When Will got back to his house after the match, it was empty which made sense. It was a Saturday and his dad wasn’t around, his mom was probably working and his sister was doing whatever it was that she spent her Saturdays doing.

He went up to his room and immediately laid down on his bed. Even though it was just a friendly, he was still to tired from playing and wanted to have a bit of a rest.

While he was on his bed, he kept thinking about the match that he played earlier today. He didn’t play a terrible game, but he wasn’t the best player on the pitch either. Even with the system’s overlay guiding him through the match, he was having a stinker until the second half when he picked himself up. That couldn’t happen again.

He was already behind on the system’s average for the pre-season mission and he had just one match to set things straight. He had to take his chance no matter what.

After spending an unhealthy amount of time replaying the events of the match, Will finally fell asleep. By the time he woke up, it was already past ten in the evening. He immediately changed into more comfortable clothes and was about to start doom scrolling on his phone when he noticed that he had received a text from an unknown number an hour earlier.

<Unknown Number>: Hi, this is Chloe. I have three follow-up questions. They’re for the article. Are you free to talk?

Will was laying on his bed, doing nothing in particular so he was absolutely free to talk. But he stared at the message for nearly a minute before he replied.

<Will>: Yeah, go ahead.

<Chloe>: Do you have a minute to call? It’s way easier than typing

Will immediately sat up when he read the last statement. He immediately cleaned himself up, even though it was going to be a voice call and not a video call before calling her. She answered on the third ring.

"Hey"

"Hey". He answered.

"How’s your foot? You were limping a little bit after you got subbed off".

Will blinked a couple of times. "That’s definitely not an interview question".

"It’s my first question".

"My foot is fine. I caught a boot sometime in the second half. It’s nothing".

"Okay". Will could faintly hear the sound of her scribbling in her notepad in the background. "Second question. You said earlier that you train before sunrise because you’re not good enough. Is that a modesty thing or is that genuinely how you see yourself?"

Will blinked a couple of times for the second time in the conversation when he heard the question.

"It’s genuinely how I see myself. I know what I’m good at and I know what I am not good at. And I think that I’m not good at enough things yet". Will said after a few moments of thought.

"And do you think you will be? Eventually?"

"Yeah". Will replied without any hesitation whatsoever. The system had given him a type of confidence and certainty that he didn’t think he was humanly possible. Even if he wasn’t confident in his present abilities, he was confident in the caliber of footballer that he could grow into.

"Third question". Chloe said. She paused for quite a few seconds after beginning her sentence, then she spoke. "Do you want to get coffee sometime? This one’s not for the article".

Will was quiet for a few moments before he found his voice and spoke.

"I thought you said you had three questions for the article". he said.

"The first two were for the article". She said. "The third one’s mine".

Will leaned back into his bed and rubbed his hair. From the hallway, he could hear the sound of Janet’s alarms going on. She had a habit of setting alarms for strange times. And it wasn’t like she responded to them, she just set them and let them ring.

"I can do Sunday". Will said. "I really don’t have training. It’s just recovery and then I’m free in the afternoon".

"Sunday noon". Chloe said. "That works".

"There’s a cafe on Linthorpe Road that’s decent". Will said. "Borough Blend. Do you know the place?"

"I’ll find it".

After that, there was a few seconds of silence where neither of them spoke a word. It wasn’t awkward, but it wasn’t comfortable either.

"Your goal today was good by the way". Chloe said. "I mean, I don’t know much about football technically, but it looked good. Like you knew exactly what you wanted to do as soon as you got a hold of the ball".

"Thank you". Will said.

"That’s unusual, isn’t it? At this level?"

"It’s something I’ve been working on," he said.

"You say that about everything. Your passing, your vision, your shooting. What are you not working on?"

"Everything else," Will said, and she laughed again, and it occurred to Will that he was getting quite fond of that laugh already, which was perhaps something he should be keeping track of.

"I’ll see you on Sunday". she said.

"See you on Sunday". Will said.

He put the phone down and lay there looking at the ceiling. He kept thinking about things that had happened today. His match, his date with Chloe. He might not have played as well as he would have wanted to but it wasn’t bad either.

While he was sinking deep into his cloud of thoughts, Janet knocked on his door forty seconds later.

"Who was that?" she said.

"Nobody."

"You were smiling through the door."

"I wasn’t."

"You absolutely were. I could hear it."

"You can’t hear someone smiling."

"I can," Janet said, with supreme confidence. "Was it a girl?"

"Go away, Janet."

"It was definitely a girl," she said, and he could hear her smiling through the door on her end too, which was significantly more annoying. Her footsteps retreated down the hallway.

Will stared at the ceiling a bit longer.

He had a second friendly on Wednesday. He needed at least an 8.2 match rating to bring his average up toward the 8.0 target. He should have been thinking about the Wednesday match.

He thought about it for approximately four minutes before his mind wandered back to the phone call, and then he gave up and went to sleep.

A/N: Apologies for not updating yesterday, something came up. To compensate, I will be uploading another Chapter later today or early tomorrow.

I also want to say thank you for the power stones, they really meant a lot, every single one.

There’s going to be a new bonus system for it,

50 Power Stones= 1 Extra Chapter