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Adriana leans coquettishly against the doorframe.

‘“Careful with that wrist, Murphy,”’ Adriana does her best impression of ‘sexy Kira’, even doing a performative wink. ‘How about you rest it by lying down in my bed, and I’ll–’

‘Addy! Please!’ Maeve groans, covering her scarlet ears. She rushes to the door, opens it to check that Kira has actually left. ‘Don’t make a big deal out of nothing!’ She hisses.

‘Didn’t seem like nothing to me,’ says Adriana. ‘Didn’t seem like nothing when the two of you were pressed up against each other on the pitch. And it didn’t seem like nothing when the two of you were alone in here dramatically heaving your bosoms.’

‘We are not lesbians in a period drama, Addy, we don’t have heaving–’

Adriana sing-songs, ‘Maeve and Kira, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I–’

‘ Stop it !’ Maeve snaps.

It comes out way more intense and serious than Maeve meant it to from the shocked look on her face but still, it’s clear Adriana’s jokes have struck a nerve in her stressed friend.

Adriana falls quiet. Being told off makes her feel not only worried about her friendship with Maeve and that she’s pushed it too far, but it brings back unwanted replays of her conversation with Jacob earlier where similarly it felt that she was too much. She feels her lip quiver.

‘Oh, Addy,’ Maeve says quickly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overreact, I’m just– you know, feeling so stressed, and I…’ She opens up her arms. ‘Come here.’

Adriana falls into her and they hug tightly. To both their surprise, Adriana starts weeping into Maeve’s shoulder.

‘Woah, woah! Sunny!’ Maeve sighs, stroking her hair. ‘I didn’t realise I’d upset you so much, I’m sorry.’

‘No, it’s not–’ Adriana sniffles. ‘It’s not you, I just, I didn’t sleep well, and I’m hormonal, and– and–’

‘And what?’

Maeve pulls back, wiping tears from Adriana’s cheeks.

‘It’s nothing,’ says Adriana, avoiding Maeve’s eyes. ‘Just some… business stuff.’

Maeve offers Adriana a tissue from her bag, and Adriana smiles to herself. Adriana is always in awe of how prepared Maeve is. ‘Business? What do you mean, “business”?’

‘No, no it’s nothing,’ Adriana dabs at her face. ‘I think all the stress in the team is getting to me. People fighting for the captaincy, and all this talk of people moving in and out of the team… I just want us to be able to have fun again.’

‘It is a really weird time,’ Maeve mumbles in agreement, pulling Adriana back into their hug. ‘But it’s going to be okay. Things will settle down. Change always feels the most dramatic at the start. It’s all just very fresh, and surprising, but we’ll get to grips with it.’

It sounds like Maeve is trying to soothe herself as much as Adriana, but she appreciates it nonetheless. Adriana’s breathing returns to normal.

‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ Maeve. ‘You’re always saying we spend too much time in this training complex.’

Adriana looks up hopefully.

‘Are we going to go… out?’

‘No! We are not going out out, Addy.’

‘Really?’ jokes Adriana. ‘Not even to The Old Pig? Not even one little bottle of wine each?’

Maeve laughs and shakes her head.

‘Okay, okay,’ Adriana gives up. ‘Want to come back to mine? I think we could both use a break from thinking about… all this. We can put pyjamas on immediately, and watch some noughties TV, and I’ll– Ooh, I can make you baba ganoush?’

Maeve squeezes her friend’s cheek affectionately, then studies her face more seriously. Adriana wonders if her own secrets are visible on her face.

‘You’re right,’ says Maeve. ‘Let’s go back to mine, and I’ll make baba ganoush. That way, we won’t have to deal with the fire brigade.’

They head out, Adriana squeezing her friend’s arm with happiness and an overwhelming sense of relief. She won’t have to spend this evening alone. Hopefully, that also means she won’t have her dreams haunted tonight by Jacob’s angry face.

Later, when she and Maeve have eaten a delicious array of dips and tofu noodles, they’re laughing together on Maeve’s sofa, drinking camomile tea with old episodes of New Girl in the background.

They do a good job of avoiding talking about everything to do with the team for, ooh, about two hours – but then Maeve shifts on the sofa and winces as she catches her arm.

She rolls up her cow-print pyjama sleeve to study if the plaster is holding.

(Adriana is also wearing a pair, proving you should always gift someone things you like yourself.)

‘Does it still hurt?’ asks Adriana.

Maeve half laughs, half sighs, as she looks down at her neatly bandaged arm.

‘It’s… It’s fine. At least it’s not my ankle, right? It’s just a scratch, it’s the least of my worries. Kira…’ She tails off and then groans. ‘I still can’t believe I lost my cool like that.’

‘Honestly, it’s okay, I think you think it was worse than it was,’ Adriana says, glad to be able to give her the reassuring pep talk she knows Maeve needs.

‘If anything, I think you proved to Coach that you can be aggressive if you need to be. Keep her guessing and show that you can follow her instructions.’

Worry lines appear on Maeve’s forehead and she sips her camomile tea.

‘Oh God, I just don’t think that now should be the time to make Coach guess about my performance. I want to be reliable, a safe pair of hands, you know? Like I always have been. It’s the only way I’m going to contrast favourably for the captaincy next to Kira…’

Maeve’s voice cracks a little on Kira’s name, and Adriana studies her friend’s face. Maeve definitely likes Kira, it’s clear from the way she blushes and her throat catches at the name. But Adriana wonders if her friend even knows herself.

‘Coach wants us to do extra training together, me and Kira,’ Maeve explains. ‘So I can’t let her get to me, can’t let her rile me up. But I find her…’

Maeve puts her head in her hands. Adriana rubs her fluffy-socked feet soothingly. Adriana hates seeing Maeve worry like this and just wants to fix everything for both of them.

‘And then there’s the whole Jacob Astor thing,’ Maeve carries on, oblivious. Adriana freezes.

‘Surely he was there today to watch and report back on us,’ Maeve continues, unaware of her friend’s shift.

‘Is he there to see who to let go in this transfer window? And I wonder if he has a say in who is captain too. Would it affect sponsorship or something? Optics? There’s just so much we don’t know. ’

Adriana relaxes. Maeve clearly doesn’t suspect a thing about her and Jacob. Understandably, she’s preoccupied by her own dramatic day.

Maeve gnaws at her finger nails. ‘He is just this random man who suddenly has power over our careers! We don’t know what his metrics are. We don’t even know what he prioritises in a football player.’

‘He is just thinking about money,’ says Adriana, without thinking. ‘He doesn’t even like football.’

‘What?’ Maeve pauses, looking up. ‘How do you know?’

Adriana flushes and tries to cover up her slip.

‘Well, he’s just a– he’s just some business guy, right? With a rich dad? If he cared about football, he’d be more involved, not just watching from the sidelines barely looking at the field.’

Maeve ponders this. ‘I guess you’re right.

But he’s an unknown quantity which I really don’t like.

If only we had some way of knowing what he was thinking.

Then we’d know how they’re deciding between me and Kira – or someone else – for captain, and which players they might want to move on before the season starts. ’

Adriana has a great idea. She puts her tea down, excited. She’s going to fix all Maeve’s worries. It’s what she is best at, she tells herself, dealing with any little mis-steers behind the scenes without anyone even needing to know.

She’s going to use her unusual relationship with Jacob to find out who is in the chopping line, and save them from being on the list of outgoing players.

And if it also means getting to spend more time with Jacob – in a purely professional manner , of course!

– she can reassure herself that he does like her as a person, that their night of romance wasn’t completely wasted, and that she is charming and loveable even when she’s not seducing a new man because it’s not the only way to prove her worth.

Maybe she and Jacob could become friends!

Stranger things have happened, she tells herself.

Adriana snuggles into Maeve’s familiar sofabed, hugging one of the many cow plushies Adriana has previously bought for her friend. She is proud of herself for not confessing all this to Maeve. She’s better at secrets than she thought. The less Maeve knows the more Adriana is protecting her.

‘Night night,’ Maeve kisses her friend sweetly on the forehead. ‘Thank you for being such a good friend.’

‘Night night,’ Adriana mumbles sleepily. ‘Back at you.’

Adriana sleeps well that night.

Over the next week of intense pre-season training, Adriana keeps looking out for opportunities to catch Jacob alone, without drawing suspicions of anyone else in the team.

But on Wednesday, Jacob isn’t there. She takes her restless energy out by sprinting even faster during a drill, and earns a rare compliment from Coach.

On Thursday morning, Adriana thinks she sees him in the stands, a tall silhouette just watching , like a sexy phantom of the opera.

On Friday, she sees him talking to Coach Hoffman.

He’s wearing a deep navy suit and his shirt is unbuttoned at the collar, just enough to see a glimpse of his toned chest. His head is bent listening and nodding seriously to what Coach is saying.