beautiful mistake - joe burrow

39

Somehow, having a bruised shoulder had its advantages, too, Elle realized when Dan dropped her off in front of her apartment complex at just before ten that evening. Sure, the restriction in movement, the bruise and taking the pain killers Nick gave her weren't great, but she could definitely get used to shorter and more relaxed work hours since she couldn't do everything.

She peeled out of her clothes, another thing that wasn't exactly pleasant, and got in the shower. It felt good to have the water running down her body and all the worries and thoughts seemed to fall silent for a few moments.

After the shower, she squeezed into her long sleep shirt and put on the brace Nick had given her, which was pretty impractical while she was at work after all, so Elle had to promise him she would wear it in the evening.

She checked her phone to see if Joe had written to her in the meantime, but was disappointed to find that she still had no new message and wondered if he had even discovered the number.

She quickly texted Celine to see if she had time to facetime, since she wanted to finally let her best friend in on the whole thing. Nick was right, after all. She should get in with Joe, at her pace and as far as it felt right for her, but Elle knew she needed her best friend for emotional support for that and Celine could only help her if she knew about everything.

By the time Celine had answered her, Elle had made herself comfortable on the couch with her dinner and was just trying as best she could to hold onto the bowl of chopped steamed vegetables with her injured arm while she tried to spear the bits with the fork in her other hand, which wasn't going so well.

Just as she finally had a tactic out, Celine called. Elle took the call and set her cell phone against the stack of books on the coffee table she had set up ahead of time.

"Hey, babe...wait...what happened? What's wrong with your arm?" Celine immediately bristled when she spotted Elle's brace. "Hey girl. Just bruised my shoulder. I'm fine, don't worry" Elle reassured her as she tried to continue eating.

"What did you do?" Celine asked worriedly. "Playing football against the boys" Elle grinned."I thought you just had to treat them and not play against them" "yeah, longer story I'm actually calling you about.  Do you have time?"

"sure, I have time. Javier's at some boring business dinner, so I'd actually really appreciate you entertaining me" Celine grinned. "Alright..." Elle took a deep breath. "So...." she started to tell.

As she had done with Nick, she told Celine everything that had happened with Joe over the past few weeks. Every little detail, every word that the two of them had exchanged, even every look they had given each other, she mentioned to her best friend.

"...And now today I wrote my number on the coffee cup and purposely left it on his seat, but he still hasn't written to me and I don't even know if he saw it" Elle finished her monologue sighing and ran her right hand over her face.

Celine stared at her through the screen for a few moments, speechless, before suddenly starting to squeal and fidget wildly. "Oh my god, I don't believe it" she squealed with delight.

"I told you from the beginning that something was going to happen between Joe and you. I'm so happy for you. Oh my god, you snagged an NFL player..." Celine could barely contain her excitement, but was interrupted by Elle.

"Wohoo, first of all we are not together nor do I know if he is okay with me taking it slow because as I mentioned he doesn't write to me. Secondly, none of this has anything to do with him playing in the NFL" she clarified.

"I know it doesn't. I just can't believe you're finally getting involved with someone again and then fishing Joe Burrow on top of that. You really know how to play the game" Celine winked at her. "speaking of playing the game, why didn't you actually lose extra and go on a date with him?"

"Celine, you should know me so well that you know I don't lose extra, especially when my opponent is male" Elle grinned. "Well, yeah, I know that...it's just that you haven't really been like that since your last relationship, Elle" Celine replied cautiously.

Elle swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. "Yeah, you're right about that..." she mumbled.

"But hey, babe, I'm glad you're getting back to your old self. I missed that Elle" Celine smiled lovingly at her. Elle smiled back. "Yeah, I missed her too"

"seems like the new job and Joe is really doing you good" Elle nodded. "It couldn't be going better, well except for that" she nodded at the brace.

Celine laughed before looking at Elle with the happiest expression Elle had seen on her face in a long time. "I'm so proud of you, you know that? I'm so proud that you're going for it and that you're getting more and more back to your old self. I'm so happy for you that there's finally someone in your life that makes you laugh again, Elle. You deserve it after all this shit"

"Thank you Celine. You don't know how lucky I am to have you" Elle replied seeing tears shining in her eyes as well as Celine's.

Suddenly a message popped up on Elle's screen and excitedly she cried out. "Celine, he wrote! He just texted me!" she gasped in delight and Celine started squealing again.

Nervously, Joe looked at his phone every two seconds as he tried to distract himself with the movie that was playing in the background and was supposed to calm him down so he could sleep peacefully later.

It had now been five minutes since he texted Elle and she still hadn't responded. Maybe she was already asleep. Maybe she was making him wait extra. Maybe she was busy doing other things and that's why she wasn't on her phone. Maybe she didn't know what to answer.

That's how it had been for him. Ever since Ja'Marr had alerted him to the number earlier, he had been thinking about what to write to her. A simple 'hey' would have been too boring and so uncreative. However, he also didn't want to be too pushy and drive Elle away again.

In the end, he had started four messages, but deleted them all before he was finally satisfied and sent one.

Hey,
I hope you're enjoying your early evening despite the shoulder pain.
What are you up to?
Joe

But the more he read the message, the more stupid he felt. He could have been a little more personal. Should he delete the message, hope Elle hadn't read it yet, and write again?

Suddenly, a reply from Elle popped up and Joe frantically unlocked his phone.

Just got off the phone with my best friend and am slowly getting ready for bed. Early evenings are great
What are you doing?

Thanks for 27k reads!!!

I'm so obsessed with posting the perfect story that I spent 3 hours to create a fake screenshot of Elles fucking Instagram profile yesterday (it's needed in a few chapters) plus I spent the whole weekend on creating Elles apartment on an app and I'm still working on Joes house.
Write in the comments if you want to see the results lol

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