Chapter Text
“Don’t be late, your aunt has a guided meditation practice at 4 and we promised we’d be there Christen. No dilly-dallying, you go grab the ingredients for our chili and you come back home.”
“Fine mom. I’ll be quick about it. I promise!” Christen Press shouts as she runs out of the house as fast as she can and down into the streets of LA. She’s scrambling up and down with a pink track bag that holds her wallet, keys, and her torn up cleats she had snagged from a garage sale a few years ago.
Christen sheds her light jacket, pausing on a busy sidewalk to shove it into her bag so that her classic red Manchester United Beckham jersey is on full display. The jersey is a symbol of luck for her, and lord knows she could use it right now. She wears it during pick up games at the park, and whenever she can without her parent’s eyes on her.
The sun is shining in beautiful LA, where the grass is always green, and people are always bustling about. Christen takes the long way towards the shopping center of her area in the city, pausing at the beautiful green park.
“Pressy! Come on, get your ass out here!” A dark-haired friend of Christen’s yells as she passes a soccer ball, sprinting over to where Christen was on the side of the ‘pitch’ as they liked to call it. Just a huge patch of a field with mini pop-up goals in the grass. Some days they liked to bring a can of spray paint to mark a goal and half-point line but after one of the boys got chased off by park security they hadn’t done it in a while.
“Ali, you know I can only stay for some kick around. I have to get back home before 4.” Christen explains as she throws her sack down and heads into the fray. Ali is one of her best friends from high school. She plays soccer with her brother Kyle, and his friends Nima, Will, and Servando which is how Christen got roped into the game in the first place. It was love at first touch she always liked to say.
Ever since then she’d been waking up at all hours of the morning to watch David Beckham play for Manchester United. The way he curves his balls into the goal makes her eyes widen in amazement every time. That’s the kind of skill she wishes she had. And its the kind of skill her parents sigh over every time they catch her even juggling a soccer ball.
“Your mom is such a buzz kill!” Ali whines as she kicks the ball back to Christen who then makes her way towards the pop-up goal. She sighs in agreement, finding it increasingly frustrating that her mom is making her do so much to prepare for her sister Tyler’s wedding. The guided meditation tonight was supposed to be for them to decompress between all of the buying of bouquets, and dresses and god knows what else. She pulls back her leg and sends it spinning into the pocket, making the boys whistle. The net ricochets back with the force of her ball, almost pulling out of the ground they had staked it into.
“Jeez, Pressy. Leave some net for the rest of us.” Servando teases, pulling the ball out of the goal.
“Well, you should defend the net then!” Christen laughs as she pauses to make sure her cleats are laced up properly. While the game picks up again, she has no idea that a pair of bright brown eyes are watching her from across the park. They watch as she snakes between the stronger boys, picking up speed and doing a classic cut back before scoring. They see her take a long drink of water before starting to juggle as they wind down.
Christen loses track of time out there in the sun, an alarm going off on her digital watch.
“Oh shit!” She swears, scrambling to grab her bag. Ali sighs, grabbing the ball Christen had just left.
“Running out of time?” She says knowingly. This always happens with Christen and her love of the game.
“Sadly. See you guys tomorrow if I can make it. Gotta go grab this stuff from the store now. Really sorry.” Christen apologizes even as Nima says she doesn’t have to. She runs in her cleats still on with her jacket pulled over her Beckham jersey and stumbles into someone.
“Ow! Watch where you’re going!” The girl says as she pulls herself back up to her feet. Christen pauses, stepping back. Her cheeks are glowing red and she pushes back a stray curl, looking up to face the girl she bumped into. The girl’s brown hair was cut short, just past her ears with golden highlights in the sunlight.
“Sorry. I’m just in a rush, I-” Christen pauses, looking down at the girl’s bright orange cleats, and her light baby blue shorts with the number 17 emblazoned on them. “You play footy?” She blurts out.
“Yup.” The brunette says, popping the ‘p’. She reaches out her hand, smiling with a pair of bright straightened teeth. “Tobin Heath, I play 17 for the Pali Blues.”
“Pali Blues?” Christen repeats, confused at the name. She scratches her head, trying to think of any clubs she knew with that name. Tobin laughs, pulling her arm around Christen’s shoulders. “I’m Christen by the way.”
“The LA women’s D2 club? You know we’re having tryouts in a few weeks if you wanna come. Could use some fancy feet like yours.” Tobin grins, raising her brows. Christen stepped back, shaking her head. A D2 club? She feels like an idiot for not even knowing that women played competitively like that.
“Feet like mine? Did you see me play, back there?” She asks, gesturing to the group still kicking around. Tobin nods, her eyes widening as she replays the moves in her mind. Christen feels a bit self-conscious now, realizing that someone besides her friends had seen her skills on display. Usually, she’s kicking around for fun, trying tricks she’d seen Beckham do.
“Dude you were like amazing back there. You told those boys what’s up. Have you ever played on a team?” Tobin questions, her hands on her hips as she wonders. Christen shakes her head bashfully. She tugs at her bag and starts to walk.
“No...I’ll think about your offer yeah? What day is it? I gotta head out to the shops now for my mom…” Christen feels embarrassed, having to do grocery shopping while a girl is literally inviting her to a semi-pro football team try out. She is still in shock that anyone would believe she could play that well.
Tobin keeps up the pace, walking with Christen. “So the first try out is on the 10th, and our first game is the 25th. We use the pitch in the west of the city closer to the ocean. Do you have a pager? I could send the deets to ya!”
Christen pauses and reaches into her bag, grabbing her pager. They exchange contacts and Tobin heads back to the park where she does some drills. Christen makes her way to the stores.
The entire time she’s elated that someone would think she had actual football skills, but the other part of her knew she would have to keep this a secret from her parents. It wasn’t that her parents were strictly anti-football but they didn’t believe Christen had time to focus on such silly things while also on an AP path at school, and stepping up to help for Tyler’s wedding. An organized sport was too much effort she could be putting elsewhere.
She returns home with the bag of ingredients from the store just before 4 pm, entering the house to her mom already yelling.
“Christen I swear you’re gonna give her a stroke one day.” Tyler groans, swiping the bag from Christen’s hands as she heads back into the kitchen with it. Stacy, their mother, comes out of the kitchen and shakes her head at the state of Christen.
“What on earth are you wearing? Get dressed for your aunt’s! Now!” She yells, pointing out the obvious dirt on Christen’s shins and the jersey under her jacket. “I told you to go to the shop, that doesn’t mean to play with the Kriegers! I’ll be calling Nima’s parents too. He knows better than to keep letting you play that wretched game.”
Nima was a childhood friend of hers, and their parents were close. This meant of all of them Nima knew the most about how anti-football her parents were. Still, he always encouraged her to sneak out and play even if he would get grounded for inviting Christen out.
She’d forgotten to zip up her jacket and pulls the edges of the material closer so her mom can’t see its a jersey. Christen reaches down and takes off her cleats quickly, trying to make sure her mom doesn’t realize what they are. She mumbles apologies and runs upstairs.
Once inside her bedroom, Christen slides down and sits against the back of her door. Her bedroom is all but a shrine to David Beckham with posters all over the walls and VHS tapes of his games on top of her tv.
“Should I do it?” Christen asks. She’s speaking to herself, but she wouldn’t mind some spiritual guidance from the man himself on her walls. Her heart is screaming at her to keep playing. To go to the tryout. She figures Tobin was just being polite about it all. There’s no way she’ll be signed, right?
Christen tries to imagine how Tobin plays. She’s never seen the girl before, figures she goes to one of the other thousands of schools in the LA area. Figures she would be good at the game. She’s got the muscular legs for it, Christen figures. Subconsciously she tugs down the hem of her pants even further. Her legs would never look like Tobin’s. She can picture the brunette running down the side of the pitch and feeding her a ball, leading up for a huge curling goal. One that would make Beckham’s look like a piece of cake.
She looks down at her pager and sends a message.
CP: What time on the 10th?
TH: 12pm!
CP: I’m coming
Christen figures it would either be a huge embarrassment or a step forward into a new direction for her. She can’t wait to figure out which.
--------
“Well, what about these, pumpkin?”
Tobin turns her head to glance at the ungodly bra that her mother is holding and can’t even hold in a groan.
“Mom! I don’t even have enough boob for that. No way.” Tobin argues, shaking her head. Cindy, her mother, walks closer with it.
“No, no look it has this thing,” She holds up a small device in her hand and clicks it a few times. The cups in the bra grow with each click and Tobin rolls her eyes. “See, it grows. It can fit you while we wait for those mosquito bites to grow.” She tsks, pinching at Tobin’s shoulder.
“No way. I’m not wearing that. They’re not growing, I’m 18 mom!” Tobin grits out, trying to keep her voice down. It’s embarrassing enough that she’s in the bra shop, to begin with, but having her mother scream about her lack of boobs is another.
“Oh Toby, really. It’s a bra shop. There’s no need to be ashamed. I didn’t grow boobs until I was in my 30s pumpkin. I swear. You’ll be okay. I just thought you know, maybe you’d like to be a bit fuller for the boys.” Cindy says. She gently puts the blowup bra back down on the rack and heads to a lacy bralette. “Maybe this instead dear?”
Tobin walks away and into the sports bra section. She pulls down a couple of Nike bras and holds them out for her mom.
“I’m getting these and then we’re leaving this store. Never to come back again.” She says, leading her mom to the cashier. Cindy lets out a sigh, grabbing her wallet.
“I just want my little girl to be a girl for once is that such a bad thing?”
Tobin finally gets her mom to leave the shop with just the sports bras for her, and they head back home.
“So today I met another girl who might be trying out today,” Tobin says absently, playing with the shoelaces on her cleats. Cindy looks over to her briefly while turning the corner in their car.
“Oh did you now? That’s good weren’t you low on returning players because you’re all adults who should be in college…” Cindy says. Tobin sighs, biting her lip.
“Her name is Christen. She’s really good like she could be something mom.” She tries to convince her mom to care for once but it’s not really working.
“Christen is an unusual name. Christen with a ch?” Tobin watches her mom look in the mirror before switching lanes, and smiling sweetly to her. Of course, she would be interested in how a teammate spelled their name. Tobin couldn’t care less.
“Oh yeah, that’s what she put in my pager.”
“Bet her parents are super interesting. You’ll have to introduce us at some practice.”
Tobin throws her head back against the passenger seat, wishing she was already home.
“And Tobin Powell Heath what did I say about taking your dirty, smelly cleats off in the car!”
-
Her dad is waiting in the backyard as soon as they arrive home, waving her back.
“Come on Tobes! I got the goal kicker we ordered up.” He says, pointing at the wooden cut out in the goal. The aim of the cut out was for the ball to go through one of the several holes at increasing levels of difficulty. Tobin’s a midfielder, but she wants to brush up on her scoring in case she is moved to winger this season. She knows they’re lacking a few other positions so she could be played in different roles.
“Really, Jeff?” Cindy asks in dismay as Tobin runs upstairs to change into her cleats. Jeff shrugs,
“Oh come on Cindy, she’s got to train. Tryouts are soon and if she doesn’t get a starting spot this season, she might not get a uni scholarship.” Jeff defends himself and Tobin’s need to play right this second. Tobin bolts down the stairs, throwing the ball to her father to play. He sets up a pass for her to score off of and she whips the ball into one of the cutouts.
“There we go! Come on Tobin let’s go again!” Jeff whoops as Tobin collects the ball and they go again. They go at it for hours until they decide to play some 1 v 1 and the ball flies out and into the window.
“That’s it! You two come in right now!” Cindy yells through the open window, thankful that it wasn’t closed and the ball didn’t go through any glass. Tobin collects the ball sheepishly and heads up to her room.
“Look, I know you’re mad but come on. She isn’t going to college yet. She’s got to play, you know that Cindy.” Jeff argues, sitting down and drinking a glass of water.
“Jeff. She is 18 years old and has never been to a school dance. She’s never brought a boy home. And today she bought more sports bras. Where did we go wrong? Was it the soccer? I don’t think she likes boys.” Cindy complains, sinking down at the kitchen table. Her head in her hands as she tries to explain her concerns for their youngest girl.
“Maybe she’ll find a coach to fall for. You never know.” Jeff tries to be positive, but he knows his wife is most likely correct. The question was if Tobin knew she was a lesbian yet.
The week passed by quickly ever since Tobin and Christen first met that fateful day in the park. Christen had been going to practice at the park with her own ball and old cleats every night while her family was in bed. It was risky but worth it. She ran her own drills, trying to test her endurance. Tobin meanwhile was practicing out on the pitch the team usually used. She has access to it through Abby, their coach. Abby loves having Tobin on the team, and if she didn’t have to do tryouts for clarity and equal opportunity for other players, she would have already signed her. It’s just formality to do a tryout but Tobin still treats it like any tryout. She goes hard. And that is exactly why Abby loves her.
The 10th is approaching. It’s a crisp fall day with a light breeze, and no rain (yet). Christen lies to her parents, saying she’s going on a job interview at a local mall. They hate going to the mall anyway, so they’re less likely to go searching for her there.
“Can I get a ride from you?” Christen asks Nima as they sit up in a gazebo across from their houses. Nima raises a brow,
“A ride? Where? When are your parents ever going to realize you need a car?” Nima asks, taking a sip of the coffee he held in his hand. Christen sighs, shrugging.
“When Tyler finally moves out and takes the shitty white car with her. I don’t have enough cash to refill my metro card and it doesn’t even go out there. I have a tryout today. For Pali Blues?” Christen blushes as she reveals it and sees Nima’s eyes widen.
“Isn’t that like a D2 women’s team?” he asks in surprise. Christen rubs the back of her neck, nodding.
“Yeah, I ran into one of their players the other week. She invited me to try out. Guess she thinks I’m worth something. I probably won’t make it but I told my parents I was getting a job at the mall. So can you drive me?” She begs, eyes wide. She has Nima wrapped around her fingers. He’s always been sweet to her like an older brother, and he would do anything for her. Including driving her towards the ocean which was going to be at least an hour away.
“Alright. Let’s go, get you bending like Beckham!” Nima agrees, getting up and jangling his keys while heading to his car.