Talex Who (Tobin/You)

38

After boot camp, I fly from Denver to LA, because I've got a meeting with the school about the field house, and they want me to do the photo shoot for the window decal. So when I land, my mom picks me up from the airport and drops me off at the car rental place, even though she insisted on driving me to Malibu for the meeting, I insisted that she'd need the car for something knowing my folks and how crazy they are, so I pay to rent the GTR that was shown to me and head to Malibu for my meeting. I landed at noon, it took an hour to convince my mom to take me to get a rental, and about thirty minutes to get the car. It's a damn good thing my meeting wasn't until three. When I get to she school and into the athletic office's conference room, I apologize about the slight delay as I come in and shake hands with the same three men I've been shaking hands with every month since October.

"Well, we're glad you could make it. We want you to see the progress of the field house, then from there Karen and Wade Davis will have you suit up for the photoshoot. We ordered your uniform special, since these uniforms would be too small for you." Steve says and I chuckle a little.

"Not sure if I should be arrogant or offended."

"All in the eye of the beholder." Steven says and I nod, taking the bags that the jersey, shorts, and socks come in when they're set in front of me, following the guys out to the field and smiling when I see that the field house is really close to being done. They show me everything and introduce me to the lady in charge of everything. I shake hands with her after awkwardly shifting the bags around. After all of that, I'm led over to Karen and Wade Davis, a local photographer and the father of one of my old high school teammates. She was a year older than me, we were co captains with like six other girls on the team, and she actually came back to Malibu after college to join the police force. I haven't seen her in all my time spent here, thankfully, because knowing my luck, she'd be knocking on my rental car window asking for my license and registration. Which hasn't happened. I'm a good kid. I shake hands with Wade and smile, thanking him when he congratulates me on the WWC four years ago, the NWSL championship in October, and that he can't wait to see me play in France this summer, also telling me how heartbroken Kenna was when we didn't medal in Rio. Kenna is his daughter. He's only got one, one child, and Kenna was it. Cute as hell Varsity letterman, soccer and basketball, yet she was straight, I don't know how many times my co captains caught me checking her out in the locker room, but oh well. I've got Tobin.

"So you go get dressed." Karen says and I roll my eyes.

"Can I at least go get my shit?" I ask and she nods, so I go to the rental car and bring it around, grabbing my kit bag after parking the car and turning it off. When I get into the locker room, I change quickly, ignoring the slack jawed looks I get from the cheerleaders who were most likely skipping. When I'm completely dressed, I grab my trash and my bag and throw the trash on my way out, walking onto the field, tossing my bag down on the turf before sitting down so I can put my shin pads on before fighting with my new cleats. They're not new in the sense of just released, but in the sense that I've never worn them except for when I tried them on. They're Hypervenoms from the release before the most recent one. Which I was actually part of. Yeah. Surprise, Nike wanted to do business with me for some reason, so my ass is in a commercial and in picture advertisements. So fancy. Once my cleats are on, I roll my eyes.

"Fuck, the ankle things are bitches." I say and look up at Karen when she laughs. She of course stops when she realizes I'm staring at her and I tie my cleats before getting up, putting my hair up and looking at Karen. "Did I pull an Alex in high school? Not like it matters, but did I?" I ask and Karen shakes her head, tossing me a turquoise Nike headband.

"You did headbands." She says and I nod.

"Glad someone remembered." I say before letting her put me through a warm up to get me sweating and then go through everything else while Wade snaps pictures. After a while of getting me with the ball, he stands up from where he was laying on his side, and looks at me.