London is Pink

Chapter five

We jumped straight into training the following morning, and it was more than a little obvious that the four of us who'd been up gaming until midnight were overly tired. I leaned on Kyle's shoulder for support, as we waited in one of the training fields for Southgate, complaining to him sleepily.

"Sorry, got no sympathy for you," he grinned, messing my hair, which I'd attempted to tie out of the way.

"I hate you," I groaned, swatting his hand away irritably.

"You'll be okay once you get into training," he said, perhaps as a condescension to feeling sorry for me.

I nodded wordlessly, eyeing our other teammates as they messed around on the grass. Danny Rose and Danny Welbeck were standing together and talking, both looking as tired as I felt, and Raz, Anya and John were lying on their backs on the ground, relaxing before all the hard work began. I glanced curiously at Dele to see if he was looking tired as well. He hadn't spoken to me since last night's... incident.., but he also looked like he'd barely slept. He was talking with Jesse and Marcus, and the group was soon joined by Tamira and Eric, who greeted them cheerfully.

"Where were you last night?" Tamira asked Dele, frowning at him a little.

"Playing Fortnite," he grinned at her.

"Shut up, really? You know I hate that game," she groaned.

"You're missing out, I'm telling you," Jesse told her. "Who were you playing with, Del?"

"Danny, Danny, and Jordyn," he responded.

Tamira widened her eyes.

"Jordyn? Don't you guys... like... hate each other?"

"Wow, I'm right here Tam," I called to her lazily, wanting to retaliate but not really in the mood to argue.

"No offence, but he does dislike you," she shrugged.

"That's not what he told me last night," I grinned at her cheekily.

Tamira looked confused, and Dele had the decency to look embarrassed, whilst the others laughed at him.

"I thought you were playing Fortnite?" Asked Tami, glancing at Dele worriedly.

"New game mode," Dele smirked, returning my gaze unshakingly, and almost ignoring Tamira.

"Literally," Kyle muttered to me, and I rolled my eyes. "What did happen last night?" He asked.

"Nothing?" I responded, turning to look at him.

"Not havin it," he smiled. "Come on, there was something."

I sighed.

"Put it this way, I'm just avoiding Dele for now. I'll tell you what happened later."

"You better."

Southgate was finally ready to start training, so we completed our warmups, which definitely aided me in focusing my tired brain on the task before us. The exercise woke me up better than anything else that morning, including my coffee.

"I want to pair you off for a drill now," Said Southgate, once we'd finished our warm up exercises. "And please remember who I pair you with, because we'll be revisiting to see how you progress over the next couple weeks we're here. Now..." he broke off, and peered at all our faces. "Let's see if I can pick who was up late playing Fortnite last night."

We all chuckled, although I felt a little alarmed. The boss eyed us all suspiciously, before pouncing on the two Dannys, and calling them to the front, where he proceeded to point out to the rest of us how tired they looked, he was smiling, so we knew he was joking around, and it made me feel a little better. Eventually he finished examining them and spoke a few serious words to us.