o n e ;

"Okay dad, I'm going out! I'll be back later!" called Naileah Obama from the bottom of the staircase at the White House. 

It was just past noon and her father was probably in the Oval Office, where the likes of JFK, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter had once sat to lead the country. Her mother was going to be waking up early that morning to run some errands, but she would be back just in time for dinner.

As though knowing his daughter was about to go out, her father appeared at the top of the steps. This early in the day he was dressed to the nines in a finely pressed suit with his crisp shirt and dark blue tie around his neck. Naileah always thought business suits were strange, and to her the ties resembled a noose around his neck, more than anything. He was walking down the stairs as he gave her a reminder, "Don't forget to be back for dinner, Naileah. We invited the Men's National team over to wish them luck before the Copa America."

Leah rolled her eyes, "Why wish them luck? They're gonna lose anyway."

"They're our country's team." Her father reasoned. But she knew he wasn't so much as interested in football as he was in golf. He soon added, "This is a very important dinner, and I want the whole family to be there." The president eyed her suspiciously. He knew his daughter like the palm of his hand, and he knew that a boring dinner was the last place she wanted to be. But it was her duty as the President's daughter and she would have to be there. And he also thought she would have wanted to be there because of the players, but even they weren't enough to sway her opinion on the dinner.

"If they were Lionel Messi..." She trailed off, but heaved a sigh. Only then she would think about going. Of course our country doesn't have guys like that, she thought to herself. All we got was Landon Donovan who thinks its okay to take a piss on a football pitch in Mexico, she cringed internally at the thought. 

"Well, your sisters are very excited." The president commented. At least Naileah's other sisters were glad about the opportunity of having dinner with the Men's National team.

Leah finally sighed. "I'll be here, dad. But don't expect me to talk to them." Taking a look at the watch around her wrist, she added, "And I should probably get going. My friends are waiting for me to have lunch."

She gave her father a quick hug and she was out the door. Outside was a black parked car with the engine running, already waiting for her. A member of the secret service seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and opened the door for her. "Where are we taking you today, miss Naileah?" He asked as the president's daughter got into the car. 

"Salad Farm." Leah replied with a polite smile. 

The secret service body guard nodded and closed the door for her, moving to go sit in the front passenger's seat with the driver. Leah hated the fact that she was forced to be followed around all day by the secret service, but her father always told her that it was for her own safety. Leah was only glad that she only had one guard now. When her father became president, she and her sisters had four guards each whenever they would go out. Over the years she convinced her father that she was okay with just one guard.

Naileah got her cellphone out of her purse and checked the time. She was already a few minutes late, and her friends would probably already be ordering their food. And the traffic in Washington DC was getting worse with every passing minute due to the lunch rush.

She typed up a text for her friends who were waiting for her, and sighed, stuffing the phone back inside her purse. All the while she thought of convincing ways that she could use to get out of that dinner, and possibly sneak out of the house to go out with her friends that night.

-

"Go pick up your suit at the dry cleaners," Christian's mother urged him that morning. But he had been unable to go sooner because his car was at the mechanic, and his father had taken his own car to work. His other alternatives had been to walk or bike ride to the dry cleaners. He chose the latter and had parked his bike on the rack that belonged to Salad Farm, which was right next door to Spotless Mae's Dry Cleaning Service. 

All kinds of rich people with sunglasses on, perfect white teeth, and smiling faces went into Salad Farm, a place that only served salads. On any other day he might have probably gotten one for lunch, all due to his special diet for football, but he would be having dinner at the white house that night, and he wasn't going to restrain his appetite.

He entered the shop with the dry cleaning ticket his mother had given him. He remembered an incident once where his father had gotten his favorite Croatian National Team Jersey washed at the cleaners. They had done an excellent job and the shirt looked spotless, only that Christian's father Mark had lost his dry cleaners ticket and the workers wouldn't give him the jersey without it. Mark Pulisic threw a tantrum and even then, they wouldn't give him the jersey. They had a no ticket, no returns policy. Christian and his father left angry that day, even though it had been no one's fault but his own. About a month later they saw the jersey on their for sale rack, going for ten dollars. It was what they did with all the clothes no one ever returned to pick up.

Mr. Pulisic had been outraged that he had to pay an extra ten dollars to purchase his own shirt. But they continued to give the dry cleaners their business because they did a really great job.

Christian walked up to the counter and handed the worker his ticket. The young man nodded and went to the back to get the suit, and returned moments later with the dry cleaning bag. Christian nodded a thanks to the shop worker and was on his way. 

As he made his way out of the shop, he noticed there was a commotion going on next door. Photographers were suddenly swarming the next door Salad Farm, but there was one particular person standing near the front who wasn't holding a camera. He was a man with a black trench coat and dark sunglasses covering his eyes.

Christian paid special attention to him because he seemed rather suspicious in his demeanor and his stance. The seventeen year old Borussia Dortmund footballer stood nearby, walking closer to the crowd slowly, trying to get a better look at what was happening.

He weaved through the crowd of people until he got close to the front, and that was when he saw what was happening. Emerging from Salad Farm was a young girl, accompanied by her friends and one secret service worker was nearby, next to a waiting car. Christian had only seen the girl a handful of times on television, during the presidential elections. She was Leah Obama, one of the president's daughters. The last time he had seen her on television though, she had been around eleven yeas old, the same age that he was at the time.

Now she was all grown up and weaving past the photographers like a movie star. 

It all happened so quickly. In the blink of an eye, the man with the black coat jumped forward and threw an arm around her neck, pulling her close to his body while he pointed a gun at her head with his other hand. "Nobody fucking come close to me, or I'll shoot her!" The man yelled over the screaming crowd, but no one seemed to be paying any real attention to him, no one but the secret service officer who was accompanying the girl.

People started screaming, running, and panicking. The president's daughter had been startled, but the situation finally clicked into her mind and she started screaming. The secret service guard pulled out his gun and aimed it at the assailant, but he hadn't been fast enough and the president's daughter was now in mortal danger. 

Pushing past the panicking crowd, Christian dropped his dry cleaning bag with the suit in it and hopped onto the man's back in an attempt to stop him. The surprise attack made the three of them fall backward onto the hard concrete ground, with the two of them falling on top of Christian. The footballer heard a cracking sound as his arm hit the concrete first, before the rest of his body followed behind it and then a pain shot up his arm that was almost unbearable. But the attacker had been disabled by the young footballer who was risking his own life as well as the girl's, the gun fell out of the attacker's hand and onto the floor nearby without having been shot. 

With lightning speed, the secret service guard pulled the president's daughter back on her feet and stood in front of her protectively. He was now aiming his gun at the attacker as he tried to get up, still confused as to what had happened to him.

In a flash, more secret service police arrived and apprehended the attacker, holding him up against a wall to cuff him. Another helped Christian back on his feet, who was now feeling light headed at the pain in his arm. He tried to rub the pain away with his other hand, but it only served to make the pain worse. He winced as the secret service officer told him, "Son, do you know who's life you just saved?" He asked breathless. He was relieved that the seventeen year old girl was okay. He didn't know how he would have broken the news to the president if something had happened to her.

Christian nodded his head. "Of course I know who she is. But that doesn't matter to me, with all due respect. I'd have done it for anyone." He glanced to the side to see her crying into her guard's chest. Nearby were people filming with their phones now that everything had calmed down.

"What's your name?" The officer asked him another question. "The president will probably like to know the name of the boy who saved his daughter."

Christian gave a shake of his head, refusing, "I didn't do it for fame or anything. I'm just glad she's okay." He gestured to the young girl who besides suffering some trauma, she was more than likely okay. Christian, on the other hand, was fighting not to break out in tears at the pain in his arm and he hoped it would be nothing serious that would keep him out of the Copa America final squad.

He looked around for his dry cleaner bag and saw it on the floor, all stepped on and tarnished from when the crowd tried to run for cover instead of helping the president's daughter.

The Borussia Dortmund footballer picked up the back and heaved a sigh, "So much for looking presentable this afternoon." He said to himself, and went to unlock his bike, placing his now ruined suit in the basket before heading back home. He was sure that his parents would want him to go to the hospital after he would tell them what happened, but he was going to try to push through it, and play through the pain.

-

Naileah Obama arrived at her house with two hours to spare before the dinner with the national team. She had been taken to the hospital first, to check her from head to toe for any injuries, then she was taken to the police station where she had to give the police her statement of what had happened. But she really knew nothing of the incident, only the fact that one moment she was leaving a restaurant with her friends and the next she was being held hostage by a man with a gun. She had been fortunate enough that someone had been brave enough to save her.

She was only upset that she never got to see the guy who saved her, or even thank him for what he did. By the time she even got the chance to calm down, he was long gone. And the secret service police hadn't even been able to get his name. Her only chance to find him would now be to search online for the videos people filmed of the incident, and maybe someone in the comments section on youbtube would know the guy.

Her parents, and sisters, met up with her at the police station. Both of them had been worried when they heard the news, and both of them had asked her over a hundred times if she was okay. Their worry had been so much that her father even assured her that if she didn't want to attend dinner that afternoon, it was okay. But he and the rest of the family still had to do it because it had already been scheduled.

Now she was at her house, in her room, while the rest of her family got ready for dinner. Periodically, her parents dropped by to check on her, but she knew that she was perfectly safe at home. Now that she had nothing else to do that day, she was starting to reconsider about the dinner.

The president's daughter pushed herself out of bed and walked to her closet. 

Maybe going to that dinner would make her take her mind off that near death experience.

-

so first chapter for this story and already there's a lot of action. i hope you're all liking it so far. i'll try to keep the updates constant, which shouldn't be too difficult as long as i have the time to write. thank you all loads for the support you have shown this story, especially when its a usmnt story and i know so many people on here who extremely dislike them. lol

again, thank you. and i hope you enjoy the update. 

have a great weekend!

-clary xx