighed Casey. All she wanted was to get clean, dry, and spray on some deodorant.
Breathing hard, she dabbed her face with the bottom of her jersey as they headed inside. Back in the locker room, Casey shucked her uniform, nose wrinkling at the grass and dirt stains, and quickly hit the showers. She winced as the hot water beat at her turf burns, but the spray felt good on her sore muscles.
No one ever bothered asking Dennis to heal the burns. As shifters, they healed quickly from minor injuries anyway. Plus, his gift could take a lot out of him if used too much. People preferred for him to deal purely with real injuries so that he didn’t later feel burned out.
Clean, she wrapped a towel around her and headed for her locker. She didn’t bother trying to shield her body as she dried off. Shifters were used to being nude in front of others, so they rarely suffered from body-consciousness. Plus, the team were so tired, sore, and hungry that they often really didn’t care about anything but getting clean and dressed so they could munch on some food.
She pulled on her clothes, surrounded by the hissing of deodorant cans, the whir of hairdryers, and the laughs of her teammates. When everyone was dressed, they sat on the benches while Donahue switched on the wall-mounted TV and spent the next fifteen minutes replaying clips of video footage from practice. She pointed out where players went wrong, where the team’s weaknesses were, and dished out lectures to those she felt had let themselves or the team down. Such fun.