Page 84 of Couple Goals

‘Sunny, you’re the best person to be on a team with, whether that’s on the pitch or off it.’

Adriana throws her arms around Maeve, and they hug tightly, Adriana nodding into her shoulder.

When she pulls back, Adriana’s wiping her eyes.

‘God, I thought I’d run out of tears by now,’ she laughs. ‘But I’m glad these are happy ones.’

‘So… you’re going to be staying with the team and becoming our captain permanently?’ Maeve flashes her an encouraging smile.

‘I mean, first I need to check if the rest of the team want me. I know Hoffman apparently consulted some people, but I want to be sure that there is a consensus now that people have had a chance to think.’

Maeve bites her lip,smiling mysteriously. ‘Would you… want to hear from them right now?’

Adriana tilts her head, frowning. ‘What? You think I should like, video call them or something like that?’

‘Well something like that…’ Maeve says cryptically before giving the signal in the group chat.

And within moments, the door of The Old Pig oinks open, and a rowdy crowd descend upon their corner of the pub. There’s the whole Tigresses team, all in their bright orange kit, led up by Kira. And there’s Adriana’s family, holding their handmade signs with golden suns on. And bringing up the back, closing the pub door carefully behind them, there’s Jacob.

He’s not in one of his suits anymore, but in the simple white t-shirt and jeans he wore on their first not-date to Honey, his tortoiseshell glasses fogging a little in the heat from all their bodies. Over the crowd, he smiles and nods at Maeve, and she mirrors it back. She looks forward to getting to know him better as Adriana’s date. Maybe they could double date with Kira… Maeve has a rush of giddy pleasure at the thought.

Then the Tigresses are gathering into a huddle in front of Adriana.

‘Right,’ says Charlie, shuffling some sheets of paper, which seem to have lots of different handwritings on them. ‘We all wanted to write you a speech, to try to say why we think you’d be such a great captain.’

‘But really, Maeve’s the best at speeches like this,’ says Elisa, ‘and she’s probably already done hers to you.’

Adriana laughs and tells them that’s true.

‘So instead, we thought we could best communicate with that old football tradition – a chant!’

‘We know you’re a fan of Chappell Roan,’ adds Milo. ‘So we tried changing the lyrics of one of her songs to try to convince you to stay.’

Adriana gasps, lifting a hand to her mouth, laughing.

‘And then I’m afraid we may have got a bit carried away,’ says Nat.

They gesture to the bar. ‘Hit it!’

A karaoke version of Chappell Roan’s ‘Pink Pony Club’ starts playing.

Charlie and Elisa step forwards dramatically, producing karaoke microphones from nowhere.

‘We want you to know,’ they sing, batting their eyelids, ‘we all want you to stay.’

Adriana still can’t believe this is happening, but the team keep singing for her, not afraid to make idiots of themselves to show how much she means to them.

‘We can’t ignore the lovely visions of you in the FA.’

Adriana laughs, tears in her eyes.

‘We heard that there’s a perfect place, where football girls can all be queens every training day.’

They pass the microphone quickly to a bunched together Nat, Milo and Liv who join in laughing.

‘You’re having quitting dreams, of leaving the Tigresses-ee–, But hear us, we’re calling Adrianaa-ee– Make your family proud, cause a scene, they see their little girl, they’re gonna scream...’

They run and hand it quickly to Adriana’s mum. Adriana starts fully crying now as she realises that they’ve been in on this together, watching her parents and Felix sing with complete tone deafness and out of time.

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