Famous In Football ▹ Jesse Lingard.

▹ [73] Late Night Helper.

The Night Before Homecoming.

Craig walked over to me with a box full of centerpieces for the table. "Thank you! I'll take it from here." I said and looked at him. Craig nodded before setting the box down on top of a table.

I quickly looked around to see who I could give the job of placing the centerpieces onto the table too. "Hannah." I called out to one of the assistants who was assisting with the rope lights.

She immediately dropped the set of rope lights she had in her hand and walked as fast as she could towards me. "Yes, Miss Sophia?" She asked, obediently.

"Don't worry about the rope lights. Carter and Emily can take care of those. Why don't you take care of these instead?" I smiled and pointed that the box Craig that left on the table. "I trust you would do a good job with it."

"I won't let you down." Hannah said with a smile on her face.

"I know."

Hannah took the box of centerpieces and then started placing them on the tables. I looked down at my clipboard and made mental notes of all the things that we still had to do and it was quite alot.

"Hey Soph!" Said a very familiar voice from behind me.

"Hey Jess." I said as I turned around to face the man of my dreams. "What are you doing here?" I asked out of curiosity.

"I stopped by your house. Your dad told me that you would be here. I wanted to talk to you about something." He replied as he walked towards me.

I kind off already knew what Jesse wanted to talk to me about. Dele. A picture of Dele and I together at the WWE show this past Monday went viral a few days ago and to my luck, Jesse saw it and even liked it on Twitter.

"Can we do this another day? We have to finish setting up this place by the end of tonight and we're not even halfway done yet." I explained the current situation to Jesse.

I wasn't trying to avoid him or anything. The truth was that my father had left me in charge of this decorating committee or whatever you may call it, so I didn't want to let him down by leaving halfway through the preparations. And judging by the pace of everyone, it didn't look like we were going to finish anything soon.

"Okay, I'll make you a proposition. I'll help you handle all of this if you promise to take a drive with me as soon as we're done. How about that?" Jesse proposed. He really did know how to use his charm.

"Fine! We have a deal." I said.

Jesse stuck a hand out to me, causing me to laugh at how serious he was taking this proposition. I shook his hand before looking down at my clipboard again to see what task I could give Jesse to do.

4 Hours Later.

I stood at the back of the Hall, completely astonished by what I was looking at. The setting of the Homecomimg Dance was outstanding. Everything looked so beautiful and turned out exactly how I wanted it to be. I was truly amazed at the masterpiece I had created. I never really knew I had it in me.

"Alright, I lived up to my end of the bargain. Now it's your turn." Jesse smirked.

I rolled my eyes and then grabbed my bag from the table next to me. "Fine." I said and walked towards the door. I took a few steps and realized that Jesse wasn't following me so I turned around to see him looking at his phone. His seemed bothered by the text message he had just received. "Well come on Milly Rocker, it's already late. We don't want to waste anymore time." I said to him.

A smile immediately appeared on Jesse's face. Just what I was hoping for. I hate seeing Jesse sad or angry, mainly because that's not who he is. Jesse's always been this carefree guy who loves living his best life. He's known for being a practical joker, always playing pranks on people and laughing at every little thing. When someone that energetic and carefree is overtaken by sadness and worries, it's never good because it means that they have been bottling up all their emotions and feelings to please other people. And let's face it, bottle up things and feelings eventually come out in the form of an explosion.

I say this knowing the rough patch Jesse has been going through. When he returned from injury, it took a while for him to actually get back into form and that caused a lot of stress. Football is mostly about the fans, and at times, the fans can be really tough and brutal, especially when you're out of form. The amount of criticism can literally break a person into pieces. The fans don't really realize the impact they have on the players but the players do and it's not an easy thing to deal with.

I looked down at my watch and realized that we were now driving around for 25 minutes. "So where exactly are we going?" I asked.

"You'll see." Jesse smirked.

10 minutes later.

"And we're here." Jesse said.

I looked outside and saw the City Centre. "What are we doing here?" I asked, slightly confused. I knew for a fact that the City Centre was closed considering the fact that it was 10 minutes past 11.

"What do you think we're doing here? We're going on a boat trip." Jesse smiled.

"Are you out of your mind? The place is closed and not to mention that these boat trips usually end up at Salford Quays. Are you forgetting that we have a Homecoming Charity Event going on tomorrow?" I asked, hoping that all of those things actually made some sense to Jesse who's mind works in mysterious and dangerous ways.

"Yes I acknowledged everything that you just said but I have a contact in this place who said that we can do half a ride, that way we can still get home in time and have an appropriate amount of sleep before tomorrow's event. Come on, Soph. Let's live a little. Now you can either come with me and we can have one of the best nights of our lives or you can just leave me here on this dock and turn down a really good opportunity." Jesse said, making me an offer I simply just couldn't resist.

"Let's do this Lingard."
 
    
  
Spending the night with Jesse was one of the best decisions I've made all year. The boat trip was really fun. We got to have a real heart to heart conversation while floating down the River Irwell under the moonlight stars. The night itself was pretty majestic, it reminded me what it felt like to spend time with Jesse. The night was cold but luckily Jesse packed so blankets. We talked and talked until eventually falling off to sleep.

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Hope everyone is safe x

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