England Lionesses One Shots

N.C #1

Niamh Charles - The bet

I wasn't expecting to get called up for the World Cup so soon, I mean I was only 19. I had only been to a few camps and most of them I wasn't with the senior squad, so I'd only really met a few of them. Some of the girls I knew from playing for Arsenal, there's Leah, Lotte, Beth, even though Leah and Beth wouldn't be there, and now Alessia who I had only met briefly when she came to sign her contract.

I had also, quite literally, walked into Keira Walsh and Lucy Bronze. I felt really bad for spilling the midfielders coffee and brought her a new one the next day after she had told me it was fine. Since then she and Lucy had sort of become my 'camp mums', always looking out for me and checking in to see how I'm doing. Which I greatly appreciated, I don't think I could've made this huge jump into the team without them and Leah, who is also like a second mum to me.

"You okay kiddo?" I felt a hand on my shoulder and the side of the sofa dip beside me. I looked up from my hands and paused my 'Taylor Swift' playlist. Lucy sat with a smile, waiting for me to answer.

"Y-yeah, I'm good." I smiled back, placing my AirPods back into their case to charge.

"No, you're not. I can see it, you're blasting TayTay, that usually isn't a good sign. Especially Champagne problems." I had to laugh at that, I genuinely hadn't noticed that I was listening to that song. "What's on your mind?"

"It's just..." I sighed lightly. "What if they don't like me?" I let the older woman pull me into her side, I quickly find comfort in her presence, closing my eyes as I listened to her talk.

"They're all nice people Y/n, a weird bunch, but lovely. They're all exited to meet you, although I think Sarina has warned them not to be too pushy. We know you hate being the centre of attention." Lucy assured, I had only ever seen this side of her a few times. It's usually Keira in this position, comforting me while Lucy was doing whatever or standing close by for emotional support. But I found I liked this, they both made me feel safe but with Lucy it was like nothing could ever hurt me. I liked that about them both, to be honest.

"Now, let's stop being soppy and go get Kie her coffee before she kills me. Literally." I laughed, there was the Lucy I know and love.

"There you are, what were you doing with my child?" I smiled as Keira pulled me into her side at the entrance of the team bus.

"Getting your coffee, chill woman." Lucy playfully huffed, handing her girlfriend the latte while lightly punching my arm with a small smile. The older woman made her way onto the bus and as she did I could hear a cheer from a few people inside.

I stared at the entrance for a few seconds, thinking over ways I could get out of doing this. I think Keira caught onto my thoughts and stopped me before I could even being to execute any sort of plan.

"Come on then, I wanna watch the rest of that weird show we were watching on Netflix." She smiled softly, taking my hand and leading me into the bus.

"It's called Wednesday Kie." I replied, reminding her of the title once again, I smiled at her little 'whatever'.

Before anyone could say anything, Keira beat all of the girls to it. "Y/n, the girls. Girls, Y/n. You can ask questions later, but we're going to watch a weird Netflix show now."