She's a Man's World - DISCONTINUED

Hi my name's Ross...

The first training session of pre-season arrived soon enough, and I arrived at the training ground early that Monday morning.

Stepping out of my car, I was met by the sudden ambush of paparazzi. Questions flooded me in a sudden rush; I found myself frozen and beginning to panic, not knowing what to do. I began trying to push past them all, but it was a failed attempt as they enclosed me like a cave.

My body began shaking as I looked high and low for an escape, but found myself unable to spot one. Feeling like I was almost about to collapse with fear, a silver lining shone my way.

"Hey hey hey!", a voice boomed out of nowhere, "Give her some space and leave her alone for god's sake!". In the midst of paparazzi, an Everton shirt wormed it's way through and reached out to firmly grab my arm. All of a sudden I was dragged through the swarm of cameras by the Everton 'associate' and marched into the building.

Once the entrance door was closed behind us, my saviour turned to face me. "I'm sorry about that, Miss Hart, I could just see that you were getting a bit scared by all the paps", a strong Liverpudlian accent addressed me.

He was tall, very tall, well over 6ft. His skin took a slight tan, which only complemented his dark brown hair and glistening brown eyes. Those same eyes gazed directly into mine, oozing warmth that helped shake off the previous panic and relax my heart.

"It's fine, thank you for saving me, I didn't think I was going to make it out alive!", I replied to him, both us of chuckling at this. All of a sudden it dawned on me that I didn't know this guy's name, which made me feel somewhat guilty as he knew mine.

"Erm, I don't mean to sound rude", my words stuttered as for some reason I was worried, "but who are you?" He smirked for a second before coming up with a 'proposition'.

"Erm, to make this situation not weird and awkward, lets just start over and pretend like you've just walked through the door and we've just met. Hi, my name's Ross. Ross Barkley". He outstretched his hand to shake, and as I understood the joke I laughed whilst accepting the offer. "Kendall Hart, pleasure to meet you", I replied, the two of us both finding this unusually hilarious.

Our laughter was eventually cut off when Roberto emerged from goodness knows where. "Ah, Kendall, I see you've already met Ross. Along with you, he is England's greatest young prodigy." I glanced at Ross to see him looking down at the ground, suddenly going shy. Nudging him, we exchanged smirks before Roberto continued.

"Now, I heard about what happened when you arrived here, and I can assure you that publicity will be dealt with by us. I didn't realise how upfront they would be. I apologise for that". I nodded in gratitude to Roberto as the three of us began walking to where I believed would be the training pitch.

"I also apologise for the representative of mine that met you a month ago. Geoff isn't exactly the most sociable or friendly of people, to put it in it's simplest form". I laughed in reply, "No, not exactly, and he certainly made the rules here very clear to me. 'No sexual relations with any players or staff'".

"Yes, I'm afraid it's not exactly something we wish to happen", Roberto explained. "But in saying that, I doubt there's many of the players that you'll be spending a lot of time with that you'd actually want to date. I can think of only three right now who are round about your age, him right there being one of them".

He pointed to Ross with a laugh as the three of us turned Geoff's 'rules' into quite the joke. "Yeah, if Ross is the best you've got here, you've got no worries", I joked, earning a soft punch in the arm from him.

Turning to face Ross, our eyes met, the two of us exchanging cheeky smiles. Although we had only met just 5-10 minutes ago, I couldn't help question if that joke had meant more. If it had been a cover up of something I actually wanted.