After We Were Friends

Chapter 9 - Manchester

Bradie's POV

I woke up, the Barcelona sun shining through the apartment windows. Except, it wasn't my apartment I was waking up in.

"Hey," she said to me, turning to look over to where I lay.

"Hi," I answered, smiling softly.

She leant over, wanting to give me a kiss.

"I have morning breath," I said to her, turning away.

"I don't care," she responded, grabbing my chin and placing a kiss on my lips. Over the past few weeks, it had been like this. It had been me with her. Me and Lex. Bradie and Alexia. It had become so natural, to both of us. We kept it low key at training and during league games, but we'd always end up in the same place at night. I'd go back to hers or she would come to mine. It felt right, being with her. It felt as if this was what was supposed to happen.

"We have training," I said, tucking a piece of her brown hair behind her ears before trying to get out the bed.

"Just a little longer," she retorted, wrapping her arms around my waist and pulling me back down to her, snuggling her chin into my shoulder.

"Lex! We can't be late."

When I checked my watch, I knew we were already running behind schedule. We quickly got changed into our kits, and rushed out the door.

When we arrived at the ground, we were only a few minutes early, as traffic was not as bad as I had expected it to be.

"I told you we would be fine," Alexia whispered into my ear, before going off, as to not attract any attention to the fact we walked in together.

I soon went over to Ingrid, and as I sat down, she chuckled to herself slightly.

"What's that laugh about?" I questioned.

"Your shorts," she said. I looked down to see the number on my shorts not to be 12 but rather 11. And as I looked over to Alexia, who was sitting beside Mapi, she had 12.

"Oh," I said, putting my head into my hands, "that's a bit awkward."

"So, that explains where you were last night," Ingrid laughed.

"I guess it does," I responded, smiling.

We walked out onto the pitch, and I caught about to Alexia.

"Uh, look at your shorts," I said to her. She gave be a confused expression, but soon looked down and laughed to herself.

"And this is what happens when we rush!" She exclaimed, smiling at me with a cheeky grin.

We trained with the team, preparing ourselves for our flight to Manchester mid week. When I saw the draw, for the group stages of the Champions League, I felt strange. I knew that there was a chance I would come up against my former club, but I didn't think that it would actually happen. But what made our draw slightly more painful for myself was the fact that PSG was in it too. Jackie's new club. I hadn't thought too much about her for a while. We weren't together for long, and although I knew we did have something special, not everything works out and you can't expect that it will. But, I was really hoping that that wouldn't happen to me. I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to come up against her. Hoping that PSG was the one team we didn't draw. But I guess, we can't always get what we want.

After training, I saw Lucy sitting down on the bench, looking worried.

"Everything alright?" I asked her.

"Oh, yeah," she responded, smiling.

"You sure?"

"Just don't know how Keira's going to feel having to go back to Manchester. She didn't want to go back for a while and here we are. Having to go back."