Chapter Text
Hey, Delphine” Someone whispers from beside her. Her stomach flips. She’d recognize that voice anywhere.
“Bonjour, Cosima.” Delphine tries to stay calm, but she cannot hold back the huge grin that forces its way out whenever she sees the smaller girl. Cosima leans against her table in the library, subconsciously pushing her chest forward.
“I was wondering…” The smaller girl begins, still keeping her voice low. Delphine’s mind races. Could this be it? Could Cosima be asking her out? She hadn’t planned for this moment. She’d thought about it, hoped for it, but never considered it a possibility. “…if you’re not busy of course…” The smaller girls hands were flying about, as if she were nervous. Delphine straightens in her seat, and bites her bottom lip, a nervous habit. “…would you maybe want to…like…join the soccer team?”
Delphine’s mind was still elsewhere, running away with the possibilities of being on a date with Cosima, reaching over the table to run her fingers over Cosima’s hand and tracing her nautilus tattoo. “Yes, of course!” She blurts out.
“That’s awesome. Here’s where we train,” She pulls out a small piece of paper with and writes an address, “I guess I’ll see you tonight. Don’t forget shin-pads.” Cosima skips away, leaving Delphine to catch up on what has just happened. Once the bread-locked vision was out of sight Delphine threw down her pen. It wasn’t that she didn’t like football, in fact she loved football. The Cormiers had a long tradition of supporting Montpellier. Every year up until Delphine left she had bought a season ticket. Football in Europe is part of the culture. She still watched Ligue Un every weekend and could debate with the best of pundits. But she couldn’t play football. “Merde.”
_
There were many things Delphine had been prepared for this evening. She had been prepared to make herself look like an idiot. She had been prepared to be stuck in goal due to her height and shocking lack of ability with her feet. She had even been prepared for some form of injury. She had not, however, been prepared for Cosima in a football kit. The sight make Delphine visibly gawk. Her eyes trailed from the start end of Cosima’s bright red socks and across the smooth, tanned skin of her thighs to her tight black shorts. She hated to think of Cosima this way, it was not just her body that Delphine was attracted to, but in this instance her animal side took over. She lingered on the curve of Cosima’s ass for too long, but her eyes would not pull away. It was as if the shorts were teasing her. She wondered if Cosima knew. Of course Cosima knew. The girl was confident and cocky and teasing. Her shirt was the same bright red as her socks, with Niehaus 8 on the back, the trademark dreadlocks tied up into a tight ponytail. She must have caught Delphine staring because she ran her hands over her shirt and jogged over to her.
“Hey, I’m so glad you’re here.” Delphine smiled and nodded. She couldn’t locate words. “So, Montpellier huh? Didn’t take you for a football hipster.”
“Non! I’m not. I love Montpellier, my whole family does. It is our team.” Delphine got defensive. She hated it when people assumed that just because her family was from Paris they had to support Paris Saint Germain.
“I was kidding, I’m sorry.” Cosima laughed it off. “So, where do you play?”
“I um,” Here came the moment of truth. “I don’t. I mean, I played for a year, up front but then I gave up to focus on school work.”
“What’s your record like?”
“28 games, 14 goals.” She knew it was a good ratio, but it didn’t really tell the full story. It didn’t tell that 10 had been headers. It didn’t tell that her partner had scored 30 goals that season. It didn’t tell her that she had only started 12 games.
“That’s good, well, seeing as though you haven’t played in a while we’ll start with fitness training and then see how you are upfront.” Cosima took Delphine’s hand and lead her towards to rest of the group who were sat on the floor. Delphine joined them and waiting for Cosima to do the same. “Right guys, this is Delphine. She’s new so go easy on her.” Cosima had stayed stood up and was now addressing the whole group.
“Bought yourself some eye-candy did you Cos?” A dark-haired girl with an English accent piped up.
“Manning, shut the fuck up. You’re lucky you’re here on a sports scholarship or you’d be gone.” The tone was playful, Delphine could see that the two were actually really good friends. “First things first, we’re gonna’ do a quick warm-up. We’ll go through the usual stretches, then a lap of the pitch.” She motioned for the girls to stand up. They got into a circle with Cosima in the middle. She would do the stretch first and the others would copy her. It wasn’t helping Delphine’s wandering eyes that to get the most of the lunges, Cosima would lift her shorts up higher. Every time Cosima dipped, a bit more of her thigh was revealed and it started a fire in Delphine’s stomach.
“Right, one lap. Last one to finish has to pack up. This excludes Delphine for today.” This caused a loud groan from the other girls. “Hey. I’m the captain here. Get moving.” Manning was the first to move, but she was quickly over-taken by Childs and Hendrix. Those pair seemed to be inseparable. A blonde girl with uncontrollable, frizzy hair and red sunken eyes sprinted to catch up to Manning and ignored every protest from the brunette. Norris, Stubbs, De’Angelis and Fitzsimmons trailed behind Manning. At the rear of the group were Obinger, Fournier and Zingler. Delphine tried her best to keep up with the others. She was physically fit, but she was no athlete. To her amusement, and satisfaction, Cosima never left her side. “I know it can be hard when you’ve not played for a while. When I was 16, I wore plastic blades on soft ground.” Delphine could see where this was going. “I planted my left foot to turn, and my body did turn, but my left leg had other ideas.” Cosima let out a small chuckle, but Delphine could tell it hurt her to relive the memory. “My knee dislocated, and when I hit the floor, I landed on it and pushed it right back into place. It was absolute agony. I was out for 9 months. I didn’t know if i’d play again. Coming back into training killed me, so I get it.” Delphine was speechless. She wanted to comfort Cosima and at the same time she did not want to dwell on what Cosima had shared if it upset her, but she wanted her to know how much she appreciated her sharing her injury.
“I am really sorry for your injury, Cosima, I can not imagine how hard it was.”
“No, It was my own fault. I shouldn’t have been so silly.” She shook her head. “I’ll race you to the front though.” With that, she was gone. Delphine laughed and tried to force her legs to switch from a gentle jog to a sprint. Luckily she had a whole head of height on the woman, so even though she was probably slower, her long limbs caught up the distance between them.
Cosima panted as the group came to a halt. “I may have underestimated you.” Delphine was certain that she had winked at her before she lifted her water bottle to her mouth and drained half of it. The whole group fell quiet as they drank, apart from Childs of course, who didn’t seem tired at all.
“Right, shooting practice.” Delphine gulped. “Manning, you’re up first.” The girl with the crazy blonde hair pointed to herself, confused, and picked up a ball. The dark-haired Manning pulled it away from her and threw it to Cosima. “Of course she doesn’t mean you, meathead, get in the sticks.” The blonde girl growled at, what Delphine assumed to be her sister, but walked to the goal anyway.
“Top right-hand Manning. Nothing less than full power.” Cosima teased. She kicked the ball along the floor in front of Manning, hard and low. Manning wound up, her left foot planting in the soil and her right swinging round early to catch the left side of the ball. The curve on her shot was exquisite. The ball curled around the outside of to post, lulling the blonde keeper into a fall sense of security, before pulling back and nestling into the top corner. Manning smiled as she stuck her middle fingers up to Cosima and bowed to the rest of the group. “Delphine, you’re up.”
It was time to show Cosima the truth that her goals to game ratio hid. She was sure that she was shaking as she stepped up towards the edge of the box. Focus, Delphine. Head over the ball, laces through it. Follow the shot with your boot. Go for power. She went through the technique over and over. She had seen it for years, could tell everyone here exactly how they should run up, how they should open their hips when trying to curl a shot and where to hit the ball to get it to dip just before the bar. Could she do it herself? That was a different story. She watched as Cosima kicked her the ball, hard and low just like with Manning. Her eyes were focused intently, never leaving the ball it she let it roll across her body. She placed all of her weight onto her right leg and tensed her left as she brought it forward, hard and fast to smack into the centre of the ball. She managed to dip her foot ever so slightly just before contact, hoping that this will be emulated in the balls flight. The blonde goalkeeper was rooted to her goal line, watching helplessly as the ball sailed past her at an unstoppable speed. CLANG! Delphine’s shot collides with the base of the post and rolls off back down the pitch. She smacked her hands together in frustration and forces out a deep scream that tears at the skin in her throat.
“Holy watershed Delphine!” Cosima was stood with her mouth agape. Her eyes running up and down Delphine’s body as if she couldn’t quite witness what she was seeing.
“I know, I am terrible.” She hid her face, too embarrassed to look up at the dread-locked woman.
“No, no. Come here.” She ushered Delphine over. “Childs? You can take over from here yeah?”
She dragged Delphine away from the rest of the group until they were far enough away so that they could talk without being overheard. Cosima couldn’t hide the all-consuming grin on her face even if she’d tried to. “I should have told you, Cosima, I am so sorry. I’m not very good at football.”
“Delphine, you’ve got the hardest shot I’ve ever fucking seen. Literally, I thought you were going to kill Helena. We’ve just got to work on technique, but that’s why I’m here”
Delphine went to protest, to say she didn’t want to take up Cosima’s time and that she’ll work on it herself, but then she realised what Cosima was proposing. Cosima was suggesting that they spend time together. Alone. She felt her face burn. “Oui. I would like that.”
Cosima carried on looking at her, with that dopey grin. “Cool.”