Peyton Ackley - The Beginning of Change

Chapter 28 - Arsenal

Gabe had asked to spend the day with Noah which the blonde happily agreed to. He called it 'father-son' bonding time as any other dad and son would. He may not be his father, biologically, but no one could ever replace that man in Gabe's life. This meant I had the entire day to spend at work... on a Saturday.

The first task on the agenda was to have a meeting with the 'ACL Squad' as they still liked to be called, as well as Jonas. Laura was very close to returning at this point and had even been on the team sheet for a number of weeks. I felt like I needed to have another close chat with them all to understand how their injuries and recovery have been progressing since I implemented new exercises that were more targeted to their needs.

Walking into the centre this morning a very smiley blonde approached me slipping her hand into mine without a word. She rested her head on my shoulder and walked in with me.

"Are we doing this now?" I asked as I processed what was happening.

"We don't have to," she said pulling away from me and turning her attention from me to the centre looming in front of us. We both knew that whatever happened in this meeting would quite possibly change the trajectory of Arsenal's training programs in all age groups.

"No," I replied taking her hand again, "I like it." I even went the next step to place a kiss on her lips as we walked in hand in hand. I wasn't stressed at all holding Leah's hand as we walked in, it just seemed natural. Maybe I'd been overthinking this from the beginning. Everyone who knew about us congratulated or cheered us on as we told them, and if they didn't know what to say we'd get a massive hug and that's it.

Over the past week, since the 'small gathering' at my apartment, we'd told a few more people as we encountered them. Vic and Wally had been two of the first to find out from the rest of the team because Wally is Leah's best friend and Vic is basically Viv and Beth's child. I didn't object to people slowly finding out because I knew it was inevitable. You can't hide something as big as a relationship in front of a room of people if you are truly in love. In love? Maybe I am in love?

Leah and I had been ignoring the elephant in the room regarding official status and were instead just going with the flow. I truly didn't mind it though because it made it easier to tell people what was happening with the line, "You don't need to know what we are because even we don't." This actually got used more than once, mostly for Katie and Wally. The pair were very persistent in knowing every little detail about our relationship but were very disappointed when we couldn't tell them anything of interest.

Leah and I walked all the way to the meeting room hand in hand with the intention of letting go before seeing Jonas, but he caught us off guard and we immediately knew we had to tell him.

"Jonas," I said turning my attention to the very interesting floor.

"Good morning ladies," he replied looking between the pair of us and our intertwined hands. I shook my hand from Leah's grip trying to request that he didn't ask any more questions but apparently, he missed the memo. "What is this?" he asked gesturing between us. 

I didn't expect him to be so blunt with his question yet here we are. "Umm, Uhh-"

Leah saved me by giving her own explanation. "We're not sure what this is," she replied taking my hand again. "But, we like it and would like it to be kept private for now."

I have a feeling that if I'd said that to Jonas the reaction would not have been the same but he simply smiled, congratulated us, and let us head into the meeting to see the other girls. Upon entering I remembered that Laura and Kaylan still weren't aware of our situation so when we walked in with hands still interlocked their gazes turned quite curious.