My Goalkeeping System

The room had gotten a bit awkward now as Mateo sat opposite Amber slowly eating his avoid while avoiding eye contact with her.

Amber on the other hand didn\'t mind as she slowly ate her food with her gaze on him. In the end, the winger had to break the awkward silence because he needed to ask her a question.

"Hey, it\'s thirty minutes to nine." He said after turning his gaze to the wall clock to check the time.

"Yeah, I\'m aware of that." She replied.

"You are? Then don\'t you think you should start heading home, it\'s already too late?"

"Why does that sound like you trying to get rid of me?"

"I\'m not trying to get rid of you, Amber, I\'m just saying heading home alone when it\'s already this late can be dangerous." Mateo expressed.

"Heading home alone?" She said, sounding a bit annoyed. "Who said I was going home?"

"Huh?"

"We\'re friends, right?" She asked.

"Yeah."

"Cool, then what\'s wrong with having a friend sleep over at your place?"

\'I should have seen this coming.\'

"You want to sleep over here?"

"Yeah." She replied with a nod.

After hearing her say that, Mateo let out a deep sigh before turning his gaze to the door to his room.

"Well, in that case, I hope you brought your own clothes."

"No, I didn\'t." She said before shaking her head.

"You didn\'t bring any clothes?" He said with a perplexed expression on his face.

"Hey, what\'s with that expression? You think I planned to spend the night here?" She asked before pushing closer to him causing him to flinch back a little.

"Well, everything you do seems to be planned but I guess you messed up on this one." The winger said.

As soon as he said that, Amber let out a little chuckle before falling back to her seat.

"What\'s funny?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Um…I didn\'t really have complimenting you in mind when I said that, but if you want you can take it as one."

After hearing him say that, the smile on her face suddenly turned to a frown.

"What?"

"You could have just said yes or no, you don\'t need to make a whole sentence just to say the same thing in an attempt to make me angry."

"I guess it worked then." He muttered before taking a sip from his drink.

Amber let out a deep sigh before turning her gaze back to her food.

"I see you\'re now in the mood to joke with me, that\'s cool." She said, "But that out of the way for now, how do you like my cooking?"

"It\'s good, I guess." He said before putting a piece of shrimp in his mouth.

"You guess?"

"Yeah, I mean my mom and sister\'s cooking tastes way better but yours isn\'t bad or anything so it\'s okay." He replied as calmly as he could with a straight face.

Amber slowly bit her lower lip as she thought of something to say.

"Well, I am still very young, all it will take is a little more practice and I will be better than them." She said,

"Um…I don\'t think it works that way."

"Huh?"

"I mean the food my sister used to make when she was just fifteen years old tastes better than this."

"You can\'t be serious."

"I\'m dead serious," Mateo said before raising his gaze to look at her.

She let out a sigh before placing her hand on her chin.

"How cute." She muttered.

"Huh?"

"Oh, it\'s nothing, I was just thinking about something." She said before shaking her head.

After finishing his meal, Mateo made his way into his room and crashed down on his bed with his face now buried in it.

He would have gone to take a shower but because he already did that at the stadium, he was just going to go straight to bed.

He still had his face buried in the bed when he heard the door open and someone walk in, but he didn\'t bother to look because he already knew who it was, and he wasn\'t going to look until he heard his wardrobe open.

He quickly raised his gaze to see that she was standing in front of the open wardrobe now.

"So, how many pajamas do you have?" She asked with her gaze still on the clothes in the wardrobe.

"Three." He replied.

"Cool, can I have one?"

"Sure, you can have the blue one on the far right."

"Thanks." She said before quickly stretching her hands to find it.

"You\'re welcome." The winger said before crashing back on his bed.

After taking the pajamas, she went to the bathroom to take a shower and by the time she was back, Mateo was already fast asleep.

"I guess I shouldn\'t have expected much since he just came back from a match." She said, sounding a bit disappointed.

She slid into the pajamas which seemed to be a bit oversized on her although Mateo\'s body wasn\'t that much bigger than hers before slowly lying down on the bed beside him.

She kept her gaze on him and watched him breathe peacefully as he slept.

"Cute." She muttered before closing her eyes.

______ ______

Morning came by pretty soon as Amber slowly opened her eyes expecting to see Mateo beside her but was disappointed when she couldn\'t find him.

She let out a sigh before slowly sitting up on the bed.

She was still processing a couple of thoughts in her mind when she heard a ringtone that she knew quite well.

She quickly turned her gaze to the small cupboard beside the bed to find Mateo\'s phone sitting there.

\'He left without his phone.\' She said subconsciously before reaching for the phone to see who was calling him.

"Sofia?" She muttered.

Her face suddenly went from drowsy to amused.

"Does she usually call him this early?" She muttered. "Well, I\'m not really surprised."

\'I wonder what she will think if I pick up the call?\'

______ ______

It was a bright new morning for Dave in his new home, he always started his day with his running back when they were in the old place and he wasn\'t planning on stopping that.

This new home made his morning runs quite easier now as he would just run around the building a couple of times until he was satisfied.

It got boring pretty soon for him but going outside for a run was no longer an option for him so he had to stick with it.

Another way that this new homemade his daily workout way better was that now he had a mini-sized football pitch at the back of his house.

The space was there when Clark was showing him around and at the moment he saw it, he decided to turn it into his private training ground.

The place had some grass on it already but it wasn\'t completely covered so the goalkeeper had to use fake grass to cover those parts.

After that, he fixed the goalpost with the help of Clark, Clark told him it wasn\'t necessary to mark out the place like a normal football pitch but he insisted he was going to do it later.

The goalkeeper had just finished his morning and was now heading to the pitch with two spray cans in his hands.

<You know you have to be careful with this or else you\'re going to mess it up>

\'I know, that\'s why I measured and marked all focus points beforehand, and even if I mess it up, I\'ll just clean it up and start all over.\'

<Of course, it\'ll be quite enjoyable to watch you spend the rest of your free day marking a small football pitch>

Dave ignored him as he got straight into work, he started from the middle and drew out the middle line to get to the sidelines.

He slowly dragged both sidelines to get to both goalposts and after that, he connected them with the goalposts to complete the whole pitch box.

There were some parts where the pitch looked a bit rough but that was expected, it still looked decent so he was going to leave it like that.

<You did pretty well>

\'Thanks.\' He replied subconsciously. \'Now, it\'s time for the eighteen-yard boxes.\'

He got straight to work, drawing the eighteen-yard boxes as carefully as he could.

It took him longer than the other parts because he wanted it to look perfect and it was working quite well for him so far.

After about twenty minutes of hard work, the goalkeeper finished mapping out his pitch and as soon as he was done, he crashed down on the pitch.

"That took a long while." He said before letting out a deep sigh.

<Yeah, it looks pretty nice>

\'So, you like it?\'

<Well, you put a lot of work into it so I can\'t really say no>

\'That\'s the first nice thing you\'ve said to me today.\'

<I could say more>

[ Standard training ground setup complete ]

[ +200 exp ]

\'Huh?\'