Page 2 of Couple Goals

‘We can do it, if we do it together,’ Adriana tells her. ‘Easy peasy.’

Maeve nudges her head towards where the boys were behind them.

‘And we won’t let any stupid boys get in our way?’

Adriana nudges Maeve’s elbow, waggling her eyebrows. ‘Or anygirls.’ She adds with a whisper.

Maeve’s head twists quickly to look at her mum.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Adriana mimes zipping her mouth, then wiggles her ceremonial pinky finger.

Maeve smiles a rare toothy grin at Adriana. Neither of them can think of anything better in the whole world than playing football with their best friend so they eagerly pinky swear.

And afterwards, when the Tigresses continued their winning streak and went on to lift the title that year, Maeve and Adriana always secretly believed that somehow, their promise helped.

Chapter 1Adriana

Now

‘Shit shit shit shit shit!’

Adriana groans.

Her phone is buzzing, adding a corresponding throb to her headache. Maeve is calling her. Even in the headshot that she uses for her caller ID, Maeve looks responsible and professional. Adriana can just picture her dutiful frown if she were to see her own smudged hungover face right now. It’s 7.32, and morning training starts at 8 a.m. sharp, and Adriana is in some strange bed in– wait, whereisshe exactly?

She looks around her, blinking at the unfamiliar blue-grey walls.

It’s a nice place, she’ll give whoever-he-is that. Swanky. That would make sense, as it starts to come back to her that this guy had bought herverynice cocktails last night. No wonder she got drunker than she’d previously promised – she can never resist a negroni on someone else’s money. His houseplants are actually alive and thriving (unlike in her own flat), and everything is neat and orderly (ditto), with no clothes strewn on the floor except her own.But the spot in the silky bed next to her is empty.

Maybe he’s already done a runner. That’d be ironic because normally it’s Adriana who runs out to go to training, without leaving her number to the guy she’s brought home the night before.

But last night, Drunk-Adriana must have been having so much fun that she had forgotten to set herself an adequate alarm. It’s only with Maeve calling her that she has any chance of making it to training this morning. Thank God for Maeve, she thinks before leaping up but her head kicks back in anger at her sudden jolt. Wow, today’s training session is going to be a really painful one.

Hungover-Adriana sprints around the unfamiliar room, picking up her things from the floor like she’s doing a fiendish warm-up exercise with squats and jumps. There’s her bright blue lacey bra and pants among the bed sheets, her sparkly mini-dress in the corner, and one way-too-tall platform heel by the monstera…

None of these items of clothing will be at all appropriate for running around the pitch in twenty minutes time. They were barely appropriate on the dancefloor last night – which is what was so fun about wearing them. It had been a long week of training where their coach had seemed off with them, and then last night it was her teammate Elisa’s birthday, so of course Adriana had rallied a group of them to go out to their local pub. One thing led to another (or one pub led to a bar… which led to a club…). But Adriana has no regrets. She loves to work hard, play harder.

She’s just searching for her other shoe – distracted by the stacks of books overflowing from the bookshelves onto the floor,when in her periphery a shadow appears in the doorway.

Oh my God, there’s a man! This shouldn’t really surprise her, a man does kind of usually come with the territory of a one-night-stand’s bedroom, and yet it still somehow always does give her a shock to see him in the cold light of day rather than the darkness of the club.

Adriana freezes, crouched, as she looks up at him.

Well damn, she can’t fault Drunk-Adriana’s taste.

This man is toweringly tall, probably at least six foot three, with broad shoulders and toned arms. His hair is a golden brown, and he’s clean-shaven over his square jaw, with a hint of light stubble from the morning. He’s carrying two ceramic mugs of steaming coffee. And he’s also very, very naked.

Adriana gulps. Suddenly she’s remembering more of what they did last night, and exactly how good it was.

‘Good morning, Addy,’ the man grins, his voice is low and assured, and it sounds like it belongs on adverts for luxury cars, cologne, watches. That voice could sell her anything. ‘I know you can’t stay, but I thought this might help you get up. You mentioned last night you like mochas so I’ve taken the liberty–’

‘Oh!’ she smiles and gets to her feet, reaching out for the coffee. ‘Thank you, that’s so sweet.’

As they toast their mugs, their eyes meet. He had glasses on last night, she remembers hazily, but without them now she clearly sees the detail of their hazel colours – the same chocolate brown as her mocha, mixed within a calming, earthy green. Despite his otherwise unsmiling expression, they have a twinkle of humour in them.

Adriana racks her brain to try to recall his name. James? No, that’s not right but J-a seems right. They’d met when Adriana was saying goodnight to the others. While she’d debated whether to order her own taxi, her eyes had landed on his, already looking at her from across the bar. It was hardly the first time Adriana had fancied a stranger in a bar, but as she looks into his eyes now, she remembers the unfamiliar jolting feeling she’d had last night too – a strange sense that she’d met him before. She remembers suddenly that she had in fact said this to him last night, when she’d walked over to him. He had raised an eyebrow, asking if that was a pick-up line.

‘I’d definitely remember if we’d met before,’ he had said. ‘But how about we make sure this isn’t the last time?’

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