it's the day after zara's birthday and she wakes up in dele's arms. she is happy that got to spend the day with dele and her parents. when they got back to his place, dele wanted to celebrate her birthday, "his way".

she smiles at him while he's sleeping, playing with his hair. she leans over to him, kissing his cheek softly until suddenly dele speaks.

'how long have you been watching me sleep like a weirdo?' he says muffled into the pillow.

'how long have you been awake? it's not my fault you look so cute when you're asleep, it's when you're not chatting shit for once.

'about ten minutes, i love it when you play with my hair so i pretended to be asleep. and chatting bullshit? so when i tell you how much i love you, that's bullshit is it now? well thank you!' says dele suddenly turning over, his back facing to her.

'babe, i was joking come on please.' she says getting closer to him and placing a kiss on his bare shoulder, he rolls back over to face her as she takes his hand and intertwines their fingers.

'we're going to do such great things dele alli.'

• •

dele walks into training with a massive grin on his face. they are currently training for their champions league match against manchester this weekend.

'you're looking very happy and healthy dele, how was your girlfriends's birthday?' asks mauricio which takes dele by surprise.

'well it was good yeah, just had a nice day with her and her parents.' says dele with a smile.

'that's good dele, i'm glad to hear that.' he says with a smile before walking away leaving dele confused.

'he's in a really good mood today, don't question it.' says jan.

mauricio has few rules when it comes to training but one of them is talking about your personal life while training. the fact he knew about zara's birthday and that dele spent the day with her, completely baffles him.

'strange.' says dele before shrugging it off and going into the locker rooms to get ready for training. eric was happily talking to harry winks until he notices dele walk in and suddenly shuts up.

the tension between dele and eric is still there. eric is mad at dele because he's acting like a love sick idiot whereas dele is mad at eric for not respecting his decisions.

'come on both of you, grow up.' says harry kane suddenly looking at both of them who are glaring st each other.

'i have no idea what you're both angry at each other for but knowing you both, it's going to be something stupid. you're best friends, you can't stay angry at each other forever.'

'he needs to apologise first.' says eric.

'me? what about you?' says dele scoffing.

'nice one harry.' says danny quietly rolling his eyes.

'this is going to be a long training session.

• •

zara is currently at her apartment, cleaning up as she hasn't been there properly for the last few weeks because she's spent most of her time at dele's. they have spoken about moving in together but zara isn't too keen on the idea. she loves spending time with dele at his house and sleeping over, but she still loves having our own space. they're too early in their relationship to move in together, for now they just have a key to each other's place.

it's nice to have some time to myself, thought zara as she walks into her bedroom. she gets changed into some sweatpants and a hoodie before sitting down in front of the tv.

while she's watching something random on television she suddenly remembers what eric told her and her heart starts beating fast. the last few days, she's tried keeping the thought in the back of her mind. dele didn't propose to her on her birthday which means he can propose any day now. or maybe eric has managed to talk some sense into him.

this could ruin her relationship with dele, she can't exactly bring it up as eric wasn't supposed to tell her in the first place. just as her and dele's relationship was finally good stable and loving, this one thing could turn it all to shit again and none of them want that. she needs to find a way to talk to him about it without directly saying it.

or this could completely ruin their relationship.

😔