My Goalkeeping System

Dave woke up early in the morning to find Emma's hair covering his face as the two of them were sharing one pillow now.

He didn't mind having her hair against his face as he liked that mixed scent of Shea butter and coconut coming from it.

Last night had been very enjoyable for him despite the way he had returned home and that wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for her.

<Remember you have a morning run to get to, a quest to complete if I'm being specific>

'Can't I just skip it today? I'm very tired.'

<Really?>

[ 100/100 Energy ]

'Fine.' He sighed inwardly. 'I'm going.'

The slightest move he had made had gotten detected by Emma as she slowly turned and wrapped her arms around him.

"Where are you going?" She asked with a sleepy voice as she slowly opened her eyes.

"For my daily jog," Dave said, sitting up on the couch.

"What?" She said as her voice had gone from sleepy to serious. "After all you went through last night."

"I'm okay now." He said with a smile.

"No, you're not." She said quickly getting up on her feet. "Lie down." She ordered.

There was no response from Dave who was staring at her with a strange expression on his face so she had to do what she had to do.

She pushed him down on the couch and stretched his legs to make sure that he was lying down properly.

"You're not going anyway until you've gotten enough rest." She said before turning and making her way to the kitchen.

'You hear that Catherine, I'm not going anyway.'

<You are unbelievable>

"Do you want coffee or tea?" Emma returned to ask.

"Coffee will be nice," Dave said.

"Okay," Emma said with a smile before making her way back to the kitchen.

A few seconds after she had left, his phone had begun to vibrate.

He quickly brought it out and checked the caller to see that it was Clark.

"Hey, Clark." He said after clicking the answer button and placing the phone against his ear.

"Hi, Dave, how are you doing?" Clark asked through the phone's speaker.

"I'm okay."

"And Emma?"

"She's fine," Dave answered.

"I watched the match last night and saw what happened to you, I'm just glad to hear that you're okay," Clark said.

"Yeah, it wasn't exactly something serious," Dave said.

"You really put up a fine performance in the match. It seems like working out with those gym equipment is starting to improve you." Clark said.

"Yeah, you can say that," Dave said with a smile.

"Hey, I've got to go, something just came up, I'll call you later," Clark said before ending the call.

"Okay," Dave said slowly, bringing his phone down.

"Who was that?" Emma asked, putting down one of the white mugs she was holding on the table.

"Clark," Dave said.

"Oh, did you say hi to him for me?" She asked handing him the other mug which was filled with coffee.

"Thanks," Dave said after taking the cup of coffee from her.

"You're welcome." She said with a smile.

"I also brought coffee for myself." She before grabbing her own cup of coffee and sat down on the sleeping bag.

"You deserve it," Dave said before leaning closer to her and kissing her.

The two had watched a few shows together before Dave had gotten up to go ease himself upstairs.

<You've missed your ten exp for today, I just hope you don't miss the five and twenty exps>

"I won't, Catherine," Dave said.

He still had a lot of time to head to his personal gym given the fact that today's training was going to start quite late in the evening and the Saturday match against Litno FC was a home match.

He made his way to the bathroom and after easing himself he made his way to the room where he had dropped the smaller gym equipment.

"It's a good thing I dropped a fridge up here." He said as he walked to the fridge by the side, opened it, and brought out the bottled water required for him to complete his quest.

[ Daily quest complete ]

[ Drink two liters of water ]

[ +5 exp received ]

[ 160/200 exp ]

He dropped the empty container on the floor and left the room as what he had just done was his only reason for coming here.

Just as he was coming down the stairs, he heard Emma's voice, and looking toward the door, he could see her hugging someone.

'She told me one of her friends was coming over today right?' He thought, coming down the stairs.

<Yeah, she did>

'I just hope it isn't another Karen.'

"Babe, this is my friend Emilia," Emma said, pulling Emilia close. "The one I told you was coming today."

"Yeah," Dave said as he stared at Emilia with a baffled expression on his face and after looking at her for a while he turned his gaze to Emma.

The reason for the baffled expression on his face was the resemblance between the two.

Their body was practically the same slender-looking body and their face was just a copy of each other, the curvy little pink lips, the small pointed nose, long eyelashes, and curly hair.

The only difference between the two was that Emma seemed to be slightly taller than her despite the fact that she was putting on heels. They both had curly hair but she had red hair while Emma had black hair and finally, her eyes were brown while Emma had blue eyes.

Emilia was putting on silver-colored trousers with a white shirt and she had her hair tied back.

"Are you two friends or twins?" Dave asked with a baffled expression on his face.

"I was expecting that question anytime soon now," Emma said. "A lot of people asked us that question while we were in the university."

"Why wouldn't they ask?" Dave said, still looking back and forth between the two.

"We may look alike but we still have a lot of distinguishable features," Emilia said. "Our hair color isn't the same, our eye color isn't the same and she's taller than me."

"A lot of people couldn't spot these features back then and kept mistaking each of us for the other person and at one point I was like, hey, she has red hair, I have black hair," Emma said.

"I wouldn't blame them," Dave said. "Ummm.... Welcome, Emilia."

"Thank you," Emilia said.

"And during the time you are here, I hope I don't mistake you for my girlfriend." He said jokingly.

"Dave," Emma said with a chuckle.

____ ____

With Emilia acting as a distraction for Emma, Dave was able to head to his personal gym without getting asked any questions.

Right now, he was training his balance on the exercise ball as he was nearing the final five minutes of his gym hours.

He was sitting on the ball with a ball in his hand.

The idea of his training was to keep throwing the ball a little distance away from himself and see how long he will keep catching it without falling off the ball.

He had thrown it too far this time and in the process of catching it, he had fallen off the ball.

"Awwww." He groaned as he slowly got up from the floor.

[ Daily quest complete ]

[ Spend two hours in the gym ]

[ +20 exp received ]

[ 180/200 exp ]

"Gym time's over."

<You know, you don't have to stick to the two hours, you can still train your body for extended periods and get good results>

'I know Catherine but I think I've trained enough for today.'

<You think?>

'Yeah.'

He walked to the table by the side to pick up his phone and just as he was about to grab it, it began to vibrate with an incoming call from coach Norman.

"Hello, Coach." He said after clicking the answer button and placing the phone against his ear.

"How are you doing Dave?" Norman asked.

"I'm okay," Dave said.

"Okay," Norman said.

There was a pause between the two for a while and just before Dave could say something, Norman dropped the bombshell on him.

"You won't be in the squad for tomorrow's match," Norman said.

"If it's about what happened yesterday then you should know that I'm okay and can start the match," Dave said.

"No, it's not that, it's a decision from the board to exclude you from the match and let you rest," Norman said.

Dave had gone mute as soon as he heard that as the happy expression on his face had suddenly dropped.

"Hello Dave, Dave," Norman called but there was no response from the goalkeeper before he suddenly ended the call.

"Didn't even check to see if I was okay or not and you decide to make a decision to leave me out of the squad." He said, biting his lower lip in anger.

He had only one person to blame for this.