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Summary - Julia and Clara notice Jay has been acting differently.
Word count - 6k
Clara Esteve had spent years learning the difference between happiness and avoidance.
It was one of the more annoying things about her job. People thought therapy was about tears and revelations, about childhood and metaphors and someone eventually saying something devastating while staring at a mug of herbal tea. Sometimes it was.
Often, though, it was pattern recognition. It was noticing when someone who usually arrived five minutes late with an energy drink and a defensive joke suddenly started arriving on time with washed hair and the calm, shining expression of a woman who had either found inner peace or was having extremely good sex.
With Jay Jones, Clara had learned to distrust peace on principle.
Jay did not do serene. She did not drift gently into balance. She charged into temporary wellness like a bull through a patio door and then acted surprised when everyone noticed the glass. Her happiness usually had symptoms. Better posture. Fewer jokes with knives underneath. More eye contact. Less self sabotage disguised as humour. A strange softness at the edges of her mouth when she thought no one was looking.
Lately, Jay had been dangerously soft.
Not stable soft, Clara thought. Not quiet progress. Not the earned kind of peace that came from six months of consistent work, routine, medication, sleep, food and all the boring human foundations Jay treated as optional side quests.
No.
This was sex soft.
Possibly feelings soft.
Which, given Jay's history, was far more suspicious.
"She's happy," Clara said, sitting opposite Julia in a café two streets from the club offices, hands wrapped around a coffee she had not touched because she was too busy being concerned.
Julia Esteve looked up from her phone with the expression of a woman who had been trying to schedule a meeting with a hurricane. "I know."
"No, I mean suspiciously happy."
"You keep saying that like it is a medical diagnosis."
"With Jay, it is practically a weather alert."
Julia leaned back in her chair, dark hair tucked behind one ear, phone screen still lit with unanswered messages. She looked tired in the way agents looked tired when a client had decided calendars were philosophical rather than binding. Julia loved Jay.
She would deny it in legal language if pressed, but she did. She had fought for her, defended her, cleaned up after her, told presidents and coaches and sponsors to be less stupid about her. She had watched Jay blow through clubs and countries and press rooms with that grin, all charm and damage and talent so bright it made people forgive the paperwork.
Jay being difficult was normal.
Jay being unreachable was not new.
Jay being unreachable and happy was a new administrative category.
"She missed another meeting," Julia said.
Clara's eyebrows lifted. "Again?"
"Again."
"Did she forget?"
"She sent me a voice note twenty minutes after it was supposed to start saying, and I quote, 'Jules, I'm so sorry, I got trapped in a situation.'"
Clara stared.
Julia tapped her phone and played the voice note.
Jay's voice burst through the speaker, breathless, bright, and very clearly not alone. "Jules, I'm so sorry, I got trapped in a situation. Not a bad situation. Good situation. Time moved weird. I'll call you in ten."
In the background, a woman laughed.
Not loud. Not clear enough to identify. Just a warm, soft, helpless little laugh that made Jay's voice immediately change.
"Stop it," Jay said away from the phone, smiling so hard Clara could hear it. "I'm apologising professionally."
The voice note ended.
Julia put the phone down.
Clara stared at it for a moment. "She did not call you in ten."
"She called me in two hours."
"And?"
Julia swiped, found the call log, and set the phone down again like evidence. "Forty seven seconds. She sounded like she had run a marathon and then tried to convince me she was 'reviewing documents'."
"Was she reviewing documents?"
Julia gave her a flat look.
Clara nodded. "No."
"There was someone giggling in the background again."
"Same voice?"
"I think so. But Jay has a type."
Clara's mouth twitched. "Women?"
"Beautiful women who laugh at her before realising that encouraging her is how buildings catch fire."
"That is specific."
"That is Jay."
Clara finally took a sip of coffee. It had gone cold, which felt appropriate. "It is not unusual for her."
"No."
"Jay has never been a nun."
"No one has ever accused Jay of nun behaviour."
"She has flings. She disappears for a weekend. She makes terrible choices with excellent cheekbones. This is not new."
Julia nodded slowly, but her eyes stayed on the phone. "This is different."
Clara did not answer immediately.
Because it was. That was the thing neither of them had wanted to say too early, in case naming it made it real.
Jay in therapy had been different for weeks. Not fixed. Clara hated the word fixed. People were not appliances. But lighter, somehow. Still chaotic, still restless, still capable of turning a simple question into stand up comedy if it got too close to the bone, but less armed. Less ready to turn every room into a place she had to survive.
She had arrived at one session with her hoodie inside out and a bite mark on her shoulder that she had insisted was from "fighting a wardrobe", which was not even one of her better lies.
She had spent another session staring at her phone whenever it buzzed, trying and failing not to smile. Clara had said nothing for twelve minutes, because sometimes silence was a better trap than questions. Eventually Jay had looked up and said, "What?"
Clara had said, "Nothing."
Jay had narrowed her eyes. "That was a therapist nothing."
Clara had said, "You seem happy."
Jay had immediately dropped her phone into her own lap and said, "That's invasive."
The phone had buzzed again.
Jay had looked down.
Her face had gone soft.
Utterly, stupidly, dangerously soft.
Clara had seen that face once before, years earlier, but it had passed quickly, because the person attached to it had been wrong for Jay in every way that mattered. This was different. This was not thrill. This was not conquest. This was not Jay enjoying being wanted because wanting was safer than being known.
This was Jay being known.
Or close to it.
Julia's phone buzzed.
Both of them looked.
Another message from Jay.
Jay: I'm so sorry about today. Emergency.
Julia read it aloud.
Then a second message appeared.
Jay: Good emergency.
Then a third.
Jay: Not medical.
Julia stared at the phone.
Clara said, "She is an actual menace."
Julia typed with the precise anger of a woman who had sent too many calendar invites into the void.
Julia: Where are you?
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Jay: Busy.
Julia closed her eyes.
Clara leaned forward. "Type: with what?"
Julia did.
Julia: With what?
A delay.
Jay: Life.
Julia set the phone down. "I am going to kill her."
"She will dodge."
"She is not home, is she?"
Clara's gaze sharpened. "You checked?"
"I drove past on the way here. Her bike is not outside. Lights off."
"She could be at the gym."
"At this hour?"
Clara glanced at the clock. Four in the afternoon. "Yes."
"Not with that voice note."
"No."
Julia stared out of the café window, jaw working. "I have been trying to get her to sign off on three documents for a week. She has missed two meetings, one sponsor call, one physio admin check, and a sit down with me. She answered my call yesterday and said, 'Sorry, Jules, I'm in the middle of something' while sounding like she was falling down stairs."
"Was she?"
"A woman in the background said, 'Jay, stop talking.'"
Clara's mouth twitched again. "Commanding."
Julia pointed at her. "Do not encourage this."
"I am observing."
"You are enjoying."
"I can enjoy clinically."
"No, you cannot."
Clara put her coffee down. "Julia, I am not discussing session content with you."
"I know."
"But I can tell you what you already know from the outside. Jay is attending therapy. She is more regulated. She is also clearly hiding someone, badly, and her calendar has become a casualty."
Julia nodded. "So we go to her flat."
Clara looked at her.
Julia lifted her eyebrows. "What?"
"That is your solution?"
"She gave me a spare key."
"For emergencies."
"She missed a contract meeting."
"That is not an emergency."
"With Jay, contract meetings are how we prevent emergencies."
Clara considered this.
Annoyingly, it was true.
Jay had given Julia a spare key after locking herself out twice in one week, once wearing full training kit and once wearing only shorts, a sports bra and a towel around her shoulders because she had "stepped outside to check if the rain was real" and the door had shut behind her.
Clara had a spare too because Jay had once forgotten a session, panicked, said she was "on her way" from inside her own flat, then could not find her keys, then cried because she thought Clara would be disappointed. After that, spare keys became less about convenience and more about reducing the number of ways Jay could self sabotage through logistics.
Julia picked up her bag.
Clara sighed. "We are not breaking in."
"We have keys."
"That is not the point."
"We will wait in the living room. If she is dead, useful. If she is not, educational."
"That is a terrible ethical framework."
"It is my agent framework."
Clara stood too.
Julia smiled. "You are coming."
"I am coming to stop you from turning a welfare check into a deposition."
"Excellent. Bring your clinical eyes."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
"I do a little."
They found Jay's flat empty.
Not messy empty. Lived in empty. Jay empty.
The kind of empty that told on her.
A hoodie thrown over the back of the sofa. A glass of water on the coffee table, still half full. Trainers by the door, one upright, one lying on its side like it had given up. A stack of unopened post on the kitchen counter. A bowl in the sink with dried cereal cemented to the bottom. Three mugs on the side, which was too many mugs for one person unless that person was Jay, in which case it was either normal or evidence.
Clara stood in the doorway and took it in.
Julia went straight to the kitchen counter.
"Three mugs," Julia said.
"Jay owns more than one mug."
"One has lipstick on it."
Clara slowly turned.
Julia held up the mug by the handle.
There was, faintly but definitely, a mark on the rim.
Clara walked over. "That could be Jay."
"Jay does not wear lipstick."
Clara looked at the mug again.
A soft muted brownish pink.
Elegant.
Definitely not Jay's.
Julia put the mug down with the care of someone setting evidence into an exhibit tray.
From the kitchen, Clara could see other things now.
A second phone charger plugged in near the sofa. Not Jay's. Jay's was black and frayed and had little teeth marks from when she had once tried to hold it in her mouth while carrying groceries. This one was white, neat, looped properly.
A pair of sunglasses on the bookshelf. Expensive. Not Jay's style. Jay's sunglasses always looked like they might be worn by someone illegally driving a motorbike through a music video. These were classic, tasteful, sharp.
On the counter, beside the unopened post, was a tiny paper bag from a bakery Jay did not usually go to because she had once said it made her feel "too underdressed for croissants".
Inside were crumbs.
Two pastries, maybe.
Clara looked at Julia.
Julia looked back.
"Different," Clara said.
Julia nodded. "Different."
They sat in the living room.
They waited.
The first ten minutes were professionally justified.
The next twenty were nosiness.
By the forty minute mark, Julia had found the unsigned documents in a pile under a magazine and was muttering to herself in Spanish while Clara pretended not to inspect the room for behavioural patterns.
Jay's flat had changed subtly. Not dramatically. Not moved in changed. There were no shoes under the bed that did not belong to her, no obvious drawer taken over by someone else. But there were signs of another rhythm brushing against Jay's. A blanket folded properly on the sofa rather than thrown. A bottle of sparkling water in the fridge that Jay would never buy herself because she said "water should not attack". A small container of cut fruit on the second shelf with a sticky note on it.
Clara opened the fridge and read it.
Eat this. Not just coffee.
No name.
But the handwriting was neat, controlled, slanted in a way that made Clara raise an eyebrow.
Julia appeared behind her. "What?"
Clara showed her.
Julia's expression shifted.
"That," Julia said slowly, "is not fling handwriting."
"No?"
"That is sophisticated handwriting."
Clara closed the fridge.
"Sophisticated?"
Julia waved a hand. "You know what I mean. Organised. Bossy. Caring in a threatening way."
"Jay would be into that."
"Jay would be catastrophically into that."
They both went quiet.
Then Clara looked towards the bedroom hallway.
Julia followed her gaze.
"No," Clara said.
"I was not going to."
"You were absolutely thinking about it."
"I am an agent. Details matter."
"You do not need bedroom details."
"I said nothing."
"Your face went to court."
Julia held up her hands. "Fine."
They returned to the sofa.
At exactly one hour and seven minutes after they had let themselves in, the lift doors opened in the hallway outside.
Clara heard laughter first.
Low. Warm. Female.
Then Jay's voice.
"Stop laughing, I'm serious."
The other voice answered, quieter, Spanish accented, amused. "You are never serious."
"I am constantly serious. People know this about me."
The key hit the lock.
Missed.
Hit it again.
Julia sat up.
Clara's eyes widened.
Outside, Jay muttered, "Door's moving."
"The door is not moving."
"It is emotionally evasive."
The second woman laughed again.
The key finally turned.
The door crashed open with the kind of force that suggested Jay had forgotten doors could be opened gently if one was not currently walking backwards while kissing someone.
Jay came through first.
Technically.
Though "came through" implied more coordination than was present.
She was walking the other woman backwards into the flat with one hand at her waist and the other against the doorframe, mouth on hers, laughing into the kiss, completely oblivious to the fact two women were sitting on her sofa like judgement had developed legs. Her hair was a mess. Her jacket was half off one shoulder. Her shirt was already being dragged up with the kind of enthusiasm that suggested the lift ride had been barely survived.
The woman in front of her had both hands in Jay's hair.
Tall. Brown hair. Black coat. Controlled even while being walked backwards. Laughing against Jay's mouth like she had lost an argument and enjoyed it.
Jay kicked the door shut behind them without looking.
It did not shut.
It hit the wall and bounced.
Jay did not notice.
She was already pulling her own top off.
Julia stared.
Clara stared.
Jay's shirt got to her ribs.
Julia said, with deep feeling, "Dios mío."
Jay froze.
Not a small freeze.
A full body statue.
Her shirt was stuck halfway over her head, arms trapped above her, abs exposed, face partly hidden by cotton. For one glorious second she looked less like a world class striker and more like a confused laundry incident.
The woman in front of her went still too.
Jay slowly tugged the shirt back down enough to see.
Her eyes landed on Julia.
Then Clara.
Then Julia again.
"Jules," she said.
Julia folded her arms. "Jay."
Jay looked down at her own state.
Then at the woman in front of her.
Then back at Julia.
"I can explain."
Clara, who had recovered enough to enjoy herself, leaned back into the sofa. "Please do."
Jay opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
The other woman turned.
And there, in Jay's hallway, hair slightly mussed from Jay's hands, mouth faintly swollen from kissing, eyes wide with the kind of horror only a very controlled person could feel when discovered mid not at all controlled, stood Alexia Putellas.
Julia's eyebrows shot up.
"Alexia?"
Alexia blinked.
Then, because she was Alexia, because she had captained club and country, because she had faced world finals and hostile crowds and apparently now two extremely invested Catalan women in her not quite girlfriend's living room, she straightened her coat with absolute dignity.
"Hola," she said.
Jay closed her eyes.
Clara's grin spread slowly across her face. "This explains a lot."
Nobody moved.
The air in the flat seemed to thicken with all the information arriving at once.
Julia looked from Alexia to Jay's half removed shirt.
Then to Alexia's hand still resting on Jay's waist.
Then back to Jay.
Jay smiled weakly. "Surprise?"
Julia stared at her. "You missed a contract meeting."
Jay nodded. "Yes."
"To do this?"
Jay looked at Alexia.
Alexia looked at Jay.
Both of them tried very hard not to smile.
Julia pointed between them. "Do not look at each other like that when I am angry."
Jay immediately looked at the floor.
Alexia looked at the wall.
Clara was delighted. "Oh, this is much worse than a fling."
Jay's head snapped up. "It's not worse."
"I mean more significant."
"That word is also loud."
Julia stood. "How long?"
Jay scratched the back of her neck. "Define long."
"Jay."
"A month."
Julia closed her eyes.
Clara's mouth dropped open. "A month?"
Alexia's face went pink.
Jay pointed at Clara. "Not every day."
Julia opened one eye.
Jay reconsidered. "Most days."
Alexia made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh dying of embarrassment.
Clara put a hand over her mouth. "Oh, Jay."
"What? I'm being honest."
Julia looked at Alexia. "You knew about the meetings?"
Alexia's eyes widened. "No."
Jay immediately stepped forward. "No, no, she did not. That was me. Fully me. I am the admin criminal."
"Admin criminal," Clara repeated.
"It's a category."
Julia's stare could have frozen soup. "You missed a sponsor call."
"I know."
"You missed a contract review."
"I know."
"You told me you were trapped in a situation."
Jay glanced at Alexia again.
Alexia turned even redder.
Jay looked back at Julia. "Technically accurate."
Julia pointed at her. "Do not technically accurate me while your shirt is still half inside out."
Jay looked down.
Her shirt was, in fact, half inside out now from the aborted removal.
"Right," Jay said. "This is undermining my credibility."
"You have none."
"That feels harsh."
"You were about to take your shirt off in front of your agent and therapist."
"I didn't know you were here."
"That does not improve the situation."
Clara lifted a finger. "For clarity, I am not here as therapist right now. I am here as concerned person with a spare key who has been dragged into fieldwork."
Jay stared at her. "Fieldwork?"
"Yes."
"Am I the field?"
"You are always the field."
Alexia pressed her lips together.
Jay saw it immediately. "Baby, don't laugh."
Julia's head turned sharply.
"Baby?"
Jay froze again.
Alexia closed her eyes.
Clara made a small triumphant noise. "Oh, this is excellent."
Jay pointed at herself. "Slip."
"Of tongue?" Julia asked.
"Yes."
"Only tongue involved?"
"Jules."
Julia held up a hand. "I am allowed one."
"You are my agent."
"You missed meetings because you were making out with Alexia Putellas in lifts."
Jay paused. "We were not making out in the lift."
Alexia looked at her.
Jay's confidence faltered.
"We were having a private disagreement about patience."
Alexia said quietly, "You lost."
Jay's mouth twitched. "I did."
Clara leaned over to Julia. "Did you hear that tone?"
Julia nodded. "I heard."
Jay turned on them both. "You are not tone analysing us."
"We are absolutely tone analysing you," Clara said.
Alexia finally stepped away from Jay by one careful inch, though her hand stayed near Jay's wrist like she had forgotten to fully let go. "Lo siento. I thought Jay told you."
Julia looked at Jay.
Jay looked at the ceiling.
"Jay," Julia said.
Jay sighed. "I was going to."
"When?"
Jay considered this with visible sincerity, which was always a mistake. "When it became less new." Clara's face softened for half a second.
Julia's did too, but she hid it faster.
Alexia looked at Jay.
Jay looked back.
There it was.
The difference.
It was not the sex. Julia and Clara had both known Jay through enough of her life to know when she was using attention as a distraction, when she was chasing someone because being wanted made the silence smaller for a night. Jay after those nights was usually funny but untouched, glittering but separate. She would joke, deflect, make outrageous comments, and keep the person at the edges of her actual life.
But this?
This was Jay glancing at Alexia before answering, not for permission, but because Alexia had become part of the truth. This was Jay's body angling towards her even while she was being scolded. This was Alexia, controlled and embarrassed and still standing close enough to touch. This was not a fling crashing through a door. This was a secret becoming visible because neither of them had been careful enough to hide how much they wanted to come home together.
Clara saw it.
Julia saw it.
Jay realised they saw it and panicked.
"Okay," Jay said, clapping once. "Everyone is clothed enough. Great. Let's reset."
"You are barely clothed enough," Julia said.
"I have a shirt."
"It is half inside out."
"Still legally a shirt."
Clara stood, smiling. "Alexia, would you like water?"
Alexia blinked. "Ah. Yes, gracias."
Jay pointed at Clara. "Why is she getting hospitality? I live here."
Clara looked at her. "Because she appears to be the reason you are finally sleeping properly and attending therapy in a good mood."
Jay's face went hot. "Clara."
Alexia turned to her. "You are attending therapy in good mood?"
Jay looked horrified. "Don't make that sound adorable."
"It is adorable."
"It is clinical betrayal."
Clara walked to the kitchen. "It is observational."
Julia remained standing in the living room with her arms folded. "Sit."
Jay blinked. "Me?"
"Yes."
"In my own flat?"
"Yes."
Jay looked at Alexia. "This is hostile."
Alexia, traitorously, said, "Sit, bebé."
Jay sat.
Immediately.
Julia stared.
Clara, from the kitchen, poked her head round the corner. "Interesting."
Jay pointed at Alexia. "That was unfair. She used the voice."
"What voice?" Julia asked.
"No voice," Alexia said quickly.
Jay slumped back into the sofa, shirt still wrong, hair wrecked, cheeks pink. "This is becoming legally unsafe."
Alexia sat beside her with more dignity, though not as much as she probably wanted. Her coat was still on. Her hair was not quite neat. Her mouth looked like evidence. She folded her hands in her lap, then seemed to realise that looked too formal and reached for the glass Clara handed her.
"Thank you," Alexia said.
Clara smiled. "Of course."
Julia looked between them. "So. A month."
Jay nodded cautiously. "Yes."
"Sleeping together."
Jay winced. "Must we phrase it like a witness statement?"
Julia did not blink.
Jay sighed. "Yes."
Alexia lifted the glass to her mouth and drank with the expression of a woman hoping water could become invisibility.
Clara sat back down. "And that started when?"
Jay stared at her.
Clara lifted both hands. "Not as therapist. As a person who wants to know how long we have been missing obvious signs."
Jay looked at Alexia.
Alexia looked back.
There was a beat.
Then they both smiled.
Small at first. Then bigger.
Julia groaned. "Oh, this is disgusting."
Jay turned to her, offended. "Love is not disgusting."
"I did not say love."
Jay's mouth opened.
Closed.
Alexia went very still beside her.
Clara's eyebrows rose.
Julia's expression sharpened with immediate interest.
Jay looked like she had stepped on a landmine and recognised it only after hearing the click.
"I also did not say love," she said carefully.
"No," Julia said. "You just corrected me with it."
Jay looked at the floor. "Language is slippery."
Clara leaned back, delighted. "Jay."
"No."
"You are in love."
Jay looked up, startled. "I didn't say that."
"You did not have to."
Alexia's hand moved.
Just slightly.
Jay felt it beside her and, without looking, reached for it.
Their fingers touched.
Then linked.
Everyone saw.
Jay realised everyone saw and decided dignity was dead anyway.
She held on.
Alexia looked down at their hands, then up at Julia and Clara with that composed, brave expression she wore when she had decided not to hide from something.
"It is new," Alexia said.
Jay's face softened immediately.
Julia looked at Alexia for a long moment.
Then at Jay.
Her expression changed, not into approval exactly, but something warmer and far more dangerous because Julia's affection always arrived wearing armour.
"Does she know about your calendar?" Julia asked Alexia.
Jay made a betrayed sound. "Jules."
Alexia's eyes flicked to Jay. "I know she forgets things."
Julia laughed once. "No. She does not forget things. She creates a second reality where appointments become suggestions."
Jay muttered, "Poetic."
"She has missed four."
Alexia turned to Jay. "Four?"
Jay looked wounded. "Why did you say it like that?"
"Because four is many."
"Not globally."
"Jay."
Jay sank lower into the sofa. "This is why I didn't tell you. You're all going to form a calendar alliance."
Clara smiled. "We should absolutely form a calendar alliance."
Alexia looked thoughtful. "Could be useful."
Jay sat up. "No. No, absolutely not. I will not be romantically managed through shared scheduling."
Julia pulled out her phone. "Too late."
Jay stared. "You're creating it now?"
"I already had one. I am adding Alexia."
"Jules!"
Alexia looked amused. "There is calendar?"
"There are three," Julia said.
Jay looked at Clara. "Help me."
Clara shook her head. "I once waited thirty minutes outside your flat while you texted me from inside saying you were 'almost there'."
"I was spiritually almost there."
"You were in the shower."
"I'd forgotten water makes time strange."
Alexia laughed.
Jay pointed at her. "Do not laugh with them. We were united five minutes ago when we were getting ambushed."
Alexia's eyes softened. "We were not united. You were removing shirt."
"In unity."
Julia made a strangled sound. "Please never say that again."
They all laughed then.
Even Julia.
The tension loosened properly, breaking into something familiar but changed. The four of them sat in Jay's living room, surrounded by mugs and evidence and the unmistakable aftermath of being caught by people who loved Jay enough to invade her privacy with a spare key and then judge her furniture arrangement.
Clara watched Alexia while Julia asked practical questions.
Not therapist watching. Not exactly. But Clara could not turn off the part of her that noticed how people cared.
Alexia answered calmly, even through embarrassment. Yes, she knew Jay could become distracted. No, she had not realised appointments had been missed. Yes, she cared about Jay's routine. No, she was not trying to take over. Yes, she understood Jay needed space, structure, food, rest, honesty. She spoke like someone who had already learned Jay in details rather than headlines.
Jay, for her part, looked increasingly overwhelmed by being known in stereo.
Julia knew her admin disasters.
Clara knew her emotional escape routes.
Alexia, apparently, knew the exact pressure of her hand when she was anxious because her thumb started moving over Jay's knuckles under the conversation and Jay gradually stopped trying to make jokes every three seconds.
Julia noticed.
Of course she did.
"So," Julia said, setting her phone down. "Is this secret?"
Jay looked at Alexia.
Alexia looked at Jay.
That answer was not simple yet.
They were not public. Not really. Not hidden either, apparently, not if they were crashing through doors half dressed and kissing like sense had failed them. But there was a difference between private and secret, and Jay was terrified of choosing the wrong one.
Alexia squeezed her hand.
"Private," Alexia said.
Jay breathed out.
"Private," she repeated.
Clara nodded.
Julia leaned back. "Good. Then private means you tell the people who manage your life enough that they can stop thinking you've been abducted by a very enthusiastic stranger."
Jay grimaced. "Fair."
"And private does not mean ignoring documents."
"Also fair."
"And if you are going to miss a meeting because you are with Alexia Putellas, you do not send me a voice note saying you are trapped in a situation."
Jay's mouth twitched. "What should I say?"
Julia stared at her.
Jay nodded. "Right. Nothing. I should not miss meetings."
"Correct."
Clara smiled. "Growth."
Jay looked at her. "Do not therapy me in my own living room."
"I am not. I am mocking you with professional vocabulary."
Alexia turned to Jay, voice soft but firm. "You should not miss meetings."
Jay stared at her.
Then sighed with her whole body. "This is the calendar alliance beginning."
"Yes," Alexia said.
"You're on their side?"
"I am on your side."
"That sounds suspiciously like their side."
"It is the side where you sign documents and eat lunch."
Jay looked at Julia. "You see? Caring in a threatening way. I knew it."
Julia lifted her eyebrows. "You chose her."
Jay looked at Alexia.
Alexia's smile was small, warm, a little embarrassed.
Jay's whole face softened.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "I did."
The room went briefly silent again.
Then Clara ruined it because she was kind, but not merciful.
"You are going to be unbearable."
Jay snapped back to her. "I'm already unbearable."
"Yes, but now you are unbearable and happy. It is a much louder condition."
Alexia laughed into her glass.
Jay grinned at her, because if Alexia laughed, the whole room became worth surviving.
Julia stood. "We are leaving."
Jay blinked. "Already?"
"You want us to stay?"
Jay looked at Alexia.
Alexia looked at her.
Julia made a face. "Do not answer."
Clara stood too, picking up her bag. "I am glad you are alive."
Jay smiled. "Mostly."
"And happy."
Jay's smile grew quieter. "Yeah."
Clara's expression softened. "Good."
Julia pointed at Jay. "Meeting tomorrow. Eleven. In person."
Jay groaned. "Jules."
"In person."
"I have training."
"After training."
"I may be tired."
"You may be alive because Alexia wakes you up."
Alexia coughed on her water.
Jay's mouth fell open. "Julia."
Julia smiled sweetly. "I meant for the meeting."
"No, you didn't."
"No, I didn't."
Clara laughed as she moved towards the door. "Alexia, it was nice to officially discover you."
Alexia stood as well, polite even now. "You too."
Julia paused by the hallway and looked back at Jay. "You should have told me."
Jay's grin faded. "I know."
Julia held her gaze, then nodded once. "But I understand why you didn't."
Jay swallowed.
Julia added, "Next time, tell me before your shirt is above your ribs."
Jay immediately groaned. "Can we stop referencing my shirt?"
"No," Clara said. "It was an important witness."
Alexia's mouth twitched.
Jay pointed at her. "You are enjoying this too much."
"Sí."
Julia opened the door.
Then stopped.
She looked at Alexia, then Jay, then their joined hands.
"Also," Julia said, "if either of you make my job harder, I will put both of you in a room with Clara and a shared calendar."
Clara lifted a finger. "That is not how therapy works."
"It is how consequences work."
Jay looked horrified. "Shared calendar therapy?"
Alexia whispered, "Could be useful."
Jay turned to her. "You are supposed to be sexy, not administrative."
Alexia raised one eyebrow.
Jay's expression changed immediately.
"Sorry," she said.
Julia stared. "That is terrifying."
Clara smiled. "Fascinating."
Alexia looked pleased with herself.
Jay muttered, "Voice. Again."
Julia and Clara left at last, the door clicking shut behind them.
For a moment, the flat was quiet.
Jay stood in the middle of the living room, still in the inside out shirt, hair wrecked, cheeks flushed, looking like a woman who had survived a police raid conducted by loved ones.
Alexia leaned back against the sofa arm, arms folded, eyes bright.
Jay looked at her. "Well."
Alexia's mouth curved. "Well."
"That happened."
"Sí."
"Your dignity held up better than mine."
"You were taking your shirt off."
"In my home."
"With the door open."
"It bounced."
"You kicked it."
"It resisted."
Alexia laughed.
Jay watched her for a second, then walked over and stopped between her knees, hands resting carefully on the sofa either side of her.
"You okay?" Jay asked, softer.
Alexia's expression warmed at once. "Yes."
"Embarrassed?"
"Very."
"Angry?"
"No."
"Regretful?"
Alexia looked at her like she had asked something stupid.
"No."
Jay's shoulders loosened.
Alexia reached for the hem of Jay's shirt and tugged it lightly. "Inside out."
Jay looked down. "Yeah, I lost a fight."
"With your own clothes."
"You distracted me."
"I was standing."
"You were giggling Spanishly."
Alexia tilted her head. "Spanishly?"
"Yes. Dangerous. Warm. No respect for my nervous system."
Alexia's smile deepened. "You are ridiculous."
"And yet you were kissing me in a hallway."
"Yes," Alexia said softly. "I was."
Jay went quiet.
The humour did not leave her face completely, but it gentled. The whole ridiculous scene, the spare keys, the voice notes, the missed meetings, Julia's horror, Clara's grin, all of it settled around something simple.
They had been found out.
Not by the world.
Not by cameras.
By people who knew Jay's patterns well enough to see when one had changed.
Jay touched Alexia's wrist. "I'll do better with the meetings."
"I know."
"No, I mean it."
"I know."
"I wasn't trying to hide you like that."
Alexia's eyes softened. "I know, amor."
Jay breathed in.
Then smiled faintly. "They're going to be awful about this forever."
"Yes."
"Julia's going to create three calendars."
"Probably."
"Clara's going to call this an emotional event."
"It is."
"Mapi can never know."
Alexia stared at her.
Jay stared back.
Then both of them started laughing, because Mapi was absolutely going to know. Somehow. Eventually. Perhaps through scent. Perhaps through the natural migration of gossip. Perhaps because Julia would mention "calendar alliance" in front of the wrong person and the entire club would turn into a court hearing.
Jay leaned closer, forehead nearly touching Alexia's.
"We had a good month," she said solemnly.
Alexia's hands slid to Jay's waist. "Private month."
"Secretly excellent."
"Administratively terrible."
Jay nodded. "Romance has costs."
"You will sign documents tomorrow."
"Yes, baby."
"And go to your meeting."
"Yes."
"And answer Julia."
"Yes."
"And stop saying you are trapped in situations."
Jay grinned. "What if I am?"
Alexia's eyes dropped briefly to her mouth, then lifted again with dangerous calm.
"Then you say you are unavailable."
Jay swallowed.
"Right."
"And now," Alexia said, fingers curling into the fabric of Jay's inside out shirt, "take this off properly."
Jay froze.
Then looked towards the front door.
Then back at Alexia.
"Do you think they're still outside?"
Alexia laughed. "No."
"With Julia, you never know."
"Jay."
Jay's grin returned, bright and helpless and entirely hers.
"Yes, La Reina?"
Alexia tugged her closer.
"Stop talking."
Jay smiled against her mouth. "Best instruction I've had all day."
And this time, when Jay's shirt came off, no one said dios mío from the sofa.
Which, given the day they had had, felt like progress.
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why do u use ai for ur cover pics?? Ur fics seem good but dont want to read them bc of the ai pics
Because I don’t want my account to look the same as everyone else’s… it also doesn’t really make sense that you don’t want to read them because I made an ai pic? I also wanted to give my readers more context on what Jay looks like so they can build a better story knowing what she looks like.
Jay had been thinking about children for longer than she had admitted to herself, which was inconvenient, because Jay liked to believe she was the sort of woman who knew what was happening inside her own head at least forty per cent of the time.
She did not.
Her mind had rooms she avoided, old rooms with doors that swelled in the rain and stuck in the frame, and behind one of them was the idea of a child. Not a vague, cute idea. Not the sort of soft focus fantasy that arrived when someone handed her a baby in a restaurant and everyone laughed because the baby immediately grabbed one of her tattoos like it had found a menu.
This was sharper than that. More dangerous. It came with images she had not ordered and did not know how to return. Alexia barefoot in their kitchen with a child on her hip. Tiny football boots by the door. A small hand wrapped around Jay’s thumb. Someone calling her Mama with complete trust, as if Jay Jones was a place you could run to and not a place you had to survive.
That last part was what scared her.
Not nappies. Not screaming. Not the logistics of IVF, sperm donors, hormones, clinics, schedules, legal documents, parental rights, birth plans, night feeds, tiny socks that looked too small to be real and therefore emotionally manipulative. Jay could make a plan. Jay could over plan. Jay could turn becoming a mother into a colour coded operation with folders, tabs, emergency snacks and a level of intensity that would make Clara take her glasses off and stare for a long, professional second.
But the trust terrified her.
Children trusted because they did not know better yet. Jay knew that better than most. She knew how small a child could feel in a hallway that smelled of old carpet and boiled vegetables, listening for footsteps that might be kind or might be tired or might be angry.
She knew how quickly a child learned the weather in other people’s bodies. The slam of a cupboard. The pause before a voice answered. The difference between silence that meant peace and silence that meant danger. She knew what it was to grow up collecting rules nobody had written down, rules about being easy, being useful, being funny at the right time, being invisible at the better time. She had spent years becoming impossible to abandon by pretending she did not need anyone to stay.
And then Alexia had stayed.
Alexia had stayed with all the quiet stubbornness of a woman who had captained dressing rooms, won finals, carried countries and still somehow found the patience to sit on the bathroom floor with Jay when Jay’s nervous system decided a dropped plate was the end of the world. Alexia stayed when Jay was charming.
She stayed when Jay was difficult. She stayed when Jay was loud, silent, restless, needy, funny, unbearable, brilliant, scared. She stayed like it was the most obvious thing in the world, as if love was not something you earned by behaving properly but something that lived in the room with you and kept breathing even when you messed up.
That was also what scared Jay.
Because if Alexia wanted children, Jay wanted to say yes so badly it made her chest hurt. She wanted the life that came after the yes. She wanted their mornings torn apart by small chaos. She wanted Alexia Spanish and sleepy, hair everywhere, muttering, “Bebé, your daughter is eating the remote,” while Jay replied, “That’s probably sensory development,” from somewhere under a blanket.
She wanted to teach a little girl how to strike a ball, then immediately lose all authority when Alexia corrected the technique from the garden chair. She wanted the ridiculousness of it. The tenderness. The exhaustion. The permanent evidence that the love between them had become a house with more rooms.
But wanting did not make her safe.
That was the thought she could never get past.
So she did not mention it.
She mentioned other things. She mentioned coffee. Training. A stupid video Lucy had sent her of a dog refusing to walk past a cucumber. She mentioned that the neighbour’s cat had developed a vendetta against her bike cover and that she respected him as an enemy.
She mentioned holiday plans, Champions League fixtures, the leaking tap in the downstairs bathroom and whether Alexia thought a person could die from eating too many pistachios. She mentioned everything except the one thing that had started appearing in her chest whenever Alexia smiled at babies in cafe’s, or absent mindedly folded tiny Barça shirts in the club shop before putting them back with a look Jay could not read without feeling like she might fall through the floor.
Alexia noticed.
Of course Alexia noticed.
Alexia noticed everything eventually. She did not always say it straight away, because she was patient in that Spanish, terrifying, captainly way that made silence feel less like absence and more like an incoming tactical adjustment. She let Jay orbit difficult things until Jay either came down safely or crashed into furniture.
But over the last few months, there had been moments. Little pauses. Alexia’s hand lingering over Jay’s when a baby cried at the next table. Alexia watching Jay hold Mapi’s niece with an expression so soft it made Jay immediately hand the child back because her organs had started behaving strangely.
Alexia sitting beside her on the sofa one evening, half turned towards her, and saying, very casually, “You are good with children,” while Jay had nearly choked on a grape and replied, “That’s because I treat them like drunk adults with less shame.”
Alexia had laughed, but she had not looked away.
That Friday night, Alexia went for drinks with Alba.
Jay was not there because Alba had said, with affectionate bluntness, that she wanted one evening with her sister without Jay “appearing from nowhere like a tattooed golden retriever with abs,” which Jay had accepted with dignity for nearly thirteen seconds before asking Alexia whether she was more golden retriever or Doberman. Alexia had kissed her at the door, slow and smiling, one hand cupping Jay’s jaw, and said, “Depends on the day, bebé.” Jay had spent the rest of the evening at home pretending not to miss her like an idiot.
The house was too quiet without Alexia. It had all the right furniture, all the lamps warm in the corners, the kitchen clean except for the mug Jay had left by the sink despite personally promising herself not to do that again, and still the place felt like it was waiting for its centre to return. Jay made herself dinner, ate half of it, forgot the other half existed, found it later and apologised to it. She watched twenty minutes of a documentary about deep sea creatures before deciding the ocean was a badly managed nightmare. She stretched on the living room rug. She checked her phone too often.
At 11:43 p.m., Alba texted.
Your girlfriend has had wine and is talking about genetics. Prepare yourself.
Jay stared at the message.
Then another arrived.
She just said your jawline should be “inherited for the good of society.”
Jay sat up slowly.
A third message came in, this one a voice note. Jay pressed play, and Alba’s voice filled the living room, dry with laughter and exhaustion. “Jay, I am putting her in a taxi in ten minutes. She is fine, do not panic, she is just drunk enough to believe she is making sense. Also she has told a waiter he has kind eyes and would be a good sperm donor, but only emotionally, because biologically she is not accepting applications. I do not know what that means. Good luck.”
In the background, Alexia’s voice rose, warm and offended. “Alba, do not tell her this. I am being serious.”
“You are telling the olives they are symmetrical.”
“They are.”
The voice note ended.
Jay lowered the phone into her lap and stared at the opposite wall.
“Well,” she said to the empty room, “that sounds normal.”
By the time the taxi pulled up outside, Jay was already at the door. She had intended to be casual about it, maybe lean against the frame like she had not spent the last fifteen minutes pacing between the hallway and the kitchen, but then the car stopped and Alba climbed out first, and Jay immediately abandoned coolness as a concept.
Alexia emerged after her with the solemn care of a woman stepping onto land after a difficult sea voyage. She was wearing black trousers, a silky cream shirt half tucked in, gold earrings catching the porch light, her hair loose and a little wild around her face. She looked beautiful, flushed from wine and laughter, mouth soft, eyes bright, one heel in her hand for reasons that were not immediately clear. The other heel was still on her foot, which seemed to offend Alba on a personal level.
“She refused to take both off,” Alba said, walking her up the path with one hand braced at Alexia’s elbow.
“I have balance,” Alexia protested.
“You have one shoe.”
“I have enough balance for one shoe.”
Jay opened the door wider, trying not to smile too hard and failing. “Evening, captain.”
Alexia looked up at her, and the whole world seemed to turn stupidly golden. Her face changed at once, irritation melting into delight so open that Jay’s chest tightened. “Bebé.”
“Oh no,” Jay said softly. “You’re properly drunk.”
“I am elegantly drunk.”
Alba snorted. “She tried to pay the taxi driver with a loyalty card.”
“It had points.”
“It was for a pharmacy.”
Jay stepped forward and took Alexia’s free hand, the warmth of her fingers sliding into Jay’s like they had been made there. “Come here, you.”
Alexia came willingly, though not in a straight line. She folded herself against Jay with immediate, boneless affection, pressing her face into Jay’s neck and making a satisfied little sound that went directly through Jay’s body and settled somewhere dangerous. Jay caught her around the waist, steadying her, one hand flat against her back, and kissed the top of her head.
“You smell nice,” Alexia murmured into her skin.
“I smell like our laundry detergent and fear.”
“Mmm. Sexy fear.”
Alba made a noise of disgust. “I am leaving before this becomes worse.”
Jay looked over Alexia’s head. “Thank you for bringing her home.”
“You’re welcome. She is your problem now.”
“I am not a problem,” Alexia said, without lifting her face.
Alba kissed her sister’s cheek, then pointed at Jay with the authority of someone who had grown up with Alexia and therefore feared very little. “Water. Bed. No letting her make decisions. She has been using the phrase reproductive destiny.”
Jay’s eyebrows rose. “Has she?”
Alexia finally lifted her head, indignant and glowing. “Because it is destiny.”
Alba closed her eyes. “Goodnight.”
“Get home safe,” Jay called, still holding Alexia upright.
Alba waved without turning. “Do not make babies tonight.”
Jay choked.
Alexia waved after her with the hand holding the shoe. “We might.”
“No, we absolutely might not,” Jay said.
The taxi rolled away. The night settled around them, warm and quiet, and Alexia turned back to Jay with the serious, unfocused intensity of a woman who had been waiting all evening to deliver a speech.
Jay recognised the expression and immediately became nervous.
“Inside,” she said, gently guiding Alexia over the threshold. “Before you declare anything to the neighbours.”
“The neighbours should know.”
“They really shouldn’t.”
“They should be happy for us.”
“About what?”
Alexia stopped in the hallway, one shoe on, one shoe off, hair falling into her eyes, cheeks flushed and beautiful enough to make Jay question several laws of physics. She placed both hands on Jay’s chest with great ceremony, the shoe dangling from two fingers, and looked up at her.
“I want your babies.”
Jay stared at her.
The hallway lamp hummed softly. Somewhere in the kitchen, the fridge clicked on. Alexia waited with the serene confidence of a woman who had just said something perfectly reasonable.
Then Jay laughed.
She did not mean to. It burst out of her, startled and helpless, not because the words did not matter but because Alexia had delivered them like she was ordering dessert. Alexia frowned at once, wounded in the dramatic, wine soft way that made her look twelve per cent more Spanish.
“Do not laugh.”
“I’m sorry,” Jay said, still laughing, catching Alexia’s face between her hands and kissing her forehead. “I’m sorry, babe. It’s just, that’s not how it works.”
Alexia’s eyes narrowed. “I know how it works, bebé.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You just asked for my babies.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t currently have the equipment to provide that service.”
Alexia waved the shoe as if this was irrelevant bureaucracy. “I know biology. I am not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were stupid.”
“You laughed.”
“Because you said it like I could just, I don’t know, concentrate really hard and make sperm appear.”
Alexia considered this, then glanced down Jay’s body with drunken seriousness. “You are very determined.”
“That is flattering but medically unsound.”
“I just want babies with you.”
The laughter softened out of Jay.
There it was. Not the joke. Not the wine. Not the ridiculous phrasing or the shoe or Alba’s warning echoing in the street outside. The truth underneath it. It stood between them suddenly, small and bright and terrifying.
Jay’s hands stayed on Alexia’s face. “You’re drunk.”
“I am drunk,” Alexia agreed, nodding carefully, “but I know what I want.”
Jay swallowed.
Alexia leaned closer, her palms sliding from Jay’s chest to her shoulders, fingers curling into the fabric of her T shirt. “I want babies with you,” she said again, quieter now, her accent thickening around the softness of it. “Not because of wine. The wine only made me say it without doing the patient thing.”
“The patient thing?”
“Waiting for you to stop pretending you do not think about it.”
Jay’s breath caught.
Alexia saw it. Even drunk, she saw it. Her face softened, and one hand came up to brush Jay’s cheek with a tenderness so familiar it nearly undid her. “Ay, bebé.”
Jay looked away for half a second, towards the stairs, the kitchen, anywhere that was not Alexia’s beautiful, wine bright face. “We can talk about it in the morning.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“We’ll see.”
“I will not.”
“You might wake up and decide you actually wanted toast with me.”
“I also want toast with you.”
“Good to know.”
“And babies.”
“Morning, Alexia.”
Alexia pouted. Actually pouted. It was so unlike her usual composed captain’s face that Jay almost laughed again, but there was something tender under it too, something that made humour feel like a blanket rather than an escape. Alexia slid both arms around Jay’s neck and pulled herself closer, until their bodies met in the hallway and Jay had to steady her with both hands at her waist.
“Now, bebé,” Alexia murmured, mouth brushing Jay’s jaw. “Let’s go make a baby.”
Jay closed her eyes.
For one wild second, her body reacted before her common sense could get a hand on the steering wheel. Alexia was warm against her, soft with wine and want, smelling faintly of perfume and white wine and night air. Her lips touched the corner of Jay’s mouth, then her cheek, affectionate and persuasive in the way that usually made Jay forget at least two of her own principles. But this was different. This mattered. Alexia was drunk, and the thing between them was too important to let the wine hold any part of it.
Jay caught Alexia’s wrists gently and brought her hands down, kissing her knuckles before holding them between their bodies.
“No, guapa.”
Alexia blinked at her, affronted. “No?”
“No making babies while you’re drunk.”
“But I am very romantic.”
“You are incredibly romantic. You are also missing a shoe.”
Alexia looked down as if this was new information. “Oh.”
“Exactly.”
“I have the other one.”
“You’re holding it like a weapon.”
“It is designer.”
“That doesn’t make it less threatening.”
Alexia’s mouth twitched. “You do not want to make babies with me?”
The question was soft enough to hurt.
Jay’s face changed before she could stop it. Alexia’s drunken teasing faded at once, her gaze sharpening through the haze, and Jay knew she had revealed too much because Alexia’s hand came up again, this time not playful but searching.
“Jay,” she whispered.
Jay forced herself to smile, though it came out crooked. “I want to get you water, take your make up off, find your other shoe a loving home, and put you to bed.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“I know.”
“Then answer.”
Jay let out a breath, slow and careful. “I want everything with you.”
Alexia went still.
Jay looked at her then because she owed her that. “Everything. But not tonight like this. Not because you’re drunk and horny and apparently inspired by olives.”
Alexia narrowed her eyes. “They were very symmetrical.”
“I’m sure they were stunning.”
“Like your face.”
“Thank you.”
“And your arms.”
“Focus.”
“I am focused. On your genetic contribution.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Alexia smiled, drunk and pleased with herself, and Jay laughed because she had to. The fear did not leave, not fully, but it shifted. It made room for the absurdity of Alexia Putellas standing in their hallway with one shoe, discussing fertility like she was selecting a starting eleven.
Jay bent and kissed her forehead again. “Come on. Bed.”
“I am not finished seducing you.”
“You are finished seducing me.”
“I am never finished.”
“Tonight you are.”
“You are very bossy for someone I am trying to get to agree to having a baby with me.”
Jay made a strangled sound. “Baby… bed.”
Alexia allowed herself to be guided upstairs, though she continued muttering in a mixture of English, Spanish and wine logic. On the landing, she paused to inform a framed photograph of them from the Ballon d’Or that their children would have excellent bone structure. In the bedroom, she sat on the edge of the bed and watched Jay kneel to remove the remaining heel with a softness that made Jay feel exposed.
“You take care of me,” Alexia said.
Jay slid the shoe off and placed it beside the other one. “Someone has to. You tried to financially negotiate with a taxi using pharmacy points.”
“They were valuable.”
“They were not.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know many things.”
Alexia tilted her head. “Do you know you will be a good mama?”
Jay’s hands stilled around Alexia’s ankle.
The room seemed to quiet around them. The joke had been there a second before, warm and easy, and then it was gone so suddenly Jay almost missed it. Alexia was watching her with that soft, devastating directness that alcohol had not dulled, only stripped of hesitation. There was no accusation in her face. No pressure. Just belief, which was sometimes worse.
Jay set Alexia’s foot gently down. “Make up,” she said.
Alexia sighed. “Coward.”
“Correct.”
But she took the make up wipes from the bedside drawer and sat beside Alexia, turning her face carefully towards the lamp. Alexia let her, because Alexia trusted her even when she was annoyed. Jay wiped the mascara from beneath her eyes, slow and gentle, thumb steady at her jaw. It was one of their quiet rituals after nights out, something that had started by accident and become sacred without either of them naming it. Alexia’s eyes fluttered closed. Her hand found Jay’s thigh and rested there, heavy and warm.
“You did not answer,” Alexia murmured.
“You’re drunk.”
“You keep saying this like I do not know guapa.”
“Because drunk questions get morning answers.”
“This one gets now answer.”
Jay paused.
Alexia opened her eyes.
The courage went through Jay like cold water. She looked at the wipe in her hand, then at Alexia, then back at the wipe as if it might have advice printed on it. It did not. It had foundation on it and nothing useful to say.
“I don’t know if I’d be good,” Jay admitted.
Alexia’s face changed, sobering not in body but in heart.
Jay tried to laugh, but it barely arrived. “I know that’s not romantic. I know I’m meant to say yes, obviously, I’ll be amazing, I’m fit, I can open jars, children love tattoos, whatever. But I don’t know. I don’t have… I don’t have a map for that. I know what not to do, which is useful, but not the same thing as knowing what to do.”
Alexia said nothing. She reached for Jay’s free hand and held it.
Jay breathed in, then out. “And I love you too much to pretend it doesn’t scare me.”
There it was. Not all of it, but enough. A crack in the door.
Alexia lifted Jay’s hand to her mouth and kissed her knuckles, one by one, with drunken tenderness and sober understanding. “Morning,” she said softly.
Jay blinked. “What?”
“You are right. We talk in the morning.” Alexia’s thumb moved over Jay’s fingers. “But I will not change my mind.”
Jay’s throat worked.
Alexia leaned forward, kissed her softly once, then again, a little clumsy from wine but full of love. “And I think you are wrong.”
“About what?”
“You have a map.” Alexia touched Jay’s chest, directly over her heart. “It is here. It is messy, sí, and sometimes it sends you to the wrong place and makes you buy too many emergency snacks, but it is good.”
Jay huffed a laugh, eyes suddenly hot. “That is not how maps work.”
“It is how your map works.”
“My map once took me to Girona because I missed a turning.”
“And you came back with pastries.”
“That part was good.”
“Exactly.”
Jay laughed properly then, quiet and cracked at the edges. Alexia smiled as if she had won something, then yawned so hugely that the entire emotional conversation briefly lost dignity.
“Bed,” Jay said, relieved.
“Bed,” Alexia agreed, then added, with a sleepy little grin, “But tomorrow, babies.”
“Tomorrow, conversation.”
“Conversation about babies.”
“Fine.”
“And then babies.”
“Alexia.”
“I am manifesting.”
“You are going to sleep.”
“I am going to dream of your babies.”
Jay pressed her lips together so she would not laugh too loudly. “That’s still not how it works.”
But Alexia was already half gone, pliant and warm as Jay helped her under the covers. She curled immediately towards Jay’s side of the bed, even before Jay had turned off the lamp, one hand reaching blindly for her. Jay changed quickly, brushed her teeth, placed a glass of water and painkillers on the bedside table, then slid in beside her. Alexia found her instantly, as if pulled by gravity, tucking herself into Jay’s body with a satisfied sigh.
“Te amo,” she murmured into Jay’s shirt.
Jay stared into the dark.
Then she wrapped her arms around Alexia and held on.
“Love you too, babe.”
Alexia slept within minutes.
Jay did not.
She lay awake with Alexia warm against her and the whole house quiet around them, staring at the ceiling while the conversation replayed in pieces. I want your babies. I know how it works, bebé. I just want babies with you. You will be a good mum. It should have been funny, and it was funny, because Alexia had said half of it while armed with one shoe and medically overestimating Jay’s reproductive abilities. But beneath the comedy, the truth had landed. Alexia wanted children. Not someday in the abstract. Not as a distant possibility tucked behind career plans and travel and the next season. She wanted them with Jay.
And Jay wanted them too.
The admission sat inside her with frightening clarity.
She imagined a child again, then two because apparently once her mind opened the door it decided to redecorate the whole room. She imagined dark hair or blonde hair, Alexia’s eyes, Jay’s grin, Alexia’s stubbornness, Jay’s inability to keep track of socks. She imagined teaching them English swear words by accident and being exiled from bedtime by Alexia for crimes against language. She imagined a little girl asleep on Alexia’s chest after a match, tiny fist curled in the collar of her shirt. She imagined herself in the doorway, watching them, feeling a love so large it had nowhere to go except into terror.
What if she hurt them without meaning to?
What if fear made her controlling? What if hyper vigilance became pressure? What if she mistook protection for love and built them a house full of caution? What if one day she heard her own panic come out as anger and saw a child flinch? The thought made her stomach twist so sharply she had to close her eyes.
Alexia shifted in her sleep, mumbling something in Spanish, and tucked her face more firmly into Jay’s neck. Jay’s hand moved automatically to her hair.
That was the other truth. Jay had learned love here, in small repetitions. Alexia’s hand reaching for hers in public. Alexia saying, “Breathe,” when Jay forgot she had a body. Alexia laughing when Jay was ridiculous and staying when Jay was not. Love had not arrived as a miracle. It had been built. Chosen. Practised. Repaired. Maybe motherhood was not something you were automatically ready for because your childhood had been kind. Maybe it was something you learned the way Jay had learned everything that mattered, badly at first, honestly after, and with enough love to keep trying.
She did not sleep until dawn had begun to grey the edges of the curtains.
When Jay woke again, Alexia was not beside her.
For one horrible second, old fear snapped awake before logic did. Then she heard a faint groan from the bathroom and relaxed so quickly she almost became liquid.
“Babe?” she called.
A pause.
Then Alexia’s voice, hoarse and tragic. “I am alive, but I do not respect wine.”
Jay smiled into the pillow. “Good morning to you too.”
Alexia appeared in the doorway wearing one of Jay’s oversized T shirts, her hair piled badly on top of her head, her face scrubbed clean and pale with hangover. She looked less like a Ballon d’Or winner and more like a woman who had gone to war with three glasses of Albariño and lost on penalties. She leaned against the frame with one hand over her eyes.
“Do not look at me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m admiring you privately.”
“I can feel it.”
Jay sat up, sheets pooling around her waist. “Water and painkillers are on your side.”
Alexia shuffled over, took both with the solemn gratitude of someone receiving medical aid in a historical drama, then sat on the bed with a groan. “Alba has texted me.”
“Oh good.”
“She says I owe a waiter an apology for interviewing him about fertility.”
Jay laughed. “He had kind eyes.”
Alexia slowly turned her head. “What did I say?”
“So many things.”
“Jay.”
Jay reached for her hand, unable to help herself. Alexia let her take it. Their fingers slid together, morning warm and familiar.
“You told me you wanted my babies,” Jay said.
Alexia closed her eyes. “Dios.”
“You said you knew how it worked.”
“I do know how it works.”
“You suggested we make a baby immediately.”
Alexia opened one eye. “That sounds like me.”
“You were missing a shoe.”
“That also sounds like me.”
“You called it reproductive destiny.”
Alexia covered her face with both hands. “Madre mía.”
Jay’s laughter softened. She tugged Alexia gently closer until Alexia came with a reluctant little sound, sitting beside her against the pillows. Jay kissed her shoulder through the T shirt. “Still want to talk about it?”
Alexia lowered her hands.
The hangover was still there. The embarrassment too. But beneath both, steady as stone, was the same look from the night before.
“Yes,” she said.
Jay’s pulse kicked.
Alexia watched her carefully. “I told you. I would not change my mind.”
Jay nodded, looking down at their joined hands.
For once, Alexia did not rush to fill the silence. She sat beside Jay in the pale morning light, smelling faintly of toothpaste and last night’s perfume, thumb moving over Jay’s knuckles. Outside, the city had begun its slow Sunday stir. A motorbike passed somewhere beyond the window. A dog barked. Their house felt suspended between one life and another, as if the walls were listening.
Jay cleared her throat. “How long have you been thinking about it?”
Alexia’s mouth curved, small and guilty. “A while.”
“A while like weeks or a while like you have a secret folder?”
“I do not have a secret folder.”
Jay stared at her.
Alexia looked away.
“Oh my God.”
“It is not secret. It is private.”
“You have a folder.”
“It is a note.”
“With subheadings?”
Alexia said nothing.
Jay’s eyebrows climbed. “Alexia Putellas, have you made a tactical document for our unborn children?”
“It is not tactical.”
“Does it have bullet points?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s tactical.”
“It is organised.”
“That’s Spanish for tactical.”
Alexia gave her a look. “Do you want to hear or do you want to be annoying?”
“I want both, ideally.”
“Jay.”
“Sorry. Hearing.”
Alexia adjusted herself against the pillows, tucking one leg under her. She looked nervous now in a way Jay rarely saw, not because Alexia did not get nervous, but because she usually wore it under composure. This was softer. More open. Her hand stayed in Jay’s.
“I think I started seriously thinking about it when you held Mapi’s niece,” Alexia said. “At the barbecue. Do you remember?”
Jay did remember. She remembered the baby being warm and surprisingly heavy, with a damp fist gripping her finger and dark lashes resting on round cheeks. She remembered panicking internally because everyone had looked at her and gone quiet in that terrible way people did when they were moved by something. She had made a joke about the baby respecting her sleeve tattoos and handed her back as quickly as possible.
“You looked terrified,” Alexia said, smiling faintly. “But you were so gentle. Like you were holding something breakable and sacred. And then when she started crying, you did not panic. You just walked with her and talked nonsense about how taxes are unfair and naps are important.”
“Both true.”
“She stopped crying.”
“She was probably confused.”
“She was safe,” Alexia corrected quietly.
Jay looked away.
Alexia squeezed her hand. “I saw you, bebé. I thought, if we had a child, they would know that feeling. Your hands. Your voice. The way you notice everything even when you pretend you do not.”
Jay’s throat tightened. “That’s the thing though.”
“What?”
“I notice everything because I had to.”
Alexia nodded, not flinching.
Jay took a breath. The instinct to make a joke rose up, bright and desperate, but she let it pass. “I’m scared I’ll bring too much of that into it. Like, I don’t know where the line is between being attentive and being… too much. I know what it feels like to be unsafe, so what if I go too far the other way? What if I make them scared of the world because I’m scared for them?”
Alexia listened with her whole body. It was one of the things Jay loved most about her. When Alexia listened, she did not wait for her turn to speak. She received. She held.
Jay continued, slower now. “And I know people say you’re not your parents, or you’re not what happened to you, and that’s nice, but children don’t care about inspirational quotes, do they? They care about whether you show up right. Every day. Even when you’re tired. Even when they’re screaming. Even when they hate you for saying no. And I didn’t have that. I don’t know what normal looks like from the inside.”
Alexia shifted closer until their shoulders touched. “Normal is overrated.”
“That sounds like something someone says before raising a child who eats crayons.”
“Our child may eat crayons.”
“See, already chaos.”
“If they are your child, they will organise the crayons by emotional importance first.”
Jay snorted despite herself. “The blue one will have abandonment issues.”
Alexia laughed, then pressed a kiss to Jay’s shoulder. “Mi amor, listen to me. You do not have to know everything because no one knows everything. Not even people with perfect childhoods. They are also guessing. Maybe with more confidence, but still guessing.”
Jay looked at her. “You’d be so good at it.”
Alexia blinked, surprised by the sudden certainty in Jay’s voice.
“You would,” Jay said. “You’d be ridiculous. Like, obviously too competitive at school sports day, and probably emotionally intense about bedtime routines, and God help any teacher who underestimates our kid, but you’d be amazing.”
Alexia’s face softened. “You think?”
“I know.” Jay traced her thumb over Alexia’s hand. “You make people feel held without making them feel weak. You expect a lot, but not in a cruel way. You’re warm. You’re steady. You pretend you’re not funny, which is arrogant because you’re very funny. You love like you’ve already decided you’re not leaving.”
Alexia’s eyes shone.
Jay swallowed. “That’s what a kid should have.”
“And you,” Alexia said, voice rough, “would give them joy.”
Jay laughed under her breath. “That feels less useful.”
“It is not less useful. It is everything. You would give them joy, and courage, and silliness, and the feeling that being different is not something to hide. You would make them brave. You would make them laugh when they are scared. You would know when the room is too loud before they have words for it. You would understand the things other people miss.”
Jay’s jaw tightened.
Alexia reached up and turned Jay’s face back to her, gentle but firm. “Your childhood took many things from you. It did not take your ability to love. I know this because I live inside it every day.”
Jay’s eyes burned. “That was rude.”
Alexia frowned. “Rude?”
“Yeah. Saying something that nice before I’ve had coffee.”
Alexia laughed softly, the sound catching in her throat. “Perdón.”
“No, you’re not sorry.”
“No.”
Jay leaned her forehead against Alexia’s, breathing her in. For a while neither of them spoke. Their hands stayed tangled between them, Alexia’s thumb moving slowly against Jay’s skin, Jay’s knee pressed against hers under the duvet. It felt like standing at the edge of something enormous together. Not jumping yet. Just looking. Admitting the view was beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
Eventually, Jay said, “What does your note say?”
Alexia groaned. “Do not mock me.”
“I’m absolutely going to mock you, but with love.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It’s honest.”
Alexia reached for her phone on the bedside table, hesitated, then unlocked it. Jay watched her open the notes app with the solemnity of someone revealing classified documents. The note title read, in plain black text: Baby thoughts.
Jay stared.
Alexia turned the phone slightly away. “Do not make the face.”
“I’m not making a face.”
“You are making the face.”
“I just expected something more intense. Like Project Tiny Putellas-Jones.”
Alexia’s cheeks coloured. “There is another note.”
Jay’s mouth fell open. “There’s another note?”
“It was a working title.”
“A working title?”
“Do you want to read or no?”
“I have never wanted anything more in my life.”
Alexia muttered something in Spanish that sounded deeply insulting, but she handed over the phone. Jay took it carefully.
The note was not a full tactical document, despite Alexia’s earlier denial being suspiciously weak. It had sections. Of course it had sections. Timing. Career. Clinic options. Legal. Family support. Names? The question mark after names nearly killed Jay on sight.
“You have a names section,” Jay said, voice going strange.
“Only ideas.”
Jay tapped it before Alexia could stop her.
There were names there. Beautiful ones. Spanish names, Catalan names, English names. Some Jay recognised from conversations they had never officially had, names that had drifted past them in films, in family stories, in football, in cafés. Near the bottom, two names sat beside each other with no explanation.
Luna. Aurora.
Jay stared at them for too long.
Alexia noticed. “I just liked them,” she said quietly. “They felt… I don’t know. Light and night. Different but together.”
Jay’s lips parted, but nothing came out.
Alexia took the phone from her gently and set it aside. “Too much?”
“No.” Jay shook her head, then laughed once, overwhelmed. “No, it’s just very annoying that you’re good at naming hypothetical children while hungover.”
“I am good at many things hungover.”
“You cried earlier because the bathroom light was too bright.”
“It was aggressive.”
“It’s a bulb.”
“It knows what it did bebe.”
Jay laughed, and Alexia smiled, pleased to have brought her back. But the emotion stayed under the laughter, warm and trembling. Jay rubbed both hands over her face, then let them fall into her lap.
“So,” she said carefully. “You want to carry?”
Alexia’s expression shifted. “I think so. If I can. I know with football, timing is difficult. My body, recovery, age, contracts, everything. But yes, I think I want to. At least once.”
Jay nodded, absorbing it with the seriousness it deserved. “And you want… donor?”
“Yes. A clinic. Proper legal process. No waiters with kind eyes.”
“Shame. Alba said he had potential.”
Alexia gave her a flat look. “Do not.”
“Sorry.”
“I thought maybe…” Alexia hesitated, then looked down at their hands. “Maybe my eggs. I carry. But they are ours. Not mine. Ours.”
Jay’s chest tightened.
Alexia looked up quickly. “Unless that hurts you. Unless you would want another way. I have thought also about reciprocal IVF, but then maybe I carry your egg, or you carry, or…”
“Babe,” Jay said softly.
Alexia stopped.
Jay took both her hands. “You carrying your egg would not make them less mine.”
Alexia’s eyes searched hers.
“It wouldn’t,” Jay said, firmer now. “I mean, yes, I’ll probably have a weird moment because my brain loves admin and trauma, but no. If we do this, if we choose them together, if we raise them together, they’re ours. Biology can join the queue behind love, sleeplessness and whoever gets vomited on first.”
Alexia’s mouth trembled into a smile. “You would be vomited on first.”
“Absolutely. I have that energy.”
“You do.”
“Babies would look at me and think, yes, this one is washable.”
Alexia laughed and leaned into her, pressing her face into Jay’s shoulder. Jay wrapped an arm around her, kissing her hair. The conversation was still terrifying, but it was no longer locked behind the door. It was in the room now, sitting beside them in the morning light, and somehow it had not destroyed anything. Somehow it had made the room warmer.
“I’m scared too,” Alexia admitted after a while.
Jay turned her head. “Yeah?”
“Sí. Of course. I am not calm about this. I only look calm because my face is disciplined.”
“Your face is very disciplined.”
“Thank you.”
“Mine has no chain of command.”
“I know, bebé.”
Jay smiled against her hair.
Alexia continued, quieter. “I am scared of my body changing. Of leaving football. Of coming back and not being the same. Of wanting it too much. Of not being able to have it. Of having it and being overwhelmed. Of loving them so much I cannot breathe. Of doing something wrong and not knowing until years later.”
Jay closed her eyes.
There was relief in hearing it, not because she wanted Alexia afraid, but because fear sounded different when it was shared. Less like prophecy. More like weather.
“We’ll do things wrong,” Jay said.
Alexia lifted her head, unimpressed. “Comforting.”
“No, I mean, we will. Everyone does. But maybe the thing is we repair it. We apologise. We don’t make them carry our pride.”
Alexia looked at her for a long moment. “That sounds like a very good mother.”
Jay’s throat tightened again. “Don’t.”
“It does.”
“I’m fragile and uncaffeinated.”
“You are always fragile when praised.”
“It’s a medical condition.”
“I will write it in the baby note.”
“Please don’t.”
Alexia smiled, then reached up and kissed her. It was soft, morning slow, tasting faintly of toothpaste and sleep, nothing like the wine warm kisses from the night before. This one was sober. Certain. A quiet promise rather than a spark. Jay sank into it, hand cupping Alexia’s jaw, and for the first time the idea of children did not feel like a door with something terrible behind it. It felt like a door they might open together.
When Alexia pulled back, she rested her forehead against Jay’s. “So we talk to someone?”
Jay nodded. “Clinic?”
“Doctor first. Information.”
“Clara for legal stuff?”
“Sí.”
“Julia for schedules, because she’ll have a breakdown if we don’t tell her until you’re suddenly pregnant.”
Alexia snorted. “Julia will create a folder.”
“Everyone has folders but me.”
“You would create a folder.”
“I would create a command centre.”
“I know.”
Jay thought for a second. “We should probably not tell Mapi until there is something to tell.”
“Agreed.”
“She’ll start buying tiny leather jackets.”
“You would also buy tiny leather jackets.”
Jay’s face became distant. “Oh my God.”
“No.”
“They’d be so small.”
“No, Jay.”
“Tiny jackets, Alexia.”
“No.”
“With little boots.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Not for everyday. Just formal occasions.”
“What formal occasions require a baby leather jacket?”
“Meeting Lucy.”
Alexia laughed so hard she had to lean into Jay, and Jay caught her, grinning, because this was what made the fear bearable. Not pretending it wasn’t there. Not solving every wound before beginning. This. Alexia hungover and laughing in Jay’s T-shirt, their hands tangled, baby names hidden in a phone note, the future suddenly full of impossible things and tiny leather jackets with no formal purpose.
After a moment, Alexia sighed, her laughter fading into a tenderness so deep it changed her whole face. “I meant it,” she said. “Last night. Badly, maybe.”
“Beautifully, actually. The shoe helped.”
“I meant that I want them with you. Not just children. Your children. Our children. However biology works. However we make it. I want to look at them and see us. Not only faces. Us. The way we love. The way we fight to stay gentle. The way you make breakfast badly but with feeling.”
“My breakfasts have improved.”
“You burned toast yesterday.”
“That toaster has a personal issue with me.”
Alexia kissed her cheek. “I want a family with you, amor.”
Jay went very quiet.
The sentence entered her like sunlight into a closed room. A family with you. Not a family despite her. Not a family she had to earn her way into by being useful enough, funny enough, lovable enough. With her. Built around her too. Alexia had a way of saying things so simply they left no hiding place.
Jay looked down at their hands, at Alexia’s fingers threaded through hers, strong and elegant and real.
“I want that,” she said.
Alexia barely breathed.
Jay looked up, eyes bright and terrified and certain. “I’m scared out of my mind. Like, genuinely, I may need supervised access to Google because I can already feel myself about to search whether babies can sense emotional instability through walls. But I want it. With you. I want a family with you.”
Alexia’s face crumpled in the smallest, softest way.
Then she was in Jay’s lap, or as much as she could be without either of them falling off the bed, arms around Jay’s neck, kissing her with a sudden overwhelmed tenderness that made Jay laugh into her mouth before she kissed her back. It was messy and full of smiles, not the hungry drunken persuasion of the night before, but something brighter and more frightening. Joy, maybe. Hope. The dangerous kind. The kind that asked you to believe life could give you something beautiful and not take it away immediately.
Jay held her tight.
After a while, Alexia pulled back only far enough to murmur, “So now we make a baby.”
Jay stared at her.
Alexia’s mouth twitched.
“You are hungover,” Jay said.
“I am sober.”
“You are also in pain from wine.”
“That is separate.”
“And making a baby involves appointments, donor selection, a clinic, probably blood tests, more legal paperwork than either of us wants to acknowledge, and, tragically, not me simply looking determined.”
Alexia sighed dramatically. “Lesbian biology is very inconvenient.”
“It really is.”
“I still think you could do it if you focused.”
Jay laughed, tipping her head back. “Stop saying medically insane things while looking that beautiful. It’s confusing for my nervous system.”
Alexia smiled, smug now. “You think I am beautiful?”
“Oh, don’t start.”
“You do.”
“I always think you’re beautiful.”
“Even hungover?”
“Especially hungover. Very brave. Very tragic. Like a hot Victorian widow.”
Alexia narrowed her eyes. “Widow?”
“I’m alive in this scenario, just emotionally unavailable due to tuberculosis.”
“You are so strange.”
“You chose me for your reproductive destiny.”
“I did.” Alexia kissed the corner of her mouth. “And I stand by it.”
Jay’s laughter softened into something almost unbearably fond. She brushed Alexia’s hair back from her face, tucking loose strands behind her ear, then let her hand rest at her cheek. “Coffee first?”
Alexia nodded. “Coffee first. Then maybe we look at the note.”
“The baby note?”
“And the other one.”
Jay grinned slowly. “Project Tiny Putellas-Jones?”
Alexia’s blush was immediate and glorious.
Jay gasped. “That is actually what it’s called.”
“No.”
“It is.”
“It is not.”
“Show me.”
“No.”
“Alexia.”
“It was temporary.”
“You named our hypothetical children’s planning document Project Tiny Putellas-Jones and you let me think I was the chaotic one?”
Alexia shoved her shoulder, laughing despite herself. “Go make coffee, idiota.”
Jay caught her hand and kissed the palm. “Anything for the mother of my hypothetical leather jacket babies.”
“No leather jackets.”
“One.”
“No.”
“Fine. Tiny denim.”
“Jay.”
Jay kissed her again, quick and delighted, then slipped out of bed before Alexia could threaten her properly. At the door, she turned back.
Alexia was still sitting against the pillows in Jay’s T shirt, hair messy, face pale from hangover and soft with happiness, and the sight of her nearly stopped Jay in place. Not because it was dramatic. Because it was ordinary. Because maybe this was how a family began, not with certainty, not with perfect healing, not with every fear neatly solved, but with a drunken confession, a missing shoe, a morning conversation, and two women brave enough to admit they wanted something they could not fully control.
Jay leaned against the doorframe, smiling.
“What?” Alexia asked, suspicious.
“Nothing.”
“You are staring.”
“I’m appreciating.”
“You always say this when you are staring.”
“Because it’s always true.”
Alexia’s expression softened. “Coffee, bebé.”
Jay nodded. “Coffee.”
She went downstairs with her heart still racing, the house brighter than it had been the night before. In the kitchen, she filled the kettle, opened the cupboard, forgot why she had opened it, remembered, then took down two mugs. Her hands shook slightly when she set them on the counter, but not only from fear now.
From want.
From hope.
From the terrifying, ridiculous possibility that one day this kitchen would be louder. That there would be cereal on the floor and tiny socks under the table and Alexia correcting someone’s Spanish pronunciation while Jay argued that “mama” was a flexible title if said with enough swagger. That a child might run through this house and never once have to wonder whether love was leaving. That Jay might become the sort of place she had once needed.
Behind her, from upstairs, Alexia called, “Jay?”
“Yeah?”
A pause. Then, warm and dry and unmistakably hers, “Do not Google anything weird.”
Jay froze with her hand halfway to her phone.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
Jay slowly moved the phone away from the counter.
Alexia’s voice floated down again. “And no tiny leather jackets.”
Jay looked towards the ceiling, deeply offended. “You’re killing culture.”
“I hear you.”
“That’s my line.”
“I am using it.”
Jay laughed, bright and helpless, and the sound filled the kitchen like a promise.
Maybe she did not have a map. Maybe Alexia was right and she did. Maybe it was messy and full of wrong turns, old warnings, emergency snacks and roads that led accidentally to Girona. But upstairs, Alexia was waiting with a baby note on her phone and a hangover she refused to respect, and Jay knew, with a certainty that scared her and steadied her at the same time, that whatever path they took from here, they would take it together.
Even if the first official step involved coffee, legal documents, and Alexia Putellas explaining, with great dignity, why she had once believed reproductive destiny could be announced in a hallway while holding one designer shoe.
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Hi my lovelies. So I’d thought I’d have a cute little thing between Ale and Amor. I’m not entirely sure I love the ending but I think it’s sweet. Anyways, I hope you enjoy.
Self-Care
Alexia Putellas x Reader
Description: The development of yours and Ale’s self-care days.
Beautiful Girl Masterlist
May 2021
It had been a long week. Long, but good. You were in that final stretch of the season where finals came fast and thick, where every match carried weight, where there was no room to coast. Even though the league was technically already won, the standard never dipped. If anything, it sharpened. The team demanded the best. Nothing less.
You were tired. Not just physically. You felt it settling behind your eyes, that familiar fog creeping in as your mental capacity edged closer to its limit. It wasn’t new — you’d learned this feeling back in Wolfsburg — but experience had taught you to recognise it early. The heaviness in your limbs. The shortness of your patience. The quiet craving for stillness. The persistent wish to just stop, if only for a moment, without guilt.
Thursday became your sanctuary.
For Barça, Thursday was considered a “calmer” day. Training started thirty minutes later than usual and wrapped up almost an hour earlier. The sessions themselves were often sharper, more intense, but you didn’t mind that. If anything, you found yourself craving Thursdays, clinging to them as a marker in the week. Proof that rest could exist alongside ambition.
They usually began gently. Curled up with Alexia, her head resting on your chest or your body tucked into hers, limbs tangled in that easy way that came from familiarity. You took your time. Coffee sipped slowly. Breakfast picked at lazily. Soft kisses pressed into skin and quiet giggles shared for no reason at all. The drive to training was filled with Spanish and Catalan songs you were only just beginning to understand, Alexia singing along beside you, correcting your pronunciation when you tried. At training, she was more than happy to translate drills, her hands sometimes wandering a little too low, or lingering a second longer than strictly professional, a small smile always playing on her lips.
By late afternoon, the time was yours. Alexia had her standing appointment with the sports psychologist, then often spent the evening with her mother or her sister. You liked knowing where she was, liked the rhythm of it, even as you welcomed the solitude.
At first, when you’d just moved to Barcelona — before Alexia had fully rooted herself into your life — you filled Thursdays by exploring. Park Güell. Montjuïc. The Gothic Quarter. Random side streets that invited you in without warning. But now, with whatever this was between you having grown and softened and deepened into something more, Thursdays shifted. They became yours again. Time just for you.
You had your self-care routine perfected. Years in the making, now non-negotiable. It began with the first half of your everything shower — oils, shampoos, masks doing their quiet work while you moved through your skincare with careful precision. Shaving, waxing, smoothing every inch of yourself until you felt more like you, before finally surrendering to water that bordered on too hot, letting it seep into your bones and loosen everything you carried.
Thursdays gave you that space. That moment. The permission to stop. An entire afternoon devoted to yourself, indulged in purely for your own enjoyment.
And when evening settled in, you cooked. Slowly. Thoughtfully. Yes, there was a diet to consider, numbers to keep in mind, but Thursdays were different. A chance to experiment. To take your time. You sipped your drink, music low, dancing barefoot around your quiet little flat on the outskirts of Barcelona, content in the stillness you’d carved out just for yourself.
You were in the middle of cooking dinner, onions just beginning to sizzle in the pan, when the doorbell rang. You barely spared it a second thought as you crossed the flat, wiping your hands on the edge of your robe. You expected Señora García — your elderly neighbour who occasionally needed to borrow something — or maybe Marc from next door, who had an uncanny habit of asking you to open bottles for him.
You pulled the door open.
“Mi amor?” Alexia’s voice was soft, surprised. Her eyes swept over you in one slow glance; your hair wrapped in a towel, a robe she’d never seen before hanging loosely from your shoulders and tied at your waist. Warm air drifted out behind you, rich with the scent of onions and oil, the quiet hiss of something frying following it.
“Ale?” You blinked, momentarily thrown. She was meant to be having dinner with her mother and uncle. She’d told you that herself that afternoon, kissed you gently, murmured that she’d see you in the morning. “Wha-your mum?”
“Mamí isn’t feeling too great, so we rescheduled.” Alexia supplied it easily, but her brow furrowed as she took you in again. “Is everything okay?” The question carried more than it needed to. You weren’t expecting someone else, were you?
“Yeah. Everything’s good.” You were still a little stunned, but you leaned up onto your tiptoes anyway, pressing a light kiss to her lips, grounding yourself in something familiar.
“C-can I come in?” she asked.
“Huh? Oh. Yes. Yes, of course. Sorry, I just wasn’t…” You trailed off, shaking your head.
“I can go, if you want.” Alexia half-turned, gesturing back down the corridor. It would hurt, leaving like that, but she would. If it was what you needed, she’d do it without hesitation. She would do anything for you.
“No, don’t be stupid.” Your smile came easily now, the haze lifting. You reached for her hand, tugging her gently into the flat. “I’m in the middle of making my tea, but I think I’ve got enough for you?”
“Tea?” Alexia echoed, amused. “As in the drink?”
“Oh, uhhhhh ... Dinner. Cena, right?”
“Sí,” Alexia smiled, warmth settling back into her features. “Cena.”
“Am I interrupting something?” Alexia asked as she settled onto one of the bar stools, the wood creaking softly beneath her weight.
You snorted, shoulders relaxing as you turned back toward the stove. “No. Not really.”
“Not really?” Alexia’s eyes narrowed just slightly, that familiar glint of curiosity (and suspicion) settling in. “So I was interrupting something.”
You rolled your eyes, lips curling despite yourself. Damn Alexia and her infuriating ability to listen, to catch the pauses between words, to infer more than you ever intended to give away.
“No, no…” you tried, waving a hand dismissively as you reached for the wooden spoon, stirring the chicken now sizzling in the pan. Alexia didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. She simply raised an eyebrow, folding her arms loosely as she watched you. Waiting.
“Fine,” you huffed, defeated. “So. Obviously, you know Thursdays are quieter.” You glanced over your shoulder at her, then back to the pan. “When I first moved here, I used them to explore. Walk everywhere. Get lost on purpose. Learn the city.” You paused. “But now I have you to show me everything…”
You caught the way her blush bloomed instantly, warm and unmistakable, creeping up her neck and settling high on her cheeks. It mirrored your own.
“So,” you continued, clearing your throat, “I use Thursdays as a bit of a… ‘me day’. You know?”
“A… ‘me day’?” Alexia echoed, the words foreign on her tongue.
“Yeah. Like, self-care.” You shrugged, reaching for the chilli. “Face masks. Hair masks. Shaving. All that stuff. And then I cook.” Your robe and the pan in front of you.
She hummed softly, thinking it through. “And…” Alexia paused, tilting her head. “That helps you unwind?”
“Yeah.” You nodded, a little more serious now. “Everything’s so different compared to Germany or England. New language, new systems, new expectations. There’s just … a lot … of information all the time.” You shrugged again. “So this is my time to decompress. Reset a bit. Be English for a while. No translating or learning. Just me.” Then, lighter, teasing, “And as a bonus, it sets me up nicely for weekend games.”
Alexia smiled at that as she stood, moving toward you until she was close enough that you could feel her warmth at your back. Carefully, deliberately, she rested her hands on your hips, thumbs brushing just above your hips, turning you to face her.
You looked up. She was close. Impossibly so. The soft light from the kitchen cast gentle shadows across her face, her hazel eyes catching the flicker of the candle you’d lit earlier, reflecting the tiny flame.
“You’re beautiful,” you said before you could stop yourself.
The effect was immediate. Her breath caught. Her cheeks deepened from pink to a vivid red, lips pressing together in a shy, almost disbelieving smile.
“I don’t think anyone has called me that before,” she admitted quietly.
“Well,” you shrugged, resting your forehead briefly against her chest, “you are.”
Carefully, tenderly, she smoothed some damp hair away from the back of your neck, her touch reverent.
“So are you, mi amor,” Alexia murmured. She pressed a light kiss to the top of your head. “Inside and out.”
January 2022
“Mmmmm, bon dia, mi amor.” Alexia’s voice was low and warm as she snuck up behind you, her arms settling easily around your waist.
You jumped despite yourself, shoulders tensing for half a second before you relaxed back into her, instinctively leaning into the familiar comfort of her body. You laughed softly at your own reaction.
“Hi, beautiful.” You tilted your head slightly, pushing your cheek out in invitation. She obliged immediately, pressing a light kiss there before giggling under her breath.
“I brought un chocolate,” she said proudly as she pulled back just enough to reach around you.
You gasped, entirely overdramatic, eyes lighting up as she passed you the warm cup. “And it’s from that place down the road.” You pouted, clutching it like something precious. “Ale, that’s so sweet.”
“Only for you, mi amor,” she replied easily, lips curving into a soft smile as she watched you take your first sip.
“Iros!” Get a room. Mapí’s voice rang out from the other side of the room.
“Tú y Ingrid son igualmente asquerosas,” you and Ingrid are just as gross. Jenni chimed in without missing a beat followed immediately by an indignant “Oi!” from Mapí.
You stuck your tongue out in Mapí’s direction, choosing to ignore the comment entirely as Alexia laughed quietly beside you.
“So,” you said after taking another sip, finally disentangling yourself from her arms. “I was thinking… what are you doing tomorrow after training?”
You already knew the answer, really. Her mum and sister were both out of town this week, and Alexia had been noticeably restless, unsure what to do with a suddenly free Thursday evening.
“Uhhh… no sé.” I don’t know. She shrugged, eyes flicking down briefly. “Probably just relax… por qué?” Why
“Well,” you started, hesitating, eyes dropping to your shoes. “I was thinking… do you want to come to mine tonight?”
Alexia blinked. “But it’s Thursday…”
“I know.”
“But Thursdays are your day.”
“I know that too.” You smiled into your cup, taking another sip, deliberately casual. She stared at you now, clearly trying to work through it, unsure where the line was.
You sighed, rolling your eyes affectionately. “You want to sit and relax and be calm, right?”
“Sí,” she answered slowly.
“And I want to see you tonight.” You paused, softer now. “So. Two birds with one stone. Relax at my place.”
“Two … birds?… Qué?”
“It’s an expression.” You waved it off. “I’ll be having a relaxing night in my flat. You’ll be having a relaxing night in yours. So let’s relax together.”
“But it’s your-”
“Ale,” you interrupted gently. You reached for her hand with your free one, threading your fingers through hers and giving it a small squeeze. “I want you there.”
She looked at you then, really looked, her expression softening completely. The noise of the room faded into the background a little as her thumb brushed over your knuckles.
“Okay,” she said quietly, smiling.
Alexia was almost giddy as she waited for you on the couch, legs tucked beneath her, hands clasped together like she didn’t quite know where to put them. You were still in the bathroom, pulling out all of your bottles, tubs and jars, lining them up with careful familiarity. When you finally opened the door for her earlier, you’d looked utterly adorable - your now-familiar robe, affectionately dubbed your fancy robe, hanging loose around your body, exposing a sports bra and last season’s training shorts. Alexia had pretended not to notice the small stitched 11 on your thigh, though her heart had swelled all the same.
“Okay, baby,” you said as you flopped onto the sofa beside her, a basket of brightly coloured things balanced on your lap. “You ready?”
Alexia eyed the contents with open suspicion. She had never seen this many products outside of a shop before.
“Where do we start?” she asked, carefully pushing the silly flutter of anxiety aside.
“I usually start with hair.” You reached into the basket, pulling out a small glass bottle. “Oil and massage first. Then face mask.” You nodded toward a vivid green tub. Alexia shuffled a little closer, nodding along as if she understood.
You smiled softly at her nervousness. You knew she was excited, she’d been buzzing since she arrived, but new things had always unsettled her, no matter how much she wanted them.
“Do you want me to do yours,” you asked gently, “or do you want to do it yourself?”
She hesitated, then looked up at you. “You,” she said. “Por favor.” Please
“Of course, beautiful.” You leaned in, pressing a series of quick kisses to her lips until she was giggling despite herself. “Sit on the floor for me?”
She slipped off the couch obediently, settling between your knees. You poured a little oil into your palms, rubbing your hands together to warm it before threading your fingers into her hair. Almost immediately, you felt her relax. With each slow circle of your fingers against her scalp, her shoulders dropped, her breathing deepened. A quiet, unguarded moan slipped from her before she could stop it.
“You’re tense, my love,” you murmured.
“Cansada,” Tired she mumbled, voice low and heavy.
“Relax,” you whispered. “I’ve got you.”
Alexia would later swear it was the best ten minutes of her life. Your hands were magic, coaxing the stress of the season out of her bit by bit. You worked through every tight spot, even the stubborn kink at the back of her neck that had been bothering her for weeks, until her head felt light and her body loose.
“Te toca a ti,” Your turn, she slurred eventually, eyes half-closed.
“I did mine before you came, baby.” You smiled, helping her back onto the couch, amused by the soft oh she let out as she sank into the cushions. “Face masks next.”
She stretched lazily, then nodded. “Puedes hacerlo?” Can you do it?
“Of course, beautiful girl.”
You straddled her gently, placing the tub on the arm of the sofa. Her hands found your waist without thinking.
“Hola,” you smiled.
“Hola,” she echoed, grinning. You leaned down, kissing her slowly, deliberately.
“Mmm… t’estimo, mi amor.” I love you
“Love you too, baby,” you murmured back.
You dipped your fingers into the cream. “This might be cold,” you warned.
“Oye,” she protested as you touched her cheek, jerking away instinctively.
“Ale,” you whined, laughing, gently cupping her jaw to keep her still. “Don’t move.”
“Sí, mi amor,” she agreed, smiling softly, eyes closing as she let you take care of her.
“I’m happy I asked you to come over tonight,” you whispered.
“I’m happy I said yes.”
April 2026
“Ale,” Pina smiled brightly as she slipped herself neatly between you and Alexia, linking an arm through each of yours before either of you could react. “Y/N.”
“Hola,” Alexia replied easily, offering the younger girl a fond smile.
You, on the other hand, narrowed your eyes. The tone was too sweet. The grin too wide. You knew that look — Pina was absolutely up to something.
“What?” you asked flatly, untangling yourself.
“What do you mean what?” Pina shot back, feigning offence as she pressed a hand to her chest.
“You know exactly what I mean.” You raised an eyebrow at her, unimpressed.
She held your gaze for a second, then sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes and tipping her head back toward the sky. “Ugh, fine. You caught me.” She lifted her hands in surrender. “We were just wondering if you wanted to go on a team night out?”
You hummed. “Who’s we?”
From the other side, Alexia turned her head, already scanning the room for the usual culprits.
“Esmee…” Pina started.
“And?” You folded your arms, waiting.
“Clara…” she added carefully.
You pursed your lips, unconvinced.
“AndCataKikaSydneyVickyOnaMapíandLaia,” Pina rushed out in one breath.
“No.” Alexia’s voice was sharp, immediate, cutting across.
“But you didn’t even hear what the plan was!” Pina whined, shoulders slumping.
“I don’t need to hear it,” Alexia replied firmly. “It’s not happening.”
She sounded every inch the mother she pretended she wasn’t. You couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at your lips, well aware of how much she claimed to despise the Team Mother title the fans had gifted her.
“But, Ale…” Pina tried again, arms flopping uselessly at her sides.
“No.”
“Por fav-”
“No, Clàudia.”
“Por qué?” Why Pina tilted her head up, brown eyes wide and shining, fully committing to the act.
“Do not even attempt that,” Alexia warned, already recognising the tactic. “It is a Thursday.”
“So?” Pina countered immediately.
“So it is a Thursday, and we cannot go out.” Alexia’s eyes flickered, just briefly, toward you.
Pina caught it. Instantly, she twisted around to face you, latching on with renewed hope.
“Please?” she tried.
Behind her, you saw it - the subtle shift in Alexia’s expression. Not the stern captain now, but something softer. Hopeful. Thursdays had become sacred. Your shared self-care nights. Quiet. Calm. Something Alexia cherished more than she ever admitted. Ever since that first time years ago, it had become a regular feature in her life and would anything to protect it.
You sighed lightly. “You go,” you conceded. “Ale and I will have to rain-check.”
“Boooo,” Pina huffed, shoulders slumping again.
“Whatever,” you laughed, shoving her lightly away. You wiggled your eyebrows at her. Alexia’s hand found yours immediately, squeezing once. “At least I can get a date.”
Erm what’s this?! A surprise epilogue for @oosa because they’ve been stuck at work…. Enjoy this absolutely ridiculous chapter that I almost died writing last night.
Word count - 3.5k
A week after Jay's appendix betrayed her, attempted to ruin everyone's emotional stability, and was removed under circumstances Jay still described as "medically dramatic and narratively rude," she turned up at the training centre with a suspicious bag.
That was the first problem.
The second problem was that she was not supposed to be at the training centre at all.
She was supposed to be at home, resting. Resting, in Alexia's very firm and frequently repeated definition, meant lying on the sofa, taking painkillers on schedule, eating actual food, walking short careful laps around the apartment, not bending dramatically for dropped objects, not trying to prove she could still do calf raises, and absolutely not appearing at Barça's training facility in sunglasses, loose shorts, an oversized hoodie, fresh surgical dressings under her shirt and the expression of a woman who had brought the room a gift no one had asked for.
Alexia saw her first from across the corridor.
She stopped so abruptly that Patri walked into the back of her.
"Ow," Patri said, then followed Alexia's gaze. "Oh no."
Jay was standing near the players' lounge with a tote bag hanging from one shoulder and a takeaway coffee in her hand, looking pale but offensively pleased with herself. She had that post-hospital glow people got when they had survived something serious and immediately decided survival meant they were immune to consequences.
Her sunglasses were pushed up into her hair. Her hoodie was zipped halfway, swallowing her frame more than usual, and she was leaning against the wall in a way that was probably meant to look casual but mostly looked like she had tried standing normally and her body had filed a complaint.
Alexia's face changed.
The whole corridor felt it.
Jay, sensing danger in the same way small animals sensed storms, lifted her free hand.
"Before you get hot in a bad way," she called, "I'm not here to train."
Alexia walked towards her.
Jay's smile faltered by exactly one responsible centimetre. "Or run."
Alexia kept walking.
"Or lift."
Still walking.
"Or emotionally inspire anyone to lift."
Alexia stopped in front of her, close enough that Jay's grin softened automatically because proximity to Alexia still rewired her priorities no matter how much trouble she was in. Alexia took Jay's chin gently in one hand and turned her face from side to side, inspecting her like a doctor, girlfriend and disappointed captain all at once.
"You are meant to be resting," Alexia said.
Jay's eyes flicked to Patri, who had followed at a safe distance for entertainment, then back to Alexia. "I am resting vertically."
"No."
"I travelled seated."
"No."
"I walked slowly from the car."
"You drove?"
"No, Julia drove me."
Alexia narrowed her eyes. "Julia brought you here?"
Jay winced. "In Julia's defence, she did not know what was in the bag."
Patri immediately looked at the tote.
Alexia looked at the tote.
Jay hugged it closer.
The corridor went quiet in the very specific way that meant a third problem had just presented itself.
Alexia's voice lowered. "Jay."
Jay smiled, too wide. "It's not medical equipment."
"That does not comfort me."
"It's not alive."
Patri said, "Why would that be the second thing you clarify?"
Jay pointed at her. "Excellent question, and I respect your investigative instincts."
Alexia held out her hand. "Give me the bag."
Jay pulled it slightly behind her. "No."
"Jay."
"No, because you're going to judge the bag before you understand the bag."
"I am already judging the bag."
"That is exactly the prejudice I feared."
By then, Mapi had appeared from the dressing room, still adjusting the sleeves of her training top, Ingrid behind her with the patient expression of someone who had heard commotion and correctly assumed Jay was responsible. Lucy came next, then Keira, then Jana, because Barça players had the collective survival instinct of meerkats when drama entered a hallway. Within thirty seconds, a small crowd had formed.
Jay looked delighted.
Alexia looked betrayed by physics, architecture, and the concept of doors.
"Why are you all here?" Alexia asked.
Mapi pointed at Jay. "Because she has a bag and you have the face."
Lucy leaned against the wall. "That combination has historically produced excellent content."
Jay touched her chest. "I am recovering from organ violence and you are making me sound untrustworthy."
"You are untrustworthy," Alexia said.
Jay turned back to her, wounded. "Baby."
"You left hospital four days ago and texted me yesterday asking if sneezing counted as core training."
"It engages the area."
"No."
Jana had gone pale at the word organ. "Is this about the appendix?"
Jay's expression softened immediately. "Baby Jana, come here."
Jana blinked. "Why did you call me that?"
Everyone looked at Jay.
Jay's hand tightened on the tote strap.
Alexia closed her eyes. "No."
Jay's face brightened. "You don't know what it is yet."
"I know enough."
"You don't."
“You just called her Baby Jana."
Jana made a very small noise.
Mapi whispered, "This is already my favourite day."
Jay straightened carefully, then winced, tried to disguise the wince as a cool adjustment of her hoodie, and failed because Alexia saw everything. Alexia's hand went at once to her waist, steadying her with firm, protective warmth.
"Sit down," Alexia said.
"I'm doing a presentation."
"You can present sitting."
"Leadership requires posture."
"Recovery requires not being stupid."
Jay considered arguing, looked at Alexia's face, then allowed herself to be guided into the players' lounge with all the dignity of a woman being escorted by love and medical necessity. Alexia kept one hand at the small of her back the entire way, fingers spread protectively, and Jay, despite the suspicious tote and the entire team following them like a funeral procession of gossip, leaned into the touch with a softness that gave away how tired she really was.
The lounge became full almost immediately.
Someone dragged a chair out for Jay. Alexia made her sit in it. Jay objected until Alexia placed both hands on the arms of the chair, leaned down into her space, and said, very calmly, "Sit, bebé."
Jay sat.
Lucy muttered, "Powerful."
Mapi nodded. "Medical authority and girlfriend authority combined."
Jana hovered near the edge of the group, looking increasingly alarmed. "Why am I involved?"
Jay reached into the tote bag with ceremonial gravity. "Because, Jana Fernández, life has connected us in a way neither of us asked for."
Jana whispered, "I don't like this."
"You will."
"I won't."
"You might."
"I really don't think I will."
Alexia stood beside Jay with her arms folded, trying very hard to look angry and not curious. It was not going well. Jay saw the curiosity and smiled up at her.
"You're intrigued."
"I am worried."
"Those can hold hands."
"No."
Jay lifted the object from the bag.
Silence fell.
For one second, nobody understood what they were looking at.
It was a clear jar, medium sized, with a silver lid. Inside, suspended in pale yellowish liquid, floated a small pink rubbery object that looked vaguely organic if one had no knowledge of anatomy and a troubling amount of confidence. A label had been stuck neatly to the front of the jar. In Jay's uneven handwriting, it read…
BABY JANA
1994-2024
GONE BUT MEDICALLY INCONVENIENT
No one breathed.
Then Lucy made a sound like a kettle exploding.
Mapi bent forward with both hands on her knees.
Patri turned away at once, shoulders shaking.
Jana stared at the jar in horror.
Alexia looked from the jar to Jay, then back to the jar, as if her brain had chosen, wisely, not to accept the information all at once.
"Jay," she said slowly. "What is that?"
Jay held the jar up with grave tenderness. "My appendix."
Alexia stared. "No."
Jay sighed. "Emotionally it’s mine.”
"Jay."
"Physically it’s not because my real one could not be recovered."
"It was infected medical waste."
"It was part of me."
"It tried to kill you."
"And now I will never get closure."
Mapi slid down the wall laughing.
Ingrid covered her mouth with one hand, eyes bright.
Jana pointed weakly at the jar. "Why is it called Baby Jana?"
Jay turned towards her with deep seriousness. "Because my appendix situation began after your stomach bug rumours, and while you are innocent legally, spiritually the timeline is complicated."
"I didn't do anything!"
"I know." Jay nodded compassionately. "That's why this is not Big Jana. It's Baby Jana."
Jana sat down on the nearest sofa as if her knees had stopped supporting the weight of the conversation.
Alexia pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "Dios mío."
Jay looked up at her, hopeful. "You hate it?"
"Yes."
"But in a loving way?"
“No."
"A little?"
Alexia looked at the jar again. The fake appendix bobbed gently in the liquid like a cursed sea creature. "Where did you get this?"
Jay hesitated.
"Jay."
“Online."
"You ordered a fake appendix?"
"I was grieving."
"You were on pain medication."
"Which enhanced my emotional clarity."
Lucy wiped tears from her face. "Please tell me you ordered it from hospital."
Jay looked offended. "I waited until I was home. I'm not reckless."
Alexia stared at her.
Jay's mouth curved. "Okay, I ordered it from hospital."
The room collapsed.
Keira had to sit on the arm of the sofa. Patri was laughing silently into her own hands. Mapi was on the floor now, one hand pressed to her stomach, wheezing, "Gone but medically inconvenient," like it was scripture. Even Ingrid, usually the most dignified person in any room Mapi occupied, had turned into the wall and was shaking with laughter.
Jana looked at Jay with wide, betrayed eyes. "You named your fake organ after me."
Jay reached for her hand, then remembered she was holding a jar of fake organ and wisely did not. "With affection."
"That is not affection!"
"It's legacy."
"I don't want legacy!"
"You're in history now, mate."
Alexia, despite herself, made a sound.
Not a laugh.
Almost.
Jay's head snapped up. "Ha! You laughed."
"I did not."
"You nearly laughed."
"I nearly fainted."
"Same facial region."
Alexia put one hand on the back of Jay's chair, the other on her own hip. "You were told to rest."
"I am resting."
"You came to the training centre with a fake appendix in a jar."
"For morale."
"For chaos."
"Morale's weird cousin."
Alexia looked at her for a long moment, and beneath the absurdity, beneath the jar and the label and the entire team losing their minds around them, her face softened. Jay was pale. Still sore. Still moving like every laugh pulled at something tender in her abdomen. But her eyes were bright again. Not fever bright. Not pain bright. Jay bright. The kind that made rooms bend towards her, the kind Alexia had missed so much in the hospital that seeing it now made her throat tighten.
Jay saw the shift.
She always did.
Her own smile softened. "I'm okay, baby."
Alexia's expression warned her not to lie.
"I'm sore," Jay amended. "And tired. And Julia is outside in the car threatening to call you if I exceed forty minutes. But I'm okay."
Alexia leaned down and kissed her forehead, long enough that the room softened for a second despite itself. "You scared me."
Jay closed her eyes briefly under the kiss. "I know."
"You are still scaring me."
"With Baby Jana?"
"With everything."
Jay reached up with her free hand, fingers curling gently around Alexia's wrist. "I promise I'm not training. I just wanted to see everyone."
"And show them your fake appendix."
Jay's eyes brightened again. "Yes, exactly."
Alexia sighed, but the sound had surrendered at the edges. "Dios mio."
Jay turned to the team and lifted the jar. "I would like everyone to sign Baby Jana."
Jana made a strangled sound. "Please stop saying that."
"No."
"Jay."
"You're the godmother."
"I'm the victim."
"Both can be true."
Lucy was laughing so hard she had to lean against Keira. "Where do we sign?"
Alexia looked at Lucy. "Do not encourage her."
Lucy took the marker Jay produced from the tote bag because apparently this had been planned with unsettling detail. "Too late. I'm emotionally committed."
Jay held the jar carefully while Lucy signed the glass with great ceremony.
Lucy Bronze: RIP little traitor
Jay read it and nodded. "Strong. Respectful."
Keira signed next, hand shaking with laughter.
Keira Walsh: Glad you're gone x
Mapi crawled up from the floor, grabbed the marker, and wrote in letters far too large for the jar: MAPI WAS HERE AND DID NOT APPROVE THE MURDER ATTEMPT
Jay held the jar away. "You've taken up a quarter of the memorial space."
Mapi wiped her eyes. "My grief is large."
Ingrid signed neatly beneath it.
Ingrid Engen: Rest badly.
Jay stared at it, delighted. "Dark. Scandinavian. Excellent."
Patri took the marker with the exhausted dignity of a woman who knew she would participate even while judging everyone.
Patri Guijarro: You are all insane.
Jay looked at it. "Patri, this is about the appendix, not us."
"It applies broadly."
Cata drew a tiny face on the fake appendix through the glass.
Alexia immediately said, "No."
Cata stepped back. "Too late."
The team surged closer to look.
The fake appendix now had two tiny eyes and an expression of profound regret.
Jay pressed the jar to her chest. "She has personality."
Jana covered her face. "She?"
Jay looked down at the jar. "Baby Jana is complex."
"This is bullying."
"This is remembrance."
Ona signed with a tiny heart. Pina wrote dramatic forever in our stomachs, which made Alexia say, "That is not where the appendix is," and Jay reply, "Baby, let artists work." Aitana signed very neatly and then asked if Jay was actually allowed to be laughing this much, which made Alexia immediately point at Jay and say, "Exactly," and Jay immediately sit straighter as if posture could prove medical compliance.
When the jar finally reached Jana, the room quieted in anticipation.
Jana looked at it like it was a legal summons.
Jay held it out with both hands. "It would mean a lot to Baby Jana."
Jana stared at her.
Jay's eyes widened slightly, soft and pleading. "She looks up to you."
"She does not have eyes."
"Cata gave her eyes."
Jana looked.
The tiny drawn face stared back through the glass.
Jana broke.
She laughed so hard she had to sit down again, head in her hands, shoulders shaking while everyone applauded like she had scored in a final. Jay looked triumphant, then immediately winced and pressed one hand lightly to her abdomen.
Alexia saw it.
Her hand was on Jay's shoulder instantly. "Enough."
"I'm fine."
"You winced."
"I laughed internally wrong."
"You are going home."
"But Jana hasn't signed."
Jana, still crying with laughter, reached for the marker. "Give it here before I change my mind."
Jay brightened and held the jar out.
Jana wrote very slowly, while everyone watched.
Jana Fernández: I am innocent.
Jay read it, then looked at her with solemn respect. "Powerful statement. Legally useful."
Jana pointed at her. "Do not name another organ after me."
"I cannot promise that."
"Jay!"
Alexia took the jar from Jay before she could defend future organ rights. "No more organs. No more jars. No more training centre visits without approval."
Jay looked up at her, instantly softer because Alexia was holding the jar with the careful disgust of a woman in love beyond reason. "You're holding Baby Jana."
"I am confiscating Baby Jana."
"That's basically co parenting."
Alexia closed her eyes.
The team howled.
Mapi, who had recovered enough to stand, pointed between them. "This is the weirdest family I have ever seen."
Jay leaned back in her chair, pale but glowing. "Thank you."
"It was not praise."
"I receive all feedback as praise while recovering."
Alexia touched the side of Jay's face, gently turning her attention away from Mapi. "You are tired."
Jay's humour softened into honesty. "Yeah."
The team quieted slightly.
Alexia crouched in front of her, the jar tucked safely under one arm because apparently this was her life now, and placed her free hand on Jay's knee. "You saw everyone. They signed the terrible jar. Now you go home and rest."
Jay looked at her, eyes warm and a little vulnerable beneath the jokes. "Come with me?"
Alexia's face softened immediately. "I have ten minutes. Then I have to finish meeting with staff."
Jay's mouth curved. "Ten minutes of escort by captain?"
"Ten minutes of making sure you do not start a cult around Baby Jana."
"Too late. Mapi's already in."
Mapi raised her hand. "I am treasurer."
"No," Alexia said.
Jay laughed, then winced again.
Alexia stood at once. "Car. Now."
This time Jay did not argue.
That, more than the wince, told Alexia she really was tired.
The team gave her an absurd farewell as Alexia helped her up, everyone calling things after her as if she were leaving for war rather than returning to the sofa under strict medical supervision.
"Rest, idiot," Lucy said warmly.
"Goodbye, Baby Jana," Mapi called, pressing a hand dramatically to her heart.
"I am innocent," Jana shouted again, just in case the room had forgotten.
Jay lifted one hand without turning. "History will decide."
Alexia slid an arm carefully around Jay's waist, not holding her up exactly, because Jay would hate that, but close enough to support if she needed it. Jay leaned into her more than she probably meant to. In the corridor, away from the team's laughter, she went quieter.
Alexia glanced at her. "Pain?"
"Little bit."
"Jay."
"Medium little bit."
"Car."
"I'm going."
"You are leaning."
"Affectionately."
Alexia stopped beside the exit and turned Jay gently towards her. "Look at me."
Jay looked.
The teasing fell away as soon as their eyes met.
Alexia touched Jay's cheek, thumb moving softly beneath the edge of her sunglasses. "You do not have to make everyone laugh to prove you are okay."
Jay swallowed.
"I know," she said.
Alexia's expression said, Do you?
Jay's mouth twisted faintly. "I wanted them to stop looking scared."
Alexia's heart ached.
Of course.
Of course beneath the fake appendix and the jar signatures and Baby Jana's cursed memorial label, there had been that too. Jay trying to return herself to people as something funny, something bright, something recognisable. Jay trying to say I am still here in the only language that made fear less heavy for everyone else.
Alexia stepped closer, careful of her stomach, and kissed her.
Softly at first. Then again, warmer, one hand at Jay's jaw, the other still absurdly holding the signed fake appendix jar between them. Jay smiled into the second kiss, tired and tender and entirely hers.
When Alexia drew back, she murmured, "You are okay even when you are not funny."
Jay's eyes went a little bright.
Then she glanced down at the jar tucked under Alexia's arm. "What about when I'm hilarious?"
Alexia rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "Then you are annoying also."
"Loved?"
"Sí, bebé. Very loved."
Jay's smile softened properly then.
Julia was waiting outside in the car with the engine running and the expression of a woman who had already received three messages about the jar and was reconsidering several life choices. She looked at Jay as Alexia helped her in, then at the jar in Alexia's hand.
"Absolutely not," Julia said.
Jay settled gingerly into the passenger seat. "Baby Jana needs a legal guardian."
Julia put the car in gear. "I am driving you home and then calling Clara."
Jay looked at Alexia through the open door. "She's jealous."
Alexia leaned in, kissed her forehead, then placed the jar gently into Jay's lap because despite everything, despite the horror of it, despite the fact that she would never admit this to anyone, it had made Jay smile.
"Go home," Alexia said. "Rest. I come after training."
Jay looked up at her. "Promise?"
Alexia touched her face one last time. "Claro."
Jay's fingers curled around her wrist for a second, quick and needy before she let go. "Love you, Ale."
Alexia's throat warmed. "Te amo. And no more online shopping while medicated."
Jay glanced at Baby Jana.
Alexia followed her gaze.
Jay smiled faintly. "No promises."
"Jay."
Julia drove away before Alexia could climb into the car and confiscate the entire recovered patient.
Alexia stood at the kerb for a moment, watching them go, one hand still warm from Jay's grip. Behind her, through the training centre doors, she could hear the team laughing again, Mapi's voice rising above everyone else as she declared herself Baby Jana's honorary aunt.
Alexia closed her eyes.
Then she laughed too.
Because Jay was home.
Because Jay was healing.
Because somewhere in Julia's car, her impossible girlfriend was cradling a fake appendix in a signed jar and probably planning a retirement ceremony for it.
Because fear had not won.
And because, God help her, Alexia already knew she would make space for Baby Jana on a shelf if Jay looked at her with those eyes.
In the car, Alexia sat in the passenger seat and stared at her phone as if she could force it to become something else.
A message.
A mistake.
A stupid Jay voice note sent from a hospital bed saying, Babe, dramatic update, my appendix has unionised.
Anything.
But the screen stayed flat and silent in her hand, bright with useless information. Time. Battery. Notifications from the team group she could not open yet. No messages from Jay. No missed calls from Jay. No little typing bubble. No proof, in the language of modern life, that the woman Alexia loved was still close enough to reach.
Of course there was nothing.
Jay was in surgery.
Jay was under bright lights with strangers around her, body opened because something inside her had ruptured while Alexia was on a football pitch passing a ball.
The thought landed so violently that Alexia bent forward, one hand clamping over her mouth, the other gripping her phone until the edges bit into her palm. It was not a clean thought. It did not come as a sentence and leave. It came as image after image, cruel and disordered. Jay pale in bed that morning, still grinning because she had never met pain she did not try to flirt through. Jay asking for a kiss in that ridiculous, hopeful voice. Alexia stepping away because she thought Jay had Jana's stomach bug, because she was being careful, because she had believed there would be time later.
No mouth, Alexia had said.
You're cruel, Jay had replied, hand pressed dramatically to her stomach.
I am careful.
Cruelfully careful.
At the time, Alexia had rolled her eyes and smiled because it had been Jay being Jay. Sick, annoying, affectionate, still trying to pull Alexia down by the wrist for a kiss she had no intention of letting her have while there was a possible stomach virus in the apartment. Alexia had kissed her forehead instead. Had tucked the sheet around her. Had told her to drink water and not be dramatic. Had gone to training because Jay had waved her away and muttered something about suffering bravely beneath oppression.
Now Jay's appendix had burst.
Now the joke had teeth.
Alexia made a small sound into her hand.
Eli, driving with more care than speed despite the panic sitting in the car like a third person, reached across at the red light and wrapped her fingers around Alexia's wrist.
"Respira, cariño," she said softly. "Breathe."
Alexia shook her head. The movement was tiny, almost childlike. "I left her."
Eli's hand tightened. "You are going to say this many times."
"Because it is true."
"And I will tell you many times that it is not the truth you think it is."
Alexia turned towards her mother, tears already thickening her vision. "She was alone on the floor."
Eli's face changed. Not much, because Eli had lived long enough to know that fear sometimes needed someone steady beside it, not another person collapsing into it. But her mouth tightened, and grief passed through her eyes like weather. "Julia found her."
"She should not have needed Julia."
"She had Julia because she is loved by many people."
"I am her person."
"Sí," Eli said. "You are. And being her person does not mean you become God. You cannot know everything before it happens."
Alexia looked away, out through the windscreen at the city moving past in unbearable normality. Scooters cut between lanes. A woman crossed the street with a coffee in one hand and a bag in the other. Sunlight flashed off balconies. Barcelona was golden and careless and alive, continuing around them while Alexia sat in the passenger seat with her training clothes still clinging to her skin and the morning splitting open behind her.
"She asked me for a kiss," Alexia whispered.
"I know."
"I thought it was funny."
"It was funny."
Alexia looked back at her.
Eli's eyes softened. "It was funny because Jay made it funny. Because she loves to flirt with you. Because she is ridiculous and she knows you love this." Her thumb moved over Alexia's wrist, slow and firm. "Do not turn every sweet moment into a weapon against yourself."
Alexia closed her eyes.
Jay appeared immediately.
Pale. Fever bright. Still smiling. Still trying to chase Alexia's mouth when Alexia leaned close enough to check her temperature. Her blonde hair sticking up against the pillow. One hand on her stomach, the other reaching lazily for Alexia's hoodie sleeve.
Babe, I need healing.
You need water.
Mouth to mouth is mostly water adjacent.
No.
You're violating my rights.
You are contagious.
I am romantic.
Alexia pressed her fingers to her lips hard enough to hurt.
"I should have stayed."
"You thought she had a stomach virus."
"She looked wrong."
"You say this now."
"She did."
"And if you had stayed," Eli said gently, "you would still not have known her appendix had burst until she became worse. You are not a doctor."
"I know her."
"Yes. You know her. And Jay is very good at making herself look less hurt than she is."
Alexia let out a broken breath because that was the thing, the exact thing, the old unfair truth of Jay that made love frightening. Jay could charm through pain. She could joke through fear. She could flirt when she was dizzy, tease when she was shaking, turn a collapsing body into a performance if she thought it would stop someone else from panicking. Alexia had learned that over the last year, but learning it and catching it every time were not the same.
"She nearly called me," Alexia said.
Eli glanced at her. "Julia told you?"
Alexia nodded, jaw trembling. "She wanted to. Then she called Clara because she thought Clara would be practical and I would be scared."
"And was she wrong?"
Alexia looked at her mother.
Eli's expression stayed gentle, but not indulgent. "You would have been scared because you love her. That does not make Jay right, but it explains why she did it."
"It makes me want to shake her."
"When she wakes up, you may threaten this."
"I will."
"Softly."
"No."
Eli almost smiled. "Vale. Medium softly."
A laugh tried to break out of Alexia and failed halfway, turning into another small sob. She pressed the heel of her hand against her chest, where everything felt too tight, too full, too much.
"When she wakes up," Eli said, quieter now, "you will kiss her."
Alexia nodded, tears slipping down again. "Sí."
"And she will make a stupid joke."
Alexia's mouth trembled. "She will."
"She will say something terrible about the appendix."
"Probably."
"She will flirt with you while looking like death."
A tiny, shattered laugh escaped Alexia. "Claro."
"And you will be angry."
"I am already angry."
"And grateful."
Alexia nodded again. "So grateful."
The hospital appeared ahead, bright and clean and terrible.
Alexia opened the car door before Eli had fully stopped. She had one foot on the pavement, body already moving, when Eli said her name in that tone mothers used when panic needed a leash.
"Alexia."
Alexia froze with one hand on the door.
Eli parked properly, then turned to her. "You cannot run into the hospital like a storm and then collapse before you reach her. Breathe. We go together."
Alexia swallowed.
It took everything in her to sit still for two more seconds.
Then they moved.
The hospital entrance was too bright, too polished, too full of people whose lives had not just been rearranged by a phone call. Alexia walked in wearing training kit and trainers, hair pulled back too tightly, face pale, phone clutched in one hand. She could feel people looking, recognition flickering and then fading as soon as they saw her face. No one approached her. Thank God. If anyone had asked for a photo, she might have started screaming and never stopped.
Clara was waiting near reception.
That frightened Alexia more than she expected.
Clara did not look frightened. Clara rarely looked frightened. She looked polished, composed, exactly as she always did, but Alexia had learned the small signs over the past year. The tension beneath the stillness. The way her shoulders sat too square. The way her mouth had gone calm in that legal, controlled way that meant feeling had been locked somewhere it could not interfere with function.
Her eyes found Alexia and softened before the rest of her face could decide whether to.
Alexia walked faster.
"Where is she?"
"In theatre," Clara said. "Julia is outside the surgical unit. They took Jay in a few minutes ago."
Alexia stopped.
A few minutes.
She had missed her by a few minutes.
Not hours. Not long enough to tell herself there was nothing she could have done. Minutes. Jay had been conscious somewhere in this building while Alexia was still trying to arrive, and now she was behind doors Alexia could not open.
The thought almost buckled her.
Clara reached for her hand before she could fold. "She was conscious before. In severe pain, but conscious. She knew what was happening."
Alexia's voice came out thin. "Was she scared?"
Clara did not lie.
"Yes."
Alexia's face crumpled.
Clara held her hand tighter. "And she was asking for you. And making jokes. Both things can be true."
Alexia swallowed against the pain in her throat. "Julia told me."
"She asked for you before they took her in."
"I was not here."
"No," Clara said, softer. "But she knew you were coming."
Alexia looked at her.
Clara's composure shifted, tenderness breaking through the professional steadiness. "Julia told her. She said, Alexia is coming. Jay heard it."
Alexia shut her eyes.
For the first time since Eli had walked onto the training pitch with the wrong face and said hospital, she breathed properly. Not calmly. Not well. But fully.
Jay knew.
Jay knew she was coming.
That had to be enough until it could become true.
Julia stood when they reached the waiting area.
She looked wrecked in the most Julia way possible, which meant she was still upright, still sharp, still dressed like she could negotiate with a government if necessary, but her eyes were red and her blouse was creased from where someone had gripped the fabric too tightly. Jay. Alexia knew it before Julia said anything. She saw the folds in the material and felt the air leave her.
Julia was holding Jay's phone.
That almost undid her.
Jay's phone in Julia's hand. The black indestructible case covered in tiny scratches from being dropped in changing rooms, kitchens, taxis and once, spectacularly, into a bowl of cereal because Jay had been watching Alexia make coffee and had forgotten object permanence.
Alexia stared at it.
Julia noticed and held it out.
"She wanted me to make sure Lucy did not see her search history."
Alexia took the phone with shaking hands.
For half a second, all she could do was look at it.
Then a laugh broke out of her, small and broken and disbelieving. "Dios mío."
Julia's mouth trembled. "She also said the floor started it."
Alexia covered her eyes with Jay's phone. "Of course she did."
"And that she listened emotionally when you told her not to get up."
Alexia lowered the phone slowly.
Julia winced. "I told her that would not help."
"No," Alexia said, voice thick. "It does not."
"She was trying not to scare you."
"I know."
"She nearly called you."
Alexia's eyes filled again.
Julia stepped closer, the hardness falling out of her face now that Alexia was there to receive the truth. "She wanted you. She was scared and she wanted you. But she also did not want to make you afraid if it turned out to be nothing. It was stupid, yes. Deeply. Spectacularly. I will be drafting a formal complaint against her decision making. But it came from love."
Alexia nodded, pressing Jay's phone to her chest. "I know. That is what hurts."
Julia's face softened.
Then, because she was Julia, because emotion could only be allowed to exist for a few seconds before she put structure around it, she inhaled and straightened. "The surgeon said the appendix had likely ruptured before they got her in. They are removing it and cleaning the infection from the abdomen. She will need IV antibiotics. They moved fast, Ale. Fast is good."
Alexia nodded again, trying to make the information settle into places she could manage.
Appendix ruptured.
Removing it.
Cleaning infection.
Antibiotics.
Fast is good.
She sat because Eli guided her into a chair. Clara sat on one side, Eli on the other. Julia remained standing for a moment as if sitting would make everything too real, then finally lowered herself opposite them, elbows on her knees, hands clasped tightly enough to blanch her knuckles.
Jay's absence occupied the empty space between them like another person.
Waiting was its own cruelty.
There were no useful actions in it. That was what Alexia hated most. No drill to repeat. No pass to perfect. No match to read. No opponent to study. Nothing to captain. Nothing to fix. Just fluorescent lights, hard chairs, the faint smell of disinfectant, the distant beep of machines, Clara's hand occasionally covering hers, Eli murmuring soft prayers under her breath, and Julia staring at the surgical doors as if she could legally compel them to open.
Alexia unlocked Jay's phone because Julia gave her the code without needing to ask. Jay had changed it months ago from Alexia's birthday to their anniversary and announced this with such pride that Alexia had kissed her in a supermarket car park and made an elderly man drop a bag of oranges. Now the screen glowed in Alexia's lap, too bright, too intimate, full of Jay's ridiculous open tabs and half finished thoughts.
A search tab for motorcycle jackets.
Another for can parrots understand insults.
Another, horrifyingly recent, for right side stomach pain when sneezing bad?
Alexia stared at that one until the words blurred.
"She looked it up," she whispered.
Julia lifted her head. "What?"
Alexia turned the phone slightly so Julia could see.
Julia's face changed. Not much. Just enough. A small tightening at the mouth, a flash of anger with nowhere useful to go.
"Of course she did," Julia said quietly. "Of course she Googled it and still called Clara instead of you because she thought that was somehow the sensible option."
Alexia looked back at the screen. "She was scared."
"Yes."
"And alone."
"For some of it."
Alexia shut her eyes.
Clara's hand covered hers at once, warm and steady over Jay's phone. "Alexia."
"I know what you are going to say."
"Then listen anyway."
Alexia opened her eyes, but she did not look up. If she looked at Clara's face, at Eli's worry, at Julia's red eyes, the control she had left might come apart completely. "You will say I could not know. You will say she told me to go. You will say she called for help. You will say this is not my fault."
"Yes."
"I know all this."
"And you still believe the opposite."
Alexia's thumb moved over the edge of Jay's phone case. There was a tiny crack near the corner from where Jay had dropped it outside the training ground and immediately blamed gravity for poor conduct. "I know it in my head."
Clara nodded. "Your heart is being stupid."
Julia huffed out a laugh before she could stop herself.
Alexia looked up, startled by the bluntness.
Clara shrugged faintly. "It happens to the best of us."
For one absurd second, Alexia almost smiled. Not because anything was funny, not truly, but because Jay would have loved that. Jay would have pointed weakly at Clara from a hospital bed and said, See, legal woman says your heart is being thick. Then Alexia would have told her not to call Clara legal woman, and Jay would have immediately called Julia emergency adult just to make everyone worse.
The almost smile vanished.
Eli's arm stayed around Alexia's shoulders. She had not let go for long since they sat down, as though Alexia might physically come loose if no one held her in place. Every few minutes, Eli murmured something in Catalan, not fully prayer, not fully comfort, more like speaking to the world in the language Alexia had known since childhood and asking it, firmly, to behave.
Julia stood suddenly.
Alexia's whole body reacted.
"What?"
"Nothing," Julia said, though her eyes had flicked towards the surgical doors again. "I just cannot sit still."
Alexia almost laughed at that too, because Julia could sit still through negotiations that lasted four hours and made grown men sweat through their shirts. But now she paced three steps one way, three steps back, Jay's absence tugging at her like a leash.
"You should drink water," Eli said gently.
Julia looked at the unopened bottle in her hand as if it had appeared by magic. "Yes. Sure."
She did not drink.
Clara reached over, took the bottle, opened it and handed it back.
Julia stared at it. "Do not manage me."
"I am not managing you. I am preventing dehydration with evidence."
"That is managing."
"Drink."
Julia drank.
Alexia watched them and felt the faintest edge of reality return. Their rhythm. Familiar even here. Clara controlled and quietly fierce. Julia sharp because fear made her sharper. Eli soft but immovable. All of them here for Jay. All of them orbiting the same closed doors, waiting for news of a woman who had somehow become the centre of so many people's lives while acting like she was merely passing through with tattoos, terrible ideas and a dangerous smile.
Alexia looked down when her phone buzzed.
Lucy.
Any update? Everyone is here. We are not coming in unless you want us. Jana is crying and Mapi has threatened to duct tape her to a chair if she apologises again. We love you both.
Alexia stared at the message for a long moment.
Then she typed slowly because her fingers were still shaking.
Still in surgery. I will tell you when we know. Tell Jana it is not her fault. Tell everyone thank you.
She hesitated.
Then added: Jay will say the appendix was Jana's fault when she wakes up. Do not let Jana believe her.
Lucy replied almost immediately.
That sounds exactly like Jay. We are waiting. Love you, Ale.
Alexia pressed the phone to her chest.
Love you, Ale.
People had said things like that to Alexia for years. Fans. Teammates. Friends. Family. She had always valued it, but at a distance, as something warm and real and manageable. Jay had changed the scale of love in her life. Jay made love ridiculous. Daily. Physical. Unignorable. She kissed Alexia in corridors, touched her knee under tables, sent her voice notes about absolutely nothing, left notes on the fridge that said marry me if you remember to buy oat milk and you looked hot shouting at training, respectfully.
She loved loudly, but there was nothing careless about it. Beneath the chaos was attention. Jay noticed when Alexia's shoulders were too tight. When she had not eaten enough after a late match. When her Spanish became clipped because she was angry and trying to be professional. Jay noticed the person beneath the captain and loved her with a devotion that made Alexia feel seen and sometimes terrified.
And now Jay was beyond doors Alexia could not open.
The waiting stretched.
A nurse passed.
Alexia looked up too quickly.
Not them.
A doctor crossed another corridor.
Not them.
Eli squeezed her shoulder. "Calma."
Alexia shook her head. "I cannot."
"I know."
"I keep seeing her face this morning."
"Tell me."
Alexia swallowed. She did not know why she did. Perhaps because silence was becoming unbearable. Perhaps because speaking the morning out loud made it less like a weapon inside her. "She was pale. But still making jokes. She asked for a kiss many times. She said I was choosing hygiene over romance."
Julia made a sound that was almost a laugh. "Of course she did."
"She said our relationship was toast-based now."
Clara blinked. "Toast based?"
"I fed her toast. Cut into triangles."
Julia put a hand over her mouth.
Alexia looked at her. "What?"
"Nothing."
"That is Jay's word."
Julia lowered her hand. "I am not laughing at you."
"I know."
"I am laughing because she was probably in agony and still deeply committed to accusing you of emotional neglect via breakfast."
Alexia's eyes burned. "I should have known the jokes were too much."
Clara leaned forward. "No. That is the trap. You cannot decide after the fact that everything was a sign you should have understood. Jay jokes when she has a splinter. Jay jokes when she is hungry. Jay jokes when she is frightened. Jay jokes when she is happy. If we treated every joke as a medical emergency, she would live permanently in an ambulance."
Despite herself, despite everything, Alexia let out a shaky breath that almost became a laugh.
Julia pointed at Clara. "Annoyingly correct."
"Thank you."
"It was not a compliment."
"I accepted it as one."
The doors opened.
All four of them stood.
It happened so fast that Alexia barely registered the movement. One moment she was seated with Jay's phone in her lap, and the next she was on her feet, heart in her throat, body pulled forward before she knew who had come through.
A surgeon stepped into the waiting area, mask lowered beneath her chin, cap still on, eyes scanning briefly until they found the little group that had risen like one body.
"Family for Jay Jones?"
Alexia stepped forward. "Yes. I am her partner."
Her voice was steady.
She had no idea how.
The surgeon's expression softened in that careful hospital way. Not pity. Not celebration. Professional kindness. The kind that held both good and bad news until the words decided which they would become.
"She is out of surgery."
Alexia's knees nearly gave.
Eli's hand caught her back.
"She is stable," the surgeon continued. "The appendix had ruptured, and there was infection in the abdomen. We removed the appendix and cleaned the area thoroughly. She is on IV antibiotics and will be monitored closely. She will be sore and groggy when she wakes, and we will watch for fever and signs of infection over the next twenty four to forty eight hours. But the surgery went well."
The surgery went well.
Alexia heard the words from far away.
Julia sat down suddenly, one hand over her mouth.
Clara closed her eyes.
Eli whispered, "Gracias a Dios."
Alexia could not speak.
She tried, but something had locked inside her throat. The pressure in her chest broke apart too quickly, relief flooding in so violently it almost hurt worse than fear. Stable. Surgery went well. Removed. Cleaned. Antibiotics. Monitored. Jay was not safe in the uncomplicated way Alexia wanted her safe. Not yet. But she was alive. She was through.
The surgeon waited, patient.
Alexia forced air into her lungs. "Can I see her?"
"She is in recovery now. It may be a little while before she is fully awake, but yes. One of you can come in shortly."
"Her," Julia said immediately, voice rough.
Clara nodded. "Alexia."
Eli kissed Alexia's temple. "Go when they say, cariño."
Alexia looked at all of them, suddenly unable to bear the generosity. "You should see her too."
"We will," Julia said. "But she will be looking for you first. Even if she pretends she is looking for snacks."
"She may ask for a lawyer," Clara added.
Julia wiped under one eye with the heel of her hand. "If she does, I am billing her."
The surgeon gave practical instructions then, and Alexia forced herself to absorb them. Recovery. Pain relief. No food at first. Fluids. Antibiotics. Fever expected but watched. Movement limited. No training, absolutely no training, and that last part made Julia actually laugh once, sharp and exhausted.
"Good luck with that," Julia muttered.
The surgeon's brows lifted.
Clara said, very calmly, "We will restrain her with affection and legal threats."
"Whatever works," the surgeon said.
Then she left them.
They waited again, but this waiting had air in it.
Alexia sat because Eli guided her back down, and for a moment she bent forward, Jay's phone held between both hands, and breathed. Her shoulders shook once. Then again. She pressed her fingers to her mouth, trying to contain it, but relief had made her body loose and useless. Eli wrapped both arms around her. Clara's hand rested on her back. Julia's knee knocked gently against hers from opposite, a small contact, a tether.
"She is stable," Eli murmured. "Mi niña, she is stable."
Alexia nodded into her hands.
"She is going to be unbearable," Julia said, voice trembling.
Clara exhaled. "Absolutely unbearable."
"She will milk this for weeks."
"Months," Clara corrected.
Alexia lifted her head slightly, wiping her face with the sleeve of her training jacket. "She will say she lost an organ and deserves a motorcycle."
Julia pointed at her. "Do not give her ideas."
"She already has ideas."
"Then do not give them funding."
Alexia let out a real laugh then.
Small. Wet. Broken around the edges, but real.
The sound loosened all of them. Eli smiled through tears. Clara looked briefly at the ceiling like she was grateful and furious with the universe in equal measure. Julia leaned back and covered her face with both hands.
"God," Julia said. "I hate her appendix."
"I also hate it," Alexia said immediately.
"It is gone now."
"Good."
"Jay will want to name it."
Alexia closed her eyes. "Do not."
"She will."
"She will call it Jana," Clara said.
They all went quiet.
Then Julia started laughing.
Not loudly. Not properly. But helplessly, with one hand still over her face. Clara followed, a breath of laughter breaking into something near tears. Eli shook her head, whispering, "Ay, Jay," with such affection that Alexia's chest ached.
Alexia laughed too.
Because Jay was alive.
Because Jay was going to wake up.
Because the woman she loved had gone into emergency surgery and somehow everyone in the waiting room was already preparing for her first stupid joke.
A nurse came for Alexia twenty minutes later.
"Only one for now," she said gently.
Alexia stood so quickly Julia almost had to catch Jay's phone from slipping off her lap.
Eli smoothed Alexia's hair back from her face, the same gesture she had used when Alexia was a child and had scraped her knees or lost matches or tried not to cry in public because she understood too early what it meant to be watched.
"She will look different," Eli warned softly. "Tired. Tubes. Do not be scared."
Alexia nodded, though fear had already found new clothes and put them on. "Sí."
Julia stepped close and pressed Jay's phone into Alexia's hand. "Take it. She will want to know where it is."
Alexia took it, then looked at Julia's face. "Thank you."
Julia's expression shifted. "No."
"Julia."
"No. Do not thank me for going to her."
Alexia's eyes filled again.
Julia's mouth tightened. "Just go. And when she wakes up, tell her I am still angry."
"I will."
"And tell her she owes me a new blouse."
Alexia glanced at the creases in it, at the faint mark where Jay must have gripped the fabric with shaking fingers. "I will tell her."
Julia nodded once, then stepped back before emotion could catch her.
The recovery area was quieter than Alexia expected.
Not silent. Never silent. There were monitors, soft footsteps, curtains, the low murmur of nurses, the controlled rhythm of machines doing small necessary things. But it was a different kind of quiet from the waiting room. Less empty. More purposeful. People were coming back to themselves here. Slowly. Messily. Under watch.
Jay was in a bed near the far side.
Alexia saw her and stopped.
Everything in her body went still.
Jay looked smaller.
That was Alexia's first thought, and it terrified her.
Jay never looked small. Even asleep, even sprawled across the sofa with one arm hanging off and her mouth open because she had denied being tired until sleep simply conquered her, Jay had presence. Strong shoulders, tattooed arms, muscular legs, that restless energy humming even at rest as if her body was always half prepared to run, fight, flirt or make an ill advised purchase.
Now she lay pale against white pillows, hair messy and damp at the temples, oxygen tubing beneath her nose, an IV taped to one hand. The hospital gown swallowed the shape of her. The blanket covered most of her body, but Alexia could still see the careful stillness of someone who had been handled by surgery. There was a vulnerability in it that made Alexia's throat close.
The nurse beside her spoke softly. "She is still very groggy. She may wake and drift. That is normal."
Alexia nodded without looking away.
Her feet moved again only because the nurse touched her arm.
Then she was beside the bed.
Jay's hand lay on top of the blanket, palm loose, fingers slightly curled. Alexia took it carefully, terrified of the cannula, terrified of hurting her, terrified of touching too lightly and somehow not reaching her at all. Jay's skin was warm. Too warm still, but real. Alive. Alexia folded both hands around hers and bowed her head until her forehead rested against Jay's knuckles.
For a moment, she could not speak.
Then, in Spanish because English felt too far away, she whispered, "Hola, amor. Estoy aquí. I am here. You are okay. Me oyes? You are okay. Surgery is done, bebé. You did it."
Jay did not move.
Alexia kissed her knuckles. Once. Twice. Again.
"You scared me," she whispered, switching between languages because feeling made them all blur. "Mucho, amor. So much. I was so scared. I am angry also, sí, very angry, but we do this later because now you are sleeping and you look too innocent. This is manipulation, I think."
Jay's fingers did not move, but Alexia imagined they might. She imagined Jay hearing her and storing the accusation for later.
You thought I looked innocent? Babe, I'm recovering, not dead.
Alexia smiled through tears.
"I am sorry," she said. "For leaving. For not kissing you. Lo siento, bebé. I know you will be impossible about this. You will say you almost died for a kiss. You will say my cruelty caused organ failure. You will be wrong, but you will say it with confidence, and I will probably let you win because I am weak for you."
The monitor beeped steadily.
Alexia watched Jay's face.
There was a faint crease between Jay's brows now, as if even unconscious she had heard something she disagreed with.
Alexia leaned closer. "Do not argue in your sleep."
Jay's eyelids fluttered.
Alexia froze.
"Jay?"
Nothing for a second.
Then Jay's fingers twitched weakly inside hers.
Alexia stood so fast the chair legs scraped behind her. "Bebé?"
Jay's eyes moved beneath her lids. Her face tightened faintly, not with full pain, but with the confused discomfort of a body waking into soreness it did not yet understand.
Alexia touched her cheek with the back of her fingers. "Calma. I am here. You are in hospital. Surgery is finished. Estás bien. You are okay."
Jay's eyelids opened slowly.
Her gaze was unfocused at first, blue eyes glassy with anaesthetic and pain medication, drifting over the ceiling, the curtain, the light, before landing somewhere near Alexia's face without properly recognising it.
Alexia smiled, tears falling before she could stop them. "Hola, guapa."
Jay stared at her.
Then looked down at herself.
At the blanket.
At the gown.
At the IV.
At the vague outline of her abdomen beneath hospital fabric.
Her eyes widened with slow, drugged horror.
"Did..." Her voice was rough, barely there. "Did I have a caesarean?"
Alexia froze.
The nurse at the end of the bed went very still.
Jay swallowed, looking genuinely alarmed. "Where's my baby?"
For one suspended second, Alexia could only stare.
Then a sound escaped her that was half laugh, half sob, and she pressed Jay's hand to her mouth.
"Bebé," she managed, voice shaking. "You did not have a baby."
Jay frowned at her with deep suspicion. "Are you sure?"
"Very sure."
Jay blinked slowly. "You'd tell me?"
"Claro."
"You wouldn't hide a baby?"
"Jay."
"Feels like something people hide for drama."
Alexia laughed again, helpless now, tears on her face and relief making her almost dizzy. "No baby. Your appendix ruptured."
Jay absorbed this with the grave concentration of someone being briefed on national security while absolutely off her head.
"My appendix? That’s why my stomach feels like it’s been cut open?”
"Sí."
Jay stared at the ceiling.
Then, with quiet venom, "That little bitch."
The nurse turned away very professionally.
Alexia covered her mouth with Jay's hand and laughed into it because she could not stop. The fear had nowhere else to go. It came out as laughter, as tears, as the desperate need to kiss every inch of Jay's face and also shake her very gently for scaring ten years off her life.
Jay's eyes moved back to her.
"You crying?"
"No."
"Liar."
Alexia wiped her cheek with her shoulder because she would not let go of Jay's hand. "You are very drugged."
"You're crying attractively."
"Dios mío."
Jay's mouth curved faintly. It was weak, exhausted, barely there, but it was Jay. "Hi, baby."
That broke something soft and vital in Alexia.
She bent immediately, one hand cradling the side of Jay's face, and pressed her lips to Jay's forehead. Then her temple. Then her cheekbone. Careful, careful, careful, but unable to stop touching her now that Jay was awake enough to receive it.
"Hi," Alexia whispered against her skin. "Hi, amor. I am here."
Jay's lashes fluttered. "You came."
"Of course I came."
"Training?"
"Do not talk to me about training."
"Ooh." Jay's eyes closed briefly. "Angry."
"Sí."
"Hot."
"Jay."
"Still true."
Alexia pulled back just enough to look at her. "You almost gave me a heart attack."
Jay considered this. "Appendix was attention seeking."
"You did not call me."
"I nearly did."
"I know."
Jay opened one eye. "Julia told?"
"Yes."
"Snitch."
"She saved you."
"Hero snitch."
Alexia's face softened and tightened all at once. "Why did you not call me?"
Jay's gaze drifted away, unfocused and suddenly younger in the white hospital light. For a second the drugs stripped the joke from her face and left the truth visible. "Didn't want scare you."
Alexia swallowed.
Too many things rose at once. Anger. Love. Fear. Relief. The awful tenderness of understanding exactly why Jay had done it and wanting to be furious anyway.
"You scared me more," she said, voice low.
Jay's eyes moved back to her. "Lo siento."
"No." Alexia shook her head quickly, then corrected herself because no was too simple. "Yes. Maybe. I am angry, but not now. Later I am angry. Now I am..." Her voice broke. She leaned down until her forehead rested lightly against Jay's. "Now I am so happy you wake up."
Jay's fingers twitched against hers. "You're doing the quiet face?"
Alexia closed her eyes. "I am trying not to."
“Don't."
"I cannot help."
Jay's gaze softened, hazy but present. "Ven aquí."
“I am here."
"Closer."
"Bebé, I have to be careful."
"Closer carefully then."
Alexia laughed wetly and shifted closer, sitting on the edge of the bed because the nurse had stepped away and because no force in the room could have kept her in the chair. She kept one hand around Jay's and used the other to stroke hair away from Jay's forehead.
Jay watched her with heavy eyes.
"You denied me a kiss," she murmured.
Alexia made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. "You just had surgery."
"I was dying."
"You were not dying."
"My organ exploded."
"Your appendix ruptured."
"Exploded."
"Ruptured."
"Same vibe."
"No."
Jay sighed, tiny and theatrical. "I asked so nicely."
"You asked like a menace."
"I was vulnerable."
"You were possibly contagious."
"Wasn't contagious. Was exploding."
Alexia closed her eyes. "I know."
Jay's face softened. Even drugged, even pale, even with anaesthetic still pulling her in and out of focus, she saw too much. She always did when it mattered.
"Hey," she whispered.
Alexia opened her eyes.
Jay looked at her for a long moment, fighting through the fog to stay present. "Not your fault."
Alexia's breath caught.
Jay's hand moved weakly in hers, barely a squeeze. "I told you to go."
"You were sick."
"I was stupid."
"You were in pain."
"Also stupid."
Alexia gave a shaky laugh.
Jay's mouth curved. "Both can be true."
"That is my line."
"I'm injured. I get custody."
Alexia leaned down and kissed her forehead again, lingering there. "I should have stayed."
"No."
"Jay."
"No." The word was soft but stubborn, so very Jay that Alexia almost cried again. "You loved me. Toast. Bowl. Orders. No mouth, which was cruel, but we will litigate."
Alexia pressed her lips together.
Jay blinked slowly. "You made me feel safe."
Alexia went very still.
The words were quiet. Drug thinned. Almost casual in the way the truest things sometimes slipped out when Jay did not have enough strength left to guard them.
"You did," Jay whispered. "Then my body went rogue. Not you."
Alexia bowed her head over their joined hands.
The nurse returned briefly, checking Jay's observations, asking her pain level. Jay looked deeply offended by the question.
"Compared to what?" she rasped.
The nurse smiled gently. "Compared to no pain."
"Oh. Then rude."
"Can you give me a number?"
Jay looked at Alexia, then back at the nurse. "Seven? But dramatic seven. Designer seven."
Alexia gave the nurse an apologetic look. "She is always like this."
The nurse smiled. "I gathered."
Jay's eyes narrowed. "I'm charming."
"You are high," Alexia said.
"Charming high."
"Sí. Charming high."
The nurse adjusted something, promised more pain relief would be managed, and told Alexia not to let her talk too much. Alexia almost laughed in the woman's face.
"I have been trying this for one year," she said. "Good luck to all of us."
Jay looked pleased. "One year. Still obsessed."
"Unfortunately."
"Say it nicer."
Alexia leaned down, her mouth close to Jay's ear. "I am so obsessed with you, amor, that I almost broke the hospital doors to reach you."
Jay smiled faintly. "That's nice."
"It is not nice. It is worrying."
"Romantic worrying."
"You are impossible."
"You love impossible."
Alexia brushed her thumb over Jay's cheek. "Sí. I do."
Jay's eyes dropped to Alexia's mouth.
Even drugged, she had priorities.
"Kiss now?"
Alexia hesitated.
Only because of the oxygen tubing. The IV. The surgery. The fear of hurting her. The nurse's warning. The memory of this morning sitting like a bruise in her chest.
Jay saw the hesitation and managed the smallest frown. "Ale."
Alexia exhaled shakily. "I am scared to hurt you."
“Then don't use teeth."
A laugh burst out of Alexia before she could stop it. "Dios mío, Jay."
"Good advice."
"You are in recovery."
"I am brave."
"You are high."
"Still brave."
Alexia stood carefully and bent over her, one hand braced beside Jay's pillow, the other cupping her face. She moved slowly enough that Jay could stop her, gently enough that nothing pulled, close enough that Jay's eyes fluttered before their mouths even met.
The kiss was soft.
Barely more than pressure at first.
Alexia kept it careful, controlled, terrified of asking anything from Jay's body when it had already endured enough. But Jay sighed into it like she had been waiting all day, which, technically, she had. Her fingers curled weakly against Alexia's hand. Her mouth moved the tiniest amount beneath Alexia's, not deepening, not taking, just answering. Here. Yes. Finally.
Alexia's eyes burned.
She pulled back before she could cry into the kiss and make it dramatic in a way Jay would absolutely mention later.
Jay looked up at her, dazed and satisfied.
"Better," she whispered.
Alexia smiled through tears. "Good."
"Took surgery."
"Do not."
"Extreme measures."
"Jay."
"For one kiss."
Alexia kissed her forehead again, because now she could, because no one was stopping her, because she had a whole morning of denied affection to repay. "You are never allowed to scare me like this again."
Jay's eyes drifted half shut. "Can't promise. Very talented."
"I am serious."
"I know." Jay's voice softened. "I'll call next time."
Alexia stilled. "Next time?"
"Not appendix. Other time. Emergency. Weird pain. Emotional crisis. If I accidentally buy a parrot."
"No parrot."
"See? Crisis."
"Jay."
Jay opened her eyes a fraction, and for one clear second she was there beneath the drugs. Tired. Sore. Pale. But there. "I'll call you."
Alexia nodded, swallowing hard. "Good."
"Even if you're busy."
"I am never too busy for you."
Jay's face shifted in that small helpless way it sometimes did when Alexia said something too directly loving and Jay had no joke ready fast enough to protect herself.
Then she found one, because of course she did.
"That's hot."
Alexia laughed softly. "Sleep."
"Where's Julia?"
"Outside."
"Clara?"
"Outside."
"My favourite terrifying mother in law?"
Alexia froze.
Jay blinked slowly, then frowned. "Did I say that out loud?"
Alexia's mouth fell open slightly. "Yes."
Jay stared at the ceiling. "Morphine is a snitch."
"Mama is outside," Alexia said, trying very hard not to smile.
"Don't tell her."
"I am telling her immediately."
"No." Jay tried to look stern and failed. "Patient confidentiality."
"I am not your doctor."
"You are emotionally medical."
"Sleep."
"Lucy?"
"At training. Waiting for news."
"Jana?"
"Crying because she thinks it is her fault."
Jay's eyes opened a little wider. "Oh no."
Alexia's heart softened. "I told her no."
"Good." Jay paused. "Still naming my appendix Jana."
Alexia stared at her.
Jay looked back with the serene confidence of a woman who had lost an organ and gained a narrative.
"No."
"Yes."
"Bebé, you cannot name your removed appendix Jana."
"She started it."
"She did not."
"Allegedly."
Alexia shook her head, smiling despite herself. "You are terrible."
"Alive though."
The words landed quietly.
Alexia's smile trembled.
Jay saw it and squeezed her hand, stronger this time, though still weak enough to make Alexia ache.
"Alive," Jay repeated.
Alexia bent and pressed their foreheads together. "Sí. Alive."
Jay closed her eyes.
For a while, she seemed to drift, breath steady beneath the oxygen tubing, mouth soft, fingers still wrapped around Alexia's. Alexia did not move. She sat beside her and watched the monitor, watched Jay's face, watched the rise and fall of her chest like it was the only match she had ever needed to win.
Just when Alexia thought Jay had fallen fully asleep, she murmured, "Baby?"
"Sí?"
"If I didn't have a caesarean..."
Alexia closed her eyes. "Please do not finish this sentence."
"Can we still have a baby shower?"
“No."
"Appendix shower?"
"No."
"Organ farewell party?"
"Absolutely not."
Jay smiled faintly without opening her eyes. "You're no fun."
"I am very fun."
"You denied me mouth and a party."
"You survived surgery and became worse."
"Personal growth."
Alexia kissed her hand. "Sleep, amor."
Jay was quiet for three seconds.
Then, barely audible, she whispered, "Still owed mouth to mouth."
Alexia laughed, tears slipping down again, but this time they did not feel like fear.
"Sí," she whispered, brushing her lips over Jay's knuckles. "When you are better, I pay all my debts."
Jay's mouth curved, tiny and triumphant.
"Good," she breathed.
Then, surrounded by monitors and white sheets and the woman who loved her enough to be furious later, Jay finally let herself sleep.
In the apartment, Jay's phone buzzed and lit up on the floor beside the bed, close enough that she could see the glow through the blur and far enough that it might as well have been across the city.
She was aware of it in pieces.
Light.
Sound.
The cool press of the floor against her cheek.
The ugly pulse of pain low in her stomach, no longer a point but a whole weather system, hot and bright and wrong. Her body had become unfamiliar to her. That frightened her more than she wanted to admit, even to herself. Jay knew pain. Pain was part of the job. Pain had rules. A pulled muscle had a language. A bruised hip had a mood. A stud across the ankle, a shoulder knocked half out of place, lungs burning on a late press in the eighty seventh minute, all of that made sense in a brutal, athletic way. You could measure it. Bargain with it. Play through some of it, stop for other parts of it, be stupid about it and then be lectured by people paid to be sensible.
This was different.
This felt like something inside her had torn the map.
She tried to move her hand towards the phone and the pain flashed white behind her eyes. Her fingers scraped against the floor. That was all. A pathetic little movement, not enough to reach anything, not enough to help herself, and something angry and scared rose in her throat.
"Brilliant," she breathed. "Very elegant."
Her voice sounded awful. Thin. Dry. Not hers.
She hated that too.
The wardrobe was in front of her. The door had been left slightly open, probably by Jay, definitely by Jay, because Alexia closed wardrobe doors like a person raised by civilisation and Jay treated furniture as a suggestion. Inside, Alexia's things hung in careful lines. Training tops. Button down shirts. A dark blazer she wore to club events that made Jay briefly lose access to language every time.
Beside them, Jay's side existed in a less organised ecosystem, sports bras folded because Alexia had folded them, shorts shoved into a drawer because Jay had helped, a belt hanging from a hook it did not belong on, because life was short and hooks were hooks.
She stared at Alexia's clothes and felt suddenly, stupidly emotional.
Alexia would be so angry.
Not shouting angry, though maybe there would be shouting later when Jay was definitely alive enough to deserve it. No, first would be the quiet. The terrible quiet. The face Alexia got when fear came in through the ribs and she could not let it show all the way. The face where her eyes went dark and focused and her mouth tightened like she was holding herself together by force. Jay had seen that face once after a bad tackle in a match, when a defender went through the back of her and Jay stayed down just a little too long. Alexia had crossed half the pitch with murder in her stride and love in her eyes, and later, in the dressing room, she had touched Jay's face so softly it made Jay want to confess every bad thing that had ever happened to her.
Jay did not want that face now.
She wanted the sleepy one.
The morning one.
The one that had looked at her over toast and said, no mouth, with stern affection.
Her phone stopped ringing.
The apartment returned to silence.
Jay closed her eyes.
For a second, she allowed herself the smallest, most dangerous thought.
I want Alexia.
It slipped through the pain with frightening clarity.
Not in the flirty way. Not in the dramatic kiss starved way, though she was absolutely still owed compensation for that. She wanted Alexia's hand on the back of her neck. Alexia's voice telling her, mírame, respira. Alexia's body close enough to make the room feel less large. Alexia's steady certainty, even if the certainty was only pretend.
Jay's eyes stung.
"No," she whispered to herself, because crying seemed like a step too far and would probably use abdominal muscles, which felt deeply unfair. "Do not be pathetic on the floor. Have some brand consistency."
The front door opened.
At first she thought she imagined it.
There was a rush of sound through the apartment, the small change in air pressure, the click of the lock, then footsteps moving fast over the floor.
"Jay?"
Julia's voice.
Sharp.
Too sharp.
Jay tried to answer. Her throat worked. Nothing useful came out.
"Jay?" Julia called again, closer now.
The footsteps changed as she moved from the living room to the hallway. Jay could hear her searching without seeing it. The little pause in the kitchen, probably seeing the tray had been taken through, then the hallway, then the bedroom doorway.
Silence.
For one second, Julia said nothing.
Jay had known Julia a long time. Long enough to know every version of her anger, every pitch of her sarcasm, every carefully structured sigh that meant someone was about to pay for wasting her time. Julia without words was unnatural. Julia without words meant the situation had slipped out of the category where language could immediately manage it.
Then Julia was on her knees beside her.
"Jay. Jay, open your eyes."
Jay opened them because she was told to, and because Julia sounded like that.
Julia's face moved in and out of focus above her. Usually Julia looked composed even when the world was on fire. Hair neat, make up clean, mouth set in a line that made agents, executives and occasionally referees rethink their life choices. Now she looked pale beneath the control. Not panicked, not quite, but close enough that Jay felt a pulse of guilt through the pain.
"Hi," Jay managed.
Julia stared at her. "Do not hi me from the floor."
"Bit rude."
"You're on the floor."
"Not my best work."
Julia's hand went to her neck, two fingers pressing against Jay's pulse. Her touch was steady, but her jaw was tight. "You're burning up."
"I'm naturally passionate."
"If you make one more sexy fever joke, I will sedate you with whatever is in Alexia's cleaning cupboard."
Jay blinked slowly. "That's not medically sound."
"I don't feel medically sound right now."
"Fair."
Julia reached behind her and grabbed the blanket from the bed, covering Jay as best she could without moving her too much. Jay realised then that she was shaking. Not dramatically. Not visibly enough to make a performance out of. Just small tremors through her arms, her shoulders, her thighs, like her body had decided it was cold despite the sweat on her skin.
Julia noticed.
Julia always noticed. It was profoundly annoying how many observant women Jay had allowed into her life. At this point, it seemed less like a support network and more like she had accidentally founded a surveillance state.
"Tell me what happened," Julia said.
Jay took a careful breath. "Stomach attempted coup."
"Jay."
"Pain got worse."
"Did you get out of bed?"
Jay hesitated.
Julia's eyes narrowed with terrifying precision. "Jay."
"Briefly."
"You were told not to move."
"I know."
"You promised Clara you would not move."
"I know."
"You promised Alexia?"
Jay shut her eyes. "Technically."
"Oh, you are so dead."
Jay opened one eye. "Already feels like it."
The anger fell off Julia's face at once.
That was worse.
"Don't say that." Julia's voice came out quieter. "Don't you dare say that."
Jay wanted to make another joke, something about brand guidelines or posthumous shirt sales or haunting Jana for biological misconduct, but Julia's expression stopped her. There was fear there now, clean and visible, and Jay did not know what to do with it.
So she reached, barely, and Julia took her hand at once.
"Did I win?" Jay whispered.
Julia leaned closer. "Win what?"
"Argument with stomach."
For half a second, Julia looked like she might cry. Then she laughed instead, a short broken sound that hurt to hear. "No. Your stomach has escalated to litigation."
"Typical."
"It's always the quiet organs."
"Appendix has always seemed shady."
"We don't know it's your appendix yet."
Jay swallowed. "Feels like a small angry worm with funding."
Julia squeezed her hand. "That is disgusting and probably anatomically incorrect."
"Still rude."
"Yes," Julia said, and the word shook a little. "Very rude."
Then the pain rose again.
Jay's body curled before she could stop it, a sound breaking out of her that scraped all the humour from the room. Julia moved with her, one hand hovering near Jay's shoulder, the other still gripping her fingers, helpless to stop it and furious at the helplessness.
The moment it passed, Julia called emergency services.
Her voice transformed.
That was what Jay heard through the haze. The change. Julia the friend vanished behind Julia the operator, the advocate, the woman who could sit in a room full of men twice her age and make them regret underestimating her by the third sentence.
"Ambulance, please. Twenty nine year old female. Severe lower right abdominal pain, fever, possible appendicitis, collapsed at home. Conscious but semi-responsive. Pain worsening, unable to stand comfortably. High pain tolerance. Professional athlete. No, she's definitely not pregnant. Yes, breathing. Fast pulse. I'm with her now."
Jay stared at the underside of the bed while Julia gave the address. There was a sock under there. One of hers. Also possibly a resistance band. Alexia was going to be furious about both. Jay considered pointing them out in case she died and someone needed to hide the evidence before Alexia found it, but the room swam again and the thought drifted away.
Julia ended the call and immediately dialled Clara.
"I'm with her," she said.
Jay could hear Clara's voice faintly, sharp with relief and fear. Julia looked down at Jay as she listened.
"She's conscious. On the floor. Severe pain. Ambulance on the way." A pause. "No, I haven't called Alexia yet." Another pause, longer this time. "Because she asked me not to until we know more."
Jay closed her eyes.
Clara's voice rose enough that Jay heard the tone if not every word.
Julia looked briefly towards the ceiling.
"I know. I know, Clara. I'm not happy about it either. But I am not calling Alexia with nothing but 'Jay is on the floor and we don't know how bad', not while she has to get across Barcelona in that state. The second we have medical confirmation, I call. Or you call Eli and get her from training. Yes. Fine. Be ready."
Julia hung up.
Jay opened her eyes a crack. "Is Clara mad?"
"Clara is planning to murder both of us."
"Bit much."
"You're on the floor and I'm negotiating delayed disclosure with a woman who has never delayed anything in her life."
"Teamwork."
"No. This is not teamwork. This is you being impossible and me enabling you under protest."
Jay tried to smile, but it trembled. "Don't scare Ale."
Julia's face softened in a way that made Jay wish she had not said anything.
"Oh, Carino," Julia said quietly. "She is going to be scared because she loves you. That is how it works."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Jay swallowed. Her throat hurt. Everything hurt. "I don't want to be the reason her face does that thing."
"What thing?"
"The quiet thing."
Julia looked at her for a long moment, the frustration in her expression giving way to something older and sadder. "You don't get to protect people from loving you."
Jay turned her face slightly towards the floor. "Sounds fake."
"It's irritatingly real."
"Can I unsubscribe?"
"No."
"Harsh."
"You have a girlfriend who would walk through traffic barefoot if you asked her to come, and you are lying on the floor worrying that she'll be upset about it."
"Not barefoot," Jay murmured. "She has standards."
Julia shook her head. "God help us all."
The paramedics arrived not long after, though to Julia it felt like hours and to Jay it felt like the world had started skipping time. One moment she was on the floor with Julia's hand in hers. The next, there were two strangers in the bedroom with calm voices and bags and the brisk kindness of people who had seen enough fear to know not to add their own to it.
They crouched beside her.
"Jay? I'm Marc. This is Laia. We're going to check you over, alright?"
Jay blinked up at him. "Marc from Barcelona?"
The paramedic smiled faintly. "Yes."
"Vives?"
Julia made a strangled sound. "She's delirious."
"I'm culturally aware."
Marc's smile widened despite the tension. "Can you tell me where the pain is?"
Jay's hand tightened over her lower right side.
"There," Julia answered when Jay's breath caught too hard.
Marc nodded. "Pain from one to ten?"
Jay's eyes narrowed with effort. "Normal people ten or footballer ten?"
Laia glanced at Julia.
Julia said, "Do not encourage her."
"Normal people ten," Marc said, professional but amused.
"Twelve."
Julia tipped her head back. "For fuck's sake."
Jay opened one eye. "You wanted honesty."
"I wanted you to call your girlfriend before you became furniture."
"Floor isn't furniture."
"It is supporting you more than your judgement."
"Good line."
"I hate that you're impressed."
They checked her temperature, blood pressure, oxygen, pulse. Jay watched their faces because she could not stop herself. Athletes learned medical expressions. They learned when the physio was being casual and when the physio was pretending to be casual. They learned the tiny glance between professionals that meant the situation had moved up a level.
Marc and Laia were good. Their faces stayed measured. But they looked at each other after the pulse. Again after her temperature. Again when Laia pressed gently near Jay's abdomen and Jay's whole body reacted before she could hide it.
Julia saw those looks too.
Her mouth tightened.
"We need to take you in," Marc said. "Likely appendicitis, possibly complicated. Hospital will assess and move quickly."
"Complicated," Jay repeated. "Rude word."
"It means they'll be ready."
"Sounds like my appendix hired representation."
Julia leaned down. "If your appendix has representation, I will destroy it."
Jay looked at her with hazy affection. "You're quite scary."
"I'm glad you've finally noticed."
Moving Jay onto the stretcher was awful.
There was no elegant way to do it. No way that did not pull at the centre of the pain. Marc and Laia were careful, gentle even, but careful did not mean painless, and Jay discovered quickly that her body no longer cared about her pride. The second they shifted her, the pain tore through her so hard she made a sound she would later pretend not to remember.
Julia did remember.
Julia would remember it for a long time.
She kept one hand on Jay's shoulder, leaning close enough that Jay could hear her through the rush in her ears.
"Breathe. That's it. I know. I know, Jay. Almost done."
"Don't tell Alexia I made that noise," Jay managed when the worst of it loosened.
Julia's face did something complicated. "I'm going to tell Alexia everything if it gets you in less trouble."
"Betrayal."
"Survival strategy."
The apartment moved around Jay in bright, disconnected pieces as they carried her out. The hallway ceiling. The framed photo Alexia had insisted on hanging properly after Jay leaned it against the wall for three months and called it "casual interior design". The little table by the door with Alexia's keys in the bowl and Jay's keys not in the bowl because Jay had left them in the pocket of a jacket somewhere. Alexia's trainers lined neatly. Jay's trainers kicked beside them at an angle that would absolutely be used in a future lecture.
Then the front door.
Then the lift.
Then the world outside, too loud and too hot even in the shaded entrance of the building.
Jay closed her eyes against it.
"Phone," she whispered suddenly.
Julia leaned closer. "I have it."
"Don't let Lucy see my search history."
Julia stared down at her. "What could possibly be in your search history that matters right now?"
"Motorcycles. Tattoo aftercare. Can you teach a parrot to swear in Catalan."
"Why?"
"Alexia said no."
"To the parrot?"
"To the swearing."
"Jay."
"Also whether appendixes can grow back."
Julia froze. "You searched that?"
"No. I'm planning ahead."
"I am begging you to be normal for one emergency."
"Can't. Medical exemption."
The ambulance smelled like disinfectant and plastic and something metallic under it. The doors closed with a final sound that made Jay's stomach drop, or maybe that was just the pain. Laia fitted a cannula. Marc checked the monitor. Julia climbed in beside them with the rigid determination of someone daring anyone to suggest she should follow separately.
Jay watched the needle slide into the back of her hand.
"Bold to stab me while I'm already under attack."
Laia secured the tape. "You're doing well."
"Lies, but I like you."
Julia rubbed her forehead. "Please stop flirting with emergency personnel."
"I'm building rapport."
"You're building a case for sedation."
"I'm charming."
"You are clammy."
"Duality."
The ambulance pulled away.
Motion made everything worse. Not dramatically at first, just enough. Each turn, each small shift in the road, moved through Jay's body with ugly precision. She gripped Julia's hand too hard and Julia let her. No complaint. No flinch. Just a squeeze back every time Jay's fingers tightened.
At some point, Jay realised she was crying.
Not sobbing. Not making noise. Just tears slipping sideways into her hairline while she stared at the ambulance ceiling and tried to breathe through the waves. She hated it. She hated it so much she would have made a joke about it if she could find one.
But the fear had slipped in properly now, cold beneath the fever. Surgery had not been said yet, not to her, not officially, but she could feel the seriousness gathering around the edges. Hear it in the way Marc spoke into the radio. See it in the way Julia kept looking at the monitor and then at Jay's face.
Julia's thumb brushed the back of her hand.
"I'm here."
Jay turned her head slightly. "She's going to be upset."
"Yes."
"I hate that."
"I know."
"I didn't call her because I thought she'd panic."
"She will panic more when she finds out you tried to protect her from information."
Jay winced. "You're meant to comfort me."
"I am comforting you. I haven't called you an idiot for nearly three minutes."
"Personal growth."
"Don't get used to it."
Jay swallowed. "Tell her I wanted to."
Julia's expression softened.
"Wanted to what?"
"Call."
"I know."
"No, tell her." Jay blinked hard, trying to clear her vision. "Tell her I nearly did."
Julia leaned closer, her eyes wet now, though her voice stayed steady by sheer force. "You can tell her yourself."
Jay looked away.
"Jay."
"I know. I just..." Her breath hitched when the ambulance turned. She waited for the pain to settle. "If she looks like that, I'll feel worse."
Julia's voice gentled. "Then she'll sit by you and feel worse too. That's love. It's inconvenient."
Jay's mouth trembled into something like a smile. "Romance is a scam."
"You've been saying that for years. Then Alexia looks at you and you turn into melted butter."
"I'm still tough."
"You're crying in an ambulance and asking me to protect your girlfriend from having feelings."
"Emotionally tough."
"Sure."
At the hospital, everything accelerated.
The ambulance bay. The sudden brightness. The roll of the stretcher over uneven ground and then smooth floor. The hit of cold hospital air against Jay's damp skin. Voices above her, around her, changing languages, switching between Catalan and Spanish and English because Julia was there and Jay was English and pain had made translation feel like trying to catch water.
Name. Date of birth. Allergies. Last ate. Last drank. Pain location. When did it start. Fever. Nausea. Collapse. Any chance of pregnancy.
Jay opened one eye at that.
"Unless Alexia has secrets, no."
Julia covered her face with one hand. "Please."
A nurse coughed into a smile and wrote something down.
They moved her into a curtained bay. Blood pressure cuff. Thermometer. Bloods. More hands, all professional, all necessary, none of them Alexia's. Jay knew that was irrational and still felt offended by it. The world had too many hands when the one she wanted was on a training pitch somewhere, probably checking her phone and frowning.
A doctor came in, introduced herself as Dr. Rovira, and pressed carefully against Jay's abdomen.
Jay tried to be brave.
Her body did not ask permission.
She hissed and jerked away, breath punching out of her.
"Sorry," Dr. Rovira said, but her face had sharpened.
Jay looked at her through narrowed eyes. "Are you fighting it?"
The doctor paused. "Fighting what?"
"My appendix."
Julia, standing by Jay's shoulder, said flatly, "She's always like this."
Dr. Rovira's mouth twitched despite herself. "I am examining it."
"Feels hostile."
"It may be appendicitis."
Jay blinked. "That's a real thing?"
Julia stared at her. "Jay."
"What?"
"You thought appendicitis was fake?"
"No, I thought it was one of those things people get in medical dramas before someone kisses in a supply cupboard."
Dr. Rovira looked down at her notes with the determined focus of someone refusing to laugh at a patient in severe pain.
Julia muttered, "I am going to walk into the sea."
"You can't," Jay murmured. "You're my emergency adult."
"That is the worst job title I've ever had."
More tests followed. Time lost shape. Jay drifted somewhere between bright awareness and feverish distance. She knew Julia stepped away once to call Clara. She knew Clara arrived at some point because suddenly there was another familiar voice outside the curtain, low and controlled and asking questions that made staff answer properly.
She knew her pain medication helped at the edges but did not make the centre go away. She knew someone said ultrasound, then CT, then surgical review. She knew she asked for Alexia once, maybe twice, and then panicked because asking made everything feel too real.
Clara appeared beside the bed.
Her face was calm.
Too calm.
Jay looked at her and tried to smile. "You look terrifying."
Clara took her hand, careful around the cannula. "Good."
"Are you mad?"
"Yes."
"Scale?"
"Continental."
Jay's eyes widened slightly. "That's a big mad."
"You ignored my call."
"I attempted to answer."
"You collapsed instead."
"Poor timing."
"You called me instead of Alexia."
Jay looked away.
Clara's anger softened, not gone but changed. "Cariño."
"Don't."
"I'm not scolding."
"You sound like you're about to scold compassionately."
"You are very difficult to love safely."
Jay blinked.
That one landed.
Clara seemed to realise it too, because her thumb moved gently over Jay's fingers. "Not difficult to love," she clarified, quieter. "Never that. Difficult to keep alive without a committee."
Jay exhaled a weak laugh. "That's fair."
Julia reappeared by the curtain, phone in hand, face tight. She did not have to speak. Clara looked at her and understood something had been confirmed, or close enough.
Jay saw it pass between them.
Her stomach dropped, separate from the pain.
"What?"
Julia came to the bedside.
"They think it's a ruptured appendix," she said. "They're calling surgery now. You need antibiotics and an operation."
The room seemed to recede.
For once, Jay did not make a joke immediately.
She stared at Julia, then Clara, then down at the hospital blanket covering her body like it belonged to someone else.
Surgery.
The word had a different weight when it was not about an injury. Football injuries were awful, but familiar. Ligaments. Fractures. Repairs. Scans with timelines. Rehab plans. You came back from those through work, through sweat, through physios telling you not yet and you hearing soon. This was not that. This was something inside her body rupturing quietly while she made jokes about toast.
Her eyes found Julia's.
"Call her."
Julia nodded at once. "Yes."
"No waiting."
"No waiting."
"And tell her..." Jay swallowed. The pain medication made her tongue feel heavy, and fever blurred the thought before she could catch it properly. "Tell her I'm not dead."
Clara closed her eyes for a second.
Julia leaned closer. "I'll tell her you're going into surgery and that they're taking care of you."
"Tell her I'm still mad about the kiss."
Julia's face broke.
Not fully. Not in a way Jay would have noticed if she were less drugged and less frightened. But something in her expression cracked open, just enough for all the fear to show.
"I will," Julia said, voice rough. "I promise."
Jay's eyes shifted to Clara. "You too."
Clara bent and kissed her forehead. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Bossy."
"Yes."
"Nice."
"High praise."
Julia stepped outside the curtain with the phone.
But she did not call Alexia first.
She called Eli.
Because Clara had been right earlier. Because Alexia needed to be told in person if possible. Because if Alexia received Julia's call on the pitch with only the words ruptured appendix and surgery, she might still arrive at the hospital, but she would arrive shattered and reckless and driving herself through a city that would not move fast enough.
Eli answered warmly at first, the way she always did when Julia called, with that immediate maternal affection she extended to the people who orbited Alexia's life closely enough to become family by consequence.
"Julia, carino."
Eli," Julia said, and the warmth vanished from the call. "I need you to go to training. Now. It's Jay."
There was one small breath.
Then Eli said, "Tell me."
Julia did.
Carefully. Quickly. Enough truth to move her, enough control not to break her. Jay was in hospital. Her appendix had ruptured or they strongly suspected it had. She was going into surgery. She was conscious. In pain, but conscious. She had asked for Alexia. She was being Jay about it.
Eli listened without interrupting.
Then she said, "I go."
At the training ground, the morning had sharpened into heat.
Alexia had spent the session trying to behave like herself and failing in ways that only the people who knew her best could see. To anyone else, she was still Alexia Putellas. Accurate passes. Clear instructions. Timing crisp enough to make drills look easier than they were. She corrected positioning, demanded sharper movement, called for the ball with authority. Her body performed competence because competence was built into her bones.
But Lucy saw the phone checks.
Patri saw the way Alexia's eyes kept drifting towards the side of the pitch between exercises.
Mapi saw that Alexia had not laughed once, not even when Jana tripped over a cone and tried to pretend she had meant to.
Jana, pale with residual guilt from yesterday's actual stomach bug and Jay's imagined accusations, saw Alexia look at her and immediately said, "I feel fine today, I swear."
Alexia frowned. "What?"
"Nothing."
Lucy walked over during the water break, lowering her voice. "Have you heard from Jay?"
Alexia looked at her phone again.
No messages.
No missed calls.
No ridiculous photo of the pre vomit bowl with a caption about their relationship losing its spark. No complaint about tea. No accusation against Jana. No dramatic goodbye note from bed about being denied mouth based medical care.
Nothing.
"She is sleeping," Alexia said.
Lucy looked at her.
Alexia hated that look.
"She is probably sleeping," she corrected.
"Ale."
"She had fever."
"You said that."
"And lower pain."
Lucy's face changed. "Lower?"
"Right side."
Lucy went still.
Alexia saw it and felt something cold move through her chest.
"What?"
"Nothing," Lucy said too quickly.
Alexia's eyes sharpened. "Do not nothing me. I live with Jay. I know nothing means disaster."
Lucy rubbed a hand over the back of her neck. "It can be appendicitis, that sort of pain. Not always. Could be a bug. But lower right..."
Alexia's grip tightened around her bottle.
For a second, she was back in the bedroom. Jay warm under her hand. Jay smiling too quickly. Jay saying lower right and then making jokes fast enough to cover the fact that Alexia had gone quiet.
"I should have stayed," Alexia said.
Lucy's expression softened. "You didn't know."
"I knew enough to worry."
"You told her to call?"
"Yes."
"Then she'll call."
Alexia looked down at her phone.
They both knew Jay might not.
The whistle blew for the next drill. Alexia moved because movement was easier than standing still with fear. Pass. Turn. Scan. Receive. The ball came to her feet and she controlled it automatically, but her mind was no longer fully on the pitch. It was in their apartment. In their bedroom. With the tray. The toast. The bowl. Jay under the duvet, making that face she made when she was trying to convince Alexia she was fine and herself at the same time.
Then Jonatan stopped talking.
It was subtle, but Alexia felt it.
A silence moved over the pitch before anyone said her name.
Alexia turned.
Her mother stood at the edge of the training ground.
Eli was not dramatic. She did not wave her arms or call out across the grass. She simply stood there beside a member of staff, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, handbag held tightly in both hands, face composed in a way that made Alexia's blood go cold.
No.
Her body knew before her mind did.
No.
Lucy said, "Ale?"
Alexia was already moving.
She pulled off her bib as she crossed the pitch, not because it mattered, but because her hands needed something to do or they would shake. The grass seemed too long. The distance too stupid. Every step stretched. Her boots felt heavy, her chest tight, the world narrowing until there was only Eli's face and the awful gentleness in Jonatan's eyes as he stepped back to give them space.
"Mama?" Alexia's voice did not sound like hers.
Eli took her hands.
That was when Alexia knew it was bad.
Eli did not soften bad news with touch unless touch was needed before the words arrived.
"Cariño."
Alexia shook her head once. "No."
Eli's eyes filled, but her voice stayed steady. "It is Jay."
"What happened?"
"She is in hospital."
For a moment, Alexia simply stared.
The sentence did not connect to reality.
Jay was at home.
Jay was in bed.
Jay was in their bed, with toast on the tray and water beside her and a bowl she had been offended by. Jay was supposed to be sleeping, supposed to wake up and send Alexia some complaint about being abandoned to die with only carbohydrates for comfort. Jay was not hospital. Hospital belonged to other people, to injuries on pitches, to controlled situations where medics arrived and everyone knew what had happened.
"No," Alexia said. "No, she had a bug."
Eli's fingers tightened around hers. "Her appendix ruptured. They are taking her to surgery."
The words struck with no mercy.
Appendix.
Ruptured.
Surgery.
Alexia felt the blood drain from her face so quickly the pitch seemed to tilt.
"Qué?"
"Julia is with her. Clara too. She was conscious. They are moving quickly."
"I left her."
"Alexia."
"I left her." The second time it came out broken. Not loud. Worse than loud. Small. As if something had collapsed behind her ribs. "She told me pain and I left her."
"You could not know."
"I did know." Alexia pressed a hand to her mouth. Her fingers were shaking now, visibly, and she hated that but could not stop it. "I saw her face. She was warm. She said lower right and I thought..." Her breath caught. "I thought Jana. I thought bug. I made toast."
"Ay, mi niña."
"I did not kiss her."
Eli blinked, thrown for half a second by the suddenness of that detail, by the devastation Alexia put into it.
Then understanding softened her whole face.
Alexia's eyes filled so fast she could not see properly. "She asked me. Again and again, she asked, and I said no because I thought she could make me sick. I kissed her forehead. I kissed her hand. Not her mouth." Her voice cracked. "Mama, what if she was scared and I was not there?"
Eli stepped closer and gripped Alexia's face between both hands, forcing her to look up the way she had when Alexia was a child and grief had been too large for her little body.
"Listen to me. You loved her this morning. You cared for her. You told her what to do. You made her eat. You did not abandon her."
"I left."
"You went to work because both of you thought it was illness, not danger."
"She asked me to stay."
"Did she?"
Alexia's mouth trembled. "No. She told me to go."
"Because she loves you too."
That made it worse. Somehow, impossibly, that made it worse.
Behind them, the squad had gathered without gathering, close enough to hear only fragments, far enough to pretend privacy still existed. Lucy stood very still, all colour gone from her face. Patri's hand covered her mouth. Mapi had one arm around Jana, who looked stricken beyond words. Keira hovered near Lucy, watching Alexia with the helplessness of someone who wanted to fix something that could not be fixed by any useful English practicality.
Alexia looked at none of them.
If she looked at kindness, she would break.
Her phone buzzed in her hand.
Julia.
Alexia answered so fast she nearly dropped it.
"Julia."
"She's going into surgery now," Julia said. Her voice was controlled, but Alexia could hear the strain beneath it. "They believe her appendix ruptured. They've started antibiotics. She's in pain, but she was conscious. She asked for you."
Alexia closed her eyes.
For one second, the world became only that.
She asked for you.
"What did she say?"
Julia's breath shook, just once. "She told me to tell you she is still mad about the kiss."
The laugh that left Alexia was almost a sob.
It broke out of her with no permission, wet and wounded and full of such violent relief that Eli immediately pulled her closer.
"That idiot," Alexia whispered.
"Yes," Julia said, and now her voice sounded near tears too. "Our idiot."
"I am coming."
"I know."
"Tell her."
"She is going under now, Ale."
"Tell her anyway."
A pause.
Then Julia, softer than Alexia had ever heard her, said, "I will."
Alexia nodded as if Julia could see her. "Tell her I am coming. Tell her I love her. Tell her I will kiss her when she wakes up."
Julia made a small sound, half laugh, half grief. "I'll tell her."
"And Julia?"
"Yes?"
"Do not leave her."
"I won't."
The call ended.
For a second, Alexia stood there with the phone still against her ear.
Then her body remembered how to move.
She turned towards Jonatan. He did not make her ask.
"Go," he said quietly.
Alexia nodded once, but her legs felt wrong beneath her. Lucy stepped forward, catching her elbow for half a second, just enough to steady her.
"She'll be alright," Lucy said, though her voice had the rough edge of fear. "She's annoying as hell. No organ gets the final word over Jay."
Alexia tried to smile.
It hurt too much.
Jana stepped forward, eyes wide and wet. "Alexia, I'm so sorry. I didn't know, I mean, if it was because I was sick yesterday..."
Alexia looked at her then, and despite everything, despite the terror ripping through her chest, some part of her understood what Jana was carrying and could not let it grow.
"No," she said firmly. Her accent thickened around the word. "No, Jana. This is not you. Vale? Do not do this."
Jana nodded quickly, wiping at her face.
Mapi said, voice forced into something steadier than she felt, "We come later?"
Alexia could not answer.
Eli did for her. "Later. I will message."
Patri stepped closer and pressed Alexia's training jacket into her hands. Alexia had not realised she had left it by the bench.
"She'll want to know you looked dramatic," Patri said softly, trying to give her something that sounded like Jay, something stupid enough to hold. "Like full captain panic. Very attractive. She'd be unbearable about it."
Alexia's mouth trembled.
"She will be unbearable," Alexia said.
"Exactly."
"She will wake up and complain I did not kiss her."
"Obviously."
"She will say surgery was too much effort for a kiss."
Lucy nodded. "That sounds accurate."
Alexia inhaled, but it broke halfway.
Eli wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"Come," she said. "I drive."
Alexia let herself be led because if she tried to do one more thing with control, she might fall apart in front of everyone. She changed only enough to be allowed into a hospital without grass on her knees, hands shaking as she pulled on trainers, unable to remember whether she had her phone, her keys, anything.
Eli took over. Bag. Jacket. Water. Phone charger from someone's hand. Lucy pressed something into the bag too, probably useless, probably necessary. Keira said they would handle the club. Jonatan spoke to staff. The world arranged itself around Alexia's fear because she could not arrange it herself.
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Not the vague, inconvenient sort of stomach pain a person could bargain with after a glass of water, a deep breath, and a private promise to make better choices around food despite knowing full well they were going to eat exactly the same way again the moment life became emotionally inconvenient. This was not bloating. This was not nerves. This was not the kind of faint internal disagreement that came after a restaurant served something suspiciously creamy and everyone pretended not to notice because the waiter had been nice.
This pain had intent.
It sat low on the right side of her abdomen, precise and ugly, as if something inside her had woken before the rest of her body, put on boots, and decided to start trouble. It did not spread in a dramatic wave. It did not move around enough for Jay to dismiss it as general stomach nonsense. It was fixed. Focused. A small, mean little point of pain with the confidence of someone who had walked into her body and immediately asked to speak to management.
Jay lay perfectly still beneath the duvet and stared at the thin grey wash of morning light pressing around the curtains.
The bedroom was quiet in that particular early way Barcelona could be quiet before the day got hot and loud and alive. The air conditioning hummed low in the corner. The ceiling fan turned lazily above them, pushing cool air in slow circles. Somewhere outside, a scooter went past and faded, then a shutter rattled open on a neighbouring balcony. Their room smelled faintly of clean sheets, Alexia's body wash, and the coffee beans Jay had bought because the packaging looked expensive and she had been trying, with great seriousness, to become the sort of woman who had opinions about coffee beyond "yes" and "more".
Beside her, Alexia slept on her stomach with one arm bent under the pillow and the other lying across Jay's waist like an act of possession committed unconsciously. Her hair was loose and messy across one cheek, dark against the white pillowcase. Her mouth was soft. Her lashes rested against her skin. In sleep, all the captain left her face. The public woman vanished. The structure, the authority, the press conference composure, the calm that could silence a room without needing to rise above conversational volume. Gone. In bed like this, Alexia looked younger, warmer, almost breakable, except Jay knew better than to mistake softness for fragility. Alexia was never fragile. She was just unguarded here. With Jay. In their bed. In the home they had built slowly over the past year, one shared habit and one stolen hoodie and one unnecessary kitchen appliance at a time.
Jay loved that.
She loved Alexia's arm over her waist. Loved the weight of it. Loved that Alexia reached for her even in sleep, like her body had learned Jay as a place and kept returning. Loved the faint line between Alexia's brows that appeared when she was dreaming too hard. Loved the ridiculous fact that Alexia, one of the most controlled women on earth, could somehow steal the duvet every night with the quiet, ruthless consistency of a professional criminal and then wake up looking surprised when Jay accused her of theft.
She was beautiful.
Deeply, offensively beautiful.
Which was rude, really, because if Jay was going to be betrayed by an organ at half six in the morning, the least Alexia could do was look slightly less kissable while it happened. There should have been solidarity. A bit of morning ugliness. Some pillow creases. Maybe a weird sleep face. Instead Alexia looked like a woman in a perfume advert about longing and discipline, and Jay looked like a heavily tattooed athlete lying very still because her stomach had apparently developed political opinions.
The pain pinched tighter.
Jay's fingers curled against the sheet.
She breathed in carefully through her nose and out through her mouth. Slow. Controlled. Sensible. Exactly the way physios and doctors always told athletes to breathe when something hurt, as if breath could solve everything and not merely make you more aware that you were still alive to experience the problem.
For several seconds, Jay did what she had done for most of her professional career whenever pain arrived uninvited.
She pretended it had not.
This was not denial, she decided. Denial was dramatic. This was assessment. Elite assessment. A performance professional taking inventory of her own body like an expensive vehicle with a questionable warning light.
Toes: fine. Feet: fine. Calves: fine, though one was slightly tight from training, which was rude but familiar. Knees: shockingly cooperative for once. Thighs: powerful, beautiful, no notes. Hips: fine. Back: fine. Shoulders: fine. Head: clear. Mouth: dry, but not suspiciously dry. Stomach: actively trying to assassinate her.
Otherwise, strong morning.
The pain turned again, slow and sharp, not quite a cramp, not quite a stab, something between the two. Enough to make her face tighten before she could stop it.
Jay stared at the ceiling.
"Absolutely not," she whispered.
Alexia stirred immediately.
Of course she did.
Jay had once knocked an entire glass of water off the bedside table at three in the morning, watched it hit the floor with enough noise to wake the ancestors, then frozen in panic while Alexia slept through the whole thing like a saint in a museum. Jay had dropped a shoe. Sworn at a wardrobe. Walked directly into the bathroom door because she had been half asleep and, in her own defence, the door had "come out of nowhere". Alexia had not moved for any of those. She slept deeply, warmly, greedily, with the smug peace of someone whose conscience was organised.
But Jay whispering one sentence in the wrong tone?
One tiny, muttered complaint to her own abdomen?
Alexia's eyes opened.
Not slowly either. Not in that confused, drifting way people woke when they were being pulled gently from sleep. Her eyes opened with purpose. Hazel, heavy lidded, instantly alert beneath the mess of her hair. Captain mode did not even load gradually. It simply appeared, like a system update nobody had authorised.
"Qué pasa?" Alexia mumbled, voice rough with sleep, accent thicker because morning had not yet given her time to polish the edges of her English.
Jay froze.
This was the first tactical error of the day.
"Nothing."
Alexia blinked once.
Then she lifted her head from the pillow.
Jay knew immediately she had made it worse. Nothing was an answer that had never once worked in her life. Not with Julia, not with Clara, not with Lucy, and definitely not with Alexia, who treated the word nothing as both a lie and a personal insult. Nothing, when said by Jay, had a long and distinguished history of meaning many things. Blood on a sock. A bruise the size of a fruit bowl. An emotional breakdown disguised as needing petrol. A kitchen incident involving a pan, a tea towel, and what Jay still maintained was "controlled flame". Once, nothing had meant Jay had accidentally locked herself out on the terrace wearing only boxers and one sock because she had gone outside to "look at the moon like a tortured poet" and the sliding door had decided to commit betrayal.
Alexia pushed herself up on one elbow. The arm across Jay's waist shifted, but did not leave her entirely. Her hand stayed there, warm and possessive through the duvet.
"Bebé."
Jay turned her head very slowly, as if speed might make her more guilty. "Morning."
Alexia stared at her. "Why did you say absolutely not?"
Jay considered several possible answers.
Because my body is committing treason felt too alarming.
Because I am negotiating with an internal threat sounded too much like something that would make Alexia call a doctor before breakfast.
Jay chose dignity.
"I was speaking to myself."
Alexia's eyes narrowed. "You said it like you were speaking to an enemy."
"I contain multitudes."
"Jay."
"I was speaking to my body."
"That is worse."
"It started it."
Alexia's gaze moved over her face with quiet precision. This was the problem with loving someone observant. You could not get away with poor acting. Jay was a brilliant footballer, a charismatic nuisance, a deeply committed flirt, and a woman who could charm a steward into letting her through the wrong door without credentials, but she had never successfully lied to Alexia Putellas from less than six feet away. Alexia read her like a scouting report. Too much tension in the jaw. Too little colour around the mouth. Eyes too bright. One shoulder held too carefully still.
Then Alexia looked down.
"Why are you holding your stomach?"
Jay looked down too.
Her right hand was pressed firmly against the duvet over the lower part of her abdomen.
Traitor.
Honestly, she could not rely on anyone.
"Because," Jay said, with as much confidence as a woman could have while being betrayed by her own limbs, "I'm affectionate."
Alexia stared. "With your stomach?"
"Yes."
"Since when?"
"We've had a difficult relationship. I'm doing the work."
"The work?"
"Rebuilding trust."
Alexia's expression did not change.
Jay sighed. "You're not enjoying my growth."
"You are holding your stomach and your face is weird."
"My face is never weird."
"It is weird now."
"That is harsh from a woman who claims to love me."
"I do love you." Alexia sat up fully, hair falling around her shoulders, the duvet sliding down to her waist. "That is why I am looking at your weird face."
Jay tried to smile.
It lasted half a second.
Smiling, she discovered, used more abdominal muscles than seemed fair or anatomically necessary. A tiny pull went through her lower right side and turned the smile into something tighter. She corrected it quickly, but Alexia saw.
Of course Alexia saw.
The last of the softness left her expression. Not the love, never that, but the sleepy gentleness. Her whole body became alert. She leaned over Jay and pressed the back of her hand to Jay's forehead.
Jay made a token attempt to dodge.
The movement immediately made the pain grip harder.
She stopped dodging.
Alexia gave her a look that said she had noticed both the attempt and the surrender.
"Do not move away from me," Alexia said.
"It was symbolic resistance."
"It was stupid resistance."
"Still resistance."
Alexia pressed her hand to Jay's forehead, then her cheek, then slid her fingers to the side of Jay's neck to feel the heat there. Her touch was gentle, but her face had gone serious in a way that made Jay's chest tighten for reasons that had nothing to do with pain. Alexia worried quietly. That was the worst kind. If she shouted, Jay could joke. If she fussed, Jay could perform outrage. But when Alexia went still and careful, when her love narrowed into focus, Jay always felt the joke catch somewhere behind her teeth.
"You are warm bebe," Alexia said.
"I'm always warm."
"You are too warm."
"I'm naturally passionate."
"You are sweating amor."
Jay opened one eye wider. "Also passion."
"Jay."
"What?"
Alexia's thumb stayed against her throat. "Do not charm me right now."
Jay blinked. "That's like asking the sun not to rise."
"It is seven in the morning."
"The sun is literally rising."
"Dios mío."
Jay smiled despite herself, then regretted it immediately when the pain pinched again. She breathed carefully through her nose.
Alexia saw that too.
"Tell me," she said, voice lower now. "What hurts?"
Jay looked at her.
There were moments in their relationship where Jay could still feel the old instinct flare up before the newer, better truth could settle over it. The instinct to minimise. To make pain funny before anyone could take it seriously. To make herself easy to handle. To keep other people calm by becoming entertaining. It had lived in her so long that sometimes it moved before thought did.
But Alexia's hand was on her neck, thumb steady at her pulse, and her eyes were steady too. Not frightened yet. Not angry. Just there. Waiting. Asking Jay to give her the truth because she had earned it, because love was not only kissing in kitchens and stealing hoodies and pressing each other against walls after training. Love was also this. Being honest when the body failed to behave.
"My stomach hurts," Jay admitted.
Alexia's brows lifted.
Jay added quickly, "A bit."
"A bit?"
"A dramatic bit."
"What means a dramatic bit?"
"It means I am brave, but I may complain."
"You always complain."
"That is how you know I'm alive."
"Where?"
Jay gestured vaguely under the duvet. "Around."
"Jay."
"Stomach region."
"Jay."
"Lower right."
The change in Alexia's face was small, but immediate. Jay saw it. The tiny pause. The new calculation. Alexia was not a doctor, but she was a footballer who had been around enough bodies, injuries, physios, emergency checks and medical staff to know that pain had geography and some geography mattered more than others.
Jay disliked that pause.
She disliked it very much.
It gave the pain legitimacy.
Then Alexia's expression shifted again as another thought arrived.
"Jana was sick yesterday."
Jay blinked.
Relief and accusation hit at the same time.
"That tiny biological weapon."
Alexia frowned. "Do not call Jana this."
"She looked green, Ale. She looked like a Victorian child in a plague painting."
"She had stomach bug."
"She breathed near me."
"She was sitting at the other table."
"Germs have legs."
"Dios mio... they do not."
"They have ambition then."
Alexia rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth moved, and that small almost smile loosened something in Jay's chest. There she was. Her Alexia. Worried but amused. Firm but soft at the edges because Jay was ridiculous and Alexia loved her enough to be annoyed by it every day and still come back for more.
"You probably catch it," Alexia said.
Jay gasped. "I did not catch it. My immune system is elite."
"Your immune system lost to hotel prawns in Lyon."
"Those prawns were criminals."
"You threw up for eight hours."
"I was cleansing."
"You cried because I would not let you order chips."
"I was emotional and empty."
"You told the bathroom floor it was your only friend."
Jay looked away. "Private moment."
Alexia's mouth twitched again, but her eyes remained on Jay's face. She was cataloguing. Temperature. Colour. Pain response. How much Jay was joking. How much the joking was cover. Jay knew the process because she had watched Alexia do it on the pitch a hundred times: one glance, three decisions, no wasted movement.
Alexia pulled the duvet up over Jay's chest with one hand. "You stay in bed."
Jay immediately narrowed her eyes. "I don't like how quick you said that."
"You are sick."
"I'm inconvenienced."
"You are sick."
"I have a stomach disagreement."
"You have fever and stomach pain."
"You're making it sound unattractive."
"It is unattractive."
Jay stared at her, wounded. "Wow."
Alexia leaned down and kissed her forehead before Jay could protest properly.
The kiss was soft and warm and brief.
Far too brief.
Jay's eyes opened. "That was not enough."
"It was forehead."
"I noticed."
"You are sick."
"I'm aware. I was there when it happened."
Alexia pushed herself out of bed. She moved with purpose now, pulling on the first T shirt she found from the chair in the corner. It was Jay's, faded black, too loose at the shoulder, and Jay would have appreciated that more if her abdomen was not acting like a villain in a very small room. Alexia tugged on shorts, tied her hair into a loose bun, then turned to find Jay attempting to shift upward.
"No."
Jay froze halfway.
Alexia had not raised her voice. She did not need to. That was the terrible thing. Alexia could say no in a way that made gravity itself reconsider.
Jay blinked. "What?"
"Back down."
"I'm sitting up."
"No."
"I'm an adult."
"You are an adult who lies."
"I embellish."
"You will sit up, then stand, then tell me you are fine, then fall over near the kitchen."
"That happened one time."
"Three times."
"The third time was not a fall. It was a dramatic lean."
"You slid down the fridge."
"It was supporting me emotionally."
Alexia pointed to the pillow. "Down."
Jay lowered herself back with enormous theatrical offence, moving carefully despite the performance. "This relationship has become authoritarian."
"This relationship has become sensible."
"I don't respond well to sensible."
"I know, amor. This is why I must use force."
Jay's eyes flicked over her, because even in pain she remained committed to the bit and also to being deeply, helplessly in love. Alexia stood near the foot of the bed in Jay's T shirt, bare legs, messy bun, sleep-warm face, looking stern and domestic and terrifyingly beautiful.
"You're very bossy for someone wearing my shirt," Jay said.
Alexia glanced down at herself. "It is mine now."
"That is theft."
"You steal my hoodies."
"That's romance."
"This also romance."
"No, this is textile crime."
Alexia came around to Jay's side of the bed and tucked the duvet around her again with infuriating tenderness. She did it properly, smoothing it under Jay's arm, adjusting the pillow behind her shoulder, checking the water bottle on the bedside table. The care was so practical, so automatic, that Jay's throat tightened. There were still moments when being loved like this surprised her. Not the big declarations. Not the kissing in front of the team until Lucy threatened to file a formal complaint with UEFA. Not Alexia grabbing her hand in public without thinking. Those things were easy to recognise.
It was the duvet.
The water.
The quiet hand against her forehead.
The certainty that Alexia would notice discomfort before Jay had fully admitted it to herself.
Jay softened before she could help it.
Alexia noticed that too, because apparently her hobbies included football, leadership, and emotionally exposing Jay before breakfast.
"You stay," Alexia said, gentler now.
Jay narrowed her eyes. "You say that like I'm a dog."
"You behave worse than dog."
"I'm deeply trainable."
"No, you are not."
"I am with the right reward system."
Alexia paused.
It was tiny. Barely a hesitation. But Jay caught it, because flirting with Alexia was one of her elite skills and she took professional pride in recognising when the ball had slipped through the defensive line.
Jay's grin appeared slowly.
Alexia's eyes narrowed. "No."
"You paused."
"I did not."
"You absolutely paused."
"I was thinking how annoying you are."
"You were thinking about rewards."
"I was thinking about toast."
"Kinky."
"Jay."
"What? You brought up toast with that tone."
Alexia pointed at her. "Sick. Bed. No flirting."
Jay settled back against the pillow, smug despite the pain. "You love my flirting."
"I tolerate it."
"You encouraged it last night."
Alexia's cheeks coloured faintly.
Jay's grin sharpened. "Oh, look at that. There she is."
Alexia turned away too quickly. "I make you breakfast."
"Ooh."
"Toast."
Jay's face dropped. "Oh."
"And tea."
"Wow. A sickly orphan breakfast. Shall I ask for a candle and cough nobly into a handkerchief?"
"You are lucky I feed you."
"I am lucky generally." Jay's gaze softened as Alexia paused in the doorway. "Look at you."
Alexia looked back at her.
For a second the room went quieter.
Jay had meant it as flirtation, because she meant almost everything with Alexia as flirtation if she could get away with it, but there was too much truth in it to stay light. Look at you. In my shirt. In our room. Loving me. Staying. Choosing. Making toast because my stomach hurts and you care too much to pretend it does not.
Alexia's expression softened.
"You are very sweet when you are sick," she said.
Jay blinked. "I'm sweet all the time."
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"You are chaos all the time. Sometimes sweet."
"I'm a delicate flower."
"You are a fire alarm with tattoos."
Jay pointed weakly after her as she left. "That was poetry and slander."
Alexia disappeared into the hallway, muttering something in Spanish that was too quick for Jay to catch fully, though she definitely heard "madre mía" and "imposible" and possibly "guapa", which she chose to take as a victory.
The moment Alexia left, Jay let her face relax.
The pain was still there.
Without Alexia in the room to joke at, it felt worse.
That annoyed Jay too. Pain should not get more confident because her audience had left. It was unprofessional.
She shifted carefully, trying to find a position that made it less sharp. On her back was uncomfortable. On her left side pulled strangely. On her right side was worse. She ended up half-curled, one knee bent, hand pressed over the lower right part of her abdomen through the duvet. The pressure helped a little. Or maybe it simply gave her the illusion of control, which was nearly as useful.
From the kitchen came the sounds of Alexia caring.
Jay knew them all now.
The soft thud of a cupboard door closing with Alexia's hip because she always used her hands for three other things at once. The scrape of a plate from the shelf. The click of the kettle. The little pause before the toaster lever went down because Alexia always checked the setting after Jay once turned it up to maximum "to see what commitment looked like" and nearly created charcoal. The drawer. The knife. The quiet rhythm of a woman who found reassurance in order, who handled fear by making the immediate world manageable.
Jay loved that about her.
She loved it so much it sometimes knocked the breath out of her in the most ordinary moments. Alexia arranging fruit in the bowl because she liked the colours balanced. Alexia lining their shoes by the door even though Jay would ruin the system within twelve hours. Alexia checking Jay's training bag and pretending she was only doing it because Jay was hopeless, not because she liked making sure Jay had everything. Alexia touching Jay's lower back in crowded spaces, guiding without controlling. Alexia kissing the side of her head mid conversation with someone else because her body wanted Jay close before her mind had decided to make it public.
Their affection had become a language the whole team pretended to hate.
Lucy complained the most, which was hypocritical because Lucy watched them with soft eyes when she thought nobody noticed. Mapi made gagging noises and then asked if they wanted coffee. Patri had once walked into the gym, seen Alexia sitting on a bench with Jay between her knees while she taped Jay's wrist, and simply turned around muttering, "No, no, I am too single for this." Keira had started saying "personal space" every time Jay kissed Alexia in the corridor, and Jay had started kissing Alexia twice out of principle.
They did not care.
That was the thing.
A year in, and Jay still touched Alexia like she was grateful to find her there. Alexia still looked for Jay when she entered a room. They were not subtle. They had tried subtlety for about nine days at the start and both of them had found it boring, stressful and ultimately incompatible with Jay's face.
The pain twisted again.
Jay inhaled sharply and pressed her palm harder into her stomach.
"Don't ruin this," she whispered down at it. "She's making toast. There's romance in the air and you are being incredibly attention seeking."
Her stomach did not care.
Rude.
Alexia returned ten minutes later carrying a tray with the seriousness of a woman bringing supplies to a battlefield. Toast cut into triangles sat on a small plate beside a mug of tea, a glass of water, a banana, two plain crackers, and a bowl.
Jay stared at the bowl immediately.
"What's that?"
Alexia set the tray carefully on the bedside table. "If you vomit."
Jay blinked. "You brought me a pre vomit bowl?"
"Yes."
"As a concept, that is devastating."
"It is practical."
"It's the least sexy thing you've ever done."
"You are sick."
"I'm still hot."
"You are pale."
"Hot people can be pale. Vampires carried entire franchises on it."
Alexia sat on the edge of the bed and gave her a look. "You are not vampire."
"You don't know everything about me."
"I know you cried when a fly touched your face."
"It was aggressive."
"It was fly."
"It had confidence."
Alexia broke off a corner of toast and held it up. "Eat."
Jay looked at the toast.
Then at Alexia.
Then at the toast again.
"Are you hand feeding me?"
"You will enjoy this too much."
"I feel seen."
"You are dramatic enough to need it."
"I am accepting care with grace."
"You are making face like princess."
"I'm your princess."
Alexia snorted softly. "You are my problem."
Jay opened her mouth obediently.
Alexia fed her the toast.
It was plain, barely buttered, cut into a triangle with the sort of care Alexia put into everything. Jay chewed slowly. Her stomach did not immediately revolt, which she decided was generous of it. The toast was boring, but Alexia's fingers had brushed her lower lip while feeding her, so the meal had range.
"This is nice," Jay said.
"The toast?"
"Being adored."
Alexia sighed, but her eyes softened. "You are ridiculous."
"You love me."
"Sí."
"Say it with less judgement."
"No."
Jay ate another bite because Alexia held it out and because refusing food from Alexia while Alexia looked at her with those worried hazel eyes felt legally questionable. Alexia gave her water after that, then tea, then watched every swallow like she might need to write a report on it.
Jay raised an eyebrow. "You're staring at me."
"I am monitoring."
"Sexy."
"You are sick."
"I can multitask."
"You can barely sit."
"Also true."
Alexia's hand settled on Jay's thigh over the duvet, warm and grounding. Her thumb began to move in slow strokes, back and forth, back and forth, an unconscious rhythm that made Jay's whole body want to soften despite the pain. Alexia had always been physical with love, but not in a careless way. She touched with purpose. A palm on Jay's hip to steady her. Fingers at the back of her neck to bring her attention home. A hand over her heart when Jay was spiralling too fast. A kiss at the corner of her mouth when words would make everything too large.
Now, sitting beside her in the grey morning, Alexia looked like she wanted to hold Jay still by force of will alone.
Jay watched her for a while.
"You're worried."
Alexia looked up. "You have fever and stomach pain."
"It's probably Jana's haunted stomach bug."
"Probably."
"You say probably with a face."
"What face?"
"The face where you're already mentally preparing a hospital bag."
Alexia did not deny it fast enough.
Jay groaned. "Ale."
"What?"
"It's a bug."
"You do not know."
"Jana breathed near me with plague energy."
"Stop saying plague."
"She looked like she was about to announce she'd seen the light."
"Jay."
"She had one sip of water and everyone acted like she was brave."
"She was sick."
"I'm sick and I'm being denied kisses."
Alexia's expression sharpened immediately. "Yes. Because you may be contagious."
Jay went still.
There were betrayals, and then there was this.
"Sorry," she said slowly. "What did you just say?"
Alexia's mouth twitched. "No kisses."
Jay placed her toast down with the gravity of a woman setting aside legal evidence. "You're withholding affection?"
"I am sitting here feeding you toast."
"Toast is not affection."
"It is care."
"It is bread."
"It is bread with care."
"Still bread."
"You have stomach bug."
"I have a girlfriend."
"I do not want stomach bug."
Jay stared at her as if Alexia had personally wounded the institution of romance. "You're choosing health over me?"
"I am choosing both."
"No, you're choosing fear."
"I am choosing not to vomit."
"You used to be romantic."
"I am very romantic."
"You brought me a vomit bowl and refused to kiss me."
"I cut your toast into triangles."
"That's not romance, that's geometry."
Alexia laughed despite herself, and Jay, even pale and uncomfortable and privately beginning to suspect that her stomach was being a little too enthusiastic for a simple bug, felt a flash of triumph. There it was. The laugh. The one Alexia tried to hold back when she wanted to stay stern. Jay loved dragging it out of her. Loved seeing discipline lose to joy for half a second.
Alexia leaned closer and brushed Jay's hair back from her forehead. "You are impossible, bebé."
Jay tilted her chin up hopefully. "Kiss?"
"No."
"Forehead?"
"You already had forehead."
"Mouth?"
"No."
"Cheek?"
"No."
"Neck?"
"Jay."
"I'm just exploring options."
"You are sick."
"I'm emotionally abandoned."
"You are under a duvet I tucked around you after feeding you breakfast."
"Cold. Loveless. Bread based relationship."
Alexia shook her head, but she was smiling now, and that helped. It helped enough that Jay almost forgot the pain until it tightened again, sudden and mean.
Her breath caught.
Alexia's smile vanished.
"Worse?"
Jay recovered quickly. "No."
"Jay."
"A little."
"How little?"
"Normal little."
"You are sweating more."
"Because you're withholding kisses. My body is grieving."
Alexia did not laugh that time. She reached for the water and held it out. "Drink."
Jay drank.
The water felt too cold going down. Her stomach rolled, not enough to vomit, but enough for the bowl to become a less ridiculous object in the room. She hated that. She did not want the bowl to win.
Alexia watched her for another minute, then looked towards the wardrobe, then back at Jay.
"I can stay from training."
Jay's answer came too quickly. "No."
Alexia's face closed slightly.
Jay saw it and softened at once. "Baby."
"You are sick."
"It's a bug."
"You do not know."
"I know you have training."
"Training is not important if you are ill."
Jay's chest hurt then, in a completely different way. That was the danger of Alexia. She said things like that plainly. No drama. No performance. Just a simple reordering of the world in which Jay came first, and Jay still had not fully learned how to receive that without wanting to make a joke and cry at the same time.
"I'll sleep," Jay said, quieter. "Honestly. I'll be disgusting and heroic. I'll hydrate. I'll stare dramatically out the window. Maybe write Jana a strongly worded message."
"You will not message Jana."
"I might send a formal complaint."
"No."
"She started this."
"She had a virus."
"Allegedly."
Alexia leaned in closer. "Mírame."
Jay looked at her.
The softness was gone from Alexia's voice now. Not the love. The playfulness. This was the voice she used when she needed Jay to listen properly. On the pitch, Jay responded to it instantly. In life, she pretended not to and then did anyway, because being told what to do by Alexia was one of her private weaknesses and everyone, tragically, knew it.
"You call me if it gets worse," Alexia said.
"I will."
"If fever gets worse."
"Yes."
"If you vomit."
"I'll send a photo."
"Jay."
"Kidding. Horrible idea. Even I heard it."
"If you feel dizzy."
"Yes."
"If the pain changes."
Jay paused, because something about that landed too close.
Alexia noticed.
"The pain has changed?" she asked.
"No. Not really. It's just... there."
"Jay."
"It's there aggressively."
Alexia's hand tightened around hers. "Then I stay."
"No." Jay squeezed back. "Ale, look at me. I'm okay. I'm uncomfortable, but I'm okay. You go. If it gets worse, I call. Promise."
Alexia studied her.
Jay held her gaze.
This was one of the things that had changed in a year. At the beginning, Alexia had known Jay was capable of charm. Of performance. Of dazzling a room into looking anywhere except the place she was bleeding. Now Alexia knew the difference between Jay hiding and Jay trying. This was not full honesty, maybe. Jay could admit that privately. But it was not a lie either. At that moment, she believed it. She believed she could sleep it off. She believed Jana's bug had simply chosen violence. She believed Alexia could go to training and return to find her dramatic but alive, ready to complain about being kiss starved.
Alexia wanted to argue.
Jay could see it in her jaw.
Instead, Alexia exhaled slowly and lifted Jay's hand to her mouth, kissing her knuckles one by one. It was not the kiss Jay wanted, but it was so tender that she stopped complaining for an entire three seconds.
Then, because she was herself, she said, "That was nice. Mouth next."
Alexia closed her eyes. "Madre mía."
"I'm negotiating."
"You are exhausting."
"You're obsessed with me."
"Unfortunately."
Jay smiled. "There she is."
Alexia bent and kissed Jay's forehead again, then her temple, then the bridge of her nose. Jay tried to chase her mouth, but Alexia pulled back with the reflexes of an elite midfielder avoiding a bad tackle.
"No mouth."
"You're cruel."
"I am careful."
"Cruelfully careful."
"That is not word."
"It is now."
Alexia brushed her thumb over Jay's cheek. For a second, her worry showed nakedly. It moved through her eyes, down into the line of her mouth, into the way she looked at Jay as if memorising the exact colour of her skin so she could compare it later and decide whether to panic.
Jay softened.
"Hey," she said. "I'll call you."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
"Not after waiting."
Jay hesitated.
Alexia's eyes narrowed. "Jay."
"I promise I won't wait stupidly."
"That is not same."
"It is the version my brand can support."
"Jay."
"I promise I'll call if it gets worse."
Alexia nodded once, accepting it because she had to. Then she stood, but she did it reluctantly, as if the room itself had become difficult to leave.
"Phone beside you."
Jay lifted it slightly from the duvet. "Beside me."
"Water."
"Here."
"Bowl."
"Offensive but present."
"Do not get up."
"I shall levitate."
"Jay."
"I won't get up."
"No training. No shower. No coffee."
Jay gasped. "Now you're just saying violent things."
"No coffee."
"I'm ill. Don't threaten me."
"Tea only."
"You've become drunk on power."
Alexia walked towards the door, then stopped and turned back. She came to the bed again, because of course she did, because leaving Jay was something Alexia always had to do in stages. One more touch. One more instruction. One more kiss that was not quite the kiss Jay wanted and still somehow enough to make her chest warm.
Alexia leaned down until her forehead rested lightly against Jay's.
Jay closed her eyes.
For a moment, neither of them joked.
The room held them there. Morning grey. Air conditioning hum. Alexia's breath soft against Jay's mouth but not touching. Jay's fingers curled lightly into the front of Alexia's stolen T shirt.
"I love you," Alexia whispered.
Jay's heart went stupid. "I love you too."
"You call."
"I call."
"You rest."
"I rest."
"You do not fight the stomach bug like it is opponent."
Jay opened one eye. "What if it talks shit?"
Alexia huffed a laugh and pulled away before Jay could catch her mouth. "Impossible."
"You love impossible."
"Sí," Alexia said, and this time there was no judgement in it. Only warmth. "I do."
The front door closed a few minutes later.
Jay listened to the lock turn.
Then silence.
The apartment felt different without Alexia in it. Not empty exactly, because Alexia was everywhere even when she left. Her trainers lined neatly by the door. Her coffee mug in the drying rack. Her book face down on the side table despite insisting bookmarks existed for a reason. Her training jacket thrown over a chair because even Alexia, despite her many lectures about Jay's chaos, had flaws. Beautiful flaws. Hypocritical flaws. Flaws Jay adored and planned to weaponise during their next argument about laundry.
Jay lay under the duvet, holding her stomach.
"She left me," she whispered to the ceiling. "Beautiful woman. No mouth. Just bread and orders."
Her stomach cramped.
Hard.
Jay stopped smiling.
The pain dug in with a deeper pull this time, dragging low and sharp through her right side until she had to curl slightly around it. She breathed carefully, one hand pressing down as if she could hold the pain in place and stop it spreading.
"Okay," she muttered. "That was unnecessary."
She waited for it to pass.
It did, mostly.
But not completely.
For a while, Jay tried to sleep. Really tried. Heroically tried. She turned onto her left side, then onto her back, then regretted both decisions and settled in an awkward half curl with the duvet tangled around her legs. The room seemed warmer now despite the air conditioning. Her skin felt damp under the T shirt she had slept in. Her mouth kept drying out. Every so often the pain would settle into a dull, ugly throb and Jay would almost drift off, only for it to sharpen suddenly as if reminding her it was still present and deeply committed to being a problem.
She told herself it was Jana's bug.
Jana's stupid bug.
Jana, who had walked into the training centre yesterday pale and tragic, clutching a bottle of water like a dying poet. Jana, who had sworn she was fine and then spent twenty minutes sitting very still with the haunted expression of a woman who had seen the inside of her own soul. Jana, who had breathed the same general air as everyone else and therefore, in Jay's entirely reasonable opinion, was responsible for the current situation.
Jay reached for her phone and opened the team chat.
She typed: Jana I respect you as a teammate but your stomach has attacked my household.
She stared at it.
Alexia would somehow know.
Alexia always knew.
Jay put the phone back down and closed her eyes. The pain pulsed again, meaner now. Not unbearable, not yet, but wrong enough that it began to pull at the edges of her denial.
A stomach bug should move around, she thought.
A stomach bug should be messy and general and embarrassing. This was too specific. Too pointed. Too much like one tiny part of her body had taken offence.
She shifted, trying to reach for the water.
The moment she lifted herself even slightly, the pain flared so sharply that her breath locked.
"Fuck."
She froze halfway upright, one hand gripping the sheet, the other pressed hard into her abdomen.
The room tilted for half a second.
Jay shut her eyes until it steadied.
"Fine," she whispered through her teeth. "Fine. We are fine. Elegant. Brave. Mildly betrayed."
She drank water in tiny sips. The effort made sweat prickle at the back of her neck. By the time she put the bottle down, she felt weaker than she liked and angrier than the situation deserved.
Then she sneezed.
The pain tore through her.
Jay cried out before she could stop herself.
It was not theatrical. Not one of her usual dramatic noises, the kind she made when Alexia refused to share dessert or Lucy tackled her too hard in training and Jay decided to perform a full death scene on the grass. This sound came out raw. Shocked. Too sharp to be funny. It ripped from somewhere low in her chest and left her lying frozen on the bed, eyes wide, breath shallow.
For a second, she did not move at all.
The silence after it felt enormous.
Jay stared at the ceiling.
"Oh," she whispered. "That was bad."
For the first time, she thought seriously about calling Alexia.
Her phone sat beside her. Alexia's name was right there in favourites, pinned at the top with the photo Jay had taken of her on their sofa, Alexia glaring over the rim of a coffee mug because Jay had interrupted her reading to ask whether she would still love her if she became a worm. Alexia had said no. Then, ten seconds later, without looking up from the book, she had added, "I would build you a very nice box." Jay had nearly proposed on the spot.
Her thumb hovered over the call button.
If she called, Alexia would come.
Not later. Not after training. Immediately.
Jay could picture it with painful clarity. Alexia stopping mid drill. Alexia's whole face changing. Alexia leaving the pitch without waiting for permission because there were hierarchies in football and then there was Jay saying, baby, I need you. Eli would find out. Lucy would find out. The whole squad would find out, because football teams were not teams so much as surveillance networks with boots. Mapi would create a group chat called Stomach Watch before anyone even knew what was happening. Patri would be kind and also unbearable. Jana would deny involvement.
And if it was nothing?
If it was Jana's bug plus Jay being dramatic?
Alexia would worry for nothing.
Jay hated making Alexia worry for nothing.
She could handle Alexia being annoyed. She could handle Alexia being stern. She could handle being lectured in three languages while Alexia folded laundry with aggressive precision. But Alexia afraid because of Jay? Alexia with that quiet, hollow look? No. Jay would rather two foot her own reflection.
So she called Clara.
Clara answered on the third ring with the calm of someone who either had her life together or had become excellent at pretending.
"Jay?"
"Question."
There was a pause.
Clara said, "Why do you sound like that?"
Jay frowned. "I haven't asked the question."
"You answered several by speaking."
"That's annoying."
"Yes. Ask."
Jay swallowed. Her mouth was dry again. "Should I be getting shooting pains in my stomach when I sneeze?"
Silence.
Jay closed her eyes. "I dislike that silence."
Clara's voice changed. It did not become panicked. Clara rarely panicked audibly. It became cleaner. Sharper. "Where is the pain?"
"Stomach."
"Where exactly?"
Jay made a face. "You and Alexia do this exact same thing."
"Jay."
"Lower right. Mostly."
"Fever?"
"Maybe."
"Do you know or are you being difficult?"
"I am always being difficult, but yes, probably fever."
"Nausea?"
"A bit."
"Vomiting?"
"No."
"Can you stand?"
Jay looked towards the bedroom door.
It seemed very far away.
Possibly in another district.
"With enough national pride."
"Can you stand comfortably?"
"No."
"How long has it been like this?"
"Woke up with it. Thought it was Jana's bug."
"Has it got worse?"
Jay hesitated.
Clara heard the hesitation. Of course she did. Bossy, observant women. Jay collected them like injuries.
"How much worse?"
Jay breathed through another pulse of pain. "Started as annoying. Now if it were a defender, I'd take the red."
"Jay."
"What?"
"I need a real answer."
Jay shut her eyes. "It hurts a lot."
There was another silence, shorter this time, but heavier.
"Where is Alexia?" Clara asked.
"Training."
"Did you call her?"
"No."
"Jay."
"She'll panic."
"She loves you."
"Exactly."
Clara exhaled through her nose. Jay could hear the effort it took for her not to launch immediately into a lecture. "I am calling a nurse I trust. Then I am calling you back. Do not move."
"Oh, good. That sounds relaxed."
"Listen to me carefully. Do not get out of bed."
"I'm already in bed."
"Stay in bed."
"I don't love your tone."
"My tone is the least of your problems if you move."
Jay blinked. "That was quite dramatic for you."
"Do. Not. Move."
"Fine."
"I am serious."
"I said fine."
"Jay."
"I won't move."
Clara hung up.
Jay stared at the phone.
"Bossy women," she muttered. "Everywhere. Can't even be betrayed by an organ in peace."
She tried to settle back. Tried to breathe. Tried not to think about Clara's silence or Alexia's face if she found out Jay had called Clara instead. That would be a separate medical event. Alexia would go very quiet. Jay hated when Alexia went quiet. Quiet Alexia could make entire rooms confess.
The pain shifted.
Not much.
Just enough.
Jay frowned.
"No," she whispered. "We are not escalating."
Her body did not listen.
The next wave came hotter and deeper, radiating through her lower stomach with such force that her hand clamped down instinctively. She curled around it, breathing in quick little pulls. Sweat slid along her spine. Her vision blurred at the edges for a second, grey creeping in like fog.
Her phone rang.
Clara.
Jay saw the name light up the screen.
She reached for it.
She really did.
Later, when everyone accused her of ignoring Clara's call, Jay would defend herself with great passion and, frankly, strong evidence. She had seen the call. She had moved her hand. She had intended to answer and say something brilliant and medically unhelpful. She had been seconds away from participating in her own rescue with charm and dignity.
Then the pain changed.
It did not sharpen.
It detonated.
A white hot tearing sensation ripped through her lower abdomen so violently that her whole body locked. Air disappeared from her lungs. Her fingers clawed at the duvet. The room seemed to lurch sideways, light smearing across the ceiling, furniture bending in and out of focus as if the world had become unreliable.
Jay tried to sit up because some foolish, panicked part of her believed vertical meant control.
It did not.
The pain answered immediately, savage and blinding.
The phone slipped from her fingers and hit the floor.
Jay had one absurd thought as the room tipped away from her.
Alexia is going to be so smug about telling me not to get up.
Then the floor rose fast, and the morning went grey.
Clara Esteve did not panic.
That was important.
It was also, at that exact moment, a lie she was telling herself with impressive professional commitment.
She had spent years building a life around control. Not the brittle kind, not the sort that shattered the moment a situation became messy, but the deliberate kind. The useful kind. Clara believed in facts, in sequence, in knowing which problem came first and which could be left to bleed quietly in a corner until the urgent thing was handled. She believed in names, dates, documents, signatures, carefully worded emails, emergency contacts updated before anyone needed them, and the deep holy power of a person who could remain calm while everyone else lost their minds and started making the situation about their own emotional weather.
So she did not panic when Jay's call ended.
She sat very still at her kitchen table, phone in her hand, the morning light falling cleanly across the open folder beside her laptop, and she placed Jay's symptoms in order the way she would place evidence in a file.
Lower right abdominal pain.
Fever.
Nausea.
Pain worsening.
Pain with movement.
Pain sharp enough to make Jay Jones, a woman who had once finished forty minutes of a match with a cracked rib and described it afterwards as "spicy breathing", call someone and ask a medical question in a voice that sounded too careful.
Clara's hand tightened around the phone.
She did not think of Jay joking in the hospital after that cracked rib, pale around the mouth and still asking whether the scan would show her "inner beauty". She did not think of Jay at nineteen, furious and terrified and pretending not to be either, sitting in Julia's office with a split lip and a contract in front of her like the whole world was just another person trying to catch her out. She did not think of all the times Jay had made pain funny because funny was safer than needing people.
She called the nurse she trusted.
Facts only.
"Twenty nine year old female. Professional footballer. Lower right abdominal pain since waking. Fever, likely. Nausea. Pain worsening over the morning. Sharp pain when sneezing. Struggling to stand comfortably. High pain tolerance. Initially thought stomach bug exposure from teammate."
Her friend did not indulge the carefulness. She cut through it at once.
"Possible appendicitis. With that location and worsening pain, she needs emergency care now. If it's severe with movement, don't wait. If it ruptures, she'll need surgery and antibiotics. Get her seen."
The words landed with the weight of something Clara had already known but had been trying not to name.
Possible appendicitis.
Rupture.
Surgery.
Jay alone in the apartment because Alexia was at training and Jay, in all her brilliant idiotic loyalty, had decided not to call the person who loved her most.
Clara thanked her, hung up, and immediately called Jay back.
It rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Clara stood up before the fourth ring.
By the time the call ended unanswered, her chair had scraped back across the tile and hit the cabinet behind her.
She called again.
Nothing.
The silence became its own kind of sound, thick and awful and entirely unlike Jay. Jay was never silent in a crisis unless something had gone properly wrong. If she was fine, she answered with a joke. If she was scared, she answered with a worse joke. If she was in pain, she answered with a joke so elaborate and inappropriate that Clara usually had to put her on speaker so Julia could hear it and suffer too. Jay could be evasive, infuriating, dramatic, reckless, affectionate, impossible, tender, and occasionally so charming Clara wanted to strangle her on principle, but she was not quiet.
Not like this.
"Oh, Jay," Clara whispered.
Then she called Julia.
Julia answered on the second ring with no greeting, only the exhausted sharpness of a woman who had already been forced to argue with three people before breakfast and was prepared to make it everyone's problem.
"If this is about the sponsor approval, I swear to God, Clara, I'm going to forward them all a picture of a brick wall and ask them to negotiate with that instead."
"Go to Jay and Alexia's now."
There was a silence.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Julia knew Clara's voice too well.
"What happened?"
"Possible appendicitis. Jay called me. Lower right abdominal pain, fever, pain worse with movement, shooting pain when sneezing. I spoke to a nurse. She needs emergency care. I called her back and she isn't answering."
Clara heard Julia move immediately. Chair legs. Keys. A drawer opened too hard. The soft thump of a handbag being snatched from somewhere. Julia did not ask whether Clara was sure. She did not waste time making Clara defend the concern. That was why they worked as well as they did. They could argue for forty five minutes over contract wording, but when Jay was in trouble, the whole world became very simple.
"Where's Alexia?"
"Training."
"Jay didn't call her."
"No."
"Of course she didn't," Julia said, and the fury in her voice was instant, low, controlled, not because she was angry at Clara and not even fully because she was angry at Jay. It was older than that. Protective anger. Familiar anger. The kind that came from knowing someone so well you could predict their worst instinct and still be wounded by it every time. "She'd rather pass out under furniture than inconvenience someone she loves."
"She promised she was in bed."
"She lies when she's scared."
"I know."
"I'm ten minutes away. Less if every traffic light in Barcelona values its life."
"Julia."
"I know. No crashing. I'll call an ambulance if she doesn't answer the door."
"You have the emergency key."
"Yes."
"If she answers before you get there, I'll update you."
"And Alexia?"
Clara looked towards the window, where the street outside looked absurdly normal. A delivery van reversing. A woman walking a dog. Someone laughing into a phone. The world always had the nerve to continue during emergencies, which Clara found personally offensive.
"Not yet," she said carefully. "If we call her with no information, she'll leave training with only fear. Get eyes on Jay. Then we tell her properly.
Julia was quiet for a fraction of a second. "Fine. But we do not protect Alexia by keeping her ignorant for long."
"No."
"And if Jay asked us not to scare her?"
"She did."
"Of course she did," Julia muttered. "I love her, but I am going to wrap her in bubble wrap and put her in a locked cupboard."
"She'd find a way out."
"She would flirt with the lock."
"She would."
That almost laugh between them lasted less than a second. Then it was gone, swallowed by urgency.
Summary - Jay and Alexia get given separate hotel rooms.
Word count - 6.8k
The problem began at reception, which felt almost insulting, because reception was supposed to be the place where hotel problems were quietly absorbed by people in navy blazers and turned into key cards before anyone important had to develop feelings about them.
Barcelona arrived just after six in the evening, the whole squad carrying that heavy pre match exhaustion that made everyone quieter but not necessarily calmer. Suitcases rolled over polished marble with the soft, expensive hum of wheels designed not to offend wealthy guests.
Staff moved between them with clipboards and polite smiles, offering water, directions and the sort of calm efficiency that suggested nothing truly chaotic had ever happened beneath the chandelier. This impression lasted until Mapi became trapped halfway through the revolving door because she tried to enter while turning back to finish a story to Ingrid, and the door, having standards, refused to support indecision.
Alexia stood at the reception desk with Jay beside her, one hand resting on the counter while the other held both passports. She looked composed, neat and captainly, hair tucked behind one ear, travel jacket zipped halfway, face arranged into the serene professionalism she wore in public whenever she had decided the world did not deserve access to her actual thoughts. Jay stood close enough that their hips brushed. Close enough that her hand had slipped, without ceremony or permission, into the back pocket of Alexia’s jeans.
Alexia did not move it.
That was perhaps the most revealing part.
Jay’s hand was not discreet. It was not hovering innocently nearby, not resting somewhere with plausible deniability, not accidentally grazing fabric in a way they could explain to the team if required. It was simply there, warm and possessive and entirely at home, because Jay’s body had long ago decided that if Alexia was within touching distance, touch was not only possible but morally correct.
The receptionist smiled, checked the computer, typed something, and then hesitated.
Alexia noticed first.
Jay noticed Alexia noticing, because Jay noticed Alexia in the same instinctive way she noticed a ball breaking loose in the box. “What?” she murmured, leaning in until her mouth brushed the edge of Alexia’s ear. “What’s the admin face?”
Alexia did not look at her. “Do not start.”
“I haven’t started.”
“You are already suspicious amor.”
“You got captain posture.”
“I am standing.”
“You’re standing in Spanish.”
Alexia’s mouth tightened because Jay was right, which was always annoying, especially in public. She kept her eyes on the receptionist. “Is there a problem?”
The receptionist produced the kind of smile people used when they had found a problem but were hoping a gentle tone might convince it to become smaller. “Not a problem exactly. There seems to have been a small administrative error with the rooming list.”
The words moved through the lobby like a scent released into water.
Lucy, three metres away, slowly lowered her coffee.
Patri paused with her suitcase handle in one hand.
Mapi, freed at last from the revolving door and therefore emotionally available for disaster, appeared beside Ingrid as if summoned by gossip. “Administrative error?” she repeated, already delighted.
Alexia glanced back. “Mapi.”
“I am showing concern.”
“You are smiling with all your teeth.”
“I am concerned with joy.”
Jay’s fingers tightened slightly in Alexia’s pocket. “What kind of administrative error?” she asked, in a voice that suggested she had already begun identifying suspects.
The receptionist looked back at the screen, apologetic and unaware that she was standing on the edge of history. “You and Alexia Putellas have been allocated separate rooms.”
The lobby changed.
Not loudly. Nobody gasped. Nobody dropped a bag. But silence gathered in little pockets around them as players who absolutely should have been minding their own business suddenly became intensely interested in something happening near reception. Mapi’s face lit up with such pure, terrible possibility that Ingrid put a hand lightly on her arm, either to comfort her or restrain her.
Jay removed her hand from Alexia’s pocket very slowly.
Alexia remained still.
The receptionist continued, bravely. “Both rooms are on the same floor, only a few doors apart. I am sorry, the hotel is fully booked tonight because of a conference, so there are no double rooms available.”
Jay stared at her as though she had just suggested Barcelona play without a midfield.
“Separate,” she said.
The receptionist nodded. “Yes.”
“As in two rooms.”
“Yes.”
“Two doors.”
“Yes.”
“Two beds.”
The receptionist’s professional smile began to tremble around the edges. “Yes.”
Jay looked at Alexia.
Alexia kept her face calm. “That is fine. We can manage.”
Jay’s head turned very slowly. “We can what?”
“Manage,” Alexia repeated, taking the two key cards because one of them, apparently, was still capable of representing the club with dignity.
Jay stared at the cards as if they were eviction papers. “Ale.”
“It is one night.”
“One night is a measurement invented by people who have given up.”
Lucy made a noise into her coffee that could have been a cough if anyone present felt charitable.
Alexia slid one key card into Jay’s jacket pocket and rested a hand briefly at her waist, which was a mistake because touch only reminded both of them what the hotel was now proposing they go without. “We have a match tomorrow. We are here to rest.”
“I rest better near you.”
“You can rest in your room.”
Jay glanced past her towards the receptionist, then back at Alexia, lowering her voice as though diplomacy demanded restraint. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but this feels like a human rights issue.”
Patri sighed from behind them. “Jay, you are thirty.”
“And?”
“You can sleep alone.”
Jay turned around with genuine hurt in her eyes. “Why would you say something like that in a public lobby?”
Mapi leaned closer to Ingrid and whispered loudly, “She’s taking it worse than when they cancelled the chocolate pudding at camp.”
Jay pointed at her. “That pudding was part of morale.”
Alexia closed her eyes for one brief second, long enough to ask whatever saints watched over travelling football teams for strength, then opened them and smiled at the receptionist with terrifying politeness. “Thank you. It is fine.”
Jay looked at her as if betrayed on a molecular level. “You’re accepting this?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
“Like a professional.”
“Baby, professionalism has gone too far.”
Alexia turned to face her fully then, both key cards in hand, voice lowering into the calm, Spanish edged register that normally made Jay listen because it usually preceded either an important tactical note or a kiss that stole the air from her lungs. “Jay. We are not making this a problem. It is a rooming error, not a tragedy.”
Jay blinked. “You say that because your room won’t be haunted by my absence.”
Lucy laughed properly then and had to turn away.
The receptionist, who had clearly not been trained for whatever category of relationship crisis this was, politely looked at her computer.
Alexia reached up, fixed the collar of Jay’s jacket, and because Jay looked genuinely distressed beneath all the theatre, softened despite herself. “It is one night, guapa. You will survive.”
Jay’s eyes narrowed. “Survive is a very low bar for romance.”
“Tonight the bar is sleep.”
“Sleep with you.”
“Sleep alone.”
Jay made a small sound of disbelief, almost too quiet for anyone but Alexia to hear. “That phrase has no shape in my mouth.”
Alexia pressed her lips together.
Mapi whispered, “I give her forty minutes.”
Lucy shook her head. “Twenty five before first attempt.”
Patri, who had accepted both the inevitability of the situation and the uselessness of pretending otherwise, said, “First attempt or successful entry?”
“First attempt,” Lucy said.
Mapi considered this seriously. “Successful entry by eleven.”
Alexia turned around. “You are all disgusting.”
Jay, still staring at the key cards, murmured, “I am emotionally displaced.”
“You are three doors down,” Alexia said.
“Exactly. Visible exile.”
The rooms were, indeed, on the same floor, which the hotel staff appeared to think was helpful but which Jay considered a cruelty with carpet. Alexia’s room was at the end of the corridor near the lifts. Jay’s was three doors away, close enough to make the separation feel ridiculous, far enough to qualify as abandonment under Jay’s personal emotional legislation.
Alexia unlocked her room first, stepped inside, and turned with the expression of a woman drawing a boundary. Jay stood outside holding her suitcase, looking into the room past Alexia’s shoulder with the intensity of someone assessing a hostage location. “Your bed looks better.”
“You have not seen your bed.”
“I know its vibe already.”
“Jay.”
“Fine.” Jay leaned down and kissed Alexia once, quick but warm, the kind of kiss that should have been ordinary and instead felt like a farewell at a train station because Jay was choosing to be impossible. When she pulled back, she remained close enough that their noses brushed. “Text me if you miss me.”
Alexia’s eyebrow lifted. “I will not.”
“You will.”
“I will unpack.”
“You can miss me while unpacking.”
“Goodnight.”
“It’s six fifteen.”
“Goodnight emotionally.”
Alexia shut the door gently before Jay could answer.
On the other side, Jay stood very still for several seconds.
Then she turned to find Lucy, Mapi, Patri and Ingrid standing in the corridor, all pretending with varying degrees of failure that they had not paused to watch.
Jay lifted her chin. “I’m handling it with dignity.”
Lucy looked at her. “You look like you’ve just been told you’re sleeping in a shed.”
“I’ve seen the room number. It’s basically a shed with WiFi.”
Mapi placed one hand over her heart. “Stay strong.”
Jay nodded gravely. “I appreciate the support.”
Ingrid, gentle but amused, said, “Maybe your room will be nice.”
Jay looked at her. “That’s kind, Ingrid. Delusional, but kind.”
Her room was nice.
This made everything worse.
It was clean, elegant, softly lit, and had an enormous bed dressed in white linen that any reasonable adult would have been pleased to find after a day of travel. There was a neat desk beneath the window, a little armchair in the corner, bottled water beside the bed, and a bathroom with warm stone tiles and flattering lights around the mirror. It was quiet. Comfortable. Perfectly adequate.
Jay hated it immediately.
She stood in the doorway, suitcase abandoned beside her, and stared at the bed.
It was too big. That was the problem. Not physically too big, because she liked a big bed. Their bed at home was big. Their bed at home allowed Alexia to pretend she wanted space before inevitably sleeping half on top of Jay by three in the morning. But this bed was empty in a way that felt pointed. A vast, dramatic expanse of untouched white sheets with no Alexia in it, no dark hair on the pillow, no warm foot sliding between Jay’s ankles, no half-asleep Spanish complaint when Jay tried to steal a kiss after midnight.
Jay walked further inside.
The silence followed her.
She placed her wash bag in the bathroom, returned to the bed, pressed one hand experimentally against the pillow, and frowned.
Emotionally wrong.
She knew it at once.
Alexia texted three minutes later.
Alexia: Unpack.
Jay stared at the message, wounded by the fact that Alexia knew her so well.
Jay: The pillow is strange.
Alexia: No.
Jay: You did not even ask what kind of strange.
Alexia: Because I do not want to encourage this.
Jay: Unsupportive.
Alexia: Unpack.
Jay: My bed looks like it wants to teach me independence.
Alexia: Good.
Jay: I am against that curriculum.
Alexia did not reply.
Jay unpacked exactly one sock, got bored, and sat on the bed.
Eight minutes passed.
Then she stood.
The first appearance came at six forty.
Alexia had unpacked properly because she was a person with discipline and systems, laid out her training kit for the next morning, checked the match schedule, answered two staff messages, and was just hanging her jacket in the wardrobe when the knock came.
It was not a hotel knock. Not knuckles politely tapping wood.
It was Jay.
Somehow, even her knock leaned against the door with personality.
Alexia closed her eyes.
Another knock came, softer this time, as if Jay believed gentleness might count as maturity.
Alexia opened the door.
Jay stood there with her hands in the pockets of her joggers and an expression arranged into casual innocence that did not survive contact with Alexia’s face. Her hair was still slightly damp from the quick shower she must have taken, her black T shirt soft against her shoulders, her bare feet planted on the hotel corridor carpet because of course she had not put shoes on for a journey of three doors.
Alexia looked down. “Where are your shoes?”
Jay glanced at her feet as though surprised to find them unaccompanied. “I came in peace.”
“You came without shoes.”
“That proves peace. Aggression wears trainers.”
Alexia folded one arm across her body and held the door with the other. “What do you need?”
Jay looked past her into the room, then back at her. “Your room has better lighting.”
Alexia stared. “Lighting.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Vibes.”
“No.”
“Reading.”
“You did not bring a book.”
Jay paused, then looked down at her empty hands with mild betrayal. “That’s actually true.”
Alexia’s mouth twitched despite herself.
Jay saw it and immediately stepped half a pace closer. “Can I borrow one?”
“You do not want to read.”
“I could start now. Personal growth often begins in crisis.”
“Jay.”
“What?”
“You are not coming in because of lighting.”
Jay’s face softened in a way that immediately made the ridiculous excuse more dangerous than if she had kept joking. “No.”
“At least you admit it.”
“I missed you.”
Alexia’s resolve suffered its first visible fracture.
Jay noticed, because Jay always noticed that particular softening. She did not push through the door, did not make the joke bigger, simply stood there in the corridor looking at Alexia with a sincerity that landed far more effectively than any performance. “I know it’s stupid,” she said, quieter now. “It’s just weird. You’re right there.”
Alexia kept one hand on the door. “It is not stupid to miss me.”
Jay smiled faintly. “No?”
“No.” Alexia reached out and brushed her thumb along Jay’s jaw before she could stop herself. “It is stupid to pretend it is about lighting.”
Jay kissed the pad of her thumb. “Fair.”
“You go to your room now.”
“Can I have a kiss first?”
Alexia sighed as though this was unreasonable, stepped forward as though she had not already decided, and kissed her. It was supposed to be brief. A goodnight kiss, except it was not night and they were both lying about the simplicity of it. Jay’s hand slid automatically to Alexia’s waist, warm and careful, and Alexia caught the front of Jay’s T shirt in her fingers as if to steady herself, which only brought Jay closer. For a few seconds, the corridor disappeared. Jay’s mouth was soft, then smiling, then less soft when Alexia made the mistake of sighing into it.
A door clicked somewhere down the hall.
Alexia pulled back at once.
Lucy’s voice floated out, amused and merciless. “First attempt, fifteen minutes. I win.”
Alexia turned her head. “Lucy.”
The door closed immediately.
Jay pressed her lips together. Her eyes were laughing even if her mouth was trying not to. “Fifteen minutes is strong.”
Alexia pushed her gently backwards into the corridor. “Go.”
Jay walked backwards, smiling. “Love you.”
“Te amo. Go.”
“You love me in separate rooms?”
“Jay.”
“Going.”
The second appearance came after dinner.
Dinner should have made things easier. The team meal was structured, sensible, and conducted under the watchful eyes of nutrition staff who regarded professional footballers with the weary suspicion of people who knew exactly how quickly elite athletes became toddlers when dessert appeared. Alexia sat beside Jay because separate rooms did not mean separate existence, and for most of the meal Jay behaved almost normally.
Almost.
Her knee stayed pressed against Alexia’s beneath the table. Her fingers kept finding Alexia’s under the edge of the napkin. She passed Alexia the better roasted vegetables from her plate and stole a piece of bread in return, explaining when challenged that this was not theft but “a loving redistribution of carbohydrates.” At one point Alexia stood to refill her water, and Jay kissed her hip as she passed because the chair height made it convenient and Jay had never once been able to resist convenient affection.
“You are proving nothing,” Alexia murmured when she sat again.
Jay smiled around a mouthful of bread. “I’m proving I’m adaptable.”
“You are proving you cannot behave in public.”
“Baby, the team already knows I love you.”
Mapi, from across the table, said, “We know more than we ever wanted.”
Jay pointed her fork. “You’re jealous because you and Ingrid have normal rooming.”
Mapi sat taller, pleased with herself. “We are united by administration.”
“I’m happy for your paperwork.”
Alexia put a hand on Jay’s thigh beneath the table and squeezed once, a warning and an affection in the same gesture. Jay immediately softened, turning her head to kiss Alexia’s temple. “Fine. I’ll behave.”
“You said that like you were doing me a favour.”
“I am always doing you favours. I’m delightful.”
“You are exhausting.”
“And yet.”
Alexia looked at her.
Jay smiled.
Alexia looked away before she accidentally kissed her at the dinner table with staff present.
After dinner, Alexia returned to her room with the firm intention of setting boundaries. She changed into soft shorts and a loose white T shirt, dried her hair properly, brushed her teeth, checked the match schedule again, sent a professional reply to an email, and told herself she was not listening for footsteps in the corridor.
She was, of course, absolutely listening.
The knock came at nine forty six.
Alexia opened the door with an expression already arranged into disapproval.
Jay stood there holding a pillow.
Her pillow.
From her own room.
Alexia looked at it.
Then at Jay.
Jay hugged the pillow to her chest, eyes very serious. “My pillow is emotionally wrong.”
Alexia stared.
Jay nodded, as if this explained everything. “It looks fine, but when you lie on it, it has no loyalty.”
“No loyalty.”
“None.”
“It is a pillow bebe.”
“That is what I thought initially.”
Alexia pressed her lips together so hard it hurt. “You brought evidence.”
“I didn’t want you thinking I was exaggerating.”
“You are always exaggerating.”
“Not always. Sometimes I’m ahead of the facts.”
Behind Jay, a door opened.
Patri appeared with a toothbrush in one hand and the expression of a woman who had expected this and was still disappointed. “Is this attempt two?”
Jay turned. “I’m addressing a sleep concern.”
Patri looked at the pillow. “That pillow looks fine.”
“It betrayed me privately.”
Lucy’s door opened next. “What’s the excuse?”
Jay held the pillow up. “Emotional incompatibility.”
Lucy nodded. “Serious.”
Then Mapi’s door opened, because the hallway had now reached the stage of community theatre. She leaned out wearing a hoodie over her pyjamas, hair tied up badly, eyes delighted. “Do we need a mediator?”
Alexia pointed at every single one of them. “Go back inside.”
Nobody moved.
Jay looked at Alexia with a softness that would have been effective had she not been clutching a pillow like a Victorian orphan. “Can I test yours for comparison?”
“No.”
“Can I sit for five minutes and see if the room helps?”
“No.”
“Can I kiss you goodnight?”
Alexia hesitated.
The hallway held its breath.
Mapi whispered, “Structural weakness.”
Alexia turned her head. “I will structurally weaken your door if you do not close it.”
Mapi disappeared.
Jay’s mouth twitched.
Alexia grabbed the front of Jay’s T shirt, pulled her down and kissed her, partly because she wanted to and partly because she needed to shut everyone up before the hallway became a tribunal. Jay kissed her back immediately, one arm still wrapped around the pillow, the other sliding to Alexia’s waist. The pillow became trapped awkwardly between them, which should have made the kiss ridiculous, and did, but Alexia still felt the heat of Jay’s mouth move through her like a warning.
When she pushed Jay back, Jay looked dazed and pleased.
Alexia pointed towards Jay’s room. “Sleep.”
“That was a maybe kiss.”
“It was a stop talking kiss.”
Jay nodded thoughtfully. “Historically, those lead places.”
“Not tonight.”
Jay’s expression suggested she disagreed but respected that Alexia was currently the door holder. “Okay.”
“Goodnight, guapa.”
Jay lifted the pillow slightly. “Can I leave him here?”
“No.”
“He might learn.”
Alexia shut the door.
On the other side, she heard Patri say, “You are pathetic.”
Jay replied, “I prefer committed.”
The third appearance came at ten twenty eight, and this time Jay did not knock dramatically. There was one soft tap, then silence.
Alexia opened the door almost immediately because she had been standing near it with a glass of water for reasons she was not prepared to examine.
Jay stood there empty handed.
No book.
No pillow.
No excuse visible.
Her hair was messier now from lying down and failing to sleep. Her face was quieter, the jokes worn thin by the simple truth underneath them. She looked tired and a little sheepish, bare feet on the carpet, shoulders loose in a way that made her seem younger than she was.
Alexia’s grip tightened on the door. “What is it now?”
Jay rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m being annoying.”
“Yes.”
“Like funny annoying or actually annoying?”
Alexia exhaled slowly. “A little actually.”
Jay nodded at once, guilt flickering across her face. “Okay. I’ll stop.”
That was, somehow, worse than the pillow.
Alexia had prepared herself for ridiculous Jay, for tragic Jay, for protest Jay, for Jay arriving with a hotel notepad and a written objection to separation under article whatever of romantic law. She had not prepared for Jay to notice that she might be crossing a line and step back from it immediately, soft and apologetic and willing to give Alexia the space she had asked for even when every part of her clearly wanted the opposite.
Jay smiled, small and careful. “You wanted professional. I get it.”
Alexia’s heart shifted painfully. “Jay.”
“No, I know. I’m being a nightmare because I miss you, and you’re trying to be sensible.”
“I am sensible.”
Jay’s mouth curved faintly. “Ale.”
Alexia narrowed her eyes. “Sometimes sensible.”
“There we go.”
Silence settled between them, different from the earlier laughter. Alexia looked at Jay standing just outside her room, not pushing, not making the want too heavy, simply waiting to see whether she was wanted back. The corridor light softened the lines of her face. Her eyes kept dropping to Alexia’s mouth and returning to her eyes with effort.
Alexia missed her too.
That was the unfair, ridiculous truth of it.
She missed her after three doors and four hours. She missed the weight of Jay beside her. She missed Jay’s hand under her shirt at her waist, Jay’s mouth against the back of her neck, Jay’s knee sliding between hers in the night. She missed the unconscious reaching, the warmth, the way Jay could be asleep and still find her.
Alexia closed her eyes briefly. Professionalism was a fine concept, but it had not accounted for Jay standing barefoot in a corridor looking like she would go away if Alexia asked and stay forever if Alexia opened the door.
“Five minutes,” Alexia said.
Jay went very still. “Inside?”
“No, I thought you could stand in the corridor and absorb the carpet.”
Jay’s grin began slowly. “Sarcasm. Good sign.”
“Do not make me regret this.”
“I would never.”
“You always do.”
“I would rarely.”
Alexia opened the door wider.
Jay stepped inside like someone crossing a border after exile.
The door clicked shut behind them.
For one breath, neither of them moved. The hotel room was quiet, warm with lamplight, Alexia’s suitcase neatly tucked by the wardrobe, her clothes folded over the chair, her book resting untouched on the bedside table. It looked exactly like a room belonging to a woman with discipline and control.
Then Jay turned and reached for her.
The kiss was not triumphant. That was what undid Alexia. Jay did not come in laughing. She did not make some ridiculous comment about winning. Her hands settled at Alexia’s waist, careful and familiar, and she kissed her with such immediate relief that Alexia’s resistance simply failed to locate itself. She kissed Jay back, arms sliding around her neck, body stepping closer until their chests met and the space that had irritated them all evening finally disappeared.
Jay walked her backwards slowly, not pushing, only following the natural pull of them, until Alexia’s back touched the wall beside the wardrobe. Alexia made a quiet sound against her mouth, half warning and half surrender, and Jay’s hands tightened at her waist. The kiss deepened. Alexia’s fingers curled into Jay’s hair. Jay drew back just enough to look at her, eyes dark with want and affection tangled so closely Alexia could not separate them.
“Five minutes,” Alexia whispered.
Jay’s mouth brushed hers. “Still on minute one.”
“That is not true.”
“I’m measuring emotionally.”
“You are impossible.”
Jay kissed her again, slower. “Loved?”
Alexia’s English nearly left the room. “Sí.”
Jay’s smile softened against her mouth. “Then I’m staying until minute five.”
Minute five became twelve.
At eleven fifteen, Jay left Alexia’s room looking thoroughly kissed, hair messier than before, mouth swollen, T shirt slightly twisted at one shoulder. She made it three steps down the corridor before Patri appeared from the direction of the ice machine with a bottle of water.
They stopped.
Patri looked at Jay.
Jay looked back.
Patri’s eyes moved from Jay’s bare feet to her grin, then to Alexia’s door, which shut gently behind her.
“You are pathetic,” Patri said.
Jay pressed one hand to her chest. “I am romantic.”
“You lasted half an hour.”
“Strong numbers.”
“You look smug.”
“I was allowed inside.”
Patri shook her head. “Disgusting.”
Jay returned to her room feeling victorious.
She lasted sixteen minutes.
The fourth appearance came at eleven thirty one.
Alexia opened the door before Jay even knocked.
Jay stood there with her hand raised mid air.
Alexia folded her arms. “What is it now?”
Jay lowered her hand slowly. “I think my room is haunted.”
Alexia stared.
Jay nodded gravely. “By loneliness.”
“Jay.”
“It is more subtle than a normal haunting.”
“No.”
“My suitcase moved.”
“It did not.”
“Emotionally.”
Alexia’s mouth twitched.
Jay saw it. “You laughed.”
“I did not.”
“You almost laughed. That counts in Catalonia.”
From down the hall, Lucy’s door opened a crack.
Alexia did not turn. “Lucy, close the door.”
Lucy closed it.
Jay smiled.
Alexia pointed at her. “You are enjoying that they are watching.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“A little,” Jay admitted. “But mostly I’m enjoying that you keep opening the door.”
Alexia hated how much she liked that answer. Her arms remained folded, but the fight had already begun leaving her body. Jay stepped closer, stopping just short of touching, and the air between them shifted the way it always did when they were no longer pretending the conversation was about anything other than want.
“No me mires así,” Alexia murmured.
Jay’s eyebrows lifted. “Spanish.”
“Because you annoy me.”
“Only annoy?”
Alexia’s cheeks flushed. “Jay.”
“What?”
“You know what.”
Jay’s voice lowered. “I’ll go if you want.”
Alexia knew she meant it.
That was the problem. Not the jokes, not the pillow, not the haunted loneliness. The problem was that Jay would tease and protest and perform a whole tragic one woman play about hotel separation, but the second Alexia actually wanted space, Jay would give it to her. She would go back to her room, sleep badly, text goodnight, and never once make Alexia feel guilty for asking.
That made opening the door feel less like giving in and more like choosing.
“Inside,” Alexia said.
Jay blinked. “Really?”
“If you ask again, I change my mind.”
Jay stepped in immediately.
The door closed.
In the corridor, three separate doors opened with almost no sound.
Lucy peered out first.
Mapi followed, face lit with wicked delight.
Patri appeared last, arms folded, already disappointed in everyone involved.
For several seconds, nothing happened behind Alexia’s door. Then Alexia’s voice came low and firm through the wood. “Phone off.”
Jay’s voice replied, delighted, “Yes, ma’am.”
A pause followed, and then Alexia’s Spanish came fast and flustered, too quiet to catch all of it but sharp enough in rhythm to make Mapi cover her mouth. “No me llames así cuando estoy intentando estar enfadada contigo.”
Lucy vanished into her room, shaking silently.
Mapi whispered, “This is cinema.”
Patri sighed. “Go to bed.”
Inside the room, the moment had changed the second Jay obeyed.
She turned her phone off, placed it on the desk without argument, and when she faced Alexia again, the joking had fallen away. Alexia stood near the bed with her arms still folded, trying to hold onto the last of her authority while wearing soft shorts, bare legs, and the expression of a woman who had invited trouble inside and now had to live with the consequences.
Jay did not rush her.
That was what made Alexia’s pulse lift.
Jay crossed the room slowly, giving Alexia every chance to stop her, and when she reached her, she touched her first at the waist, warm palms over the thin cotton of her shirt. Alexia’s breath shifted. Jay noticed, as she always did, and the corner of her mouth lifted.
“You still mad?” Jay asked softly.
“Sí.”
Jay bent and kissed the side of her neck, just below her ear. “How mad?”
Alexia’s eyes closed before she could stop them. “Enough.”
“Enough for what?”
Alexia caught the front of Jay’s T shirt in both hands and pulled her down into a kiss that answered better than language could. This kiss was different from the hallway ones. No pillow trapped between them. No audience just behind doors. No pretence that Alexia was ending the conversation by kissing her. This one opened the room. It told Jay exactly why Alexia had let her in and exactly how thin her patience had become after an evening of wanting her three doors away.
Jay made a quiet sound into her mouth and moved closer, hands sliding around Alexia’s back. Alexia walked her backwards this time, pushing until Jay’s legs hit the edge of the bed. Jay laughed against her lips, soft and breathless, then sat when Alexia pressed her down by the shoulders.
“Oh,” Jay murmured, looking up at her with bright, delighted eyes. “Captain.”
Alexia’s face flushed instantly. “Do not.”
“I didn’t say anything bad.”
“You said it like that.”
“I admire leadership.”
“Jay.”
Jay reached for her hips and drew her closer between her knees. “Come here, baby.”
Alexia came because, for all her attempts at discipline, Jay’s voice like that had always been a problem. She stepped between Jay’s thighs, both hands sliding into Jay’s hair as Jay kissed the soft strip of skin above her waistband, then the place where her T shirt had ridden up, then higher through the cotton until Alexia’s breath grew unsteady. It was still gentle, still teasing enough to make Alexia want to scold her, but the heat under it was unmistakable.
Alexia tugged Jay’s head up and kissed her again.
The rest of the room blurred from there, not into secrecy but into closeness. Jay’s T shirt came off first because Alexia pulled at it impatiently and then muttered in Spanish when it caught at Jay’s elbow, which made Jay laugh until Alexia kissed her quiet. Alexia’s shirt followed more slowly, Jay’s hands smoothing over her ribs and back with a tenderness that made the hunger feel safe instead of sharp. They moved onto the bed without grace, laughing once when Jay knocked a decorative cushion onto the floor and Alexia hissed, “If you make noise, I kill you,” even as she pulled Jay down by the neck and kissed her like murder was the last thing on her mind.
They kept it quiet because there were teammates three doors away and an early match meeting waiting for them in the morning, but quiet did not mean careful in the cold sense. It meant hands pressed to mouths to muffle laughter, Alexia whispering, “Shh, guapa,” against Jay’s lips before being the one who forgot first.
It meant Jay moving over her with slow, deliberate attention, one hand braced beside Alexia’s head while the other followed the familiar lines of her body beneath the sheet, asking without words and receiving Alexia’s answer in the way she arched into her touch. It meant Alexia’s fingers at Jay’s shoulders, then down her back, nails light enough to make Jay’s breath catch, her Spanish breaking through whenever English failed her.
“Así,” Alexia whispered once, voice low and wrecked, guiding Jay closer with both hands. “Sí, amor. Like that.”
Jay obeyed, all humour gone now except the little smile that flickered whenever Alexia said her name like she had forgotten every sensible reason to stay quiet. The night narrowed to the warmth of Alexia beneath her, the white sheets twisted around their legs, the soft hitch of breath against skin, the kind of intimacy that belonged entirely to people who trusted each other enough to be greedy and tender at the same time. Jay kissed her everywhere she could reach without making the moment crude, over her shoulder, along her jaw, against her mouth whenever Alexia pulled her back up because kissing Jay seemed as necessary as breathing.
Alexia, who had spent the evening trying to be professional, came undone in pieces, each one quieter and more devastating than the last. Her hands tightened in Jay’s hair. Her forehead pressed hard against Jay’s shoulder. Her voice shifted fully into Spanish when pleasure finally overwhelmed discipline, the words tumbling out soft and urgent, and Jay answered with murmured praise, with another kiss, with the steady rhythm of someone who knew Alexia’s body not as a conquest but as a language she had spent years learning with care.
Later, the room lay warm and ruined around them.
Jay was sprawled across Alexia’s bed with the satisfied stillness of a woman who had completed a mission and felt no shame whatsoever about its objectives. Her hair was a disaster, her mouth looked thoroughly kissed, and one arm was wrapped lazily around Alexia’s waist. Alexia lay half on top of her, bare shoulder warm against Jay’s chest, one leg thrown over Jay’s, fingers drawing slow, absent circles on Jay’s stomach while her breathing returned to something resembling normal.
For several minutes, neither of them spoke.
Then Alexia lifted her head.
Jay looked down at her with soft, triumphant affection. “Hi.”
Alexia’s eyes narrowed. “You are not staying.”
Jay blinked. “Sorry?”
“You heard me.”
Jay’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again with profound betrayal. “You’re kicking me out?”
“Sí.”
“After I survived exile?”
“You survived three doors.”
“After I came here emotionally vulnerable?”
“You came here horny.”
Jay gasped, though the grin betrayed her. “That is an outrageous accusation from the captain.”
“It is true.”
“I came for connection.”
Alexia gave her a look.
“And comfort.”
Another look.
“And your body, yes, fine, but in a respectful relationship way.”
Alexia’s smile turned smug, which Jay found both offensive and deeply attractive. “You got what you came for.”
Jay propped herself on one elbow, staring at her in admiration. “Baby, that is filthy.”
“It is accurate.”
“It is both.”
Alexia pushed lightly at her chest. “Go to your room.”
Jay dropped her head back against the pillow and laughed, low and disbelieving. “Wow. Used and removed.”
“You protested all evening to get in here.”
“And succeeded.”
“And now you leave.”
Jay looked down at Alexia, eyes bright with mischief. “Are you worried you won’t sleep if I stay?”
Alexia’s cheeks coloured, but she held her ground. “I know you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means if you stay, you will decide you miss me while I am beside you and start kissing my neck at two in the morning.”
Jay considered denying it, then shrugged. “That does sound like me.”
“We have a match.”
“We do.”
“You need sleep.”
Jay’s expression softened. She reached up, brushed hair from Alexia’s face, and kissed her slowly, no joke in it now, only warmth. “Okay.”
Alexia blinked, caught off guard by the easy surrender. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” Jay kissed her again, shorter this time. “You let me in. I’m not going to push.”
Alexia’s face softened in return. “Guapa.”
“Also,” Jay added, unable to stop herself, “I got what I came for.”
Alexia shoved her.
Jay laughed as she rolled out of bed, gathering her clothes from the floor with only moderate success. Her T shirt was inside out. Her hair was beyond repair. She put one sock in her pocket by mistake, realised, shrugged and decided it was now tomorrow’s problem. Alexia watched from the bed, sheet drawn over her body, eyes warm and amused and still dark enough that Jay nearly climbed back in on principle.
At the door, Jay turned.
Alexia pointed. “No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to come back.”
Jay smiled. “You know me so well.”
“Go.”
“One more kiss.”
“You said this thirty minutes ago.”
“And it worked.”
Alexia tried to stay stern. Truly. But Jay stood there barefoot and rumpled, looking at her as though leaving was tragic even though she was only walking three doors away, and Alexia’s resolve, already thoroughly compromised, failed one last time.
“Uno,” she said.
Jay crossed the room so fast Alexia laughed before their mouths met. The kiss was long, lazy and far too pleased with itself. When Alexia finally pushed her away, she was flushed again. “Go before I change my mind.”
Jay backed away, grinning. “Love you, Ale.”
“Te amo. Now leave.”
Jay slipped into the corridor, closing the door softly behind her, and took three quiet steps towards her room before she saw Patri standing near the ice machine, bottle of water in hand.
Patri looked at her.
Jay looked back.
There was no hiding it. Jay’s hair was destroyed. Her T shirt was inside out. Her mouth was swollen. One sock was visibly sticking out of her pocket. She was barefoot, glowing, and wearing the kind of grin that made innocence not only impossible but insulting.
Patri’s face slowly arranged itself into complete disgust.
Jay tried to stand normally.
Failed.
Patri shook her head. “You are so disgusting.”
Jay pressed a hand to her chest, deeply moved. “Thank you.”
“That was not praise.”
“I’m choosing to receive it with love.”
“You spent all evening protesting like a Victorian ghost, got exactly what you wanted, and now you’re going back to your room grinning.”
Jay nodded thoughtfully. “When you say it like that, it sounds strategic.”
“It sounds disgusting.”
“Romantic strategy.”
“You’re unbearable.”
Jay leaned closer, voice dropping confidentially. “Between us, the haunted room excuse worked.”
Patri closed her eyes. “I hate you.”
“You don’t.”
“I do tonight.”
“Fair.”
Patri pointed towards Jay’s room. “Go to bed.”
“I just did.”
“Dios mio.”
Jay laughed and backed away, hands raised in surrender. “Going. Professionally. Alone. Like a strong independent woman with excellent memories.”
Patri turned and walked away muttering something about filing a complaint with human resources.
Jay reached her room still smiling. She unlocked the door, stepped inside, and looked at the enormous empty bed that had been a personal tragedy earlier in the evening. It still looked emotionally wrong. The pillow still lacked loyalty. The whole room still had the atmosphere of a place designed by people who did not understand the importance of Alexia’s hand under her shirt.
But now Jay could tolerate it.
Barely.
Her phone buzzed before she had even reached the bed.
Alexia: Your shirt was inside out.
Jay looked down.
It was.
She smiled so hard her face hurt.
Jay: You could have told me.
Alexia: And miss Patri seeing you like that? No.
Jay: Cruel woman.
Alexia: Sleep, bebé.
Jay: Miss you.
Alexia: You left one minute ago.
Jay: Still true.
A pause followed.
Then Alexia replied.
Alexia: I miss you too. But sleep.
Jay climbed into her enormous, emotionally questionable bed, hugged the suspicious pillow, and smiled into the dark like a woman who had won the only argument that mattered.
Three doors down, Alexia was probably lying in her own bed pretending she regretted all of it.
Jay knew better.
She also knew, with absolute certainty, that before the next away trip, Alexia would check the rooming list herself.
Not because she trusted the hotel.
Because she knew exactly what would happen if she did not.
