St George's Park would always hold a special place in my heart. It wasn't only the association it had with actually being selected for the England squad that made it so exceptional; each time I returned ended up being better than the last, and I was almost certain I didn't have a single bad memory from that place.
So the rush I felt as I woke up the following morning was no surprise. I was desperate to get there, but I knew a day of travel still awaited me. At least I would have Mason to keep me entertained on the drive: he suggested the day we heard about our call-ups that we should get a car up together. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, given that in the breaks leading up to the World Cup we always shared a lift. It made sense; we lived close enough and were pretty used to travelling together.
The time Mandy gave us to arrive at St George's was earlier than normal, meaning we needed to be up bright and early. I was wide awake before my alarm even went off, though, urged out of sleep by anticipation of the next ten days. True to my expectations from the previous day, my legs were beat as I moved around my flat making breakfast and triple checking my packed bag.
I expected Mason just before nine, so at around eight-forty I gathered my things and made my way downstairs. Outside, the sounds of London traffic along with the sharp morning air hit me immediately. My flat, located a street down from the bustling Sloane Square, meant traffic was always in the back of my mind when I needed to get somewhere. As I leant against the wall outside my building, I hoped Mason had the same thinking. The last thing I wanted was to be late on my first day back at St George's.
Evidently I had no need to worry, though. No longer than three minutes of standing on my doorstep, a car pulled to stop in front of my duplex. Frowning, I wondered if our driver was early picking us up. When no activity came from the car after a moment, I took to watching other cars drive past once more, assuming it had nothing to do with me.
But movement caught my eye again and, glancing down, I widened my eyes as Mason emerged from the car. From my vantage point above street level, I watched him move around to the boot to unload his bags. His words were lost amongst the traffic, but the frown on his face was clear as he spoke through the boot to the driver of the car.
I strained my ears as he rounded the car once more, this time moving to the opening window. Curiosity spiked in my chest as I saw Liv in the driver's seat leaning over the middle console. They spoke for a minute more â well, Liv clearly did most of the talking while Mason spent most of his time nodding away.
A couple of minutes after they pulled up, Liv was driving away, cutting off a Mercedes as she went. Heart clenching, I watched Mason stare after the car, his hand running through his hair. He spun around, taking a second to wipe the grimace off his face and replace it with a big smile.
"Morning, Hart!" Wheeling bag in one hand, boot bag in his other, he climbed the stairs towards me. "Guess what day is it today?" I grinned as he came to a stop on the step below me and dropped his bags, his hands lifting into the air. "England day!"
I let out a cheer and mirrored his reaction, my head spinning with excitement. While they were up, Mason dived forwards and wrapped his arms around my torso, lifting me into the air as I squealed in surprise.
"I can't even tell you how keen I am." Back on solid ground, I grinned at Mason as he stood next to me.
"Fuck, me too!" he exclaimed, his face lighting up. He nudged me with his elbow. "How are the legs?"
I pouted. "Tired. I'm definitely shot-gunning the middle seat."
The grin that was on Mason's face disappeared. "No way."
Now, I frowned too. "You only played thirty minutes yesterday; what's gives you the right?"
"Uh, thirty-seven minutes," he said, crossing his arms. I raised an eyebrow at him as he threw on a desperate expression. "Please, Hart, I'm so tired."
"Big night last night?" I asked with a chuckle. My mind flashed back to the strange way in which he bid goodbye to Liv. "Celebrating your MVP from yesterday?"
Mason snorted and shook his head. "Not big, just late."
Curiosity drove me on. "What did you get up to?"
I shifted my weight to my other foot as Mason shrugged. "Just went to a movie. But one of the late ones, you know, that finish at like one am?" He shook his head. "Didn't think about getting up this early."
"Well, that's a terrible reason for needing extra space." Before he could interject, I spoke over him. "How do you know I didn't have a super late night as well?"
"Because, Hart, you're so responsible that you probably went to bed at seven last night."
Cheeks warming up, I rolled my eyes. "Seven-thirty, actually. Decided to treat myself."
Mason laughed and looked away, facing the street again. For the first time, I noticed the rings under his eyes and couldn't help wondering if the movie wasn't the only thing that lead to his late night.
I didn't have time to ask him, though, because he nudged my arm. "Looks like that's our guy."
Following his pointing finger, I saw a black Audi come to a stop below the stairs. When an older man climbed out and waved at us, I nodded and started gathering my things. Mason was already shaking the driver's hand when I started descending, and quickly the man stepped up to grab my suitcase.
"Morning," I greeted him with a smile. "I'm Rebecca."
"Oh, trust me, I know who you twos are," he laughed. "I'm David, pleased to meet you."
We loaded up the car and sat through painful traffic while chatting to David. Mason managed to twist my arm and claim the middle seat, so as soon as we were out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic he arranged his legs over my lap and passed out. Left with nothing else to do, I sat on my phone for the hour that Mason was asleep, growing more and more antsy as we got further from the city.
"Can you stop moving so much? You're keeping me up here."
Looking up from my phone, I rolled my eyes at Mason's teasing expression. With a yawn, he stretched his hands above his head.
"Sleep well?" He nodded and smiled sleepily at me.
"You good? We can swap if you want to." By the look in his eyes, I knew he was hoping I would say no.
"I'm alright," I sighed.
"We'll be about forty minutes," came David's voice from the front. He'd been giving me updates just about every fifteen minutes while Mase slept, clearly sensing my restlessness.
"Amazing, thanks, Dave," Mason said.
While we'd been driving, all the excitement I'd been feeling the last few days was turning into a sour nervousness in the pit of my stomach. I wasn't sure what for: I'd played for England plenty of times before and it was clear that Gareth had selected me out of merit. But I couldn't shake the feeling that arriving at St George's, I would be an imposter.
Lost in thought, I stared out the window at the passing countryside. My hands unconsciously searched for something to fiddle with. I didn't realise it happened to be Mason's laces until he spoke and I was brought back to attention.
"So, how cute is this?" he said. I curled my hands into fists, my cheeks heating up.
"What?"
"I got this call from my sister's school a couple of days ago. They want to me talk to some of the kids and then take their football team for a session."
I grinned. "That's so cute. You going to do it?"
"Yeah, of course." Mason smiled, too, his reddening cheeks giving away the type of comment he was about to make. "Gotta give the fans what they want, you know?"
I just shook my head, trying to hide the grin that threatened to take over my face. "Does Pippa play football?"
Mason shook his head. "Nah, she doesn't. She's a really good hockey player, though. She's already been offered club contracts and stuff."
"Wow."
I'd met Mason's sister a couple of times in the past, mostly just on the pitch after games. From what I'd seen of her, the seventeen year old resembled Mason pretty well, so it wasn't hard to believe that she was sporty like her brother, too.
"Yeah. I don't think she really wants me to this thing, though." Mason's voice had grown softer.
"Yeah? Did she say that?" My fingers found his laces again, and I could see him watching me fidget with them.
"Nah, not explicitly." He shrugged. "I just get the feeling, you know?"
"Why wouldn't she want you to?"
He bit his lip. "Think it's hard for her sometimes, having such a famous brother." He met my eyes at the comment and I rolled mine. "No, but for real, I don't think she likes the attention she gets from it, if that makes sense. Like she thinks everyone expects her to follow the same path as me or whatever, and she hates that."
Nodding, I shifted in my seat. "I get it," I said truthfully. "I used to get that with my uncle quite a lot. I mean, it's not really the same thing as this but..." I trailed off and frowned; now examining my own fingers as they twirled around Mason's white laces.
"Yeah?"
My dad's brother, Andrew Hart, played for Aston Villa basically his whole career. The guy was a legend not only there, but throughout most of the country. Surprisingly, he only played for England on a handful of occasions, but he still tore it up in the Premier League.
"Yeah, even at Wolves. Villa rejected me so I guess it could have been worse if I was there, but when I went to Wolves it was crazy: everyone knew Drew was my uncle, so there was always this added pressure to do well."
"He must be proud of you now."
Smiling, I shrugged. "Guess he is. I kind of owe everything to him really: he was the reason why I got into football in the first place." I looked at Mason to see his eyebrows raised. "Well, my dad's family are all mad about football. But going to watch all of Drew's games and going out onto the pitch afterwards and kicking a ball around with him... I don't think I'd have gone for it as much without him."
I smiled to myself, thinking back on those times. Drew was a lot younger than my dad and he only had kids after he retired, so he spent a lot of those years with me. He'd take me to the training grounds, let me onto the pitches after matches, let me hold his trophies. I loved it, until I started playing, when it became a burden over my head until I made it for myself.
"It must have been awesome growing up surrounded by football like that," Mason said whimsically. "You're lucky you had him, even with all of that other stuff."
I nodded. "Yeah, I am."
"I always forget you're related to him, actually." I scoffed and looked at Mason, who widened his eyes. "Seriously!"
"Well, thanks." I felt my cheeks heating up again; surprised at the amount of reminiscing I'd just unloaded onto Mason. "I don't think Pippa hates it or anything. Maybe she just wants to be known as something other than Mason Mitchell's sister, you know?"
Mason nodded, his lips pulling up into a grin. "It's hard being related to someone this famous."
"Oh, yeah?" I teased. "What's your follower count at now?"
"Almost a million," he replied much too quickly. He broke out into a laugh at my expression.
"Bet the only asked you because they couldn't get George Carroll."
Mason's jaw dropped. "I don't see you getting asked to do any talks."
"I don't have a sister in high school," I said with a laugh.
"You also don't have almost a million Instagram followers," Mason replied under his breath, grinning at me as I laughed.
After a moment of silence, I spoke again. "What about Ben? Was he also super good at sports or was he the Mitchell black sheep?"
"God, no," Mason said. "Ben played football, too. He was at the Southampton academy, same as me, but he gave it up when he was fourteen or fifteen or something."
Like his sister, I'd only met Mason's older brother a few times. He flew out to Russia with some of Mason's friends, so I spent some time with him then, but I hardly knew anything about him besides from the fact that he lived in Manchester.
"Really? Why did he stop?"
Mason sighed, and by his expression I worried that I'd brought up a soft spot. He clenched his jaw and frowned. I was about to tell him to forget about it, but he spoke up.
"Ben was great, actually; probably could have made it, too. Then I started at Chelsea and it became kind of weird, because he was still at Southampton and whatever. Then he got to the age where he had to decide if he wanted to do A-levels or keep playing, and he chose to study." Mason's eyes were downcast, serious. "He let me have football, I guess, and he chose to go make a career for himself."
"Seems like it worked out for him pretty well," I said. Mason's face lit up at this and he chuckled.
"Yeah, guy's killing it now."
I grinned, a wicked thought coming to my head. "Imagine if he stuck with it and you guys ended up playing against each other."
Mason laughed. "God, that would be weird."
"Do you think you'd take it easy on him or wreck him?" I grinned as Mason's eyes sparkled.
"Oh, I'd absolutely kill him, without a doubt."
"Fifteen minutes, guys."
David's voice drew me away from my conversation with Mason and the nerves I'd been feeling earlier returning. Glancing at Mason, I saw he was already looking at me. He raised his eyebrows as if to ask if I was okay, and I nodded in reply. I got the feeling he knew how nervous I was, and keeping me speaking had been the best distraction. Of course, it was no more than a feeling, but something in his expression made me think the guess wasn't far off.