Page 47 of Well Aware

“Here we go,” Court said, leaning forward so that his arms were on the railing in front of him.

Iris leaned forward, copying his pose, and I couldn’t help but smile.

Magnolia reared back to shoot it. Then the whistle blew.

Magnolia stopped and looked at the line ref with confusion.

Her hands were up, and everyone was yelling.

“Is he trying to call her offside?” Court asked, anger leeching into his voice.

“Sure looks like it,” I protested.

“There’s no possible way that that could ever be offside,” Court growled. “She was the middle defender. Not to mention, she was on her own half of the field when she received the ball.”

The jumbotron showed the middle ref going to talk to the line ref.

The line ref looked confident, but the middle ref was already shaking his head.

“Here we go,” I said, looking up to the other box beside my dad and sister’s to see the head ref over all the refs watching the game like a hawk.

I’d asked him to be here today just for this very reason.

I could already see him on his phone making a call down to the field.

The play would be reviewed, and while it was being reviewed, the honcho in charge would be talking to the ref.

As it was, this was already a disadvantage.

The entire team had already caught up, and the easy tap-in shot was no longer available to Magnolia.

At best, they’d get a PK.

And we needed the goal.

We were tied, 0-0, and only had twenty-five minutes left in the game.

We had to win this one with a shut out to advance into the semi-finals.

“There’s no way around this,” Court found himself saying. “Everyone knows this looks suspicious. There’s no way that they’ll be able to hide a call like this two games in a row.”

“Agreed,” I grumbled.

Exactly what I said would happen happened. They went to review the play, and the lead ref on the field got a call from the head ref in the box.

After a very quick discussion, and an even shorter look at the play, it was determined that the line ref was off.

“Guy’s fired,” Court said. “I won’t let this one slide.”

“You shouldn’t,” I agreed with him. “Plus, coming from you, this is going to be even better seeing as you’re an international soccer phenomenon.”

He snorted. “Some international phenomenon who was sent to jail for a crime that I do admit I committed, even unintentionally, that they then wrote me off indefinitely for. This’ll probably be ten times harder to deal with based solely on who I am.”

“Some part of you wants it,” I said. “Not even Charleigh could’ve gotten you to agree if you didn’t feel like it was right in your heart.”

He grunted.

The lead ref walked out onto the field and announced it’d be a drop ball right in front of the goal.