Try Me || Erling Haaland

Chapter Four

Author's Note:

Happy New Year everyone! Thanks so much for reading, wishing you all the best for 2023. ♡

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"I'm gonna grab a coffee for the car, want anything?" Chloe asked. I shook my head no in response to which she rushed off to the cafe counter to order herself a drink. 

A few of the boys were sat around an empty table talking, a few were grabbing some drinks to go, like Chloe was. 

"The annoying orange is back!" Jack shouted in my direction, a few of the boys he was sat talking to had their backs to me. They turned around to see who Jack was talking to and then laughed when they realised what his joke meant. I noticed that one of the boys sat down was Erling. 

I began walking in their direction, a look of confusion on my face. 

"Annoying orange?" I asked in confusion. I sat down at the table as I waited for Chloe. 

He drew a circle around his face with his finger. I looked at him blankly. 

"Your orange face paint," He pointed, clear amusement on his face as he smirked. The penny dropped. 

"Not a bad joke for you, Jack," I teased with a smirk.

"What do you mean for me?" His voice raised in offence but he still had a smile on his face.

"I'm almost sure you can figure that one out for yourself," I responded, he rolled his eyes playfully. One of the boys shouted him from the cafe counter and he jogged over, leaving me with the rest of the group. 

They had been engaged in their own conversation, as Jack and I were before. I listened absently to what they were saying, I turned to look at the cafe to see where Chloe was up to. 

"Do you play?" That same thick accent from earlier sounded from the seat to my right. 

I looked to see that Erling was not engaged in conversation with the other boys. He was sat looking in my direction, waiting for a response. 

"Huh?" I asked off guard. I noticed Jack sit back down with his phone and a drink in a takeaway cup out of the corner of my eye. 

"Football, do you play?" He asked, he seemed interested to know. 

I heard Jack snort at his question. 

"Lottie couldn't kick a ball if her life depended on it," Jack laughed before scrolling back on his phone.

I narrowed my eyes at him and chose to ignore his statement. He wasn't wrong.

"I just come to watch Chloe train, she plays for the women's team," I smiled, I was aware that he was a new signing and probably didn't know many of the girls on a first name basis yet or at all. 

He nodded his head in understanding as he looked at me. 

I felt Chloe put her hand on my shoulder, ending the conversation. We grabbed our stuff and headed to her car, putting her training gear back in the boot. 

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"Grip... bind... set!" Our coach shouted. 

"One, two, three," The girls all shouted back in unison. I could feel the girls in the second row start to push us forward with power as we practiced our scrum positioning. 

"Release!" He shouted. I waited for all of the girls behind us to remove themselves out of their supporting positions before I stood up straight with my hands on my hips. 

It was Friday, meaning that we had 9am training. We had been promoted to the highest league and we were finishing our preseason training.

Our last game was a friendly which we had organised to get us ready for the busy season ahead. We had lost but it gave us an opportunity to practice what we had been learning in training and assess our weaknesses in time for the official season. 

"Much better this time front row, keep this up," Our coach praised. I was a front row player, I alternated between position 1 and 3 depending on the teamsheet. 

I walked to the side of the pitch to grab my stuff. We trained on the small astro pitch today as we were focusing on skills, there was strictly no tackling allowed in training this close to the start of the season to avoid any injuries. 

"Remember to prepare yourself for Wednesday! The first game is one of the most important games, it sets us up for the rest of the season. Healthy eating, regular training and get enough sleep!" Ella announced as everyone packed up their stuff. 

"Yes boss!" Mia shouted with a smile. 

Ella rolled her eyes and patted her on her back as she walked past. 

Our post-training ritual was to go to our local pub to have a drink and catch up. I ordered myself a pint of dark fruits and as I was paying caught glimpse of the time, 10:30am. Is it ever too early to start drinking? It's 5 o'clock somewhere I suppose. 

I stayed at the pub for an hour with the girls before deciding to head back to my apartment to catch up with some uni work. It was hard to keep up with uni and play on a sports team, they would often overlap meaning that I would fall behind. 

I was a final year Marketing student and this was my most important year at university. But this was also my most important year of rugby, I was no longer allowed to play for my current team after I finished university so I was getting ready to start trials for a professional rugby team. 

I was making some notes on one of my lectures when my phone started to ring. I looked at the screen. 

Incoming Call: Chloe

I pressed the green answer button. 

"Hello?" I answered.

"Hello hello," She chirped back down the line. 

"What you doing?" She asked.

"Just catching up on some lecture notes," I replied, I finished the sentence I was writing from the PowerPoint presentation. 

"Boring," She dragged out.

"I know, what's going on with you?" I asked in return. 

"Just finished strength and conditioning, wondered if you were busy on Sunday?" She asked, I heard her close her car door. Strength and conditioning was something that we both had to do twice a week for our teams, to make sure we were building strength and staying fit.

"I don't even know what I'm doing today never mind Sunday," I chuckled.

"Perfect, you're free. Our first game is on Sunday at home, 3pm, see you there!" She spoke rapidly down the phone before I heard the call end. Did she just hang up on me?

I pulled my phone from my ear to see my home screen. She'd hung up on me. I laughed to myself and shook my head. I guess I'm going to watch her play on Sunday at 3pm. 

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