Tackled into Love

4 - Tobais

If someone had told me that working at this camp would require me waking up at 5:30am when it was supposed to be my break, I would not have agreed to any of it. But unluckily for me, as I hadn't participated in it for the past three years I had to now. The fact that Brutus woke me up an hour before that however, did not put me in a good mood.

Considering I was already awake, I decided to hit the training grounds earlier and get a bit of exercise in. We were all meeting here for the coaches coming in anyway, so it's not like I was in a rush. Brutus had decided to join me this morning as I started my laps around the field, and I welcomed the company. By the time I moved on to more skill related tasks and sprints, Brutus had taken to sitting down by my stuff and watching me. I felt as though he was scrutinising my every move.

The training I put myself through only lasted an hour, and when I started to head towards the changing rooms I heard a car pull up. I watched as the Nissan moved into a space and the lights went out, the sun was just starting to rise. I was curious about who would come this early, we still had half an hour before the meeting, so I waited for the person to get out the car. There was obvious movement inside, and when they opened the door I couldn't breath. Their movements were graceful, yes even from just getting out a car, and the wind had started to blow the hair out of their face. She moved towards the field, carrying a small bag and a ball. From a distance something pulled me towards hers, like I know her. But with the field being far away nothing about her was clear.

I decided to dump my bag in the changing rooms and watch out the window, wanting to see what she would do. I could see that she had put on some boots, but what i wasn't expecting was her to stand at the halfway line and angle herself towards the posts. Her dropkick was incredible. It easily made it over the posts and the woman hadn't seemed to put to much effort behind it. If that was her dropkick, then kicking off a tee would be easy for her.

Watching her kick a couple more, all of them went over the posts. It was then I decided to grab a shower, and by the time I was done, she had packed up and I couldn't see her anymore, but her car was still here. I hoped to catch her and possibly see if I knew her, but the coaches had started to gather in the car park so I made my way over.

Brutus decided to run over to Greg, and that resulted to him falling to the floor with Brutus licking him. The laughs were heard by the time I had made my way over, and Brutus came back to sit at my feet. I knew everyone who was here so I don't know why we were still standing out here, but as I was about to question that someone started to move towards us from the corner of my eye. No one in the group reacted to the other presence as Jones started to talk to us all.

"Alright guys, welcome to this years camp. Obviously you all know each other but we have a newbie joining the coaching team this year. She will be leading the backs training along with Miller so I hope you guys get along. Everyone, this is Harriet Abernathy."

I turned around to look at who was walking towards us and my breath got caught. It was her. Every single dream I have had has not done her justice over the past 4 years. Her hair was longer, but still that gorgeous brown. Her whole body had seemed to mature. But what struck me were her eyes. They were the same blue green that never left me. I could swim in those eyes.

The group surrounding us gave her quick hellos, obviously confused how this small woman was going to help us with the coaching when she looked like she could barely tackle anybody.

She was stood in a strong stance, not caring what judgements anybody made about her. God I loved that confidence.

"Harriet is joining us after a 2 year stint succesfully helping to coachthe England U21's team, so lets be glad she decided to accept this offer." Jones was making a compelling case for her, trying to give the guys little reasons to question her.

"Right. So was that the mens or the womens? No offence but I don't see what you could really bring thats new here." TJ had decided to goad her. What a d**k. "I mean, Miller could probably do that all by himself. Right?"

He looked at me for confirmation, obviously trying to start something to show that she doesn't need to be here. I looked back at Harriet, and for the first time since she walked up to the group her eyes landed on me. I could see the recognition behind them but she didn't let anything show on her face.

"She leads it. Thats whats been said, thats whats going to happen." There was no way I am going to be starting an argument with this beautiful woman. Her eyebrow went up and I was done.

Fuck, this was going to be an interesting summer.