The sound of Keeley Jones' heels tapped confidently as she strode towards Rebecca Welton's office. She didn't bother to knock and simply stormed into the room. Rebecca barely lifted her head from the consuming screen of her laptop before Keeley blurted out, "We have an emergency."

"Oh shit," Rebecca stood from her chair and quickly rounded her desk. "You're pregnant! I told you to get the implant!"

"I'm not fucking pregnant!" Keeley exasperated. "And if I were, it wouldn't be an emergency. Roy would be a brilliant father."

Rebecca startled at the tinier woman's confession. She had no idea they were this serious and in love. As she thought about it, Rebecca smiled at imagining her best friend as a mother. She would be amazing.

"Can you imagine?" She quipped instead of being cheesy, "Your baby's first word will likely be fuck."

The two shared a giggle before Keeley plopped herself down on the couch. "The emergency is about Alex." She looked up worriedly at Rebecca. "Her self-esteem is drastically low. She needs you, Rebecca."

Rebecca took in Keeley's words for a moment with a furrowed brow. "Alexandra? But she's a beauty! Her fiery red curls and curves are enough to bring any man to his knees."

Keeley nodded in agreement and watched as her friend poured them both some tea. "Trust me, I know. But for some reason, she doesn't think so." She sighed while accepting the cuppa from Rebecca. "She needs a crash course in the art of female empowerment."

"Well, where is she?" Rebecca walked over to the window to look down at the training session taking place and trying to spot the redhead amongst the men.

Keeley shrugged, "I don't know. The last time I saw her was this morning and she was practically running away from me."

Rebecca turned around with a questioning quirk of her eyebrow. The tiny blonde explained further, "I think something might be going on between her and Jamie." Both of Rebecca's eyebrows shot up at this. Keeley continued, "What's worse is I think she feels she's not attractive enough for him."

"That's utter bullshit." Rebecca blurted. "Jamie may be an attractive athlete, but he's lacking in the brains department, isn't he? And he can be a little twat."

The smaller blonde couldn't help but agree. She knew Jamie was more than just a high-profile footballer, but that didn't mean he was better than anyone else, especially her new friend who was adorably sweet and could bake her fabulous ass off.

"Does Ted know about this?" Rebecca suddenly realized the issues that could come with this potential pairing.

"I don't think so." Keeley worried at her bottom lip. "But he knows what Jamie is like. The first time I met Ted, he was covering up a picture of my tits Jamie put up in his locker."

Rebecca was silent for a moment. "I can't believe you dated him."

Keeley shrugged. "It wasn't all bad. What he lacked in gentlemen behavior, he made up for between the sheets and any place else we felt like shagging, really." She got lost in the steamy memories for a moment. "We've even fucked here a few-"

"Stop right there." Rebecca held a hand up abruptly. "I don't want to know." She proceeded to open one of the office windows and looked down onto the pitch.

"Ted!" She yelled, watching the head coach cringe at her volume. "Have you seen Alexandra? I'd like to speak with her!"

He shook his head slowly and replied with hand gestures instead of words. Rebecca tilted her head in confusion.

"What's… what's he doing?" She turned to Keeley, who joined her at the window. "What's that mean?" She pointed down at Ted, who was acting out what looked to be a person eating.

Roy stood beside Ted and watched him for a moment before yelling up at Rebecca, "The last time we saw her she was going to the café!"

The two women nodded in realization. "Why isn't he speaking?" Keeley shouted back to her boyfriend. They watched in concern as Ted covered his ears in pain.

"He's hungover!" Roy practically growled. "We have a rule today where we're not allowed to shout or blow a whistle! If we need to talk, we get within a five-inch range of the other person and whisper to them gently."

Ted cringed again and gave a sheepish smile once Roy was done speaking. "Sorry, Boss." He whispered.

Rebecca shook her head with endearment. "I told him drinking all that Jameson was a bad idea." She and Keeley shared a smile. "He's a hell of a karaoke partner when he's completely smashed though, I will say that. He brought our Don't Go Breaking My Heart duet to another level."

"Oh boy," Alex breathed with exhaustion. Will and Alex just finished cleaning the shoe room after an hour of honest work and she smelled like sweat and cleaning products. "I haven't cleaned that much since a baby goat got loose in our house when I was 17."

Will's eyes bulged. "You kept a baby goat in your house?"

She laughed at his expression. "Didn't you hear the 'got loose' part? Nelson was headbutting the sliding door on our porch and managed to get inside. The little rascal got into our pantry and ate all the lucky charms cereal we had. I felt so betrayed."

Alex found it easy to talk to Will. She usually gravitated towards people who had a gentle air around them. They were easy to talk to and weren't intimidating. Will reminded her of Nate, who was also a bit of a wallflower. However, Will seemed to be a slightly less sure of himself than Nate. His hesitant demeanor made it easier for Alex to be comfortable, and when she was comfortable with someone, she tended to talk their ears off.

"You had a goat named Nelson?"

She ignored his further questioning and stood up from the bench. "Well, we've been at this for about an hour. I'd say we earned ourselves a break. How about we head down to the café-"

"We've been cleaning for an hour?" Will all but yelled as sudden panic washed across his face. "I've got to get out on the pitch!" He quickly gathered up the cleaning supplies in his arms. "Nate isn't going to be happy about this."

"Nate?" Alex chuckled a bit. "Oh, he's a sweetpea. I'm sure he'll understand."

Will didn't say anything back to her as he practically darted out of the room. Alex stood alone in the shoe room and was about to head on out herself when she heard Keeley's voice coming down the corridor.

"I heard the café has blueberry scones today! Hopefully there's still some left by the time we get there. I'm fucking starving."

Alex's stomach rumbled at the idea of a blueberry scone. She couldn't hide out from the questioning woman for much longer. With a deep inhale to calm her nerves, Alex opened the door and walked out.

"Hi, guys." She spoke timidly, watching the backs of the two confident women. They turned around at the sound of her voice and grinned at her.

"There you are!" Keeley shortened the distance between them and took in Alex's appearance. "What have you been doing? You smell like a hospital."

Rebecca scolded at her friend's tactless greeting before surveying the redhead herself, "Alexandra, have you been… cleaning?"

Alex looked down at her dusty shirt sheepishly, "Will needed some help tidying up the shoe room. I needed something to keep myself busy anyway."

The two women in front of her looked at her with severe concern. "You spent your morning cleaning with Will when you could have been doing something fun?" Keeley repeated slowly. "Alexandra, you're here on vacation! You're not supposed to be working!"

"I don't mind!" She insisted. "Plus, Will shouldn't have had to do that all by himself. You should have seen it!" Alex pointed back at the freshly cleaned room. "Did you know somebody has been smoking in there?"

Keeley's eyes darted up to Rebecca who cleared her throat awkwardly, "This is the first I'm hearing about this."

"Animals," Keeley gasped, "Who would do that?"

Alex shook her head in disbelief, "Well good news is it's in great shape now. I was heading to the café when I heard you."

"Brilliant, we can all get something together." Rebecca and Keeley shared a knowing look with each other as they all started walking down the hallway.

"So, Alexandra," Rebecca drawled as they sat down in the corner of the eating area with their blueberry scones and coffee. "What's your life like back in Kansas?"

She needed to know more about the blocks she was working with before she got to work on building them up.

Alex swallowed a bit of her scone before replying. "It's not very exciting. I mostly just work and help around the farm. Ever since I dropped out of college, I've been kind of stuck."

"Why'd you drop out?" Keeley stopped herself to add, "If you don't mind us asking."

The young redhead shrugged, starting to clam back up into her shell a bit. "I wasn't happy with what I was doing. My parents wanted me to go into accounting and I only had one year left before earning my degree. I had this moment of panic right before my last year…" She looked down at the table in defeat. "I knew I was making a mistake and I felt horrible for wasting all of the time and money. I felt like such a failure."

Keeley placed a comforting hand on top of Alex's. "Did you know for a long time I was seen as 'Keeley Jones: the woman who was almost famous'. It ate away at me constantly, being someone who was almost someone."

Rebecca looked at her surprised. Keeley had never shared that with her before. "I didn't know you felt that way, Keeley."

She nodded vulnerably. "For so long I was just going through the motions. One pointless photo shoot after the next or doing shitty tv commercials for random companies. I wasn't doing what I loved because I didn't know what I loved yet. And it's okay to not know, Alex. It takes time."

"She's right," Rebecca chimed in as she looked at the lost young lady in front of her. "Life isn't a smooth, constant road. If it was, the journey would be predictable and mind-numbing. When I was 21, I was also going to university and afraid of what was going to happen next. Do you know what I was studying?" Alex shook her head silently. "Environmental studies."

Alex and Keeley shared a similar look of being both shocked and impressed. Rebecca carried on with her point, "And while I do recycle religiously and donate to many different non-profits, I couldn't picture myself being a bloody scientist now. I'm the owner of a goddamn football club." She laughed at the absurdity of her life. "I never thought I'd be here, but it all worked out in the end."

"You'd be an incredible scientist, Rebecca." Keeley piped up with admiration in her eyes. "But you were born to be in charge. A real boss ass bitch."

Rebecca smiled with a slight blush sprinkling her cheeks, "Thank you, Keeley. And you are an incredible businesswoman."

Alex watched the moment between the two close friends from the outside. They truly cared for each other and the respect they had for each other was touching. "How did you deal with it all before you knew? How did you handle being stuck?"

The mature strong woman across from Alex looked at her with kind gleam in her eye and placed her hand atop Keeley's, which was still placed over Alex's in a comforting hold. "I leaned on my girlfriends for support."

Sam and Jamie were laughing together in the locker room after training. They all had a great day on the pitch. He was always able to distract from his problems when he had a football in his possession. Playing the game he loved always helped put everything in to prospective.

It was hard to think about how close he had been to losing everything. Just a few months ago, he'd been tossed by Man City and begging Lasso to take him back. The feeling of helplessness he experienced when Coach first rejected him made his stomach churn. There was no way he could risk no longer being a part of Richmond. Whatever attraction he had to Alexandra couldn't turn into anything more.

"We're all going to the clubs tonight," Colin approached them. "You lads coming?"

Obisanya grinned mischievously, "Absolutely."

Coach Beard walked past as he heard the players' plans. "Don't party too hard, gentlemen. Leicester is going to give us trouble tomorrow night. I need you all to be sharp."

"Don't worry, Coach." Jamie smirked, "LC can't defend for shit and get winded after the first half. We'll fucking destroy them."

Beard inclined his head and patted him on the shoulder. "I'll hold you boys to that."

They were all walking out of the locker room with boyish energy, laughing at each other's stupidity. Jamie stopped short when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

Im stoppin by tonight. Need some money.

He clenched his jaw tight and stared at the screen for a moment. What was he supposed to say? His deadbeat father wouldn't quit until he got what he wanted. That was the one thing he gave Jamie, his drive to keep going until he was satisfied. Except, when it came to money and alcohol, his dad was never satisfied. Nothing Jamie did was ever good enough, either.

"You coming, Tartt?" Isaac yelled from down the hallway. Everyone else was already outside, getting into their cars and Ubers to head to the club.

"Erm, I have to stop at me house first." He shoved the phone back into his pocket. "I'll meet you lads there. Save me a bottle." He hoped his smirk hid the conflict in his eyes.