Match

4: Game, Set, Match

Cole jogs onto the field wearing a blue hoodie and his soccer gear. He's a half hour early, but the coach requested everyone to be early for warm-up practice. He looks toward Ashton practicing with another teammate at the net. As he squints he recognizes him as the shortest one on the team, Jordan.

"Cole!"

Coach Ryan flags him over, holding and waving papers in the air. Cole retracts his attention back to the coach and resumes jogging to catch up to the group. Other than him, the only other teammates are Ashton, Jordan and Joel. Nate isn't here yet.

"Here, Cole."

Cole looks down at him handing over a pile of jerseys. "What?"

"You forgot to tell me what size shirt you are, so I brought these. Each one has the number eleven on it," he says. "There's XL and L. Check which one fits you best."

Knowing he's outgrown a lot of his clothes in the last couple years, he picks the XL jersey and unfolds it. It's neon green, with the number eleven on the back and a tiny symbol on the front to signify the soccer 'camp'. He slides off his hoodie and shirt then slips into the jersey. The texture brings an immediate cool to the touch, but adjusts to his body heat in no time.

"Pretty nice, eh Cole?" The coach eyes at him. "We got bright green this season."

"Oh, uh, yeah."

"What's up, coach?" Joel says as he fixes his shin guard. "Why's there like five of us here, while the other team has practically everyone?"

Coach Ryan lifts his cap to scratch at his forehead. "Not sure," he says. "I gave directions to where the field is located. Hope nobody got lost."

"Huh. We better have enough subs today. Yo, Cole. Let's get a head start."

"Oh, okay," he drops his bag and water bottle next to the other pile of bags.

Joel grabs a ball and sprints on the field. Cole's about to follow until he stops in his tracks. He looks back for a moment to say something to Coach Ryan, until he sees him answer his phone.

"Hey, you coming?"

He turns back to Joel. "Yup."

While walking on the field, he gets a good look of the other team. Their jerseys are bright red. Cole mentally counts about twelve on their team. They're all running across the field, kicking their legs up to their knees as they go, then repeating the same routine the other way. To his left, there's a group of three people sitting on the grass talking to each other.

"Hey, who're they?" Cole says, pointing to the group.

Joel looks to where he's pointing. "Oh, them? I think they're some friends of Jordan."

"Huh?" Cole raises an eyebrow. "People come and watch this?"

Joel lets out a raspy laugh. "Well yeah, what, you think it's like a solo gig?"

"Well like, it's just a camp thing."

"And some people have spare time on their hands and want to watch us play."

Cole remains dumbfounded as Joel throws the ball to the ground to check if it's flat. Once he deems it good, he rolls it backwards a few feet.

"We'll pass for a bit then practice some shots with Ashton."

He kicks a light pass to Cole. Cole stops it with the sole of his cleat, feeling somewhat proud that he managed to catch the ball this time. With the ball levelled evenly on the grass, he passes it back to Joel. The ball hops a couple times into the air before stopping flat in between them.