Quaranteam: Mike's Hurdles Ch. 01

This is an official spin off approved by Corrupting Power. Thank you for letting me write in your world of Quaranteam. I would also love to thank all the writers who also share this universe for their stories, support and encouragement. BreakTheBar and AgathonWrites for your reviews and keeping everyone on track. I would highly recommend that you review all the stories that exist in this world and support the other authors.

Chapter 1

July 18, 2020

The pure feeling of excitement was all Mike could focus on as he got ready for the day. Less than two weeks ago his coach told him that due to every other soccer tournament being canceled due to health concerns, a bunch of teams had talked and were able to organize an unofficial tournament up in Sandpoint, Idaho. Of course Mike had said yes to participating as he was bummed that he was going to go a whole summer without playing competitive soccer. Especially the year before he would go off to college and try to be a walk on for his school's team.

He picked up his phone to check on if they had a game this morning and if so what field they were at. While he was in the shower he saw that his phone had multiple texts from his mom trying to get more information about the soccer tournament and telling him that he needed to go home because it wasn't safe to be out and about. The most recent one told him that he needed to wear a mask and be completely covered up. There was no way he was going to bundle up like it was a blizzard in the summer heat.

He rolled his eyes thinking how he'd made this choice as an adult. He'd received more text messages from his mom for this event than for any other major event in his life. He knew she was in the Air Force but beyond that he'd no clue other than she traveled outside of the country a lot and lived in the DC area. Or at least that was the address on the last package he'd received for his birthday.

His dad and stepmom had insisted that he goto the tournament as he wasn't going to be missing another major event, like he had done with prom or his graduation. They were convinced that this whole COVID thing was a conspiracy to get Trump out of office and had been made up by the left as propaganda to discredit the true American party. This even included how the media was lying to the country that Trump was dead and it was an actor that faked the clips of Pence collapsing. The fascist commies were trying to take the country, his dad often yelled to anyone that would listen.

Mike always rolled his eyes at his dad's political rants and tirades about how the country was going to hell in a handbasket. Mike wasn't even sure how someone could both be a fascist and a communist at the same time. But he knew better than to bring that up to his dad.

He looked over at the empty bed that shared the room. He was supposed to be sharing with his best friend Tyson, their star striker, but he said that he wasn't feeling well and opted to stay at home instead of getting the whole team sick. Claimed that he caught something at the Fourth of July parade that they went to.

It was the second day of the impromptu tournament and Mike had to admit that something felt off. That might be due to the rumors Mike had caught that several teams had signed up but had dropped out before the tournament started and a few had dropped out mid-tournament due to whatever bug was going around, which was probably this COVID thing.

The good news was this meant that he could go to watch the women's tournament. In particular, he would be able to watch a specific player. He knew that he was going to get an earful from a few of his friends as they left the hotel to go to the fields. They kept teasing him about Cindy. He had planned to ask her to prom, but that was canceled so he never got the chance.

His team's first game for today had been ruled a forfeit last night as their opponent had dropped below the 8 required players. Several coaches were seeing if they could scrape together teams of healthy players to keep the tournament going.

He put on a gray t-shirt bearing his team's logo of a bear, together with a pair of forest green warm-up pants, his team's primary color. In the lobby he met up with his buddies Tony and Dan, the two defenders on the team. These two were inseparable off the field which made them a great team on the field.

"So Mike, when are you going to ask Cindy out?" Tony asked as they started heading towards the furthest field.

Mike blushed and stammered out, "I don't know, we're going to different schools in the fall, assuming lockdown lifts before then."

Dan remarked "Come on dude, take your shot before someone else does. Plus, who wouldn't want to go out with the greatest goalkeeper in the state of Idaho."

"And let's not forget that you're 6' 2". Maybe you could spare some of that height for my next date?" Tony added, elbowing Mike's side to keep up the teasing.

Mike rolled his eyes and retorted, "sure let me get right on that."

His eyes rolled back as he knew that it was useless to argue with both Tony and Dan, once they got started. Especially since, if he ever won an argument, they'd just find something else to tease him about.

The trio arrived at the field and found a slight hill to park their asses on. Scanning the Wildcats' warm up, Mike noticed that they seemed to be down a few players themselves, but that thought quickly went out of his head as soon as he saw Cindy.

Cindy was the lead striker and had actually received a scholarship to the University of Portland to play soccer. She was tall for a girl at 5' 9" and was half Taiwanese, which lent itself to an athletic build, with long dark almost black hair.

Cindy looked up and saw the boys all sitting and gave them a wave, which of course immediately started a round of shoulder punches and teasing from Tony and Dan. Mike tried to hide his blushing face and stop them so Cindy didn't see.

The game as a whole was pretty one-sided; it looked like the other team may have been missing their goalkeeper as the gal in goal had no earthly clue what she was doing. Mike felt sorry for her and also for Cindy as he knew that she would prefer to have a challenge than to just run the ball into the goal. By the end of the game, it was 6-1 and the girls were talking to their coach about what they could do to improve since it was pretty much practicing passing the whole time.

Mike felt his phone buzz again as he had received another text from his mom. "Michael, if you could do just one thing for me, please go home, I want you safe and I can't say much beyond that. Just please trust me."

Reading his mom's words and thinking about how people seemed to be dropping like flies, he figured maybe he should head back to his room.

"Hey guys, I am feeling a tad tired and want to rest up before our next game, so I'm heading back."

"Dude, come on. Stay and celebrate the girls' victory. I am going to see if I can get a kiss out of Brittany, and I am sure Cindy would love to kiss you," offered Tony.

"No, I'm going to be the one making out with Brittany," Dan retorted.

This argument wasn't new and allowed Mike to sneak away before they dragged him into whatever plans they had. On his way back to the hotel he was flagged down by his coach, who looked upset.

"What's going on, Coach?" Mike asked, knowing he was going to be told one way or another.

"They're fucking cancelling the rest of the tournament, those fucking idiots. Too many people are getting sick. Well we'll see if we can get some pick up games going as I'm pretty sure there are recruiters here and we want to make sure they can see you all play." He almost shouted, waving his arms around and with air quotes around people getting sick. "People just need to shrug it off for their teams."

Mike resisted every urge to roll his eyes. "Sounds good Coach, and to make sure I don't get sick, I am going to just rest up some. Text me when and where you want to meet." Mike made sure to put air quotes around the word sick to appease him.

"Good call Mike I knew you were a smart one." He patted Mike's back before he used his fist to cover his mouth for a cough.

With that Mike decided that it was best to leave quickly and head back to the hotel room. The interaction left him wanting to take a shower, just a gut feeling that he couldn't shake.

As soon as he got into the room, he stripped out of his clothing and threw it into the corner before jumping into the hot shower. As he let the water cascade over his body, his mind kept wandering to his mom's texts. She had always pushed him to trust his gut and his gut was starting to scream that something was wrong.

He turned off the water and started to dry off. Leaving the door open so he didn't completely fog up the bathroom allowed him to hear a knock at his door. Expecting his coach or any of his teammates, he wrapped the towel around his waist and just opened the door.

Mike went from rolling his eyes to three shades of red as he opened the door to find Cindy standing there. She wore a tan sweatshirt with the Air Force logo on it that was a couple of sizes too big for her and what he assumed were athletic shorts. The sweatshirt he knew was one of her favorites as he'd seen her in it a million times. In her arms she held a massive corgi butt pillow and had a backpack over her shoulder.

"Hi Mike." She said before she realized what he was wearing and went almost as many shades of red as him.

Mike slammed the door shut and quickly grabbed a pair of basketball shorts and an athletic tank top. He then reopened the door. "I am so sorry I wasn't expecting you," Mike laughed nervously.

Cindy brushed some hair behind her ear and looked towards the ground. "No, it's perfectly okay." Then she suddenly remembered why she was at his door. "Oh I was hoping that I could crash in your room, as my roommate is really not feeling good and I want to avoid whatever she has and Tony and Dan mentioned you don't have anyone in your room and...." She trailed off.

Mike swung the door open more before diving into his room to try to clean up his clothes, having not expected a girl much less his crush to come to his room. He could feel his chest tighten in what felt like anxiety. "Ya no problem, let me just get the stuff off the other bed and, I mean I would assume you would want to sit on your own bed." Mike flew over his words as he tripped over his feet trying to remove the clothes and bags from the spare bed.

Cindy stepped into the room and closed the door. She watched him in his frantic state and giggled to herself. "Thank you so much, I really appreciate this," she said quietly.

As soon as the chaos of Mike's movements were done he sat on his bed and watched as Cindy sat cross legged on the other bed and pulled out her laptop. Mike tried to figure out if this was the time to ask Cindy out but the thought of doing so just brought on dread thoughts of what if she says no, and this is now super awkward as she doesn't have another room to hide in. He decided that he probably shouldn't, just because he didn't want to make it awkward and ruin the chances of asking her out at a later date.

He eventually pulled out his laptop to just scroll through Reddit and other websites, not really looking for anything but finding himself drawn to look up what he could about Covid. His phone buzzed as he saw that Tony had texted him that Dan and him were going to take a quick nap before dinner to shake off whatever effects of the flu that seemed to have shown up.

They sat in an awkward silence before Cindy spoke up, "Ummmm can you turn off the lights, I'm feeling a tad off and just want to rest a bit." Her voice sounded tired and meek. Mike stood up and turned off the lights before returning to his doom scrolling through people's posts about Covid. The more he read the more he worried.

"Hey Cindy, how does your head feel temp wise," Mike asked a while later.

"Umm, I'm feeling both warm and cold at the same time," She responded.

Mike, now very worried, pulled out his phone and finally sent a response to his mom, "Hey mom, my friend Cindy is not feeling well and I'm starting to not feel great myself. We are hiding out in my hotel room." He paused before adding, "In separate beds don't worry. I have my car. Should I take her to urgent care?"

The joys of having an iphone, which his mom had insisted that he kept the read receipts on, was that he saw the dots appear as she was typing. What he read next actually shook him to his core. "DO NOT LEAVE THE HOTEL ROOM! TURN ON YOUR FIND FRIENDS FOR ME AND MAKE SURE YOUR PHONE IS CHARGED! I CAN'T TALK BUT I WILL BE TEXTING YOU. DO NOT LET ANYONE ELSE INTO THE ROOM."

"Mom, is everything okay, is this the COVID virus thing? What aren't you telling me?" He quickly texted back, trying not to panic as he didn't want to scare Cindy.

It was a bit before his mom texted him back. In that time Mike also figured that he would send a text to the family chat group he had with his dad and his step mom. "Hey I'm not feeling well, I may go to urgent care."

His mom texted a series of messages, "I am pulling some strings. First is Cindy 18 years old? I need the honest truth! Do you and Cindy have your laptops? I need her email as I already have yours."

Mike thought that was strange but asked "Cindy can I get your email, I'm texting my mom about how we are feeling and she wants to send us both something."

Cindy poked her head up, "ummmmm, that's a bit odd but okay. It's a tad embarrassing, though." She paused as she blushed. "It's number1timdrakefangirl. I was big into Young Justice when I created it," she quickly spouted out. Mike clarified the email service provider before sending a text to his mom, and that Cindy had turned 18 in November.

His mom texted back, "Is Cindy your girlfriend if not you NEED TO ASK HER NOW."

Mike again went three shades of red and felt his chest tighten, "MOM!"

"MIKE! Trust me I'm going to be honest if she is your girlfriend this could save both of your lives. Also, when you complete the survey, you need to answer it as honestly as humanly possible. I'll not see your answers, nor would I want to. In the relationships section, make sure you two enter that you're engaged to each other. I know you're not but you have to trust me."

Mike bit his lip before he took a deep breath, "Hey Cindy I know this is all super weird and what not but ummmm did you want to ummmm I wanted to ask, eeeeehhhhhh, do you want to go out with me? I mean only if you really want to. I know this is a bad time, forget I asked."

There was silence from the other bed in the dark before a burst of laughter came out of the pillows and sheets. Mike felt his heart just drop, he'd blown his chance he just knew it.

"Took you long enough to ask you silly goon, of course I would love to date you, not exactly what I was expecting but I did figure you'd trip over your words some." Cindy quickly responded, her voice sounding more excited than tired.

Mike let out the biggest sigh of relief, "Awesome ummm the survey we are going to take sounds personal but my mom told me we need to mark we are engaged after we do our basic demographic information, I know I just asked you but I am not asking you to marry me. I ummmmm we should probably just date first."

Cindy sat up and looked at him, "Okay that's really weird and I agree we're way too young to get married yet. Do you trust your mom?"

That was the question of the century, over the last decade Mike had only spent one holiday with his biological mom and had barely spoken to her. She of course called for major events, even made one of the major soccer tournaments, but with her being a big shot of some sort in the Air Force she was never at home. Which is why his parents had divorced in the first place. It wasn't that his relationship with his mom was bad, it just wasn't good either. He thought about it and was thinking about his mom's texts, his gut told him to trust his mom.

"Yes, I trust her." He finally responded.

Cindy seemed to be staring off into space before snapping from her thoughts, "Okay let's mark that we're engaged plus I could think of way worse people. Like, think about what it would be like to live with Tony or Dan. I've seen how they keep their hotel room before. Did I tell you that Brittany rejected both of them at the same time today!"

Mike burst out laughing, "No way, I kind of wish I was there to see that."

He thought for a moment and sent the two guys a text, "Hey, I'm not feeling great and my mom recommended that I quarantine in my hotel room. You two should do the same."

He then opened up the survey link his mom sent him as did Cindy. It started off pretty simple like what Mike assumed a job application would be; name, date of birth, social security number.

Then it asked for some more of his physical information, and then the section about his preferences in a partner. Mike froze, not really having thought about it before, as he had been crushing on Cindy for so long. He thought about his celebrity crushes and what porn he had watched as he filled in this section. He did mark that he preferred body types of thin to athletic. Sports had been so much of his life that he had spent too much time around physically fit women to be attracted to other body types.

The age slider, he of course had the bottom at 18 for Cindy and he hadn't even really thought about dating older women especially with the fact he only just asked out Cindy. The thought of asking an older woman would be terrifying. Shaking his head he did think that he would occasionally watch MILF porn so he put the upper limit at 45, it did feel weird for a moment.

Cindy's laugh broke him out of his trace as he finished marking polyamorous and that he was engaged to Cindy.

"How tall are you Mike? I just want to make sure that I list my preferences as close to you," she asked, staring in his direction. "Ummmm 6 '2" last I was measured," he responded blushing and kicking himself that he didn't just list all of Cindy's information for preferences.

"Hey Mike, what are your thoughts on kids? I mean like having kids," Cindy asked, indicating that she was in the same place Mike was on the Oracle survey.

There was a long pause before answering, "Honestly I have no clue. I haven't really thought about it, and with how my parents turned out, I don't know if I really want kids."

Cindy was quiet for a moment before she responded, "I think that is a good answer, I'm probably in a similar boat. Before this lockdown I was only thinking about college, trying to get onto the women's national soccer team and traveling." There was a sadness in her voice. "That was one thing me and my dad used to talk about all the time, being able to travel the world, like he did when he was younger. The big bucket list item was New Zealand as he had somehow missed that country in his touring around the Pacific Rim and since he gave me a love of Lord of the Rings, which of course I'd love to see Hobbiton in his memory."

Mike recalled that her dad had passed away due to cancer about 5 years before. Her mom had gained her US citizenship after meeting her dad in Taiwan while he taught English. She spent a bunch of time and energy raising Cindy and not letting her fall into a depression. When the lockdown happened her mom was visiting family in Taiwan.

"I'm sorry about your dad, the few times I met him I could tell he was a great guy. I think he said I looked like a young Eragron at one point," Mike stated.

Cindy burst out laughing this time. "You mean Aragorn, and I can see it a bit when you have your hair longer during the winter. You'd look really good with a beard. Not like a lumberjack beard, just something close cut."

"Thanks, I may drop the shaving during, well whatever happens next," Mike jested back as he actually now considered it.