Golden Boy- Pedri

CH 8- Is the Universe against me?

"Should we start?" He said, emotionless.
"I guess" I shrugged. I took off my jacket. He was looking at me while I did that, and I wasn't even looking at him. I was wearing a long sleeve black fitted top, and bike shorts.

I try to avoid all eye contact, but tonight will be difficult.
We begin training. I stand on the side with the timer, and he practices dribbling the ball. I read out his times and write them on the clipboard.

Once we finish with that exercise, our next one says that he needs to practice defending the balls at the goal.

Shit.
I have to kick the ball, and he has to try to defend it.
Screw my uncle for making me do this. And on the one night that Carmen couldn't.

Was the universe really that much against me?

I sigh and read out the task. He nods. We walk over to the goals.
He stands at the goal and puts the goalkeeper's gloves on.
I kick. I miss the ball entirely.
Fuck. My. Life.

"Do you know how to kick the ball?", he asks bluntly.
"Yes", I say sharply, frowning at him.
I try again. This time I kick it. It rolls slowly and stops before it even reaches him.
He laughs. I cringe at myself and scowl at him for laughing.

Why was this happening to me?

"Here, I'll show you how to kick love". He says.
I roll my eyes. But I won't feed into how annoying he is. I'll show him that I don't care, and hopefully, he stops once and for all.
He comes around next to me. "What you want to do, is kick with this part of your foot. Bring it back like this, and then kick". He demonstrates how to do it.
"Ok", I say hesitantly but understanding.
I kick it and it goes nicely into the goal.

"Good job", he says nodding at me.
I don't say anything.
We make eye contact for a few seconds, but I quickly look away.

He passes the ball back. "Go again".
I let out a breath. I kick it, and he manages to catch it.
"Nice" I say.
Oh crap. Why did I compliment him?
I told myself that was the first and last time I would ever say something nice to him. He didn't deserve it. He's been nothing but a complete dick to me.

"Thanks," he says, but he doesn't smile. Neither do I.

We continue to finish our training session. We don't talk.
As we're grabbing our bags, I hear "Thanks, I guess. For today. "
"It's fine", I say dryly.

We're heading towards the carpark, neither of us talking, when all of a sudden, he starts laughing.

"What?", I say confused, giving him the side eye.
"I just realized...your wish came true princess. You finally got to spend some time alone with me.' He says while smirking.
This jerk. All he does is tease me.

"You know what," I say, "I'm not even going to feed into all your little jokes. We don't have to talk to each other after this."
"You can't stay away from me, can you love?" He says conceited.
I take a deep breath. "Listen, it seems all you're here for is to constantly poke fun at me. I am not your fangirl, and I could not care less about you. I've said it before and I'll say it again, please transfer to another team. It'll make my job much easier" I say fiercely.

"I'm not going anywhere", he says sarcastically. "Fortunately, I'm here to stay, live with it".
"UN-fortunately more like it," I emphasize.
He smiles. "Don't act so happy".
"Oh...trust me I'm anything but happy. We don't need to say another word to each other." I say, unlocking my car.
"You can't stay away, even If you tried", he said smirking at me.

I scoffed and got in the car, as I was closing the door, I heard him tease "Goodnight love".

I turned on my car and drive away.

On the drive back, I kept thinking to myself.
I hate him. I really do.
I was done ever saying another word to him. He is relentless.
I would make sure we would never have to talk again if it was the last thing I ever did.