Gold Rush

The road to SGP

Monday

The girls had spent the previous night going through their schedules for the upcoming two weeks with the England squad and it looked to be jam-packed. A completely different schedule to what they were used to at City. There seemed to be more structure in the early hours of the day, which allowed for lengthier down time.

Once they'd inhaled a large pizza between them, they relaxed with multiple cups of tea (wild) and some trashy reality tv programme as background noise to their babbles.

Sophie fully opened up to her friend about the situation she'd found herself in with Jack, and Kate swore she'd sort of known what was going on for a couple of months, but their obvious electricity and chemistry during West Ham game had cemented her suspicions.

They both packed up Sophie's car with enough bags to resemble going on an 'around the world' cruise.

'Why can't I ever pack light?' Kate huffed as she fastened her seatbelt.

'It's a woman's prerogative to bring 38 pairs of knickers Kate, we must be prepared for each eventuality.. like wetting ourselves multiple times a day' Sophie laughed as she set up her sat nav.

5 minutes into the journey and Kate was already putting in a stop request for a caffeine fix.

'so.. yay or nay?'

'You're such a bad influence Kate, I really need to cut this kind of crap out of my diet...'

Sophie pulled the car into a Starbucks drive through, '...But today is not that day'.

——————————————————

Jack's phone continuously (and annoyingly), vibrated on the bedside table next to him, it was slowly but harshly waking him up from a luscious deep sleep.

4 missed calls: Philipa
3 missed calls: Stonesy

He tried to call Phil back straight away as he'd only been trying a few seconds ago and he answered immediately.

'Grealo, you up?'
'I am now..' Jack replied bluntly, 'Wots the time?'
'9am.. car is comin for ya in 20 minutes pal'
'Cheers. See ya there Phil.'

The lads had an agreement to check up on each other if any of them hadn't wrote in the group chat before 9am. Without fail, someone would have to ring Jack and (un)surprisingly, he was nearly always asleep.

He put the phone down, clearly still a little disorientated from his slumber.
Of course, they were heading to St George's Park today.

Jack allowed himself five minutes to wake up.. Sophie had made damn sure he was settled for the night.. he could barely remember ending the FaceTime. But he definitely remembered what she did before he passed out... he fondly smiled at the memory and felt himself twitch.

Nope. No time.

He launched himself out of bed and had the worlds quickest shower.
After rapidly drying his body, he roughly pulled on his team comfies, which were navy branded tracksuit pants with a matching hoodie, a casual royal blue 'ENG' t-shirt, a padded navy coat and of course an England cap, under which he scooped his thick hair to hide the bed head 'do he was sporting.

1 new message:
Imran - usual spot J.

Jack hurriedly put his two phones in his backpack along with his wallet, headphones, protein shot and a banana for good measure.

He was thankful he'd packed yesterday and left his case ready by the door, knowing full well what he was like first thing in the morning.

As Jack stood in-front of the lift, waiting for it to reach him he went through his mental checklist of what he needed to remember.

Phones... wallet... passport...
Shit.
Bloody passport again.

In a silent race to beat the lift, he quickly legged it back through to his bedroom and located his passport. God, the wind ups would have been relentless for forgetting it again, he was starting to get a name for himself.

He looked down and glanced at his feet.
No trainers on.

Give me strength.

Once again, he made his way through the apartment, into the dressing room and grabbed the first pair of colourful Nike sneakers he laid eyes on. He rushed his feet into them and stopped for a moment to acknowledge the niggling feeling that he had forgotten something.

Surely nothing else.

He sighed, starting to agitate himself.
'Me fokin BOOTS man'
Football boots.
They were exactly where he left them, beside the front door.

He snatched them up angrily, as if it were entirely the boots fault and locked the door. The lift doors were still open, loyally waiting for him to step inside.

'Get me out of ea'
He was more than ready for 2-3 hours of sitting in the back of the car. Time to switch off, listen to his music and explore old match footage on YouTube.

09.22am.
Not too bad.

——————————————————

1 new message:
JG

Sophie swiped away the notification on the interior smart screen and grabbed her phone before slyly glancing over at the passenger seat, Kate was obliviously nursing her coffee and appeared to be heavily invested in whatever she was reading on her own phone.

J:  U up? Lol x

S:  Of course I am, en route until about 5 mins ago, Kate wanted coffee x

J:  Jel, I'd kill for a coffee. I slept like a log 😉 x

S:  I'm sure Imran will stop for one. But Gareth might not thank you when you turn up wired, you have too much energy as it is without the addition of caffeine x
S:  Also... I'm glad 😉 x

J:  I suppose.. don't wanna piss gaffer off already. Yea.. I could do with that kind of relaxation every night... x

S:  Don't push it, Grealish!

J:  😳😳
J:  Y'know, I could just shag you right now. Right here in the car x

S:  See what I mean.. you don't need any coffee Jack! I wouldn't be able to look Imran in the eyes again x

J:  Nah, he wouldn't be there x

S:  Good to know. Now stop, I'm with Kate. See you in a few hours 😘 x

J:  You will bab 🥵😘 xx

The butterflies began happily batting around, right up into Sophie's throat.
Jack was just lovely, so lovely. There failed to be any other words that described him today.
Just thinking about him and his ways made her copy his cute dopey smile across her own daft face.

Kate cleared her throat.
Sophie looked up at her and they exchanged a knowing glance.

'Get driving you mushy sod!!'

Sophie couldn't argue, she simply shrugged, took a gulp of her latte and started up the car once more.