Work Text:
“So, how did you guys meet?”
Tobin always loved answering this question and when she answers she always gets flashbacks on how this beautiful love started. She loved thinking about how lost she was and was found by her beautiful, smart girlfriend.
She loves everything about Christen Press.
Tobin smiles and she starts the flashback in her head for what seemed like the hundredth time in her head, “Well, it all started when i accidentally kicked a ball almost injuring her cause i was distracted...”
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It was soccer season, colleges were hustling with their intense trainings & meetings.
It was UNC vs Stanford, it was hot & humid. All Tobin wanted to do was to just kick the ball around, goof off with her team mates & then head to whatever at wherever to chill.
She got off her longboard and adjusted her snapback when she reached the stadium’s back door, where all the athletes enter and exit just to avoid public commotion as some of their collegiate players were also already on National Teams.
She took a deep breath, popped a gum in her mouth and started to walk through security. As she was walking, she saw a bus enter the area & she immediately knew that it was the competition.
She just went along & bopped her head along to the music that was playing & just when the song ended, there was a 5 second gap before the next song started playing.
It was like some greater force at work & all she heard was this angelic laughter that was coming up behind her. She tuned around trying to find the source of the beautiful laughter & she saw Kelley, her National Team team mate & beside her was (not that she knew at that point of time) her future girlfriend, Christen Press.
The ruthless striker, the intense-on-the-field curly-haired girl walking beside and she was animatedly expressing whatever they were talking about to Kelley.
‘Holy shit’, was all Tobin was thinking because Christen’s smile could knock her out, hell it probably did and the only reason why she was still standing still was because she anchored her longboard and that was the only thing that was stopping her from falling and making a huge fool out of herself.
Kelley immediately saw her buddy and ran for a crashing hug to Tobin, “TOBIN! JESUS! I HAVE MISSED YOU MAN I CANNOT FIND ANOTHER ROOMIE THAT LOVES COFFEE AS MUCH AS YOU!”, she yelled as if they were the only people there.
The hug was so strong that Tobin’s earpiece flew off and now all she hears is the giggling of none other than Christen Press.
“What the hell Kelley, i am your roomie!”, Christen huffed, playing offense to what her buddy just said.
Tobin was still stuck as she stared at Christen, she felt like her whole body was cemented and it was all because of that damn smile, sweet Jesus.
“Yo Tobs, you okay?”, Kelley started to wave her hand infront of Tobin trying to snap her out of whatever headspace that she was in
Kelley saw immediately what the midfielder was distracted by and she started to smirk, she knew what was happening.
The last time this happened was when they were on an off day in camp for the National Team and went out for a Jhene Aiko concert and met her backstage. Tobin was exactly like how she was now, she forgot how to breathe.
And when she was asked by Kelley why she was being so weird, all Tobin could do was shrug and say, “ I don’t really function well around pretty girls”.
“Uhm, yeah dude hi, hey”, Tobin mumbled as she steadied herself & started to look away from Christen.
“This is Christen Press, my team mate, my room mate & the love of my life”, Kelley said, as she smirked just to tease Tobin.
Tobin gawked at Christen and started to blush, she felt her ears burn up
“Tobin, Jesus, please say hi, or do something don’t just gawk at her”, Kelley continued
“Kells, you WISH that i am your girlfriend!”, Christen switched her bag from hand to another and smacked Kelley on her arm
“I am gonna tell Alex!”
“Oh puh-lease, Alex and i both agreed that you are a babe and that we’d totally hit it with you”, Kelley winked at Christen
“Kell, cut it out!”
“Alright alright, i mean no harm!”, Kelley surrendered as she had both her hands up
“Anyways, ignore this hyperactive squirrel, i’m Christen”, Christen blushed as she had her hand out to shake Tobin’s
Tobin immediately shook her hand and got herself together and managed to squeak out, “Hi Christen, I’m Hobin Teeth”, and you could see the horror on her face when she realised that she got her OWN name wrong, “UHM I MEAN, I’m Tobin Heath, not Hobin”, Tobin said sheepishly while still holding onto Christen’s hand. She felt that it felt like forever that she held the other girl’s hand so she slowly and gently let her hand go.
Christen giggled as she tilted her head to the side and said, “I know you Tobin, you are an amazing soccer player, we actually watch some game plays with you in them”, Christen continued with, “you’re amazing”, she smiled and tucked her hair behind her right ear
Kelley was just observing how her two best friends are being around each other and Jesus Christ, it was vomit inducing on how adorable it was but it was getting late & they had warm ups to get to
“Alright, i’d hate to break this love fest, but we gotta go and kick your ass Heath”, Kelley joked as she started to drag Christen away with her
“I’ll SEE YOU LATER TOBY!”, as she dragged Christen away to get back to their team
And as usual, Tobin was stuck again.
‘Tobin, get yourself together, that was just another pretty girl’
‘Well, that was a VERY pretty girl, oh god’
Tobin took a few seconds to gather herself and she took deep breaths as she walked to home team’s locker room.
------
During warm ups, she was getting into the headspace of a winner, trying to get into the zone.
She was kicking the ball back and forth with Heather and as she was going to kick one last time, she heard it again, the giggle. Oh jesus, the sweet laughter.
But before she could stop herself, she kicked the ball hard and it was rocketing to the other team’s area ad it almost hit Christen who was by the goalpoast by an inch but it hit the crossbar instead.
Christen immediately turned her head around to find Tobin wearing a shocked look on her face and started to sprint towards her
“Shit, Christen! I AM SO SORRY!”, she started to ramble on
“I was distracted by uhm by the birds and i didn’t see where my foot was aiming towards and oh my god are you okay? I didn’t mean to hurt you, i really was distracted and –“
Christen in that moment realized how adorable Tobin was with the rambling
“Tobin, it’s okay”, she laughed as she put her hand on Tobin’s shoulder
“If you wanted my attention, you could’ve just asked”, Christen added as she winked with a playful smile
“Uhm yeah i- yeah”, Tobin couldn’t function properly at this point and little did she know, Kelley was just a wee distance away so she was watching how the whole thing went down. All she could do was shake her head and laugh to herself. Oh Toby.
The game ended with the score being 3-2, for the first time in a long time, UNC lost to Stanford on their home turf. Usually this bothers Tobin but she really felt just surprisingly bouncy and bubbly today, she couldn’t place a reason as to why.
Fast forward, she was dragged to the party that everyone was talking about, regardless whether they win or they lose, she was wearing ripped skinny jeans, her Air Force 1s, a snapback and that goody grin that she always has to the party, not knowing that she was going to get the chance to see Christen again.
Christen on the other hand, was getting an earful from Kelley about how red she makes Tobin look, about the one line flirting happen during warm ups before the game.
“Kelley, calm down! I was just being playful! Stop bouncing around!”, Christen exasperated trying to get her best friend to calm down
“But you find her cute right?”, Kelley finally calming down and asking Christen as she was applying eyeliner and looking at Christen through the mirror
She saw the shy look, looking at the floor and Christen tucking her hair behind her ear, again.
“Well, she is not not cute?”, Christen said, trying to avoid the actual answer
“You know, if you wanna talk to her, she’ll be at the party tonight”, Kelley smiled, knowing that Christen was a very shy person by nature and quite flirtatious, she doesn’t know that works but it does for her.
“Oh?”
“I didn’t know she’ll be at the party”, Christen smiled after knowing the fact that those beautiful brown eyes were going to be where she was going.
“Pft, don’t lie, the party is hosted by the UNC girls”, Kelley smirked
“Really though Chris, if you wanna talk to her, she’ll be at the party and knowing Tobin, she will just be chilling up at the roof or like in the basement with video games or something”
“Alright alright, stop playing matchmaker and let’s get going”, Christen said trying to get Kelley to move quicker
“Oh, excited to see my goofy best friend are we?”, Kelley asked while wiggling her eyebrows
“Just excited to get my drink on”, Christen winked
By they time they got to the party, it was in full swing. It was great cause it was a small party. Christen usually avoids parties because she is more of a chill at home with a glass of wine kinda gal but Kelley always seemed to get her into social events & she figured why the hell not, they won, they – she deserved to celebrate before they hustle for the next game.
Christen was nervous, always nervous when it came to social events, especially parties, so she took a deep breath and tried to straighten her dress that she was wearing with her hands when she walked nearer to the front door.
“Hey, if you ever feel that you need to breathe or leave, let me know okay? We’ll leave”, Kelley nudged her shoulder as they walked.
Christen smiled back and nodded, always grateful that her bestfriend never once left her to survive on her own, she has always had her back.
It was just the girls from both soccer teams and their significant others. But there were more girls than guys in house. The house was a house that was used for social events for the college students as long as they clear it and make sure everything was in order, they were allowed to make use of the space to host their own thing.
Christen walked beside Kelley into the house and immediately, she heard music bumping, people talking, she could smell the cigarette smoke & also some hint of weed in there, which she was used to, she is a Cali girl, she also had tried weed when she was younger but she was hoping it was none of her team mates participating cause they often were called out early in the mornings for random drug testing.
Kelley saw Alex and dragged both of them to the bar which was the kitchen. Got themselves a drink, which was WAY too strong for a first drink, in Christen’s opinion. But Kelley being the fray daddy that she is, she got the girls to chug down the first drink and now they were nursing the second drink which Christen suspected was going to be as strong as or stronger than the first drink.
They mingled around for a while until Christen realised that the pair of brown eyes that she was looking for was nowhere to be found.
So, she detached herself from Alex & Kelley and went to the restroom, after she was done, she noticed that there was a short staircase leading upstairs and the door was ajar so she decided to head up and see what was there. She was internally really hoping that what Kelley said was true, that Tobin could be found on the roof or in the basement, since she was almost to the top of the house, this could be the roof and that she could find Tobin.
When she got up there, she immediately felt the cold night breeze & she saw someone with a snapback on which looked like the snapback that Tobin was wearing earlier when they met. Tobin was sitting back facing the door, facing the pool.
She walked towards the figure, which she saw was holding a beer bottle and taking a swig off the bottle.
As Christen walked nearer, she realised that she was kind of nervous. She was thinking what she could say to the other girl that won’t make her sound uncool?
‘Hey Tobin, what a game huh?’
‘Oh hey, didn’t see ya there hot stuff’
‘Hi Tobin, bye Tobin?’
Oh god what the hell is happening she can’t function?
But she just decided to keep walking and she slowly walked beside Tobin
“Tobin?”
Tobin turned her head around and she saw Christen, the moonlight hitting her just right.
She couldn’t breathe again, she saw Christen with her hair half tied up in a bun, a knee-length tight fitting dress and sneakers. She was wearing the same Air Force 1s as her!
She stood up and all she could manage to say was, “Holy shit”.
She remembered how to breathe and while she was trying to say hi, Christen got it first and asked, “Is it okay if i hang out here with you?”
Tobin was trying to also figure out what to say so that she doesn’t come off as a fool, trying to make up for the time before.
“Or if you wanna be alone, i can leave?”, Christen turned her body back towards the door
“No!”, Tobin said a tad too quickly and louder than her usual volume of speech
“Sorry, hi Christen”, Tobin said and taking a breath, “Sorry, i just – you look very pretty and i dn’t function very well around pretty girls, Kelley knows this and well, i am sure she would’ve vouched for me if she was here but Alex is here so i guess she is with her girlfriend right no, as she should –“, and there she went off again, on a ramble
Which made Christen giggle and she could feel a blush creeping up on her cheeks all because the girl infront of her called her pretty
“Tobin, you’re rambling again”, she said as she tried to calm the older girl down by placing her hand on her shoulder
“Oh, see? I really can’t function around pretty girls”, Tobin laughed sheepishly and as soon as she realized that she called Christen pretty, twice now, she was wide eyed but Christen smiled and asked, “So you think that i’m pretty?”, with a smirk slowly forming on her face.
“Uhm, i think that you’re very pretty, Christen”, she emphasized on the VERY.
“Thanks Tobin, I find you very VERY cute”, Christen told Tobin, “Very pretty too”, Christen continued as she grew more confident and ending the sentence with a wink.
Tobin realized in that moment, that she was truly, utterly, royally, screwed.
That damn wink.
“So, can I hang out here?”, Christen asking again, trying her luck again
“Of course Christen, I may seem like a blubbering mess, i am not all te time, by the way, i am really honoured that you would wanna spend your time with me here on a rooftop when there’s a banging party downstairs”, Tobin also gaining confidence also suddenly said with a wide grin
“Well, the party downstairs doesn’t have you”, Christen quipped back.
They sat down each other and started off talking about how the game was and Christen laughed when Tobin told her the truth about the real reason why there was a ball aiming for her head during warm ups.
“Oka, okay, laugh it up, I was really distracted by you, I was just really mesmerized by your laugh”, Tobin admitted bashfully, thanking all her stars that it was fairly dark so Christen couldn’t see her mad red blush on her cheeks
“Well Tobin, I’m really honoured that you are into the sound of my laugh”, Christen laughed
“Really glad too, cause that’s the laugh that I’m stuck with”
Tobin wasn’t really filtering her thought when she replied with, “I’d wanna hear it all the time”, and she wore that beautiful smile that she wears
Now, it’s Christen’s turn to think,
‘That damn smile’.