A/N: This Chapter is going to be a bit short, it’s just a date and I didn’t want to drag it out.

Borough Blend was a mid tier coffee shop located at the edge of the street. They had mismatched furniture and the walls had a deep rust color that took a little bit away from its general aesthetic but then it didn’t matter, their coffee was genuinely very good and that was all their customers seemed to care about.

Will had discovered the place six months earlier by accident when he made a detour during his morning run and since then he became a regular.

He arrived seven minutes early at the coffee shop. He had reported to Rockliffe Park for a short recovery session and the system didn’t issue him a daily quest because he just played a match the day before so he didn’t have anything much to do so he figured it wouldn’t hurt to arrive on time.

Chloe arrived three minutes late, unwinding a scarf from around her neck as she pushed open the door. She was wearing something casual, a jumper and jeans.

"Hi," Chloe said as she arrived at the table where Will waited and slid into the chair across from him.

"Hi," Will said.

"Have you been here for a while?"

"I got here early."

"You’re an early comer. Nice," Chloe smiled.

"I like being prepared."

Chloe looked at him with a faint smile on her face. "That’s the second time you’ve said that to me."

"It keeps being true."

In the next few minutes, they placed their order and made small talk while they waited for their coffee to arrive. Chloe ordered something that Will didn’t quite know the name of. It sounded expensive though, so he began mourning for his wallet.

"Tell me about Teesside," Will said as they took the first sips of their coffee. "What are you studying?"

"Journalism. I’m in my second year," Chloe said, then took another sip of her coffee while tightening her grip on the mug. "I want to do long form stuff eventually. Profiles, features. Not match reports, obviously. Up until yesterday, I didn’t even know that there was something called an offside."

"Do you want me to explain it?" Will sounded a little enthusiastic.

"Absolutely not," Chloe immediately burst his bubble. "Tell me about football without explaining the rules and all that boring stuff and I’m interested. The moment you start talking about offsides and yellow cards, my brain switches off and I start thinking about something else."

"What kind of long form stuff do you want to do?" Will asked.

"Stories about people," Chloe said. "That’s what I’m interested in. I want to pick their brains and understand how they think and why they respond to certain things. What makes a person do the things they do. What’s underneath it." She stared at him for a couple of seconds before she resumed talking. "Like you, coming in before sunrise because you’re not good enough yet. That’s a whole story that’s waiting to be told in my opinion."

"There’s really nothing to it," Will said.

"There’s always a story underneath it," Chloe took a sip of her coffee. "Did you always want to be a footballer?"

"Since before I could remember wanting things," Will said. "The defining moment was watching Messi against Manchester United back in 2009."

"You support Argentina?" Chloe asked, making Will burst into a fit of laughter.

"Argentina is a country. He also plays for a club called Barcelona," Will explained. "But no, I wasn’t even supporting the club he played for. He was so good he turned the hater in me into a fan."

"Yeah, I figured he has to be pretty good for me to know his name," Chloe said. "And your family, they’re in support of your dream?"

"Completely," Will said. "My dad made an artificial pitch in the back garden. He works at the steelworks and my mum does three jobs. They’ve never once told me I should do something safer." He paused. "My sister thinks it’s hilarious that I almost got released though."

Chloe chuckled. "She sounds like a character."

"She’s a nightmare," Will groaned. "But I’d rather have her than not."

Chloe smiled. "I’m an only child. I always wanted a sibling. Now I’m not sure, based on your evidence."

Will leaned forward to Chloe. "This discussion is strictly confidential by the way. You cannot tell her that I said anything positive about her. She’d never let me forget it."

Chloe laughed, causing Will to follow suit.

"Can I ask you something?" Will said after the laughter died down a bit. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"That’s usually my line," Chloe replied. "But go on."

"Why journalism? What made you want to do it?"

Chloe considered the question seriously, which Will appreciated. If she answered immediately, it meant that she didn’t give much thought to it and just said something for the sake of saying it.

"I grew up reading this column," Chloe answered. "It was in a local paper. Just a random bloke who wrote about ordinary people in the area. Not famous people, just ordinary random guys. Things about a woman who ran a food bank, a man who had been working at the same factory for forty years, a kid who won a regional chess championship." Chloe took the last sip of her coffee. "It wasn’t just him writing about them, it was the way he wrote about them. Like they mattered completely. Like the fact that they existed and were doing this thing that was the most important thing in the world. And I thought, I want to be the person who does that. Who finds people and makes them feel like their story is worth telling."

Will was quiet for a moment.

"That’s a good answer," Will said.

"I know," Chloe grinned.