Best Mate (georgia stanway x reader)
Summary: Georgia is your entire world, the love of your life. But you’re probably never going to be more than just her best mate.
(aka 12k words of angst and pining)
———
You’ve known Georgia since you were eleven.
Thirteen years in which you’ve been the closest of friends, through ups and downs. Thirteen years of playing for the same football teams, of carpooling to training and movie nights after matches and sharing rooms on away trips. Thirteen years, basically, in which you could have fallen in love with each other.
There’s a strange kind of irony, a punishment from the fates, that the first time you start to think of Georgia as anything more than your best mate is about three weeks before she moves to Germany.
You blame the Euros, naturally. That’s where you start to catch feelings. A long pre-Euro preparation camp, followed by weeks of heightened emotions as the Lionesses progress further and further into the tournament. It’s been a bonding experience for you all and you’re far closer to all the girls than you were a couple of months ago, but there’s been a shift in your relationship with Georgia specifically that you can’t quite explain.
It’s after the game against Spain that you first notice it. After coming back from behind, Georgia is the one who scores the winner to send you through to the semi finals and it might be the best goal you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing live. It’s not just the goal - you’ve seen Georgia score screamers from outside the box on countless other occasions in your thirteen years of friendship - but the significance too.
It’s after this game that you actually start to believe you can win the whole tournament, that nothing is going to stop you until you get your hands on the silverware. And that belief starts with Georgia’s goal.
“I fucking love you, G!” you tell her in the dressing room after the game, still riding the euphoric high of beating Spain in such dramatic fashion.
Georgia grins at you.
“I love you too.”
Her words make you feel warm inside but you put it down to being happy about the result.
It’s not until later, lying alone in your bed back at the team hotel, unable to sleep because you’re still so pumped up from one hundred and twenty minutes of difficult football, that you hear Georgia’s words over and over again in your head and realise what it means.
I love you too.
Shit. You’re falling in love with Georgia Stanway. Your best mate.
What a cliche.
But you’ve spent thirteen years of friendship not being in love with Georgia. It should be pretty easy to brush any hypothetical feelings aside. Right?
———
It’s not.
Actually, it turns out that acknowledging you have feelings for Georgia only makes them grow more.
You sit next to her on the coach on the way back from Bramall Lane after beating Sweden in the semi final. Around you, the whole team is jubilant, but all you can think about is how you can smell Georgia’s shampoo and feel the warmth of her thigh pressing into yours.
Shit, you’ve got it bad.
“We’re going to Wembley,” Georgia says. “Can you believe it?”
“Stuff of dreams, right?” you grin at her.
“And I get to do it with my best mate.”
The words ‘best mate’, while true, are like a knife to your heart and you’re reminded that you’ll only ever be Georgia’s best mate.
You try to shake yourself out of it. You’ve been Georgia’s friend for over a decade, you can keep being her friend, no problems at all. Because surely it’s better to be her friend than to risk messing things up and being nothing at all?
Except that she moves to Munich in two weeks. What if she loves it there, what if she prefers her new teammates to the old ones, what if she has such a good time there that she completely forgets about her old life in Manchester?
And you hate yourself for even thinking that. Georgia deserves to be happy. You know how excited she is to move abroad, how much she’s looking forward to the challenge of playing for a new team in a new league after spending so long at Manchester City. As her friend, you want the best for her, you want her to thrive in the new environment and be happy with her Bayern teammates as she settles into life in Munich.
You just hope that she doesn’t forget about you in the process.
“You’re quiet,” Georgia says, drawing you out of your own thoughts. “Wanna talk about it?”
You shrug, then give a half truth.
“Just trying to soak this moment in,” you tell her. “This feels special. No matter what happens in the final, I don’t want to forget the feeling of being part of this team.”
“I’m never gonna forget this,” Georgia says, sinking into your side and when she lets her head fall against your shoulder, you allow yourself just the briefest moment to imagine that she’s talking about this exact moment on the bus with you, not the summer of incredible football. “Would be pretty cool to win the damn thing though, right? One more trophy together before I leave.”
You never want this summer to end. Because as soon as it ends, Georgia leaves and you lose your best mate. You lose the person you’re in love with.
You have a feeling that this moment is going to be one that you come back to over and over again when you’re missing her, and you try even harder to commit every detail to memory.
———
Inevitably, the tournament does come to an end, but in the blur of playing an intense final at Wembley, winning said final, and the celebrations that continue long into the night, you almost forget that this is one of your last nights together with Georgia before she leaves for Germany.
Eventually, you and Georgia find your way back to each other, as you always seem to do. You have no idea what time it is, no idea how many drinks you’ve had, but it’s the early hours of the morning and most friends and family have either left or gone to bed, leaving just the players to continue their celebrations. You can still hear distant music and the occasional shout from downstairs, but you end up on the carpeted floor of a deserted hallway, side by side with Georgia. You’re sitting so close that the thighs of your outstretched legs are touching, and Georgia leans her head on your shoulder. You're holding hands too, though you don’t know who initiates that. Maybe it just happened because it felt right.
“I’m so proud of you, G,” you tell her, tracing your thumb across the back of her hand. “For everything - for today, for everything you did at City, for choosing to take a leap in your career.”
Georgia has hardly spoken about her impending transfer since it was announced, not while she’s been so focused on the tournament, and other than a couple of jokes this evening hoping that her new teammates will still welcome her after beating so many of them today, it’s been easy to pretend that she’s not about to move to another country. But now that the tournament is over, you have to face up to the reality sooner or later that your best friend is about to spread her wings and embark on a new journey that doesn’t involve you.
“Stop it, you’re gonna make me cry. And we’re supposed to be happy right now. We’re supposed to be celebrating.”
“I’m gonna miss you though. Bayern are lucky to have you.”
Your hand is still in Georgia’s, fingers linked together, though you don’t remember how it happened, whether it was you who took her hand or her who took yours. But her skin is so soft, especially on the back of her hand where you trace mindless patterns with your thumb.
“You’re still gonna be my favourite though, you know that right?” Georgia promises you.
“I am?” you ask, turning your head to look at her.
“Yeah, you’re my day one. Even when we live in different countries. I’m still gonna be talking to you every day.”
“I’m gonna be thinking about you every day,” you confess. “Every second, even.”
It’s only after the words slip from your lips that you realise you might have said too much, that you’re getting dangerously close to telling Georgia about the feelings that you promised yourself that you were going to keep secret.
“Yeah?” Georgia asks, her voice barely more audible than a whisper.
And just like the hand-holding, you have no idea who initiates what comes next, you’re just aware that your lips are on Georgia’s, or maybe hers are on yours, but who the fuck cares who leant in first when it feels this damn good.
Her lips are as soft as her hands, softer maybe, and she tastes like a combination of the free beer you’ve been drinking all night and something else, maybe optimism, if such a thing has a taste. But you’re very quickly unable to process much at all, senses overwhelmed, because Georgia is kissing you. Georgia, who you’ve been friends with since you were awkward teenagers with spotty faces and bruised knees, whose kisses are like a drug that you’re surely going to get addicted to because how could you not want to do this forever?
Just when you’re considering the logistics of pulling Georgia into your lap to continue this further, she pulls away from you, giggling as she wipes at her lips with captivating fingers.
“Shit, I’ve had way too much to drink,” Georgia says. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
She leans her head back against the wall behind you both, her eyes closed, and you try to keep yourself together, though your heart feels like a fragile sheet of glass that could shatter under even the tiniest amount of pressure.
“It’s fine,” you tell her, even though your lips still burn from her kiss. Even though you’re probably never going to be the same again. “We’re both drunk.”
———
The next morning, Georgia is wearing the most ridiculous pair of sunglasses you’ve ever seen, so huge that they mask half her entire face, but maybe that’s the intention because when she sits down next to you on the coach that’s supposed to take you to Trafalgar Square, she lets out a groan and says, “I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungover in my life.”
“I think I’m still drunk,” you admit. Your head isn’t pounding, it’s just swimming, the alcohol not yet worn off out of your system. It’ll hit you at some point today, you’re sure of that, and it’ll be torture.
“Did I kiss you last night?” Georgia asks, pushing the sunglasses up onto the top of her head and frowning quizzically at you.
The way she asks, it’s almost like she doesn’t quite remember, and that stings a little. It’s pretty much the only thing you’ve thought about in the five drunken hours since it happened.
“Oh,” you say, trying to sound just as casual about it as Georgia does. “Yeah. I’d forgotten about that until you mentioned it.”
The lie is easy because there’s no way that you’re going to admit how affected you are by something as simple as the memory of her lips on yours.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Georgia grimaces. “Emotional day, and all that. We’re still cool, aren’t we?”
“Course we are,” you answer, and it’s mostly the truth - Georgia could commit a serious crime and you’d still think she was the best person on earth.
She’s got no reason to know the depth of your feelings for her, no reason to understand that kissing you might have done more damage than if you’d never got the chance to feel Georgia’s lips against yours at all.
———
You decide to confide in Keira.
“I think I’m in love with Georgia,” you confess, during pre-season, still ignoring the rumours that Keira might be moving abroad soon too.
“Our Georgia?” she asks for clarification, as if the idea is so ridiculous that she can’t quite believe what you’re telling her. “Georgia Stanway?”
You nod, and Keira presses on with her next question.
“Have you told her?” she asks.
“Why would I do that?” you scoff.
“Why wouldn’t you? What have you got to lose?”
“Only thirteen years of friendship,” you point out.
“Obviously it’s your decision, but worst case scenario she doesn’t feel the same and things carry on as normal.”
“Worst case scenario I lose one of the longest friendships I’ve got,” you interject to correct Keira.
“G’s not like that though,” Keira dismisses your worries with a wave of her hand. “She wouldn’t just cast you aside because of something like this. Anyway, she’s in a different country now. By the time you next see each other she’ll have forgotten all about it and things will be back to normal.”
“I’ll think about it.”
———
You do think about it. In fact, it’s pretty much all you think about.
One international break passes, then another, without you saying anything to Georgia about how you feel. You’re practically glued to her side for the whole of both camps, or maybe she’s glued to yours, because you somehow seem to end up alongside her even when you’re making an effort to not seem like you’re obsessed with her.
That plan clearly isn’t working, because on the penultimate night of the second international break, Keira brings it up when the two of you are alone.
“You’re not being subtle,” she tells you.
“Huh?”
“About G,” she explains. “If you think it’s not obvious you have feelings for her, you’re wrong.”
“Yeah but I’ve told you,” you point out, in a half-hearted attempt to justify the way you’ve probably been staring at Georgia with huge puppy dog eyes for the last week. “You know what you’re looking for.”
“Have you told Leah?” Keira asks, arching an eyebrow. “Because she asked me yesterday if you and Georgia were closer than usual so she’s noticed something too.”
“What did you say?” you demand, your eyes widening in panic.
“Don’t worry, I told her you used to be inseparable at City and that you probably just missed seeing each other every day. I think she bought it.”
You relax, or at least you try to, because if Keira says it’s obvious and even Leah has noticed your heart-eyes, then it can’t be long before Georgia herself realises, and then she’ll surely want to distance herself from you.
“Just talk to her,” Keira pleads with you. “You’re one of my best mates too and I hate seeing you like this. Even if nothing happens between you and Georgia, at least you’ll get closure by talking to her.”
You know that Keira is right. You’ve known Georgia for so long that you’d like to hope she won’t make things weird if you tell her how you feel and she doesn’t feel the same. You need an answer, so you can get over your feelings if nothing is ever going to happen.
And you fully intend to talk to her on the last night of camp. But you have a game tomorrow so you decide not to say anything for the risk of somehow upsetting the equilibrium of the team, and then before you know it Georgia is on a plane back to Munich while you return to Manchester and still nothing has been said.
Another time.
In the meantime, your heart continues to ache for something you’ll probably never get to have.
———
You’ll tell her when she comes home for Christmas, that’s what you decide. No England camp, no training or matches to use as an excuse for not telling her how you feel. Just two old friends catching up on what’s been going on in their lives - and so what if one of the most important thing that’s going on in yours is the depth of the feelings you currently have for your best friend?
You’re nervous for two full days before you see Georgia, your heart pounding each time you think of the enormity of the conversation you need to have with her. Telling her how you feel could change everything for better or for worse and even right up to the moment when you’re on your way to meet her, you’re still not sure if you have the courage to actually tell her.
You meet Georgia for lunch at Jill’s coffee shop, because Georgia’s only in Manchester for a few days before she jets off to Barcelona to see Keira and she wants to see as many people as she can while she’s back, but once you’ve both shared a bit of playful banter with Jill when she brings you your food and drinks, the two of you are left alone in a quiet corner of the shop.
“I’ve been dying to tell you something,” Georgia says, almost as soon as Jill leaves you alone. “I was gonna text you but I really wanted to tell you in person.”
She loves you too. That’s the first conclusion that your brain jumps to, because you can’t think of anything else she might have to tell you that’s important enough to be said face-to-face rather than over the phone.
She loves you too. She loves you t-
“I’m seeing someone,” Georgia announces.
And just like that, your heart shatters into a million tiny pieces.
She doesn’t love you.
“You are?” you ask, trying not to let the pain show on your face - this is supposed to be your best friend telling you that she’s found somebody, after all, and if you weren’t hopelessly in love with Georgia yourself, you’d surely be happy about this development in her life.
“Yeah, a guy back in Germany. His name’s Nico - he’s one of Syd’s mates so I met him through her. It’s still really new, like he’s not my boyfriend or anything, but we’ve been on a couple of dates and I think it’s going pretty well.”
“Cool,” you say, and then immediately kick yourself, because what kind of heartless idiot says cool when their best friend announces they’re dating someone, which is why you add, “I’m so happy for you.”
There’s a degree of truth to your words. Though on a selfish level you want Georgia to reciprocate your feelings and be happy with you, that’s not very likely to happen when you’re too much of a coward to tell her how you feel and obviously the most important thing is that Georgia is happy with whoever she chooses. You just hope that if it can’t be with you, that this Nico guy at least treats her well and gives her the happiness she deserves.
“Anyway, what’s going on with you?” Georgia asks, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. “Any big life updates?”
If there was ever a moment to tell Georgia that you’re in love with her, it would be now, when she’s inviting you to open up about what’s been going on in your life. But Georgia is clearly excited about this guy that she’s dating, or else she wouldn’t have waited until she saw you in person before making it the first thing she brought up, and what kind of friend would you be if you tried to ruin that for your own selfish reasons?
“Nothing much,” you answer with a shrug. “Nothing as exciting as your news. Anyway, tell me about Munich. Are the German lessons still kicking your arse?”
———
Keira calls you a few days later, when you know that Georgia is in Barcelona too, probably sharing the same news about her dating life with Keira that she told you the other day.
“You’ve seen G, then?” she asks, once you’ve caught up on your own lives.
“Yeah, we had lunch together a few days ago.”
“Did she tell you…?”
“About her new boyfriend?” you interject, completing Keira’s question. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Keira asks.
You can practically hear the pity in her voice and it cuts you almost as much as Georgia’s news about her dating life.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” you try to dismiss it quickly, before you end up getting upset, or angry, or both. “She’s happy, that’s all that matters. I missed my chance.”
“Did you ever tell her?”
Keira doesn’t need to elaborate on exactly what she’s asking about and for that you’re grateful.
“No,” you answer. “But it’s too late now anyway.”
“I don’t think it is,” Keira counters. “It doesn’t sound very serious yet with this German guy.”
“Keira, if there was any chance she felt the same she’d have told me.”
“You mean like you’ve told her how you feel?” Keira asks.
Though you can’t actually see Keira’s face, you can picture it, one eyebrow arched at you and mouth twitching at the corners as she calls you out.
“It’s different,” you try to argue. “She wouldn’t be dating someone else if she had feelings for me.”
“Well if you aren’t ever going to tell her, maybe you should think about dating someone else. You know, a couple of the Barca girls are single. If you don’t mind the distance, I could put in a good word for you.”
There’s only one person you’d be willing to put in the effort required for a successful long distance relationship, and it’s Georgia. Besides, while Keira’s right that you’ll have to think about dating someone else eventually, it doesn’t feel fair to mess with somebody else’s feelings before you’ve at least tried to put your feelings for Georgia behind you.
“I’m good, thanks Ke,” you promise Keira.
“Well if you change your mind…”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”
———
You don’t change your mind. Not about being willing for Keira to set you up with one of her club teammates, at least. You do, however, reconsider your decision not to tell Georgia about how you feel.
What can the harm be? If anything, the German boyfriend is a safety net because you have less optimism that Georgia feels the same, fully prepared for her to let you down.
You phone Georgia when she’s back in Germany in January, entering the conversation with your heart already wrapped in bubble-wrap, in theory protected from being broken.
“Hey G, are you busy?”
“I’m never too busy to talk to you,” Georgia replies.
Your heart soars, giving you the courage to say, “Cool, well there’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Go on, I’m listening.”
“I was gonna say something when you were back in England but then you … well, you had your news and I didn’t want to ruin that.”
You pause and take a deep breath, glad that you’re doing this over the phone so that Georgia can’t see the sheer physical anguish you’re going through to psych yourself up to tell her this.
“I love you.”
There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, then Georgia speaks.
“Aw, you big softie,” she teases you. “Love you too.”
You close your eyes and pinch the bridge of your nose. Part of you wants to leave it there, the idea of having to correct Georgia’s misunderstanding somehow even worse than having to admit you love her in the first place, but you can hear Keira’s voice in your head telling you to grow a pair and tell Georgia how you really feel.
“No, I … I mean that I love you,” you clarify. “Not just as a friend. Like, I’m properly in love with you.”
“Oh,” Georgia says. There’s silence on the other end of the line as she processes what you’ve told her, before she eventually repeats, “Oh. Shit, okay.”
It’s not exactly the reaction you were hoping for and though you’d prepared yourself for probable rejection, you couldn’t actually have prepared for the punch in the gut that is the pure surprise from Georgia, as if the idea of there being anything more than friendship between the two of you is so far-removed that she’s never once even considered the possibility.
“Forget I said anything,” you say quickly, eager to put this torturous ordeal behind you. “I’m just being stupid. It’s nothing I can’t get over.”
“No, wait!” Georgia blurts out. “It’s not stupid. It’s just … unexpected, I guess. You’ve surprised me, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry,” you mumble.
“No, don’t apologise! I’m glad you told me. The thing is, I do love you too. Just as a friend.”
And despite all the preparation you did beforehand to try to protect yourself from the pain of inevitable rejection, hearing Georgia confirm aloud what you already knew still causes your heart to splinter into tiny pieces.
“Okay,” you say, trying to swallow the lump that’s formed in your throat. “That’s what I needed to hear. Now I can move on. And I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me-”
“Are you kidding?” Georgia interrupts you. “This doesn’t change anything. It takes courage to tell someone how you feel. I’m not gonna punish you for that. Anyway, you’ll always be super important to me. So unless you need a bit of space…?”
“No,” you’re quick to say. “I don’t need space.”
“Then you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon,” Georgia reassures you.
A single tear spills from your eye and you wipe it away quickly, even though Georgia can’t see you, because you’re worried that if you let it trickle the whole way down your cheek, it’ll be followed by a flood. The only thing that could make this more embarrassing that it already is would be if you burst into tears and Georgia heard you crying.
“Thanks, G.”
———
“I hate to admit it, but you were right,” you tell Keira, as you make your way out to the training pitch at St George’s Park on the first morning of the February international break, a few weeks on from telling Georgia how you feel - how you felt. “I just needed closure.”
“From Georgia?” Keira asks for clarification.
“Yeah. It turns out that finding out she doesn’t feel the same was a really quick way to shut down whatever stupid feelings I thought I had for her.”
“I think you’re being hard on yourself. It’s not stupid to catch feelings, especially for someone like G.”
“It was just emotion from the Euros,” you try to explain. “Then the distance. I was missing her. I got a bit carried away, that’s all. Anyway, she’s got her German guy now.”
“Not anymore,” Keira tells you. “That fizzled out a while ago.”
“It did?” you ask, your head jerking up in surprise when you hear the news. “She never told me that.”
“Yeah, well…” Keira trails off with a grimace, and you don’t need her to finish her sentence to understand what she’s saying.
“Right.”
You probably sacrificed your right to hear about Georgia’s personal life when you attempted to insert yourself into it by confessing your feelings for her. And if you’re completely honest, though you still talk to Georgia pretty often, there has been a slight shift in what you talk about, more superficial football chat and fewer deep conversations about all the other stuff going on in your lives.
Not for the first time since telling Georgia how you felt, you wonder if admitting your feelings was the wrong decision after all.
You hear footsteps behind you, the telltale sound of studs against concrete, and you turn to see Georgia, who inserts herself between you and Keira and drapes an arm around each of your shoulders.
“Hey guys, whatcha talking about?”
“The weather,” Keira is quick to save you the turmoil of having to come up with a lie yourself. “Thought it was cold in Barcelona at this time of year but I’d forgotten how much worse it is in England.”
“This?” Georgia scoffs, gesturing at the bleak grey sky above. “It’s tanning weather. I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”
“You’re mad,” Keira says, shaking her head as she eyes up Georgia’s bare arms.
“Not mad,” Georgia counters with a grin. “Just happy to be back in England with my best mates.”
You don’t know how it makes you feel, hearing Georgia refer to you as a “best mate” again. She’s clearly making an effort to make sure you know that nothing has changed, that your sudden confession of feelings a few weeks ago hasn’t made Georgia think any differently of you than she thinks of Keira. But it still stings a little, all those hours spent wondering what if and picturing a hypothetical parallel universe in which Georgia returns your affection coming to nothing.
In the back of your mind, it registers that a public friendzoning shouldn’t hurt if you were as over your feelings for Georgia as you claimed to Keira that you were, but you push that thought down for now.
———
You don’t actually speak to Georgia alone until later, hanging out in one of the communal recreation areas during the free time you get between a gym session and dinner.
“I meant what I said earlier,” Georgia says. “It’s good to be back together again. And we haven’t seen each other in person since…”
Georgia trails off, leaving you to fill in the rest yourself.
Deciding that the best way to get past the slight awkwardness is just to acknowledge exactly what happened and laugh it off, you say, “Since I told you I liked you?”
Georgia’s eyes widen, slightly surprised that you’re so blasé about the situation, but she passes it off quickly and says, “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry if I put you in a weird position,” you apologise. “I just needed to say something, even if you didn’t feel the same way, for peace of mind, you know? Just feelings that had been brewing under the surface since the emotion of the Euros…”
“Since the Euros?” Georgia interjects, surprised once again.
“Yeah, but I don’t feel that way anymore,” you continue, fully aware of the fact that your cheeks are starting to heat up with embarrassment. “I got closure and I moved on. I hope things can go back to normal between us.”
Georgia hesitates for a second, like she’s still trying to process everything, before her face splits open into a huge grin.
“Yeah, of course. Nothing’s changed at all.”
You try to remember what normal friends who haven’t admitted feelings for each other talk about, and your mind immediately wanders to the guy she told you about when she was last home. The guy that, if Keira is to be believed, is no longer in the picture.
“How’s it going with that guy you’re dating?” you ask, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from Georgia too.
“Nico? I’m not seeing him anymore. Like he was nice, but he was … I don’t know, he was just nice. There was no real spark, or nothing.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
It’s partially true. If you can’t have Georgia yourself, you want her to be happy with somebody, though you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t done some social media stalking after she told you about him and he didn’t seem like anybody particularly remarkable. In a way, it’s a relief to hear that confirmed by Georgia herself.
“Nah, it’s fine,” Georgia says, dismissing your words with a casual wave of her hand. “It wasn’t serious anyway. And I wanted to tell you it was over but I didn’t know how. I didn’t want you to think I was messing with your feelings, or anything.”
“I get it,” you assure Georgia. “But you don’t have to worry about that. There aren’t any feelings to mess with anymore. That’s all behind me.”
Georgia narrows her eyes just slightly, like she’s not quite sure she believes you, but it passes so quickly that you might have imagined it.
“Cool,” Georgia says. “Anyway, did you see that worldie I scored in training earlier?”
And so the conversation moves on, back to normal with your best friend.
———
It does go back to how it was before, for which you’re relieved. Your biggest worry about admitting your feelings for Georgia was that it would ruin your friendship if she didn’t reciprocate, so you’re glad that you’re still just as close as you were before Christmas.
The problem is that now you’re back to talking to Georgia all the time, whether that’s messaging each other, ganging up together on Leah in the group chat, or FaceTiming to have a general catch up about life, you’re starting to realise that maybe you’re not over your feelings for her after all.
Can you really be blamed? Georgia is like a human ray of sunshine, lighting up your world with her silly jokes and beautiful smile, even from another country.
Surely everybody who meets Georgia falls a little bit in love with her?
Still, Georgia has made it pretty clear that your relationship is never going to move beyond friends, and you’re content to have her in your life in whatever way she’ll allow you, even if you’re still harbouring feelings for her.
You don’t tell Keira either. She asks you about Georgia a couple of times, just casual questions in passing which you respond to with reassurances that you’re getting along like old friends again, that her rejection was enough to extinguish your feelings. If there’s one thing that’s more humiliating than admitting to your best friend that you’re in love with her only to be turned down, it’s having to deal with the constant pity of another friend concerned about a possible broken heart. So you tell Keira that everything is fine and she seems to believe you.
It is fine. You are fine.
(And if you tell yourself that enough times, one day it’ll eventually become true.)
———
You have a plan.
And it’s not a plan that you’re making because you’re in love with Georgia. It’s a plan for your best mate who lives abroad and you miss dearly.
So when Georgia’s Bayern Munich team draws Arsenal in the quarter final of the Champions League, you go straight to the airport from training on the day of the match and catch the next flight to Munich to watch her play.
As you sit next to Georgia’s mum in the stadium, who makes a comment about how nice it is that her daughter’s best friend has flown all the way from Manchester just to support her in one game, you try telling yourself that you’re not just here for Georgia, that you know Leah and Lotte and several of the other Arsenal girls and you’ve come to watch them too, but as the game progresses you’re only really watching one person.
You’ve always known that Georgia is good - you’ve played alongside her for more than a decade at England age groups and then at City, watched her put in tackles that others wouldn’t dare to try and score goals from outside the box that would make anybody drool. But there’s a big difference between seeing Georgia play in training or when you’re on the same team as her, and actually watching her play. It’s an exciting match, a close match, with good performances from players on both sides, but you watch Georgia far more than any other players, your eyes tracking her even when she’s off the ball.
Bayern come away with the win, though only just, and you’re already trying to figure out whether you can make it down to London and back in a single night next week for the second leg that promises to be as exciting as the first. For the quality of football, you tell yourself, not just for another chance to see the best friend that you miss terribly.
You watch as Georgia greets the fans, smiling for pictures and signing shirts in the process, slowly making her way along the edge of the pitch until she reaches the area where you are. Her eyes search the crowd, no doubt looking for her mum, but she does a double take when she spots you and you carefully manoeuvre your way forward until you’re close enough to talk to her.
“What are you doing here?” Georgia asks, disbelief in her eyes.
“I’m here to see Leah,” you joke.
“Oh, I’ll just go and fetch her for you then, shall I?” Georgia grins at you. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Have you never heard of a surprise?”
Georgia just rolls her eyes.
“How long are you here for?” she asks.
“Just tonight,” you answer. “I managed to convince Gareth to let me have tomorrow off training so I fly back first thing. I wish I could stay longer, but we’ve got a league game at the weekend.”
“Are you coming next week?” Georgia asks. “To the second leg? At the Emirates?”
“Do you want me to come?”
Georgia nods enthusiastically and says, “Yeah, course I do.” She pauses, then adds, “Only if you want to, though. I know it’s a long way to travel.”
“I’ll be there,” you promise. A wicked smile spreads across your face as you add, “To see Leah again, of course.”
Georgia rolls her eyes and says, “Dickhead.”
“Be nice, Georgia,” Georgia’s mum interjects. “She’s come all this way to see you.”
“Relax, mum, it’s just banter,” Georgia protests. “She knows I love her really.”
Love. That word again. Because Georgia does love you, of that you’re certain, but not in the way you want her to.
But as you look down at your best friend over the barrier that separates the players from the fans, her brown eyes alight and a smile on her face as she stares back at you, you realise that you’ll take Georgia’s love, however much of it there is and in whatever form it comes in, just to see her smile like this.
———
The weather is terrible. Unrelenting rain turns the four hour drive from Manchester to London into a five and a half hour drive with limited visibility on the motorways. The prospect of spending an evening in this torrential downpour for at least the two hours of the match, possibly longer if the game goes to extra time and penalties, is brightened only with the knowledge that you get to see your best friend again just a week after you last saw her.
Unfortunately the game doesn’t go Bayern’s way. Despite bringing in a one goal lead from the first leg, that hard work is quickly undone by two Arsenal goals in quick succession in the first half. You’re largely neutral to the outcome of this game, except that you aren’t because you want to see Georgia succeed, and she seems to double her efforts when Bayern go behind, putting even more into every challenge, every pass, determined not to lose.
You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re a neutral fan in this game because when the final whistle goes and the Arsenal fans start celebrating a hard-fought victory, your heart aches for Georgia and what could’ve been. But Georgia is a ray of sunshine, even in defeat, and still makes time for all the fans.
When you finally get to see her, inside the stadium after she’s showered and changed out of her wet kit, you’re actually more disappointed than she is about the outcome of the game.
“That’s football, isn’t it?” Georgia says with a shrug, after you’ve exchanged a long hug and offered her your commiserations. “Thanks for coming down though. It’s good to see you again. I missed you.”
Her words make your heart flutter and you play it off the only way you know how - with humour.
“It’s only been a week, G,” you remind her, rolling your eyes.
“A week is a long time when we used to see each other every day,” she points out.
“And whose fault is that?” you tease her.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Georgia rolls her eyes at you. “What are you doing now?”
It’s already late and the drive back to Manchester will be a long one so as much as you want to hang around and cherish every moment with Georgia, you know you need to get on the road soon.
“Gotta drive back home soon,” you tell her.
“To Manchester?” Georgia asks her eyes wide. “Nah, no way I’m letting you drive back through the night, especially not in this weather.”
“But…”
“No buts,” Georgia interrupts you. “I’ll text you the address of our hotel and you can stay with me. Drive back in the morning.”
You’re supposed to have training in the morning and you don’t want to imagine the trouble you’ll get yourself into if you don’t show up. But this is Georgia, and is a bit of a telling off from the coaches not worth spending a bit of extra time with her? Besides, can you not just set an early alarm and drive back home straight to the training ground in the morning? You’re not needed until ten anyway…
“Fine,” you nod, trying to pretend that the decision was harder than it actually was, pretending that you wouldn’t jump off a cliff for Georgia with very little hesitation if she asked you nicely enough.
———
Georgia meets you in the lobby of her hotel just over thirty minutes later, already dressed in pyjamas with a battered pair of sliders on her feet. She grins when she sees you and reaches straight for your hand, not even bothering with a proper greeting.
“Come on,” Georgia says, dragging you into the lift and pressing the button for the fifth floor. “Before anyone sees you.”
The lift doors rattle shut and it starts to rise. You turn to Georgia and ask, “Is this gonna get you in trouble?”
Georgia grins at you, then replies, “Only if we get caught.”
Your heart is pounding in your chest, so loud that Georgia must be able to hear it echoing around the confined elevator too, and you’re not sure if it’s racing from the thrill of trying not to get caught or because Georgia’s hand is still in yours, her warm palm pressed against yours and your fingers tangled together.
Does Georgia even realise that she’s still holding your hand, or the effect that it’s having on you? Because it’s pretty much all you can think about as the lift ascends, your heart hammering away until the rush of blood in your ears is so strong that you might faint.
The lift can’t reach Georgia’s floor soon enough, but eventually it does arrive and the doors slide open with a soft ping, and then Georgia is dragging you along the carpeted hallway until she reaches the door to her room.
“Shhh,” Georgia hisses as she unlocks the door, ushering you inside as she finally lets go of your hand. “In you go.”
You enter Georgia’s hotel room and she closes the door behind the two of you. It’s a pretty standard room, a large double bed in the middle, a tv screen hanging from the wall beside a door that leads to the adjoining bathroom. Georgia’s suitcase is open on the floor, a few clothes strewn across the floor and the chair in the corner.
“Do you want a shower to warm up?” Georgia asks you. “I can lend you some spare clothes to sleep in.”
“Yeah, sounds nice,” you nod, shivering as you’re reminded that you’re still wearing your rain-soaked clothes from earlier.
Georgia kneels beside her suitcase and rummages around in it until she pulls out a spare pair of shorts with the Bayern logo on them and an oversized t-shirt, which she passes to you as she stands up again.
“Spare towel is on the rail in the bathroom,” she explains. “Pass us your wet clothes when you’ve taken them off and I’ll hang them up to dry.”
You smile your thanks and wander into the bathroom, turning on the hot water of the shower before stripping out of your wet clothes. Wrapping a towel around yourself for warmth and modesty, you open the door just wide enough to pass your clothes through to Georgia, who promises to hang them up by the radiator to dry overnight, before shutting yourself in the bathroom and stepping into the shower to warm up.
You spend longer than you probably need to in the shower but the warm water cascading over your head is more than welcome and it gives you time to think. To think about the fact that you’re here in Georgia’s hotel room, about to spend the night in her bed, wearing her spare clothes, when you should really be halfway up the motorway back to Manchester right now.
For some reason, your conscience warning you against this appears in the form of Keira’s voice.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Keira’s voice asks you in your head. “You’re still trying to get over her. Is this really going to help?”
“It’s fine,” you whisper aloud into the empty bathroom, your words masked by the sound of water hitting the tiles. “We’re just friends and that’s fine.”
It’s far from the first sleepover you’ve had with Georgia. You’ve known each other for well over a decade and spent your teenage years sleeping over at each other’s houses gossiping and giggling well into the night until a parent came in to hush you and urge you to get some sleep. You’ve shared rooms on countless camps before, during tournaments with England or on away trips with Manchester City. And since growing up and getting your own places, there have been movie nights that ended late where it was easier for one of you to stay over instead of driving back late.
In short, you’ve shared a bed with Georgia many times before.
You haven’t shared a bed since you realised you had feelings for her last summer, and definitely not since you admitted those feelings a couple of months ago.
But if Georgia’s comfortable with it, then you shouldn’t have a problem either.
You finally get out of the shower, when you’re completely warmed through and your fingertips are starting to shrivel from being under the water for so long. You dry off and change into the clothes borrowed from Georgia, then spend a bit of time drying your hair with a towel and brushing your teeth using the spare hotel-issued brush still in its plastic wrapper, before you eventually unlock the bathroom door and return to the bedroom.
Georgia is sitting upright in bed looking down at the screen of her phone, bathed in the yellow glow of the bedside lamp. She glances up when she hears the bathroom door open and smiles, whether at the sight of you in her clothes or some other reason, you’re not quite sure.
“You still like to sleep furthest from the door, right?” she asks, shuffling across to leave plenty of room for you in the bed beside her.
“You gonna protect me from intruders?” you tease her, as you clamber into the empty side of the bed.
Georgia is a few inches shorter than you, but you’ve seen the way she tackles on a football pitch and you have no doubt that she’d do better in a fight than you.
“Course I will,” Georgia grins back at you. “Ready for bed? Can I turn the light off?”
You nod and settle yourself down, adjusting the pillow and pulling the covers up over your shoulders as you roll onto your side. Georgia flicks off the light, then there’s some shuffling on her side of the bed, before you both fall still.
With your eyes not yet adjusted to the darkness, you can’t actually see Georgia more than just a shadow on her side of the bed, but you’re pretty sure she’s lying on her side facing you.
And that’s when it truly hits you. You’re sharing a bed with Georgia, close enough to touch her, close enough to be able to hear her breathing, but knowing that you can’t do anything about the ache in your chest.
You have no idea how you’re going to calm your mind or your heart enough to be able to fall asleep tonight.
You shiver - whether that’s because you’re still cold or for some other reason like Georgia’s proximity - but it’s enough that she notices.
“Shit, are you still cold?” Georgia whispers into the darkness.
“No, it’s fine,” you say, but your body betrays you again with another shiver.
“Come here,” Georgia says, though it’s her, not you, that closes the gap between you, shuffling her body closer until she can wrap her arms around you and pull your body against hers. Your feet intertwine at the bottom of the bed, hers warmer than yours, though she makes no complaint. “Nothing warms you up like a little cuddle.”
It’s not just a little cuddle though. This is a cuddle with your best friend who you’re more than a little bit in love with, who is kind enough to let you stay here despite the fact she could get in trouble, who has lent you her clothes and let you use her shower and now offers her arms to keep you warm. Your best friend who can surely now feel as well as hear the pounding of your heart as you nestle your body against hers beneath the covers.
Your eyes have started adjusting to the darkness and now you can see how close her face is to yours, your foreheads separated by barely an inch, and she’s staring right back at you, her warm breath hitting your face with each exhale.
“G…”
You breathe her name into the space between your lips, ready to tell her that you can’t do this, ready to admit that you still have feelings for her and that you need to leave, drive back to Manchester even though it’s the middle of the night and you’ve got no dry clothes, because otherwise you might do something that you regret.
But you don’t get the chance to say anything, because suddenly Georgia’s warm lips are on yours, soft and unmoving and so incredibly tentative, but also so right.
She lingers for a few seconds, then pulls back, her chest rising and falling more deeply than before with each breath, as she asks, “Sorry, I … was that okay?”
“You shouldn’t kiss me if you don’t mean it,” you say, just about ready to combust into tears, such is the intensity of the feelings overwhelming your entire body for the other girl.
You don’t know what to expect from Georgia, but it’s definitely not what she says next.
“And what if I do mean it?”
Her voice is quiet, her words cautious. You’re so used to Georgia being her usual loud and effervescent self that you barely recognise the tone of her voice, but she sounds almost vulnerable.
“I’m so far gone on you, G,” you admit. “I thought I could get over you but I can’t. I need you to know that you could shatter my heart and stamp on all the tiny pieces and I’d still want to be yours. And if there’s even the smallest part of you that doesn’t mean it, then we should forget that ever happened and…”
You don’t get to finish your sentence because Georgia’s mouth is on yours again, hotter and more insistent this time. You gasp as she kisses you and her mouth opens too, her hand coming up to cup your jaw as her tongue swipes past your lips. The sound you let out is involuntary and you would be embarrassed, if not for the fact that you can’t think of anything except Georgia - her lips on yours, her body wrapped around you, her hands burning your skin.
Eventually, breathing becomes a necessity and Georgia must agree because she pulls back, though only far enough to lean her forehead against yours as she says, “I think I’m in love with you.”
“You think?” you ask, needing Georgia to be absolutely certain before you let yourself hope.
“I’m pretty sure,” Georgia corrects herself. “I’m still figuring it out but I’ve been thinking about it ever since you told me you liked me, and then when you showed up in Munich last week to surprise me … nobody’s ever done something like that for me before. And I can’t imagine anyone else making me feel the way that you do. You’re so much more to me than just a best mate. You’re … you’re everything to me.”
“Do you really mean it?”
Georgia nods.
“Whatever I have to do to convince you I mean it…”
“Just hold me,” you tell her, pushing your body further into hers and nuzzling your face into the crook of her neck.
“Just hold you?” Georgia asks, her hand squeezing your hip, and though you can’t see her face, you can picture the smirk on her face anyway.
You lift your head and use the element of surprise to roll Georgia onto her back, trapping her against the mattress with one of your legs framed on each side of her hips.
“You’ve got other suggestions, have you?” you ask her, raising your eyebrows at her as you sweep your damp hair out of your face.
Her hands settle on your hip tentatively, like she knows what she wants but isn’t quite sure yet whether it’s okay.
“I’ve got some ideas,” Georgia admits, fighting off a mischievous smile.
“Yeah?”
You lean down, still hardly able to believe that this is Georgia telling you that she loves you, that she wants you in the same way that you want her, as you press your lips to hers again. You hope that you’ll never get tired of kissing her because each time feels more magical than the last, as you slowly get used to the way that her lips move, to the things that make her breath catch in her throat as she kisses you back, and you know that there’s a whole other side of your oldest friend that’s now open for you to get to know and explore.
It would be so easy to get carried away, especially when Georgia’s hands, already dangerously low on your hips, start to slide lower, but there will be plenty of time for that, you hope. You’ve waited long enough, thirteen long years, for this to happen. You can wait a little longer.
You reluctantly detach your lips from Georgia’s and settle back against her side, one of your legs slung over her hips and her hands coming up to wrap around your back as you lie half on top of her.
“Another time,” you tell her, as you let your eyes flicker shut, knowing that sleep will be easy to come by with Georgia’s arms around you.
“That’d better be a promise,” Georgia murmurs, pressing a kiss to your temple.
You don’t say anything, just laugh softly, and snuggle into her until sleep takes you both.
———
You wake in a different position, spooning Georgia from behind, but no less content than you were when you fell asleep. Georgia is still fast asleep, body rising and falling with each deep breath, and you manage to carefully extract your arms from around her so that you can reach for your phone on the bedside table to check the time.
You let out a soft groan when you see the time because you’re supposed to be at training in Manchester in less than two hours, and as perfect as last night was, finally getting an admission from Georgia that she feels the same, you now have to deal with the consequences of staying overnight in London instead of driving back home last night after the match.
You slip out of bed as quietly as you can, intending to go into the bathroom to call Gareth and give him some kind of made up excuse about why you’re not going to be at training. Something that doesn’t involve having to admit that you prioritised a girl over your career, even though Georgia is so much more than just a girl and last night will hopefully be the first of many that you get to experience falling asleep in her embrace, but you’re not so sure that your manager will understand or approve.
But before you can make it as far as the bathroom, you hear a sleepy voice from behind you.
“You’re not sneaking out on me, are you?”
You turn to the most adorable sight, a sleepy Georgia rubbing at her bleary eyes as she pushes herself up onto one elbow, her hair sticking up at an awkward angle on the side she slept on.
“No, of course not,” you promise her. You hold up your phone and explain, “I just need to make a call. I’ve got training today and obviously I’m not going to make it.”
“Come back to bed,” Georgia pleads with you.
“One sec,” you say, calling Gareth and lifting your phone to your ear as you sit down on the edge of the bed.
When it rings through to voicemail, you’re a little relieved that you don’t actually have to talk to him in person, and you wait for the tone before leaving your message.
“Hi Gareth,” you say, deliberately rasping your voice as you try to sound as sick as you possibly can. “I’m really sorry but I don’t think I’m going to make it into training today. I’m not feeling well and I’ve already been sick once this morning. Sorry again. I’ll catch up with you soon when I’m feeling better. Bye.”
You hang up and toss your phone aside, ignoring the amused look on Georgia’s face as you get back under the covers.
“Pulling a sickie, eh?” she teases you.
“Shut up,” you grumble, though you still cuddle back into Georgia’s side, tangling your legs together beneath the covers once more.
From this close, you’re taken aback by just how pretty she is. Not that it’s the first time you’ve thought that, but seeing her like this, still slightly heavy-eyed from just waking up, looking back at you with adoration mirrored in her dark eyes, and being able to take it all in without having to worry about whether you get caught staring at her, is brand new. And with whatever limited time you have left before you inevitably have to get up and leave the blissful sanctuary of Georgia’s bed, you just want to kiss her, to feel her body against yours so that you have something tangible to remember this by when she has to go back to Munich.
“Can I kiss you?” you ask.
“You don’t have to ask.”
“I do,” you insist. “Because I can’t believe that last night actually happened. I’m still kinda waiting for you to tell me it’s just a prank.”
Georgia presses forward and her lips meet yours. It’s slower than the kisses you exchanged last night before bed, but you sigh happily into the kiss and bring your hand up to cup Georgia’s cheek. She lets out a little noise that you capture with your own mouth as your fingertips brush against a sensitive spot just below her ear and you make a mental note to revisit the spot later, perhaps with your lips and teeth instead, and vow to find every other spot that makes her whimper and melt into putty.
You make out for a while, a lazy exploration of each other’s mouths without any real destination. Having spent at least the last eight months dreaming of getting to spend quiet mornings in bed with Georgia, kissing until it’s hard to tell where you end and she begins, you’d be quite happy to keep doing this for the rest of eternity, but she eventually pulls back.
“I wish I didn’t have to go back to Germany,” Georgia says, echoing your own thoughts.
“But you love it there,” you remind her, trying to be the voice of reason, even though you wish you could both just exist in the cocoon of this hotel room for the rest of time.
“I love it here too.”
“Here being…?”
“With you,” Georgia clarifies, and your face cracks open into a big grin.
“Didn’t know you were so soppy, G,” you tease her.
“Neither did I. I guess you bring it out in me.”
“Charmer,” you say, snuggling into her shoulder and sliding your hand under the hem of her t-shirt so that your fingertips can brush across the skin of her hip bone.
“We should really get up,” Georgia says, though she makes no move to do so.
“Five more minutes?” you ask, nuzzling your face into Georgia’s neck and pressing your lips to her pulse point.
“Go on then. Five more minutes.”
———
It’s another twenty minutes before you eventually drag yourselves out of bed, which means you have to rush to get ready and any chance you might have had to slip out of the hotel before any of Georgia’s teammates see you is ruined when you hear a knock on the door.
You’ve redressed in last night’s clothes, now mostly dry, and grab the last of your things as Georgia opens the door, revealing three of her teammates standing out in the hallway.
“Breakfast?” they ask her, before three pairs of eyes look past Georgia and fall on you, slipping your feet into your trainers.
“I should go,” you say, checking your coat pocket for your car keys and wandering over to where Georgia stands at the door once you’re satisfied you’ve got everything. “Text me when your flight lands.”
“I’ll text you before then,” Georgia says, her hand coming up to rest on your waist as she tilts her head up to press a sweet kiss to your lips. It’s far more chaste than the ones you shared last night and this morning but it’s still enough to draw some sniggers out of her teammates.
“Bye,” you whisper against her lips as you pull away.
“Love you,” she says.
“Love you too.”
As you leave the room and walk down the hall, you can hear Georgia’s teammates starting to tease her loudly behind you, and you enter the lift fighting off a smile that has everything to do with the development of your relationship in the last ten hours.
———
Luckily you don’t have to wait long to see Georgia again because just a few days after the Champions League match, she returns to England for another Lionesses camp as you prepare for the Finalissima against Brazil.
Naturally, you smuggle Georgia into your room almost as soon as she arrives on camp and spend the night trying really hard to keep your hands to yourself, because you’ve waited so long for Georgia to be yours that you’re determined to wait a little longer so that your first time together isn’t at St George’s Park while your teammates are trying to sleep in the rooms on either side of yours. But you settle for kissing her heatedly well into the night and waking up with her head resting on your chest and one of her arms draped around your waist.
You’re in such a good mood when you go down to breakfast on the first morning of camp, that you completely forget that nobody else knows about the new development in your relationship with Georgia. Specifically, you forget that Keira, who knows pretty much every other up and down of the last few months, doesn’t yet know that Georgia reciprocates your feelings.
You sit at your usual table for breakfast, Keira opposite you and Georgia setting her tray down next to yours.
“I’m just gonna get some juice,” Georgia says. “Do you want some?”
“No thanks,” you reply, taking a sip from your mug of coffee.
You watch as Georgia wanders over to the jugs of juice, your gaze following the swish of her ponytail before dropping to appreciate her legs and the shape of her butt in her training shorts. It’s only when Keira kicks you under the table, hard enough to surely leave a bruise on your shin, that you snap out of your trance.
“What?”
“You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?” Keira hisses across the table.
You pause for a second, glancing between Keira and Georgia, who is on her way back to the table with a glass of orange juice, and then you laugh. You can’t help the way that it spills from your throat because Keira is looking at you like being in love with Georgia is the worst thing in the world, and while it might have been painful a week ago, you don’t know how to begin to explain that in the space of just a few days it’s become the best thing that’s ever happened to you.
“What did I miss?” Georgia asks, as she returns to the table and sits down beside you. “What’s so funny?”
“Keira thinks I’m in love with you,” you explain.
Keira’s eyes widen, and now that you’ve got over the initial surprise of her question, you start to wonder if you can have a bit of fun before actually telling her the truth.
Georgia is clearly thinking the same, because she nudges your thigh with hers and says, “Aw, you love me? That’s lame.”
Keira looks even more panicked - understandable given that she’d probably expect Georgia to be a little more considerate towards your feelings if she didn’t reciprocate.
“Can we talk after breakfast?” Keira asks. “Because I’m worried about you. I thought you’d…” Keira’s eyes flit across to Georgia, then back to you, giving you a deliberate look as she says, “… you know.”
“You thought she’d moved on?” Georgia fills in the gap. She puts down her fork, then reaches for your hand, lacing your fingers together and resting them on the table where Keira, and anybody else, can see. “Fat chance of that. She’s obsessed with me.”
Keira looks more confused than ever, and you realise that you probably owe her an explanation.
“G’s my …” You pause, realising that while you’ve both admitted you love each other and there seems to be an understanding that you’re together now, you haven’t actually had a conversation to put an official label on what you are. You turn to Georgia and ask, “Are you my girlfriend?”
“If that’s your way of asking me, it’s not very romantic, is it?” Georgia teases you.
Rolling your eyes, you turn back to Keira and say, “She’s my girlfriend. We’re dating.”
To emphasise your point, you bring your joined hands to your lips and press a kiss to the back of Georgia’s fingers.
Keira’s eyes look like they might pop out of her head at any second.
Leah sits down in the empty seat beside Keira, taking one look at your joined hands, before she says, without a hint of surprise in her voice, “You two have finally got your shit together, then? About bloody time.”
“How are you not more surprised by this?” Keira asks Leah, apparently exasperated by the new development. “I’ve spent months listening to this one,” she jabs an accusatory finger in your direction, “whine on and on about how much she loves Georgia and how Georgia is never going to love her back to the point where I’ve genuinely had sleepless nights worrying about it, only for them to hard launch their apparent relationship by rocking up to breakfast and just holding hands like it’s completely normal!”
Keira is usually so cool and composed, even when under stress, that it’s weird to see her have an outburst like this, but she’s the only one who knows the extent of how much your feelings for Georgia not being reciprocated until now has really affected you over the last few months, and for that she deserves an explanation.
Georgia leans closer to you and whispers, “Babe, I think we broke Keira.”
You’ll have time to process the way that Georgia’s use of the pet name babe makes your heart do an actual somersault in your chest, eager to revisit the subject later, but you probably owe Keira an explanation before she actually combusts.
“I love her,” you tell Keira and Leah. “And it turns out G loves me too, it just took her a while to figure it out. But we’re serious about giving this a go. It’s brand new, which is scary and exciting, but…” You turn to Georgia now, almost forgetting that the others are here too as you get caught in the adoration in Georgia’s eyes. “But she’s my girlfriend, my best mate, the only person I’ve ever felt like this about. So yeah, I’ve been a bit of a mess over the last few months trying to get my head around what I felt for her. But she’s worth it. You’re worth it, Georgia. And I’m lucky I get to call you mine.”
Your words come from the heart and it feels for just a second like the two of you are caught in your own little bubble of blossoming romance.
That is, until Leah bursts it by sarcastically saying, “Well thanks guys, I really didn’t want to keep my breakfast down this morning.”
It doesn’t matter if Leah ruins the moment. You’ve waited for Georgia for far too long to care. And as the news of your relationship filters through camp until the rest of the team knows, met with some surprise, some cries of “I knew it!”, and plenty of teasing, the only thing that matters is Georgia and the fact that you finally get to call yourself hers.
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