Faking It

Chapter 5: The Other Ellerby

Text from: Jake Morris-Whittaker, 6:05 am

Ellie's Daily Reminder 2/180: The early bird gets the worm

(aka mom isn't there to haul you out of bed when you sleep through your alarm now)

Time to rise and shine, El!

~*~

I moaned and cursed the world when my alarm went off the next morning, smacking at my phone until it shut up.

"Oh good, you're up," Gyeong-Ja whispered. "I'm going to grab something quick to eat before my run. You want me to bring you anything?"

I blinked up at her in the sun bleeding through the curtain cracks. "How are you dressed? And so damned perky?"

She shrugged. "Jet lag, I guess. It's evening in Seoul right now. Plus I'm always an early riser. You want tea or coffee or something?"

"Carbs," I yawned, shoving myself upright. "Lots of carbs."

"I'll grab you a muffin."

She was gone before I could ask for chocolate chip.

It was only the promise of the muffin that got me out of bed. I still dragged my feet as I got dressed, though, and only hurried up when Gyeong-Ja returned with a blueberry muffin and a stern warning.

"You should get there ASAP," she said, handing me a full, reusable water bottle stamped with the Kingsbridge logo. "Audra says coach benches anyone who's late."

So I stuffed my face full of blueberry goodness, washed it down with a gulp of water, and sprinted to where Gyeong-Ja had dropped a pin on my Google maps.

The girls were clustered around one of the metal benches beside the field, while the guys had assembled around the other. Some of them had red and gold Kingsbridge soccer socks, while others wore generic white or black, like mine. JJ was already in one of the nets, warming up with a dark-haired guy firing merciless shots at him. Audra waved as she tied her cleats.

"Your brother plays keeper too?" I asked, thunking down beside her.

"He does, but I'm better." She checked her watch. "That was close. I told G to warn you about being late. Coach despises tardiness."

"Yeah, yeah." I yawned again. "I'm not a morning person."

Audra grinned. "You're about to be, if you want to make this team."

"All right, ladies!" came a shout from behind me. A woman with a severe black ponytail, brown skin without a stitch of makeup, and a Kingsbridge track jacket dropped a pair of duffel bags stuffed with soccer balls behind me and fished out a clipboard. Audra shooed at me to hurry up as I dug through my sports bag for my cleats.

"Welcome back, old hands, and welcome, new blood. I'm Coach Patel, and if you expect to make this team, then I expect you to take soccer as seriously as I do." She glanced down at the clipboard. "Sign yourselves in so I can see what I have to work with."

When the clipboard made its way to me, Audra muttered, "Write defense. The entire JV midfield line decided to show up."

I scrawled my name down, along with defense, even though the goal-scoring midfielder part of my soul rebelled. But before I could change my mind and write both, Coach was ordering the veterans to lead us in a warm up.

The muffin Gyeong-Ja had brought me fuelled the ladder sprints and agility drills, but the competition was stiff. When we moved onto ball handling, it didn't get any easier. Where I'd once been far and away more skilled than my old teammates, now I was wondering if I'd even make starter. The girl I was paired with for keep-away was so annoyingly good that when I finally got the ball, I booted it away with all my might.

And then it smacked right into one of the guys' backs. He whirled around, blue eyes blazing.

"Oh, sh—sorry, I'm so sorry!" I called out, jogging over.

Holding my gaze, he kicked it away from me, all the way across the field, then turned back to the cross drill the boys' coach was running.

"Jerk," I muttered, sprinting around the boys to fetch the ball. By the time I made it back to our side, Coach Patel was blowing her whistle, releasing us all for a water break.

Audra jogged over and punched my arm. "No!" She brandished her goalie-gloved finger in my face. "What did I tell you?"

"What?" I demanded, gulping down water. "It's not my fault he—"

"Yeah, like you didn't hit Theo Ellerby on purpose." She rolled her eyes. "Stop flirting. He's more trouble than his brother, and you're in enough trouble already if you think you're good enough to make starter."

My stomach flip-flopped, but I shoved that worry away. "I wasn't flirting! I didn't mean to kick it at him, I swear."

But I couldn't help the glance I risked towards the other end of the soccer pitch. Now that Audra had pointed it out, the similarities between the dark-haired, blue-eyed guy I'd hit with my rogue ball and his hot student council president brother were obvious. Theo was tall, like William, and sun-bronzed, with the same broad-shoulders. But Theo's hair was longer, and his blue eyes were nowhere near as kind as his brother's green ones. Especially when he'd clearly kicked my ball away on purpose.

Audra cuffed me across the head. "Stop it, you lovesick ninny."

"Ow! Okay, okay!" I ducked away from her right as Coach blew her whistle.

At her instruction, we all lined up for penalty shot trials on Audra. I joined the queue, impatiently juggling my ball and trying to ignore my urge to glance over at the boys.

But I failed. And when I looked over my shoulder, I caught Theo looking away.

**A/N: Tried something a little different for the text from Jake this chapter. Thanks to those of you who had great feedback from the last chapters about it! I think I'm going to continue like this, with images in the chapter headings and plain text to follow for Jake's daily reminders. I'm still undecided about how to treat mid-chapter texts, but I'll definitely make sure I keep things accessible with alt text when needed!

That's said, what do you all think of Theo?! 👀 Can you guess which emoji I'll be using to represent him (kind of like how Jake has the 🤓 for his texts)?

I know it's not much to go on this chapter, but you're going to be seeing a LOT more of Theo soon. Next chapter is coming next Wednesday, and it's time for Ellie's first tutoring session...

As always, if you liked it, please take a moment to vote and comment! **