Tinder. || Max Whitlock

Chapter 1.

Staring out the windows of the bus Isabella was sat uncomfortably. After a flight longer than 12 hours she was quite done with sitting. Lucky for her the drive to the Olympic village was only 30 minutes, which meant that soon she could stretch her legs.
"You look like your done with everything," Epke, who was sat next to her, chuckled.
"Well, my friend, that's because I am," she grinned, turning her head towards him. He gave her a sympathetic nod and patted her knee. "I know how you feel."

20 minutes and a lot of complaining later all the Dutch sportstars were standing outside the busses.
"I can't believe we're really here," Sanne gulped.
"I know," Isabella mumbled in response, "it's unreal."

Isabella Jansen was a Dutch equestrian. With 20 years of life experience she was one of the younger riders, if not the youngest. Her horse, VDL Dickinson II -or as she liked to cal him: Dickie-, had been flown over to Brazil a few days earlier.
It was Isabella's first time to be at the Olympics, and she was excited more than anything.

After she got her suitcases Isabella followed the rest of the Dutch team into the building.
She shared her apartment with Ranomi, one of the Dutch swimmers. As Ranomi was already waiting in the line to get the room keys Isabella hung back. She was tired from travelling, even though all she did was sit.
As Isabella waited for Ranomi she decided to check her phone. She replied to the few texts of her family and friends, telling them she had arrived safely, and then opened the Tinder app.
See, Tinder was something that everyone has but no one admits to have. Tinder is a modern taboo because of the hooking up.
Isabella didn't care though, she liked the fact that Tinder made it easy to pick someone for just one night. Ot spared her the nights where she would have to go out to clubs to find someone and then come home with a wasted guy. No, Tinder was a lot better than that.
She quickly browsed a bit, but after swiping left 12 times she already gave up, she was too tired to continue, and locked her phone.
Just then Ranomi came walking towards her, jiggling two sets of keys in front of her face.

----

"Isabella, come on wake up!" Ranomi shool the younger girl gently.
"Mhm?" Isabella mumbled, turning around to face Ranomi. She had her eyes half closed as she stretched her arms and yawned.
"Come on, you have to wake up. Otherwise you won't sleep tonight," Ranomi chuckled.
Isabella yawned again and sat up straight before rubbing her eyes. "Don't you have training?" Isabella questioned, looking at Ranomi, still with half closed eyes.
"Yes, but I thought I'd wake you up first! Thought you'd might want to go and see Dickie," Ranomi smiled. Isabella smiled at the mention of Dickie.
"Thanks!" She smiled.

Thirty minutes and a crappy shower later, and Isabella was walking towards the stables.
Even though it had been only a few days, she had missed her companion.
Dickie has been the only stable relationship for a while. He was the only thing that came and stayed.
Dickie had been a gift, after proving to be qualified as a world class equistrian but having no money to ever reach the top, VDL Group and one of the best horse breeders in Holland had donated the then 3 year old horse. Dickie was a great horse but wasn't build to be particularly excelling in any form of equestrian sport, so they figured they could give him away to Isabella, as he wasn't going to sell for that much anyways.
Of course, they were never going to admit that now that Dickie was one of the best allround horses out there, so they just told the part of gifting without saying that Dickie was the worst horse they had standing around back then.
Their story had been so unusual that people who didn't even like equestrian sports knew about them. Everyone knew Dickie, the dog-like horse. The one that would enjoy getting scratches behind the ear and would look up when you called his name.
And of course, his story combined with Isabella's: an equestrian who didn't come from money, was one for the magazines.

"Dickie!" Isabella cooed, walking towards his stable. Immediately a giant head shot up, his ears pointed forward as he neighed excitedly.
"Hey boy," she greeted, kissing his white pinkish nose. He pressed his head into her as response, making her laugh.
Standing at 1.78 cm, Dickie was a big horse. He was mainly black apart from 4 white socks, a white stripe on his head, and his nose. He was stunning, at least to Isabella he was.
She was glad that he looked healthy and uneffected by the traveling he had to do.
"Miss Jansen!" A man with a heavy accent called out. "I'm happy to see you pop up. I'm Fabio, I've been assigned to check the health and well-being of the Eventing horses. I wanted to ask if you'd like Dickinson to go out." He stumbled over his words, having trouble with the English language.
"Wait, he hasn't been out?" Isabella questioned in confusion, anger filling her body.
"Oh, he has had thirty minutes of walking every day, but not out in the paddocks," Fabio explained. "I didn't see anywhere in the papers that he was allowed to, but I just wanted to ask incase there had been a mistake."
Isabella nodded understandingly, this man was just doing his job and it would be unfair of her to blame any mistakes made by her or the grooms on him.
"Yes, I would like him to get out from now. He deserves a bit of play-time!"
"Okay, miss, I'll make sure of it. Does he need any protectors?" Fabio asked, adjusting his hat.
"Just the ones that he wears for walking," she stated.
With a last goodbye Fabio hurries off, needing to feed the horses their breakfast.
Isabella turned back to Dickie. "Be good, now. I'll be back later today and you and I are going for a little ride," she smiled.
With a last scratch behind his ear Isabella left. Just like Dickie she needed some breakfast as well.

A/N:
Yay! Here we go! Please, if you read this, know that I'm not much of a consistent updater. It might sometimes be 3 a day and sometimes 3 a month, I'm sorry in advance!