.five. 

"No one." Erik inisted, but the look on his face said otherwise. He was nervous and found it dificult to meet his friends' gazes for fear that they might find their answer in his eyes.

Mats shot his friend a look. "You can tell us." The older footballer encouraged, placing a hand on Erik's shoulder. There was a curiosity in his dark eyes as he awaited his answer. This was the moment when his suspicions would be answered. This was the last piece of the puzzle, the one that ould solve the mystery. It all connected, it all made perfect sense if he thought about it. Arabella was recieving romantic poems, Erik was suddenly beginning to write romantic poems. Mats had seen them talking during practice, maybe she had asked him if he was the one. Knowing Erik, he probably denied it, Mats thought to himself.

The twenty-two year old gulped nervously, a pink blush making its way onto his already naturally rosey cheeks. "You'll laugh at me." He muttered like a little boy as he shook his head, refusing to tell them.

"We won't." Mats swore, raising a hand in the air as a symbol of his vow. Erik knew his friends though, and he was certain telling them was the equvalent of shouting it from the rooftops.

But before Erik could speak or even make a decision on whether he would tell them or not, he saw everything click like a puzzle in Marco's mind. There was a flicker in his eyes that almost reminded Erik of an old cartoon, where a character gets an idea and a light bulb goes off above their head. He could almost see it as it happened with Marco. Pointing his index finger at the younger player, he said to him with a knowing smile, "You're the one sending Arabella those notes and presents."

"I knew it!" Mats half-shouted.

Sighing, Erik finally said, "Is it obvious?"

Marco shook his head. "Not really. At least not until we saw the notes scattered arond your house. You need to organize yourself."

"If I had known you were coming..." The youngest of them trailed off. Of course it was their fault he had been discovered by them. Had they been polite enough to call him in advance, he could have cleaned up a bit and avoided the circumstances in which he now was.

 "Catching you off guard was my intention." Mats informed him, matter-of-factly. "I suspected you from the beginning and when she asked me to investigate--"

Erik interrupted the dark haired footballer. "You can't tell her."

"But she asked me to find out." Mats argued, though the truth was he had offered himself to investigate the mysterious person leaving presents and notes for the coach's daughter. Adding with a playful smirk, Mats said, "Who would have thought that Erik would have a crush on the coach's daughter? Of all of us, you were the only one who didn't approach her that first day at practice."

"You know how soft-spoken and shy Erik is." Marco reminded Mats. "Remember that one time we all got new cleates before the start of the season? Erik was accidentally given a pair two sizes bigger than his shoe size. And he was too embarrassed to return them and ask for new ones, so he wore them to the match and was falling all over the pitch."

"I'm your friend, Mats." Erik tried to reason. He didn't want to tell his friends he already knew her from before. And Arabella couldn't know he was the one behind everything. At least not for now. He thought he would be to embarrassed to face her if she knew he liked her, especially when he had seen her as a child so many years before. She had been almost like a younger sister to him. The coloring pages she had filled in for him still hung on his refridgerator doors. How was it that his care for her as an older brother had turned into something more?

Mats wanted to tell Arabella, she had seemed genuinely curious about her secret admirer. But after thinking about it for a minute, he concluded that for the time being, it was better to keep the secret than to get it out.

Maybe Erik would tell the girl himself, but in the meantime, Mats was sure things would continue to get interesting.

"I can keep quiet," Mats shrugged, "But the girl isn't stupid. She'll find out sooner or later."

"I'll tell her myself." Erik assured his friends.

"When?" Wondered Marco.

"When I finish the series of poems I'm writing for her."

"Oh hey," The hazel eyed footballer began with a smile, "She and Jude are about the same age. Maybe I can bring Jude to watch us practice and she can find out if Arabella likes you back. Its a plan that will surely work." Jude was Marco's girlfriend, which he had met when he stayed behind during the summer. He had gotten an ankle injury that saw him out of the world cup and spent most of his free time playing FIFA. (A/N: this is jude from my other story 'FIFA' but you don't need to have read that one prior to this one. just letting you all know so we won't get confused.)

Mats wiggled his eyebrows at Marco. "Your boyfriend Jude?" He teased in regards to her name, which had at first made Marco think she was a boy.

"That isn't funny anymore." Marco shot his friend a glare that quickly turned into smile, "Anyway, Jude is a unisex name."

"That's what she'd like to think." Erik soon joined in on the teasing, now that it wasn't directed at him.

"What was it that your parents thought when you told them you were dating someone named Jude?" Mats continued, an amused expression on his face. He had been the one most entertained when Marco told the story.

Rolling his eyes, Marco replied, "They thought I was a homosexual."

"We all thought so too when you were going on about being in love with Jude Wopschall." Erik chuckled, all embarrassment aside.

"Lets get back to the real issue here." Marco said, not amused.

"Pia could come too." Mats stated, "She and Jude could help Arabella feel better about being here everyday. Girls always feel more comfortable talking to another girl, you know." He pointed out. But Erik wasn't too sure about Pia. Arabella and Jude were closer to the same age. Pia, Mats' girlfriend, was twenty three years old, that was already three years older than Jude and six older than Arabella. (A/N: Pia is Mats' girlfriend from my story 'Twele Days of Christmas' which I desperately need to continue. You also do not have to read that one to understand this one. They just occur in the same universe.) 

"And," Marco added, "Coach won't mind because they're girls."

"You know she has a sketch book." Mentioned the youngest of the three. "She's really good too. Her drawings looked so real, almost like photographs."

"Were there drawings of you?" Mats nudged him with a grin.

With a shrug, Erik responded, "I didn't flip through her book or anything, that would be rude."

He didn't tell his friends that the page her sketch book had opened to when she dropped it was a drawing of himself.

-

longer chapter today. cause i have alot of time. i'm in my history class for hitler and the third reich, but i already know a lot of this stuff. cause i'm a history geek and i read about this and watched documentaries about this. so i'm sitting here, on my wattpad and texting people cause i have nothing else to do.

its just three hours of me sitting here pretending to listen to things i already know. lol. anyway, i hope you enjoy the update. there are about five more, not including this one.

thank you for reading!

i love you.

-clary xx