a

“Amor, I missed you” Alexia said, giving you a tight squeeze before immediately taking over the control of the trolley.

“I missed ye too” you nodded, tightening the straps of your back pack as you followed her to the car.

“And me?” Olga asked, sneaking up behind you with three bottles of water and a pack of mini cookies.

“Oh, well now I definitely think I missed ye the most” you chuckled, wrapping your arm around Alexia’s girlfriend and gently taking the packet of cookies from her.

You sat in the back of the car, albeit a bit squished, munching on your cookies as Alexia rambled on about something that you were half listening to.

“Is that okay?” Alexia repeated herself and clicked her fingers at you, eyes still focused forward on the road before her.

“Uh, what?” You mumbled.

“I need to collect Alba from work before I drop you off” she said.

“Sí, that’s fine” you nodded, as Olga opened the door to the compartment in the car and pulled out more snacks.

“Yay” you cheered, making Olga giggle.

“You think more about her than me” Alexia moaned.

“You know that nothing in our apartment would work without her” Olga hummed as Alexia rolled her eyes and mumbled something under her breath.

Alexia pulled up outside an office building and Alba jumped into the car, not expecting to have to slot in beside Alexia’s tallest, stockiest friend. You both didn’t really know each other, you’d met just once before but didn’t even speak to each other then.

“Hola” Alba smiled.

“Hola” you smiled back and nodded your head at her.

“Mac, this is Alba. Alba that is Mac, okay? Seat belt amor, por favor” Alexia said, introducing you both and going straight back into captain mode. Alba buckled herself in and Alexia sped off towards your apartment block.

“Uh, do ye want one?” You asked, holding the bag of mini cookies towards Alexia’s sister.

“Sí, gracias” she replied, taking two from the packet and starting to lightly bite into them, unlike you, who was shoving them into your mouth as if you were on a desert island munching the last of your rations.

It wasn’t often you shared anything, your food, your thoughts, but Alba was Alexia’s sister and you wanted to be nice.

That was the first proper time you met Alba, the first time you had spoken to her and the first time you thought she was absolutely beyond beautiful.

-

The second time you saw Alba was at Alexia’s match a few days after the move. Olga had invited you to come along and keep her company in the stands. Despite you not really wanting to go, still struggling with the fact this was not your life anymore, you never said no to Olga. That girl treated you like a child in the best way. She cooked you food, she packed you snacks and she helped you with household things you weren’t sure of. All she asked in return was that anytime she needed something fixed or assembled that you would do it.

Olga was sat in the middle of both of you, which was a bit annoying, but actually worked out for the best.

“Mac?” Olga waved her hand infront of your face to get your attention. You were too distracted with the bag of jellies she’d given you a few minutes ago.

“Sorry, yeah?” You mumbled.

“Alba’s shower stopped working this morning, you could fix that right?” She asked.

“Yeah, sure” you nodded and smiled straight at Alba.

After the game, you offered Alba a lift home and told her you’d come take a look at the shower. You had a glance and instantly knew what the issue was, so you grabbed the box of tools you had in the boot of your car for work and fixed it for her.

Your t-shirt did however get absolutely soaked in the process.

You were working for a company in Barcelona now as a contractor. They liked that you could speak English and Spanish and were also able to put your hands to anything, so you’d walked straight in to management level, on more money now than you were making when you were playing football.

“That’s good now” you said to the girl who was sitting on her sofa, staring at the TV.

“Hey, your shirt” she hummed, pointing at your t-shirt. “I have some of Ale’s, they should fit you” she smiled as she walked towards her bedroom and came back with a retro Barcelona jersey.

“Here” she added, handing you the jersey.

“Thanks” you smiled back, taking your t-shirt off to swap over to the new one. That’s when Alba saw your tattoos, the ones littered across your stomach and chest.

“You have many” she blurted out.

“Tattoos?” You asked, watching the girl nod. “I’m going to get a few covered up in a couple of days” you explained.

“Why?” She asked.

“They just remind me of her” you shrugged, pulling the jersey over your head as Alba took one last look before dragging her eyes up to meet yours.

Alba, like everyone, knew you’d been in a relationship with Alessia. It was a massive shock to everyone that you’d broken up. You were still adjusting to Alessia not being in your life anymore, in any capacity. It made you feel uncomfortable a lot of the time, especially with the tattoos you had that you’d gotten for or with her. You’d fully believed during your relationship that Alessia was the one.

“Do ye have any?” You mumbled, changing the subject quickly.

“Two” she giggled, showing you quite willingly the tattoo she had on her ribs and then on her wrist. “But I want more” she confirmed.

“Yeah, they suit ye” you hummed, as your eyes went wide at what you’d just said. “Uh, I better head home” you gulped.

“Oh, yes, sure” she replied.

“Do ye want my number?” You asked as the girl looked at you confused. “Incase the shower, or somethin’ breaks” you added.

“Good idea” she said, giving you her phone. That’s how Alba got your number.

-

Suddenly, everything in Alba’s apartment just continued breaking. But luckily, she had a handywoman on speed dial to come and fix it for her. You were in the Spanish girl’s apartment easily twice a week now, fixing something while she cooked or ordered something, then convincing you to stay to watch something with her.

You started to like Alba, which was terrifying. You thought you were going to come to Barcelona and fool around with a couple of different girls to help you to get over Alessia. But that quickly changed when you met Alba on day one of the move.

You thought the feelings would go, and the easiest way to do that was surely to accept Alexia’s invite to go out with your ex Barcelona teammates tonight. Only, there was Alba, stood alone at the bar, buying her own drink.

“You came out?” She asked, nudging her shoulder into you.

“I did” you nodded. “I didn’t know ye were comin’” you added.

“Do you not want me here?”

“No, I’m glad ye are here” you reassured her. “Can I get ye that drink?”

“Sí” she smiled.

You’d stayed beside Alba pretty much the whole night, just talking, drinking and occasionally dancing, although it was all innocent. Well, it was, up until Alexia and Olga left. Once they were gone, Alba’s dancing went from innocent to anything but the sort. And you, were all too compliant, allowing her to move your hands to wherever she wanted them on her body as she grinded against you.

“Ye don’t understand how bad I want ye” you groaned in her ear.

“I’m waiting for you to have me” she smirked, wrapping her hand around your neck and smashing your lips together.

The kiss was drunkenly intense, and possibly a bad idea due to Alba being your best friend’s little sister. But your lips didn’t leave hers until you were in her bed, and she was pulling your shirt off.

“Wait” you sighed. “I wanna do this Alba, but I need to talk to Ale”

“No, por favor. Do it after” she pleaded, continuing to pull at your shirt.

“I can’t” you shook your head as she leaned in and kissed you again. You got lost in the kiss for a couple of minutes, forgetting Alexia was even a real person before you got brought to your senses again.

“No, no” you said again.

“Why must you talk to her?” Alba frowned.

“I can’t just- I don’t want this to just happen once” you stuttered. “I wanna take ye out, I wanna be more than friends with ye”

“You want to date?” She asked.

“Yeah” you nodded. “I want to make sure Ale is okay with that” you replied.

“Okay I will call her now and-”

“No” you chuckled. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow, okay?”

“Sí, fine” Alba rolled her eyes.

“Does that mean yes?” You asked. “Like ye want to date me too?

“I didn’t just drag you back here for ice cream” she giggled.

“Do ye have ice cream?” You smirked.

“Sí” Alba sighed playfully as she stumbled off the bed and walked to the kitchen, bringing back a tub of ice cream and two spoons.

-

You woke beside the Spaniard the next morning, and surprisingly you fully remembered the entire events of last night. You left her to sleep while you got ready. Once you were dressed, you grabbed your phone, keys and your wallet, placing a kiss to her forehead and leaving the apartment.

You texted her so that when she woke up, she didn’t think you’d just abandoned ship. You were planning to just go and get this over with, and not delay it any further. So, you walked to Alexia and Olga’s apartment, and buzzed at the door.

“Who is it?” Olga said through the machine.

“Mac” you replied as you heard the ringer go off and the latch came off the door. You took the stairs all the way to the top floor of the apartment block where they lived, trying to figure out what to say.

“Hola” Olga smiled when she opened the door.

“Hola, is Alexia here?” You asked.

“No, but she’ll be back in five minutes. She just left to go get coffee” she replied.

“Oh right, well, I can come back” you stuttered.

“No, sit. I can make you food” Olga said, practically shoving you into the seat. “You seem stressed, are you okay?” She hummed, squeezing your shoulder.

“I kissed Alba” you sighed, putting your head in your hands and your shoulders hit the kitchen table. “But I like her a lot, it wasn’t just a kiss” you explained.

“Oh” Olga smirked. “You like Alba, sí? You want to tell Ale?”

“Sí” you nodded. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell her” you shook your head and stood up but Olga reached up and pushed your shoulders back down.

“If you don’t, I will” she hummed as she started chopping you up some fruit and placing it in a bowl.

You were anxiously eating the various pieces of fruit that Olga had cut up for you when Alexia walked in with three coffees rather than two.

“Hola, mi gran arbol” she chuckled, placing the coffee down infront of you. “And for you, mi amor” she smiled, placing a kiss to Olga’s lips and handing her a cup of coffee.

“I uh, I should probably head home” you mumbled, standing up again.

“Why?” Alexia frowned. “Is the coffee bad?” She asked, as Olga shot you a sympathetic look, knowing now you were truly panicking.

“No” you shook your head.

“Then sit down” Alexia hummed, pointing to the seat you’d stood up from. “Do you know if Alba got home okay last night?” She asked.

“Uh, sí” you nodded, sitting down. “I walked her back”

“And what? Did you kiss her goodnight too?” Alexia teased as your eyes went wide and stared straight at Olga.

“If ye were goin’ to tell her, I would have went home already” you moaned.

“Tell me what?” Alexia asked, looking between the both of you.

“I didn’t” Olga said as you gulped.

“Did you kiss Alba?” Alexia breathed out. “My sister? Alba? My little sister? You kissed my little sister?” Alexia shouted.

“Ale, I’m so sorry” you sighed as she stood up from the table. “I stopped before it went further, I told her I wanted to talk to ye because I really like her” you explained as Alexia walked closer to you, looking like she was about to murder you.

“So cute” Alexia chuckled as her face softened. “You and mi hermana, I like it” she nodded, taking a piece of fruit out of the bowl Olga had made you.

“Wh-what?”

“What? You are my friend, I trust you with everything. So, why not let you date my sister? At least I would never have to worry about her” Alexia shrugged.

“So you’d be fine with it?” You asked.

“Sí, sí, fine” she nodded. “Mami already likes you too, and you and Olga would be sisters so now you can never say no”

“She doesn’t say no anyway” Olga giggled. “That reminds me” she began, pointing you towards a cardboard box that was sat in the living room as you just smiled and got to work.

Maccy 💕

Are you free later? xx

Alb 🍑

There would probably be a few questions about Alexia too, because there were always questions about Alexia. The trick, Julia had explained with the weariness of a woman who had built half her professional life around managing Jay Jones in public spaces, was answering those questions without looking like she wanted to abandon the interview entirely and go find Alexia so she could sit in her lap.

“Be normal,” Julia had said that morning.

Jay had been standing in the kitchen at the time, wearing tiny black shorts and one of Alexia’s old training shirts, one hand buried wrist deep in a cereal box, the other tucked under the back of Alexia’s T shirt while Alexia leaned against the counter reading an email on her phone. It was not a particularly unusual domestic arrangement for them. Jay liked contact in the morning. Alexia pretended to be busy and important while allowing it. The cereal box had been balanced against Jay’s hip because bowls were, according to Jay, “a system with too many steps before nine.”

“I’m always normal,” Jay had said.

Julia had stared through FaceTime with the flat, exhausted expression of someone who had personally survived that sentence too many times to be moved by it anymore.

Alexia, without looking up from her email, had said, “You are never normal.”

Jay had dipped her head to kiss the side of Alexia’s neck, partly because Alexia’s neck was there and partly because disagreeing with Alexia before breakfast was always more satisfying with her mouth involved. “You love abnormal.”

Alexia’s mouth had softened, though she still did not look up. “Unfortunately, sí.”

Julia had pointed at the screen. “No flirting in the interview.”

Jay had looked wounded. “With the interviewer?”

“With anyone.”

“What if the interviewer is Alexia?”

“It is not.”

“Then why would I flirt?”

Julia had closed her eyes, briefly and with feeling. “Jay.”

“What? That was a logical question.”

“It was not. It was a trapdoor into nonsense.”

Alexia had finally looked up then, her eyes warm and sleepy soft in the kitchen light, her hair pulled back loosely, one bare foot tucked over the other. “Just answer like you, amor. Not like media training. But maybe with less…” She paused, searching for the word with the care of someone handling something unstable. “Less you.”

Jay had put a hand over her heart. “That’s cruel.”

“It is realistic.”

“It’s both,” Julia had said. “Go to the interview. Answer the questions. Do not create a headline.”

Jay had been very confident she could manage that.

Mostly.

The studio was too clean in the way studios always were, the kind of clean that felt curated rather than lived in. Everything had been softened and controlled: the corners of the set, the warm wash of the lights, the careful arrangement of side tables with books nobody had opened, the plants that looked real but suspiciously behaved. The chairs were low and expensive, which meant Jay sat properly for approximately four minutes before her body rejected the idea of sustained polish and she ended up with one ankle tucked underneath her, trying to look relaxed rather than like she had lost a negotiation with furniture.

A stylist had put something light in her hair that smelled faintly of citrus and made the loose blonde pieces around her face look intentional rather than like she had ridden a motorcycle with poor judgment and then run her hands through it three times. Her black shirt sat open at the throat, sleeves rolled to the elbows, tattoos visible along her arms, wrists and hands. The red word at her throat was bright under the lights.

Amor.

People still asked about it.

Of course they did.

It was too visible to ignore and too strange not to invite interpretation, a Spanish word inked in red across the throat of an English striker who had arrived in Barcelona like trouble with blue eyes and cheekbones, then fallen publicly, ridiculously, completely in love with the captain of Spain. The kind of detail interviewers loved because it looked symbolic even when the person who got it had mostly been twenty two, unsupervised and dramatically committed to irony.

Paula, the interviewer, was good. Jay knew within the first few minutes, not because Paula had the smooth voice or the easy smile that television seemed to produce in bulk, but because she listened properly. She let answers breathe. She knew when silence was useful and when it was just awkward. She did not rush in to rescue Jay from her own thoughts, which was inconvenient but respectable.

They talked football first, which helped.

Arsenal. England. The move to Barcelona. The first few months of learning new patterns, new demands, new expectations. The difference between being a powerful forward in an English system built around directness and learning how to exist inside Barcelona’s constant insistence on angles, patience, timing and collective intelligence. Jay gave good answers, better than she probably would have if she had tried too hard to sound like the polished version of herself. Alexia’s advice sat somewhere in the back of her mind, warm as a hand at the base of her neck.

Answer like you.

So Jay did.

She talked about pressing with the clarity of someone who loved the violent honesty of it, about how Barcelona had taught her that movement off the ball could be as creative as movement with it, about Alexia’s leadership in a way that was almost normal for a full fifteen seconds before she ruined it slightly by saying, “She sees everything, which is very impressive and also deeply inconvenient at home when I’m trying to pretend I didn’t forget to take the bins out.”

Paula had laughed.

The crew had laughed.

Jay had glanced somewhere behind the cameras as if Julia might materialise from the shadows with a tranquiliser dart.

“She does see everything?” Paula asked.

“Everything,” Jay said. “It’s upsetting. I once moved a mug from the counter to the sink and she looked at me like I’d finally become a responsible adult. I have scored Champions League goals and received less pride.”

Paula smiled. “That sounds like love.”

Jay’s mouth twitched before she could stop it. “That sounds like Alexia.”

They were almost an hour in when Paula glanced down at her cards with a slightly too careful expression, and Jay felt the air shift in the way it did before someone produced either a surprise or a threat. In television, those were often the same thing.

“We have some old clips,” Paula said.

Jay leaned back immediately. “That sounds dangerous.”

“A little.”

“How old?”

“Four years.”

Jay made a noise. “Oh, no.”

Paula’s smile widened. “Oh, yes.”

“Four years ago I had less frontal lobe and worse jackets.”

“I thought the jacket in this clip was actually quite good.”

“That means my personality is the problem.”

“Let’s find out.”

The screen beside them lit up.

Jay turned towards it, bracing herself.

And there she was.

Four years younger, sitting in a different studio under harsher lights, her body angled like she might leave at any second if the question annoyed her enough. Her hair was shorter then, colder blonde, pushed back from her face with the careless precision of someone who had spent longer on it than she would admit. She had rings on every finger, a chain at her neck, a leather jacket that looked expensive and defensive, and that old wolfish grin that people used to call confident because nobody had known what else to call armour when it photographed well.

The tattoo was fresher then.

Sharper.

Amor in red at her throat.

Old Jay looked like she had dared the world to want anything from her and had already decided to make it a joke if it tried.

The old interviewer leaned forward, pointing lightly. “That tattoo. Amor. Love. Big word to put on your throat.”

Current Jay let out a low groan and covered part of her face with one hand. “Oh, I hate her already.”

Paula laughed quietly, but the clip kept rolling.

“Do you believe in love?” the old interviewer asked.

Old Jay scoffed.

Actually scoffed.

It was not subtle. It was not even charming in retrospect, though at the time it had probably landed as charismatic arrogance, the kind of reckless sharpness people liked when it came attached to a footballer who scored goals and looked like she might break someone’s heart before breakfast.

Current Jay went still.

Only for a beat.

Then old Jay grinned into the camera and said, “I’m only loveable for one night.”

The studio became very quiet around current Jay.

Not dramatically quiet. There were still small sounds, the soft shift of someone behind a camera, the hum of lights, Paula breathing in as if she had expected the line but not the weight of hearing it with Jay sitting there older and different beside her. The joke in the clip had been designed to slide cleanly across a room, to make people laugh before they noticed the blood underneath. Four years ago, it had probably worked.

Current Jay looked down at her hands.

Her thumb found the edge of one of her rings and turned it once.

On screen, the old interviewer laughed because old Jay had given him permission to. She had always been good at that, Jay thought. Not just making jokes. Structuring rooms so people knew where to look, what to laugh at, how not to ask the question underneath.

“Have you ever been in love?” the old interviewer asked.

“No,” old Jay said immediately.

“Do you think you will?”

“No.”

No pause. No hesitation. No softness around the edges. Not even the vanity of pretending to consider it.

The clip ended on that grin, sharp and beautiful and locked from the inside.

The screen went dark.

Jay stared at it for a moment longer than she needed to.

Then she huffed a laugh and leaned back in her chair. “Well,” she said, and the grin she gave Paula was easier than the one on the screen because it had somewhere real to come from now, “I was very wrong, wasn’t I?”

Paula smiled. “Very wrong.”

“Catastrophically wrong. Historically wrong. Put that in a museum next to people who thought smoking was good for your lungs.”

The crew laughed, and Jay felt grateful for the sound because it gave her somewhere to put her hands, her face, the sudden uncomfortable awareness of her own throat. The red tattoo sat warm under the studio lights, and because they were talking about it, because the old clip had made it a subject rather than skin, Jay could feel it the way people sometimes felt scars when rain was coming.

“Do you remember saying it?” Paula asked.

Jay nodded. “Yeah. I remember the jacket more, which probably tells you what kind of emotional priorities I was working with.”

“It was a good jacket.”

“It was a defensive jacket.”

Paula’s head tilted slightly. “Defensive?”

Jay looked back at the screen, though there was nothing there now except darkness and a reflection of the studio lights. She could still see the younger version of herself anyway, all angles and jewellery and exit strategies.

“She was funny,” Jay said after a moment, nodding towards the blank screen. “And she was good at sounding like she didn’t care. That was kind of the whole skill, really. Make the joke first. Say the ugly thing first. If you tell everyone you’re only loveable for one night, then no one gets to surprise you by agreeing.”

Paula did not rush the next question. She let the answer settle, then asked, “Do you think you believed it?”

Jay smiled, but there was no grin in it this time.

“Yeah,” she said. “Completely.”

The honesty landed heavier than she expected.

For one second, she could feel herself standing too close to the centre of something, and studios were terrible places for that. Too many lights. Too many people watching politely. Too much expensive furniture and not enough escape routes.

So she sat up a little and added, “To be fair, I was very popular for one night.”

Paula burst out laughing.

The crew followed.

Jay grinned with relief, lifting one hand. “Sorry. Growth, but with brand consistency.”

“Of course,” Paula said, still laughing.

“You can’t just remove the coping mechanism. It’s load bearing.”

“I understand.”

“It’s structural. Very expensive to renovate.”

Paula glanced down at her cards, still smiling. “The tattoo wasn’t for anyone?”

“No,” Jay said. “That’s the funniest part. People always assume there was some grand tragic love story. Like I got it for someone who broke my heart and now I have amor on my throat like a lesbian warning label.”

Paula laughed. “But no?”

“No. I got it because I was twenty two, unsupervised, had just scored a hat trick, and thought putting the Spanish word for love on my throat was deeply ironic.”

“Ironic?”

“At the time, my philosophy was basically love is fake but typography is forever.”

Paula had to cover her mouth with her cards.

Jay nodded solemnly. “A very intellectual period. Lots of bad decisions. Excellent bone structure.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s just embarrassing foreshadowing.”

Paula leaned in slightly. “Because of Alexia?”

Jay tried not to smile.

It was useless.

Her face betrayed her immediately, the way it always did when Alexia’s name entered a room. It softened her mouth first, then her eyes, then something deeper in her posture, as if her body recognised the name before her brain could remember that cameras existed. Even after a year, even after all the interviews and photographs and fans screaming both their names outside stadiums, Jay still seemed unable to hear Alexia spoken aloud without looking like someone had opened a window.

“Because of Alexia,” Jay said.

Paula watched her face with a gentle kind of amusement. “The English girl with amor tattooed on her throat ends up in love with a Spanish woman. It does feel written.”

Jay shook her head. “Lazy writing. Too obvious.”

“But romantic.”

“Disgustingly romantic. I’d complain, but I’m very happy and also she’s extremely fit, so I’ve lost objectivity.”

Paula laughed again. “That might be my favourite answer so far.”

“Don’t tell Julia. She’ll say it’s unprofessional.”

“Is it?”

“Probably. But accurate.”

Paula looked back at her notes, then up again. “What would you say to that version of yourself now?”

Jay breathed in slowly.

That was the question, then.

Not the tattoo. Not the joke. Not even the clip. The real question was what you said to a version of yourself who had already decided she knew the ending because imagining anything kinder felt humiliating.

Jay looked at the dark screen again.

Old Jay was gone, but not really. She was still there in the room, leather jacket and grin and loneliness dressed up as taste. Jay could picture the way she would respond to comfort: badly. If someone had told her, you’ll find love, she would have laughed, made a joke about being allergic to emotional prophecy, and found a reason to leave.

Old Jay had not needed prediction.

She had needed proof.

And proof did not arrive as a sentence. Proof arrived years later in Barcelona, in a kitchen full of morning light, in the shape of Alexia Putellas stealing half of Jay’s coffee and telling her she had five minutes to put her shoes away before Alexia threw them off the balcony.

Jay rubbed her thumb along the inside of her wrist.

“I’d probably tell her to buy better furniture,” she said.

Paula smiled.

“And to stop pretending she’s mysterious. She’s not. She’s just avoidant with good timing.”

There was laughter behind the camera.

Jay’s own smile softened as she continued. “And I’d tell her she’s wrong. Not in a big motivational poster way. Just wrong. Fully incorrect. Because one day she’s going to meet someone who looks at her and sees all the shit she’s trying to hide and doesn’t leave. Someone who is very unimpressed by the jokes and still laughs at them. Someone who makes love feel less like a trap and more like somewhere to put things down.”

The studio went still again.

Jay swallowed.

Then, because she could feel the tenderness pressing too close to the surface, she lifted her eyebrows and added, “Also I’d warn her that this woman will be Spanish, bossy, extremely hot, and have very strong opinions about dishwasher loading.”

Paula cracked completely.

Jay pointed at her. “It matters to her. Blade down. Always. Apparently my desire to keep all my fingers is relevant to romance.”

“And you listen?”

“To Alexia? Obviously. I’m chaotic, not suicidal.”

Paula laughed hard enough that she had to glance at her cards and take a second to recover.

The interview moved on after that, but not really.

The clip had changed the temperature of the room. Jay could feel it in herself, the way the younger version of her had walked in and taken a seat between them, full of swagger and certainty and a sadness she had been too proud to name at the time. The football questions that followed came out differently. Still funny in places, still Jay, but less polished at the edges. More careful. More honest.

When Paula asked whether love had changed her, Jay did not say yes in the easy way people expected. She thought about it properly.

“No,” she said first, and Paula’s eyebrows lifted. “Not in the way people usually mean it. People say love softens you, and I get what they mean, but I don’t think Alexia made me softer like… less sharp, or less myself. She didn’t make me smaller. She made me more honest. There’s a difference.”

“How?”

Jay’s fingers moved over her rings again, but this time the movement was slower, less defensive. “I stay now. That’s the biggest thing. I used to think leaving first was control. If I got uncomfortable, if something felt too real, if someone wanted too much, I’d make a joke, disappear, turn it into a story before it could turn into anything serious. Alexia does not let me do that.”

Paula smiled. “She stops you?”

Jay laughed. “She looks at me.”

“That’s it?”

“You haven’t been looked at by Alexia when she knows you’re full of shit.”

“I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“It’s not a pleasure. It’s an audit.”

Paula laughed softly.

Jay smiled down at her hands. “She just sees me. Annoyingly well. And she’s patient in a way that doesn’t let me get away with anything. She’ll give me space, but she won’t let me turn space into a hiding place. She’ll say, vale, go be dramatic in the bedroom for ten minutes, and then I’m coming in with water and we are talking like adults.”

“That sounds very specific.”

“That’s because it happened last week.”

The crew laughed again.

Jay grinned. “I was right, by the way.”

“About what?”

“No idea. But emotionally, I was right.”

By the time Paula asked the final question, the room felt less like a studio and more like a conversation that had accidentally been lit professionally.

“Do you believe in love now?” Paula asked.

Jay did not answer immediately.

She thought of Alexia at home, probably pretending she was not waiting for the interview to come out while absolutely waiting for the interview to come out. She thought of Alexia’s hand on the back of her neck in crowds, the pressure of her fingers grounding without demanding attention. She thought of Alexia’s voice saying mírame when Jay’s thoughts ran too fast. Alexia half asleep, pulling Jay closer before she was fully awake. Alexia rolling her eyes at jokes while keeping one hand on Jay’s thigh under restaurant tables. Alexia calling her bebé when she was annoyed, amor when she was soft, guapa when she wanted Jay to stop arguing and come closer.

“Yes,” Jay said. “I believe in it. I live in it. Which is still very weird to say out loud, by the way. Deeply cringe. Might need a minute.”

Paula smiled. “Take your time.”

“No, if I take time I’ll say more feelings and Julia will invoice me for emotional damages.”

That made everyone laugh.

But Jay did not take it back.

She looked into the camera, because if she was going to be sincere, she might as well make it everyone’s problem.

“I was wrong,” she said. “I’m not only loveable for one night. Turns out I’m loveable in the morning too. Even before coffee. Which is heroic of Alexia, honestly.”

The clip aired two days later.

Alexia watched it in the players’ lounge because Mapi found the link twelve seconds after it went live and screamed like someone had discovered evidence of a national scandal.

“Everyone sit down,” Mapi announced, already connecting her phone to the big screen with the urgency of a woman defusing a bomb badly. “Jay is about to be emotionally humiliated.”

Irene, who had been standing near the counter with a recovery drink and the calm dignity of someone who did not usually allow Mapi to dictate her schedule, looked over. “Is this private?”

“It is public,” Mapi said. “It has subtitles.”

“Then fine.”

Alexia looked up from where she sat on the sofa, one knee folded under her, hair still damp from her shower. “What is it?”

“Jay’s interview.”

Alexia set her bottle down too quickly.

Lucy, already appearing from nowhere because Lucy had a supernatural ability to sense potential embarrassment, leaned against the back of the sofa. “You haven’t seen it?”

“No.”

Lucy smiled.

Alexia did not like that smile. “Why are you smiling?”

“No reason.”

“That is never true.”

“It’s a good interview.”

“That is not why you are smiling.”

Mapi was already turning up the volume. “Silence. Cinema begins.”

The lounge rearranged itself at alarming speed. Pina and Patri took the front sofa. Lucy sat on the armrest near Alexia because she clearly wanted a good angle for the reaction. Ona arrived with a packet of crisps, which suggested she had accepted this as a screening. Irene leaned against the wall with her arms folded, pretending to be above it while very much staying. Aitana wandered in halfway through the opening question, saw the screen, saw Jay’s face, and sat down without asking for context.

Alexia sat very still.

She loved watching Jay in interviews and hated it. Jay was good on camera. Too good sometimes. She could charm a room without handing over anything she did not want to hand over, could make everyone laugh and leave the real answer sitting behind her teeth.

On screen, Jay talked about football first.

Alexia’s face softened despite herself.

Jay looked beautiful under the studio lights, though Alexia would have considered that an objective truth and therefore not embarrassing. Her black shirt was open at the throat, the red tattoo visible, her hands moving when she got animated. She looked relaxed, confident, magnetic, all that easy charm that made people think Jay moved through the world without fear because they did not understand how much effort had once gone into making it look that way.

“She looks fit,” Pina said.

Alexia turned her head.

Pina immediately lifted both hands. “Respectfully.”

Lucy snorted.

Alexia returned her attention to the screen and ignored the warmth in her own face.

Then Paula introduced the old clip.

Alexia felt the change before she understood it.

The younger Jay appeared on screen, all leather jacket and colder hair and sharp smile. Alexia had seen this version in old clips before. She had watched interviews from that period once, late at night, after Jay had fallen asleep half on top of her. She had seen the brilliance, the arrogance, the danger. She had also seen the loneliness. It had been there for anyone who knew how to look, tucked under every joke, every grin, every refusal to let the room touch her.

“Do you believe in love?” the old interviewer asked.

Old Jay scoffed.

Alexia’s jaw tightened.

“I’m only loveable for one night,” old Jay said, smiling like it cost nothing.

The lounge made a sound.

Not laughter.

Something smaller. Uncomfortable. Pina’s face changed first, humour slipping away. Mapi went quiet, which was how Alexia knew the line had landed badly. Lucy’s expression softened with an old kind of anger, not at Jay, but for her. Irene looked at the screen with the stillness of someone recognising a joke that had done too much work.

Alexia did not move.

On screen, old Jay answered the next questions.

No, she had never been in love.

No, she did not think she ever would.

No, without pause. No, like a locked door.

Alexia’s throat tightened.

It was ridiculous, perhaps, to feel grief for something Jay had said before them, before Barcelona, before their mornings and arguments and shared laundry and Jay’s habit of kissing Alexia’s shoulder every time she passed her in the kitchen. But grief did not care about chronology. Alexia looked at the young woman on the screen and wanted, fiercely and uselessly, to go backwards. To sit beside her. To tell her she was wrong. To tell her she would be loved in the morning, in bad moods, in silence, in mess, in every version of herself she thought she had to make funny first.

Then the clip ended.

Current Jay came back onto the screen and huffed a laugh.

“Well,” she said, “I was very wrong, wasn’t I?”

Lucy exhaled. “There she is.”

Mapi pressed a hand to her chest. “Catastrophically wrong. Put it on the shirt.”

Alexia did not tell them to be quiet.

She was watching Jay’s face too closely.

Paula asked about the tattoo, and Jay said, love is fake but typography is forever.

The lounge exploded.

Pina slid sideways into Patri laughing. “Typography!”

“That is such a Jay sentence,” Lucy said. “That should be studied.”

Mapi pointed at Alexia. “Her throat manifested you.”

Alexia blinked. “What?”

“The tattoo. Amor. Spanish word. She gets it before she meets you. Then she falls in love with you. Manifestation.”

“That is not how tattoos work.”

“It happened.”

“It is coincidence.”

“Romantic coincidence,” Ona said.

Alexia gave her a betrayed look. “You too?”

Ona shrugged. “It is quite romantic.”

Alexia tried to look unimpressed, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her.

Then Jay on screen said Alexia’s name.

Not even dramatically. Just because Paula asked.

Because of Alexia.

The lounge did not need to see Alexia’s reaction to know it happened. They could feel it. The shift in her, the tiny softness around her eyes, the way her fingers curled against her own palm as if she wanted to touch Jay and had nowhere to put the impulse.

Mapi made a small gagging noise.

Alexia did not look away from the screen. “María.”

“You are glowing.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“She said my name.”

“Yes, and now you look like someone lit a candle inside your chest.”

“That is a disgusting sentence.”

“It is accurate.”

On screen, Jay was answering the question about what she would say to her younger self.

Alexia listened.

She listened as Jay joked about furniture, about being avoidant with good timing, about being wrong. Then the room quietened again when Jay said, one day she’s going to meet someone who looks at her and sees all the shit she’s trying to hide and doesn’t leave.

Alexia’s eyes stung.

She lowered her gaze for a second, not because she wanted to miss anything, but because the words had gone somewhere too tender.

Jay continued.

“Someone who is very unimpressed by the jokes and still laughs at them. Someone who makes love feel less like a trap and more like somewhere to put things down.”

The lounge was silent.

For once, even Mapi did not ruin it.

Alexia stared at the screen and felt something inside her open with an ache that was almost too much to hold in front of everyone. Jay loved loudly, yes, constantly, physically, with kisses in corridors and hands under tables and ridiculous compliments whispered against Alexia’s neck when she was trying to cook. But this was different. This was Jay naming the shape of it. This was Jay saying, you are where I rest, and letting other people hear.

Then Jay saved herself from too much sincerity by adding, “Also I’d warn her that this woman will be Spanish, bossy, extremely hot, and have very strong opinions about dishwasher loading.”

The lounge erupted so violently that someone knocked over a water bottle.

Alexia put her face in her hands.

Lucy was wheezing. “Spanish, bossy, extremely hot.”

Pina already had the remote. “Rewind it.”

“No,” Alexia said immediately.

Pina rewound it.

“Claudia.”

Screen Jay said again, perfectly clear, “Spanish, bossy, extremely hot…”

Mapi screamed.

Alexia stood up. “Give me the remote.”

Pina shoved it under her thigh. “No. This is history.”

“It is not history.”

“It has subtitles.”

“That does not make it history.”

Lucy leaned back, grinning. “Dishwasher loading, Ale. Your legacy is safe.”

“My legacy is football.”

“Not anymore.”

Alexia snatched a cushion from the sofa and threw it at Lucy, which only made the room laugh harder.

The interview continued, and Alexia sat back down with whatever dignity she could recover. She did not recover much.

On screen, Paula asked if Jay believed in love now.

Jay paused.

Alexia’s laughter faded.

“Yes,” Jay said. “I believe in it. I live in it.”

The lounge softened again.

That was almost worse than the teasing, the way everyone went quiet in shared recognition. They all complained about Jay and Alexia’s affection, the kissing, the touching, the way Jay sat too close and Alexia pretended not to encourage it while very clearly encouraging it. But they knew. They all knew what was underneath it. They saw how Jay settled when Alexia touched her. They saw how Alexia’s face changed whenever Jay walked into a room. They saw the way love had not made either of them smaller, only more themselves.

“I live in it,” Ona repeated softly.

Alexia stared at the screen.

At the end, Jay looked into the camera.

“I was wrong,” she said. “I’m not only loveable for one night. Turns out I’m loveable in the morning too. Even before coffee. Which is heroic of Alexia, honestly.”

The clip ended.

For one second, no one spoke.

Then Mapi said, with deep sincerity, “Heroic is correct. Jay before coffee is a health and safety concern.”

Alexia laughed before she could stop herself.

It came out wet at the edges.

Lucy leaned closer at once. “Oh, you are emotional.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“I am thinking about dishwasher safety.”

“No, you are thinking about love.”

Alexia pointed at her. “Do not.”

Pina was already scrolling on her phone. “The internet is losing it.”

“Of course it is,” Patri said. “Jay basically gave wedding vows and then called Alexia hot and bossy.”

“They were not wedding vows,” Alexia said.

Mapi looked at her. “She said love feels like somewhere to put things down.”

Alexia opened her mouth.

Closed it again.

Lucy nodded. “That is either therapy or vows.”

“Both,” Irene said calmly.

Alexia looked at the blank screen.

Her chest still felt too full.

She could see old Jay and current Jay layered over each other, the one who had said no like the future was already settled and the one who now came home and dropped herself half across Alexia’s body, demanding kisses, stealing food, saying I love you into Alexia’s shoulder like it had become the easiest language she knew.

Alexia picked up her phone.

Alexia: I saw the interview.

Jay replied almost immediately.

Jay: Define saw.

Alexia: The team saw too.

There was a longer pause.

Jay: I have entered witness protection.

Alexia: Spanish, bossy, extremely hot?

Jay: Accurate journalism.

Alexia: Extremely?

Jay: I stand by my statement under legal pressure.

Alexia smiled.

The team noticed because the team had no respect for privacy and, more importantly, nothing better to do.

“Look at her,” Mapi said. “Gone.”

“I am texting my girlfriend.”

“Gone.”

Alexia ignored her and typed.

Alexia: Come to the lounge after media.

Jay: Am I in trouble?

Alexia: Sí.

Jay: Sexy trouble or dishwasher trouble?

Alexia stared at the message.

Her cheeks heated.

Lucy leaned closer. “What did she say?”

“Nothing.”

“That means something.”

Alexia typed back with as much composure as she could manage.

Alexia: Depends if you behave.

Jay: Historically unlikely.

Alexia put the phone face down and tried to look normal.

Nobody believed her.

Jay arrived twenty three minutes later wearing sunglasses on her head, one hand around the strap of her training bag, and the cautious confidence of someone who knew she had walked into a room where she had been discussed extensively. She paused in the doorway as every player turned to look at her.

“This feels like court,” she said.

Mapi stood immediately. “Jay Jones, please approach the bench.”

“No.”

“You have been charged with public romantic sincerity.”

Jay pointed at the blank screen. “That interview was edited.”

Lucy folded her arms. “Did they edit in ‘I live in love’?”

Jay winced. “Okay, that was publically inconvenient.”

Alexia looked at her.

Jay softened immediately.

“Not inconvenient,” she corrected. “True. Publically dangerous for my image.”

Pina lifted a hand. “Can we discuss typography?”

“No.”

“Love is fake but typography is forever,” Pina quoted, delighted.

Jay closed her eyes. “I was young.”

“You were twenty five,” Patri said.

“Emotionally twelve.”

“That tracks,” Lucy said.

Mapi circled her like a prosecutor who had been waiting her whole life for this case. “And the tattoo. Amor. Spanish word. Then Alexia. Explain.”

Jay looked at Alexia. “Coincidence?”

Mapi slapped the air. “Manifestation.”

“It is not manifestation.”

“You wrote amor on your throat and Spain sent its captain.”

Jay’s mouth twitched. “When you say it like that, I sound powerful.”

Alexia rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now, the private one Jay loved most, the one that pulled at her mouth before she could decide to hide it.

Jay crossed the room towards her.

The team made noise immediately.

“Oh, here we go,” Lucy said.

“Public apology kiss,” Pina announced.

“It’s not public,” Jay said. “You all are just always here.”

“That is how team rooms work,” Irene replied.

Jay stopped in front of Alexia, looking down at her with an expression that changed the air between them, all the jokes easing out of her face and leaving something warm and careful behind. “Hi, baby.”

Alexia looked up at her. “Hola, guapa.”

Jay touched the back of Alexia’s hand with two fingers, the question quiet enough that only Alexia was meant to hear. “You okay?”

Alexia heard everything inside it.

Did that upset you?

Did I say too much?

Did the old clip hurt?

She reached up, hooked two fingers lightly in Jay’s chain, and drew her down.

The team started screaming before their mouths even met.

Jay laughed softly into the kiss, but Alexia kissed her anyway, gentle at first and then a little firmer when Jay’s hand came to rest at the side of her neck. It was not long by their standards, which were admittedly terrible standards for public decency, but it was enough to make Jay settle and enough to make the room groan as if affection was a personal attack.

When Alexia let her go, Jay stayed close, forehead almost touching hers.

“I meant it,” Jay said quietly.

“I know.”

“The interview stuff. Not the dishwasher thing. I mean, also the dishwasher thing, but mostly the love thing.”

“I know,” Alexia said again.

Jay searched her face. “Did it make you sad?”

Alexia could have lied.

She did not.

“A little,” she admitted. “The old clip.”

Jay nodded once, her expression sobering.

Alexia touched the red word at Jay’s throat with the pad of her thumb, tracing the edge of the ink without thinking. “You believed it.”

“Yeah.”

“You were wrong.”

Jay’s smile returned, small and soft. “Very wrong.”

“Catastrophically,” Alexia said, her accent warm around the word.

Jay laughed. “You watched that bit.”

“I watched all of it.”

“With everyone?”

“Yes.”

Jay looked over Alexia’s shoulder at the team.

They all looked away so badly it became instantly suspicious.

Mapi became fascinated by a bottle cap. Pina checked a phone that was clearly upside down. Lucy stared at the ceiling like tactical analysis had been written into the plaster. Patri began eating crisps with the exaggerated casualness of someone committing a crime.

Jay shook her head. “You people are parasites.”

“Romantic parasites,” Mapi said.

“That’s worse.”

Alexia tugged lightly on Jay’s chain, bringing her attention back. “Morning too.”

Jay blinked. “What?”

“You said you are loveable in the morning too.”

Jay’s grin came slowly, cautiously, as though she already knew where this was going and intended to make it everyone’s problem. “Am I?”

Alexia pretended to think.

Jay’s mouth dropped open. “Wow.”

“Before coffee is difficult.”

“Wow, okay.”

“You stand in the kitchen like a haunted tree.”

“That’s posture catching strays for no reason.”

“You speak only in noises.”

“They’re efficient.”

“You once put cereal in a mug.”

“The bowls were far away.”

“The bowls were above your head.”

“That’s far in the morning.”

Alexia smiled, then reached up and cupped Jay’s face with one hand. “But yes. Morning too. Before coffee. After coffee. When you are impossible. When you are easy. All day. Every day.”

Jay’s expression changed.

It always still surprised Alexia, the way some pieces of love had to be given again and again, not because Jay doubted Alexia exactly, but because old beliefs did not vanish just because the evidence changed. Sometimes they had to be answered in the kitchen, in bed, in training rooms, in public lounges full of nosy teammates who pretended not to listen.

Jay turned her face slightly and kissed Alexia’s palm.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Lucy ruined it with perfect timing.

“Does this mean we can call her One Night Jay?”

Jay turned slowly. “No.”

Mapi gasped. “Yes.”

“No.”

“One Night Jay,” Pina said, trying it out with obvious joy.

Jay pointed at her. “You’re too young to be this disrespectful.”

“I’m twenty four.”

“Exactly. A child.”

Patri leaned forward. “One Night Jay is dead. Morning Jay has risen.”

“That sounds like a terrible superhero,” Lucy said.

Jay put one hand to her chest and lifted her chin. “Morning Jay: defender of love, destroyer of breakfast routines.”

Alexia stood, sliding her hand into Jay’s. “Come on, Morning Jay.”

The room lost it.

Jay stared at her, deeply betrayed. “You too?”

Alexia kissed her cheek, entirely unrepentant. “Sí.”

“Betrayed by my own hot Spanish prophecy.”

“Your what?” Irene asked.

Mapi pointed violently. “See? Manifestation.”

Jay looked down at Alexia, who was still holding her hand, thumb moving softly over her knuckles, eyes bright with affection and mischief.

Jay sighed. “Fine. Maybe the tattoo knew.”

Alexia glanced at the red amor on Jay’s throat, then back up at her.

“Maybe,” she said.

Jay leaned closer. “Worked out for me.”

Alexia’s smile softened into something that belonged only to Jay, even in a room full of people determined to make it communal property.

“For me too, amor.”

The team made another collective noise, half mocking and half moved, but Jay barely heard it because Alexia’s hand was still in hers and her thumb was still moving, and for a second old Jay felt very far away. The word on her throat no longer felt like irony or armour or a dare thrown at the world before the world could throw anything back.

It felt like a place she had somehow arrived.

Late, loud, overdramatic, with terrible furniture and a coping mechanism that was apparently load bearing.

But Jay was terrible at deception when Alexia was involved.

This was known.

Documented.

Repeatedly witnessed.

Alexia looked at Jay with one raised eyebrow and Jay started confessing to things she had not even done. Alexia said "Jaycee" in that low captain voice and Jay became legally transparent. Alexia stood too close, touched Jay's wrist, said "mírame," and the entire truth came out of Jay like someone had opened a cupboard full of badly stacked pans.

Alba knew this.

Alba recruited her anyway.

Because Alba was Alba, and Alba loved three things above almost all others: her family, being right, and causing manageable emotional damage to Jay Jones.

The day began innocently enough.

Alba wanted a new piercing in her ear.

Not dramatic. Not rebellious. Not, in her words, "a midlife crisis in the cartilage." Just a tiny second hoop high on the outer edge, something pretty and delicate that she had wanted for months and had finally booked because Míriam had told her to stop showing everyone the same reference photo and either get it done or shut up.

Alexia had a meeting, so Jay volunteered to go with her.

This was immediately suspicious.

"You want to sit with me while I get stabbed in the ear?" Alba asked, standing in Alexia and Jay's kitchen that morning, one hand on her hip.

Jay, who was leaning against the counter eating toast over the sink because Alexia had banned crumb migration and Jay had responded by creating a stationary crumb zone, nodded. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Emotional support."

"You once laughed when I tripped over a beach bag."

"That was different. You made a funny noise."

"You are not emotionally supportive."

"I am when needles are involved."

Alba narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

Jay took another bite of toast. "Because I have piercings. I understand the journey."

"You have nipple piercings, nose piercings and a tongue piercing. This is an ear."

"A piercing is a piercing."

"No, it is not."

"It is body modification solidarity."

Alba stared at her. "You're bored because Alexia has meetings."

Jay swallowed. "That is also true."

Alexia, who had been putting coffee into a travel cup with the calm precision of a woman pretending not to enjoy their nonsense, turned slightly. "Jay."

Jay looked at her immediately, toast halfway to her mouth. "Yes, baby?"

"Behave with my sister."

Alba scoffed. "Tell your sister to behave with me."

Alexia looked at Alba. "You are worse together."

Jay pointed at Alba. "See? She recognises our chemistry."

Alba made a gagging noise. "Do not say chemistry. After the beach couple allegation, I am traumatised."

Jay grinned. "Beautiful couple."

Alba lunged.

Jay moved behind the kitchen island with the agility of a striker evading a centre back. "Violence before ten. Very Putellas."

Alexia picked up her coffee. "No crimes."

Jay placed a hand over her heart. "No crimes."

Alba said, at exactly the same time, "Define crimes."

Alexia stopped.

Jay stopped.

Alba looked innocent.

Alexia turned very slowly towards them. "I do not like this."

Jay widened her eyes. "Baby, I am simply accompanying your sister to a reputable piercing establishment."

"You said reputable like a criminal reading from a script."

"I support local businesses."

"You support chaos."

"I contain multitudes."

Alexia stepped close, took Jay's chin between her fingers, and tipped her face down just enough to kiss her.

It was not a long kiss.

That was the problem.

It was short. Casual. Domestic. A goodbye kiss on a weekday morning. Alexia's mouth warm and coffee sweet, her fingers firm under Jay's jaw, her thumb brushing once near the corner of Jay's lips before she let go.

Jay stood there blinking.

Alexia smiled. "Behave."

Jay swallowed. "I have no idea what that means anymore."

Alba threw both hands up. "I am in the room."

Alexia walked out smiling.

Jay watched the door shut behind her.

Then touched her own mouth like an idiot.

Alba stared. "You are pathetic."

Jay did not deny it. "Yeah."

"Come on, lover boy. I have an appointment."

"I am a woman."

"You are whatever that was."

The piercing studio was small, bright, and intimidatingly cool in a way that made Alba immediately stand straighter and Jay immediately start acting like she had grown up there. There were framed flash sheets on the walls, gold jewellery in glass cases, little potted plants on shelves, and a black leather chair in the back that looked far more serious than Alba felt prepared for.

The piercer was a woman called Noa with short silver hair, calm hands, and enough facial piercings to make Jay feel professionally understood.

Noa recognised Jay first.

Her eyes flicked to the throat tattoo, the nostril piercings, the tongue piercing that flashed when Jay said hello, and then to Alba.

"Who is getting pierced?" Noa asked.

Alba lifted one hand. "Me."

Jay pointed at her. "She is pretending to be brave, but inside she is a small anxious pigeon."

Alba slapped her arm. "I am fine."

"You asked me in the car if ears have nerves."

"They do!"

"Everything has nerves."

"That did not help!"

Noa smiled. "First cartilage?"

Alba nodded.

Jay leaned against the counter. "She wants something elegant, subtle, and expensive enough that she can say it was an investment."

Alba turned. "Why are you describing me like a handbag?"

"You are a high value accessory to my life."

"No."

Noa laughed and pulled out a tray of tiny hoops and studs. Alba immediately forgot she was annoyed and bent over the jewellery with full concentration, while Jay wandered nearby, hands clasped behind her back because Alexia had once told her not to touch things in shops and the instruction had apparently entered her moral code.

For twenty minutes, everything stayed normal.

Alba chose the hoop.

Noa marked her ear.

Jay became unexpectedly gentle.

Not loudly. Not in the teasing, dramatic way she usually dealt with Alba. She simply moved closer when Alba sat down, stood at her side, and offered two fingers for Alba to grip. Alba looked at them, looked at Jay, rolled her eyes, and took them.

"I am only doing this because your hands are there," Alba said.

"Of course."

"I am not scared."

"Obviously."

"If you tell anyone I held your hand, I will deny it."

"I will protect your reputation."

"You have no reputation for protection."

"I have some."

"With Alexia's mouth, maybe."

Jay's face changed instantly.

Alba saw it.

Her grin started.

Jay narrowed her eyes. "Do not."

Alba, even with a needle about to go through her ear, found time to look delighted. "Oh."

"No."

"She kissed you this morning and your soul left."

"Focus on your ear."

"You love her mouth."

"Everybody loves her mouth."

"Jay."

Jay looked away. "Fine. I particularly respect it."

"You respect it?"

"Deeply."

Noa, preparing the needle with professional calm, said, "This is the strangest emotional support conversation I have had this week."

Jay nodded. "We're a close family."

Alba gripped Jay's fingers when the needle went through, cursed sharply in Spanish, then immediately tried to pretend she had not.

Jay gasped. "Language."

"You have said worse in front of my mother."

"I have said worse near your mother. Not directly in front of her. There is a distinction."

Noa fitted the hoop, adjusted it, and held up the mirror.

Alba forgot every ounce of indignation.

"Oh," she said.

Jay smiled at her, genuine and warm. "Looks good, Albs."

Alba checked the angle, turning her head slightly. The little hoop caught the light, delicate and cool and very much her. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Very hot older sister energy."

"I am younger."

"Spiritually older. You harass me like an aunt."

Alba beamed anyway.

Noa gave the aftercare instructions. Alba listened with the intense focus of someone planning to follow them for exactly forty eight hours before texting Alexia to ask whether sleeping on it was bad. Jay, meanwhile, drifted toward a small display near the counter filled with clip on fake jewellery for styling and photoshoots.

Tiny hoops.

Magnetic studs.

A fake septum ring.

A fake lip ring.

Jay stopped.

The universe sharpened.

Alba, seeing Jay go still in the mirror, turned slowly. "What?"

Jay picked up the fake lip ring.

Small. Silver. Simple. Designed to clip over the lower lip without piercing anything. Totally harmless. Totally temporary.

Completely devastating as a concept.

Alba's eyes widened.

Jay looked at her.

Alba looked at the ring.

Then back at Jay.

A silence passed between them.

The sort of silence that, had Alexia been present, she would have immediately ended by saying no in three languages.

Alba whispered, "Oh my God."

Jay whispered back, "No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"Alexia will kill me."

Alba's grin became feral. "Exactly."

Jay clutched the fake lip ring like contraband. "She loves my mouth."

"I know."

"No, Alba, you don't understand. She loves my mouth."

"I live in the same family group chat as you both. Unfortunately, I understand too much."

Jay looked down at the ring again.

Alba took one step closer, already fully corrupted by possibility. "Imagine her face."

Jay closed her eyes. "I am imagining it. That is why I fear for my life."

"She will go silent."

"Worse."

"She will do the captain stare."

"Worse."

"She will say Jaycee."

Jay put one hand to her chest. "Do not say that in here."

"She'll think you ruined her favourite kissing area."

Jay's mouth twitched.

Alba pointed. "You want to do it."

"I do not."

"You do."

"I want to live."

"You want to see her jealous of a fake ring."

Jay looked offended. "It's not jealousy."

"It is absolutely jealousy."

"It's mouth possessiveness."

Alba stared at her. "That is worse."

Jay looked at Noa. "How real does this look?"

Noa, who had clearly decided not to ask questions as long as everyone was happy and paying, took the ring and held it to Jay's lip with expert ease. "On you? Very real."

Alba made a strangled noise of delight.

Jay looked in the mirror.

The fake ring sat at the centre of her lower lip, silver against the soft pink of her mouth, just subtle enough to look plausible and just visible enough to start a war. Jay tilted her head.

It did look good.

That was the problem.

It looked dangerous and sharp and exactly like something Jay might actually do without warning if left unsupervised near a body modification professional for long enough.

Alba stared at the reflection. "Alexia is going to combust."

Jay swallowed. "Or leave me."

"She will not leave you."

"She might ban my face."

"She loves your face."

"She loves my mouth."

"She will be furious because she loves your mouth."

Jay nodded slowly. "Correct."

Alba's grin returned. "So?"

Jay looked at the mirror.

Then at Alba.

Then at Noa.

Then, with the heavy solemnity of someone making a terrible life choice for comedy, she said, "I'll take it."

The plan was stupid.

This did not stop them.

If anything, its stupidity was the entire appeal.

Dinner at Eli's had already been arranged for that evening. Nothing formal. Just family, food, a few people coming and going. Eli had invited Alexia after her meetings, Alba after the piercing, Jay because Jay now appeared at Putellas family dinners with the regularity of furniture and the appetite of a small army, and Míriam because Míriam had a sixth sense for when something entertaining might happen.

Julia and Clara were also dropping by later because Julia had paperwork for Jay to sign and Clara had, according to Jay, "the suspicious timing of a therapist who knows I am about to make a choice."

Alba insisted they could not tell anyone.

"No warning," she said in the car, turning sideways in the passenger seat to stare at Jay. "We need the full reaction."

Jay adjusted the fake lip ring in the rear-view mirror. "I don't know if I can do this."

"You are a professional footballer."

"I have faced Champions League finals, not Alexia thinking I damaged her kissing property."

"That sentence is disgusting."

"It's accurate."

"It is not property."

Jay glanced at her.

Alba sighed. "Fine. With Alexia, maybe a little."

Jay smiled smugly.

"Do not look pleased," Alba snapped. "You are the one about to die."

Jay looked back at the mirror.

The ring caught the light.

She imagined Alexia seeing it.

The eyes narrowing.

The silence.

The slow, deadly scan of Jay's face.

The voice.

Jaycee.

Jay shivered.

Alba noticed. "Are you scared or turned on?"

Jay stared ahead. "Yes."

"Gross."

"You asked."

"I regret asking."

They stopped at a florist on the way because Jay suddenly panicked and decided she needed to bring Eli flowers as "emotional collateral." Alba called her a coward. Jay bought the flowers anyway. Then she bought a box of pastries because she said sugar softened consequences. Alba told her she was trying to bribe the whole family. Jay said it was not bribery if everyone enjoyed it.

By the time they reached Eli's apartment, Jay had rehearsed three different explanations and rejected all of them.

Option one: It is fake, baby, joke's on you.

Too early. Ruined the prank.

Option two: I did something spontaneous.

Too believable. Dangerous.

Option three: The piercing shop had a loyalty scheme.

Absurd. But Alexia knew Jay well enough to believe she might be manipulated by a discount.

Alba opened the door with her key and called, "Mama!"

"In the kitchen," Eli called.

The smell of dinner hit them immediately. Garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, something roasting. The warm, familiar smell of Eli's apartment, of family and food and the kind of evening Jay still sometimes had to remind herself she was allowed to belong to.

Jay paused at the doorway for half a second.

Alba, already taking off her sandals, glanced back. "Do not get emotional. We are doing crime."

"I'm not emotional."

"You have flower face."

"I bought flowers."

"Exactly. Flower face."

Eli appeared from the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel, smiling as she saw them. "Hola, girls."

Jay immediately held out the flowers. "For you. For being wonderful. And possibly merciful."

Eli took them, eyebrows lifting. "Merciful?"

Alba stepped forward quickly. "She means because she eats like a football team."

Jay nodded. "Yes. Food mercy."

Eli's eyes moved to Jay's face.

Stopped.

Jay went very still.

Alba went very still beside her.

Eli looked at the fake lip ring.

Looked at Jay.

Looked at Alba.

Then back at Jay.

Her mouth twitched.

Oh no, Jay thought.

Eli knew.

Eli absolutely knew.

That was the thing about Eli. She had raised Alexia and Alba. There was no prank, lie, fake confidence, emotional deflection, or badly hidden panic she had not seen in some form before. She knew immediately that the ring was fake. Jay could see it in her eyes.

But Eli, because she loved both of her daughters and also apparently loved chaos when it happened in her kitchen, said nothing.

Nothing.

Not one word.

She kissed Alba's cheek, inspected the new ear piercing with a mother's careful concern, kissed Jay's cheek, and said warmly, "Very nice flowers, Jay."

Jay swallowed. "Thank you."

Eli's eyes sparkled. "Alexia will be here in ten minutes."

Alba made a sound like a kettle.

Jay said, "Great."

Eli turned back towards the kitchen. "Míriam is already here."

Míriam's voice floated from inside. "I know something is happening. I can hear Alba breathing like a criminal."

Alba stormed into the kitchen. "I am breathing normally."

Jay followed, trying to arrange her face into something casual and failing because casual with a fake lip ring was apparently not her natural genre.

Míriam sat at the kitchen table with a glass of wine, already smiling. She took one look at Jay and nearly inhaled the drink.

"Oh," she said.

Jay pointed at her. "No."

Míriam pressed her lips together.

Alba pointed too. "No laughing."

Míriam put one hand over her mouth.

Her shoulders shook.

Jay dropped into a chair and put her head in her hands. "We have made a mistake."

"No," Alba said immediately. "We have made art."

Míriam leaned forward, eyes bright. "Is it real?"

Jay lifted her head. "Do you think I would be sitting here alive if it was real?"

"No," Míriam said. "Alexia would sense it from across the city."

Eli, arranging flowers in a vase, said calmly, "She would."

Jay looked at her. "You knew."

Eli smiled. "Jay, cariño, I have daughters."

"That is not an explanation, but it feels complete."

Alba grinned, bouncing slightly with excitement now that the household audience had grown. "She's going to lose her mind."

Míriam tilted her head. "Because of the piercing?"

"Because of Jay's mouth," Alba said.

Jay winced. "Can we not say that so loudly in your mother's kitchen?"

Eli continued arranging flowers. "I have ears. I also have eyes."

Jay froze.

Míriam made a helpless sound.

Alba whispered, "Mama."

Eli looked at Jay with a smile so gentle it somehow made it worse. "Alexia loves kissing you. This is not a secret."

Jay lowered her forehead to the table. "I need to leave Spain."

"No," Eli said. "Dinner is nearly ready."

The door opened ten minutes later.

Everyone heard Alexia before they saw her. Keys in the bowl. The soft sound of her bag being set down. Her voice calling, "Mama?"

Jay sat up so fast her chair scraped.

Alba grabbed her wrist. "Commit."

"I am committed."

"You look like you're going to confess."

"I might."

“You cannot."

"I can."

"You lasted six minutes."

"Six minutes in combat is a long time."

Míriam whispered, "She is coming."

Jay stood because sitting felt worse.

Then immediately wondered if standing looked guilty.

Then wondered if sitting back down would look more guilty.

Then wondered if the fake lip ring was crooked.

Then wondered if Alexia would still kiss her with a lip ring.

Then realised that was not the point and also absolutely the point.

Alexia entered the kitchen wearing dark trousers and a cream sleeveless top, hair loose around her shoulders, sunglasses pushed onto her head. She looked tired from meetings but soft around the edges, relaxed at the sight of family, eyes moving first to Eli, then Alba, then Míriam.

Then Jay.

Her gaze stopped.

Stopped completely.

The kitchen changed temperature.

Jay felt it.

Everyone felt it.

Alexia's eyes fixed on Jay's mouth.

The fake silver ring sat there, bright and terrible.

Jay smiled weakly. "Hi, baby."

Alexia did not answer.

Her face did not explode.

That would have been easier.

No, Alexia went still.

Too still.

The terrifying kind of still.

The kind that made Mapi apologise before knowing what she had done. The kind that made referees check themselves. The kind that made Jay briefly understand why opponents avoided Alexia in tunnels.

Alexia's eyes lifted slowly from Jay's mouth to her eyes.

"What the fuck," Alexia said, very softly, "is that?"

Alba made a tiny squeak of joy.

Jay's survival instincts abandoned her.

"My face?"

Alexia blinked once.

Wrong answer.

Absolutely wrong answer.

Míriam turned away.

Eli put one hand over her mouth.

Alba looked like Christmas had come early.

Alexia took one step forward. "Jaycee."

Jay's knees forgot their political position.

"Yes baby?”

Alexia pointed at her mouth. "That."

Jay touched the fake ring, immediately regretted touching it because Alexia's eyes sharpened like she had watched Jay put a hand on state property.

"Oh," Jay said. "This."

"Yes. This."

"It's a lip ring."

Alexia stared.

Jay swallowed.

Alba was practically vibrating.

Alexia's voice stayed quiet. "A lip ring."

"Yes."

"In your lip."

"Technically on my lip."

Alexia's eyes narrowed.

Jay corrected quickly, "In the general lip region."

Alexia's accent thickened instantly. "Do not make jokes."

Jay closed her mouth.

This, unfortunately, drew attention back to the mouth.

Alexia's jaw tightened.

"Did you pierce your lip?" she asked.

Jay hesitated.

The whole room leaned forward.

This was the moment.

The prank required commitment.

Just a few seconds more.

Jay could do it.

She could absolutely do it.

"No?" she said.

Alba threw her hands up. "Oh my God."

Alexia's eyes flashed. "No?"

Jay panicked. "I mean yes?"

Alba made a strangled noise. "Jay!"

Alexia turned to Alba. "You were there?"

Alba froze.

"No."

Alexia stared.

Alba said, "Yes."

Alexia's nostrils flared.

Jay whispered, "We are bad at this."

Alexia looked back at Jay, eyes fixed again on the ring. "You pierced your lip."

Jay looked at Alba.

Alba mouthed, commit.

Jay looked at Alexia.

Alexia looked murderous.

Jay looked at Eli.

Eli was openly enjoying herself now.

Jay looked back at Alexia and, because she was brave in battle but a complete coward in love, said, "It might be fake."

Alba yelled, "JAY!"

Míriam burst out laughing.

Alexia did not laugh.

That was worse.

Jay rushed on. "It is fake. It is fake, baby. It's a clip. No needle. No blood. No actual damage. No mouth was harmed in the making of this prank."

Alexia stared.

Slowly, dangerously, she stepped closer.

Jay did not move.

Could not move.

Alexia reached up and took Jay's chin between her fingers.

The room went silent again.

Jay's breath caught immediately.

Alexia tilted her face down and inspected the ring.

Close.

Very close.

So close Jay could smell her perfume. So close Jay could see the tiny flecks in her eyes. So close that Jay's brain, unhelpfully, stopped thinking about the prank and began thinking about the fact that Alexia was touching her mouth in Eli's kitchen.

Alexia's thumb brushed Jay's lower lip.

Jay stopped existing.

Alexia narrowed her eyes. "Fake."

Jay nodded as much as Alexia's grip allowed. "Extremely fake."

"You let me think you pierced your mouth."

"Only briefly."

"My favourite mouth."

The kitchen exploded.

Alba screamed.

Míriam slapped a hand over her own mouth.

Eli turned towards the counter and laughed silently into the flowers.

Jay's eyes widened.

Alexia froze for half a second, realising what she had said.

Then, because Alexia Putellas was not a woman who retreated from ownership once it had entered the room, she lifted her chin and said, "Sí. My favourite mouth. I said what I said."

Jay's soul left her body.

Alba pointed between them. "At dinner? In Mama's kitchen? Are you serious?"

Alexia did not look away from Jay. "You helped."

"I helped with a prank, not mouth declarations!"

“You started this."

Jay, still held by the chin, whispered, "I'm very happy but also scared."

Alexia's eyes returned to her. "You should be."

“Because of the prank?"

"Because you thought this was funny."

"It is a little funny."

Alexia's thumb pressed lightly below the fake ring.

Jay immediately shut up.

Alexia's voice lowered. "You put metal on the place I kiss."

"It's not real metal."

"It is still there."

“It's removable."

"It better be."

Alba muttered, "This is so much more intense than I expected."

Míriam, wiping tears from her eyes, said, "You underestimated how much Alexia likes Jay's mouth."

Jay glanced sideways. "Can everyone stop saying my mouth like I'm not attached to it?"

Alexia turned Jay's face back towards her. "Mírame."

Jay looked at her instantly.

The entire room groaned.

Alba said, "Cheat code."

Alexia ignored her. "Take it off."

Jay blinked. "Now?"

"Now."Jay lifted a hand.

Alexia caught her wrist.

"No," Alexia said. "I take it off."

Jay's entire body went still.

Alba made a strangled sound. "I need to leave."

"No," Eli said cheerfully from the counter. "Dinner is ready."

"Mama!"

Alexia, with maddening care, used two fingers to remove the fake ring from Jay's lip.

It came away easily.

No mark.

No piercing.

No damage.

Jay's mouth, beloved and unaltered, remained exactly as it had been.

Alexia looked at it for a second longer than was socially acceptable.

Jay noticed.

Everyone noticed.

Alexia placed the fake ring on the table with the calm precision of a judge setting down evidence.

Then she took Jay's face in both hands and kissed her.

Not a polite kiss.

Not a quick kiss.

Not a family dinner kiss.

A proper one.

Firm and possessive and absolutely loaded with the entire emotional journey of seeing a fake lip ring, imagining a real lip ring, suffering a thirty second bereavement for her favourite mouth, and then being handed that mouth back unharmed.

Jay made a noise.

Alba made a louder one.

"NO!" Alba shouted, turning away. "NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT! I WAS PART OF THE PRANK. I SHOULD HAVE LEGAL IMMUNITY!"

Míriam was laughing so hard she had tears on her face.

Eli said, "The food will get cold."

Alexia did not immediately stop kissing Jay.

Jay, after the brief shock, kissed her back with full devotion, hands hovering for one second because Eli was right there, then settling respectfully at Alexia's waist because Jay was in love but not suicidal.

When Alexia finally pulled back, Jay looked ruined.

Completely.

Lip slightly pink from the kiss, eyes dazed, fake ring forgotten, dignity gone.

Alexia stroked her thumb once over the corner of Jay's mouth. "Better."

Jay blinked. "For who?"

"For me."

Jay swallowed. "Great."

Alba spun back around. "You kissed her as punishment?"

Alexia looked at her. "Yes."

"That is not punishment!"

Jay, still dazed, raised one finger. "Emotionally, it was complex."

Alba glared at her. "You folded in six seconds."

Jay turned. "You try having her look at your mouth like she's about to declare martial law."

Alba made a disgusted face. "I do not want my sister looking at my mouth at all!"

"Exactly. You lack context."

"I lack trauma."

Alexia took Jay's hand and pulled her towards the table. "Sit."

Jay sat immediately.

Alba pointed. "Look at her. Obedient now."

Jay, settling into the chair beside Alexia, said, "I have survived an incident."

"You caused the incident."

"I survived my own incident. That still counts."

Eli placed food on the table, smiling as if this was a perfectly normal family dinner and not a courtroom in which Jay's mouth had just been defended as a national resource. "Alba, let me see your ear again."

Alba brightened instantly because she had been waiting for someone to remember she was the actual reason they had gone to the piercing studio.

She turned her head.

Eli inspected the little hoop with maternal care. "Very beautiful."

Alba beamed. "Thank you."

Alexia looked at it properly for the first time. Her face softened. "It looks good, hermana."

Alba touched it proudly. "Thank you."

Jay leaned across the table. "I supported her bravely."

Alba jabbed a finger at her. "You nearly fainted when I squeezed your hand."

"You have a very strong grip."

“I was getting pierced!"

"I respected your pain."

"You were whispering 'breathe through the ear' like an idiot."

Alexia turned slowly. "Breathe through the ear?"

Jay paused. "It felt supportive at the time."

Míriam dissolved again.

Clara and Julia arrived fifteen minutes later, exactly late enough to miss the initial explosion and exactly on time to receive the worst possible summary from Alba, who met them at the door with the energy of a person carrying breaking news.

"You missed it," Alba announced. "Jay put on a fake lip ring and Alexia acted like someone had vandalised a church."

Julia looked at Jay.

Jay waved weakly from the table.

Clara looked at Alexia.

Alexia continued eating calmly.

Míriam supplied, "Alexia called Jay's mouth her favourite mouth."

Julia closed her eyes. "Of course she did."

Clara removed her sunglasses very slowly. "This family dinner seems more clinically rich than usual."

Jay pointed at Alba. "She planned it."

Alba pointed at Jay. "She bought the ring."

Jay pointed at Alexia. "She overreacted."

Alexia put down her fork.

Jay immediately corrected, "Reacted the correct amount for her emotional truth."

Julia sat down. "Good recovery."

Clara looked at Jay's mouth, then at the fake ring lying on the table like evidence. "So it was never real?"

"No," Jay said. "Because I enjoy living."

Alexia murmured, "Sometimes you hide this well."

Jay looked at her. "Baby, I confessed before dessert."

"You should have confessed before I saw it."

"That defeats the purpose of a prank."

"The purpose was to make me furious?"

Alba said, "Yes."

Alexia looked at her.

Alba shrank slightly. "Lovingly."

Eli poured Clara wine. "It was very funny."

Alexia turned to her mother, wounded. "Mama."

"It was," Eli said.

"You are supposed to support me."

"I support you. I also laughed."

Míriam lifted her glass. "I support Jay's survival."

Julia said, "I support no one getting actual piercings without reviewing the media implications."

Jay looked offended. "I already have piercings."

Julia gave her a flat look. "You know exactly which ones made three sponsorship teams nervous."

Alba choked on water.

Alexia's eyes flicked briefly to Jay.

Jay immediately became very interested in her plate.

Clara sipped her wine. "I support discussing why you thought Alexia would be upset."

"No," Jay said immediately.

Clara smiled faintly. "Not tonight."

"Thank you."

"Tuesday."

Jay groaned.

Alexia's hand found Jay's knee beneath the table.

Jay quieted.

Alba saw the shift and pointed with her fork. "See? She touches her and the whole system resets. It is disgusting."

Jay looked at her. "You held my hand at the piercing studio."

Alba froze.

The table went silent.

Eli turned slowly to Alba. "You did?"

Alba's face changed. "No."

Jay smiled.

Alba pointed at her. "Do not."

Jay leaned back. "She held my hand, and she squeezed very hard, and after the needle went through she said a bad word."

"I was wounded!"

"You were pierced."

"I was brave."

"You were. I said that."

Alba blinked.

The teasing softened for one beat.

Jay smiled at her. "You were."

Alba's expression flickered, pleased despite herself, then immediately defensive. "Do not be nice to me after betraying me."

"I contain multitudes."

“You contain betrayal."

"And emotional support."

"You told them."

"They deserved the truth."

Alexia stroked Jay's knee under the table once.

Jay looked at her.

Alexia was not smiling now. Not exactly. She was watching Jay with that quiet, affectionate look that always made Jay feel seen past the joke. Past the prank. Past the mouth ring and the chaos and the six second confession.

"You went with her," Alexia said softly.

Jay's face softened. "Yeah."

"Thank you."

Jay blinked, caught off guard. "Of course."

Alba rolled her eyes, but she did not look away.

"I would have gone," Alexia said to Alba.

"I know," Alba said. Then, after a tiny pause, "But Jay was funny."

Jay put a hand over her chest. "I am honoured."

"And annoying."

“Also true."

"And she paid."

Alexia looked at Jay. "You paid?"

Jay shrugged. "She was emotionally pierced. I bought the jewellery."

Alba said, "And pastries."

Jay nodded. "Post stabbing pastry support."

Eli smiled into her wine.

Alexia's thumb kept moving slowly over Jay's knee.

Jay noticed, of course.

Jay always noticed.

By the time dinner ended, the fake lip ring had become the centrepiece of the table.

Not intentionally.

No one had moved it.

It sat there between the bread basket and a small dish of olives, shining innocently, the tiny object that had briefly threatened household stability.

Alba kept flicking it with one finger whenever Alexia looked away.

Alexia kept removing Alba's finger without looking.

Jay kept watching Alexia watch the ring.

Eventually, because Jay had never known when to stop, she picked it up and held it near her mouth again.

Alexia turned her head.

Slowly.

"No," Alexia said.

Jay froze. "I didn't put it on.

“You thought about it."

"I think many things."

"Think less."

Alba started laughing again. "She is traumatised."

Alexia took the ring from Jay's fingers and dropped it into her own pocket.

Jay stared.

"Are you confiscating it?"

"Yes."

"It was on my mouth."

Alexia lifted an eyebrow.

Jay corrected herself. "It was on the mouth that you have emotionally claimed."

Alba screamed into her napkin.

Míriam whispered, "Emotionally claimed mouth."

Clara said, "I am not writing that down."

Julia said, "No one should."

Eli, very calmly, started clearing plates. "Dessert?"

Jay raised her hand. "Yes please. I need sugar after being censored."

"You need sense," Alexia said.

"I have you."

Alexia looked at her.

Jay smiled.

It was too soft to be funny.

Too true.

Alexia looked away first, but her hand stayed on Jay's knee.

Later, after dishes had been cleared and Eli had packed leftovers because she knew Jay would pretend not to need them and then eat half the fridge at midnight, they gathered by the door to leave.

Alba hugged Alexia first. Alexia kissed her cheek, carefully avoiding the newly pierced ear.

"Clean it properly," Alexia said.

"I know."

"Do not sleep on it."

"I know."

"And do not let Jay convince you to do something stupid again."

Alba looked over Alexia's shoulder at Jay.

Jay lifted both thumbs.

Alba smiled. "No promises."

Alexia sighed. "Dios mío."

Jay hugged Eli, then Míriam, then accepted a very dry look from Julia and a "Tuesday" from Clara that made her groan again. Finally, she followed Alexia out into the corridor, leftovers in one hand, Alba's laughter still audible behind them.

The lift arrived.

They stepped inside.

The doors closed.

For the first time all evening, they were alone.

Jay stood very still.

Alexia stood beside her, looking straight ahead.

The fake lip ring was still in Alexia's pocket.

Jay glanced at her.

Alexia did not move.

Jay glanced again.

Alexia said, "You lasted six seconds."

Jay exhaled. "It was maybe ten."

“Six."

"You counted?"

"Sí."

Jay smiled despite herself. "That is actually quite romantic."

Alexia turned her head.

Jay's smile faded.

Not because Alexia looked angry now.

She did not.

Not really.

She looked amused, yes. Still slightly exasperated. But underneath it, something warmer had returned. Something Jay knew intimately. That possessive softness Alexia rarely displayed so openly, the one that made Jay's chest feel too small.

"You scared me for one second," Alexia said.

Jay's face changed. "I know. I'm sorry."

Alexia looked at her mouth.

Jay swallowed.

"I should have said it was fake sooner."

"Yes."

"But then the prank would have failed."

"It failed anyway."

"It produced strong results."

Alexia's mouth twitched. "Strong?"

"You kissed me in your mother's kitchen."

Alexia stepped closer.

Jay's back touched the lift wall.

"Because," Alexia said, voice lowering, accent thicker now, "you made me think you had changed something I love."

Jay's breath caught.

Alexia lifted one hand and touched Jay's lower lip with her thumb, light and slow.

Jay went utterly still.

"Something I use," Alexia continued.

Jay made a tiny sound.

Alexia's eyes warmed.

"Something I like," she murmured. "Very much."

Jay whispered, "Baby."

Alexia smiled. "What?"

"You know what."

"Sí."

The lift doors opened.

Neither moved for half a second.

Then Alexia took Jay's hand and led her out.

Jay followed immediately, leftovers forgotten in one hand, heart somewhere in her throat, dignity still somewhere in Eli's kitchen beside the olives.

As they walked down the hall, Jay glanced at her. "So just to clarify."

"No."

"I haven't asked yet."

"I know the tone."

"Would you have hated a real lip ring?"

Alexia stopped outside their apartment door.

Turned.

Looked at Jay's mouth.

Thought about it.

Jay waited, nervous now in a way that had nothing to do with the prank.

Alexia stepped closer and slid the key from Jay's hand, because Jay had forgotten she was holding that too.

“I would not hate it," Alexia said softly.

Jay blinked. "No?"

"No."

"Oh."

"But you do not make decisions about my favourite mouth without warning me."

Jay's eyes widened.

Alexia opened the door and stepped inside.

Jay stood in the hallway, stunned.

Then followed her in. "Sorry, did we just establish mouth consultation rules?"

“Yes."

"That sounds like a legal category."

"For us, it is."

Jay shut the door behind her. "I love our relationship."

Alexia turned, smiling now, and caught the front of Jay's shirt.

Jay forgot the leftovers.

Alexia kissed her once.

Slow.

Deliberate.

A reminder.

A claim.

A punishment that was absolutely not a punishment.

When she pulled away, Jay looked at her with wrecked devotion.

Alexia tapped Jay's lower lip with her thumb.

"No ring," she said.

Jay nodded. "No ring."

"Not without asking."

"Not without asking."

"Good."

Jay swallowed. "Can I ask something now?"

Alexia's eyes narrowed. "Depends."

Jay leaned in, smiling. "Can I have my mouth back?"

Alexia looked at her for one long second.

Then smiled.

You woke to the sound of Olivia’s breath against your collarbone and the faint morning light painting the bedroom in watery yellows and blue shadow. The sheets tangled around you, cool where they weren’t pressed to skin. Your bare chest was sticky with the ghosts of last night, and you knew, before you even reached over to the other side of the bed that Alexia was already gone.

For a second, you lay there, half hoping she’d be in the bathroom or making coffee, but the apartment felt hollow, airless, as if she’d vacuumed herself out of the rooms leaving only the space she’d occupied and the warmth she’d left behind.

Olivia stirred and grumbled, her head tucked in the crook of your arm, her tiny hand curling into the plane of your stomach like it had always belonged there.

You lay there and listened to the questions in your mind begin their slow, inevitable march. Had last night meant anything? Did she always leave this early after sleeping with someone? Or was this just the reality of international duty, her flight to Madrid, the whistle of her profession, always louder than the needs of anyone in her bed?

You told yourself not to overthink, but the words were so useless you almost laughed. It was the first time you’d slept with anyone that quickly, and the first time you’d let yourself want someone this badly ever. You’d spent years convincing yourself that Alexia was arrogant, that she was only interested in the chase, that she drops people the moment being with the person required any effort at all. Why would you be any different?

Now, you wondered if she’d only wanted to prove a point, to win a game you weren't aware you were apart of, a challenge she’d presented to herself. Maybe you’d just been a convenient stop on her long line of casual hook ups.

You pressed your face into your pillow, inhaling the faint perfume she’d left behind, citrus and sweat and something unfamiliar. Olivia snored softly, blissfully unaware of the ache in your chest or the rawness in your throat.

You waited for a message, a call, something to prove you were more than a late night statistic or a neat addition to her list of conquests. Nothing came, just the faint hum of city traffic below.

By the time Olivia woke for real rubbing her fists into her eyes, cheeks pink and swollen with sleep you’d already drafted the first of several emotionally neutral texts to Alexia, then deleted them. You didn’t want to be the person who needed reassurance after a single night. You didn’t want her to know how much you cared, how vulnerable you’d let yourself become.

You forced yourself through the morning, because Olivia needed breakfast, she needed changing and she had absolutely no concept of adult emotional crises.

She sat happily in her highchair, squashing banana between determined little fingers before proudly offering you what remained.

You smiled despite yourself, "Thank you, baby."

You accepted the thoroughly mangled piece and pretended to eat it and she giggled, for a little while, she distracted you, she always had.

By the time you'd cleaned banana out of her hair, changed her into fresh clothes and surrendered to reading the same picture book three times because apparently the fish simply had to find his friends again, the ache in your chest had dulled into something quieter.

Your phone was face down on the kitchen counter, you refused to look at it, because every time you did there was nothing and you hated how disappointed that made you feel every time.

The doorbell rang, you frowned, you weren't expecting anyone, Olivia looked towards the hallway, immediately perking up.

"Ale?"

Your heart sank a little. "No, sweetheart." You scooped her onto your hip, "I don't think it's—" The doorbell rang again.

You opened the apartment door, standing on the other side was Alba, "You look" Her eyes travelled over your face. "tired."

You let out a quiet laugh, "Well, thank you."

She lifted a paper bag, "Mami made too many pastries."

You looked at the bag, then back at her, "I'm almost certain that's a lie."

"It absolutely is." She grinned

You stepped aside, "Come in."

As Alba walked into the apartment, Olivia immediately buried her face against your shoulder, one tiny hand gripped the back of your T-shirt.

Alba noticed and instantly stopped where she was, "Oh..." She smiled gently, "I think I might be a bit scary."

You laughed, "She's just shy."

Alba kept a respectful distance, crouching slightly instead of walking any closer, "Hi, Olivia." Olivia peeked at her for barely a second before hiding against your neck again. Alba nodded dramatically, "Fair enough."

You smiled gratefully, "Sorry."

"Oh, don't apologise." She stood back up, "We've only just met." She placed the paper bag and a takeaway coffee on the kitchen counter, "Mami insisted you try her pastries."

You looked between the coffee and Alba, "...Why do I feel like there's another reason you're here?"

Alba looked almost offended, "I can't just visit?"

"You barely know me."

"True." She glanced briefly towards Olivia, still tucked safely against your shoulder.

You busied yourself opening the paper bag, inside were still warm pastries, exactly the sort Alexia told you Eli insisted people took home after family gatherings.

Alba watched you quietly, "So..." She asked eventually, "have you heard from Ale?"

You froze for the briefest moment, "No, she's busy."

"Mhm."

"She had to leave early."

"Mhm." You still didn't look at her, you glanced instinctively towards your phone, still face down.

Alba didn't mention Alexia again not immediately, instead, she spotted the basket of toys tucked beside the sofa, "Can I?"

You nodded, "Good luck."

She crouched down slowly, Olivia still balanced comfortably on your hip, watched her with wide, suspicious eyes. Alba picked up a soft stuffed rabbit, "Hm..." She studied it seriously, "I wonder who this belongs to."

Olivia didn't move.

Alba looked around dramatically, "No?"

She picked up a little wooden block instead.

"What about this one?"

Still nothing.

"I suppose..." She sighed theatrically, "...I'll just have to play by myself." She sat cross legged on the rug, stacking two blocks together, then three, then four. They immediately toppled over, "Oh no." She looked around in exaggerated panic, "My tower."

Olivia peeked from your shoulder, Alba pretended not to notice, she built another, it fell again.

"Oh dear."

Another tiny peek, this time Olivia didn't hide quite as quickly, Alba smiled to herself. Alba continued talking to Olivia as though they were old friends.

The rabbit had apparently become a dragon, the wooden blocks were now a castle and Olivia, despite herself, had begun inching closer after you sat her on the floor.

"Oh no," Alba gasped dramatically as the rabbit launched itself at the tower. "Sir Bunny has eaten the castle."

Olivia let out a tiny giggle.

"There she is," Alba smiled. "I knew you were hiding in there."

You couldn't help smiling yourself, while Alba carefully rebuilt the tower, you finally reached for your phone, it had been sitting face down all morning. You'd convinced yourself you weren't bothered she hadn't text, that you didn't need to check it.

The empty lock screen proved it, you opened Instagram anything to stop yourself opening your messages.

The first story belonged to the Spanish national team, players arriving into camp, someone filming Vicky dancing in the corridor.

You smiled faintly, the next story was from training, a group of candid photographs, the last Alexia laughing at something.

You instinctively smiled until you noticed who she was laughing with, a woman you'd only seen a handful of times before.

Dark hair, easy smile, standing shoulder to shoulder with Alexia. The following story was warm ups and the pair were together again. The next players walking out towards the pitches, Alexia and the same woman, talking quietly at the back of the group. Again together in recovery stretches, another this time someone had taken a photo from across the pitch.

Most of the squad were spread out, but Alexia and that same woman stood off to one side, heads bent together in conversation.

You frowned, you knew of most of the people in Alexia's world by now. You knew who she gravitated towards during training, who she travelled with, who she teased.

None of those friendships looked quite like this, there was an ease to it, a familiarity. One that caught somewhere unpleasant in your chest.

You clicked onto another story, the same woman bumped Alexia's shoulder in the background Alexia smiled without even looking. The kind of unconscious smile people gave someone they'd known for years.

Your thumb hovered over the screen, "...Who's that?"

You looked up, Alba was still sitting cross-legged on the rug, one rabbit puppet was currently pretending to lose an argument with a wooden spoon.

Olivia had abandoned your leg she was clinging to entirely now, she was sitting opposite Alba, watching with complete concentration.

You held your phone up, "The woman with Alexia."

Alba barely glanced over, "Oh. Jenni."

"Jenni Hermoso?" You had heard that name to be fair

"Mhm." She picked the rabbit up again and without thinking twice, she answered casually, "They were together for years."

You blinked, "Together?"

"As in" Alba made the rabbit kiss the wooden spoon, "together together." Olivia squealed with laughter, Alba smiled at her, "It was years ago, they were together a long time though." She shrugged, "They're still really close."

"...Oh." Your stomach sank, you looked back down at the photograph, suddenly it made sense, with the familiarity and comfort. The way they always seemed to gravitate towards each other.

Alba didn't seem to notice the change in your expression, or perhaps she did and simply didn't realise why.

She was too busy letting Olivia knock over another block tower, "Oh no!" Alba cried dramatically, "You've defeated me!" Olivia clapped delightedly.

You watched them for a second, then looked back down at your phone, you'd spent the whole morning trying to convince yourself not to overthink Alexia leaving early and the silence. That she'd simply had to report for international duty and she'd text when she had time and was just busy with training and obligations.

Now you found yourself staring at the screen a little longer than you should have, you didn't know Jenni, you didn't know anything about their relationship. Whether it had ended well or if either of them still carried feelings and whether the closeness was simply years of friendship, or if it was something more.

But it didn't matter, because your mind had already made its decision.

You'd let yourself get carried away, one wonderful evening and one wonderful night, you'd forgotten who Alexia was and that she'd had a life before you. People she'd loved, who knew her in ways you never could.

You locked your phone, the ache in your chest returned, quieter this time, you looked over at Olivia, happily pushing another block towards Alba.

A small smile found your face despite yourself maybe this was your reminder that the most important relationship in your life was already sitting on the rug.

And maybe for your own sake you needed to stop letting yourself imagine that you were any different that any other conquest for Alexia. She wanted something from you last night and you happily obliged knowing her history and reputation.

You were truly idiotic to think you were special.

You looked down at Olivia sitting on the rug, not close enough to touch Alba, but close enough to watch.

Alba rolled a little wooden car towards her it stopped halfway between them, Olivia stared at it, then crawled over, picked it up and looked back at Alba.

Alba simply smiled, "Excellent choice."

Olivia considered her for another second before rolling the car back.

You smiled from the sofa, "I've got to admit" Alba looked over, "I'm impressed."

She shrugged, "I've spent years bribing toddlers into liking me." She whispered conspiratorially, "It's being slightly ridiculous."

You laughed, "I'll remember that."

Olivia was happily knocking over every tower Alba built before clapping proudly for herself.

Alba applauded every single collapse, "As an perfectionist" She sighed dramatically, "...this is devastating." Olivia squealed with delight.

You leaned back into the sofa cushions, coffee warming your hands it felt normal, comfortably normal.

The room fell comfortably quiet again, only interrupted by Olivia's delighted babbling every time another tower hit the floor.

Almost casually, Alba said, "Oh, are you busy tomorrow?"

You frowned, "I don't think so. Why?"

She placed another block on top of the increasingly unstable tower, "It's family day at national team camp." She looked up, "They have one every now and then. Families watch training, barbecue, kids running around, parents embarrassing everyone." She smiled, "It's actually quite nice."

You nodded absent-mindedly.

"I wondered" She carefully balanced one final block, "...whether you and Olivia wanted to come."

You were quiet, almost too quiet, but Alba didn't push. She simply let Olivia gleefully destroy the tower again.

Your mind had already started running away with itself, family day, where did you fit? You weren't family, not really, not in the traditional sense at least.

Your stomach tightened, "I don't know."

Alba looked over, "It's completely up to you."

"I just..." You rubbed at the side of your coffee cup, "I don't want to make things awkward."

"For who?"

"For Alexia."

Alba looked genuinely puzzled, "You wouldn't."

"I don't know." You looked down at your coffee, your thoughts immediately started arguing with one another again.

She probably only invited you because Olivia would enjoy it, because you were her guardian. You hated how easily your brain found reasons to protect itself.

"I don't know" You admitted quietly, "I feel like..." You sighed, "...I'd just be in the way."

Alba was silent for a moment, then she smiled, she watched Olivia crawl into your legs before looking back at you, "...I think you've spent a long time trying to convince yourself you're somewhere you're actually wanted."

You looked at her.

"And I don't think you've realised yet that nobody else is questioning whether you belong."

Your eyes drifted down to Olivia, she was leaning comfortably against your shins, chewing thoughtfully on one of the wooden pieces.

You smiled despite yourself.

"So?"

You let out a long breath, "...Okay."

Alba's smile widened, "Okay?"

You nodded, "We'll come." Then, almost immediately, "But only if Alexia actually wants us both there."

Alba laughed, "I think you'll find..." She reached over to rescue a block from Olivia's determined chewing, "that's the one thing you really don't need to worry about." You weren't so sure.

🍼

The next twenty four hours were far more stressful than they had any right to be.

Travelling with a one year old, it turned out, required military level logistics.

There were nappies, spare nappies, emergency spare nappies. Three different outfits because Olivia had an uncanny ability to spill something on herself within minutes of getting dressed.

Formula, snacks, her favourite rabbit, the spare rabbit for when the favourite rabbit inevitably disappeared.

Halfway through packing, you found yourself staring into the changing bag trying to remember whether you'd already packed wipes or had merely thought about packing wipes.

You checked three times, you'd packed them the first time.

"Right." You pinched the bridge of your nose, "I'm losing my mind."

Olivia looked up from where she was sitting on the living room rug, happily banging two wooden blocks together.

She smiled, you smiled back despite yourself.

"I know. You think I'm ridiculous."

She answered by attempting to put one of the blocks in her mouth.

"Fair enough."

Packing Olivia wasn't actually the difficult part, the difficult part was your own brain.

Every time you finally managed to silence one anxious thought another arrived. What if she'd seen you walk into camp and immediately regretted it?

You zipped the changing bag closed a little harder than necessary, "Stop it." Your brain ignored you.

What if she greeted everyone else first?

What if she smiled politely before asking Why are you here?

Your stomach turned, you knew it was irrational, but anxiety wasn't rational. It never had been. It simply took the worst possible outcome and convinced you it was the most likely.

By the following morning, you were exhausted despite having slept reasonably well.

You dressed Olivia first, you smiled as she sat on the changing mat kicking happily at absolutely nothing.

"You have absolutely no idea how stressful today is."

Olivia squealed.

"I know. I wish I had your confidence."

She grinned at you with four tiny teeth, it was helpful, very helpful.

Getting yourself dressed took considerably longer, you changed outfits twice, then a third time. The blue shirt looked too much like you were trying. The white one felt too formal. The jumper was too casual. Eventually you settled on something comfortably in the middle.

You looked in the mirror, still not convinced.

Your phone buzzed.

Alba: Leaving in ten. Don't chicken out.

You stared at the message, you hadn't told her you were considering exactly that, apparently she hadn't needed telling.

You sighed.

You: I'm not chickening out.

Three dots appeared almost instantly.

Alba: Liar.

You couldn't even argue, because five minutes earlier you'd genuinely considered texting to say Olivia seemed a little tired and perhaps it was best to stay home.

It would have been believable, cowardly, but believable.

Instead you picked Olivia up, she immediately wrapped both arms around your neck.

You rested your forehead briefly against hers, "You know..." You murmured, "there's still time for us to fake a fever."

Olivia blinked, then patted your cheek.

"I know. You don't approve."

The doorbell rang, your heart immediately started hammering, you weren't ready.

You adjusted Olivia on your hip before opening the apartment door, Eli stood there with her usual warm smile.

Alba beside her already holding the car keys, "Morning."

Eli's eyes softened as soon as she saw Olivia, "Oh, buenos días."

Olivia buried her face against your shoulder for all of three seconds before cautiously peeking back out.

"She's getting braver." Eli smiled.

"She is."

Alba looked between you and your overnight bag, "You're actually coming."

"I said I would."

"You also nearly cancelled."

You narrowed your eyes, "I hate that you're right."

"I know." She grinned, "It's one of my best qualities."

You locked the apartment behind you, adjusting the changing bag onto your shoulder.

Eli reached out, "Would you like me to carry something?"

"No, it's okay."

"You sure?"

You nodded, "I'm sure."

The three of you started towards the lift, you walked beside Eli, Alba a few steps ahead. Your pulse hadn't slowed, if anything it had got worse, because with every floor the lift descended you were one floor closer to seeing Alexia.

Your anxious mind still whispered the same question over and over.

What if she looks at you and wishes you hadn't come?

🍼

The airport was exactly as chaotic as you'd expected, rolling suitcases rattled across polished floors. Boarding announcements echoed overhead every few minutes, someone was already arguing with airport security before you'd even reached departures.

You tightened your grip on Olivia's changing bag while balancing her comfortably on your hip.

She seemed entirely unfazed, her wide eyes darted from one person to the next, taking everything in with quiet curiosity.

"You've never been to an airport before, have you?"

She blinked up at you, Eli smiled beside you, "She's taking it all in."

Alba looked over her shoulder, "She's judging everyone."

Check in passed without much drama, security was surprisingly painless. Olivia charmed one of the security officers into waving enthusiastically after she'd given him a very serious stare from her pushchair.

By the time you reached the departure gate, you finally allowed yourself to breathe.

You settled into one of the seats, Olivia immediately climbing well, wriggling across your lap to investigate the zip on your jumper.

Eli handed you a coffee, "I thought you might need this."

"You are my favourite person."

"I'll pretend you didn't only say that because of the coffee."

"I absolutely only said it because of the coffee."

She laughed, "I thought so."

The boarding call came sooner than you expected.

You folded the pushchair away at the aircraft door, handing it over before stepping onto the plane.

The familiar smell of recycled air greeted you, you settled into the window seat with Olivia on your lap, buckling your own seatbelt before fastening the infant belt securely around her. She wasn't quite sure what to make of any of it.

She twisted around immediately, peering over towards Eli, next to you then towards Alba on the aisle seat, then back at you.

You smiled, brushing a curl away from her forehead, "It's like she knows you're familiar but can't figure out why."

The cabin slowly filled around you, suitcases thudded into overhead lockers, people squeezed apologetically past one another, flight attendants checked seatbelts.

Olivia watched every single movement with complete fascination, until the engines began to hum.

You recognised the slight shift in her expression immediately, her little brows pulled together.

She didn't understand what was happening, before she had chance to become upset, you reached into the changing bag and pulled out her bottle.

"There we are." She recognised it instantly, both hands reached for it, "Good girl." you said as she lay back in your arm.

You settled it into her mouth just as the aircraft began to taxi. She drank contentedly, the rhythmic sucking helping to equalise the pressure in her ears as the engines grew louder.

Eli smiled across the aisle, you looked over, "You thought of everything."

You smiled faintly, "I've just learnt by getting it wrong before."

The aircraft paused, then began its final turn onto the runway.

Your stomach fluttered, not because of flying, because every mile the plane travelled was one mile closer to Alexia.

You looked down at Olivia, her eyelids were already growing heavy, the bottle rested in both tiny hands, her movements slowing as the plane accelerated.

Outside the window, the runway blurred, the nose lifted, the engines roared. You instinctively wrapped one arm a little more securely around her, within minutes her sucking slowed.

Then stopped altogether, her tiny fingers loosened around the bottle, her head tipped toward your chest, fast asleep.

You smiled, easing the bottle away carefully, "Well" You whispered, "that worked."

Eli glanced over and smiled, "I don't think she even realised we'd taken off."

You looked down at the sleeping little girl curled safely against you, "Let's hope she sleeps all the way."

You had nothing left to distract you from the destination waiting at the other end of it and somewhere beyond the clouds Alexia had absolutely no idea you were coming.

🍼

Olivia woke somewhere between the airport and the national team training camp.

You heard the sleepy little sigh before you saw her move, she blinked slowly, still dazed from her nap, one tiny fist rubbing against her eye.

You twisted slightly in your seat to look into the back, "Hello, sleepy."

She blinked at the voice before looking around, for a second, confusion crossed her face, you weren't holding her anymore. Instead, she was tucked comfortably against Eli in the back seat, one of Eli's arms wrapped securely around her while the other absent-mindedly rubbed circles over her back.

Olivia frowned, she studied Eli's face carefully, as though trying to work out exactly who this person was.

Eli simply smiled back, "Hola, preciosa."

Olivia continued staring, another second passed. Then, apparently reaching the conclusion that this woman was acceptable enough, she gave one slow blink, turned her head towards the window and resumed quietly watching the world roll past.

Alba laughed from the seat next to Eli, "Well I think you've officially been approved."

Eli smiled, "I'll take it."

You laughed quietly, "That's about as enthusiastic as she gets with new people." The rest of the journey passed peacefully.

Olivia remained captivated by the scenery outside, occasionally pointing at passing lorries or brightly coloured signs with quiet little noises of interest.

The car slowed, large security gates came into view beyond them stretched immaculate training pitches, low modern buildings and players in national team kit crossing between them.

Your stomach immediately tightened, this was it.

Alba leaned forward to your shoulder, "You alright?"

You nodded, "Yeah."

She didn't look convinced.

The car rolled through the gates before pulling into a parking space outside the main building. Before anyone had chance to get out, someone was already walking towards the car, a woman with short dark hair and an easy smile.

The moment Eli stepped out, the woman opened her arms, "Eli."

"Sonia."

The two embraced warmly, Alba greeted her just as naturally.

You climbed out a second later, reaching for the changing bag while Eli carefully held Olivia onto her hip.

The woman turned towards you immediately, Eli smiled, "I believe Alexia's already told you the situation." She gestured towards you, "This is Y/N..." then looked to Olivia on her hip, "and this is Olivia."

The woman's smile somehow softened even more, "Oh. I've heard so much about you both."

Olivia stared at her curiously, Sonia stepped closer slowly, making no attempt to take her, snstead she simply reached out one hand.

The back of one finger brushed gently against Olivia's tiny hand, Olivia watched the movement with complete seriousness, apparently deciding it wasn't a threat, she allowed it, but reached for you to take her back which you gladly did as Eli without a word took the changing bag from you.

Sonia laughed softly, "Hello." she stepped forward and wrapping you in a brief, warm hug. "It's lovely to finally meet you." She smiled.

You couldn't help smiling back, "It's lovely to meet you too." You hesitated, "Sorry..." You laughed at yourself, "I'm probably about to sound incredibly ignorant." Sonia raised an eyebrow encouragingly, "What's your name sorry?"

She laughed, "Sonia."

"Sonia." You nodded, "Nice to meet you." You smiled sheepishly, "You'd think raising a child with Alexia I'd know a lot more about football than I actually do."

"Honestly?" Sonia smiled, "That might actually be quite refreshing around here. I spend most of my life talking football."

You smiled, "I can offer medical advice thats about it?"

"Now that, " Sonia grinned, "...might be even more useful."

The conversation was interrupted by the distant sound of whistles carrying across the training pitches.

Sonia glanced over her shoulder, "They're just finishing for lunch."

You were the last family to arrive, Sonia explained as she led you through the main building that everyone else had travelled up that morning. "They've all been out watching training this afternoon." She smiled at Eli. "Ricard's been trying to coach from the sidelines again."

Eli laughed, "Does Alexia still pretend not to hear him?"

"Naturally and naturally he still shouts anyway."

You smiled quietly as you followed them through the corridors, Olivia balanced comfortably on your hip.

You could hear voices before you reached the dining room, the general noise of families all sharing lunch together.

The room was larger than you'd expected, long tables had been pushed together, players mixed naturally between parents, siblings, partners and children. Nobody looked particularly formal it felt comfortably chaotic.

Eli and Alba walked in without hesitation, clearly familiar with everyone there.

You followed a few steps behind, suddenly very aware that you didn't know anyone. Your eyes found Alexia almost immediately.

She was standing beside one of the tables, halfway through a conversation with Ricard and his wife.

Her phone was still in one hand, her thumb refreshed the same text conversation she'd been checking far too often all morning.

The conversation with you, still nothing, not a single message from you, she frowned almost imperceptibly, every time she'd unlocked her phone she'd convinced herself she'd wait until lunch, or after training, or when she had five uninterrupted minutes.

Now she'd somehow reached the afternoon, still staring at the conversation where she text you 4 hours ago and still hadn't gotten a response.

Alexia: How's Olivia?

Before she could overthink it any further a hand landed gently on her shoulder.

Alexia turned, the moment she saw her mother, her entire face transformed, "Mami." A smile spread across her face so quickly it almost caught Eli off guard, "You're finally here."

She slipped her phone into her pocket before wrapping both arms around Eli in a tight hug. Alexia kissed her cheek before stepping sideways to pull Alba into a one armed hug.

Then Alexia looked up, past her sister and her mother and saw you, you stood a few feet behind them, Olivia resting comfortably against your shoulder.

Your stomach immediately flipped, she looked different, not because she'd changed, because you'd spent the night with her, because now seeing her across a room somehow felt entirely different to every other time before.

For a moment neither of you moved, Alexia simply stared, which did nothing for your anxiety.

Olivia was completely oblivious, she hadn't even noticed Alexia, she was staring over your shoulder across the room, where Patri and Pina had apparently spotted her the second you'd walked in.

Patri puffed out her cheeks, Pina crossed her eyes, both women waved enthusiastically. Olivia stared with complete seriousness. Then very slowly a tiny smile appeared.

Pina gasped dramatically and clutched at Patri's arm as though she'd just won the lottery. Patri celebrated by pulling an even more ridiculous face, Olivia gave the tiniest little giggle.

Alexia took one step in front of you, for a moment, neither of you spoke. "I text you."

You blinked, "What?"

"This morning." Her hand instinctively went to her pocket before remembering she'd already put her phone away, "I text you, you never replied"

You finally met her eyes, "My phone's still on airplane mode. I've not seen it." Something in your expression made Alexia pause.

She knew you well enough now to recognise when something wasn't right. Your smile wasn't quite reaching your eyes, there was a tightness around your mouth that hadn't been there the night before.

She didn't ask, not here, not with half the national team milling around the room.

Instead, she simply nodded, "Oh." A tiny smile, "Ok" At the sound of Alexia's voice, Olivia finally looked away from the faces Patri and Pina were pulling across the room.

Her whole face lit up, "Ale!"

She immediately reached both arms towards her, Alexia laughed, "There she is." She took Olivia from your arms with practiced ease, lifting her high above her head. "Oh, hello, preciosa."

She peppered kisses across Olivia's cheeks, Olivia squealed, throwing her head back with delighted giggles.

"There she is" Another kiss, "...there's my smile."

Alexia lowered her just enough to blow a raspberry against her cheek, Olivia laughed even harder, tiny hands grabbing at Alexia's face.

You watched them, your chest tightened, "I was asking if this little monkey was okay."

Before you could stop yourself, the words slipped out, "Why would she not be okay?"

Alexia looked at you, "What?"

"You said you were checking she was okay." Your voice was calm enough, but there was something underneath it, something defensive, "I've been looking after her."

"I know."

"So why wouldn't she be okay?"

Alexia frowned for the briefest second, completely thrown by the question. Then, just as quickly, her expression smoothed over. She bounced Olivia gently on her hip, "I didn't mean..." She glanced between you and Olivia, "I wasn't asking because I thought something had happened."

You didn't answer.

Alexia was still trying to understand where this had come from, "I just..."

She smiled gently at Olivia as the little girl tucked her face into her neck for a moment.

"...I missed her."

You looked at her, Alexia met your eyes properly this time, still confused and sensing she'd somehow walked into a conversation she hadn't been present for.

Olivia patted Alexia's cheek decisively, "Ale." Alexia smiled immediately, kissing the little hand. "Yes, boss."

Olivia giggled, Alexia looked back at you again. The confusion was still there, but so was the concern.

She just had no idea yet that your mood was solely dependent on a conversation you'd had entirely inside your own head. Despite the distance that had somehow appeared between you over the last twenty four hours, Alexia refused to leave it there.

You'd answered her questions. You'd smiled when expected. You'd laughed once or twice, but it all felt careful, like you'd both somehow ended up back where you'd started months ago.

Alexia hated it.

As lunch began to break up, players drifting outside with their families, she fell into step beside you.

"Come to my room."

You looked at her, "What?"

"I have something for Olivia."

You hesitated, Alexia tilted her head.

"Please?"

You looked down at Olivia, balanced comfortably on her hip, "...Okay."

The walk through the hotel corridors was quieter than either of you would normally have allowed lately, Alexia carried Olivia, talking softly to her about absolutely anything.

"The lifts are very exciting today."

Olivia blinked.

"Wow yes, pretty painting"

Olivia pointing at the art on the wall as they walked by.

You trailed a step behind them, your phone finally connected back to the network after the flight. Your eyes caught Alexia's message from that morning.

Alexia: How's Olivia?

You stared at it for a second longer than necessary, no question or interest in how you were.

The lift doors opened, Alexia glanced back at you, "You coming?"

You slipped your phone into your pocket, "Yeah." The ride was utter silent other than Olivia giggling at her self in the reflection.

Alexia pushed open the hotel room door, you found yourself looking around almost instinctively.

It was a standard national team room, Twin beds pushed together, suitcases half unpacked, training kit draped neatly over a chair.

For reasons you couldn't quite explain, you'd expected someone else to be there. Someone with dark hair, an easy smile. Instead the room was empty, Alexia had it to herself, she didn't seem to notice your brief glance around.

"Sit here, monkey."

She lifted Olivia onto the bed, the mattress dipped beneath her tiny weight. She crouched beside her suitcase.

"Hang on..."

She began rummaging through one of the side compartments.

"I put them somewhere..."

You stayed by the door for a moment before wandering further inside, absently scrolling through Instagram.

"There." Alexia pulled out two neatly folded shirts, she turned around with a smile, "I wanted you both to have these."

She held one out to you, the other she placed on the bed beside Olivia.

Spain's home shirt, Alexia across the back, you looked at it quietly, "I got one in your size." She nodded towards the smaller one, "And one for her."

Olivia immediately grabbed hers, you smiled despite yourself, "Come here, baby."

You sat beside her on the bed, carefully easing the tiny shirt over her head. It hung slightly oversized on her little frame, the sleeves almost reached her elbows.

She looked down at herself, then patted the badge with complete seriousness, you couldn't help it when you smiled.

"There you are." You adjusted it on her shoulders, "You look very cute."

Olivia grinned back at you, Alexia watched the whole thing. The tension she'd felt all afternoon eased, just a little, seeing that smile return to your face.

"Worth it." She murmured.

You looked up briefly, "Hm?"

She simply shook her head, "Nothing, she said what you did that it's cute"

Your expression softened for the smallest moment before you looked back down at Olivia.

The little girl was now trying to pull at the number on the back of her shirt from over her shoulder.

Alexia picked up the second shirt, "The other one's yours." She held it out, you took it automatically.

Your fingers brushed over the embroidered badge, the fabric still crisp, still new.

You folded it over your arm, "Thank you."

Alexia waited, you didn't put it on. She noticed, of course she noticed, but she didn't say anything. She simply watched you fold it a little more neatly instead.

The silence returned so Alexia busied herself zipping her suitcase back up, pretending she hadn't felt the tiny sting of disappointment.

Whatever had happened, whatever had changed since she'd left the apartment yesterday morning she still didn't know.

She only knew she wanted the woman she'd kissed in that kitchen back and she had absolutely no idea how she'd managed to lose her in less than a day.

🍼

You wandered the camp grounds for almost forty minutes long enough to clear your head, or at least try to, it hadn't really worked.

Every time you thought you'd settled your thoughts, they drifted straight back to Alexia, to how unfair you knew you were being, then to the fact that maybe you weren't. You couldn't decide.

By the time you made your way back upstairs, you'd only managed to exhaust yourself.

You knocked softly before letting yourself into Alexia's hotel room, "Hey i" You stopped. The room was quiet, too quiet, the bed was empty, no tiny giggles.

You looked around, "...Where's Olivia?"

Alexia looked up from where she was sitting on the edge of the bed, "She's fine." Your shoulders relaxed a fraction, "She's with my mami and Alba." You blinked, "They offered to take her down for a bit, she seemed surprisingly ok with it"

You nodded slowly, "Oh."

It was then you noticed your overnight bag sitting beside Alexia's suitcase, the changing bag, Olivia's favourite blanket. Even the little stuffed rabbit, all of it, in this room.

You frowned, "...Why is our stuff in here?"

Alexia followed your gaze, "Oh. I moved it."

"You moved it?"

She nodded, "I thought..." A small smile, "...you could stay in here tonight."

You looked back at her, "Why would I stay in here?"

The smile disappeared, Alexia stared at you for a long moment, then she stood, "Okay." She nodded once, "That's enough."

You frowned, "What?"

"I can't do this anymore." She wasn't angry, if anything she looked exhausted, "You've barely looked at me all day."

"I have."

"No." She shook her head, "You've looked through me."

You opened your mouth.

She continued before you could speak, "I don't know what happened." Her voice was quiet, "So please..." She took a careful step towards you, "tell me."

You looked away, Alexia laughed once not because anything was funny, because she didn't know what else to do.

"I left your apartment that morning" She swallowed, "...thinking I was the happiest I'd been in years."

Your chest tightened.

"I was smiling on the plane." She looked down briefly, "I don't smile on planes."

Despite everything, that almost made you smile. Almost.

"I kept thinking about you." She laughed quietly to herself, "I kept thinking about that kitchen. The way you looked at me. The way you kissed me. I thought..."

She looked back up.

"I thought we'd started something"

Your eyes stayed fixed on the floor, Alexia took another step.

"I thought we were both in this. I thought we'd crossed whatever line we'd both been behind all these years. I thought..." Her voice caught slightly, "...that was it."

You finally looked at her, she looked heartbroken.

"I left because I had to report to camp. I couldn't stop thinking about you and then you arrived today" She searched your face desperately, "and it's like you've decided you regret everything."

"I haven't." The words came out instinctively.

"So what's happened?" You didn't answer, Alexia's shoulders dropped, "Y/N..." She rubbed a hand across her face, "I know you, you think, you overthink. You convince yourself of things before you've given yourself a second to look at the facts. I've seen you do it with work. With Olivia. With yourself."

She stepped close enough that there was barely any space left between you.

"But this one matters. So much."

She reached for your hand slowly giving you every chance to pull away, but you didn't. Her fingers curled gently around yours.

"I can't fix something if I don't know what I've broken."

"You haven't..."

"Then tell me what it is."

You looked at her, really looked at her, there wasn't frustration in her eyes. Just fear, fear that she'd somehow lost something she'd only just found.

"I've spent all day trying to work it out." She laughed weakly, "I've replayed the night over and over. Was I too much? Did I rush you? Did I make you feel pressured? I've gone through every conversation we've had since you got here. I can't find it."

Her thumb brushed once across your knuckles.

"So if this is you protecting yourself" She took a shaky breath, "...please stop trying to protect yourself from me." The room was completely silent, "I don't care if you're scared. I'm scared too. I don't care if you need reassurance. I'll give it. I don't care if you've changed your mind."

Her voice almost broke at that thought.

"...I just need you to tell me."

She took another step, now close enough that if either of you leaned forward you'd be touching.

"I cannot stand here" Her eyes never left yours, "and watch you disappear from me without even knowing why."

The tears you'd been holding back all day began to sting your eyes, Alexia saw them immediately, her own expression softened. She lifted her free hand, not to pull you close, just to gently brush a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

"You don't have to carry whatever this is by yourself." She smiled sadly, "You never have to do that with me." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper, "So" She squeezed your hand, "...please. Talk to me."

The room stayed quiet, neither of you moved, Alexia didn't rush you to explain yourself, she simply waited.

Your shoulders sagged finally you let it all go, "I woke up..." Your voice sounded smaller than you expected, "...and you weren't there."

Alexia's fingers tightened gently around yours.

"I felt..." The words caught.

"Say it." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

You swallowed, "I felt like you got what you wanted." Alexia's face fell, "Like" You laughed bitterly, "...like you'd set out to prove a point."

She opened her mouth before stopping herself, you weren't finished.

"And you won." You shrugged helplessly, "And off you went like it never happened. There was no goodbye, there wasn't"

You looked at the floor.

"...anything." Your voice cracked, "You didn't even text." Alexia inhaled quietly, "I got nothing from you. It took you a day and a half to text me."

You shook your head.

"And I know this is going to make me sound awful but when you finally did" You looked back up at her, "...all you cared about was Olivia."

Alexia's eyebrows knitted together.

"It felt like You rubbed your eyes, "...like suddenly you didn't trust me to look after her. like..." You laughed at yourself, "...I'd slept with you and somehow become less capable overnight."

You looked embarrassed by your own words.

"I know that's irrational, but" Your shoulders lifted helplessly, "...it hurt. I felt used."

Silence, Alexia didn't defend herself, she didn't immediately tell you that you were wrong, she simply stood there listening making sure you were finished.

When you didn't say anything else, she nodded once.

"Okay." She took a slow breath, "Firstly" Her thumb brushed across your hand, "...thank you."

You frowned.

"For telling me. I know that wasn't easy." She smiled sadly, "And secondly I never text first."

You blinked, "What?"

"I don't." She shrugged awkwardly, "You always text first." You stared at her, "So when you didn't" She looked faintly embarrassed, "I kept picking my phone up. Putting it down. Picking it up again. I thought..."

She laughed quietly at herself.

"...maybe Olivia wasn't sleeping, Maybe you'd had a difficult day. Maybe you'd finally got five minutes to yourself and I didn't want to interrupt."

She shook her head.

"So I kept thinking she'll text when she's free and then you didn't. I know it's stupid."

"It is a bit."

She smiled, "I know, but I genuinely thought I was doing the considerate thing."

You looked at her in disbelief. "So, you thought I wasn't texting because I was busy."

"And you thought I wasn't texting because I'd changed my mind."

You both stared at each other, then somehow you both let out the same disbelieving laugh.

"We're idiots."

"The biggest."

The tension eased, if only slightly, Alexia rubbed the back of her neck, "As for leaving" Her expression softened again, "I stood beside the bed for ages."

"You did?"

She nodded, "You were asleep, I put Olivia in with you hoping she'd wake see you there and go back to sleep so you could have a lie in and I kept looking at you."

She smiled to herself.

"I was debating whether to wake you."

"You wake me up." You said it so matter-of-factly it almost made her laugh.

Alexia couldn't help it, she laughed, "Ok, but I didn't know that."

"I know."

"I genuinely didn't. I thought" She smiled sheepishly, "letting you sleep was the romantic option."

"It wasn't."

She laughed again at your serious expression, "I can see that now. I spent about ten minutes arguing with myself. 'Wake her up.' 'No, let her sleep.' 'Wake her up.' 'No, she looks peaceful.' I even kissed your forehead before I left."

Your eyebrows lifted, "You did?"

"Mhm. You didn't wake up, I also tucked the blanket back around you."

"You did?"

"You'd stolen most of it."

"I had not."

"You absolutely had." A tiny smile escaped you, Alexia noticed it immediately, "There you are." She smiled back, "I've missed that smile"

Your smile lingered, "I really thought..." You admitted quietly, "...I was just another woman."

Alexia's expression changed instantly, something almost wounded crossed her face. She took both of your hands looking at you as though she needed you to believe every word. "Y/N." Her voice was steady, "I have had first dates. I have had relationships. I have had casual sex."

She didn't shy away from it, but then she shook her head.

"You" A small smile appeared, "...you terrify me."

You blinked, "What?"

"I've never cared this much about getting it wrong. I've never stood outside someone's bedroom wondering whether waking them up was too much. I've never stared at a phone for a day because I was scared of bothering someone." She laughed softly, "I've never had teammates take the piss out of me for constantly checking my phone to see if a girl had text me before."

For the first time since you arrived you laughed properly, the sound filled the room, Alexia smiled so widely it almost hurt, she stepped closer.

"So" She searched your face, "Can we please" Her forehead rested gently against yours, "promise each other something?"

You nodded, "What?"

"No more deciding what the other person is thinking. If you're scared tell me. If you're hurt tell me. If you need me to wake you up apparently, definitely tell me."

You laughed, the last of the heaviness finally beginning to loosen, "Deal."

"Deal?"

"Deal."

The promise still hung between you, no more guessing, no more building whole stories inside your own heads, just honesty.

Alexia's forehead rested against yours, both of you smiling in that quiet, slightly disbelieving way people did when they realised an argument.

You looked at her for a long moment, then without thinking about it, your hands slid up her arms until they settled loosely around the back of her neck.

"You know" You murmured, "you're quite different to the woman I thought you were."

Alexia smiled softly, "I could say exactly the same thing about you."

You tilted your head, "You thought I was a prude."

"I absolutely did."

"I wasn't."

"Hmm" Her eyes flickered to your lips for the briefest second before finding your eyes again, "You've proved that." A quiet laugh escaped you.

The space between you disappeared, the kiss came naturally the slow meeting of your lips, both of you smiling into it before either of you realised.

Your arms settled comfortably around her neck, instinctively drawing her a little closer.

Alexia's hands found your waist first, lingering there as though still checking that this was okay.

When you leaned into her, she relaxed, her hands drifting lower to rest lightly against your arse, holding you close.

You could feel her smile, "You've stopped overthinking." She whispered against your lips, "For at least thirty seconds."

"That's probably a personal record."

She laughed quietly, "I'll take it."

You kissed her again, slower this time, there was no rush, no urgency, when you eventually pulled back, neither of you went far.

Your noses brushed, your foreheads touched again.

"I missed you." Alexia admitted.

"It was only a day."

"It felt much longer."

You nodded, "It did."

A knock at the hotel door made you both freeze.

Then came Alba's unmistakable voice from the hallway.

"Ale? Olivia has just fed the camp rabbit crackers. I don't know if that's allowed."

The two of you looked at each other, Alexia sighed dramatically, "I leave her alone with her for five minutes..."