"Nah, nah," Stalonus called mid-laugh. "It's too good, hook it up to the tv," he instructed Twickenham, who nodded as he pulled the HTMI code into his laptop. The paused image of Xena in the bookstore aisle from earlier in the day filled the large tv screen.

"Oh my god," Gabrielle called, hiding her rapidly blushing face in her hands on one of the worn-out couches. Xena chuckled as she slid her arm around her shoulders. The England-Russia game did not start for another 25 minutes but most of the Stanford women's soccer team and the unofficial Stanford Red Stars supporters group were already in the house. Multiple of them cheered.

The video they had taken earlier in the day played and then Twickenham played the first suggested video, which was from Aphrodite's account. She walked up to her bookshelf. She pulled out the book Xena had purchased in her video, considered it for a moment, shook her head, and put it back. She then pulled out one of Xena's biographies, shook her head, and tossed it over her shoulder. It then hard cut to her at a Chicago bookstore purchasing biographies of Athena and Artemis and a children's book titled "World Cup Soccer Mom" with an illustration of Cyrene on the center of the cover with drawings of Xena and Eve dribbling and shooting on either side of her.

It then cut to her outside, holding the three books like a fan in front of her face. "Reading is important. Support your local bookstores," she panned up to the sign of the bookstore and then pointed at the books with a wide grin.

The videos had steadily been gaining views throughout the day and they had all received text hinting that others were just waiting to get involved.

Aphrodite: Goddess bless you, Gabrielle. I am so pleased that you are good at this.

Gabrielle: I really just thought it would be funny that Xena was buying your book. It was her idea.

A: Oh, darling. I know the social media angle was yours. And that makes everything easier

G: What? Because Xena needs it?

A: Yes!

Gabrielle began typing but stopped and restarted twice before Aphrodite caught on to what the young player was thinking.

A: Oh, darling because she is bad at social media. But yes it will also be a good distraction from her divorce and will make it even less likely that some certain shirtless kissing photos will make it to the I'm assuming desktop computer of a farming couple in rural Texas.

Gabrielle shrugged for a moment of how to express her appreciation via text. She then smirked to herself and remembered a semi-popular gif. Gabrielle found it and sent it to her. It was of Aphrodite on the red carpet at the ESPYs a few years ago. She clenched her chest wearing hot pink gloves and a hot pink dress. She said "Oh, thank you so much!" overly dramatically as the words flashed below her.

Aphrodite had typed 'Xena angry' into her gif search bar and sent back the first of the nearly 35 gifs that came up.

"Whoa! Line-ups! Line-ups!" Stalonus called as he dropped his phone into his lap and frantically grabbed the remote and switched the tv to the broadcast of the England-Russia World Cup qualifier game.

He tensely stood in his Lionesses jersey. A tension filled the room and Gabrielle stood off her couch, wearing on of Ngara's Stanford jersey's. Thalassa, who was wearing the same, stood from a nearby couch and Gabrielle took a step froward so they were close enough to clasp hands.

The room erupted in cheers, fully ignoring what the commentors were saying about the starting 11 because Ngara's name was listed among the subs.

Some kid nursing a tallboy of shit beer behind them scoffed loudly. "Nobody ever subs out center backs."

Thalassa and Gabrielle audibly groaned in unison sat back down. Stalonus ignored him, clearly still too excited.

Xena casually placed her arm around Gabrielle and minimally glanced at the voice from behind the couches. "You never know with this new England manager. Guy's a fuckin' asshole. He makes unpredictable decisions sometimes but they ain't always bad."

"Aries, right?" Stalonus asked turning toward Xena as if he had only then realized the wealth of knowledge that was sitting beside his roommate.

She nodded. "He's been there about four months. He only retired from play last year."

"Quick turn around," pointed out a girl dressed rather modestly. Gabrielle recognized her as one of Ngara's friends from her Theology program but could not remember her name.

Xena turned to the girl and nodded. "It was. But they've had bad coaching luck over the last couple years."

Xena felt like she was talking over the conversation and the watch party as all the eyes seemed so intently turned to her. She felt Gabrielle place her hand on her thigh reassuringly.

"From what I heard their last interim coach was so inexperienced that they were using a player-coach," Xena explained.

"Who was that?" Stalonus asked while glancing away from the Russian line-up that flashed on the screen.

Thalassa groaned as she tried to remember. "Uh, what's her name? That super arrogant blonde?"

"Callisto," Gabrielle answered as Xena scoffed.

"Good description though," Xena added.

"Oh no, is she actually a bitch?" one of the players from the Stanford team questioned Xena. "What did we drop our baby nun into?"

"Oh, she is not a nun anymore. Right, Stalonus?" Euripides called from the kitchen, where he was mixing what he had called punch.

Gabrielle, Twickenham, and Orion tried to stop themselves from laughing. Stalonus blushed and looked a bit shocked.

"Get yo-yo-your bed fixed," Twickenham shot at him.

"Or buy a less creaky one," Gabrielle added.

"Guys," he called embarrassed. "Xena is here."

Xena throw up her hands and laughed. "I'm just Gabrielle's girlfriend."

"Plus, who hasn't heard their roommates at least once?" the tallboy guy pointed out.

Stalonus nodded in agreement.

"To answer the original question," Xena said, twisting to look at Ngara's college teammate. "Callisto sucks when she's on the other team. I only played with her for a bit, but she was good teammate. Still kinda a bitch though."

"When did you play with her?" Thalassa questioned.

"Seven, eight years ago," Xena answered uncertainly.

"When you were on loan to Lyon?" Gabrielle offered up.

"Yeah," Xena said but began to trail off as the game was about to start.

With six minutes of halftime left, Ngara was sent out of the locker room to warm up with the rest of the bench players. She assumed she wasn't going to be put in. Despite an avalanche of chances, Callisto had only managed to score once. Boadicea, the veteran of the two starting center backs, was sitting on a yellow card. But she was smart enough to not get a second. It seemed Ngara's senior team debut would be against the first team new coach Aries deemed easy as the World Cup.

She felt pretty certain that she would make the roster. She had played almost every minute of the U-23 World Cup. She did well but the team had been knocked out early because of an unlucky draw of playing the Americans in their first quarterfinal game. They went on to win the entire thing, with Varia winning the golden ball and boot, for best player and most goals.

And Gabrielle's girlfriend's cousin won the bronze boot, Ngara though as she sat on the bench of the start of the second half.

Oddly, so many of her interactions with her national teammates were coming back to Gabrielle. Well, Xena to be honest but Ngara was only connected to the American superstar because her college teammate was her girlfriend.

Callisto particularly seemed to hate Ngara because of that. From what she had managed to get out of Boadicea and vague bits of rumors she remembered hearing from Thalassa, something happened while they were playing together at Lyon.

The clock ticked to the 85th minute and Ngara settled into the realization that she was truly not entering the game. She almost felt embarrassed for a moment, knowing there was a watch party on almost the complete opposite side of the world that was gathered just for her. Stalonus had texted her non-stop before she left her phone in her locker, Gabrielle had been sending words of encouragement, and multiple of her friends from her Theology program asked for her address so they could attend.

"Hey, Yank," the coach called to get Ngara's attention as she was walking into the locker room after the 2-0 victory against Russia. Ngara was finding her nickname incredibly tiresome. Four other players played in the NWSL and three had attended university in the United States, she was just the only one who had spent part of her childhood there.

She turned to look up at the coach. He was the youngest one she had ever had outside of youth teams. She wasn't so certain of his reputation in England but at least within American soccer circle, he was viewed as arrogant and hot-headed. She had been able to determine if that was true or not.

"Sorry you didn't get a chance to play," Aries told Ngara. "Don't take it the wrong way, just wasn't the game for it. Hope you like baguettes," he said quickly before he turned and walked away before she had a chance to react.

She chuckled to herself as she sat in front of her locker. She grabbed her phone from where she had left it. She had been tagged in a video of everyone in Gabrielle and Stalonus' house reacting to her being in the 18. She had a texts from almost everyone she knew would be at the watch party and a few from a number she did not recognized with a Chicago area code.