WILLIE HEADED TO THE LOCKER ROOM TO SPEAK WITH COACH LASSO. She remembered what it was like to be the new person at the club, and she knew that she would have felt so much more welcome if she had someone that she knew was on her side. Sure, she had Colin, but he had very little pull around the club. Ted and Coach Beard looked up when she knocked on the door. "Oh, hello, little lady."

"Hey, I just wanted to introduce myself," she informed him, and she held out her hand for him to shake. She offered a friendly smile as she did so, wanting to be as kind and welcoming as possible. "I'm Willow Carlisle, the new Commercial Manager of the club. You can call me Willie, though."

"I thought I recognized you. You're American," he pointed out as he took her hand, noticing that she had a familiar accent unlike pretty much every single other person in the country. It was kind of comforting to know that he was not the only outsider there.

She nodded with a chuckle, explaining, "Yeah, I moved here a couple of years ago from Sacramento."

"California?" he questioned, and she nodded. As much as people talked about California and how amazing it was, Sacramento was one of the more boring cities in her opinion. Maybe it was just that she had grown up there and had done everything that she could do hundreds of times. "Well, that's amazing. Isn't that amazing, Coach?"

"Sure is," Coach Beard responded, and he seemed a lot nicer than he looked originally. He seemed kind of intense from what the girl had seen in the press room. However, maybe that was just his exterior or his resting face.

She breathed out a laugh before jumping into what she came down there for. She wanted to make sure that he knew that the journalists were not always going to be so crazy. They were definitely going to be tough to deal with, but it should calm down sooner or later. "I'm sorry for what happened earlier today with the press. They're not the best at welcoming people."

"Oh, I get it," he told her, waving her off, and she really liked how he was able to shake things off so quickly. "A foreign person just steps in and takes over, it's bound to start problems."

"I'm sure you'll do great, though," she assured him. She had seen many people in front of those except reporters, and the ones that did the worst and ended up saying something bad were the ones that let the questions and the comments get to them. Ted definitely was not going to let that happen.

He grinned back at her and gave her a fist bump that she gladly accepted. "Thank you for the confidence, Willie." A couple of seconds later, there was the unmistakable sound of the team coming down the hall and into the locker room. A couple of them — including Sam, Richard, and Isaac — said hi to her once they noticed that she was there. Roy gave her the usual grunt as he walked by.

"You're not gone," Colin commented once he saw her. He knew that she would be fine. It was not like she was an asshole to people or bad at her job. She was definitely going to be fine.

She grinned and threw her hands up in the air excitedly as she practically squealed, "I got promoted!"

"Yeah! I told you you'd be fine," he cheered, and all of the others shouted congratulations at her from across the room. She was really excited that she was still there. Although she would never admit it to Colin, she liked working in a place where he was just a shout out the window away. She did not know what she would do if she was in some place like that when she did not know anyone.

"Ew, no," she groaned when he went in for a hug. She pushed away, using her two index fingers on his shoulders before grabbing a clean towel and wiping the liquid off her hands. She was still at work, so she could not smell like sweat as she walked around. "You're sweaty."

He chuckled as he kept trying, and as Jami Tartt walked by the two of them, he groaned, "Oh, get a room."

"Oh, fuck yourself," the girl retorted, rolling her eyes as he walked by. She actually could not stand that man. He was so fucking full of himself, and he was so mean to everyone, even his teammates. He was a hell of a footballer, though, she had to admit. She would never let him know that she thought that because it would just feed into his already massive ego.

"Howdy, fellas. Don't stop what you're doing. My name's Ted Lasso," Ted introduced himself. He had gotten a few glances when they walked in, but other than that, no one had really acknowledged his presence. "This here is Coach Beard. I know we don't officially start quite yet, but, you know, we just wanted to pop in, say howdy, let you know how excited we are to be here—"

He was interrupted by the one and only Keeley Jones, who was a model that was dating Jamie. Despite the fact that she was dating the most annoying person in the world, Willie was actually fairly fond of the woman. She stepped inside with her hands over her eyes. "Knock, knock. Is everyone in here decent? Boys, that's disappointing," she joked when she saw that everyone had their clothes on. Her eyes widened when she realized that Ted had been talking. "Oh, shit. Am I interrupting you?"

"No, no, that's okay. How can I help you?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows at the girl.

She gestured over to the man who had already gotten changed into his little getup at some point. His hat said 'ICON,' and he had a fanny pack that he insisted was a shoulder bag. He wore it across his chest and held it with an arm at all times like it was a baby. "No, I'm here to pick up that one."

"Yeah. Sorry, Coach. She made me an appointment. I'm getting waxed. It's more for the fans than it is for me. Score a goal, gotta take my shirt off," he sighed, almost as if it was such a hassle to have to show off his body. He enjoyed it, and they all knew that. On his way out, he told Ted, "I mean, I can stay if you want."

"No, that's okay," the man told him, gesturing for him to get going since he was really just introducing himself to the team. However, in Willie's opinion, that was one of the more important moments. She knew that Jamie did not give a crap, though.

He gestured for his girlfriend to walk out in front of him. She seemed surprised because he usually just slapped her on the ass and walked ahead of her. "You're gonna be a gentleman now, are you?"

"No, babe. Just gonna watch your ass," he responded, and she just rolled her eyes and swayed her hips, laughing as she walked out. He shot a weird face to the rest of the room as they cheered.

"Don't mind him. He's a fucking asshole," the Carlisle girl told the man with the mustache next to her. Both he and his assistant looked at her in surprise, not expecting such colorful language to come out of her. "Sorry. It's true, though."

He waved her off before addressing the team again, even though pretty much none of them were paying any attention at all to what he was saying. "No. it's alright. Anyhoo, thank you for your time."

《❂》

WILLIE ALMOST SCREAMED WHEN SHE SAW A SHIRTLESS MAN IN HER APARTMENT. He offered a small and polite smile as he grabbed a bag and a shirt and brushed past her to leave. She turned to her roommate with raised eyebrows and a smirk. Lois Lane — yes, like the comic character — looked back at her with a semi-apologetic look. She whispered, "Sorry."

"Man, in the middle of the day," the brunette laughed out, taking a seat at the table at the center of their small apartment. She tossed her bag down in the corner and kicked her shoes off. "Teach me your ways, woman."

"A magician never reveals her secrets. Oh, how did that meeting go with your boss?" she asked with raised eyebrows. Her friend came in in a fairly good mood, meaning that either she was not fired, or she was fired but then met a really hot guy and got laid before coming home. At least, those were the two options in the Lane girl's eyes.

She grinned and threw her hands up before revealing, "I got promoted."

"Oh, my God. That's amazing!" Lois shrieked, and she leaned against the table with an almost daydreaming look, staring up at the ceiling as her eyes glazed over. She smiled. "Maybe one day, you'll be in charge, and we can live in a mansion with a hot tub and an elevator, like Barbie."

"Baby steps," Willie told her. She was a very long way from owning the club, especially since she was still pretty much broke and had yet to do a lot for her job anyway. All she had done was kind of talk to Ted and do some research. She needed to figure out what she was going to do tomorrow. Then, she could rest for the weekend.

"We need to celebrate," the slightly older woman told her seated friend, and she disappeared into her bedroom to look for some clothes to change into. "Let's go out."

Willie stared at her in disbelief through the doorway. That woman was absolutely insane. Only she would want to go out on a weeknight. Actually, it was not even night. It was late afternoon. There was no way that there was a decent place to go and have fun, even if the Carlisle girl wanted to. "Lois, it is Thursday night."

"Which is basically Friday," the Lane woman reasoned, but it was not a very good reason considering it was most definitely not Friday night.

"I have work in the morning," Willie reminded her. If she showed up to work with a hangover the next day, there was no way that she was keeping her job, let alone her promotion. Even if she made it past Rebecca, she would still have to figure out what to do with Ted and how to get him ready for the next press interview. Also, Lois had to work at the cafe the next morning. "You have work in the morning."

Lois just waved her off as if it was no big deal that she was missing work. She did it at least twice a week. How she stayed on top of her rent, Willow had no clue. She had a theory that she may have been sleeping with the landlord until she finally met the man who looked like he had not bathed in about thirty years. "I'll get Emily to cover my shift. Call up Colin and get him and the guys to come."

"I am not calling Colin to come out with us on a Thursday night when we all have work tomorrow just so that you can see Richard," Willie chuckled out. Her friend had a weird obsession with the French man. She loved exotic men, as she put it. She had lived all over Europe and Asia — France, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Spain, Germany, Korea, Greece, Italy, you name it — and she spoke almost every single freaking language on the planet. She had lived in England for about three years, and she claimed that she was there to stay.

"He is so totally fit, though. All of them are," she breathed out, as if reminiscing about the entire Richmond team. "Think how amazing it would be if we each were dating a footballer."

The brunette rolled her eyes as she grabbed an apple that was in a bowl on the table and took a huge bite of it. She had not eaten all day. She pointed at her friend, making sure that she knew that she did not condone this behavior. "You have a problem. You have a serious problem."