Unlimited Potential System-Chapter 82: The Talk

Tyler spent the rest of the day with Jasmine in the restaurant. They had a meal and remained there to talk with each other. It would have been a great memory for Tyler if he didn't occasionally see a woman who looked to be in her late forties glaring at him from a slightly open door to the backroom.

When he told Jasmine, just to make sure that he wasn't tweaking, she told him that he had just seen her mother, and that only served to make things worse.

'Moms are the ones that are supposed to love the guys, right? So why does this woman keep looking at me like she wants to gouge my eyes out for no reason?'

Eventually, it was already past eight in the evening. Tyler and Jasmine left the restaurant together, with Tyler walking her home. Just as they were about to part, Tyler gave her a quick kiss on the lips and was about to turn around to walk away when he felt something tug on his shirt.

"Are we going to talk about this?" Jasmine asked.

"Talk about what?" Tyler feigned innocence, but he knew where it was going to go. They were supposed to have the talk a long time ago, but with how fast everything moved from his debut against Paris FC to the away match against Paris Saint Germain, Tyler didn't have the time to talk to her, not to talk of having such an important discussion.

"Don't act clueless with me," Jasmine said while narrowing her eyes. "We need to talk about this." She said, gesturing at the both of them wildly with her arms. "Whatever this is between the both of us."

Tyler tried to laugh it off at first, but that didn't work. The pair just stood in front of each other in silence.

"Don't you like how nice and quiet the street looks in the night?"

Silence.

He then tried a couple of other things to cool the atmosphere, mentioning how nice the walk from the restaurant to the front of Jasmine's house was, the fact that he had training the next morning, and how tired he was.

Jasmine wasn't having any of that, however. She didn't smile, she just stood in front of him, folding her arms, waiting for him to say something.

Seeing that his attempts were going nowhere, Tyler sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Alright," he said, then sighed again. "We'll talk."

Jasmine hesitated, then nodded. "Good. Because I can't— we can't keep pretending that this isn't a thing."

Tyler didn't answer immediately. They just stood there, the silence feeling a lot heavier than it did a couple of minutes ago. Something that Tyler didn't think was possible.

"What do you want us to be, Tyler?" she asked, her voice noticeably quieter. Like she was scared to ask the question.

The question hit him harder than he expected. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. He couldn't remember a moment where he felt so speechless, and he'd been doing interviews for as long as he could remember.

"I don't know," she continued to speak, saving him from having to answer right away. "And that's the problem, I don't know. Everything is moving so fast. You, the football, everything. One day you were just a guy eating here who shouted 'pretty lady in pink' because he wanted to get my attention, and the next, you're playing at the Parc des Princes and scoring a goal against PSG. I feel like I'm trying to keep up with the changes, but they don't slow down at all."

Tyler listened to her speak without interrupting. He could hear the raw honesty in her voice, and it made it worse for him, because the change wasn't something he could control. And if it was something he could, then he'd make things change faster, a lot faster than they were changing now.

"I like you, Tyler, I really do. I've liked you from the first day you walked into the restaurant, from when you shouted in the middle of the street just so you could get my number, from when you were just Tyler, but things have changed now, and things are changing now," Jasmine said. "And I'm not sure anymore, and I hate that I'm not sure, because it seems unfair to you."

Tyler took a step closer to Jasmine, then stopped himself. Then he thought of the last month and a half. In the beginning of the year, he was still in a grassroots academy, waiting for things to get done with Monaco. Then he met her at the restaurant, before he even made his debut for Monaco B.

Since then, he had been involved in one of the biggest football controversies in Monaco, made his debut, and scored in two consecutive games for Monaco. So as much as it hurt him to admit, even if he was ignorant of it, things were changing. And they were changing fast.

"That's okay," Tyler said after what felt like an eternity to Jasmine. "You don't have to know, right now." 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Jasmine looked up at him.

"I mean it," he reassured her. "I don't want you to feel rushed, or trapped, or like it's something you have to do. Like you said, everything's changing fast. If this is the one thing that you want to change slowly, then we take things slowly."

"I care about you a lot, Jasmine," Tyler added. "That's why I won't rush you."

For a few moments, neither of them spoke, then Jasmine exhaled, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.

"Thank you," Jasmine said softly.

She stepped back towards her gate. Tyler watched as she turned, then spoke.

"Goodnight, Tyler."

"Goodnight, Jas—"

Tyler didn't get to finish his sentence, as he felt something soft clash against his lips. His arms found their way to her waist, holding her as she kissed him.

"I might be unsure about a lot of things," Jasmine muttered as she pulled away. "But I'm sure that I do like that a lot."

Tyler smiled. "Like what a lot?"

"Goodnight, Tyler," Jasmine said, stepping away from his grip. "You have training tomorrow, and you need to rest a bit."

Tyler smiled when he realized what she did. He waved at her and watched her safely enter her house before turning around and walking back to his apartment.

'Fucking training.'