Love And Football Street Rivals – Clinton Parham

“Yes.” Small smile. First one all night. “You didn’t win,” he says softly. “Neither did you.” “But we didn’t lose.” There it is. Shared understanding. Competition doesn’t erase connection. It just complicates it. Media chaos afterward. Questions thrown everywhere. “How did it feel facing him?” “Did it add pressure?” “Was it emotional?” My answer stays steady. “It was football.” Clean. Controlled. Detached. His answer mirrors mine. “Just another match.” But the world doesn’t buy it. Because the camera saw everything. The micro-glances. The intensity. The mirrored goals. Rivalry locked in.

Later that night— He texts. Jalen: You different now. I stare at it. Type slowly. Me: So are you. Three dots appear. Jalen: Feels like we racing without agreeing to it. Me: Maybe we always were. Long pause. Then— Jalen: Next time I win. I smirk despite myself. Me: We’ll see. And for the first time in months— The tension isn’t bitter.

It’s electric. Because rivalry doesn’t kill love. It transforms it. And now— We’re not kids promising to rise together. We’re athletes rising separately— But circling the same sky. Chapter Three Echo Chamber London feels colder now. Not temperature. Expectation. The stadium lights don’t warm him the way they did during arrival week. They expose. Every mistake louder. Every hesitation magnified. Jalen stands at the edge of the pitch during warmups, staring at the turf like it might answer something. It doesn’t. The crowd murmurs behind him.

Not hostile. Not supportive. Evaluating. He used to thrive under eyes. Now they feel heavy. Coach doesn’t look at him during lineup announcements. That’s new. When his name isn’t called for the starting eleven, he doesn’t react. Doesn’t flinch. Just nods once. Bench. Again. Commentary starts before kickoff. “Brooks adjusting period continues.” “Confidence seems shaken.” “Pressure of comparisons perhaps?” Comparisons. Even here.

Across an ocean. Her name follows him like an echo.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover design by Clinton Parham Interior formatting by Clinton Parham First Edition Published independently by Clinton Parham For information about permissions, rights, or bulk purchases, contact: [email protected] Printed in the United States of America Chapter One Concrete Kingdom The first time I beat Jalen Brooks, he stopped talking to me for three days. We’re ten years old. The “stadium” is a cracked concrete lot behind Mrs. Carter’s corner store in Houston’s Third Ward.

The goalposts are milk crates. The sidelines are imaginary. The crowd is whoever isn’t inside hiding from the heat. And today, the crowd is loud. “Cook him again, Naomi!” Jalen wipes sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt. His braids are shorter back then. His jaw already tight like he’s thirty instead of ten. “You stepped out,” he says. “I didn’t.” “You did.” “You just slow.”

The older boys lose their minds. Jalen hates that. Not losing. Being laughed at. I roll the ball under my cleat and look at him the way he looks at everybody else — like I already know what he’s about to do. “Run it back,” he says. His voice is steady, but I see it. The pride. The fire. The promise he made to himself that he will never let this happen again. “Thought I cheated,” I say.

“Run it back, Naomi.” He says my name like a challenge. I back up, bounce twice on my toes. The concrete is still warm from the sun. The air smells like fried chicken and hot asphalt.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 592a93c2a94bce35
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,730,318 bytes (1.65 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 358
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 153.96 minutes
• Total Words: 30,791
• Total Characters: 189,783
• Average Words per Page: 86.01
• Average Characters per Page: 530.12

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