Saved By Carli

IV

Sage's POV

Today the team has practice before the  first of two games against New Zealand. Carli, Christen and I are going down to get breakfast. When we enter all eyes lock on to us and it takes everything in me not to run away and hide. I guess Christen noticed this because she grabs my hand and squeezes it. I slowly calm down. It's weird how that works, but I don't care because I feel better.

Carli talks to me and Christen and says,"Sage why don't you go sit down with Christen and I will get us some food Okay?" I just nod. I still feel everybody's eyes on me and I'm getting self conscious now. Christen leads us over to sit with Alex, Tobin, Ash, Ali, and Kelley. Thankfully the two girls at the table that haven't introduced themselves yet don't swarm me with questions. I know they want to and Kelley only waits until Carli comes and sits down with our food to start talking.

"Hey Sage I'm Kelley"

"And I'm Tobin and its very nice to meet you"

"Hi its nice to meet you too" I say as I push around my food while looking at them with an awestruck look on my face. They notice, but choose not to say anything until I do.

"Sorry I'm so quiet. It's just weird to be eating breakfast with my heroes."

Kelley being Kelley talks first. "Awe well it's cool to know we inspire people, but we are just normal people too." Tobin then speaks up, "Are you coming with us to practice?" I just shrug and look at Carli not really knowing what I'm suppose to do while she is practicing.

"Yeah she is." Carli answers for me.

Once breakfast is over everyone left to grabs their bags and heads towards the bus. While I'm waiting for all the girls to get their bags a girl, I'm guessing around my age, with brown hair who is beautiful comes up to me.

"Hey my name's Mallory, but you can call me Mal."

"Hi Mal I'm Sage." I smile.

She chuckles "Well Sage would you like to sit with me on the bus?"

"I'd love to Mal." She grins and cheers silently.

Once everyone has loaded their stuff on the bus Mal and I go and find seats to sit in. The drive to the training pitch flies by as her and I talk about any and everything. Like whats it like being the youngest on the team, our favorite music artists, our favorite foods, and our favorite players. Mal seems like a really great girl. I hope we can grow closer to each other, because I really could use a friend like her.

While Mal is answering a text I look around to try and find Carli and when I do she has a smile on her face and she is looking at me. I return the smile and sigh contently. I'm so glad this isn't a dream.

- - - - -

At the teams practice I try to pay attention to the practice so I can better understand more of what they are doing, but I can only focus on two things, Mal and Carli. Mal is stunning and when she is playing she looks so free like she is the only person with the ball and nobody else is on the pitch with her. With Carli I now see why the team respects her so much. She is an amazing leader. She always knows what her team needs to do to breakdown the opposition and she knows how to get the best out of each and every player.

During lunch more people came up to me to introduce themselves, which kinda overwhelmed me but luckily they didn't all do it at once.

After lunch the girls have the rest of the day off to relax since their game is tomorrow which I'm excited to go to since I've only seen them on tv. After the team lunch some of the girls are taking me out shopping which should be fun.