A whistle blew loud beside me and Emily, scaring me and her and we both laughed it off.
“Alright, alright ladies hustle in now.” Coach said firmly gesturing the other girls near the bench to come over quickly.
All the girls formed a group in front of the coach and sat down.
“Alright girls, nice seeing you back again this season, I’m hoping we can make it to the finals again this year like we did last year.”
All the girls clapped along with the coach and some parents nearby listening in on what he was saying. The coach kept talking about where to go if we need new uniforms and going over safety procedures like he did every year so I drifted off since I have heard it tons of times. Suddenly the boy Emily pointed out was heading over to us. I started staring at him; I was locked in and couldn’t look away. He brushed his fingers into his curly hair in the front of his face and pushing it off to the side. He was wearing a white t-shirt and black shorts along with other soccer gear I had not noticed he had on before. He was now just a few steps away before he would be standing next to his Uncle.
“Aye, here’s my nephew” the coach exclaimed
Coach swung his arm up and wrapped it around the curly haired boy’s shoulders. The boy smiled at all the girls and locked his eyes on me. He had amazing deep green sparkling eyes I suddenly felt a shiver go down my spine and I quickly looked down to the ground and started nervously picking at the grass in front of me.
“Ladies, this is my nephew, Harry Styles. He lives about 6 hours away from here and he’s going to be working as my assistant for the summer to get some money and if you guys treat him nice enough he might stay and some of you might see him in school when the year starts up.”
Almost all the girls were giggling, I could tell by their fluttering eyes they all had crushes on Harry.
Emily was nudging me by poking her long nails into my side trying to get my attention. I looked up at her and she was nudging her head in the direction where our coach and Harry was standing I looked over and Harry was staring right at me, even when I caught him staring he still didn’t look away. He smiled wide showing off his actually quite adorable dimples. I felt my cheeks heat up unexpectedly. My face fell down to the grass again. Our coach was just finally finishing up talking about the plans for this season. He then told everyone to get up because we were going to start our warm-ups. We all got up and started running laps around the field; Emily and I were running side by side like usual. We were casually talking about our plans for this summer as we jogged around the still damp grass when Harry caught up to us and was running on my side making me in the middle of Emily and him.
“Hey you two, coach told me to get to know you guys and the rest of your team, I thought I’d start with you ladies.” He said in a friendly voice to me and Emily.
“Hi! Your name is Harry, right?” Emily questioned and ran a bit in front of me so she could make better eye contact with him.
“Yes,” he replied with a friendly smile.
Harry kept running beside me though, after a small pause of silence he cleared his throat and said “So, you’re Katie right?”
I felt butterflies in my stomach “Yes,” I nervously responded wondering why he knew my name already. “Your coach was telling me you’re trying to get a scholarship, which is really awesome! You must have some pretty good skills then.”
I was growing tired from running quickly so I just nodded my head to conserve energy for running instead of wasting it on talking. Harry opened his mouth to say something when the coach blew his whistle twice indicating to join him so he can talk about something to us.
He playfully punched my shoulder and said “to be continued” is a low raspy voice and grinned exposing one of his dimples.
I nodded and smiled back at him. He ran ahead of us getting to the couch first. Emily hip bumped me and opened her mouth wide in surprise and giggled “Oh my god, he totally fancies you.”
I replied sharply “No he does not!”
She rolled her eyes at me and smiled and ran ahead of me.
“Alright ladies that was good running. It’s time for some drills now. We are going to start off with the simple drills we always do.” Coach said to me and the team.
He then pointed over at two of my teammates and said “Can you set up the pylons” then pointed at me saying “And you go and help Harry with bringing over the soccer balls from the back of my car.”
Then he reached deep in his front pocket throwing me his keys to unlock the trunk. I caught them and jogged over to Harry’s side.
“I guess we can continue now” he smirked and let out a quiet laugh.
I asked “why soccer?” after a pause from his laugh.
His eyebrow fell and he looked confused to my question.
“Err… I meant, why are you doing soccer as your job?” I nervously replied
“Oh,” then smiled showing his deep dimples on his cheeks.
“I live in a really small town, soccer was what I grew up doing and it was honestly my favorite thing to do, I knew myself I could make it far and then…”
He drifted off his sentence and looked down to the ground.
I looked over at him; his long curly hair was hanging over the front of his face. He quickly regained himself and pushed his hair back over to the side.
“My parents, they were driving me to a really important soccer game. It was the finals; my coach told me a scout from a university I really wanted to go to was going to be there watching me and if my team and I won the game there would have been no doubt he would accept me. I would be training with the big guys this summer, if…”
He started drifting off again and then said “keys?”
I was so into his story I didn’t notice we arrived at the car. I jumped a little trying to get the keys in order to put in the keyhole. I turned the key and opened the back. He smiled and grabbed the two nets full of deflated soccer balls. I grunted.
“What is it?” Harry asked with a giggle.
“Oh,” I laughed a bit.
“Just these are deflated and that means coach is most likely going to make me and you blow them up.”
Harry grunted now being caught up in the loop of why I was grunting. He lugged out of the nets and placed them on the ground slamming the trunk closed and I locked it back up. I grabbed one net bag and he grabbed the other and we dragged them behind us.
“Okay, back to what I was saying” Harry calmly said to me.
“Harry, you don’t have to finish it… I mean, I could tell you were uncomfortable telling what you said so far.”
He shook his head and said “No, no… let me finish it’s not a big deal. Basically, when we driving there my parents were all excited for me and I was extremely excited myself. When my dad, who was driving, looked back at me to give me a smile after saying how proud he was of me, a drunk driver came over a hill smashing right into us, my parents were extremely hurt and my right leg broke badly. The drunk driver died on impact and my father later on in the hospital. I couldn’t make it to the game, and even if I did I couldn’t play because of my leg. My mother felt so horrible for it happening. My dream was ruined and the love of her life passed away the exact same day.”
By the end of his traumatizing story we arrived back to the coach.
Coach pointed at the flat soccer balls, then pointed to us, then pointed to a spot over by the bleachers where a pump was located. I started walking over to the bleachers.
Harry said “I’ll be over in a second I just have to say something to my uncle.”
I nodded and walked over. As I walked over I watched my teammates do drills. I turned back and looked at my destination and started thinking about the story Harry just told me. Suddenly when I was deep in my thoughts a hand wrapped around my shoulder tightly. I looked over and it was Harry.
“Can I help you,” I giggled.
“Yes, ma’am” he replied mocking the voice of coach.
He pointed at the flat balls, pointed to me, then pointed to the pump beside us, imitating what coach did. I laughed and he shrugged his shoulders.
“Would I make a good coach?” Harry asked in a playful tone and then did a half smile showing only one of his dimples.
I giggled, nodded and gave him thumbs up. He winked at me and bent over opening up the bags. He sat down handing me a pump and I grabbed it and sat beside him.