BOND

12.

I've got scars

Even though they can't always be seen

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Joey held his head in his hands trying not to drift off. The rest of the boys had gotten good hours of sleep, he on the other hand had slept for a couple of hours at most. His conversation with Elena had left him drained and he'd spent some time after coming back to his room looking her up on the internet.

She was a single child, born in London which actually explained her incredible accent changes, the rest of it was dominated by her career. Starting out from the big early wins and then continuing on to being one of the best players the world had ever seen. There wasn't much mention about her family, not at all actually. All he found was that their occupation was 'private'. There wasn't a single photograph of her with them which left him disgusted.

He had then moved onto her friends. Taylor and her had played together a couple of times in local matches. Daniel and her just practiced together as far as he could tell. What he spent a majority of his time on was her and Michael.

He'd gone through a few of her interviews and found that the two of them had met pretty long ago. They played the most together. Almost every doubles match that either of them had played they had done it together. And won quite a lot of times. In addition to that they were very close off the court too which made sense since she'd already told him how he had had a huge role in filling the gap her parents had left.

After two hours of that he'd finally switched off his phone and spent the next hour trying to come up with ideas of how he would behave around Elena so she didn't suspect that their talk had ripped his heart to shreds. 

And now sitting on the couch, waiting for Coach Harley, he wasn't worried about what he would say to her because it was going to be gibberish anyway. Alex had fixed up a cup of coffee for him that had made him more sleepy so now he had given up trying and was just focused on keeping himself upright. Captain of the team tired on the first day wasn't going to make the Coach very happy so all Joey had to do was look alive whenever he was around.

He must have blacked out for a second because when there was a noise and he opened his eyes Elena was looking at him wide eyed her arm stretched towards the floor where a bunch of keys were lying. 

"I'm so sorry!" she partially whispered seemingly for his benefit but the boys laughed and ruined her valiant effort.

He gave her a tired smile which must have come out like a grimace because she came over to him and rubbed his head. 

"Do you think you'll make it through the day?" she asked.

Joey tilted his head up to look at her and the color of her eyes took away a bit of his drowsiness, "I do not understand the language."

Ben all but tumbled over to where he was sitting and hurled into his lap shouting, "New York!"

Joey groaned as Ben's elbow struck his ribs and twisted to his side dragging Ben onto the floor with him. Elena who was standing in between his feet got tangled and fell down on top of the two boys. 

And right on cue Coach Harley walked in. The shock anyone would have felt on seeing a girl laughing on top of a boy groaning on top of a boy nearly in tears was clearly present on the Coach's face as he looked at rest of the boys.

After all three of them had stood up and Ben had been handled and assessed for the injuries that he was claiming to have gone through, Coach Harley finally started talking about what he had come there to.