Last Ride

Chapter 3

Still Hayley's POV

I wake up to the sound of my alarm. I roll out of bed and hope does the same. Today was Sunday so we just had a light practice and film session today.

Hope and I headed down for breakfast. We were one of the first ones down there.  I must have looked in pain because Hope turns to me and and places her hand on my forearm.

"Are you sore?" Asks Hope breaking the silence between the two of us, we just sat down after grabbing some food.

"Yeah, I always feel It in the morning. But it's not to bad." I reply taking a bite of my bagel.

"I can't imagine what It feels like to get bucked off a bull or a horse." She says

"Yeah it's definitely not fun. I would say you get used to It after a while but you don't. It's painful every time, the dirt definitely makes It a little softer but not by much." I say as Kelley and Alex come and sit next to us.

"What's up lovebirds?" Asks Kelley causing Alex to laugh. I could see Hope blushing and I'm sure I was too. Hope moves her hand and sits back in her chair.

"Kel give It a rest." Says Alex still laughing, they change the subject and we start eating.

We start talking about random stuff and more of the girls come down for breakfast. We had a few hours before practice. Hope and I headed back up to our rooms to get away from Kelley and Alex. I know they are just playing but I know it's starting to bug Hope.

"Wanna take a walk?" I ask

"Yeah sure." she says getting up, we both grab our room keys and head down to the lobby. We walk down the street.

"So what made you want to try bull riding?" She asks

"My brother is a professional bull rider. I guess I wanted to follow in his footsteps. I had to wait until I was 18 though, my parents didn't want me to bull ride." I say

"Yeah I can see why they didn't want you doing It before." She says

"Yeah which I get too, they have always been protective of me. I'm the baby so I guess they will always think of me as their little girl." I say

"Is It just you and your brother?" She asks

"I have a older sister, she's currently stationed in Iraq in the army." I say

"Does she bull ride or anything like that?" She asks

"Not really, she loves to ride but she never got around to competing like my brother and I." I say

"Well that's awesome of her. How long as she been in the army?" She asks

"4 years, she's been gone for 11 months, we have no idea when she'll be back." I say

"Oh wow that's a long time. Are you and your family able to be in contact with her?" She asks

"Yeah we get to talk every couple weeks for about an hour. Every time she thinks she's coming home It always gets extended for random reasons." I say

"Ooh, that must be frustrating." She says

"Yeah but part of the job I guess." I say

"What about you Solo? What made you want to be goalie?" I ask

"I was actually a forward at first before I came goalie. High school and lower I was forward and then when I got to college I
made the switch to goalie." She says

"What no way!" I say looking at her with a shocked expression on my face.

"Yeah, I scored 109 goals and led my team to 3 back to back  league titles and a state championship.  I tried goalkeeping and fell in love with It. I'm not gonna lie switching from winning games to saving games was rough but I learned a lot from mentors. I learned to read my opponents runs towards  goal to stop them. How to position my defenders to make sure we could succeed. A lot of strategy and tactics." She says

"Wow that's still  awesome!" I say

"Thanks" she says smiling as we continue our walk, there was a park so with a huge pond so we decided to walk around for a bit before sitting down in the grass.

"Do you have any siblings?" I ask

"3, two brothers Marcus and Dave and I have a half sister, her name is Teresa." She says

"Oh cool!" I say

"Yeah they are." I She says

We fall silent for a few minutes, both of us just watching the geese and ducks. There was a momma duck with 6-7 babies and they were so cute.  It was super peaceful out right now, probably because It was still pretty early so the park hadn't filled up to much.

A few minutes later my watch buzzes and reminds me that we have practice in 45 minutes. Hope looked like she was sending a text on her phone.

"Practice in 45 minutes, we should probably head back." I say breaking the silence. Hope nods her head and finished her text, I was already up so I held my hand out to help her up. She gladly took It and we walked back to the hotel. We headed up to get changed into our training gear before heading down to the lobby to wait with the other girls.

The bus arrived and we all got on to head to the stadium. I guess today was an open training so fans were already seated and waiting for us.  We got started with stretching, footwork drills and then moving to drills for passing and shooting.

I was over at the bench and Hope comes up behind me. I hand her a water bottle and she takes a drink.

"You ready for tomorrow's game?" I ask

"Yeah, I think we got It in the bag. What about you? Are you nervous since you might be getting your first cap?" She asks

"Yeah I'm a bit nervous, but ready." I respond fixing my hair, but the band breaks. Hope takes her glove off and pulls off the extra hair band and hands It to me.

"Always have a back up on me." she says chuckling and I couldn't help but smile. I take the band from her and continue to fix my hair. I throw It in a bun and we continue with our practice until coach tells us we're done.

After practice we signed autographs before we headed to the locker room. We grabbed our stuff and headed to the bus. The drive back to the hotel was only 20 minutes or so.

Some of the girls decided to go swimming, so we went up and changed into our swim suits. After  an hour and a half we got out so we could get changed for dinner and film. Hope got in first and I got in after her so we didn't smell like chlorine. We head to the conference room and as soon as everyone is counted for Jill starts. We eat dinner and talk with each other for 30-45 minutes and then Jill starts the film. It was one of our old games against Colombia.  Everyone became focused on the film and soon enough It was over. We were excused until curfew, most of us stayed in since we had a game tomorrow. Hope and I headed to Kelley and Alex's room to hang out before we decided to go to bed.

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Thanks for reading!