Making me want you
Leah
She pushed open the door to the changing room still laughing from Georgia’s re-enactment of the opposition midfielder that had tried to tackle her. She walked over to her locker, grabbing the hem of her shirt and lifting it over her head as she walked. Finishing the last few steps in just her sports bra. She sat down to start kicking off her shoes and grabbed her phone to check any notifications that had come through during the game. Just the standard. Lots of congratulations on the win from her friends and family and some strangers on the internet.
She opened Instagram quickly to check for any DMs that she should reply to. Her following feed refreshed and who should grace her screen other than the girl she had just been staring at. Miss Alessia Russo herself.
The picture was a selfie of Alessia, rosy cheeked and lightly sweaty with the view of a city with a sunrise behind her. There was no denying that the girl was attractive. She had a gentle smile and the brightest blue eyes that Leah had ever seen on another person. She finds herself thinking that eyes that bright might appear harsh on some people but on Alessia they are kind and inviting. Alessia’s lips were parted slightly and in a small smile in the picture. Leah suddenly felt a hitch in her breath as she knew she had just moments ago been staring at those exact same lips. She prayed Alessia hadn’t noticed.
The caption: ‘Running up a hill isn’t so bad when you get a view like this at the end 😊’.
Leah’s eyes wandered down to see the picture had been posted just a few hours before.
Her thumb slipped as she started to swipe, and a red heart appeared over the picture.
‘Shit!’ Leah said half to herself and half to the room.
‘What’s up Lee?’ Keira said, concerned.
‘Oh nothing, I just liked a picture I shouldn’t’ve,’ she sighed.
‘Damn Leah! Tone down your reaction next time I thought someone had died!’ Keira lightly whipped her on the leg with her shirt.
Leah squeezed the side of her phone to lock the screen. And lightly threw it onto the bench beside her. Leah had followed Alessia on Instagram a few years ago after watching an U18 match she was in. When she had gone to find her profile, she noticed that the younger girl was already following her. So she hit the follow back. But that was the extent to their direct interactions to date. She had however become hooked on watching the striker play. Often skipping team events to watch the full replay of the U21 matches and force her friends to listen to full analysis.
Leah slowly stood up, starting to feel the impact of playing the full 90 on the muscles in her legs and walked to leave the room and go towards the ice baths. She hates ice baths, but she’ll be damned if she lets Lucy Bronze beat her record time again.
As she sits in the ice bath, her mind drifts. She thinks about the team and how they played in the match. She thinks about potential tactics for their upcoming game against Italy in a few weeks’ time. She thinks about the cross she made in the game today and how she had felt like there were eyes on her the whole match. Not just the eyes of the thousands of people in the stands. But specific eyes. She shrugged off the feeling. She thinks of Alessia getting the notification that she had liked the picture just minutes after finishing a conversation with her.
‘God,’ she thinks, ‘what if she thinks I was stalking her page right after seeing her.’