USWNT 3.0

3

Mal wasn't a really nice person whenever she felt like her friends were in danger. And that danger had a name. At least, that was her point of view.

Ever since they resumed practice, Gabie Jenkinson - that everybody called Jenko now - was very aggressive on her line, already making some of her friends fall. It was the case for the young Lena Riley, and then for Moe and Ashley. Even though the goalkeeper was way taller than Mal was, and also very impressive, the young lady couldn't stand her. She just wanted to punch her in the face.

So when Jenko fouled her, Mal just got up and nearly made their bodies touch because she was standing very close to her.

"What the hell ?" Mal yelled, which got everybody's attention.

"What ?" the tattooed blonde asked, shrugging.

"Hurting your teammates on purpose isn't a good way to help the team !" the tiny girl flew into a rage.

Jenko just looked at her, frowning. But she was not impressed. She's had to deal with way scarier people in her life, so her tiny rich teammate wouldn't scare her. She looked down at her, smirking.

"I didn't hurt them. I just did my job." she pleaded, looking around. "Do you see anyone crying on the ground ?"

"Maybe you should be" Mal angrily let out.

Tobin chose her moment to separate the two young girls, looking at Mal with disappointment. Alyssa was pulling Jenko by the arm so she'd calm down and go back to her position. Tobin looked at both girls, before saying :

"Your stupid fights can wait" the co-captain sharply said. "Now we are at practice, and in case of you forgot, this is a professional team, so even though you obviously don't like each other, you have to tolerate each other's presence."

Mal nodded.

She didn't feel any shame. She knew this girl wasn't going to be her best friend. She really wanted to strangle her during her sleep. Hopefully, they weren't roommates or something, otherwise a murder would have been committed.

"Fine" she muttered. "But if that bitch fouls Ashley one more time..."

"Mallory Diane Pugh" Christen warned her, crossing her arms on her chest.

Mal let out a small sigh and got back to training. She couldn't argue with Christen, because she was like a big sister to her - and almost like a mother - and scared her to death whenever she was angry. The worse case scenario was when both Julie and Christen were telling her something. They really were like two lesbian mothers with their turbulent daughter. And even though Mal was 21, she still was their baby.

She stood next to Ashley, and looked at Steph and Kristie make a nice cross and score against Jenko, who was just rolling her eyes.

"She spends her time looking at you" Ashley whispered into her friend's here. "I mean, when you don't look"

"I'm sure she doesn't" Mal argued, quite tired of all this drama on the second day.

Her friend just smirked and winked at her, before running to the box. She scored against Alyssa, and came back running. Saskia, who was standing right next to Mal for about a second, smiled at her.

"That was nice" she let out.

"Yeah, it was okay" Ashley said, blushing.

She hated being complimented. And Saskia was obviously doing it on purpose. She high-fived Mal, before quickly turning around and run towards Tobin because the co-captain had to tell her a few things.

Mark Parsons was a coach that insisted on teammates helping each other. Like, midfield beginners would go to either Tobin or Allie to have advises, while the defenders could just talk to Julie. The pillars of the team were helping the newbies. And that way of doing things was working pretty well, because almost everyone was integrated to the team on some ways.