the next day after training, the girls plan for some top golf before getting dinner together. caitlin, leah, steph, katie, jen, beth and viv are all planning to go to this get together. when they exit the training grounds and are in the lot waiting for leah to finish up, katie looks over across to a large man looking very weirdly at the girls.
"don't look over now, but there is a very intimidating man standing at the car behind you lot and something tells me he's not here for autographs." katie says nodding over to behind caitlin and steph. steph looks over her shoulder immediately and caitlin nudges her.
"she said don't look now you idiot!" caitlin hisses.
"my bad! but it will serve you to know he's getting something from his car." steph says still looking over at the man.
"oh and he's coming over now, act natural girls, act natural," jen says pulling out her phone.
"excuse me," the man says looking around at the girls, who stare confused at him. "i was instructed to talk to a ms. foord, is that any one of you perhaps?" he says in a thick accent. caitlin looks around at all the girls before speaking up herself.
"erm, yeah, that's me," caitlin says raising up a hand awkwardly.
"do you think we could talk to the side, just for a brief moment, you can return to your friends in a minute." he says smiling graciously. caitlin nods and walks a couple cars over before the man speaks up.
"leo, nice to meet you," he says extending his hand.
"caitlin foord, nice to meet you as well," she replies shaking the mans hand firmly with a tight lipped smile.
"miss wälti instructed me to return this to you, she says that she would have liked to return it back to you herself, but she had a flight to catch early this morning." he says handing over caitlin's puffer jacket.
"oh um, thank you." caitlin says taking the jacket. to be honest, she had forgotten about her jacket, mainly because she thought it looked better on lia than herself.
"no need to thank me, again thank you for your time," he says nodding and walking back to his car. caitlin walks back holding the jacket as leah, beth and viv come outside.
"ready to go?" leah says her car turning on as she opens the door. everyone nods as they all settle into the car. caitlin, katie and steph settle into the back, beth and viv are in the middle seats while jen and leah are in the passenger and driver seats. every row starts to divulge in conversation, as do caitlin and her friends in the back.
"so, what did that guy want with you?" katie asks caitlin.
"oh, he just wanted to return my jacket to me," caitlin says, waving the jacket in the air. a white paper falls out of it once more, and caitlin feels like she's experiencing deja vu. steph grabs it first laughing as she does so.
"seems like another note has been left behind eh?" steph says waving the folded note in her hand. "you know caitlin, never thought you'd swing that way," she says smirking as katie laughs from the other side of caitlin who is sat helpless in the middle.
"it's," she says trying to grab for the paper, "not," steph dodges her hands lunging for it, "like," steph passes the paper over to katie who grins waving it in caitlin's face. "that." caitlin grits through her teeth as she finally gets ahold of the paper. "you both are so annoying, did you know that?" caitlin says as steph gently knocks the back of her head.
"we're just messing with you cait, but you will have to open it or else we'll keep messing with you." steph says urging caitlin to open the paper. caitlin rolls her eyes then looks over to katie, who has an equally eager look on her face.
"my recent statement still stands," caitlin sighs as she opens the note. 'hey, forgot to give this back to you, wish i could have, but i hope this is better than me personally delivering your jacket back to you -L' caitlin reads as a number is scribbled onto the bottom of the note. it makes her smile as she rereads the note again.
"well, read it to us then," katie says trying to get her eyes on the note, ultimately failing.
glaring, caitlin recites the note word for word, omitting who it is from at the end, and the number, for obvious reasons.
"awww, thats so cute," steph coos, "you've got a lovesick smile on your face, you know that?" she adds.
"what's the 'this' the note is referring to?" katie asks. caitlin hesitates before responding.
"the jacket, obviously," caitlin says pocketing the note.
"you know, for some reason i don't believe you, but we can let it slide, have fun caits," steph says patting her shoulder as she unbuckles her seatbelt heading out. caitlin puts the number in her phone as they're walking up to top golf, before pocketing her phone for the rest of the evening, relaxing with her friends. although caitlin is good at golf, she's nowhere on the level of leah, who performs well above everybody else, bragging much on the whole drive to the restaurant. they agree on a small local restaurant to have dinner, nothing too fancy. when they arrive, the restaurant looks homey, and quite busy at this time of day.
"how many people are in your party today?" someone asks.
"i think 7," caitlin says looking back at her teammates, "yeah 7." the server leads them to a table of 8, and leaves them to look through the menu. a different server comes back to get their orders.
"hey, my name's edith and i'll be your server today." a girl says with a notepad smiling at caitlin. caitlin feels just slightly uneasy, but the girls don't seem to notice. everybody orders before caitlin, who is still figuring out what she wants to eat.
"and for you?" she says finally turning to caitlin. caitlin closes her menu a final time, before looking back towards the waitress.
"the pan-fried salmon in the curry sauce, please," caitlin says gathering everybodies menu's and handing it off to the waitress who writes down her order. as the waitress leaves, the girls start hounding caitlin in questions.
"why is she looking at you like that?"
"does she fancy you?"
"do you know her?"
"when you gonna hit that?" katie says loudest of them all, which gets surprised laughter from everybody, and a deadly glare from caitlin.
"for everyone's information, whatever you think it was, it was not." caitlin says with a sarcastic smile on her face. everyone eggs her on for the remainder of the time waiting for their meals, but it's mostly jokes and banter, which caitlin was fine with. the waitress comes back with their food. she places a napkin down next to caitlin as she sets caitlin's salmon dish in front of her, caitlin looks up confused, because she doesn't remember anyone else getting extra napkins, nor asking for any. the waitress mouths 'call me' before she walks away winking. caitlin picks up the napkin and reads what's underneath, when she does read it, she closes her eyes and sighs much louder than she intended it to be.
"what's up caitlin?" steph says a oblivious look on her face, as her cheeks are full with food.
"it's nothing," caitlin sighs as she places the napkin back onto the table, albeit face up. leah next to her notices and picks up the napkin and laughs.
"well, well, well, i wouldn't call this nothing foord," she says waving the napkin in front of caitlin's face. caitlin is through with defending herself this time, she picks up a fork and knife and tries to start eating.
"that's hilarious! two times in one week, not gonna take the number this time cait?" beth asks. caitlin looks over to beth, who has a giddy smile on her face, and viv right next to her, who, like everybody at the table has a smug smile on their face.
"i'm not very interested in her if i'm going to be honest," caitlin says flatly, cutting a piece of salmon.
"why not? she's eye candy, and don't give me the bullshit that she's not your type, because that, is definitely your type," katie says. this has now become the topic of conversation at their table, and caitlin doesn't want to hide anything from her teammates, let alone her friends. at the same time however, she doesn't know where this thing with lia will go. yes, she's attracted to lia, maybe very attracted to her, in more ways than looks alone, but she has no idea what lia thinks of her. to be quite straightforward, they've barely seen each other.
"earth to caitlin? wake up pleaseee," jen says waving her hand in front of caitlin's face, "spaced out there," she says returning to her meal.
"sure you can say she's my type katie, but i have better things to be worried about than if someone's my type or not. it might sound repetitive, but i am really not interested in her, no matter how hard she flirts with me," caitlin replies relaxedly. everyone at the table raises their eyebrows, and the moment feels all too long for caitlin before everybody returns to talking about separate things.
when it comes the time for the bill to be paid, everybody is arguing who is going to pay. everyone insisting that it'll be their treat and there's no need to argue over such a little thing. caitlin, steph and beth are going at it, steph saying this is in return for the smoothies, and caitlin arguing that the smoothies were nothing and she could take care of the bill. a similar conversation is going on, katie and jen are telling leah to pay for the bill as a joke, but leah isn't quite catching on. the bickering ensues for a while, but the waitress comes back to their table, thanking everybody before viv grabs her card and places it back into her wallet. everybody stares in disbelief, they had all been arguing and viv took it upon herself to make sure that the bill was paid when nobody was looking.
"you lot are very loud, did you know that?" viv says pocketing her card.
leah drops the girls off at home one by one, and eventually, it's her and caitlin left, who's slouched in the passenger seat enjoying the music.
"caitlin," she says turning down the tune, which gets the attention of caitlin, who sits up in the seat. "could you tell me what happened the night when we went bar hopping? i've asked all the other girls, but none of them really seem to have a collection of what happened after we arrived to the one on trent," she says driving slowly.
"oh, um i don't really know what happened inside the bar, katie called me around 11:30 to pick you guys up on steph's phone, she said some shit had gone down to you, so i was just roped into helping pick you all up," caitlin says calmly, expecting an entirely different question.
"damn, you got all of us home by yourself? must've been a hassle," she whispers.
"nah, not by myself, got somebody to help me, you're quite the drunk talker, it was funny," caitlin says smiling.
"ah right! katie said you went out that night yourself, sorry for ruining your night, god i must've said something really bad," leah replies embarassed.
"she thought it was quite funny, all of you drunk actually," caitlin grins. "and don't worry, it wasn't something really bad, was something i'd never think you would say out loud that openly for that matter though."
"well, whatever it was, i hope i meant it in the slightest,"
"yeah, i would hope so," caitlin says wistfully. leah says a goodbye to caitlin as she helps get her training gear out of the boot. caitlin waves goodbye as she sees leah drive out and back home. when she's done with her nighttime routine, she's sat in her bed scrolling through social media, when she remembers that she's got lia's number now.
- text messages
caitlin
-- hey, its caitlin, thanks for returning my jacket, even though you didn't have to
lia
-- hi! i think its ridiculous that you wouldn't want your own jacket back...
caitlin
-- well, i thought you would keep it, besides it looked much better on you than me :)
lia
-- that's sweet of you, but really the guilt knowing i had your jacket and not returning it to you when you might have wanted it back would've eaten me alive haha
caitlin
-- why is that?
lia
-- when i was little, i stole something from my mother, and it was very expensive, and i kept it for like a week before i finally confessed to papa, and lets say she was extremely mad
-- also knowing that i had it the entire time when she kept asking me if i knew where it was and i kept saying no
-- after that encounter having stuff that isn't truly mine makes me really antsy
caitlin
-- aww that's adorable, how old were you then?
lia
-- 7, at that time, i'd probably say i was the most rebellious, i was very impatient and naughty, running around everywhere and stuff like that
caitlin
-- i can't imagine you being rebellious!
lia
-- well, i can be very rebellious, in fact texting 2 minutes before a meeting is something i probably shouldn't be doing, but you can be an exception
caitlin
-- well miss wälti, wouldn't want to keep you waiting, we can talk later?
lia
-- definitely :)
caitlin smiles one last time before charging her phone and heading off to bed.
-
wow. i'm still processing the jordan transfer news, but i understand the reason behind it. new transfers though! jonas' winter transfer window is always exciting, victoria (or as i like to refer to her as, viccy p), and kathrine kühl were excellent signings. long chapter this time around because i'm still writing the next few chapters. i hope you enjoyed this one though, thanks for reading, see you later!