Elena Armas

A disgraced soccer exec reluctantly enlists the help of a retired soccer star in coaching a children’s team in this smalltown love story in the vein of Ted Lasso and It Happened One Summer —from the New York Times bestselling author of The Spanish Love Deception. Adalyn Reyes has spent years perfecting her daily routine: wake up at dawn, drive to the Miami Flames FC offices, try her hardest to leave a mark, go home, and repeat. But her routine is disrupted when a video of her in an altercation with the team’s mascot goes viral. Rather than fire her, the team’s owner—who happens to be her father—sends Adalyn to middle-of-nowhere North Carolina, where she’s tasked with turning around the struggling local soccer team, the Green Warriors, as a way to redeem herself. Her plans crumble upon discovering that the players wear tutus to practice (impractical), keep pet goats (messy), and are terrified of Adalyn (counterproductive), and are nine-year-old kids. To make things worse, also in town is Cameron Caldani, goalkeeping prodigy whose presence is somewhat of a mystery. Cam is the perfect candidate to help Adalyn, but after one very unfortunate first encounter involving a rooster, Cam’s leg, and Adalyn’s bumper, he’s also set on running her out of town. But banishment is not an option for Adalyn. Not again. Helping this ragtag children’s team is her road to redemption, and she is playing the long game. With or without Cam’s help.

A Novel

The Long Game

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Most people would be glad to be given the opportunity to escape to such a peaceful place. Mountain-fresh air. Cozy sunsets under a blanket. A porch facing the greenery.

I hated the cold. And I didn’t have that strange need to travel across the country in search of fresh air. I liked Miami’s air. The city. The coast. 

I climbed the steps of the porch and made the effort to push that thought aside. Beating myself up over it wouldn’t fix anything now.

I ignored the pang of relief I felt at seeing her snark was back. “Sure thing, darling.”

“Still not your darling,” she quipped.

“Oh, the audacity of men to doubt a woman’s capacity to endure pain and discomfort.”

“You’re never too loud, María,” I told her, and for some reason, something my mother said came to mind. “And you should never apologize for being loud. Whoever makes you feel that way is the one with sensitive ears.”

“Don’t you see? You are anything but dispassionate, Adalyn. You’re relentless, determined, fiery, and have made every moment I’ve happened to be next to you as alive as the fucking sun lighting everything up at dawn. Anybody who fails to see that is either blind or some worthless piece of sh—”

“I want you to let go and show me how fucking bright you burn.”

“That’s more than one secret,” I told him. “And I only asked for one.”

“I’ll always give you more than what you ask for, love. Even when you don’t know what you want.”

“I’m going to knock down every wall left standing,” he said against my ear, his other hand moving, climbing up my side, and taking the fabric of my sweater and shirt with it. “And once I’m inside,” he rasped, the pads of his thumbs reaching the underside of my breast. He moved his fingers over my bra, roughly, desperately. “I’m going to bury myself so deep into you”—he brought the lace down, making my breast topple out—“that you won’t be able to tell where you end and where I start.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “To all of that. Yes. A hundred times.”

“I want to spoil it rotten, just because I can. I want to bury you in pillows when you’re cold and carry you to my bed in my arms every night. Kissing you hard when we bicker and reminding you just how crazy you make me.”

The Long Game quotes

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