He Beat Me on the Field, So I Let Him Pin Me Against a Wall

The clock was bleeding out. Eighty-ninth minute. A tie score in the championship final. My lungs were on fire, my legs were screaming, and the only thing I could hear over the roar of sixty thousand fans was the frantic pounding of my own heart. And him. I could always hear him.

Zakariah Sterling.

My shadow, my target, my fucking nemesis. He moved across the pitch with an infuriating grace, the league’s golden boy, all perfect hair and a smile that sold jerseys by the truckload. My job, for the entire goddamn game, was to make his life a living hell. To stick to him so closely he could feel my breath on his neck. And I was good at my job.

The ball arced through the air, a perfect cross heading right into the box, right into Zak’s territory. I saw his body tense, saw the muscles in his thighs coil as he prepared to launch himself at it. I moved in, my own body a missile aimed at derailing his. There was no thought, only instinct—the primal need to win, to beat him.

We met in a brutal tangle of limbs and gritted teeth. My shoulder slammed into his, our legs tangled, and for a second, we were locked together, a furious knot of muscle and bone fighting for a single inch of advantage. The air was thick with the smell of damp grass and our shared sweat. I could feel the solid wall of his chest against my back, the strength in his legs as he fought to stay upright. The world narrowed to this single, violent point of contact.

Then, we were falling. The ground came up fast, a blur of green and white lines. It was a clumsy, graceless tumble, all elbows and knees. I landed hard on my side, the air knocked from my lungs. But that wasn't what stunned me into silence.

As we went down, his hand shot out to brace himself, and it landed flat and hard against my chest.

Right over my heart.

The heat of his palm was immediate, a searing brand through the thin, damp fabric of my jersey. It wasn’t a shove or a blow. It was a steady, solid pressure, his fingers splayed wide. For a split second, everything stopped. The noise of the stadium faded to a dull hum. The frantic energy of the game disappeared. All that existed was the shocking, undeniable weight of his hand on my body. A jolt, sharp and electric, shot through me, a current that had nothing to do with adrenaline and everything to do with him. My heart hammered against his palm, a frantic, trapped rhythm. My breath hitched. Underneath the fury, underneath the rivalry, my body betrayed me with a flicker of pure, unadulterated awareness. It was unwelcome. It was infuriating. And it was undeniable.

The moment was broken by the sharp blast of the referee’s whistle. We scrambled apart, two magnets repelling each other. I got to my feet, my chest feeling strangely cold where his hand had been. I refused to look at him, focusing instead on the throw-in, on the screaming of my coach from the sidelines, on anything but the ghost of his touch that still lingered on my skin.

But my focus was fractured. The last ninety seconds of the game played out in a blur. Every time I moved to mark him, the memory of that solid, warm pressure on my chest flashed in my mind. It was a fatal distraction. The ball came loose from a tackle near midfield. It rolled into open space, and of course, it was Zak who was there first. He took it in stride, his long legs eating up the grass. I gave chase, my own legs burning with the effort, pushing past the exhaustion. I was gaining on him, I could feel the slipstream of his movement, smell the metallic scent of his sweat. I was almost there, ready to launch into a slide tackle, to take him down, to do whatever it took.

Then he cut inside.

It was a move so fluid, so perfect, it was almost beautiful. He left me stumbling, my momentum carrying me in the wrong direction. Just for a second, my feet were tangled, my balance gone. And a second was all he needed. He drew back his foot and struck the ball with a clean, powerful force. It flew past our keeper’s outstretched hands and hit the back of the net with a sound that ripped through my soul.

Silence. A collective, stadium-wide intake of breath. Then, an explosion of sound from the other side of the stands. Zak let out a raw, triumphant roar, sinking to his knees on the grass, his arms thrown wide. It felt like he was roaring directly at me. A personal, final insult. His teammates swarmed him, burying him in a pile of blue jerseys before hoisting him onto their shoulders. He was a king on a throne of his peers, his face ecstatic, victorious. I could only stand there, hands on my hips, breathing in the bitter air of defeat, watching the man I hated more than anyone celebrate the goal that had just crushed my world.

The final whistle blew moments later, a mercy killing.

After the endless, hollow condolences from the opposing team, I saw him walking toward me. The league-mandated handshake. My jaw was tight as I extended my hand, ready for a quick, dismissive clasp. But when his fingers wrapped around mine, his grip was firm, warm, and he didn’t let go. He held on for a beat too long, his thumb pressing lightly into my palm. The same heat from the fall, from his hand on my chest, shot up my arm. I finally forced myself to meet his eyes, expecting to see smugness, the usual arrogance.

Instead, his gaze was steady, his brown eyes clear of any gloating. "You played one hell of a game, Dante," he said, his voice quiet, almost low, completely stripped of the public persona. He squeezed my hand once more before finally releasing it and walking away, leaving me standing alone in the middle of the pitch, my hand tingling, his words echoing in the chaos of my own defeat.

The press conference room was a circle of hell designed specifically for losers. The lights were too bright, buzzing overhead like angry insects. The air was stale, thick with the scent of cheap cologne and desperation. I sat at the long table next to my coach, a microphone in front of me, feeling the phantom ache of defeat in every muscle. Across the way, on the winners' side, sat Zak. He looked disgustingly fresh, his hair perfectly tousled, the championship medal gleaming around his neck. I wanted to rip it off with my teeth.

The questions were a predictable drone of sympathetic bullshit and tactical analysis. I gave one-word answers, my voice flat. I just wanted to get out, to shower the loss off my skin, to drink until I couldn’t feel the hole Zak’s goal had torn in my chest.

Then a reporter from some online tabloid, a guy with a weaselly face and hungry eyes, leaned into his microphone. "Dante," he started, and I knew this was going to be bad. "You and Zak have one of the most infamous rivalries in the league. Tonight, your aggressive style was on full display. Some might even call it dirty. Do you feel your inability to contain him, personally, cost your team the championship?"

The room went quiet. Every camera turned to me. I could feel my coach tense beside me. It was bait, pure and simple. He wanted a soundbite, a headline. Dante blames himself. Dante lashes out.

I gripped the edge of the table, my knuckles white. "It's a physical game," I said, my voice dangerously low. "We're competitors. I play hard. He plays hard. They won. We lost. End of story." It was a standard, bullshit answer, but it was all I had.

The reporter started to ask a follow-up, but then Zak’s voice cut through the air, calm and clear. "I wouldn't call it aggressive," he said, and every head in the room swiveled toward him. He wasn't looking at the reporter. He was looking at me. "I'd call it passionate."

My brain stuttered. I stared at him, certain I’d misheard.

Zak leaned forward, his expression serious under the harsh lights. "No one in this league plays with more heart than Dante. When he's on you, you know it. You feel it. There isn't a single second you can relax." He paused, his gaze unwavering. "He forces you to be better, to play at the absolute limit of your ability, because he never gives you anything less than his. That's not dirty. That's respect for the game."

Silence. Complete, stunned silence. The weaselly reporter’s mouth hung open. My coach was staring at Zak like he’d just sprouted a second head. And I… I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I was waiting for the punchline, the subtle dig, the part where he turned it around to make himself look even better.

But it never came.

He just sat back, his point made, and the moderator, sensing the shift in the room, quickly moved on to another question. The rest of the press conference was a blur. I don’t remember what else was said. My mind was stuck, replaying Zak’s words over and over. Passionate. Respect for the game. He had defended me. Zakariah Sterling, the league’s golden boy, had defended me, his supposed nemesis, from an attack on my character. He’d taken my biggest perceived flaw—my aggression, my anger—and reframed it as a strength. As a virtue.

It was the last thing I ever expected. It unsettled me more than the loss, more than his winning goal, more than the searing heat of his hand on my chest. It felt… wrong. It didn't fit the narrative I’d built in my head for years, the one where he was the arrogant prick and I was the only one who saw through his perfect facade. The pure, clean lines of my hatred for him suddenly blurred, and I was left staring at him across the table, completely and utterly lost.