Who do you love?

7

She knew she'd be fine in the morning. She'd always been one able to handle her drinks but she needed an alibi, needed a way out because she was fearful that if she didn't get out now she'd do something a lot worse than go to work hungover.

*

"This is right up your alley, eh?" Calum asked Jules a few days later as he took a seat on the bench on the side of the soccer field.

"It's really not even fair of you to let me play. I get paid to do this." She laughed as she laced up her cleats and pulled on her shin guards.

"Yeah, but you can't hide out in the goal today. That ought to even things up a bit." Jules rolled her eyes.

Calum had brought the eight remaining women to a local soccer field to spend the day. The girls excitement levels varied and that was understandable, many of them had never stepped foot on a pitch before.

The show had brought in a true instructor who gave them all a short lesson on soccer and the rules before the girls were split into two teams, Ansley, Rose, Joran, and Ava Lynn on one team, with Jules, Katie, Camryn, and Rileigh on the other.

"All right ladies. Good clean game, have fun." Calum said, dropping the ball and allowing the game to begin as he jogged off to the sideline.

The game moved quickly, the teams taking the game a lot more seriously than he had expected. He had thought that Jules' team had an easy advantage given her career but what he hadn't known was that Ava Lynn had been the captain of her college soccer team and kept in shape at the camp she ran. She gave Jules a run for her money but when the game ended after an hour of back and forth the score was 2-1 in the latter girl's team favor.

"Nice job!" Calum said to each of them as they wandered off the field and he handed out towels and bottles of water.

He smirked when he saw Jules, sweaty and spent. "Those girls gave you a run there. I know it's the off season but.." He teased her and she shot him a deadpan look.

"If I had been in goal they wouldn't have been in the game at all." She said with a confident shrug and he nodded and shot her a half smile.

"I don't doubt that. Besides, we still have the real score to settle."

"Oh yeah, what's that?" She asked, one eyebrow raised as she shot him a sideways glance.

"Still gotta go one on one and see if I can score."

*

"You okay, Teal?" Brad, the director and producer, asked her as she was finalizing some details for that night's filming.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know. You've just seemed a bit off since we started filming. I didn't know if you had something going on or if you've just been in a funk."

"You think I'm in a funk?" She questioned, her mind quickly rolling through mental images of the last two weeks they had spent filming the show not coming up with anything incriminating and trying to figure out what aspects of her personality had shifted to leave her boss questioning if she were okay.

"Thought maybe it was boy trouble, or your brother, or being away from your sister for too long."

"She's coming home in a few weeks and is supposed to drop by." Teal's face split in a grin as she thought about her sister's upcoming visit. It had been nearly three months since she had last seen Navy, her sister busy off saving the world with a charity that helped bring fresh water to villages in South America.

"That'll be good. You two will be back to being practically joined at the hip."

"Something like that." Teal said with a smile, turning back to her work with a renewed sense of energy. Thoughts of getting to see her sister were a welcome distraction from her confusing feelings about Calum. Feelings that had become evident over the past day or so that were making her life a living hell. She couldn't be into him, that was literally a violation of her contract and she doubted, no matter how large her brother's pull was, that it would be enough to save her from the absolute disaster her daring to act on those feelings would cause.

He'd just appeared so appealing, his hair a mess of dyed blonde peeking from beneath a beanie, a green hoodie covering his body that made him look extra cuddly she couldn't help the way her body had instinctively reacted. The way she had wanted to be close to him. She hoped she had done a decent enough job of hiding her desires, boys tended to be less observant but Calum had claimed he was different. He paid no mind to the way she continually stared at him and tensed up any time he mentioned any of the girls who were actually there to date him. She still wasn't ready to admit to herself that the things she had felt when she was forced to watch Calum kiss Rileigh were due to jealousy. She couldn't feel that way about him, she wouldn't allow herself to.

She repeated that mantra to herself over and over as she sat through his second dismissal ceremony and said goodbye to Rose and Jordan, the author and medical sales rep. He didn't linger in the courtyard after the car carrying the ladies had left as he had the previous week. Instead he returned inside to the women still remaining, sharing his drinks and laughs with them instead. Teal tried to fight back the disappointment but it was difficult. She had to get this under control, he was going to end up with one of them after all, not her.

An: thoughts?

Who do we ship?

This update brought to you by my best friend Sprinting_Ginger asking for it. Read her books if you haven't 🖤

Ily,
Sav🖤