You hadn't expected to get smacked in the face by a football on your way home from Tesco, but honestly, the day had already been teetering on the edge of ridiculous. The bag of snacks in your hand was now face-down in the grass, your water bottle had rolled a good few feet away, and your nose—judging by the sudden hot, wet sensation—was definitely bleeding. A lot.

"Shit—oh my God, are you alright?!"

You blinked up through stinging eyes and saw someone jog toward you, shadow slicing across your face as he crouched beside you. Familiar face. Very familiar.

Was that—?

You blinked again. No, yeah. It was him. Chris f*ing MD.

He looked sheepish as hell, cheeks already colouring as he hovered awkwardly, glancing between your nose and your very crumpled Tesco bag. Behind him, a camera crew lingered at a distance, one guy holding a tripod, another shouting something to George Clarke—who you only vaguely recognised from TikTok—and Arthur Frederick, who was bent double laughing.

So that was how your Wednesday was going.

"I’m—uh, I’m so sorry. That... I genuinely didn’t mean to hit you," Chris stammered, offering you a tissue from somewhere in his hoodie pocket. “It was meant to curve left.”

You tilted your head back, trying to stop blood flowing down your face, giving him a look.“Well, it didn’t. It curved into my ugly mug.”

“I noticed.” He winced. “Honestly, that curve was magical until it wasn’t.”

You gave a dry laugh, a hollow one, mostly out of disbelief. “Yeah. I’ll let my broken septum know it was technically impressive.”

He cracked a grin, and it was annoyingly boyish and charming and not at all helpful when you were trying to feel righteously annoyed.