Stars - Tobjizzle

Chapter 8

“Ready?” She asks. I nod, grabbing a few things and throwing them in my bag before following her out into the kitchen. She grabs her bag from where she left it on the couch and we head out into the hallway.

When we get to the park, there are already people practicing on the pitch, so we head to some grass off to the side. We warm up, just passing the ball back and forth and stretching a bit.

“I'm gonna go ask them if we can use the other goal,” Alicia says.

“Wait, what?” I ask

“Well they're only using one side of the field, I want a goal to practice on.”

“But they’re good,” I say, sighing.

“So?”

“I'm not, it's embarrassing.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Suck it up.” Alicia turns around walking around the fence and through the gate. I pick up my bag before catching up with her. We approach the people on the pitch. They look about our age, friendly. We approach a tall thin man with dyed blonde hair and and a slightly shorter guy with a good beard. They look slightly familiar but I know I've never met them so I shrug it off.

“Hey,” Alicia starts, “Would you mind if we used the other half of the pitch? I noticed you weren't and it'd be nice to have a goal to practice on.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says smiling, “I don't think we'll need it.”  Another guy begins to walk over, small, wearing a primark jacket.

“Thanks so much!” Alicia says with a smile.

“No problem.” We begin to walk towards the other goal, setting our things down off to the side.

We start with penalties, moving on to a 1v1 challenge and then practicing headers. We play until around 1:30, when Alicia has to leave to get to class. We begin to pack up our things, getting ready to leave.

“Do you want a ride back?” Alicia asks.

“No it's fine, I think I'll just walk,” I respond.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I'll be fine.” I finish tying my shoes and put my football boots in my bag, slinging it over my shoulder.

I start walking toward the exit, then realize Alicia is not following, and turn around.

“My car’s the other way,” she says.

“Oh right," I shake my head, "I forgot where we parked,”

I walk back the few steps and hug her quickly.

“See ya,” she says as she walks away.

“Bye!”

I walk the other way, past the boys we talked to earlier, and notice a few more people have joined them. I look closer, noticing I know two of them.

“Tobi!” I call, beginning to walk towards the group. He turns around, and sees me.

“Jade!” He jogs the last few feet between us and hugs me, spinning me around before putting me back on the ground.

“Calm down, I saw you a few days ago,” I say giggling.

“But you left without saying goodbye,” he pouts.

“Hush, hush,” I say, “I left a note.” I feel hands cover my eyes and jump.

“Guess who,” a familiar voice says.

“Jesus Christ Harry, you're gonna give me a heart attack,” I breathe, hand on my chest. He laughs, taking his hands away.

“Anyway,” I say to both of them, “Introduce me to your friends.” Tobi turns around, an arm over my shoulders, and faces the guys, who all have confused expressions on their faces.

“Simon, Ethan, Vik, Josh, Cal, and Manny,” he says, pointing to each of them in turn. I wave.

“Jade, nice to meet you,” I say, smiling. It's silent for a moment before I notice the cameras and speak again.

“Are you guys filming? Sorry for interrupting.”

“No, it's fine,” says the tall one who I think is Simon.

I smile at him.

“You guys are pretty good,” says Vik, gesturing towards the goal me and Alicia were practicing at earlier.

“I mean Alicia's good,” I say, laughing, “but I’m fucking shit.”

“Better than me,” he says shrugging. I laugh.

“Alicia? She's the one I met that first night right?” Tobi asks. I nod, looking up at him. We make eye contact and he smiles, making me smile. I look back at the boys and speak.

“So Cal, I heard about your prank the other day,” I look over at Harry, laughing.

“Oh, fuck off,” he says, throwing up his hands and rolling his eyes. I giggle again, and Tobi pulls me closer to him, his arm still around my shoulders.

We all continue chatting for a bit before they go back to filming. I stand behind the camera with the other boys who aren’t playing at the moment. They're filming the woodwork challenge right now. I sit on the ground, watching as they try one by one to hit the left post. Vik sits down next to me, and starts talking.

“So how'd you and Tobi meet?” He asks.

“Um," I tilt my head, quizzically, "I was having an... emotional breakdown on a bench and he sat down next to me and bought me tea,” I say, smiling as I remember.

“That's cute,” he responds. I look over at him, confused.

“Cute?”

He shrugs, and I roll my eyes, looking back at the playing. Once they're done with the challenge, Simon does his outro and they start packing up the cameras and footballs.

Once everything is packed up, Josh speaks.

“Nandos?”

(A/N long fucking chapter! Can I get a hell yeah? (Hell yeah)(or maybe not whatever you want) umm idk what that just was but it was cringey. Not doing that again)