Page 18 of Guarding the Star

She sprints toward the sideline, points at our section, and blows a kiss our way.

And then she looks at me. The smile she gives me isn't her press smile. It isn't her Instagram smile. It's the one that comes out when she's playing with Wesley. The one I saw in Florida when she didn't know I was watching her tell him a story. The one that lasts two seconds and then vanishes.

She keeps running. Her teammates swallow her up and she disappears in a pile of hugs.

“She was looking at you,” Tessa says, voice low. “The kiss could've been for Wesley, but that smile… that was for you.”

I don't answer.

“For what it's worth,” she adds, “this is my second year with this team and I've never seen her look for anyone in the stands after a goal.”

“It's for the cameras, the sponsors, and all that,” I say, shrugging.

“Right, the cameras and the sponsors,” she repeats.

Sixty-third minute. Iris battles for a ball on the sideline. The score is one-nil and the crowd is pushing. The moment the ball goes out, the jumbotron cuts to us.

Our faces fill the screen at the south end. Huge. Pixelated. Mine and Wesley's. He crawled into my lap less than ten minutes ago because he wanted a better view. An animated heart frames our faces. The music changes. Heads start turning.

Twenty-five thousand people in the stadium, and the kiss cam has to land on me.

Wesley points at the screen with his tiny finger.

“Dere! Pola! Me!”

“Yeah, buddy. I see it.”

“Kiss!” the kid yells. He's been to enough games to know exactly how the kiss cam works.

The crowd starts chanting. Clapping. Whistling. The camera doesn't move. The heart blinks.

I kiss the top of his head. Wesley cracks up. The crowd cheers. The camera moves to the next couple.

Seventy-first minute. Iris takes a foul at the edge of the box. She gets up limping, brushes the grass off her knee, and says something to the defender that the microphones are better off not picking up. Jade Herrera takes the free kick. The ball floats over the wall and cracks off the crossbar.

The game ends one-nil. Win. Iris pulls off her cleats at midfield and waves to the crowd barefoot. Someone throws a team scarf from the stands, and she wraps it around her neck.

Later, in the press room, reporters wait to ask her and Zoe some questions. She walks out with wet hair, clean clothes, her press smile locked into place.

“Iris, great game. How do you feel about the win?”

“Amazing. The team was unreal. Zoe gave me that pass and I trapped it on my thigh and thought: if I don't finish this, I'm retiring.”

“We've noticed you've been in very good company since preseason camp in Florida. Care to share anything about the new relationship?” asks a reporter who seems more interested in gossip than soccer.

Iris smiles and tilts her head. Showtime.

“Her name's Paula. We met at a coffee shop. She ordered an espresso, I ordered a latte that I spilled all over her shirt walking past her. Instead of killing me, she asked me for another coffee. I thought it was sweet. Love at first stain.”

Laughs. The reporter scribbles in a notebook.

“She seems very serious, doesn't she? We've never seen her smile,” another one presses.

“Paula is more serious than most. It's like dating a calculator with pretty eyes.”

“A calculator with pretty eyes?” another reporter asks.

“Oh man, don't tell her I said that. Very pretty eyes, by the way. Very dark. Very serious. They light up when you bring her coffee. That's a trick I've picked up lately.”