Connections

7

*

"Charlotte! Good morning".

Mercedes and Roya greet me from the door to and from reception, coming over to shake my hand.

"Good morning, how are you?" I ask, "I'm great thank you. Looking forward to seeing you here on a regular basis" she smiles. I collect my things and with the formalities over, Mercedes hands me a lanyard along with some pieces of information.

I follow them through the corridors of the CFA, the building similar to that of Barcelona's training complex, thinking how the teams have blossomed in this environment and how I hope to do the same.

"Charlotte?".

"Earth to Charlotte?".

Once again, I'm being brought out of a daydream and I find myself in front of a desk with no idea how I got there.

"Sorry, zoned out. I really need to work on that" I smile and both Mercedes and Roya laugh at me, "take it all in, although it's not like you've seen it before or anything" the former analyst smiles. "This is your desk and you can leave your bags here while I take you to the team" Roya explains, "if you need me, just give me a buzz, Roya's got a list of the office phone numbers" Mercedes adds.

"Thank you, see you later" I smile, leaving my bag behind and following Roya out.

*

Steph's POV.

"So I was thinking..." Jill starts, "oh god it must be bad if you're actually using your brain" Georgia interrupts, which gets her nothing but a cushion thrown at her "... that as it's Roya's last day and she's showing the new analyst around, we prank her or if we wanted to be really mean; both of them" the midfielder adds.

"And what if this new analyst doesn't like your prank, what do you do then?" I reply.

At that moment, Nick walks in and catching the end of my sentence looks over at Jill and Keets, who immediately shut up and listen.

"I'm taking a guess, you're planning on a prank, yes?" he asks and Jill nods slowly, "ok, that's fine... were you planning on getting the new analyst as well?. Keets nods this time, looking a tad sheepish, "right, they'll have no problem with it, but beware they are the type who will get you back".

And with that, Nick leaves us on our own for a while.

"Who is it? The analyst? Steph do you know? Jill asks but I shake head, "no idea and I'm not saying that just to shut you up".

She sulks a bit because she doesn't know who it is but suddenly Keets jumps up, "THERE!!! It's Roya but who's with her?" she squeals, causing most of the girls who were calm to look at the window too; me included.

"Is that?".

"No".

"Are you sure?".

"But she might just be visiting her dad".

"True".

"But what if she's not?".

Questions come from everywhere and so exhausted I say, "if it is Charlotte, which it could be, then you all need to be calm and no, this does not mean you can make your prank even worse" I add, directing the last bit at the troublemakers.