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It's offseason, and Pedri alongside the rest of Fc Barcelona have just completed another incredible season. A la Liga championship, and a Copa del Rey trophy added to the glass cabinet. It was cause for lots of celebration, and lots of alcohol. I mean, it was the only time they could infuldge, come the new seasons beginning it would be a strict diet and constant micro managing of what fuel goes into the body in order to perform the best on the field.

But pre-season was still weeks away. That's why tonight Pedri, alongside some teammates, has walked out of a bar in the late night intoxicated by too many rum and cokes.

Barcelona at 2am was a sleepy kind of magic. The streets, still warm from the day’s sun, shimmered faintly beneath the orange glow of antique street lamps that lined the cobbled lanes. The air carried the sweet scent of half drank cocktails and blossoming memories. The city was winding down but not quite asleep; music spilled lazily from tucked-away bars, laughter echoed in bursts from alleyways, and the occasional rev of a motorbike as a remainder that this city never truly stopped. It was the hour where secrets lived, and Barcelona cradled them all in her dim, golden arms.

"bicicletas, deberíamos montar las bicicletas." (Bikes. We should ride the bikes.) A drunk Gavi hiccupped as his arm lay around a young Hector's shoulders.

Pedri shook his head with a disastrous laugh but his own mind, full of liquor and wisdom, was actually thinking that the idea of riding a bike through the city was a good idea.

"No. No." Someone tried to protest, preaching maturity over stupidity. The wag of a finger made all the boys begin to laugh even harder.

"Si Flick descubre que estamos muertos" (If Flick finds out we are all dead)

"Ah" Gavi threw his hands up, "How would he know?". It was like he had forgotten they played football for one of the most popular clubs in world football and there was most definitely going to be some video of them riding bikes drunk through the city centre on social media tomorrow.

Pedri ran a hand through his curls and stumbled slightly as he caught his balance, a crooked grin on his face. He wasn’t as loud as the others, never had been, but he soaked it all in-- the laughter, the recklessness, the freedom. Nights like this were a sacred rarity. The chance to just be young boys capitalising on brazen immaturity.

Gavi’s grin widened, mischievous and entirely too proud of whatever was brewing in that half-drunk brain of his. "Carrera hasta Plaça Reial." (Race to Plaça Reial.)

A chorus of cheers and groans erupted from the group as some booed the idea while others hollered in agreement. But then someone said the word 'Bien' and now here they were, all on battered rental bikes, clinging on the creaking handlebars and zooming down the bike lanes under warm lampposts. Just boys on bikes, drunk on success and rum, coasting through the heartbeat of a city that had given them everything.

Gavi had surged ahead, yelling something incoherent about being the "fastest in all of Catalunya" while Hector rang his little rental bell like it was a war horn. Pedri trailed just behind, the warm breeze rushing through his curls and his cheeks sore from smiling too much.

They turned a corner near Carrer del Bisbe, the street opening slightly into a quieter square flanked by ancient buildings and the low hum of a jazz band still playing inside a half-closed bar.

And that's where you were waiting. That's when he saw you for the first time in about six years. A ghost of his memories in Tenerife.

You were standing alone, dressed in white lace and golden jewellery, alone under a streetlamp. Soft golden light all around you like an angel sent from heaven. A cigarette pinched delicately between your fingers. He wondered when you had taken up such a bad habit.

Pedri’s bike slowed.

Because it was you.

You from the year above at school. You with the wide eyes and plump lips. You with the curly hair and soft skin that was always kissed by the sun. A sketchbook always sticking out of your bag, and a lollipop in your mouth on lunch break. You who always had a path of boys falling at their feet. He watched you always, fantasising about you like you would have ever agreed a date with a boy like him.

You hardly ever spoke, maybe once or twice at a few parties here and there but age separated you both. Different classes, different schedules. Then, it was football. Then, it was your graduation. You left the island for University in Seville. Pedri knew that because he checked in from time to time. Usually late at night when he gets the gift of seeing you in a memory.

But tonight is no memory. It's present. It's here. You're are here.

He feels like he's looking at a mirage. Like maybe the rum and cokes were finally catching up with him. Why are you here? In all the places in all the world how is it that you are stood waiting on a bike lane in Barcelona on the night he has drunkenly decided to use the city bikes for the first time in his life.

Pedri ran a hand through his curls, heart pounding in his chest. There was no way. No way this was real.

He blinked hard, once. Twice. But you didn’t disappear.

You adjusted your skirt, staring up at the stars in the night sky. Your weight shifting from one foot to the other. Your hair fluttered slightly in the breeze. It wasn’t even the wind, really. At least it didn't look like it to Pedri. No, it was like the night was moving around you. Like the universe had pressed pause for a second, just to let him feel it. Let him really see you.

Ahead, the boys were slowing to there own stop. Looking back and seeing there teammate unable to stop looking at the girl under the streetlamp. They looked between each other laughing, murmurs about how it was like it was Pedri's first time seeing a girl.

“¡Eh, Romeo!” Gavi shouted back, wobbling slightly on his bike as he tried to balance one leg mid-turn. “¿Te enamoraste o qué?” (Did you fall in love or what?)

A few of the others laughed, echoing the teasing in loud drunken tones that scattered through the square like birds startled from a rooftop. Pedri barely heard them.

Because that’s when you looked up.

Eyes locking onto his like they had been pulled by a string neither of you had known still existed.

Your brows furrowed, the soft curve of your mouth parting slightly. A beat. Then two.

“Pedro?” you said, your voice quiet and shaped by disbelief.

He was aged, much different from the skinny boy at island house parties. You didn't even really know him, you began to question whether it was weird that you even remembered him. You knew he was doing great in football and fame but had you just made it seem like you were a fan girl. Or, should you have called him Pedri? Was Pedro now a reserved name for family.

When Pedri heard you call him his name in that sweet canary accent, his heart skipped a beat. He felt like he was sixteen again and yearning for you to just smile at him in the hallway.

But this wasn’t a hallway. It was a quiet square in Barcelona. And you were smiling. Carefully, like you weren’t sure if you were allowed to.

Pedri stepped off the bike, the metal frame clanking awkwardly to the pavement behind him.

“I didn’t think you’d remember me,” he said, a little breathless, trying not to sound like a boy who had daydreamed of this moment far too many times.

You bite back a small laugh because honestly, it was ridiculous for him to think anyone from your small town back home wouldn't remember him. He was like a god these days.

"Por supuesto que te recuerdo" (Of course I remember you)

He scratched the back of his neck, sheepish.

A silence seemingly stretched on.

You looked down at the cigarette still burning lightly between your fingers, and with a half-smirk, you dropped it, crushing it under your heel. "Shouldn’t be doing that."

Pedri laughed gently, his eyes lingering on you like he couldn’t quite believe you were real. "No pensé que fueras del tipo de cigarrillo" (i didn't think you were the cigarette type)

"No pensé que fueras el tipo borracho en una bicicleta alquilada a las 2 a. m." (I didn't think you were the drunk on a rental bike at 2am type)

Pedri laughed looking away briefly with a nod like he had been caught out. Then he shrugged his shoulders with a grin.

"Why are you here?" He asked.

"A friend’s birthday. I was waiting for a taxi but” you held up your phone, screen cracked and frozen on a cancelled ride. “Yeah. No luck."

Pedri nodded, glancing back at the pack of boys now huddled in curious and giddy expressions, Hector dramatically fanning himself while Gavi couldn't stop hit cheeky grin. Pedri turned back to you. It was probably a bad idea.

“I can give you a ride,” he said.

You blinked. “On those?”

Pedri followed your gaze down to the battered rental bike. One handlebar was crooked, the front basket rusted, and the back tire looked like it had seen better centuries.

Then, with that lopsided smile that always came just before he did something impulsive, he nodded toward the front of the bike.

"Sit on the handlebars."

You blinked. "¿en serio?"

He gave a small shrug, that sheepish look on his face again. "It’s either that or stay here dodging drunk boys with bells."

Slowly, you stepped toward him, and he steadied the bike as you swung one leg over the front frame, easing yourself onto the handlebars and your legs hanging over the basket. It was awkward at first, but Pedri reached out, his hands resting on your hips for a second. Just to steady you, he told himself. Then, he guided you into place.

"Lean back a little," he murmured, voice soft near your ear and low. Coarse. Heat flutters up your skin.

Your back settled gently against his chest, his arms coming up on either side of you to grip the handlebars properly. You could feel his heartbeat against your spine. Fast. Warm. Like yours.

"Comfortable?" he asked.

You nodded, smiling. You were more comfortable than you should have been. I mean you didn't even know this man, not really.

He pushed off slowly, careful not to wobble, the both of you gliding out into the street like a slow scene from a coming-of-age film, streetlamps glowing in a mirroring warmth.

As you caught up with the rest of the boys, they all quieted down. One by one, they turned to see the pair of you. They watched you perched on the handlebars, leaning back against him, his hands gripping either side of you.

No teasing. No wolf whistles. Just that knowing look to their teammate.

That look. Like they were all suddenly sixteen again and one of their best friends had just secured the girl he had been wanting for his whole life.

Gavi gave Pedri a slow grin. Hector raised his brows and gave a single nod like, nice, man. One of the others whistled low under his breath, not at you, but at the situation.

Pedri shook his head with a smirk, eyes fixed ahead. "No digáis nada." (Don’t say anything)

He cleared his throat. "Uh.. this is Y/N. She’s from back home."

The guys gave small nods, murmurs of polite “Hola”s and soft smirks passing between them. Y/N. So that was her name. A girl from the island that seems like a pretty ghost from their friends past.

Gavi gave you a charming smile and nodded once. “Encantado,” he said, like he was trying very hard to behave himself. You smiled back, amused, and gave a little wave to the rest. Then, you continued on into the night on a bike path in Barcelona, you head against Pedro's shoulder. Your hands faintly touching as they rested on the handlebars. Something magnetic and mature between you. Something aged from school.

The city was beginning to settle around them now, the night thickening, slower, softer. Somewhere, church bells rang the new hour in.

"¿Donde está tu hotel?" He asked, hot breath mixed with lingering cologne against your skin. You swallow.

You told him the name, it wasn't far. Another ten minutes on the bike. Pedri told the boys to wait here while he took a detour to take you home for the night and off you went.

The streets were quieter now, the city folding itself inwards. Your skirt fluttered against the warm breeze, and every now and then your arm brushed his as he leaned to turn. Neither of you spoke much. You didn’t need to.

Eventually, the hotel appeared, beautiful ivy climbing up the dark balconies, one flickering light still on at the reception. Pedri brought the bike to a slow stop just outside the entrance.

You slid off, adjusting your dress, suddenly unsure what to say now that the ride was over.

He stood there awkwardly, holding the bike between you like a buffer. "So… you’re here just for the weekend?"

"Si, for now. I'm moving here for a new job in a month" You nodded. "But I leave on Tuesday"

Pedri's ears perk up at the mention of you moving to his city. The idea that you would exist in the same place, so close. The girl of his dreams, the ghost of his boyhood desires. Here. The gift of endless potential for a future on the horizon.

You feel the same. What you know he's feeling because it's written in the wide pupils of his honey irises. You didn’t say anything for a second. Just looked at him. And then you asked, “Do you want to see me again before I go?” You never usually had that confidence, but this was moment you didn't want to waste. The boy from Tenerife was now the man in Barcelona. And god, he was the most attractive person you had ever seen.

His breath caught. He hoped you didn’t notice, but you probably did. You always noticed more than you let on.

"Yeah," he said, his voice like gravel, but soft. "I do." He can't believe this is his life.

You pulled your phone from your small bag. "Here."

He laughs at the cracked screen. But then he grabbed it, typing his number in with both hands. Contact name - Pedro. The way you had said it earlier, because he liked that. He liked that you knew him as a person before the football.

Then he handed the phone back.

"I'll text you tomorrow." He said, with natural blushed cheeks you remember he got when he drank to much at parties. The boy still existed in him in subtle ways, the same way that girl still existed in you. The girl that tried not to make it obvious that she noticed him in hallways. That she looked at him a little too often, the boy from the year below. The one that pretended she wasn't watching him on the field on sports day because she always knew he was destined to leave the island for something greater. And she would be too. Life dividing them inevitably. But now life had brought them back.

You nodded. "I'll be waiting, Pedro". There was something sultry about the way you said it. Something that instantly turned him on. His name from your puffy lips. Oh, he could get used to that.

You stepped back toward the entrance, but turned just once, looking over your shoulder.

And it floored him.

That look.

That glow, that hair, that skin, that smile. Everything. Everything about you always.

"Gracias por el viaje" You waved and then turned off into the hotel. Gone into the night, into the soft hum of the lobby.

Pedri stayed where he was, unmoving, like his body hadn’t quite caught up to the rest of him. He let out a slow breath, ran both hands through his curls, and then just stood there, staring at the spot where you’d been.

Dios mío

How were you real?

He eventually turned back toward the boys, dragging the rental bike behind him like it had lost its wheels. The city felt quieter now, but his head was loud and full of only you. Your bare legs, your touch, your smell.

As he approached the group, Gavi clapped his hands slowly, grinning from ear to ear. “Well, well, well.”

Pedri rolled his eyes, cheeks still flushed, but there was no denying the way his lips kept twitching toward a smile.

"Chicos, creo que estoy enamorado."

Boys, I think I'm in love.

౨ৎ

It's 6:30pm and you're on your way home from work in a unfamiliar and abstract way. The train route which you usually took was cancelled at short notice, the bus routes were always packed full of people, the walk was far far too long and your boyfriend Pedri was still at football training when you clocked out the office.

So, instead you had been waiting around for thirty minutes for your co-worker, Julian, to finish his work and drop you off back at your boyfriends house.

And so here you were, in his navy blue Porsche which smelt of sandalwood and cologne which tried to hard to smell expensive. The city passed by like a blur as the engine purred under you. You engaged in conversation about work, and your colleagues and how their was weird smell in the break room today. Mundane laughter and simple flowing chatter filled the drive to Pedri's place in the Barcelona suburbs.

Julian was a good man, and a good friend in the office. During work hours he was someone you would spend a good chunk of your time with, sometimes going on lunch together with a few others or grabbing an after work drink together. If you both arrived early enough you would go grab a quick coffee from the local café around the corner form the office. But being in his expensive car, in a dark lit space, it made your tummy flip. Being in any Porsche that wasn't Pedro's felt foreign and forbidden.

Had Pedri not have been at training he would have come and got you. In fact, he offered to leave training early just to make sure you got to his home safely. When you told him that leaving his training session early just to pick you up from work was ridiculous he offered to send a car to come get you instead. You were about to take him up on the offer but then Julian came like a knight in shining armour. You text Pedri and let him know a friend from work was heading in a similar direction and would just drop you off on the way.

For Pedri, that was a relief. A girl friend was going to drop you off safely and he could get back to training without a worry. It also seemed like you would be arriving home at a similar time to him now, or he would get home a lit bit earlier than you which was a nice change for once. So, when training ended he rushed into his own Porsche filled with only the excitement of seeing you.

Julian turned the wheel with an easy confidence, glancing at you briefly as he merged onto a quieter street lined with the sloping trees of Pedri’s neighborhood. You were nearing the end of the drive now, the tension that had quietly built in your shoulders beginning to ease with the familiar sight of the Barcelona suburbs rolling into view. It was a strange feeling. Your work life seemed to be meeting you real life. Sure, the office knew you were dating Pedri. You'd get teased about it all the time but you never thought your work life would intertwine with him, with your love. But now it was about too. You just hoped that Pedri was already home.

The Porsche pulled to a gentle stop just outside Pedri’s house, that same navy blur now parked against the pale dusk like it didn’t quite belong. You glanced at the big house you had spent so much time in it was like your own home. The driveway was empty. Your boyfriend was not back from football yet, and for a moment you let your shoulders drop in relief. A sigh you didn't know you were holding in realised from your chest.

You unbuckled your seatbelt, "Gracias, Julian" you said while dusting your hands down your tight black work trousers just to give your hands something to do.

“Of course,” he said, one arm resting casually on the wheel. “Anytime.” His Rolex was catching in the light of the setting sun. Everything about him was so expensive and exuded old money, so old fashioned and chivalrous. Most girls looked at Julian and could not contain their blush, you'd seen it happen countless times at the café. The young baristas eyes cowering with nerves when they speak to him, or the older ladies who couldn't stop fawning over his muscles. But not you. Never you. You had Pedri. And Pedri was all you ever wanted.

You exchanged quick goodbyes and then reached for the door handle. Just as you did headlights washed across the front of the car. Another car, one which was sleek, black, and unmistakably familiar, rolled into the driveway at just the right moment to make your stomach drop and your heart quicken.

You froze, fingers still curled around the door handle.

The headlights flickered against the rear-view mirror, casting long shadows across Julian’s face as he looked toward the driveway, then back at you with a small, unreadable smile.

“That him?” he asked, voice low but casual, as though he wasn't fazed by the fact one of the best footballers in the world hadn't just showed up in front of him. Like he didn't watch him play week in and week out.

You nodded, too fast. “Si. That’s him.”

The engine of Pedri’s car purred low as it rolled to a stop. The light cut out as the ignition shut off, and for a beat, everything felt suspended. Caught between the final scene of one moment and the first flicker of the next.

You opened the door before the pause could stretch too long.

The air outside was cooler now, with the early evening breeze tugging gently at your white work blouse. You stepped out of the Porsche, the sound of the car door clicking shut unnaturally loud in the quiet street.

Pedri emerged from his own Porsche a second later, gym bag slung over his shoulder, dark hair still damp from a post-training shower, his Nike hoodie zipped halfway up. He looked good; flushed from training, tired in that soft way he always looked when he’d come home from training. He was smiling when he saw you, but it faltered slightly when his eyes landed on the navy Porsche.

Then they looked at you again.

He slowed a little as he crossed the driveway, his hand coming up in a lazy wave, his eyes trailing you up and down because something about you in tight fitting office wear always got him worked up. But, he could not stop himself from wondering who was in the navy Porsche that still waited outside his house. Who had driven you home?

Julian didn’t move, but the driver’s side window lowered slightly. You could feel his gaze watching, calmly, from behind the wheel. Not smug. Just curious.

Pedri greeted you with a small kiss on the cheek. Then his eyes flicked to the car again, then to you. “Didn’t know your friend from work drove a Porsche.”

You smiled, small and tired, brushing your hair behind your ear as you adjusted the strap of your handbag on your shoulder. You could feel the question lingering in his voice, wrapped in velvet but edged in something firmer. Curiosity, maybe, or protectiveness. Possibly both.

“He offered,” you replied softly, not wanting to make it a bigger deal than it was. “I didn’t want you leaving training early, remember? You’ve got a match in a few days. I was going to take a cab but Julian said he was heading this way. Made sense."

Julian. The name of man made Pedri's ears ring. It was a man who had driven you home. A man who you spent eight hours a day working alongside. Suddenly, that fact clicks in his head. The fact that you almost have a separate life existing in an office building in Barcelona's city centre. A world where he doesn't really exist. It makes his stomach turn.

You watched your boyfriend's eyebrows crease in the way they do when he's thinking hard. The way his jaw tightens in what was seemingly annoyance.

The noise of the car window rolling down even further broke some of the tension between us.

Pedri’s head turned slightly toward the sound, his eyes sharpening with something unreadable, his hand slipping from your waist back to the strap of his gym bag. He didn’t say anything , he didn’t need to. You could feel the shift in him, like something inside had straightened up, alert.

From the car, Julian leaned slightly into view. He looked out through the lowered window, his face calm, casual, eyes flicking between the two of you with no rush, no nerves, no intention of stepping out or overstepping.

Pedri looked at him. He was full of muscles, a sharp set jaw and wavy light brown hair. He was older, and looked it. Not in a bad way but in a manly way. He looked like most girls dream guy. His suit perfectly tailored, he expensive watch glinting away. He was stable, and respectable. He had a proper job and a good salary.

This was the man you were spending eight hours a day with. Your friend. Pedri thought.

“You good?” Julian called out to you lightly, in Spanish, just loud enough to carry across the short distance.

You nodded, turning your body more toward him instinctively. “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks again.”

Julian offered a small nod and half a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Alright then. I'll see you on Monday morning, the usual time. Have a good night.”

And just like that, the window rolled back up. The navy blue car rolled away into the dying light of the evening. The engine roar getting further and further away.

Silence.

Pedri watched the spot where the car disappeared for a moment too long, then turned back to you.

"The usual time, eh?"

You blinked, caught slightly off-guard by his tone—not sharp, but not exactly light either. It hovered somewhere in the middle. Almost playful, but laced with something else; something heavier. The usual time. Three little words who have flicked the night like a switch.

You gave a small smile, trying to brush it off. “We get coffee most mornings before work. It’s not a big deal.”

Pedri nodded slowly, but his lips pressed into a thin line. The same look he gives when he has been fouled on the pitch and disagrees with the referee. A frown. “Right. Coffee. Just you and him?”

“Sometimes with others. Sometimes just us,” you admitted, honestly, but gently. “It’s just a routine. We both get there early and it’s convenient. That’s all it is.”

Jealousy was seeping through his veins. He couldn't stop imagining it. You and Julian in the corner of a café in the early morning, alone. Did he pay for your order? Did he pull out your chair? Did he carry your work bag just to be a gentleman? Did he fill the role he was absent from? He began to overthink the whole interaction that just happened, the way Julian checked to make sure you were okay. The way he didn't even really acknowledge Pedri, his eyes only ever remaining on you. He looked at you with what Pedri knew as desire, forbidden attraction that he could not act upon. Did your work attire work Julian up as much as it worked Pedri up?

Pedri didn't say anything, he just nodded his head to the front door and you followed behind him. You could feel the heat fuming from him. The raw jealousy.

౨ৎ

Inside the house, it was too quiet. The kind of quiet where you can hear your own heartbeat in your ears, your kitten heels clicking on the hardwood, the distant hum of city noise wrapped in a suburban quiet.

Pedri dropped his bag on the floor by the door in a sudden thud. He didn’t look at you when he did it. He stood for a moment with his back to you, still in the threshold, fingers flexing once at his sides like he was trying to contain himself from emotion.

You closed the door softly behind you, the click small and definite. Your bag slid from your shoulder and landed by your feet. You wanted to speak, but your throat felt thick. You weren't used to this side of your boyfriend. You didn't know how to navigate it.

You followed him into the kitchen, walking slower than usual. He opened the fridge, stared at it blankly, then closed it again. He leaned against the counter like he needed something to hold him up.

You stood near the kitchen island, your fingers worrying the strap of your handbag, waiting for him to speak first.

He finally turned toward you, his expression unreadable. “So, he drives you home. You get coffee together. What else?”

The words weren’t cruel, but they felt precise. Like he was picking them out carefully, deliberately. You blinked.

“It’s just coffee,” you said. “Just work stuff. That's all it is.”

Pedri nodded, but it didn’t feel like agreement. It felt like stalling. He looked at you again, really looked, his brown eyes dark under the overhead kitchen lights. His under eyes tired from his workout.

“I don’t like it,” he said. Simply. Without apology.

You opened your mouth, maybe to defend yourself, or maybe just to say his name, but he cut in before you could.

“I know you love me,” he added. “I’m not insecure about that.”

He walked a few steps closer. His voice didn’t rise. “But I don’t want you being close with another man. Not like that.”

“Like he knows you,” Pedri said, now standing just in front of you. “Like he knows you before nine in the morning. Like he knows all your wants and all your needs. Like he takes care of you. That's mine.”

You looked at him carefully, but he didn’t flinch under your gaze.

Pedri was watching you, waiting. His hand moved like he wanted to reach for you but didn’t.

"I know how men look at women they want but can’t have. He looks at you like that. I don’t want him anywhere near you.” His eyes darken with a serious glare you rarely ever saw.

Your stomach flipped because your body betrays you by liking this side to him. This man that's claiming you so boldly all while dressed in a matching black training tracksuit with curly wet hair, smelling like hard work and musk.

The air felt so charged, like you were being struck with electricity and flying sparks.

You opened your mouth, then closed it again. “He’s just a friend,” you said finally. Your voice sounded small in the big kitchen. “He’s never crossed a line.”

Pedri’s eyes flickered, a tiny movement, like a muscle twitch. He took another step, closing the space between you until the counter pressed against your back. His voice dropped even lower.

“He doesn’t have to cross it,” he said. “He's already standing on it.”

You swallowed. He was so close now you could smell the faint chlorine from the training ground shower still clinging to his hoodie, the sharpness of his cologne dulled by sweat.

“I’m here,” you said gently. “I come home to you.” You try to reassure him.

You reached up and touched his wrist, his skin warm under your fingers. Slowly, his hand lifted, hovering before it finally settled at your waist. His thumb pressed against the fabric of your blouse, not hard, just enough to feel you there.

“I’m not asking you to quit your job or anything stupid,” he said, eyes still locked on yours. “I’m just saying, if he’s giving you rides, if he’s sitting with you in cafés, if he’s paying for your lunches, he’s not just being polite.”

“I don’t let him pay,” you said quietly. “And it’s not--” you stopped, trying to choose the right words, but none of them seemed to fit.

Pedri’s thumb drew a small, slow circle against your waist, like he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. He looked at you the way someone looks at a photograph they’ve stared at for too long, their eyes tracing every line until it becomes burned into the brain.

He tilted his head slightly, eyes still locked on yours. “you don’t see it. But I do. That’s my job.” His fingers pressed a little harder into your waist, not rough, but enough to feel it. “To see it before you do.”

You swallowed. “Your job?”

He nodded once. “To protect what’s mine. Not because I’m afraid of losing it, but because I won’t let anyone else have it.”

Your stomach flipped again. He had no doubts. Only certainty and confidence.

His hand slid a fraction higher, palm spanning the curve of your waist now, his fingers warm against your skin through the fabric. "No more morning coffee, Si?". It wasn't really a question but he tried to make it sound like one. His lips dropping to your ear making your breath catch in your chest. Instantly your body responds to him. A rush of heat at the base of your spine and between your legs.

“I’m yours,” you whispered, voice small but sure, meeting his dark, steady gaze.

His eyes flickered with something deep and fierce, a quiet fire behind the calm. “Good girl,” he said, his voice dropping even lower. “Because no one else gets to touch you like this.”

Without breaking eye contact, he leaned down, mouth brushing your collarbone, leaving a trail of heat in his wake as he unbuttoned the white blouse you had spent the long day wearing.

Your hands found his sweatshirt, fingers curling into the soft fabric, holding him close. The subtle power in his touch, the deliberate claiming, sent a shiver straight through you. Your hands tugged gently at the hem of his hoodie, and he let you, lifting his arms without a word as you pulled the fabric over his head and dropped it beside you.

Pedri's forehead rested against yours for a moment, the tip of his nose brushing yours. His breath was steady, his eyes searching. As if he needed to see you clearly. As if this wasn’t just about jealousy anymore, but something deeper. Possession, yes. But also an undying love.

You kissed him. He kissed you with back with hunger and want. His fingers threaded into your hair, cradling the back of your head.

He tugged you down the hallway, lips still longer. Breathes panting. Your back hit the edge of the bedroom door, your blouse falling the rest of the way open under his hands. He paused, just long enough to look at you, to take you in.

And then he said it, low and certain: “It's just me and you. No one else matters”

You didn’t respond. Not with words, at least. You didn’t need to. The way your hands found his face, the way your mouth found his again. That was the only answer he needed.

The rest of the night unfolded slowly, wrapped in warmth and low murmurs, in the quiet promise of closeness. Skin on skin. Moan after moan.

Come Monday morning, Pedri woke up early enough to drive you to work. A little later than usual. No morning coffee. No Julian.

And that evening, he was there again; parked outside your office, leaning against his car in sunglasses, waiting. You walked out to find him like that, calm and oozing confidence, while Julian trailed behind.

Pedri didn't say a word, he just watched as Julian watched him open the car door for you, and instead of jealousy -- this time it was something sweeter. The satisfaction of watching Julian realise he would never have you, no matter how hard he tried or how long he waited.

You were Pedri's. Only ever Pedri's.

౨ৎ

You sit at your desk as the Barba sun pours in through ill-stained blinds, your fingers tapping away at the clacking keyboard that was too old and too worn. 10 months. That's how long you had worked here, and how long it had been since you moved to beautiful capital of Catalonia. 6 months was how long it had been since your little Spanish summer romance had died out like a sparkler dunked in water. Since then, it had been work work work. It was hard for an immigrant to move through a heavily Spanish company, but your were career minded and determined.

"joder este trabajo" (fuck this job), Your colleague and close friend Miguel blurts out from beside you as he pushes himself away from the desk and begins to swirl in his chair.

"Todo lo que hacemos es analizar datos, hacer un par de llamadas y responder algunos correos electrónicos." (all we do is analyse data, make a couple call and answer some emails), You roll your head watching him, a sigh oozing from your mouth. "and we get paid decently" You finish, slipping back into your native tongue.

"Decently," Your other colleague, Lola, sarcastically responds from the desk diagonal to yours mocking your non-spanish accent. You simple offer her an overly fake smile back before returning to your work.

"Taaaaan, no te uniste a nosotros el sábado" (soooooo, you didn't join us again on saturday), Miguel moves his creaking chair closer to you with an inquisitive glare that lets you know he can see right through the fake excuse you were about to give.

"Ocupada" you simply shrugged, not taking your eyes off the monitor in front of you as you imputed endless data into a spreadsheet.

"¿haciendo qué?" (doing what?), Lola nosied her way back into the conversation.

"Cosas" You waved your hand in fake annoyance at their questions as you pathetically told them you were just doing stuff and that was the reason you were unable to meet them at the club for drinks on Saturday. In reality, you had been tucked up in your small room with a herbal tea and watching the same comfort episodes of Gossip Girl again while your noisy roommate had his friends come round for drinks.

"You have done a 'thing' since Lorenzo" Miguel poked while Lola laughed. You rolled your eyes. It wasn't like he was lying, since your summer romance ended 6 months ago you really hadn't been with another man. That was your choice though. It felt like everyday you were getting asked out by a colleague or being asked for your telephone number in the street but none of them were impressive. They just didn't have that...spark? They just didn't have it, whatever it was you were wanting.

"Deberíamos emparejarte con alguien" (We should set you up with someone), Lola smirked and that set Miguel off into his fantasyland that he just adored living in at all times. That was the same land where he was convinced that in a few years he would just magically be famous and not working. In a weird way though, it was nice to have that level of blissful delusion around the office.

"¡Dios mío! We have too!" Miguel could barely contain the excitement bubbling under his skin, popping in every vessel of his body. Then he stops like something miraculous has sprung into his mind.

He leans in closer, his voice dropping into that conspiratorial tone he uses when he's two seconds away from something both ridiculous and somehow endearing.

"Escúchame," he whispers like you’re about to learn a state secret, "there's this bartender at Macarena Club. Argentinian. Looks like a young Gael García Bernal, pero con músculos."

You blink. Once. Then slowly swivel in your chair to finally look at him.

"A bartender?" you repeat, one eyebrow arching with all the skepticism in Barcelona.

Lola laughs, delighted. "Miguel, you can't just throw every attractive man at her and hope something sticks. We must take time and think about this."

You let the laughter hang for a moment, indulging in the distraction. It was better than the blinking cursor on the spreadsheet or the never-ending influx of emails marked “urgent” that clearly weren’t. The sun outside cuts sharply through the blinds now, a golden reminder that you’re inside while the city lives and breathes without you. You saved up for two years to move here. The city of your dreams. Were you letting it pass you by?

"Look," you finally say, "I'm not opposed to meeting someone. But I’m not… búsqueda."

Miguel’s brow furrows. “No estás en una búsqueda… like a knight or a pirate?” He makes a vague sword-slashing motion in the air.

Lola rolls her eyes. “She means she’s not searching, idiota.”

You nodded with a bitten lip, hiding your laugh at Miguel.

"Lucky for you, Miguel and I will search for you" Lola said and you instantly worried. The anxiety of it all so overcoming.

"Relax, you're in good hands. Just give us a few weeks. "¿Sí?"

You narrow your eyes at her, suspicious. "A few weeks?"

Miguel clasps his hands together like he’s praying to the gods of love. “Great romances take time to plan. You can’t just throw a dart at a map and hope for a match"

“You literally just tried to set me up with a bartender five minutes ago,” you point out.

“That was impulse matchmaking,” he says proudly. “This is the real deal.”

You sigh, but it’s one of those half-surrendering sighs, the kind that already admits defeat even as you pretend to resist.

Lola leans forward, her eyes sparkling with that dangerous look she gets when she’s already several steps ahead of you. “We won’t do anything crazy. Just a few introductions. Some gentle nudges. Maybe a ‘casual’ drink after work. That’s all.”

You glance at your screen again, the spreadsheet now mostly ignored, cells half-filled. The truth is, it wasn’t the idea of meeting someone that unnerved you. It was the effort. The forced conversations. The smiling when you didn’t feel like smiling. The constant inner scan of: Do I feel anything? Is this the spark? Or am I just bored?

Finally, you give in with a dramatic groan, pushing your chair back. “Fine. But no weird setups with your cousin’s coworker’s gym buddy, and absolutely no bartender.”

Miguel raises three fingers like a scout. “We swear”.

You give them both a look, somewhere between affection and dread. They smile back at you with beaming eyes. Ugh, what have you got yourself into.

-

In truth, Lola knew exactly who she was going to go to to find you a date. In fact, she had been wanting to set you up with someone for a while. To cut a long story short, Lola had a cousin who played for the FC Barca Atletic. Too young for you but he happened to have some friends in the older squad. She'd met a couple of them once or twice, at things like dinner or maybe a party her cousin had thrown.

So, she messaged her cousin about you. Sent a photo, a little fact profile about things you liked. You know the mundane and basic stuff. Then she asked him is he knew if you were anyones type, to which her cousin replied:

¿La has visto? Es del gusto de todos. (have you seen her? She's everyones type)

Lola rolled her eyes at the message and then instructed her cousin to ask around, see if anyone he knows at the club is up for going on a blind date.

Apparently, after showing a couple of the boys at the club your photo, they were practically fighting for the chance to take you out to dinner but like the well trained cousin he was he waited for one that he actually believed would be a gentleman. He didn't want to suffer the consequences of pissing off Lola.

So, a few weeks later a match was made.

Pedri.

Somehow word got around to Gavi and Ferran that some ridiculously good looking foreign girl needed a date and of course they had to do a favour for their dear friend. They were getting bored of him asking to tag along on couples day outs.

You, meanwhile, had no idea that your face had been passed around a locker room like it was part of a scouting report. If you had, you might’ve moved to Madrid out of sheer mortification. But blissful ignorance was one of life's greatest gifts.

You went about your days, still sipping herbal teas and fake-smiling your way through office interrogations about your love life, pathetic and cringe attempts of flirting from the finance department, completely unaware that FC Barcelona's golden boy had seen your photo on a sweaty phone screen in the middle of the training facility and said...

¿Ella? Claro que sí.

Her? Of Course.

౨ৎ

You found out three days before the date was scheduled that you were even going on a date. It happened on a random Wednesday morning when Lola came booming through the office with three cups of coffee and the biggest grin you had ever seen.

"Te conseguí una cita. El sábado." (I got you a date. Saturday.)

You froze mid-keystroke, blinking at your monitor like the spreadsheet might somehow translate Lola's Spanish into something that didn’t mean what you just heard.

“Que?” you asked slowly, turning in your chair.

“A date,” she repeated, practically vibrating with glee. “Este sábado. Dinner. Somewhere nice.”

Miguel popped up from behind the cubicle like a meerkat with a twisted smile “¡¿Ya?! You actually found someone?”

Lola handed him his coffee like a soldier completing a mission. “Not just someone,” she said, taking a dramatic sip from her own cup. “Someone perfect.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You said this was going to take weeks.”

“It did take weeks,” she said, offended. “I was vetting. There was a whole process. I’m not just throwing you to the wolves.”

You turned fully in your chair, arms crossed, brows furrowed. “Who is it?”

Lola hesitated just long enough to make you nervous. Miguel, on the other hand, was already bouncing in place.

“Well,” she started, carefully. “He’s nice. He’s polite. He's very intelligent and he has a real job. Very stable.”

"What is his name?" You ask, this time more stern.

"mis labios estan sellados" She said while making the motion of zipping her mouth. Miguel cackled like a witch.

"Where am I even going?" She huffed, slouching back in your chair and finally grabbing the coffee she had brought in for you.

"Paradiso. 9:00pm" You huffed again at the fact that this meant you actually had to go out at the weekend and not just remain wrapped up in the comfort of your bed.

You groaned, dragging your hand down your face.

“Outfit guidelines?” you mumbled, already regretting everything.

Lola lit up. “Something classy. Not too formal. He's already seen what you look like and he's muy contenta"

Your brows furrowed once again, "So I'm the only one who is blind. ¿Cómo es eso justo?" (How is that fair?)

Miguel simply shrugged, "It's not" and then for the first time since you had known him actually went back to doing his work.

“You’ll thank me later.” Lola said, finally sitting down at her own desk.

You rolled your eyes.

“Maybe.”

౨ৎ

Saturday afternoon came quicker than you wanted it too.

Three days and that was it. All the time was gone like a blink. And soon you would need to begin to get ready to meet the mystery man that Miguel had told you was from your dreams.

Somewhere across the city, Pedri had already reserved the table.

He was sitting in his car, outside training, looking at the contact name Lola’s cousin had sent him.

Just a name and a picture. That was all he had. But it was enough. Enough to know that girls like you don't just come around very often. Enough to make his curiosity latch on like a stubborn echo of the mind.

It wasn't just your looks either, although those alone has sparked enough commentary in the locker room for the past three days. Every single day. Every hour. It was constant questions: When are you seeing the hot girl? Have you seen her yet? Have you texted her? If you don't like her can I take her out next? It was too much commentary, the type of commentary that made his stomach turn slightly over a girl he had never even met.

It was your softness and the way there seemed to be this sunlike aura around you, even in a candid photo. This sort of quiet confidence that said you knew you were attractive but you also knew what you were worth. This untouchable challenge that he needed to try.

He liked that. A lot.

He ran a hand through his damp hair, fresh from training, as the late afternoon sun painted golden lines across his dashboard. The city was glowing and somewhere out there, you were deciding what to wear, probably pacing your apartment or texting Lola to threaten her one last time.

He smiled to himself.

He just hoped you would actually show up.

౨ৎ

By 8:58, you were standing outside a tucked-away bar in El Born, heart pounding so loudly you could barely hear the soft music drifting out the door.

You kept glancing at yourself in the window reflection across from you. Had you overdressed or underdressed? You brush the fabric of your short black dress down. It was simple and classy. A boatneck neckline, sleeveless. A small gold cross necklace around your neck like God was going to be any help tonight. Your hair was slicked back into a tortoise shell claw clip. Big gold hoops hung heavy from your ear lobes because in a strange way that gave you more confidence. On your feet were just some simple glossy black kitten heels, and you paired the whole outfit with a small burgundy red shoulder bag.

Your makeup was natural, an emphasis on looking bronzy and glowy more than anything but as you stared at your reflection you wondered if you should have worn more.

You exhaled slowly, willing your heart to settle. It didn’t. The nerves danced under your skin, tightening your chest, making your fingers twitch around the strap of your bag.

It’s just a date, you told yourself. But it wasn’t. Not really. Not when it had been six months since your last, not when this one came wrapped in mystery and anticipation, and certainly not when you were walking into it completely blind and he wasn’t.

Your phone buzzed.

Lola

He's already inside, just go in. He's sat at the back corner. The reservation is under Lopez.

You sighed and shoved your phone into your bag before you could turn around, back out and catch the train home.

Instead, you turned to the door which was illuminated by red lights and you pushed it open.

Inside, the place was warm and comforting. A welcoming bar filled with exquisite decor and the smell of spiced rum mixed with cologne that was worn by those in a different tax bracket. Jazz music serenaded the background. Chatter rippled throughout the establishment.

You hesitated at the entrance for a breath too long. Your eyes scanned the space. It was dim and sultry, walls lined with dark wood, candles flickering at every table like it was scripted that way. Neon signs plastered around the place.

Without thinking, you glance at the back corner.

And you find him. and you can't explain how but you just know it's him.

He sat alone, phone screen glowing faintly in front of him, but he wasn’t scrolling. Just resting his fingertips on the table, like he was trying to act casual.

You contemplated running out the bar. The nerves of seeing him was simply to much to handle.

But then he looked up.

And your eyes met his. And it was like all the air in the room was sucked out, and suddenly your breathless. Breathless because he's beautiful. The kind of beautiful that remains both boyish and clean cut. His bone structure so sharp but on them a subtle blush.

And then he smiles, and for some reason you feel like you have seen him before. He's familiar but you can't place it. You must be mistaking him for someone else because you would remember if you had met a man that looked like him before. You were sure of it.

He stands from the table, and you walk towards it. In typical European style you give a small quick embrace. A friendly hug which lets you know he smells of coconut and raw wood-like musk.

“Hola,” he says gently, “I’m Pedro.”

Pedro. Hmm. The name doesn't ring a bell but now that you're up close you know you've seen him before.

"Hola, Pedro" You reply, slightly nervous under the gaze of his honey coloured eyes, "I'm y/n"

“y/n,” he repeats softly, like he’s trying it out on his tongue, like he wants to commit it to memory the right way. He holds your gaze for a beat longer than expected. Not in a cocky way, but like he’s genuinely taking you in. Or like he was stunned.

Then he gestures toward the seat across from his, and you slide into it, smoothing your dress as you sit.

'Cómo estás?' He asks politely, a hint of nerves on his voice.

"Soy buena y tu?" You reply.

"Bueno" He responds, and you can't explain in but there is a hint of cheekiness in his word. Something charming hidden behind it and it makes butterflies soar in your empty stomach. You can't help but smile, it's a wide one.

You both settle into this stillness that hums with unspoken attraction. Gentle clinks of glasses ring in the background, a low humming of late night conversation rising and falling but you stay tethered to him, to the way he's smiling and the way he's looking at you.

'No creo que necesitaras una cita a ciegas' (I don't believe you needed a blind date), Pedro says, looking at you and shaking his head a little, his eyes quickly flicking up and down your frame as you sit opposite him. 'Entonces, ¿por qué aceptaste esto?' (So, why did you agree to this?)

For a moment, you are taken aback by such an opening question. You ponder on it for a few seconds. I mean he was right, if you really wanted to go on a date you could have found someone yourself easily. The guys from the finance department were cheesy but they also happened to be good looking. Hell, all you needed to do was actually go to the bar with Lola and Miguel and you would get some guys offering their numbers. So, why were you here?

'Quería la emoción y los nervios. Algo diferente' (I wanted the excitement and the nerves. something different), You answer.

'¿Y tú? Hay una mesa llena de chicas al otro lado de la barra que no pueden dejar de mirarte. Entonces, ¿qué haces aquí?' (and you? There is an entire table of girls on the other side of the bar who can't stop looking at you. So, why are you here?), You ask.

Pedro's head quickly snaps to the table you were referring to, and you follow his gaze. You can see it makes him shift a little in his seat. You can also see the girl seem to get...excited? They seem to pause like they can't believe Pedro is a real human being. They all blush and giggle. You quite literally never seen anything like it. Maybe they were eighteen, and they had never seen such an attractive man. That had to be it.

Pedro turns back to you, ignoring the girls.

"No eres una cara a la que puedas decir que no" (You're not a face you can say no to)

You gulp, and blush. Breaking eye contact because the gaze of his brown ones are too hard to bear. Heat seems to rush between your thighs and you haven't felt since Lorenzo. Even then, that felt different to this.

Pedro sits back in his seat, not in arrogance but in confidence. The nerves of before seem to have gone and usually you hate guys with overconfidence but this. This was turning you on. It was making you hungry.

A waiter appears, and Pedro gestures for you to order first. You glance at the menu and pick something easy, a classic cocktail one you always get. He orders a Negroni, barely even looks at the menu. A man that knows what he wants with no hesitation. You begin to wonder if he is like that about all things.

Pedro’s eyes settle on yours again, his thumb tracing the rim of his water glass absentmindedly.

'¿Has vivido aquí por mucho tiempo?' (have you lived here long?) He asks.

'Ten months," you say, not even realising it wasn't in Spanish. "casi un año" (almost a year)

He nods, the waitor brings back the drinks and they settle on the table. He takes a sip of the negroni and you take a sip of your cocktail. Then he asks, '¿Y a ti te gusta aquí en Barcelona?' (do you like it here in Barcelona)

You think on that again. Your finger dance around the rim of your glass. You don't notice but Pedro can't stop staring.

'Si, Casi todos los días. Pero a veces extraño tanto mi casa que siento que no puedo respirar. Estar tan lejos de mi familia. Y hablar español todo el tiempo es difícil y agotador. Traducir constantemente lo que pienso a otro idioma.' (Most days. But sometimes I miss home so much and it feels like I can't breathe. Being so far away from my family. And speaking spanish all the time is hard and tiring. To constantly translate what i'm thinking into another language.)

You begin with more honesty than you should have given on a first date.

'Pero luego, cuando esos momentos pasan y contemplo esta ciudad, me doy cuenta de que es el primer lugar donde realmente he sentido que encajo.' (But then when those moments pass and i take in this city. I realise it's the first place i've ever truly felt i've fit in.)

Pedro smiles, warm and unforced. You don't know it but what you have just said is a reflection of how he feels. Being away from Tenerife, and family. He's used to it now because he has done it so long, but he still has the moments of homesickness you talk about.

He leans slightly forward, elbows resting on the table, the Negroni still untouched in his hand. “Nunca nadie me lo ha dicho así,” he says finally. (No one’s ever put it like that before.)

You look up, your fingers pausing their slow orbit around the rim of your glass. “You feel that too?”

He nods, but it's quiet. Like he’s admitting to something he usually doesn’t.

"Me fui de casa joven,"He says, 'y al principio sentí libertad. Luego, solo distancia. Como si hubiera cambiado lo que amo por algo que se suponía que debía amar más.' (I left home young, and at first it felt like freedom. Then it felt like only distance. Like I traded what I love for something I was supposed to love more.)

You don’t say anything, but your eyes stay on him. Studying him, seeing what seems to be fragility for a split second.

You let your eyes move over him now with a little less hesitation. The curve of his mouth, the small mole on his neck just under his jaw, the way his fingers sit so still on the table. And again, that flicker of recognition you still can’t quite pin down. You have seen him somewhere before, you just cannot place it.

'¿A qué te dedicas?' You ask him what he does for work to break the silence. And in the hope to get to the root of where you may have seen him before. Maybe he working in the other office building round the corner and you have seen him on your lunch break.

Pedro chuckles, a quiet rumble of a sound. He leans back in his chair, not defensive, just resigned. It was like he had been waiting for this question to inevitably come up all night.

He looks at you for a beat, then says, “I play football.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Like… professionally?”

Pedro nods once, casually. “Sí.”

And just like that, the pieces start falling into place. The girls at the bar. The waiter’s slightly-too-eager attention. That sense of familiarity that’s been gnawing at you since you walked in. You study his face again.

"¿para quién?" (For who?), but you fear you may already know.

'FC Barcelona' It rolls of his tongue like thunder in the sky.

Lola had to be kidding. This had to be a sick joke. She had set you up on a blind date with a footballer from one of the top clubs in world football.

Your mouth parted in shock.

The fact that even sitting across from him, you’d felt like you’d seen him before, but couldn’t place it—because it wasn’t real life you’d seen him in. It was screens. News clips. Bus stop ads. Shirts with his name on the back, now that you think about it.

Pedro.

Not just Pedro.

Pedri.

It clicks.

"Pedri' You say, it's just above whisper. "When they talk about Pedri, they talk about you"

"¿Quiénes son 'ellos'?' He asks. (Who is 'they'?)

'Los chicos de la oficina, la gente del bar. Los medios de comunicación.' (The guys in the office, the people in the pub. The media.). You ramble.

You let out a breath, leaning back in your chair like the air's been knocked out of you. You glance around the restaurant again, suddenly feeling too aware of your dress, your lipstick, the way your hair’s probably already curling out of place.

Pedro watches you quietly, letting you sit in the weight of it. He doesn’t rush to fill the silence. Doesn’t shift uncomfortably or crack a joke to ease the tension.

He just watches.

“I didn’t know,” you say finally, softer now, like you’re trying to make peace with the fact that you’ve been speaking to someone the entire city seems to know and yet, you were speaking to him like he was just a normal guy.

He smiles, just a little. “That’s kind of why I agreed to this.”

Your eyes flick back to his. God, did he have to be so handsome. I mean this was painful now that you knew this could never work. You could never be a wag. You didn't want that kind of exposure and lifestyle and media attention. You just wanted to exist in a peaceful and normal life. There was also one other slight problem.

"Esto nunca funcionará entre nosotras" (This will never work between us)

Pedro sits up, brows instantly furrowing. That makes your heart beat because it means he too was already picturing this blind date as something that could be more. He too had already settled into the familiarity between you that made it feel like you had never not known him.

"¿Cómo no?"

You look at him, taking in his wide honey eyes and his beating anticipation.

"Porque soy fan del Real Madrid"

Pedro stares at you. Blinks once. Twice.

And then he exhales a short laugh, disbelieving. "¿Estás bromeando?" (You're joking?)

You lift your glass and take a long, steady sip of your cocktail, eyes locked on him over the rim. When you set it down, your expression is perfectly deadpan. “No.”

His mouth opens, then closes again, like he’s trying to form a coherent response but the betrayal—the audacity—has knocked the words right out of him.

"Eres Madridista?" he says the word like it physically hurts his throat.

You shrug, biting your bottom lip to stop the smirk from pulling at your lips. "Si, desde que era niña" (yes, since I was a girl)

He groans, one hand dragging down his face, the other gripping the side of the table like he’s bracing himself against emotional collapse. "Sabía que tenía que haber algo en ti que no fuera perfecto." (I knew there had to be something about you that wasn't perfect)

Pedro drops his hand from his face, shaking his head slowly, but he’s smiling too even though he should not be. "Te das cuenta de que esto te convierte en mi enemigo?" (You realise this makes you my enemy.)

You grin, tilting your head just slightly, as you lean forward on your elbow and say, with mock innocence:

"Archienemiga." (Arch-enemy.)

Pedro lets out a low laugh, one of those genuine ones that starts deep in the chest, not forced or filtered for charm. It rumbles out of him like it surprises even himself. His smile now—it's real. Warm. Dangerous.

This feeling between you, it's dangerous. So dangerous because for Pedro it felt like love at first sight, and you had been swept of your feet.

He looks down at your lips with deep desire, then his eyes flick up looking between yours.

"Sabes," you say, swirling the last bit of your drink around the glass, 'Esto es probablemente un desastre a punto de ocurrir.' (this is probably a disaster waiting to happen.)

Pedro shrugs, completely unfazed.

"Quizás," he says simply, "pero no parece que quieras evitarlo." (Maybe. But it doesn’t seem like you want to avoid it.)

You glance down at your glass, hiding the way your lips twitch into a smile. He’s not wrong.

“Y si lo quiero?” (And if I do?)

He leans back, watching you for a beat. “Entonces ya habrías salido por esa puerta.” (Then you would have already walked out that door.)

You look up. He’s right again.

The music hums softly around you, low and warm. The girls across the room have long stopped staring. The restaurant has faded into the background, blurred by the quiet weight between you and him—this strange, unexpected comfort like you’ve met before in another life.

You exhale, resting your chin on your hand. “You know this is going to be complicated, right?”

Pedro smiles. “Si.”

You don't say anything to that. You just reach for your glass, take the final sip, and set it down.

Then: “Uno condición.”

Pedro arches a brow.

"Nunca vestiré una camiseta del Barcelona" (I will never wear a Barcelona jersey)

He groans immediately, dragging a hand through his hair. "eso es cruel"

You grin.

He shakes his head, but he’s smiling too. Wide and without hesitation.

“Pero soy un hombre adulto, puedo manejarlo." (But i'm a grown man, I can handle it)

And just like that, the rest of the night stretches ahead of you. Unwritten. Unplanned. Maybe messy. Maybe impossible.

But something about it feels like exactly right.

And come Monday morning, you would be thanking Lola for this night and all the night that were about to come between you and Pedro.

౨ৎ

Everyone knows you're Pedri's girl. Even if there is no label, it is a well known fact around the locker room. Around the training grounds. Through friends and friends of friends. You are off limits.

Because Pedri says so. And you don't complain.

That's how it works, and it does work until it doesn't. Because sleeping with a boy who won't put a label on your relationship is always going to end in chaos.

That's how you end up in situations like the one you're in tonight.

The club lights are low and red, the bass of Spanish music thrums against the dark club walls. Smoke fogs the air ever so slightly, making everything appear to be existing in a sinful haze.

You're sat in the dark leather booth surrounded by your group of friends, a vodka cranberry firmly in your hand being drank through a thin black straw as you watch the boy you shared a bed with last night flirt with another woman. Pedri was leaning into the ear of a woman in a sultry red dress, with tanned skin and a beautiful face. Blonde hair cascading down her back. His eyes low and hungry, a smirk on his lips. The same lips that had spent last night on your own.

You swallow the last of your drink with disgust.

You want to stop staring at the scene happening across the club, take your eyes of him but you can't. You never can.

He's making her laugh, whispering into her, his body leaning in.

Your friends eyes flicker between you and him, but they won't say anything. Not out loud anyway because they have seen this one too many times before. It happens every time you come out to the club. A game of chase, where Pedri pushes the limits as much as he can without causing a scene. He fuels off the jealousy he creates.

You see, Pedri doesn't even care for the blonde he's chatting up. Sure, she's a beautiful girl with a seemingly kind heart but she's not you. She doesn't bring him that same excitement, she's just another girl. Pedri's hand finds the curve of the blonde's waist, moving slow and deliberate, because he's sick and twisted and he knows you will be watching.

And you are.

Because this is the game you play.

You're not together, you're single but you're his.

Not his girlfriend, but his something.

So, you remain in the dark booth with another drink in your hand. Sitting pretty and waiting as no one approaches you or makes a move even though they want too because they know you're the Spanish star boys.

Your jaw clenches as you think about the situation you're in. The bass feels too loud, you can feel it in your chest or maybe that's just your heartbeat. You finish the rest of your second drink when you decide you can't stand this anymore. This whole mess, this situation, the waiting for him to come back to you.

You stand.

Someone calls your name, but you're already gone like a shadow through a crowd of bodies. Out of the booth, and down to join a few girls you know on the dance floor. You haven't really though this through, acting more on urge than reason. He's out your eyeline now because you kept checking, and it weird way that feels like a freedom. You can pretend he's not even here, you can pretend his lips probably aren't on the lips of a mystery blonde.

When you reach your girls, relief floods your body because for the first time that night you feel like something more than his. Not when you sway to the rhythm of the reggae music, not when you tip your head back and let yourself actually laugh. Not when your many drinks in and bordering on reckless emotion and sharp edged defiance.

You're having fun, actual fun. And you've forgotten Pedri's even in the same room.

You forget him even more when another man walks over to you on the dance floor, and he's attractive. Very attractive. Pretty. Not rugged. Defined cheekbones with a full lips set in a mouth that looks like it knows it way around pleasing a woman. His jaw so sharp, shadowed under the mood lights. He carries himself with a cool stiffness. His curls are dark, tousled like he had just ran his hands through them. And those eyes. They were deep and intense, wide. Looking you up and down.

He smelt like clean sweat and expensive cologne.

And when he leaned in to speak, you knew you were in trouble. Because boys who look like this, they don't just flirt they eat you alive.

A little small talk later, you'd learned his name -- Julian. And he's learned yours. He had also learned the way your hips fit into his hands and you move together on a crowded dance floor. His hands are on your waist like he'd done this a thousand times before. Smooth and confident. Your not even sure when you started leaning back into him, or when you head began to rest against his chest and you bum began to press against his crotch but all you knew is that is was happening.

He leans in again, his mouth brushing your ear, voice low and warm and laced with flirtation. You laugh at whatever he says, too drunk to really understand. And Pedri, well, he's gone from your mind.

But across the room, you're are firmly on his.

He had peeled himself away from the clingy blonde earlier, when he noticed you weren't watching from the booth anymore, because if you weren't watching there was no reason to play the game. When he arrived back at the booth where all your friends remained, he began asking where you were. No one could tell him, so he grabbed another beer and sat back on the cold leather and scanned the club. Cool. Causal. Detached.

But then he saw you, and he sat up.

You're intertwined with another. In your little black mini skirt and your little crop top, being touched by a man that's not him.

His jaw ticks, his muscles tensing. He doesn't move. He just watches.

Julian’s fingers graze up your back like they’ve done it before. You laugh again, tilting your head so your hair falls down one shoulder. Pedri’s eyes narrow. His drink is still in his hand but forgotten, fingers clenched around the glass. Everyone around him is talking. No one notices the way his entire body goes still.

He's not really used to being the one in this position, being the one who's getting jealous. He the best footballer in the world, why would he need to be jealous?

He's not used to being the one left out in the open.

Because most people know -- you're his.

He keeps watching intensely. He watches as you twirl around, now facing the boy with the dark curls. He can see the way you're smiling at him, he can tell you drunk because he's seen drunk you too many times to count.

Your hands settle on Julian’s shoulders now, and when you lean in to say something in his ear, Pedri swears he sees the boy’s hands tighten just slightly on your hips in response.

Like he owns you. Like he will be the one you go home with.

It makes something in him snap.

He’s up before he realizes it, beer abandoned on the table, muttered excuses lost in the haze of club music and conversation. His strides are long and purposeful as he cuts through the crowd, eyes locked on you like you’re the only one in the room.

You don’t see him coming.

Not until he’s right there, close enough that your smile falters and Julian stiffens behind you.

“We need to talk” Pedri’s voice is low, clipped, barely containing the frustration boiling beneath the surface. He doesn’t spare Julian even a glance. He only keeps his eyes on you, dark and moody. His jaw tight, chest rising and falling too quickly.

You blink up at him, brows raised. “Now?”

“Si. Now.”

You look at Julian, and he looks at you like he’s about to intervene, but you place a hand gently on his chest.

“It’s fine,” you say. “I’ll be back.” and then you stand on your tippy toes in your high heels and place a small kiss on his cheek. The imprint of your lipstick left on his sculpted cheeks. Then you stumbled to follow Pedri, drunker than you first thought you were.

He leads you down the corridor near the back of the club, where the music dulls into a thump behind closed walls. Red light still paints the hallway, and when he stops and turns to face you, his eyes are sharp with what seemed to be annoyance.

"What the fuck are you doing?" He spits.

You cross your arms under your breasts, and Pedri quickly looks because he can't help it.

"What do you mean, Pedro?"

"That guy." He hisses, "Who is he?"

You lean your weight against the wall, head tipped back slightly as the red light bathes your skin in sin. Your lips are still wet from the kiss you placed on Julian's cheek.

"I don't know. Javier. Juan. or was it Julian? Something beginning with a J" You smirk just a little, it's drunken confidence. You're finally playing the game back.

Pedri’s jaw tightens. His hand balls into a fist at his side, veins prominent along his forearm. He's seconds away from snapping, and he can't stop picturing you placing a kiss on another man.

He steps forward. You stay still.

"You don't know his name but you'll let him touch you like that" He says with a low voice, "that's not you y/n"

You shrug, feigning indifference, even though you can feel the fire building between you both, already pulling tight in your chest.

“Felt nice. He was sweet. Said I looked pretty.”

Pedri laughs, a bitter sound. "You need to be told you look pretty. I can tell you you look pretty"

Pedri steps in closer, crowding your space now, and your back hits the wall with a soft thud. So close, you can almost feel his breath against your cheek.

"You could, but you don't. I don't expect you to" You look up into his honey coloured orbs, and you know your own eyes look pathetic and doe-like right now. Even when you're angry at him, and he's pissed you off beyond what you thought was humanly capable, you still couldn't stop yourself from looking at him like that. Like this was more than just friends who fuck each other.

He looks in your eyes. Looking into you.

His eyes drop to your mouth, and you hate the way your body responds to him. The way you instantly swallow, and your thighs clench. Your breath catching.

His hand lands on the wall beside your head. Not touching you, but caging you in. His chest rises and falls like he’s trying to talk himself down. Like he’s fighting every impulse telling him to claim you right here, in this hallway. Fighting the idea of making this public.

"You want me jealous?" he asks, eyes flicking between yours. "is that what this is? You trying to get your own back for the blonde"

You shake your head slowly. "No. I just wanted to feel wanted."

Silence.

Just his breathing. Yours.

Then his hand moves. Slides up the nape of your neck, his thumb ghosting along your jaw. Not rough but possessive. And it makes everything worse.

"When I rush back from training just to fuck you, is that not want?" He says, "When I come straight from the plane to your bed?, is that not fucking want?" His voice is rough and low.

Your mouth parts, ready to protest but he cuts you off.

“I saw it.” His voice is quiet, but deadly. “I saw you kiss him.”

Your heart twists. Not because you regret it but because the look in Pedri’s eyes is something you've never seen before. Not anger. Not lust. But something more dangerous. Something that is making you feel hotter than you ever have before. More turned on than you have ever felt before.

“I would never let someone else have you. You know that, right?”

You close your eyes for a second, grounding yourself in the feel of his breath against your skin, in the truth you both keep dancing around.

“I’m not yours,” you whisper, even though every part of your body feels like it belongs to him. Always has.

His hand tightens slightly at the back of your neck. Not rough. He's never rough but there’s a weight in it. Like he’s trying to hold you there, hold you still, hold you close, even if he knows he can’t keep you.

“You are,” he breathes. "You're made just for me"

Your chest twists.

Because he means it. You can see it in his eyes, in the tightness of his jaw, in the way his shoulders rise and fall like he’s carrying something that’s too big for him.

"You only say this when you're jealous" You stare at him. Those sparkling eyes. "And you always get jealous, so don't try and lie and say you don't"

The alcohol has let you find some confidence.

"You can't stand it, the thought that I might leave but you'll never label this." You motion between the two of you with your hand, "because you can't be the man I need, and you know it"

You see him swallow something down.

"You see, Pedro, I know I have you. I just have the worst version"

You step closer, close enough to feel the tension radiating off of him.

He leans in. One hand dropping and reaching out to touch your hip, tentative and possessive all at once.

“Then take the worst,” he murmurs, voice hoarse. “If that’s all I can give you, take it.”

And you will.

Because this, moment like this, is what keeps you in the cycle. Not the sex. Not the games. But, the rare softness between the damage. The way he only ever lets his walls down when it's already too late.

You let him kiss you again. His mouth on yours. The taste of you sweet on his tongue.

And you let him ruin you again.

Because you don’t want half of him.

I'm in a taxi, texting with my best friend

He's sleeping with this girl that he met up on the west end.

The hired maybach drives by the illuminating lights of the concrete jungle's skyline, Joe's eyes stare out the tinted window as they pass him by. It was the middle of the 2022/23 NFL season and he's on his way back to the hotel from an A-List event in New York City.

His phone buzzes in his hand as texts from Ja'marr light up the dark leather seats of the car. He’s letting Joe know he won’t be making the early morning private jet back to Cincinnati in the morning as he’s too entangled in the bed sheets of a woman he met only that night.

The college days were years behind them, but the fraternity behaviour was still prevalent in their lives. Only now, the women weren’t college students. They were influencers, models, actresses, singers, you name a celebrity profession and Joe could guarantee he had slept with a woman from it.

Most girls see the clothes and try and gold dig.

Most hoes poke holes in Trojens

Most people don't fuck and his the lotto, but my folks did.

Beautiful women from all over the world filled his DMs. Tanned skin and toned abs. Perfect faces with perfect bodies. He was like a kid in a candy shop, all the choices in the world in front of him and he could pick any.

One message back saying to come and meet him, and they would rush to his side.

But they weren’t after him, they were after the life he could provide. The fame and the fortune. The box seats at NFL games, the brand deals and PR packages that would fill the hallways of the mansion they could live in.

Sure, it was nice to sleep with the worlds most attractive women, it was nice to feel wanted and desired but when the morning came around so did the crushing realisation.

The girl in his bed didn’t know him and didn’t want to. She wanted to know the number on his credit card, she wanted to know the time the paparazzi would show up to take her picture, she wanted to know when she would published in the articles for the first time.

He missed when it was simple.

When there was only one woman ruling his life. One woman spending all her nights sleeping beside him.

i'm a mess

when I'm depressed you're someone I run to

He hadn’t seen her in over a year. He hadn’t seen her consistently since graduating college but she controlled his mind more than he wanted to admit.

He was a mess without her. He would search for her in every woman he met, comparing both appearance and personality but nobody could compete. No one could ever come close. Not with Daisy.

Countless nights, he would find himself on social media looking through her posts. Some from college and some from the present. He would do anything just to feel close to her, just to feel the caress of her dainty hand on his flushed cheeks. He hadn't felt the warmth of her soft skin in a long while, and he didn't know if he ever would again. Daisy no longer existed close by, she had moved away. Miles and miles away, like she couldn't stand to be close to him. Maybe, Daisy couldn't stand to feel like she was breathing the same air as him? Baton Rouge to Cincinnati was still a distance to short.

She'd done to London. Like she had during the winter he fucked it all up.

She lived there in an apartment she shared with Carson. She worked long hours under her dad as she tried to break her way into the world of public relations. Carson was working for a fashion magazine company over there, as an intern as well. The time difference was always going to keep communication between the two of the minimal. Joe had only the images of her to fulfil his desires and the gap she had left in his life.

Joe’s fingers scrolled through her instagram in the back of the quiet taxi. He had been through it so many times, he knew images off by heart. He even had a few favourites. You know, the ones he would always go back to. Imaged of her which captured her body and spirit so well.

A weird feeling would always creep around his torso as he made his way through. It was like he was watching her grow and change from a far. He would notice when her hair was slightly different, or when her cheeks were getting slimmer. He would notice new jewellery around her necks and on her fingers. The same ones that would press ice cubes to his injuries or trace the bruises from training. He knew he had an issue when he started to notice the change of her nail colours and the pattern of time she would keep them before she changed them.

He watched her life in pictures like he used to watch her sleep.

When he got to the college years, that when it would kill him the most. When the dagger that stabbed his stomach would be twisted so brutally and agonisingly.

Photo's of the girl that he would spent most moments with, the girl who would support him through everything. The girl who understood him in a way no one else could. The girl who gave him the world and more. The girl he pushed away.

you're a hipster, bitch

Yo, but not in a lame way

Cause' everybody listen to biggie, but she's different

Blue eyes linger on the images he had seen hundreds of times.

She was always different, not in a cliche -- she's not like other girls way -- but in subtle way. She was like other girls, and she prided herself on it. She liked shopping, she liked cheerleading, she enjoyed grabbing overpriced drinks, getting her nails done and listening to borderline terrible pop songs. She enjoyed car crash reality television, the kind of stuff which numbed braincells. Everything so stereotypically girly she enjoyed and she never tried to hide the fact she did.

She was so effortlessly cool, and everyone could see it. The way she put on clothes and styled them was different from how others did. The way her hair would always be slightly messy in a way that made her laid back and approachable. It was like she never had to try. It was just who she was.

Every other girl did the same things as her, shopped at the same stores and listened to the same music.

But somehow, to Joe she stood out. From the moment he laid his eyes on her at that stupid start of semester party in his house, and she was wearing that distressed denim skirt, the one he saw in his dreams at night, he knew he would never find another girl more beautiful, more -- perfect. And yet, he spent too long thinking she would never leave.

baby, you're the baddest

baby, you're the baddest girl and uh,

Even now, after three years as one of most elite quarterbacks in the league. After years of A-List parties, club hopping, steamy vacation destinations and millions of followers across social media.

Daisy was still the one he wanted. She was still his number one.

He closed his phone. He shouldn't have looked in the first place but he couldn't help himself. He could never help himself. Not when it came to her.

We're kissing in the bathroom

I hope nobody catch us

But I kinda hope they catch us

Memories of how they used to be would always come back to him. In the moments when he was travelling from state to state on team planes, moments of down time in the steamy showers, when his head was in his hands at halftime during a playoff game. Every spare moment he had, he thought about her. Sometimes it would only be a flash, her pretty face flickering behind his eyes as he blinked. Other times, the visions of her would be longer. He remembered the way her silky hair would dance in the wind around them, the way her beaming smile could light up the whole room. The sound of her sweet laughter always on repeat in the abyss of his mind, it was a noise he wished he could have bottled and listened to forever. What he remembered most was the freckles on her cheeks, the plump lips she often kept torn between her teeth, the fluttery eyelashes she would look up at him through. The small details of her body, the moles on her arms, the dimples on her back, the small scar on her thigh. She haunted him, the memories of her inescapable.

As he was driven around New York City, he thought back to a party in college.

Joe had grabbed her quickly, pulling her into the bathroom of the fraternity and closing the door. The lock was broken, unable to protect them if someone walked in.

Hungry eyes and insatiable appetite for her was his driving force. He pushed her against the wall, his hands on her ass and her hands running through his hair. She tugged at it in a painful desperation. People weren't meant to know about them, not on campus. That meant kisses were saved for private moments, ones that only they saw.

Panting breaths, pleading moans and a sizzling heat between them as they sloppily intertwined with one another in the bathroom. Music pumped from behind the door, drunken voices slurred from the world outside. No one knew what they were doing, no one knew that Daisy and Joe were performing sleazy acts inside. Only them. A forbidden secret shared between each others souls.

Daisy never wanted anyone to know. She didn't want to be minimised to the quarterbacks play toy by the rest of the campus and at this point by the media. Joe's success on the field now making his personal life a story to sell.

Joe always maintained that he agreed. He would tell Daisy he didn't want people to find out about them, but in moments like in that bathroom at that shitty party on frat row, his mind would change.

The way her kiss felt against his lips. The way her soft hands felt against his burning skin. The way she would look at him with those stupidly big doe eyes. She made him feel alive. His heart would beat in his chest like it was going to explode. Tingles would flow through his body in a way he had never experiences. His soul clawed out from his stomach and grabbed at hers. They intertwined deeply. Nothing else made him feel that way.

and he wanted everyone to know about it.

He pleaded silently to the higher power above that someone would walk in, someone would catch them and he wouldn't have to hide her anymore.

It never happened.

and they lived on as a hushed secret.

we can pretend if you want to, like

everytime we see each other, I'm taking you home

Memories of a different time shone brighter.

It was the end of his and Justin's first year in the NFL. A joint party being thrown in their honour by some friends. He wasn't sure if Daisy was going to be there, but he had feeling that she might be. He felt it deep inside his stomach, like a sign from the universe.

Bass rattled the walls of the club, and busting people walked all around the room. The place was busy, yet somehow still intimate. A special invite only event. Mostly family and friends, some teammates from the league.

Joe felt her presence before he saw her. A magnet pulling him to look at the door.

Daisy was stood there. She was wearing a tight black boat neck dress, one that hugged at her body tightly. Her chestnut hair was up in a bun, some curled strands laying around her face. Joe's breath got caught in his throat, all the air was suddenly sucked out the room as he saw her.

He hadn't seen her in months, the last time being when he visited LSU to watch Ja'marr play. Somehow, that night he and Daisy ended up entangled in the floral bedsheets of her off campus apartment bed. Her cheerleading uniform ripped on the bedroom floor. Then in the morning he had to leave, a small kiss on her cheek goodbye before he may not see her again.

Bella walked in behind Daisy. Another face Joe hadn't seen in a while, but he knew that she and Justin were still close friends. He had posted a photo with both of them during the season, the two girls appearing at one of his games in the purple of the Minnesota Vikings. Jefferson written across their backs.

Joe remembered the feeling when he saw it. Sickness marinating in his torso. A sickness so intense it almost felt like the walls around him were closing in. A light dizziness tormenting his brain. She would never come to his games, she would never wear his name across her back in a Cincinnati Bengals jersey. The universe never had that fate written for them, but he wished they could just pretend.

He remembered reading the news articles. The incorrect assumptions that she was his new girlfriend, even though Bella was in the image as well. People trying to figure out who she was, he was thankful her social media's were now privatised. Daisy was a beauty he didn't want to share with the rest of the world. His little secret. Even now.

When Daisy locked eyes with him across the warmly lit room, it was like seeing her for the first time again. Sometimes, Joe though he was moving on but moments would come to humble him. His desire growled in his stomach, his heart rattled against his rib cage. Lust filled his every though and he could tell she felt it too. A plump lip bitten between her teeth, a soft glow on her cheeks.

It was like looking at the other half of him, like she was his mirror. His mirror staring back at him with the same passion filled eyes.

As the night went on, they slowly gravitated towards each other. An electric current tying them together. They couldn't fight it and they never wanted too.

They left together.

A fierce and sultry night spent together in the penthouse suite of a hotel. Sloppy kisses, intertwining bodies and steamy air wrapping around them. Loud moans and the noise of skin slapping sounding out in the air. Hungry looks into each others eyes.

'Joey' She murmmered out as the pleasure would overtake her body. No one else could make her feel the way he did.

'Dais' He would grunt, the feeling of her insides wrapped around him causing a euphoric high. No one could ever make him feel the way she did.

But then the morning comes, and they leave each other once again. Different states, and a distance between them would always keep them apart.

In the back seat of the maybach, Joe shakes away the old steamy images of her underneath him. The cloth of his jeans tightened around the crotch. He had to forget about her, but he never could.

City never sleeps so I guess I'm never slept on

Did everything I could, then I kept going

He continued looking out to the vibrant and thriving streets of the New York City nighttime. Bella lived here, somewhere. His mind wandered on the thought of Daisy walking the very street he was driving on. He couldn't imagine her as a city girl, but he had never seen her in the city. She lived in London, and maybe she loved it. Maybe, she would never come back to America.

Maybe the ocean would always keep them separated.

Ooh, girl, I wanna know

Are you ready to cry? cause I'm no good, no good.

Joe's second year in the league was more intense, it took up his every though and was the sole precedent of his life. Ja'marr had joined him at the Cincinnati Bengals, reuniting him with his best friend. They played incredibly that season, the chemistry between them working on the field like magic. Joe gave it everything, and led his team to a Superbowl final.

A Superbowl final that Daisy came to watch. Ja'marr had invited her, Cassie and Bella. They had stayed friends even in the absence of Joe and Justin at LSU. In fact, they had gotten closer. So much closer, that Daisy wasn't even there to watch Joe. She was in a Bengal's jersey, fulfilling the fantasy Joe had spent months trying to get rid of but it was not his name on the back. That cut Joe deep because he realised that if things had been different it could have been him. If time was on his side, if he didn't leave LSU for the NFL. If he just got to be with her longer. It could have been different.

When they lost the Superbowl final, the wound only widened. Blood spilled from his stomach as the life drained from him. The woman of his dreams here for another man. The Lombardi trophy going home in the arms of another.

I'm an awful guy and I'm always away

And I'm trying to say I'm a piece shit

Daisy had tried to comfort him that night, but he didn't want to hear it. Anger vibrated through his body. Not at her, but at everyone. At what happened out on the field. He couldn't control it. He didn't want to lash out but it was inevitable. Daisy just happened to be the one in the firing line of Joe's cruel wrath.

'stop fucking clinging to me like some bitch' The words fell from his mouth before he could stop them.

'you're always fucking near me' More spilled out like venomous bites.

'I don't care about you and I never have, so just fuck out of my life alright' Joe didn't understand what part of him possessed him to spit out the words he didn't mean. Every word a harsh lie, but once they were out in the air between them he couldn't take them back. And he would spend the rest of his life regretting them.

His heart broke as he watched her sweet face react to the words.

Daisy's expression clouded over with a deep sorrow. Her usually bright eyes lost their spark in an instance. Her thick brows knit together in melancholy. Her pouty lips pressed together as she tried to hide the emotion Joe could see so clearly. Wet tears glossed over her eyes.

She got up without saying a word, rushing to leave through the exit.

'Daisy' Joe called out to her, but it was hopeless. She never turned back.

It was then, in that moment, as he watched her walk away that he realised it. As he watched her walk out of his life, for what felt like the last time. A cold slap struck his flushed skin.

He loved her. He had always loved her. He had just been scared of the feeling.

and now she was gone. He had lost the one person he had ever truly loved.

We barely knew what we had

It's not that bad, the fun we had, oh oh oh.

They were just kids in college. When they started hooking up, neither of them knew what would come in their futures. Neither of them knew just how much they should have cherished the hours they spent in each others arms.

If Joe could go back to those days, he would in a heartbeat, just to feel her once again. Even if it was only for a second, he would trade it all to go back. Just to breathe in her smell, feel his fingers running through her silky smooth hair. God, he would give it all.

Life was so fun and simple. The sex was fun and simple. The relationship between them was fun and simple.

Joe wished he realised what he had with her was special sooner.

Maybe then, he wouldn't have pushed her away. Maybe then, he wouldn't be sat alone in the back of a rented maybach as the feeling of loneliness gnawed at his bones with a dull aching.

He missed her. Every day, he missed her.

nobody else matters

nobody else matter, girl

At the end of it all, Daisy was the only woman that made Joe feel something. She had poisoned him with an unforgettable electrifying kiss and now every other woman seemed so dull and plain in comparison. He had tried tiredlessly to make himself forget her. He had slept with so many women, had month long flings but nothing ever seemed to work. Everything brought him back to Daisy.

But, he couldn't have her. It was no use. He hurt her irreversibly and no matter what happened, something always found it's way in between them.

Joe realised he loved her too late.

Daisy realised she loved him too soon.

౨ৎ

And this is how it starts...

The sun is golden in the clear blue skies above the mediterranean bay, it makes the pale yellow sand glimmer. The beach itself, was tucked away between rugged cliffs and quaint Spanish homes. It was private, away from tourists and reserved for the humming life of locals.

The scent of the salt air mingles with the subtlety of grilled sardines and fresh calamari from the local resteraunt. Another hidden gem.

Children dashed in and out of the sea with shrieks of joy that echoed down the coastline. A group of teenagers kick a football between themselves and by the blue waters where small fishing boats float just out in the distance.

This place was like a slice of heaven.

You sit with a deep red sangria in hand as you sunbathe with your friends on an old striped towel. It's the middle of summer, and you had a week of work to enjoy your freedom away from the hustle and bustle of the city centre.

The boys, and Pedri, are off in the water playing a makeshift version of water polo with a football. Your boyfriend was meant to be here, but another argument deterred him from coming. You seem to argue a lot these days, about anything. This time it was because you wore a skirt he deemed too short to the club, he said it was disrespectful to him and your relationship. You argued, he lashed out. Then he stormed out because he needed space and you haven't seen him since. That was three days ago.

Now you're here alone.

Well, not alone. You're here with your best friends and their boyfriends, and their boyfriends friends.

Through the brown tint of your sunglasses you glance at them in the water, their laughs are loud and they are behaving like children who have just been given permission to play by their parents. Crystal blue waters splash around them as they jump on top of each other trying to hit the ball in the air.

You're eyes drift to him -- Pedri.

The boy with the olive skin and the fluffy brunette hair. The friend of a friend's boyfriend who you had met only a handful of times. Each time having the underlying weirdness of unspoken tension, lingering glances and quick touches. One's that on the surface were innocent but somehow tingled on your skin like they meant more.

He's in the water, and his stupid abs are glistening under the rays of the early afternoon. He's running his hand through his wet hair like he's an extra on baywatch or some other cliche programme. He's laughing with a wide smile, the kind that shows of his perfect teeth on the dimples on his cheeks.

He happens to also be the best midfielder in world football, playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world. So he had it all, and yet he was here at the beach with you and your mutual friends.

You take a big swig of sangria, suddenly the sun is hitting you hotter around your neck.

You're stomach rumbles with hunger, and you stand up.

Pedri from the ocean notices, his eyes finding you like you're his magnet. You're in a small black bikini, your long hair in two messy plaits down you're back. He watches you dust your toned torso to rid yourself of any stray grains of sand. It makes his stomach flip, something similar to desire growling under the surface.

You walk over to where your car was parked, looking to put a cover up on and head over to the little beach side cafe for a sandwich and an ice cold drink. Your feet slide between the hot soft sand beneath them, a subtle breeze kissing at your cheeks.

"Where are you going?"

You jump. A voice startling you as you approach your Jeep. You look over to the person who has began to walk beside you.

Pedri. Still droplets of water dripping off his golden skin.

"Um" You compose yourself quickly, "Just to grab some food and water"

"I'll come with you" He runs a hand through his wet hair, again. All you can do is nod in response.

"Um" You curse yourself mentally for stuttering again. "I just need to grab my cover up" You tell the international football star as you point to your beat up car.

"No problem" He says, not thinking anything of your rusting vehicle.

You open up the trunk of your car and begin to rummage through the slight mess to find the cover up dress you always bring to beach, only this time minutes pass and you can't seem to find it. Pedri stands off to the side, trying not to stare as you bend over the back of your car in a small bikini. In truth, he hadn't even known minutes had passed because he could have stared at this view for hours and still not have gotten bored. When you stand up straight, he snapped out of the trance you had put him under without intention.

You wipe your brow with your forearm.

"mierda" was all you could say.

"What is it?" Pedri asks.

"I forgot my cover up" You sigh with frustration because now you can't go and grab the food you so desperately needed.

"I have about five spare jersey's in my car. Should fit you like a dress, if you want to borrow one?" Pedri says, and you notice the way his eyes scan your bare body. He's just mentally taking measurements, you tell yourself but you can't help but feel like you noticed something more behind his eyes. Something that seemed like hunger.

"Yeah, please, if you don't mind" You tell him.

Then, you follow him over to his very expensive car. He pops open the trunk and grabs a jersey from the back.

"This should work" He hands you it. The fabric was a light pink. You hold it out in front of you and see the Barcelona crest in the centre of the chest. A navy Spotify logo in the centre and a nike tic beside the shoulder. It smells faintly of male musk. He's worn it before. And now you're about to wear it too.

"It's cute" You say, as you pull it over your head and let it hang from your frame.

Pedri was right. It did fit like a dress. The hem rested just below the cheeks of your bum, but enough coverage for a beachside cafe. You brush the fabric to straighten it. You don't even notice Pedri watching you for too long.

The training jersey suited you. And seeing you in something branded with his name on the back was causing something to stir. You hadn't even realised it said his name on the back. Somehow you missed it before you put it on. But Pedri did not mind.

Yeah my shirt looks so good

when it's just hanging off your back

"Looks good on you," Pedri says, his voice lower than it was before, more purposeful.

You swallow, your throat suddenly dry, and manage a half-smile, fighting the rush of warmth flooding your body. "Thanks," you reply, trying to sound casual, though your voice betrays a hint of shakiness.

You shouldn't be feeling this way. You've got a boyfriend. A very shitty one. But still a boyfriend.

For a moment, neither of you speak, that familiar tension lingers between you. The sound of the waves lapping against the shore, the laughter of your friends faint in the distance. 

"We should go get food" You break the silence.

"Si" Pedri says scratching the back of his head. His biceps flexing ever so slightly when he does. A small smirk on his face, the same face that was becoming freckled under then sun. A smirk which almost tells you that he knows you know that you both feel whatever this is between you.

Boyfriend! you remind yourself as you follow Pedri down the beach in the training shirt that smells of him.

⋆｡˚

The cafe was quiet, and quaint. Not much on the menu other than some sandwiches and a couple salads. A gelato stand of all sorts of favours.

You both stare up at the chalkboards as you stand beside each other. Shoulders almost brushing. You're trying to read them but it's hard when he's so close to you.

"Let me get your food," Pedri says, his tone shifting slightly. He's being insistent, though still warm.

You don’t know if it’s the sudden closeness or the fact that he’s offering to take care of you, but something about his presence feels almost overwhelming in a way that’s both exhilarating and terrifying. And wrong. Completely wrong. God, you needed to get off this beach. And you needed a message from your boyfriend to let you know he's still alive.

"No, no. I got it."

"If you think I'm going to let you pay, you're stupid. And I don't think you're a stupid girl Y/N." Pedri says, with a teasing tone? a tone you can't place. Was he flirting? So boldly. In a beachside cafe. Either way it silences you. Heat scorches at his neck.

“Thanks,” you say, quietly this time.

"So, what do you want?"

Your eyes scan the menu again, looking for the cheapest item.

"You know, I'll just get some patatas fritas and a banana gelato cone with chocolate sauce. Please." You ask politely.

"That's all?" Pedri asks, looking at you inquisitively.

"Si," You say with a bitten lip, that causes Pedri too look down at them. Then slowly, his honey eyes drag back up to meet your own. Another beat of silence.

"Okay" He nods with a glinting smile. One that makes you feel both embarrassment and blush in the same motion.

You try to compose yourself, taking a deep breath, but the way Pedri looks at you feels like it's peeling away every layer of control you've been holding on to. He’s not just looking at you, he’s seeing you, in a way that feels different than any glance you've gotten before.

You turn to the chalkboard, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the simplest decision. Patatas fritas and a gelato cone. Nothing special. But in this moment, with the weight of his gaze still lingering on you, everything feels a little too… much.

"So," you clear your throat, shifting the attention away from the growing tension. "What are you getting?"

Pedri doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, his lips curl into a knowing smile, one that seems to speak a thousand words you can’t quite decipher.

"I'll have the same," he says, looking over at you with a raised brow. "But no chocolate sauce. I have to stay healthy for the season."

"You like banana gelato?"

"Si, it's my favourite." He nods, the worker behind the counter now getting the order ready for takeout.

She said "Use my hands and my spare time

We got one thing in common it's this tongue of mine"

"Mine too" You say licking your bottom lip quickly before biting again. This time to stop the smile that threatens to bare itself.

⋆｡˚

Your back at the beach now, sat huddled with your friends and friend of friends. All taking a break and soaking up the rays. The ice cream cone is firm in your hand, and your caught up in conversation with your friends Leo and Isa, talking about the situation with your boyfriend and the fact that he still hasn't messaged. That he was still icing you out. Over something so stupid like always.

Pedri's can't take his eyes off you as he sits across from you. A few metres away. You're still in his jersey and in a weird way that's better than seeing you in a small bikini. Because when you're in his jersey, he can pretend that you and him are something more than strangers who steal glances. His friends are talking about something beside him, but all he knows is you. All he hears is the sight of you.

You're licking the banana gelato, and some drips down your finger as the sun melts it quicker than you can eat it. When you notice, you lick your finger to get it off. It's like you move in slow motion with a golden aura surrounding you. Pedri can't help but feel the blood rush south, but he composes himself before his desire can show publicly. But then he starts to imagine your tongue on something on other than the ice cream. And he's hot. he's flushed.

Then you glance at him, because you felt something burning into you while venting about the boy that had left you forgotten.

Pedri was already looking.

With low eyes of hunger. His puffed lips slightly parted. Brows furrowed like he can't quite comprehend what he's looking at. Like your the first girl he's ever seen. No one has ever looked at you that way.

and you like it?

Feeling wanted. Feeling desired. They were feeling's long forgotten.

You lick the banana gelato, slow and deliberate. Your eyes still on his.

He can't help it. His eyes somehow visibly darken, and you always read that in books, never understanding what it meant but now you do. You've seen it. It makes your pulse quicken.

Pedri leans back, tilting his head, trying to look casual, but the idea of you in his clothes, so near to him, starts to feel like an impossible temptation. Every second that passes, the urge to reach out and close the distance between you two grows stronger.

Then, Isa says something. Nudging you in the arm with her elbow.

It falls on deaf ears as you're still looking at Pedri.

But then she says it again with more passion, or was it anger?

"Emilio's here"

Huh. Your boyfriend's name for the first time feels foreign and unknown. You look at your friend like she had grown two heads.

"Que?"

"Emilio. He's here." She nods her head down the beach to where your boyfriend is strolling towards you. You quickly hand her the ice cream cone and stand up, brushing the sand off you.

Pedri is watching you confused. He can feel the panic seeping from you. The fear almost. The frantic brushing off the sand. The way you play with the hem of his shirt as it still hangs off your back in anticipation of what may come.

"Mierda. Emilio's here" Pedri's friend, who also happens to be Isa's boyfriend said from beside him.

"Who?" Pedri asked.

"Y/n's boyfriend. Like the worst person you could ever meet" He explained, and now Pedri is watching you again. He's watching you walk up the beach to meet a man who is tall, and broad. A body filled with muscles. His hair black and curly. Sunglasses covering his eyes.

She's got a boyfriend anyway

"How long?" Pedri asks

"Too long" His friend responds.

He keeps watching you like a hawk. You stood up the beach. Your boyfriend is shouting at you but he can't tell what he's saying. All he can see is you shrinking within yourself. He wants to do something. Anything. But he knows if he walks over there things would only get worse for you, so instead he sits and watches it all unfold.

Emilio stands before you, the tension between you two like a thick fog and you know what's about to happen.

"What the hell are you wearing?" Emilio spits, his voice laced with irritation. His eyes narrow as they sweep over you, taking in the jersey that hangs off your frame like a second skin.

"I forgot my cover up" You sound so small. Scared. You bite your lip to hold back tears that well in your eyes already.

"Likely story." Emilio scoffs, "You know you're such a slut sometimes and you wonder why I can't trust you when you act like this" He flicks to bottom of the baby pink jersey, and for the first time you flinch. You actually flinch.

The sound of the ocean waves crashing in the background seems so distant now, as though the world has shrunk to just you and Emilio. The warmth of the sun on your skin has gone cold, replaced with a tight knot of anxiety in your stomach.

You stand there for a moment, trying to compose yourself, but the trembling in your legs betrays you. Emilio notices, his eyes narrowing as his voice grows louder, more aggressive.

"Stop acting like a victim. You're not a victim y/n."

You open your mouth to respond, but the words die in your throat. What can you say to that? What can you say to someone who has reduced you to nothing more than a possession?

The silence stretches between you two, thick and suffocating. Every time you try to speak, Emilio's cold eyes stop you. You're so tired of this.

You glance over at Pedri. His expression has darkened in a different way this time, his jaw clenched tightly. He’s standing down the beach, but you can feel his presence in the way he’s watching, observing everything. He wants to help. You know he does. His hands are clenched at his side. But you also know that if he steps in, things will get worse. You don’t want him to get involved in this mess. This is your problem. Your mess.

"Take that shit off and let's go" Emilio says, making you face him again.

"What?" You say before you can stop yourself.

"Take that shit off and let's go"

"No."

"What did you just say"

You shrink again.

"Take it off" Emilio reaches out to grab the fabric but you push his hands away.

"I'm staying with my friends." For the first time you are firm taking a step back from him. The words feel like freedom, but it’s terrifying. It’s so much easier to retreat into the comfort of his anger, to allow him to dictate everything. But not today. Not anymore.

Emilio smirks, a scary one. One you can't tell what it means.

"You know you're cute when you try to fight me" and there it is. The cockiness and the arrogance. The confidence that first made him so attractive to you. A reminder of how you found yourself tangled up in this mess anyway. Emilio reaches out his hand and cups your cheek brushing a soothing thumb over your cheek.

"I like your hair in pigtails. They're sexy" and here come his compliments. Shallow and yet still effective.

"I'm staying" You reiterate.

"You know what, fine. Stay. I'll see you tomorrow" and with that Emilio gives you a pathetic kiss on the forehead, and then leaves up the beach. And you stand alone. But finally able to breathe. Your heart still racing.

You take a deep breath and start walking back toward your friends, your feet leaving soft imprints in the sand. Each step feels like a little victory. Your chest is lighter, and the knot of anxiety that had been twisting in your stomach has loosened, just a little.

As you approach your friends, Isa’s eyes widen in surprise, but she doesn’t say anything. She simply watches you, her expression unreadable. You can tell she’s processing everything that just happened, but she doesn’t push you to talk. Leo, on the other hand, looks at you with a knowing glance. His concern is obvious, but he respects your space.

You sit back down on the towel, your hands a little shaky as you brush sand off your skin. You’re still wearing Pedri’s jersey, and even though the fabric feels like a shield right now, it also feels… wrong somehow. Like a symbol of a line that’s been crossed, even though it was never meant to be anything more than a cover-up.

⋆｡˚

You spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach, just having fun and forgetting the problems of your life at home. The sun begins to set when you all decide it's time to go home.

You grabbed your stuff, said your goodbyes and headed to your old car tossing your things in the back. You waved at your friends as they drove off from the carpark. And that's when you looked down and remembered. The baby pink jersey that did not belong to you. You quickly turned to where his car had been parked and there his was, watching you like he had expected this exact moment to happen. He was leaning back against the car and his arms crossed across his chest. A white shirt covering his torso now. A small smile on his face.

"Keep it. Looks better on you anyway!" He shouts over.

You blush, hoping he can't see it in the evenings dying light.

"Thanks!" You shout back.

What am I doing? You think. Your boyfriend is waiting for you at his place. Even if you are fighting. He was still your partner of over two years.

You turn and hop into the drivers side of your jeep. You go to turn it on and nothing. Nothing but the horrible noise of a car refusing to start. The engine sputters, and you can feel your frustration building as the sound echoes in the quiet evening air. You turn the key again, hoping for some miracle, but the only response you get is the same stubborn silence.

ou lean back in the seat, staring at the dashboard, willing the car to start, but it’s no use. You let out a long sigh, resting your head against the steering wheel for a moment. You think of your boyfriend, the fight you just had with him, and the mess you're still trying to sort out in your mind.

You glance over at Pedri’s car again. His white shirt stands out against the darkening sky, his figure still leaning casually against his car, like he’s waiting for you to make the next move.

Before you can even think it through, you’re out of the jeep and walking toward Pedri’s car. Each step feels deliberate, like you’re choosing to take control for the first time in ages.

When you reach him, he looks up from his spot, his smile still there, but it’s not as cocky now. It's softer. Warmer. He stands up straight, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Car trouble?” Pedri asks, his voice light but with a hint of concern.

You nod, biting your lip. 

"You need me to drop you off?"

"Please." You nodded.

And now you and him are about to enter uncharted territory that was never meant to happen. You're sitting in the leather passenger seat of his black Porsche cayenne. In his shirt. In his space. The tension thick with the unspoken as he drives the winding coastal roads back to Barcelona.

You glance over at Pedri, who is focused on the road, his hand gripping the steering wheel with an easy relaxed confidence. His face is calm, but you notice the way his jaw tightens when he occasionally glances at you. It’s like he knows something you haven’t said yet, like he’s waiting for you to put it all into words. He wants to ask you so bad, you can tell. So you answer before he can.

Finally, you speak, your voice a little shaky but determined. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Pedri.” You look over at him, finding his eyes for a brief moment.

Pedri nods slowly, his eyes never leaving the road as he drives.

"it’s complicated. It’s messy. And I don’t know if I’m ready to leave him.” Your voice cracks a little on that last sentence. You almost want to take it back, but it’s the truth.

Pedri's grip on the steering wheel tightens. Because he knows there is something between you, something natural and ever existing. Something that has existed in multiple lifetimes. And he knows you feel it too. This primal attraction that doesn't need to be thought about, it just simply exists.

"I know,” you whisper, the words barely escaping your lips. You turn your head and look at him again, his profile framed by the dim glow of the dashboard lights. He glances back at you and its electrifying.

You feel it again, the same thing you felt back on the beach, the same thing you felt a month ago when you were all at a mutual friends house, the same thing you felt the first second you met him. That pull that makes it feel wrong to even be in the same room as him.

Although, now it's heavier. The only noise was the hum of his expensive engine and the tires against the never ending winding roads.

"I didn’t want today to be like this," you add quietly, folding your hands in your lap. You're not sure if you're apologizing. For the tension. For the shirt. For Emilio. For everything.

Pedri doesn't answer at first. His brows are slightly drawn, his jaw tight. But not in anger. In thought.

"Like what?" He finally says, in that low voice you were becoming familiar with.

You don't say anything, because anything you did say would be an admission to something wrong.

there's only minutes before I drop you off

The car winds down a quieter road now, streetlights flickering intermittently through the trees. The city glows faintly in the distance. You recognize this road. You're getting close to your place now. The minutes in the car are coming to their dying end.

You shift in your seat.

"I can drop you at Isa's or your place... or wherever it is you need to go" Pedri says, and you know he's referring to your boyfriend's place.

You stare ahead, eyes fixed on the ribbon of road unraveling before you. You don't look at him, because if you do, you're afraid you might actually say what’s sitting heavy on your tongue.

Instead, you just nod. “My place’s fine.”

Pedri says nothing. You wonder if he's biting his tongue, or if he's simply learning the rhythm of your silences.

You glance over at him just once. He’s gripping the wheel and the veins in his are forearm slightly visible beneath his skin. His expression unreadable. Stoic.

"You don’t have to feel guilty, you know," Pedri says, without looking at you. Instead, he's glancing out the window with such all knowing nonchalance.

The words hit you in the chest and knocked all the air from your delicate lungs. The same lungs that were already struggling for air in the tight Porsche.

"I didn’t say I was," you whisper.

"You didn’t have to."

Another silence.

You both let it settle in the air. You hate that he can read you so well, that he can read the guilt that swirls in complexity in every fibre of your body. The guilt of ruining the beach day by Emilio coming, the guilt that you can't control your heartbeat around another man.

Then the building appears. Your shitty apartment building on the outskirts of the Catalonian capital. Familiar and safe and dull in the yellow glow of the streetlights. The moment between you and the star boy breaks.

Pedri glances at you as you watch out his car window, and for a minute he lets himself dream of getting used to this. You in his shirt and in his passenger seat. He could only dream about having the honour of looking upon your angel face each day and calling it his.

But then, your phone buzzes in your hand and your boyfriend's name pops up.

She's got a boyfriend anyway

She's got a boyfriend anyway

Pedri rolls his eyes as reality seeps in around him. The reality that after he drops you home, you will go back into the arms of a man who treats you like a stain on the bottom of his shoe and you won't see Pedri for another month or so. The reality that this cycle will keep existing between the two of you because you won't change it and he can't make you.

You feel the buzz of your phone and you look down at the message

Emilio:

Don't come over tomorrow. I'm going to Ibiza with the boys for a few days. Might not have service so don't expect replies. love u.

You scoff, shaking your head slightly.

You feel Pedri looking at you. You don't look at him because you feel so pathetic.

You finally speak, voice dry. “He’s going to Ibiza.”

Pedri’s quiet for a moment. The engine hums beneath you both like it’s holding its breath. Red glows in the car as you reach a stop light.

“He doesn’t love you,” he says.

You swallow. “You don’t get to say that. You don't know him"

He looks away, jaw clenched again, nostrils flaring slightly. “Yeah, maybe not. But I know boys like him."

You can't bring yourself to respond.

You stare at the red light willing for it to end so that you can escape this tension that feeling like its eating away at your bones. Suddenly, you're exhausted from it all. All this pretending. Pretending that you're still happy. Pretending that you being in this car isn't wrong. Pretending that this thing between you and the boy you have only met a few times isn't real and breathing with fury.

The light flicks green.

And Pedri goes.

Neither of you speak.

Not until the car slows at the curb just outside your apartment building. You stare ahead at the familiar cracked sidewalk, the glow of the busted streetlamp, the chipped steps you’ve climbed a thousand times.

You should say thank you. Or good night. Or see you later.

But you don’t.

Instead, you turn your head slowly to look at him. Pedri’s already watching you. Not in that intense, hungry way he looked at you earlier on the beach, but something softer yet still lingering with something deeper. He’s in control now like he always seems to be, but you can tell it’s taking everything in him not to reach for you. You see him swallow, his jaw flexing. His eyes flicker to his shirt on your skin.

"You should come inside" You say the words before they even register in your mind, "So I can give the shirt back" You explain with a stutter that makes you feel your cheeks reddening. What am I doing? and Why can't I stop myself? you think.

"Si" Pedri won't give up this opportunity. Not even when he has an early morning training session tomorrow on the other side of the city.

He kills the engine and gets out of the car without another word.

You walk ahead, while fumbling with your keys in your palm and trying to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. The apartment steps are still cracked. The bulb above the front door still flickers. Nothing’s changed about this place. But this walk feels different. It feels like when you walk through the door you will never walk out of it the same person again.

You push the door open and gesture for him to follow.

Inside, the hallway smells faintly of cigarette smoke and overcooked food from a neighbor’s kitchen. The kind of place that holds its breath when you bring someone new home. Pedri ducks slightly under the low ceiling as he steps in.

You lead him inside. Your flat is small and slightly messy, but it’s yours. A stack of folded laundry on the armchair. A candle burned too low on the coffee table. Dishes still in the sink. You forgot to care. You spent more time at Emilio's nicer place in the centre of town anyway. This place was just a sanctuary you ran too when your relationship hit trouble.

"I'll just get changed now and uhm give you the shirt back" You say, heading toward your bedroom. You gesture for him to take a seat. You keep telling yourself that he won't be here for long, that this whole thing is really just about a stupid jersey.

But Pedri doesn't move, he stays leaning on the door frame to your bedroom with folded arms. Watching.

You glance back at him. “You can come in. If you want.”

Pedri meets your gaze. And this time, he does move.

His steps are quiet as he follows you through the apartment. He looks around like he's trying to learn the world you live in, trying to learn who you actually are.

You rummage through a drawer, looking for a hoodie or anything to change into.

Behind you, he speaks.

“You don’t have to give it back.”

You freeze.

Your fingers still on the fabric.

“I said it looks better on you. I meant it.”

You swallow.

Your voice cracks just a little. “It smells like you.”

“I know.”

You both go quiet again.

This is the part where you should give it back. Say thank you. Push him away. Do the responsible thing. This is wrong, on every moral level.

But instead, you turn around.

Pedri eye's have darkened again in that old romance literature way. They trail you up and down. Your legs still bare, your bikini still the only thing on your body underneath his shirt.

You take a small step forward, a step across an invisible line. Then you take another, and he takes one too. Each step feels like it's permission.

When you reach him, he looks down at you. His breathing shallow, controlled. Still not touching you.

Your voice is barely above a whisper. “Pedri…”

His name tastes foreign and familiar at the same time. A name you’ve said casually at parties, in passing conversations. But now it feels like a confession.

“Dime.” Tell me.

You look up at him, eyes searching his. You don’t know what you’re asking. Maybe forgiveness. Maybe patience. Maybe for him to make this decision for you because you don’t trust yourself to do it.

But Pedri doesn’t lean in.

He lifts his hand and brushes a strand of hair from your cheek. His fingers linger a moment too long against your jaw.

“I’m not going to kiss you,” he says softly.

Your heart skips a singular beat, and you hate that you feel this way but you cannot stop your girlish self from asking, "Why not?"

"Because this isn't my decision to make" Pedri says with such wisdom and a smirk that make you feel like he already knows your answer.

“Then why did you come in?”

Pedri’s lips twitch at the corners.

“Because I wanted to make sure you got home safe.” He says smugly, his boyish eyes of hunger still on your, planting themselves against your soul.

You stare at him too. Then nod, slowly.

You step back. Just an inch. Just enough to breathe. To think because when he's around you seem to be unable to.

He lingers there another moment, eyes on yours like he’s memorising something he might never get to see again.

But then… you look at him again.

And you're moving back to him like it was rhythm rather than reason.

Your fingers curl into the collar of his shirt and you pull him down to you, crushing your lips to his with all the quiet frustration and fear and longing you've been holding in since the second he walked into your life.

Pedri reacts instantly. Not with hunger, but with something deeper. His hand finds the side of your jaw, anchoring you, as his mouth moves gently against yours. Slow at first. Like he’s giving you the chance to change your mind. But when you don’t -- when you push harder into him, he lets himself go. He lets his desire take control.

His lips part yours with something sinful and sweet. His other hand finds your hip, grounding you. His fingertips digging in slightly like he is already scared to lose something that isn't his to begin with.

It's kind of kiss that makes you forget who you’re supposed to be. Who you're supposed to be doing this with.

You feel his breath stutter when your hand runs up his chest, over his shoulder. He walks you backward instinctively, never breaking contact, until the backs of your knees hit the edge of your bed.

You don’t hesitate. Not now. You can't, not when this moment feels like something you have been missing your whole life.

You sit down, pulling him with you.

Pedri hovers over you, one knee resting between yours, his hands braced on either side of your body. You can feel his heart pounding, mirroring your own. His lips trail from your mouth to your cheek, then your jaw, then your neck. In his mind, he can't actually believe this is happening. That he's about to have you begging and moaning and panting his name.

Now we're on the bed in your room

and I'm about to fill he shoes

You arch into him without even realizing it. You want more. You want to lose yourself completely. You want to feel something that isn’t guilt or fear or numbness. You want to drown in this. You want to bottle up whatever this feeling is and keep it inside you forever.

But just as his fingers start to slip beneath the edge of his jersey, the one still hanging from your frame like a quiet claim, something inside you screams.

This is wrong. This is cheating. You're cheating on your boyfriend, and that would make you just as bad as he is.

“No,” you breathe, sudden and sharp.

But you say no, you say no.

Pedri freezes instantly. His lips still against your skin. His breathing ragged. But he doesn’t move again until you do.

You sit up quickly, pulling the fabric of the jersey down your thighs like it’s some kind of armour.

“This is wrong,” you whisper, eyes wide now, like you’re waking up from a trance. “This isn’t right. I shouldn’t have done that.” Your fingers touch your lips like you can't believe you let someone else kiss them.

"I'm sorry," You whisper, the disgust for yourself sinking in.

Pedri pulls back slowly, like he’s afraid even that movement might shatter you completely.

He stays kneeling in front of you, chest rising and falling hard, but his hands drop from the bed. He looks at you, and he can't quite believe that Emilio still has this hold on you because that kiss. That kiss was unlike anything he had ever felt in his life. It was like a beacon of flame had been lit in his chest. The famous spark that he thought was made up.

And now he's questioning what Emilio had that makes him to hard to forget in a moment like that. What could a boy like that do for you that he couldn't.

Does he take care of you?

Or could I easily fill his shoes?

But you say no, you say no

“This was a mistake,” you say, your voice thin. Your throat tight. “I— I wasn’t thinking. I just… I can’t.”

Pedri doesn't flinch, doesn’t argue. He just exhales and nods.

“I get it,” he says. “You don’t have to explain.”

“I wasn’t going to sleep with you,” you add quickly, defensively, even though he hadn’t asked.

“I know.” His voice is patient. Quiet. “I wasn’t trying to get you to.”

You feel yourself crumbling. Because now that it’s over, now that your body isn’t ruled by adrenaline and want, you’re left with nothing but shame. And guilt. And the aching hollow of almost.

“I have a boyfriend,” you whisper, like you’re trying to convince yourself more than him. “I have a boyfriend.”

"I know" He says, now standing up from the bed, towering over you but giving you the space he can sense you need.

You stand, even though your knees are shaking, and walk him to the door. This time, he doesn’t try to touch you. Doesn’t offer anything. 

"I'll see you around" Pedri offers a simple goodbye, as if what just happened hadn't happened.

Then he steps out, and the door closes behind him with a soft, final click.

You're alone.

You're alone in the dark, in a too-quiet apartment, wearing the shirt of a boy you shouldn’t have touched.

You sink down onto the floor again, pressing your forehead to your knees.

You’re not crying.

You’re just breathing. Heavy. Shaky.

Trying to feel something that isn’t shame.

⋆｡˚

It’s been weeks.

Long enough for the ache to dull, but not long enough to forget. Long enough for you to convince yourself it was just a moment, a mistake. Long enough for Pedri to stop expecting a message that never came.

Now we're just outside of town

The bar is small, tucked on the edge of town, just far enough from home to feel different. Less familiar. It’s loud tonight. Low lights, music humming from old speakers, half a dozen conversations layered over each other. Pedri’s halfway through his drink, leaned back in a corner booth with a few of your mutual friends, when the door swings open. A small bell signalling an arrival.

He doesn’t even look up at first.

But then someone says your name, and he hears it for the first time in over a month.

He lifts his gaze slowly.

And there you are.

and you're making your way down

Tight jeans. Black heels. Hair down. Unbelievable like always.

The taste of your lips and the smell of your skin comes flooding back. The warmth of your body pressed against his. He shifts in his seat, adjusting his baggy jeans in the process.

Then he remembers the way you pushed him away with trembling hands, and the sound of you saying no. And the reason why. Emilio, the guy you're still with. The one who still has no idea about the kiss with one of the world's greatest footballers, and the way it made you feel more alive than you ever had before.

She's got a boyfriend anyway

She's got a boyfriend anyway

Pedri takes another sip of his Estrella Galicia.

You hadn't noticed him yet, too busy speaking with your friend to really look around the bar.

But then it happens.

Your eyes find his.

And for a second, the whole bar falls away.

No music. No voices. It's all dulled to a ringing sound. Just you and him, across a room filled with people who don’t know a thing about what happened between you. People who don't know that in this moment it felt like a snap of lightning once again.

His mouth goes dry.

You don’t smile. Don’t wave. But you don’t look away, either.

Not right away. You're unsure how to act.

Then, the mutual friends he's sitting with see you and they call you over to the booth. You have no choice but to walk over there and join them. Your friend’s hand is warm at your back, steering you toward the booth like this isn’t the worst idea in the world.

Your legs carry you on instinct, even though your mind is screaming to turn around, to leave the bar. This is wrong, being in a room with him is wrong. You and Emilio are better now, a good spell of your relationship.

Pedri watches you come closer, and he can't stop himself from looking you up and down.

You slide into the booth, taking the empty space directly across from him. It’s too close, you think. It's not close enough, he thinks.

"Hola," one of the guys says, nudging you. "Didn’t think you were coming out tonight."

"Change of plans," You smiled with a shrug.

You avoid Pedri's eyes and he can tell that you are. You avoid them because you're scared that if you look into them while this close you won't be able to look away. You're scared that if he looks at you he will realise that ever since that night, you haven't been able to kiss Emilio without feeling like you're lying. Without feeling like something is burning under your skin like a sickness.

You give your friend your drinks order and she goes up to the bar with one of your other friends.

Across from you, Pedri leans forward just slightly, elbow resting on the table now. “So how’s everything been?” he asks casually, but his tone is too neutral, too polite.

You don’t look at him. “Good,” you lie. “Everything is good.”

“Glad to hear it,” he says in a tone that tells you he is anything but glad. He leans back against the booth, sipping again on his bottle of beer. His jaw ticking like it was on the journey back from the beach.

You finally risk a glance. And that’s your mistake.

Your throat tightens.

You break the eye contact, fast. Drink again. Swallow the lump rising behind your voice.

Conversation continues. Music hums. Someone suggests another round and people start getting up.

You make to follow them, desperate for air.

But Pedri doesn’t move.

And just as you pass by him, his voice cuts through the noise. Quiet. Careful.

“I’m just asking,” he says, still not looking at you. “You kissed me. You stopped it. You said it was wrong. So what is this? Just easier to pretend?”

You turn slowly, stare at him like he’s dared to speak the one thing you’ve spent weeks trying not to admit to yourself.

“I told you it was a mistake,” you say, voice low, cold. “Don't try to make it something more.”

He meets your eyes, and this time, there’s no gentleness.

“It didn’t feel like a mistake.”

Silence.

Thick and final.

Someone calls your name. You look away, jaw tight, chest aching.

You don’t answer him.

You just walk to the bar pretending that what he just said didn’t just rip you open all over again, and didn't just make you contemplate you whole relationship.

Pedri watches you walk to the bar, thinking about the sway of your hips and how much he wants you. How he knows that you're meant for him and no one else. He takes another drink.

She's got a boyfriend anyway

She's got a boyfriend anyway

You in your high heels any day

You in your skinny jeans anyway

The night wears on.

You don’t speak to him again. Not directly.

But you feel him. In the way your skin prickles when he laughs at something someone says. In the way your pulse skips when he stands, brushes behind you too close on the way to the bar. In the way you know, without looking, that his eyes are following you every time you move.

You think about leaving. A dozen times.

But you don’t.

Because part of you wants to feel strong enough to sit across from him and not fall apart. To prove to yourself that what happened that night doesn’t own you. That you’re still the one in control.

But you’re not.

Because when your eyes meet his one last time. When the night has thinned out, you still feel the pull. That ache of undeniable yearning. From you or him, you can't even tell anymore.

All you know is that it's there and it's breathing. And that you can't stop thinking about when you kissed him, and how much you want to feel that again and again and again.

But then Emilio’s name lights up your phone screen.

You stare at it, thumb hovering over the answer button. You don’t move.

And across the room, Pedri watches your face flicker with doubt.

He knows.

He knows you’ll answer. He knows you’ll go home to a boy who doesn’t know the way your mouth tastes when you want something so badly it hurts.

He knows he won’t stop you.

Because he can’t.

Because he's not the kind of man who breaks things that don’t belong to him.

When you stand and leave, you don't look at him again because you know it would make you stay.

Instead, you walk out into the dark with your heart feeling like it's slowly being broken over and over. Slowly and steadily because you can't decide between what you have and know, and what you want and need.

but wanting isn’t stable.

and what life could you have with him? Spanish superstar whose face is on every billboard in the city, who has every girl wanting him, who's always away in other countries. Whatever it is that thrums between you, it can't be love. It must be infatuation and infatuation always dies out.

Pedri will find another woman.

And you will keep living the same life you have lived for the past two years.

You two could never actually exist, and you've got a boyfriend anyway.

౨ৎ

You were lounging at home while the game played in the background. Türkiye v Espana. A World Cup qualifier which you knew Spain were always going to dominate, and still when your boyfriend Pedri scored the opening goal in just six minutes you couldn't stop yourself from jumping from the couch in joy. Your herbal tea spilling onto the dark wood floors of your apartment in the process.

The rest of the game he continued to play like the magician he was. Every pass, every dribble, every movement. It was all perfection and he looked good doing it. The rain pouring down from the heavens above making the yellow of his jersey stick to his sculpted torso as if he was a stone carving rather than a living breathing human. You'd be lying if you said that it wasn't making you hot, that it wasn't making you purr with a familiar longing. The same longing you always got when you watched him play. Messy hair, sweat covered forehead and his panting breath. It reminded you of other times you saw him like that. The times when he was tangled up naked in your bedsheets with his face nuzzled into your neck whispering sweet nothings over and over.

But that's not what's happening now. No. He's in a different country. Miles away and he wouldn't be home until early morning so you would have to suffer in the crippling hunger.

In the 68th minute he was subbed off, and you'd be lying if you said your interest in the game didn't drop right then but you couldn't be blamed. Spain were 6-0 up, it wasn't like they were going to lose. So instead, you turn your focus to your phone and send your boyfriend a message.

you look handsome in the rain

oh, and nice goals.

He wouldn't reply, not for a while. He had the rest of the game and post match media duties to handle. By that point you would be asleep, wrapped up in a bed that felt to big without him in it. You toss your phone down on the couch, screen down, though your eyes linger on the lock screen of him shirtless at the beach for moments longer than needed.

The game drifts on behind you, all crowd noise and Spanish dominance. You stretch your legs out across the cushions and sigh, reaching for the blanket draped over the arm of the couch. It still smells faintly of his cologne and that just makes things worse.

You flick the TV off mid-commentary. The silence settles heavy over the room, broken only by the steady tick of rain tapping against the narrow paned windows. In a weird way that made you feel closer to Pedri than you actually were, as if bonded by the downpour.

You take a warm shower because the apartment feels cold without him. You scrub your skin with coconut scented exfoliant, and then run a razor over the growing hairs. Once you leave the steamed glass chamber, you delicately moisturise with the same scent of coconut. Then, you put on your small black lace lined pyjamas. A subtle reward for when he gets home. They're his favourite. Always the ones he rips from your skin because he can't help himself.

Then, you do your evening skincare as the night sky twinkles outside your bedroom window. When the clock strikes just before midnight you crawl under soft the cream covers of your bed. The pillow bedside you still holds the indent from where Pedri had slept the night before. You stare at it for a beat, the ache of missing him so heavy in the centre of your chest. Then you relax into your own spot, pulling out your phone and doomscrolling through various social media apps.

And then, just as you're about to put it down on your bedside table, it buzzes with the message you had been waiting for. A message that comes sooner than expected.

Pedro

yeah. I looked good. you're allowed to say it louder.

You smile, his boyish arrogance always having a charming effect on you.

then a second message comes through

I can't wait to come home to you. been thinking about you since I left.

You flush, your stomach flipping. You bite your lip, rolling onto your side, fingers already tapping back a reply even though your heart's thudding a little too fast for this late at night.

you better be quick then. i’m cold and lonely and the bed misses you. So do I. desperately.

You hesitate before you send it, not because you don’t mean it but because you know exactly what it’ll do to him. And maybe, just maybe, you want to do that to him. Just a little. The way he does it to you every time he steps onto a pitch, every time he smiles that knowing, crooked smile. The one that makes the corners of his eyes crease. Every time he scores and lifts his shirt, not quite enough to be obvious, but just enough that you know who it’s for. Showing off his abs that sometimes still have the scratch marks of your nails imprinted on them.

The message delivers, the read receipt follows just seconds after. The wait for a reply feels like an eternity.

You picture him still in the locker room, hair wet from the rain and the shower after, towel slung around his waist, scrolling through his phone with that low smirk and tired eyes.

You hesitate. Then, a second message:

i’m wearing the pyjamas you like. The lace ones.

He doesn’t reply right away, but when he does, the tone has shifted.

Pedro

don’t tell me things like that when I'm not even in the fucking country.

You feel the flutter between your thighs. That warmth of desire. Even miles away he can still turn you on more than anyone else ever has.

You reply with one final message.

just hurry home

And then, you put your phone on the nightstand and roll over to sleep. It's hard when all that consumes your mind is the thought of him inside you but you know the sooner you sleep, the sooner he will be home.

Your hand drifts to your chest, tracing slow circles as you imagine him just hours away, wrapped in his own restless thoughts, counting down the minutes until he’s home. You picture the way he’ll pull you close, how his lips will press against your skin, the heat of him pressing into you until the cold and loneliness vanish.

Sleep finally tugs at you, soft and inevitable, but even as you drift off, his words echo in your mind. “Don’t tell me things like that when I’m not even in the country.” The rough edge to it, the rawness, the hunger. The desire behind it.

And tomorrow when he comes through the door, it will all come out.

⋆｡˚

The clock blinks 5:36am when the door finally clicks open. The quiet of the early morning wraps around the apartment like a blanket. Pedri enters, carefully putting his suitcase in the hallway. His spain training tracksuit hangs loose on his waist, the hood of the jacket firmly up.

All he can think about is you.

You laying alone in your bed. Alone.

You in the lace pyjamas. Untouched.

He slips down the hall, silent, unzipping his jacket and letting it fall to the floor. The air is cool, but his blood is running hotter than ever before.

The door of your bedroom is already cracked open, expecting his entrance at any moment. That hunger growls within his gut, coiling tighter and tighter. In that lust was also the swallowing ache of missing you so deeply. It has been less that twenty four hours and still that was too long for you to be apart.

He pushed the door open slowly. The soft glow from the hallway casts a faint line of light across the bed.

And there you are.

Sprawled out in the centre of the sheets like some kind of dream he’s walked straight into. One leg bent, blanket barely covering your lower half, your cami strap twisted off your shoulder. The cut so low on your chest, breast threatening to spill out. Your lips slightly parted in sleep. The lace clings to your curves in the way he’d imagined far too many times over the last twenty four hours alone.

His sweatpants tighten at the sight, at just the image of you. And the knowledge that under that thin black lace, you’re warm and soft and waiting just for him.

He exhales slowly, controlling the sharp edge of desire for just a second longer. Then, he steps out of his sweatpants and leaves them crumpled on the floor. Peels off his training shirt and closes the distance between you like a man possessed.

The mattress dips under his weight and causes you to stir sleepily. You feel the warmth of his hands when his slides his arms around the bare stretch of your torso and he pulls you in with urgency.

When you feel it, him, poking into you from behind, you're suddenly wide awake. Your boyfriend's lips ghost against your shoulder. Teasing.

You stir, a soft sigh escaping from your puffy lips. Your body leans into his out of instinct rather than choice.

“Pedro…” you murmur, and it’s all breath and warmth and sleep-heavy affection.

“I’m here, mi vida,” he whispers into your skin.

"You played so good tonight" you breathe as his hands seem to find themselves inching lower and lower down your leg.

"Si." He whispered into your ear, nibbling slightly at the lobe. "You like watching me play?"

His words were low and sultry, holding more meaning.

"Si" You moan.

His hand finds your bare thigh beneath the blanket, fingertips dragging slowly upward, brushing just under the hem of your shorts. The lace scrapes delicately against your skin, and he groans, low and guttural.

“I’ve been thinking about you all damn night. Couldn’t even focus in the locker room. All I could see was you in this stupid lace"

You finally open your eyes, turning your head slightly to look back at him. Your expression is soft, a little dazed, but unmistakeable with hunger. “Pedro, why are you still talking?”

And that was all it took.

He growls against your skin, and suddenly he’s rolling you onto your back, lips crashing into yours with none of the earlier restraint. His hand slides up your thigh, pushing your leg open as he settles between them, grinding his hips into yours with measured force. The friction is enough to make your breath hitch, your fingers curling into his bare shoulders.

His hands are everywhere at once, hungry and possessive, tugging your cami up and over your head, throwing the lace to the floor. His mouth finds your chest, tongue flicking over your nipple before sucking it between his lips, teeth grazing lightly. You arch, gasp, grabbing at his hair.

“Missed this,” he mumbles into your coconut scented skin. “Missed you.”

Your shorts are next. He drags them down painfully slow, kissing every new inch of skin he reveals. When he finally gets them off, he tosses them aside and looks up at you like you’re the only thing he’s ever wanted in his life. He looks at you like you're the only girl he's ever seen.

“You’re already wet,” he groans, fingers gliding through your folds. “You knew what you were doing when you sent that message.”

You bite your lip, trying not to moan as he sinks one finger, then another, into you.

"I just wanted to make sure you were ready for your reward for playing so well when you got home" You blush, acting all coy and innocent.

He doesn’t waste time. Not anymore.

One last deep kiss filled with passion and innate desire. Then he lines himself up, the tip of him slick and throbbing as he presses against your entrance.

“Say it,” he murmurs, his voice shaking with restraint. “Say you want me.”

You reach up, fingers threading into his messy hair. “I need you, Pedro.”

He slides in with one long, slow thrust—deep, filling, perfect. He's breathless from the feeling of being inside you. You're breathless from being stretched around him. His forehead leans down and presses against yours, then it drops to your shoulder where he bite and sucks to keep himself from coming undone completely.

“Fuck. you feel like home,” he whispers, breath hot against your neck.

Then he starts to move.

Deliberate, unrelenting strokes. Slow enough to savor, hard enough to make you tremble. His hands are tight on your waist, his mouth dragging hot kisses across your collarbone, your jaw, your lips.

The sounds. Your soft whimpers, the wet slide of your bodies, his gritted curses in Spanish. They fill the room like music. He loses himself in the way your body takes him, wraps around him, squeezes him so tight he can barely breathe.

And when you both come, it’s a messy, breathless, desperate thing. His name an echo on your lips, your nails dug deep in his back, his face tired and buried in your neck as he spills into you with a groan that sounds like worship.

"I should score more often" He smiles.

And you burst out laughing, finally bringing your arms around him to just hug him. To just inhale the scent of him.

You fall asleep beside each other in the early morning light. Naked and entangled.

And at peace. In love.

౨ৎ

3-2. That was the final score. And for the first time you were there for such an occasion. For such a special moment. I mean sure, you had been there for league games and you held them dear to your heart but this, this was different. This was historic. An El Clasico final full of tension, rivalry and pride. The stadium filled with the kind of electricity that made your skin prickle.

You had been seated somewhere near the halfway line, with your scarf wrapped tightly around your neck. Then he had scored in the 28th minute and you jumped to your feet so quickly, with a wail of unfiltered joy.

The entire Barcelona end of the stadium erupted, but in that moment all Pedri thought about was you. His eyes finding yours, and a beaming smile upon his sweat stricken face. He'd scored because his good luck charm was in the audience, under the warm floodlights looking like an angel sent directly from heaven.

After that, it had felt like the longest game of football of your life. Real Madrid were back in it, and then in the lead and it looked like it was going to be them leaving the stadium with a trophy in hand. But Ferran, at the last minute before the final whistle blew, was able to equalise.

Then, in extra time. Minute 116. Barcelona took the lead. The ball slammed into the net and the stadium erupted in disbelief and euphoria. You didn't even see the celebration; you were doubled over in your seat, hands pressed to your face, half laughing, half crying in disbelief.

Then, the final whistle blew and you thought you could relax. But the chaos came.

All anger and temper. And red cards flying. The Real Madrid bench threw stuff on the pitch. And it was a huddled mess of flying limbs but you didn't care. You were watching Pedri and he was watching you. Away from all the mess. Just you and him. Smiling ear to ear. He mouthed 'I love you' and your cheeks flushed, you mouthed it back then bit your lip trying to hide your elation.

Once it had all calmed down, the hard fought trophy was brought out decorated in ribbons of garnet and blue. And the Barcelona players were presented with their medals. And the confetti flew, and after what felt like an age friends and family were allowed on the pitch to celebrate. Alongside all the media that were circling like vultures looking for every photo opportunity.

You walked down the stadiums concrete stairs and Pedri watched, waiting beside the sponsorship boards with the gold medal glinting around his neck. His natural blush that you loved so deeply prominent on his cheeks. He hadn't taken his eyes off you since you began to walk down the stairs. Your hair half clipped back, a trench coat covering your navy and white polka dot minidress and the FC Barcalona scarf thick around your neck. So beautiful, and elegant.

When you finally reached the bottom step, he held out his hand for you to take and you did. Feeling that burn when you touched him. He helped you over the boards and onto the pitch, then wrapped his arm around your shoulder. You grabbed his hand which dangled over, leaning your head into his chest.

"Congratulations, my love" You pressed a kiss on his cheek.

"Thank you bebe" He grinned.

And it's like you're in your own little world. Walking the pitch wrapped in each others arms as the confetti pours and loyal Barcelona fans chant in the stadium still.

The camera's were clicking around you - relentless, hungry. But even as they swarmed, Pedri just pulled you closer. Subtle protectiveness. With one hand he waved to the crowd, and with the other he soothed you.

One of the club staff passed you both briefly and held out the trophy to Pedri.

"You guys want a photo?" He asked, and you grew shy. This was your first time down on the field as a wag. As the star players girlfriend.

"Si." Pedri speaks for you both. He grabs the trophy with his hands, leaving your shoulder bare from his touch.

He hoisted the Copa del Rey with ease, the weight of the silver glinting beneath the stadium lights. The ribbons of garnet and blue swayed gently in the breeze, like the heartbeat of a city. You stood close, barely breathing as he shifted the trophy in one arm and reached for your waist with the other.

“Come here,” he said, voice soft, low enough that only you could hear.

You stepped into him, your body folding into his side like you were always meant to be there. You placed your hand on one of the handles. The metal of the trophy was cool against your skin, but Pedri’s touch was warm. You were anchored in a moment you never thought you’d be part of.

You heard the clicks again. A frenzy of cameras capturing what they had all been waiting for. Some, however, were just the team photographers capturing the moment so that they could send the photos to Pedri in the morning.

Pedri looked down at you, lips twitching into a grin that held more pride than the medal around his neck. “Smile,” he whispered, and you did. With flushed cheeks of rose, you smiled for the camera. You were happier than you had ever been. In this moment, with him by your side. You felt as though you were infinite. Like nothing could ever come between you and Pedri.

When the camera lowered, Pedri leaned down to press a kiss to your temple. Not for show. Not for the press. Just for you.

"I want one of just you" He said, and you looked at him with furrowed brows. Confused.

"You want one of me and the trophy?" You asked like you hadn't heard him correctly.

"Si!" He said, pulling his phone from his pocket and opening up the camera app.

You blinked at him, still stunned by the request, your hands brushing nervously down the front of your dress. “Pedri, I’m not—this is your moment,” you said softly, half-laughing, half-protesting.

But he just shook his head with that boyish grin you adored. “It’s our moment. Now pose,” he said, stepping back a few feet, phone poised like a seasoned photographer.

You hesitated, glancing down at the massive silver trophy in your hands. It was heavier than it looked. You looked up at him one more time, still uncertain, and he gave you that look. The one that always made your knees a little weaker. The one that told you to trust him.

So you stood there, shy and glowing, with the stadium behind you and confetti still drifting down like snow in spring. You wrapped your fingers tighter around the handles of the trophy, holding it at your waist, then glanced into the lens of his phone.

“Perfect,” he said under his breath.

The photo was taken, and you immediately stepped forward to see it. He didn’t let you.

“Wait,” he said, tapping the screen. “Sending it to myself first, in case you make me delete it.”

You rolled your eyes, laughing now. “You’re being ridiculous.”

You handed the trophy over to another player, and their family. Letting them experience the same moment you just had while Pedri fiddled with his phone. Once he was done, he pulled you in again with no care about who was watching. He kissed you full on the lips, soft but unyielding. The kind of kiss that makes time slow down and hearts race.

When you got home that night, you realised what he had been doing on his phone back on the pitch. He had been posting the photo of you and the trophy with a simple caption of a love heart.

Because that was all that needed to be said.

Love.

౨ৎ

Dortmund.

Dortmund was bliss.

Dortmund was your youth, the place you blossomed and the place you first found love with him.

You were eighteen, barely out of girlhood. Your room was still painted baby pink, and your lingerie was still stitched with delicate bows of innocence.

And Jude, well Jude was golden.

A golden boy, with golden skin and a golden future. One which he made you believe you were in.

You met on a rain filled afternoon in the middle of April, the clouds were grey and gloomy, the rain on the pavement made the city smell of damp and earth. You were working at the front desk of a small cafe, one which was tucked behind a bookstore that most of thr tourists missed. He ordered a hot chocolate, with extra whipped cream and his brother laughed at him. Then, they tucked themselves into the booth away from the public eye, not that there were many people in the cafe that day.

All that shift, you felt his eyes on you. When you were collecting empty cups and wiping down tables. When you were refilling the baked goods and pouring coffee.

When he left, he left his number and a note on a napkin.

-y/n, call me

Jude

And since that day, it had seemed your world had never stopped being dizzying.

The early days were sweet. Secret. Sacred. A special sort of magic that only exists between two teenagers falling in love for the first time. Walks through the cobbled streets under the warm glow of street lamps, sitting in the empty stands of the stadium after training just to talk about nothing. He'd hold your hand so carefully, so delicately and he'd kiss you with so much raw love.

It was easy back then, light. You fell in love with him before the world did.

But the golden days were just gilded.

Rot lay beneath.

The fame came quickly, and with it came the late nights and the turned off location. The texts slowed, as did the affection and the effort.

You started to see glimpses of a boy that didn't belong to you, a boy so different than the one you were in love with. The Jude in the club surrounded by the bottle girls in scandalous clothing, the Jude in tabloid headlines with body lingering close to someone that wasn't you as he partied in Ibiza.

The boy who had once kissed your forehead and caressed the freckles on your face became the man that called you clingy for asking why he had come home at four am. He became mean in moments and then unbelievably loving in the next.

He would go two days without saying anything to you, just to show up at your door with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and telling you everything you wanted to hear. You believed it because you were eighteen and so madly in love, blinded by the sweet days before he was consumed by the money and the fame.

You failed to realised he had changed so much because it changed overtime.

The jealousy grew like mold under his skin. Infecting him slowly before it began to grow on you like rot.

He would hate when you posted photos without him in them, he hated when you couldn't text back right away and he especially hated when other men would look at you.

His jealousy would wrap around your ankles and pulled you under every time he would whisper, "you know it's you and me forever, right?", then he would be gone to the night for a few days.

And you would wait.

You would stay for way to long because you were blinded by how good it once was. You told yourself it could get back there, that you could fix this.

But eventually, loving him blurred into losing yourself. Everyone around you saw that, they saw the way you got thinner and the way your smile vanished. You paled. You lost the sparkle in your eye. And you couldn't go on.

So, you broke up. You left him.

But it never really ended.

Every time you were moving on, he would come back with false promises and declarations of love. He would sleep with you, make you feel things no one else could and then once he was satisfied that you were still attached to him, he would leave.

You used to think love was supposed to hurt a little, that ache in your chest and the longing. That was meant to happen, right?

But eventually, after the constant back and forth, it was no longer hurt. It was hollowing.

He’d show up at midnight, a hoodie pulled over his head, the smell of cologne and cold night air clinging to his skin. He’d kiss you like he missed you, like you were the only home he ever knew. And for a few fleeting hours, you'd let yourself believe he was yours again -- the boy from Dortmund, the boy who left his number on a napkin like it meant something.

But it never lasted.

In the morning, he’d be gone and he left behind crumpled sheets, lipstick stains, and a quiet that screamed.

You knew it wasn’t love anymore -- at least not the kind you deserved.

It was dependency, it was history, it was heartbreak dressed up in nostalgia. Each time he left, he took a piece of you with him and slowly but surely, there was no more of you left to give him.

And the sickest part was -- Jude knew. He knew how much you loved him, and that you would always come back to him. That made him careless about you. Reckless, unloving but possessive in a way that didn't feel romantic but suffocating. You were just he safety net, his comfort.

So you left. You didn't tell him where you were going. You didn't want him to chase you.

Paris.

Paris was refreshing.

A new city where Jude didn't exist, a city where his face wasn't plastered everywhere.

And a few months later, you got the text from a friend.

Jude had left Dortmund, and had gone to Madrid.

And those streets in Germany you used to walk down hand in hand, now only existed in your memories. Your eighteen year old ghosts were all that haunted them.

You were sat on your windowsill in Paris when you got the message, the city lights twinkled below in a way that reminded you of the lights in Dortmund. You arms wrapped around your knees in the big oversized jumper as winter began to settle into the city. You didn't cry, but it did feel like the whole world had shifted -- he was gone, Jude was really gone.

Both of you now in different cities in different countries, and Dortmund lay in the past.

Dormant and untouchable.

Over a year later.....

It was early spring in Paris, the city moved in a quiet hum as the sun made it's first real appearance as the winter wore off. The trees along the Seine were beginning to bloom with lush green leaves and sway in the light breeze.

You were sat at a small table near the edge of the river, one leg crossed over the other and a leather bomber jacket draped over your shoulders. Your lipstick stained the coffee cup a deep red, and a lit cigarette was held firm between your fingers as you enjoyed your lunch break.

You were twenty one now, and you had lived in the French capital for long enough to look like a local. You knew the cobbled streets like the back of your hand, you spoke the language fluently.

Your boyfriend sits across from you, wearing rayban sunglasses and his dark hair pushed back. His olive skin glowing under the sun, his hand rubbing across the stubble on his chin as he laughed at something you said. He wasn't a footballer, but a business advisor -- a very good one, with top clients all over the city and its suburbs. He didn't chase fame, only wealth and that wealth he wanted to spend on you. He was the kind of man that was chivalrous, he opened the doors for you, and he remembered how you took your coffee always. You never walked on the road side and got forbid you ever had to pull out your own chair.

You didn't love him yet. Not quite. But you can feel it budding inside you like a flower about to bloom, it's slow and familiar in the best way. The calmness and the steadiness of the fall, the love that didn't ache but tingled.

You took a drag of your cigarette, exhaling to the sky before meeting his eyes again across the table.

Charles is his name. So simple and classic, like everything about him.

He reaches for your hand, just to touch you because he likes the feeling of your hand in his. You let him take it because he touch feels like the warm of fire on your skin. He begins to ask you about work, and you answer with eagerness. You loved your job, it was in a publishing house and it paid better than the cafe job back home in Germany.

Although, Germany didn't really feel like home anymore. Paris had become yours, no longer just a city you fled too but the city that became you. This city didn't hold the ache of painful memories but the light of an unwritten future. Right now, that future tasted like a handsome man, a dark coffee and a cigarette.

You smile contently, leaning back into the chair and watching the river flow. The Eiffel tower in the distance, only the top being visible over the beige brick buildings.

"J'ai une question pour toi," (I have a question for you) Charles says, pulling you out of your gazing.

"Oui," You nod your head with a smile, signalling him to continue.

'Il y a un gala de charité dans quelques semaines à Cannes. Je vous invite à me rejoindre," (There is a charity gala in a few weeks, in Cannes. I want you to join me), He said, his finger drawing rings about the rim of his coffee cup.

You cock your eyebrow and tilt your head at him, "Charity or business?"

Charles laughs, low and hoarse, smooth like caramel. Then he holds his hands up like he had been caught, "You got me, mais je te veux là" (you got me, but I want you there)

"Qui sera là ?," (who will be there?), You ask.

"Des hommes d'affaires, des hommes d'affaires très riches. Des célébrités, des mannequins, vous savez, les coupables habituels." (businessmen, very rich businessmen. Some celebrities, models, you know the usual culprits.)

"alors j'aurai besoin d'une robe," (then i'll need a dress), You grin, giving him your answer.

"You can have whatever you want, ma cherie"

You blush under his words, and his thick french accent. He's so perfect and you struggle to understand how you got so lucky. He takes care of you in a way no one else has, and he made you realise that you were capable of loving after him -- after Jude.

-

The riviera air smelt of salt and jasmine, the dusk sky above bled in shades of rose and gold over the lapping waves of the blue sea. Cannes was like a dream, the warm sun setting but still lingering in the air.

You followed Charles around the venue, your arm linked into his. Camera's flashed in all directions, capturing actors and actresses alongside billionaires and their heirs. You felt out of place, being surrounded by such luxury and beauty. You felt like you stood out, but Charles had assured you that your were merely paranoid and that you looked the part.

The dress he had bought you was the nicest thing to ever touch your body. White and satin. Sleek and elegant. It was sculpted to your frame like it had been stitched on it. The neckline dipped low, and the back was open. A delicate white stole lay over your forearms and around your back. Your hair was pulled up into a styled up do, one which left the nape of your neck bare and able to show of the expensive diamond necklace Charles had gifted you.

Charles took your hand as you ascended up the stairs and into the grand ballroom where the big crowd waited. He looked every bit a Parisian socialite. The perfectly tailored black tuxedo with the matching prada bow tie. He greeted the staff by name, charmed a sommelier on the way inside and whispered how beautiful you looked into your ear as he guided you to the bar.

Inside, the gala was magnificent. Chandeliers rained golden light over everything, catching the glass of champagne flutes and the expensive fabric of designer ballgowns. A string quartet played elegantly in the background. Waiters moved through the crowd like shadow.

After getting a drink, Charles guided you to the table you were seated at. Some of his work colleagues already there and waiting. His hand was placed protectively on the small of your back in a way that made you feel a mix of desired and adored. Charles pulled out the chair, and you sat down ready to enjoy the night ahead.

And you didn't know, you didn't sense it because you had moved on. You weren't nineteen and obsessed anymore. You couldn't feel his eyes on you, you didn't notice him across the room watching your every move like he was seeing a ghost of him.

Jude.

He hadn't wanted to come, it was a club obligation. Something about good press and even better exposure. So, here he was, in a black suit and a heavy rolex on his wrist while he drank a glass of champagne. Kylian was talking nonsense about the models on the dance floor in his ear but he wasn't focussed on that.

He was focussed on you, and whoever the smugly dressed, gel haired man on your arm was.

so i heard you found somebody else.

and at first, i thought it was lie

His girl -- or at least the girl who had been his. The only girl that had ever been his. His first love, the one that left and never came back. The one that never responded or answered his messages. The girl whose siblings refused to talk to him.

His girl who is here, working the room so effortlessly like it was where you belonged. Chin tilted up slightly, shoulders back. A soft smile on your plump lips, a smile he hadn't seen in so long. You're confident and calm, and your hand in looped around his arm. Some man with olive skin and a stupidly well fitting suit which let Jude know he was a man of business because only businessmen care about suits like that. He was the kind of man that looked like he could give you everything Jude never could, older and more mature. He hated that.

and you.

You looked ethereal.

Mature and shaped. The white satin clinging to your skin in a way that shouldn't be turning him on as much as it is. Your bare back exposed under the golden light, and he can tell from the definition that you have been in the gym. Your skin was glowing across your collarbones, like oil was brushed upon it. The expensive Cartier necklace was glinting in the light. Jude knew it was Cartier because he had seen it in the shop recently, and he also knew that it cost double your yearly salary at the cafe. He doubted you had had such a big promotion since moving away that you now had spare ten of thousands just lying around to be spent. He didn't doubt that the businessman on your arm did.

Something like jealousy simmers under his skin, heating the collar around his neck. But how can he still feel jealousy over a girl he hadn't seen in over a year.

Jude looked at you again, Kylian still chatting nonsense in his ear as he picked up two glasses of champagne from the waitress and downed them both. He would need to be drunk if he was going to be in a room with you and be able to cope.

There was no trace of the girl in Dortmund, the one who would cry into the sleeves of his hoodies when he got back drunk at four in the morning. No evidence of that softness he was guilty of exploiting. You'd hardened but not in bitterness, but rather confidence. Like you knew you were better without him, like you to never let anyone treat you like he did ever again.

i don't want your body

but i hate to think about you with somebody else.

Jude watched as you sat down at a table beside the man. He watched as he leaned in close and said something into your ear. You giggled and then blushed. Rose flush tinting your cheeks. Then he kissed your bare shoulder.

And suddenly, Jude wasn't breathing because he's hearing your laugh in his head, the laugh you only gave when you were happy. The laugh you used to give to him, in tangled bed sheets or in the passenger seat of his car.

our love has gone cold

your intertwining your soul somebody else

You laughed again, this time leaning into the shoulder of the man next to you. Jude watched as that same man smiled from ear to ear, like he had earned it. Like he’d worked for that laugh and that blush, and maybe he had. Maybe he bought you flowers after long days at work, or made coffee just right, or didn’t disappear for three days without a word and come back smelling like perfume that wasn’t yours.

Jude swallowed hard, adjusting his collar once again because he was remembering the way he treated you at the end. Like you were his personal play toy, one that he would toss to the side when he got bored or a new model would enter his dm's. It wasn't because he didn't love you, as hard as it is to believe, but he did love you. He was just too young, too rich, too famous and surrounded by other young footballers who partied hard and fucked harder. He wanted that, but he also wanted you to come back to. He wanted the best of both worlds and for a short while you let him get away with it, so he kept going and going until one day you vanished.

And now you're here.

And he feels like the boy in Dortmund again.

And he doesn't want to see anyone else with you, because he can't bare the thought that you're not his.

You'll always be his -- the most special girl in his life. His first love.

He grabbed another two flutes of champagne and drank them quickly trying to dull the feeling in his chest.

"Jesus, that's your fifth one in about ten minutes," Trent said, coming to stand beside him and Kylian.

Jude grimaced as he felt the burn down his throat.

He was still only watching you, letting trent's words float off him like water off a ducks back.

You adjusted the hairs on the man beside you's head, gently running your hands through the onyx strands. That got him wondering.

He wondered if you’d run your fingers through Charles’ hair the way you used to with his -- slowly, absently, while you talked about your day. He wondered if you still wore oversized jumpers to bed, if you still pressed cold feet against warm legs in the middle of the night, if you still danced barefoot in the kitchen light after coming home drunk from a night with your girls.

He wondered if that man knew you the way he did.

i don't want your body

but i'm picturing your body with somebody else

He wondered if that man knew the parts of you that at one time only he had ever touched. Did he make you feel as good as he once had? Did you bite just under his ear the same way you used to for him?

However, the worst part was Jude starting to realise he didn't really know you at all anymore.

You weren't that shy German girl anymore.

And yet he still wanted you all the same. He felt that pull in his chest to reclaim you, make you come back to him because he still loved you. He always would, but he couldn't give you the relationship you wanted. He still wanted to party, to fuck other woman in the bathroom stalls of exclusive nightclubs, to slide into model's dm's after a long day of training but he wanted you to be waiting for him when he wished to settle down.

You were his wife. All the others were just fun.

I don't want your body

I don't want your body

"Whose caught your eye, ey?," Trent said, jokingly because he didn't understand just who Jude was looking at.

"See her in the black dress," Jude nodded in your direction, and both Trent and Kylian followed his glare.

"Fit, but seems like she's got a fella lad," Trent laughed. Kylian with him.

"She's my ex girlfriend," Jude said with a crisp bluntness. The words almost painful to get off his tongue.

"What," Trent's head snapped to his friend in shock, "That's not y/n is it?" He asked because he had heard Jude mention you more than a few times in his life. The girl that he let get away, the one that he would eventually go back to as if you would just be sat waiting for him.

Jude just nodded.

"Fuck lad, that's heavy," Trent breathed out, slapping his best friend on the back.

Jude didn't have to speak again, the clench of his jaw said enough. He grabbed another champagne flute, finishing it off quickly. The alcohol swirled in his system making his skin hot and his feet sway. Tipsy but not drunk.

Trent gave him a once over, noticing his friends cold stare and clenched fists. "What're you gonna do, bro?,"

"She's my girl, always my girl," Jude's words were almost ominous, they even made Trent feel uncomfortable. How could the girl in black be his when she was being kissed and loved by another man?

"I don't know man. She looks happy," Trent offered.

"I've seen her happier," Jude nonchalantly replies.

Trent just rolls his eyes, he can't believe his friend. Out of all the women in this room, he wants the one who has moved on. He wants the only girl who he shouldn't have, but that was Jude. Selfish. The Golden Boy who always got what he wanted.

The night went on and still Jude's eyes were always on you.

His table was a couple away, he had a direct view of you but you still hadn't noticed him. You had been to entranced by Charles to even make note of what colour the carpet was, let alone look around the room.

But when you did, when you took a brief moment to glance around at the venue while Charles went to the bathroom, your whole world was rocked at the very foundations.

Your eyes caught his like a slap across the ballroom.

You blinked, your face instantly paled like you had seen a ghost because in a way you had. He had been dead to you since you left Dortmund, but now he was here and breathing and looking at you with that same cheeky glint that you once fell in love with.

The air between you shifted. The music faded out into the background. Your hands began to tremble. You heart stuttered and your lungs seemed to forget how to fill.

Jude.

Sat across from you in a dark suit, with dark eyes and a dangerous smile. He didn't seem shocked to see you, in fact he looked like he had been waiting for you to notice him all night.

Your mouth hung slightly parted as you took him in.

He looked older, harder but it was still him.

The boy who once made you feel invincible.

The boy who then made you feel rotted to hollowness.

Your throat went dry.

You weren’t ready for this. You thought you were. You thought enough time had passed, enough therapy, enough Paris nights wrapped in the arms of someone who wasn’t him. But now, in one glance, it all came flooding back.

The napkin.

The cobbled streets of Dortmund.

Rain-soaked April.

His hands around your waist at three am.

Him saying you’re mine, always.

Him leaving. Then apologising just to leave again.

Suddenly, your white dress feels suffocating, and your skin is beginning to burn.

You want to look away. You want to pretend that this is just a strange coincidence, and that the man looking at you now is just a stranger that holds a familiar face. But you can't. You can't tear your eyes away from him. You can't breathe. Not properly. There isn't enough air.

Charles returns, his voice low, asking something you don’t hear. Your hand is still clenched around the edge of the table, nails digging into the smooth surface as you fight the sudden surge of emotions crashing into your chest. The sound of your heartbeat is deafening, almost drowning out the murmur of the party around you.

Charles notices the shift in your mood, his brow furrowing in concern. "What is it, mon amour?" he asks, following your gaze. He’s seen how you stiffened, how you were caught off guard.

You tear your eyes away from Jude, shaking your head. "Nothing," you murmur, but the lie feels thick in your throat. The sharp edge of truth digs into you as you glance back at Jude. He hasn’t moved. He’s still watching, still waiting. "I just need to get some air" You tell Charles as you cup he cheeks in the palm of your hands and place a delicate kiss on his lips.

Get someone you love?

Get someone you need?

With that, you stand from the table and quickly make your exit to the venues grand garden. You don't need to check if he's following. You know his ego well enough to know he will.

You walk briskly through the garden, the crunch of gravel beneath your heels the only sound that cuts through the pounding of your heart. The manicured hedges, the dim glow of lanterns strung in the trees, all seem to blur, fading into the background as you move further into the quiet solitude of the garden. You feel like running.

"This is the last place I ever expected to see you"

When you hear his voice, you wished you had.

You freeze. You don't turn to face him. Instead he comes and stands beside you. Close but not touching. Just enough that you can feel the heat of him. You move your hands behind your back, awkward and unsure of what to do with yourself. You never imagined you'd ever be this close to Jude again.

"Your boyfriend seems like a good guy" He says hoarsely but you know that possessiveness and that entitlement he still holds onto is behind every word.

"He buy you that necklace" He looks at you, but you keep facing forward. He chuckles at your stubbornness. "You used to hate diamonds"

That makes you snap.

"I hated them when they were bought as an apology for shitty behaviour. I hated them when they were a pity present" You finally look at him, and you see the smirk that lets you know you have given him what he wanted; a reaction. Anger was better than nothing. You wished he would just leave. Just walk away and let you breathe.

But that isn't Jude. He never gives up on you, not when he knows there is a chance you might actually have moved on.

“Is that what you think they were?” he asks, his voice almost too calm, too steady. “A pity present?”

You don't answer immediately. There's something in his posture, in the way he's watching you, that makes your chest tighten again. A betrayal of your body as it remembers who is standing in front of it. The man you once knew so well seems to be fading into someone else, someone more distant, harder to read. But that possessiveness? It’s still there. The thing that makes your skin crawl.

"I'm not that stupid anymore" You pause, "So don't treat me like I am"

His eyes flash with something. Whatever it was, it’s gone almost as quickly as it appeared. He shrugs, his gaze dropping to your neck for just a second, focusing on the necklace that is reflecting the golden light of the garden's lanterns.

That light is also reflecting from your glowing skin, Jude notices. He also notices the way the wind is catching in your hair and the fact that you look more etherial than you ever have before. And that you look like the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And you're not his.

You feel the weight of his gaze, and it presses down on you so deeply. He doesn’t say anything, but you can almost hear the thoughts racing through his head. He’s always had a way of making you feel like you were the centre of his world, like everything you did mattered, like the very air you breathed was the most important thing to him. 

You face away from him again, looking out to the Seaview ahead.

"I love you" He says. "Always will"

You keep facing forward, although your heart drops when you hear those three words.

"And I know you love me too" Jude faces forward as well.

You stay silent. Swallowing hard as your eyes begin to gloss.

"And in a few years I'll be ready to be a good man for you, a husband and a father and whatever you need me to be"

He says it so matter of factly, like it's already written and fated. Like it's easy.

And that's when you feel it - a shift in your abdomen.

"I love him" You release and a weight lifts from your shoulders. A weight you hadn't known existed until this moment. "And I'm happy. Truly happy."

I can't give you my soul

'Cause we're never alone

"It will pass" Jude says, "You and I are meant for each other, in every universe, in every life. It will always be us in the end"

"No."

I don't want your body

You're firm with him now, because he needs to actually hear you know. He needs to know that this time there is no coming back. In the middle of this garden in the middle of the French Riviera, that this will end. For good.

"You're my past, and he's my future" You croak out trying to remain strong.

Jude looks at you.

I hate to think about you with somebody else

And in his mind he can't fathom the fact that that he is about to watch you leave in the arms of a man that isn't him. But as you turn, and walk back into the gala he doesn't reach out to stop you because he cannot imagine a world where you don't come back to him.

You don't look back as you walk inside the gala once more, leaving to boy from Dortmund stood alone.

You'd looked back for him too many times.

Now forward was all you could see.

｡˚

You've never worn the Spanish red before.

At least not in the way you are now.

Especially not with the number 20 pressed between your shoulder blades in bold mustard yellow, and the countries crest stitched over your heart like it was yours.

Because it wasn't.

You're english, through and through. Born and raised under grey skies and run down estates. You spent summers deflated time and time again in the white of an England shirt at the local pub watching them lose game after game.

It's feel wrong supporting another country, but it feel right too.

Tonight, you are Spain because he is.

Pedri. Your boyfriend.

It still feels weird to say that because you're a no one. You work a normal job in a primary school on the outskirts of Barcelona teaching children english language, then you go home to your small apartment that you share with a roommate you found through an ad online. That same apartment that smells like damp mixed with woody musk, with the floorboards that creak with every step you take no matter how delicate you are, with the tap that constantly leaks and the fridge the buzzes in the tight kitchen.

Meeting him felt like fate. He wasn't meant to be there and neither were you. A school trip taking the children to Camp Nou stadium where another teacher dropped out and you filled the spot last minute. Pedri had stayed behind after training to have some physio and then a discussion with the coaches about how he could improve his game even further. You met in a random hallway after a strayed away from the group and needed to be found, at first he just glanced at you and offered a kind smile -- one that made your heart stop for a beat. Then he left out the door only to come jogging back two minutes later and asking for your number. You gave him it. He texted you that night asking you on a date. You said yes. And now you're here, four months into a relationship and in his jersey.

Your tucked into a seat amongst thousands of strangers in red and gold, scarves twisting in the air as the anticipation and excitement for the evening built. The scarf Pedri gave you is laying over your shoulders despite it being a summer evening in Germany. It smells like him, his cologne lingering on the knit fabric.

A smooth breeze twirls through your hair and you nervously tuck a strand behind your ear. Nerves flutter in your stomach. This was your first time watching him play for Spain, and you had only seen him play two games at Barcelona. The thunder of the crowds roar is loud, almost too loud. You're alone here and that only adds to your worries, but you couldn't miss this game for the world.

You kept smoothing your trembling hands over your jersey and the white mini skirt on your legs. You kept shifting on the hard plastic seat. The stadium lights burned so bright, the pitch below gleaming green with endless possibilities waiting upon it. You found you eyes lingering on the entrance from the tunnel. Waiting.

Warm ups were done. Kick off was merely ten minutes away. He would be coming out soon.

Was he this nervous too?

The lights dimmed for a few brief moments, and you held a breath following the crowd in standing to your feet.

Two sets of teams entered onto the pitch led by their captains. Red and white. Spain and France. This could be a game for the ages if what the pundits said was right. Two of the worlds best teams playing against each other for a chance to get to the final and achieve European glory. Defending champions against eager hopefuls.

You smiled when you saw him, feeling your dimples strongly in your freckled cheeks. His golden face was calm and focused, that slight crease in his eyebrows.

The fans around you chanted over and over, like the chants were a way to preach to the football gods above. Flags waved in all directions. The big screen above showing the players from both sides stood proudly in their nation's colours.

It flicked on the Pedri. He looked good. Manly even, the kind of masculine that made you purr. He looked like he was gifted from God, a perfect face and a perfect body. You watched as his lips parted, listening to the Spanish anthem with a lifted chin. He loved his country, so you loved it too because you loved him. You could feel the pride spilling from him even from far away in the stands. You had that same pride just from looking at him.

When the anthems faded, applause rippled through the stadium like a raging tide. The teams broke apart and kickoff was seconds away. You sat back in the uncomfortable seat, bringing your hands into a prayer before your mouth as you waited.

And then the whistle blew.

And they had 90 minutes to make something special.

Spain started strong, the ball moved fluidly because Pedri made it that way. They struck first too, in the twenty second minutes with a strike that sent both you and everyone around you into a frenzy. You jumped to your feet before you even realised, a betrayal to your home country, and cheered. You even hugged the random Spain fans that stood beside you, so caught up in the electric emotion that hung in the atmosphere.

Your eyes never left your boyfriend all first half.

You were so in awe at the way he orchestrated plays and controlled the tempo of the team. He played like it was poetry, like he was writing on the green turf. Never once did he look out of his depth, never once did he seem to feel the pressure. He played the same way he did in his backyard while you were inside preparing dinner watching him out of the kitchen window. Effortless and full of joy.

Just as you had sat back down in your seat, the crowd erupted again. Another goal for Spain. Only three minutes after the first one and France were beginning to look inexperienced and lethargic. Your boys in red and gold were running riot.

You shot up and cheered again, throwing your head back with a beaming smile.

The sun was setting in the sky above, making the moment feel even more magical and tender. You would remember this night for the rest of your life, no matter what happened with you and Pedri in the future.

When the halftime whistle blew, you watched Pedri walk off the pitch. His eyes scanning through the section of the crowd where he knew you were sitting with his thick dark brows furrowed on his sweat covered forehead. He was full of concern, until he saw you, and then is washed away. A tender smile and a quick wave sent your way causing your stomach to flip and flip, flutter and flutter with endless butterflies. You smiled back with your bottom lip bitten between your teeth trying to hide your blush, but it was useless. Your cheeks burned rouge and you tried to hide them, pulling up the scarf around your neck to cover yourself shyly. He laughed and then disappeared down the dark tunnel.

-౨ৎ ⋆｡˚-

The players reappeared around fifteen minutes later.

Your anxiety came back at the same time. You pulled your red scarf tighter around your neck now, the chill of a german night biting at the skin of your neck. Your eyes followed Pedri once again, because he was the only man you ever saw these days. No one else could ever compare. It made your chest tremble, watching someone you loved do what he was born to do on the biggest stages in the world.

You never imagined being a wag, you didn't think you would like the lifestyle and in a way you don't. That's why you kept your relationship so private, but this part -- the watching him dominate, and win, you loved that. It made you feel electric, like there were sparklers flickering under your skin.

In the fifty fourth minute, Lamine scored a penalty for Spain. 3-0, complete domination.

In the fifty fifth minute, your world was rocked.

It started in the midfield, with a flicked touch of sheer magic throwing the ball over his shoulder and down to the vibrant turf beneath him and then he was off. Lightening pace, a quick pass out wide, one that came back to him in the box. France left him unmarked, and that was there biggest mistake and your biggest joy.

He saw the gap. He didn't hesitate.

You held your breath watching him make the run in front of the goal. A hand clutched over your chest.

Then he took his shot. Slotting it into the net so easily.

Your boyfriend just scored.

You jumped up to your feet, screaming with excitement. Your eyes glossing over with tears because this was the first time you had ever seen him score in the flesh. Your heart burst with pride and love, maybe a little lust because he just looked so good when he was breathless and sweaty with a red jersey clinging to his chest.

You watched as his teammates swallowed him, all jumping on top of him. 4-0, two goals in two minutes. France couldn't come back now, surely not. They were dead in green waters.

When his teammates dispersed, he looked at you and that made your breath stop. He smiled so cheekily, giving you a wink and the blow of a kiss. Something so small, yet so meaningful. A confirmation that he was thinking of you down there on the field.

And he was.

Pedri had thought of you all game, not that you could know. But all he could think about was the fact that you were up in the stands watching him, his name sprawled across your back because you were his. He thought about the blush on your cheeks, your wide eyed awe when you looked at him.

When he scored, he did it for you because he loved you and he wanted to make you proud. So he looked for you, sending you a wink and a kiss. A silent confirmation, a secret between you both that that goal was just for you and no one else.

Pedri thought that was the game sealed, so did you.

You relaxed into your seat, anxiety leaving your body as you thought the game would calm now.

You thought wrong.

After the fourth goal, it was chaos.

Mbappe's penalty came only a couple minutes after your boyfriends goal.

4-1.

Then, much to your disappointment, Pedri was substituted off the pitch. You stood up and clapped him off with the rest of the red sea.

Lamine scored another goal quickly after.

Then the game lulled again, and you thought you could relax.

Again, you thought wrong.

A french goal in the seventy ninth minute.

An own goal in the eighty fourth minute.

Spain looked asleep, and you couldn't believe that with Pedri off the pitch you're english self still wanted them to win desperately. Your hands covered your lips in a prayer symbol. Your eyes shut, anxiety so rampant you couldn't even bring yourself to watch anymore.

When you heard the crowd around you groan and the fans across the field cheer distantly, you knew it was bad. France were doing what you had deemed to be impossible too early in the game. Another goal.

5-4

Two minutes of absolute hell to go. If France scored again it would go to extra time, and with the way Spain were playing right now, it seemed like they would win.

You couldn't stop biting your nails, your knees bouncing up and down. You couldn't handle it, each second passed like an hour.

But when the final whistle came, it felt like a breath of fresh air. Like a figment of imagination. Total and utter relief.

You hugged the fan beside you, you didn't know them but you were united by the red and gold of Spain.

The Spanish players ran on the pitch in celebration and their own relief because for the last moments it seemed like they were going to lose their lead and the chance to play in the final.

You watch Pedri jumping up and down, boyish excitement.

You were so completely in love with him. In love with how much he loved this game, and how much he loved you.

-౨ৎ ⋆｡˚-

The lobby was quiet. The celebrations had already happened with the players, on the pitch and in the dressing room and on the bus back. Now, they were scattered across hotel floors. Some retreating to their rooms for rest and some visiting their partners in the different hotels they were staying in because it was a team rule that wives and girlfriends couldn't stay with partners during away games. Something to do with keeping the players undistracted.

You sat in a low velvet arm chair, a soft pillow across your stomach as you clung to it in waiting. A glass of water sat untouched on a marble coffee table in front of you. He should be here soon, walking through the revolving door.

You yearned for him, too see his face and that smile you adored.

You scrolled on your phone, shamelessly looking at the highlights from the game and his goal. Over and over again. Just to see his face.

When you heard footsteps your head shot up, because you tell from that alone that it was him.

Pedri came into the warm light of the lobby still in his training tracksuit, like he had just come straight from the bus. A bag slung over his shoulder and his curls still slightly damp from the changing room showers. He moved slowly, tired from the physical exertion and fatigue aching in his muscles. He hadn't seen you yet, because his heavy eyes were scanning the room.

When he saw you, they lost that heaviness and filled with light.

Everything else faded, his shoulders slumped, all tension gone because he finally had you alone and in touching distance.

You stood up to meet him, still in the jersey and the short white skirt with a lace hem.

When you see his eyes dragging down your body and the hungry smirk on his face, your heart pounds. Your lip is bitten between your teeth, a breath held captive in your chest.

He walked over to meet you like he was approaching home, dropping his back on the floor to wrap you in a warm hug.

"Hola, amor," He spoke softly against the hair covering your ear and placing a delicate kiss on the side of your head.

You buried your face into his neck, breathing in the scent of fresh shower gel and his signature cologne -- cardamon and a hint of grapefruit.

"Hola, baby," You greet him back. "estuviste increible" (you were incredible)

He embraced you tighter, a silent thank you.

"Anoté solo para ti," He said with a smile, pulling back from you. (I scored just for you)

You chuckle, "Liar." because you really can't believe it, that this is your life.

"No," He shook his head with a charming smile, the type of smile that made your heart swell and you're eyes knot together in adoration.

Pedri looked at you with the same warmth. The love between you so teenage and puppy like, each of you experiencing it for the first time. The nerves, the tension, the butterflies and skipped heart beats.

"¿Deberíamos subir a mi habitación?," (should we go up to my room?) You asked, and Pedri laughed a little because of the pronunciation of some of your words. Your english accent still thick behind the Spanish language. Then he nodded, picking up his bag and swinging his arm across your shoulder, guiding you towards the silver doors of the elevator.

-౨ৎ ⋆｡˚-

The dark hotel door closed behind you like a whisper. The room illuminated but the soft glow of two beside lamps. The white bedsheets slightly ruffled from when you woke up this morning. Floor to ceiling windows look out onto the quiet night of stuttgart. Pedri insisted on getting you a nice room, even when you argued you would be fine with a budget hotel.

Pedri dropped his bag on the floor again with a thump, kicking off his shoes as well. You did the same, placing your sambas in the hallway by the door.

You jump slightly when you feel an arm wrap around your waist, but you relax when you breath in his scent.

"Te extrañé," He mumbled. (I missed you)

"yo estaba justo ahí," (I was right there)

"Sí, pero demasiado lejos," (Yes, but too far away), he sighed into your apple scented hair.

You melt back into his chest like he's your home because he is. He places his head on your shoulder, his chin just resting. For a moment, you just take in the closeness and the calmness. The peaceful silence that was blossomed with the feeling of love.

Then, his turned you round by your hips to look you in the eye. His honey ones so big, orbs of brown. You lean up to kiss him because it has been so long since you have, since you've felt them lips on your own.

The kiss is slow and sure, a homecoming. It lingered longer than it needed to, just because you wanted to feel his weight against you. You rest the palm of your hand on his cheek and it fits their perfectly. His hand moves to the small of your back.

When you pull back, he brushes some hair from around you face.

"Vamos a la cama, mi amor," He whispered and you agreed. Exhaustion seemingly creeping into the marrow of your bones.

Pedri stripped down to his boxers, you removed your bra and your skirt. You were about to take of the jersey to put on some pyjamas but he stopped you.

"Leave it," He said, one arm lazily behind his head as he lay under the white sheets, his bicep unintentionally tensing making you feel hot. "te queda bien," He finished. You blush. Then nod, crawling onto the bed in just your underwear and his jersey. His name across your back.

He wraps his arm around your shoulder, tracing little swirls and you find comfort in the crevice of his arms and with your cheek against his bare chest. His heart beats softly in a steady rhythm.

He presses a kiss to your head. Not rushed or frantic but full of love.

The kisses slowly get more heated, naturally. A kiss on his chest, then on his neck and suddenly your straddling him the golden hue of the beside light.

Then, he's grabbing your hips and your grinding against him with warmth between your thighs. Moans are slipping from you lips and your head is tilted back. He's grabbing on your bum.

Your panties are quickly ripped and on the floor. The jersey still on because he wanted to have you while you wore his name on your back, like his possession.

His hands are exploring your body, his head is between your thighs and your guiding him with hands in his fluffy hair. Your back is arching in the high of pleasure and touch.

You come undone beneath him.

He comes undone on top of you.

And then you collapse naked in each others arms.

The perfect end to the most perfect night.

౨ৎ

I'm in bed naked, he's inside of me

I love him, kiss his mouth, prayin' he can't see what I see

Marco was new, someone you had been seeing for only the past few months. A new friend brought around by your move to Madrid. Barcelona had become too hard to live in, every street filled with a memory of him that you couldn't bare. Each flicker of dark red and navy blue sent shivers crawling down your spine. Barcelona had become to small of a city to encompass the love and heartbreak that you felt when you remembered him -- Pedro.

In Barcelona, that love and heartbreak was able to breath. In Madrid, it was snuffed out. Mostly.

The evening's warm sun cascades through the linen white curtains of the modern apartment in the capital's bustling centre. Horns beep outside, music beats wildly on the crowded Friday evening as young adults free themselves of the weeks mundane stresses on sweet Spanish beer and cheap liquor that burns in the chest.

Marco and you lay intertwined, heavy breaths and sticky skin. The noise of pleasure filled moans sound out between the four pale white walls. The floral bed sheets are thick and comfy beneath you, his hand rolls over your cheek like a gentle kiss. He loves you, you know that. But, you love him. Marco looks at you with wide deep blue eyes that are glazed over with awe and affection. When you look at them, you see honey, you see a deep brown that belongs to a man across the country.

Guilt trickles into the veins beneath your warm skin.

You kiss Marco. Maybe, a kiss would bring you back to the sun-kissed evening in Madrid and away from the coldness of Barcelona. A kiss could make you stop picturing another man, while someone else is inside you.

When I close my eyes you replace him

With shut eyes, your lips press against Marco's own plump ones. They're bigger than Pedro's, more demanding and controlling. It makes the kiss feel one sided and weak. It never felt like that with Pedro.

With shut eyes, and as your tongue intertwines with another you feel the memories of him flood back. Every kiss, every touch, both delicate and passionate. You hadn't felt Pedro's touch in six months, not since everything happened, and yet when he appears now in your mind he is the exact same.

Wearing no disguise you erase him

His brunette hair is floppy and messy as you run your hands through it lightly pulling at it just enough to feel him smile against your lips. It sticks to the light sweat sheen on his forehead as he thrusts inside you over and over. His rough hands grip onto your bare hips like they are the only thing anchoring him from sailing off to the oblivion.

Marco moans.

and your world crashes once again.

For a few moments, Pedro had erased him. The memories of your mind made it feel like it was him in the bedroom with you. It made you feel like it was him whose hands were roaming your body and touching you in all the spots he knew so well.

For a few moments, Marco never existed. and neither did the new job, or the apartment or the burning pulse in your chest located slightly to the left that hadn't faded since leaving Catalonia.

And that guilt returns, only this time it provides a lingering sweetness.

I want to feel guilty

I want to feel that its wrong

You know its wrong, you know it makes you a shitty person. You're leading him on and you're using him because Marco is the only one that can get you close enough to the way Pedro made you feel. They looked similar too, that's why you went on the date with him in the first place. The same brown hair, the same dark eyebrows, the same high cheekbones and the subtle bump in the nose. They look like they could be related. Cousins maybe.

Marco's face was easy to replace with Pedro's.

And that's a cruel thing to admit, but you're young and heartbroken just trying to chase down anything that makes living and breathing without the man you love easier.

And laying here beneath him, feeling that guilt as you fight back saying another man's name breathlessly through bitten lips helps.

Your climax isn't fake tonight, most nights it is but the visions of him were strong enough to push you over the edge tonight.

Marco finishes and confirms it with the moan of your name and the furrow of his thick brows. Pedro's did the same thing, you can't help but think.

Marco flops down in the bed beside you, a lazy lovesick yet boyish grin plastered across his flushed face. He brushed a stray strand of hair from your face and behind you ear. It's almost hard to look at him because you don't feel the same as he does in this moment and he can't tell.

You look away sheepishly, your eyes wide and staring at the bare ceiling. The streets below the apartment building are loud and rowdy, way more than they usually are.

"I've never heard the city so loud" You say, breaking the silence of the room for the first time since the panting and moaning stopped.

Marco chuckles. It's deep and hoarse. Rich and smooth.

You glance at him quickly, he's still looking at you. His smile still there, his stubble covered jaw sharp and slightly tightening.

"It's El Clasico tomorrow, all the fans are out partying early" He replies with an air of nonchalance, and of course he did because how could he realise that the words he just spoke made your stomach drop and your palm sweat. Marco didn't know anything about you and Pedro, or Pedri as he would call him, he had no idea that it was him that had sent you running away to Madrid and right into his arms.

"I actually was planning on it being more of a surprise, but now seems like a fitting time. I got us and a couple of our friends tickets to the game. It's a tradition that we go to at least one a year" Marco starts.

"I can't" You blurt out with too much haste. Marco scowls at you, only briefly, but there is a look of apprehension on his face for a fleeting moment.

"You can, you have no plans tomorrow or work"

'I don't like football" You say. It's not really a lie. Not anymore. Football was always the biggest reminder of him. Football was Pedri. Pedro was football. A relationship that ran so deep, and meant more to him than you ever could. In most way, you were the other woman and football was the wife that would always be waiting for him to come home.

Marco scoffs for a moment before speaking. "This is not football, Doll. This is El Clasico. This is.." He ponders and struggles to find a word that seemed to fit what he was trying to say. "Heaven" He settles on.

"You're coming. End of."

Your heart is beats uncontrollably while Marco begins to pick his clothes up off the cold deep wood floorboards. The atmosphere around between you feels unusually tense, something heavy that Marco cannot even begin to understand lies thick in the faded breaths.

The floorboards creek under his feet as his belt jangles while he fastens up his suit trousers. You lay under the soft covers, clutching them over your bare breasts as your eyes linger on Marco. However, your mind is somewhere else, it's racing with the thought that tomorrow you will be seeing Pedro. The one person you believed you would never see again. The one person who held your heart in his palms and crushed it. You were never even together, not officially but it often felt like you were. A ten month situationship filled with the whirlwind of love and hushed kisses, one that was kept so close and secret from the world around you both. Media never knew, his teammates hardly knew. But you both knew, and in your little world that was all the mattered.

Until, it no longer mattered at all to him.

Suddenly, you feel sick. Nausea swirling around in an empty stomach. Marco comes over and presses a firm yet caring kiss upon your forehead and somehow that makes you feel even more sick.

"Kick off is at eight. I'll swing by and pick you up at seven" He says with a cheeky wink before grabbing his perfectly tailored black suit jacket and leaving you alone in the fading light of your apartment.

-౨ৎ ⋆｡˚-

You step out of Marco's black porsche onto the buzzing pavement outside the Santiago Bernabeu stadium as the streets fill with eager civilians all covered in shades of white clothing. Without much thought, you adjust the white Real Madrid scarf that was wrapped loosely across your neck despite the early summer heat. Marco had made you wear it, and it felt wrong and dirty. It felt naughty, but in a twisted way you enjoyed that guilt.

The white of jersey's shimmered in the light of the sunset, beside you Marco shines. His muscular arm wrapping over your shoulder's with a casual possessiveness. His grip never harsh but steady, stable.

He guides you through the gates, flashing his tickets. Your friends follow in behind, although they aren't really your friends. They're Marco's and you have just become a tagalong. All your friends remained in Barcelona.

As you make your way to your seats you realise that the energy in the stadium feels different than any other game you had been too. That this match meant something more, something deep routed and incomprehensible. History hung between the walls of the cathedral of football. Those in the stands don't pray to god, they pray to the game.

It was the noise that hit you first -- a deep rumbling of voices, chants and whistles that pulsed as if the sound itself was alive. Marco guides you through the sea of white and gold madridistas, and you can feel the buzzing electricity from around them. The stands smell of beer, sweat and cigarette smoke mixed with anticipation.

You make your way down the stairs, edging closer to the pitch. With each step you hope Marco will pull you down a row of seats, but he doesn't. Anxiety dances underneath your skin as you begin to realise how close you're going to be to the pitch, how close you're going to be to him. You thought you would be so far away that you would barely be able to see him, and he would never be able to see you but now that doesn't seem to be the reality.

Marco stops and pulls you down a row about seven back from the pitch, in the home end and just before the left corner with an incredible view of the goal.

As you sit down you feel your chest constricting, the air almost suffocating. Marco places an arm around the back of your seat as he speaks with his friends about the upcoming game. They think Madrid wish beat Barcelona with ease, that the Barcelona defence is no match for the goal scoring ability of their mighty Vini Jr and Mbappe. You know they're wrong. You've been to enough Barcelona games to be well aware of how difficult it will be for Madrid to beat them but you keep that to yourself as you bite your lips and fiddle with the tassels of the white and gold scarf.

You weren't a Barcelona fan either, only when you were involved with Pedro. So not now. You swallow away the sting that causes, and lean further into the arm of Marco. He turns his head briefly and smiles looking down at you before going back to his conversation, but you notice the way his arm has curled around you closer.

He's a good man, with a well paying job and he loves you. You should love him too.

The lights began to dim slowly, like a theatre just before they lift the red draped curtains. You know what's about to happen, you know who you are about to see and you aren't prepared. Your breath is caught solid like a lump in your throat.

One by one, the spotlights around the top of the stadium begin to flare back on. Music swelled from the speakers, too loud for most to bear but for you it is simply a dull ringing in the background of your mind because they were leaving the tunnel.

Players in blue and garnet emerging out into the hostile atmosphere, while those players in white beside them emerge like celebrated warriors.

The cheers and boos were swallowing.

You want to look away, but you can't. You have to see him, see what he looks like. Does he look the same as he did when you left all them months ago?

It doesn't take long for you to see him.

Number 8 bold on the back of his shirt.

You feel like crying. You feel frozen. You feel sore and wounded. You feel like you could be drowning.

He looks the same, like you left yesterday. His hair is still in the same cut, faded on the sides and long on top. He's clean shaven, and his eyebrows are neat. He's exactly the man you picture while Marco is inside you. He's the face that replaces him, the one that comes to visit you in dreams of both night and day, the one that no matter how hard you try you can't escape.

And he's real. He's here. Close, but not enough to touch.

And you're here, but he doesn't know that.

When his face is on the big screen for all the stadium to see, you wince and look down at your feet. Marco says something beside you but you don't catch it and your too focussed on someone else to ask him to repeat it. Instead, you find yourself fiddling with your nails, then with the fabric of your distressed denim mini skirt and finally the scarf tassels that had become your saving grace tonight.

The whistle blew.

The match began. Not just between the men on the green turf but between you and everything you had tried to leave behind.

-౨ৎ ⋆｡˚-

The second half had just begun, the fifty first minutes of a tense game ticking on the clock. The Bernabeu was humming like it had been all evening, so full of arrogance and purpose. The scoreline sat at 1 - 1 and yet the game had been intense, full of action and there was a strong belief in the stadium that something heavier was coming. Something magical was hanging on the edge.

Pedri jogged across the pitch, his studs whispering against the slick, green grass. His lungs pulled sharp in the night air, bitterness lingering on his tongue as the importance of winning this game and earning the rivalry's bragging rights weighed on his shoulders.

The ball had gone out for a corner. He wiped away the sweat from his forehead by lifting up the bottom of his shirt. His bare stomach now on show under the floodlights. The stadium hissed around him, a chorus of poisonous boos directed at those who shared his shirt. White scarves swung through the air like flags of war, but never in surrender.

It should have been just another set piece, like the ones he had practised in training. It wasn't meant to be him taking it at first, but he stepped up in the end.

He lazily kicked the ball to the corner flag with light taps against his foot. When he reached the flag, his hand brushed it lightly and without much thought. He placed the ball where he wanted it, settling it on the white mark with a practised ease and then he straightened back up. The home crowd behind him were rowdy, insults and distractions being hurtled at his back. Usually, he never looks.

But today he felt compelled too.

So, his honey brown eyes flicked up to the stands. They scanned the chaos that spread over the rows of people.

And then he saw you, or he thought he did.

Row 8. Not in Barcelona colours, no but in a soft snowy white scarf. Your hair tucked delicately behind your ears in the way you always did when you were nervous. Your plump lips bitten between your teeth in the way you always did when you were overthinking. Pedri watched you watching him, both of you so still and unmoving like he wasn't supposed to be kicking at ball at that very moment.

It was you. Pedri's chest tightened.

You weren't meant to be here. You were gone, to some place he didn't know. You had blocked him on everything, you had never responded to his last messages. To Pedri, you just vanished. One night you were arguing about what you were, and he said something stupid about football always meaning more to him than you ever could, and then the next day you had gone and become uncontactable.

Ten months spent together, and you just left like it meant nothing.

But now, you're here and he's looking at you.

Pedri struggles to tear his eyes away from you, but he forced himself to look at the goal, to look at his teammates. They're all looking at him with wide eyes, and yelling at him for taking to long to make his cross.

You need to focus, he told himself as he took in a deep breath trying to shake the feeling.

But, he couldn't. Something in the stadium had shifted, like the air around him had become dense and unbreathable. Like your name was invisibly embroidered into the night sky and hanging in front of him just out of reach.

He heard the whistle.

He lifted his arm.

Took a step.

Then, he curled the ball into the box.

A beautiful ball which arched towards the near post, sharp and spinning with a pin point precision few players in the world had mastered -- but Pedri couldn't really focus on the play, or the ball, or his teammates because you were here, sat only a few rows behind where he was now standing and the wounds of months ago were raw and reopened on the biggest stage of all.

As the ball sank into the fray of bodies in the box, Pedri allowed himself to look back at you in the stands once again. Just to make sure it hadn't been a trick of the floodlights or a hallucination stemming from his deepest desires, just to make sure it really was you.

He looked at you, and you were looking back at him. Your skin was glowy and tanned under the harsh floodlights. Each feature on your face was so strikingly beautiful and yet delicate at the same time. If he hadn't been in the middle of a game, he would have ran to you but he couldn't.

Pedri almost flinches as he watched the man sat beside you whisper something in your ear, he lips so comfortably close to your neck like he knew you well. You break your eyes away from him, and that cuts him deeper than he imagined it would. What cuts him even more is when he realises the white around your neck is a Real Madrid scarf, and that you came to a game knowing he would be playing wearing the colours of his rivals.

The sting was sharper than any tackle he had ever taken.

He turned away before he could see more, before he could see you eyes again still full of that quiet pain he had memorised. Before he could see if you smiled at that man the same way you used to smile at him before he messed it all up.

He jogged back to the middle of the pitch but his limbs felt heavy now. His chest burned -- not from fatigue, but from that feeling that you had moved on. That maybe this whole time, while he was thinking of you during lonely away matches and in hotel nights soaked in regret, you had already given someone else the version of yourself he once held so tightly.

But he knew that wasn’t the truth. He knew you too well, he had read your silence like it was his sacred scripture. He saw it in your face faltered just now. You were not over it. Over him. That wasn’t a face of someone free, it was the face of someone running. The face of someone haunted. That was someone still searching for something they’d never quite been given back.

He didn't know who the man beside you was, but he knew it wasn't love for you. He knew that you weren't feeling the same inside as you felt for him.

The book of your relationship was closed but a page was folded, a place it could be opened back up.

Back in the stands, your fingers play with the tassels of the scarf. Your chest panting up and down, tightening with panic as you tried to hold it together.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

He wasn't meant to see you, you weren't meant to see him again.

He was meant to have moved on. You were meant to have moved on.

So why did he look at you like you were sacred?, why did he tell you all those months ago you didn't mean anything to him when he looked at you like you were an angel?

Your knee bounced uncontrollably, and Marco was still talking beside you. He was talking about Mbappe and how he was the greatest in the world, and how Bellingham was the most intelligent midfielder he had ever watched play in the flesh. You could only nod with tight lips because you couldn't lash out and tell him to just shut up for a moment so you could fight the internal war in your mind.

You felt him kiss your cheek, his cold lips on your flaming cheeks.

and it takes you back again, back to when that was Pedro.

I love him, kiss his mouth, sayin'

Back to when you would be laying in his arms on the leather couch of his living room, the Barcelona sun soaking in through the floor to ceiling windows. Some sitcom on the television that neither of you are paying attention too. His lips ghosting your neck, then delicately tapping against your cheekbones. The warmth in pooling in your chest, and the heat rising between your thighs.

oh yeah, baby, touch and touch and touch me.

And then it would progress, to something more charged and sensual. There on his couch in the middle of the day because you couldn't resist. Or sometimes, in the kitchen pressed against the counter after he had been away thanks to football. Your favourite was always in the shower, when he got back from training and he was exhausted. The way he would lean his head on your shoulder while pleasuring you from behind. He gripped onto you like you were the only thing he needed. The way he grunted, and the way you whispered his name. Every moment felt like brushing heaven.

The cheer of the fans around you pulls you back to reality. Real Madrid had scored. 2-1 Real Madrid.

I wanna feel guilty

I wanna feel that it's wrong

Your cheeks are pink in embarrassment, your thoughts so consumed by dirty moments with the boy on the field triggered by the kiss of another man that you had completely missed the goal. You're the only fan still sat down, but you stay that way. Celebrating didn't feel right.

I wanna know peace again,

wanna sing a different song.

Nothing felt right anymore, not since you put yourself first and left him. Ever since that day, every decision felt wrong. No peace, just long nights being haunted by the thoughts of the life you once lived in a city you once loved.

Down on the pitch, Pedri began to move like a man possessed. The ball at his feet was no longer a tool of grace but an outlet for the confusion, and the heart ache. His passing was sharp, almost recklessly perfect. He went for gaps that weren't really there and somehow found a way through. The blue and garnet crowd roared with delight, but he didn’t hear them. His mind was somewhere else, stuck in a timeline where you had never left. Where the fight that night hadn’t happened. Where he hadn’t said something so deeply cruel that it shattered the only real thing he’d ever had outside of football.

When the ball came to him at the top of the box in the eighty third minute, he didn’t hesitate. He struck it cleanly, fluidly, with the technique of someone who'd been playing since before they could even spell their own name. He hit it without thought.

It sliced past the goalkeepers hands.

A goal, he scored a goal.

You were the only one in your section of white that stood up, because it was like muscle memory. It was natural for you to want him to do well. Natural for you to cheer for him even after he broke your heart. The madridistas around you were silent with hushed sighs, but the Barcelona fans across the way were rowdy and roaring.

Pedri didn't sprint, Pedri didn't smile. Not until you caught his eye.

You stood up as everyone else was sat down. Your jaw ajar like you hadn't even realised you cheered.

He looked right at you. No celebration. Just a look, a long and locked stare that felt like a conversation. I know you still love me. He whispered through deep chestnut eyes.

Then he was swarmed by his team. He had equalised. 2-2. Six minutes plus injury time left.

You slowly sat back down, feeling Marco's confused eyes on your frazzled face.

"You okay, baby?," He asked pulling you closer with so much love and care. A love and care you could never give back to him.

I want you to need me, I need to want something more.

He gives what he can, but now I don't know what he's giving for.

"I didn't know you liked Barcelona," Marco laughed trying to lighten the tension that stormed in the air around you.

"I don't," You told him, finally looking at him for the first time since you here tonight. Your expression softening with guilt that wasn't quite an apology, just plain vulnerability. Marco just nodded, because he was like that. Just understanding and empathetic. He placed his large hand over your thigh and gave is a squeeze of reassurance and let it linger there as the game went on.

Pedri was already back in hurried formation, the full belief that he could win this game on his shoulders. When the whistle blew again to resume play, he snapped back into smooth fluid motion. The pace of the game intensified -- Madrid pushing back harder, Barcelona responding with stubborn brilliance. The crowd surged and swayed, and time dissolved into a blur of movement and noise.

Six minutes went down to one. The ninetieth minute.

And Yamal had a free kick.

One last chance to score.

He took it. The ball spiralled through the air, hitting the top left corner with perfect precision.

3-2. Final score. Whistle blown.

You froze and the world spun around you in a sea of chaos. Madridistas cursing the skies, Marco holding his head in his hands. The boys in blue and garnet screeching with happiness as they jumped on top of each other victorious.

You didn't know how to feel. You didn't know what to do. The pull of the man on the field so strong, but knowing you couldn't go down there and see him. The space between you now seemed so final, and you realised that you needed something more than that. Anything. Just closure, or a sign. A message. A reason to stay in Madrid, a reason to go back to Barcelona. Anything. Just something to clear up this feeling of confusion and heartbreak. Just something final.

And you know that makes you weak, but Pedro could make anyone weak. He had that effect on people.

"Come on, let's go," Marco says, his hand on the small of your back as you stand up, ready to follow all the others in white leaving the stadium in disappointment. You grab your bag, pulling it on your shoulder and nod your head in reluctant agreement.

You're about three steps up the steep stairs when something stops you.

"Y/N! WAIT! Y/N!"

You know that voice, and it makes your stomach drop.

Both you and Marco turn, eyes glancing to the man in blue and garnet running away from the post match celebrations and too the stands. Running to you.

You pause in shock.

Marco's eyes widen as he looks from you to Pedro and back to you again. Confusion swirling around his mind.

Pedri reaches the edge of the pitch, his hands resting on the advertising boards as he leans slightly over them. His eyes glance at Marco for a moment, jealousy flickering beneath his skin as he sees his hand on the small of your back but then he looks at you. He knows what he needs to do, and he knows this is the only chance he has.

"PLEASE! LET ME EXPLAIN!" He shouts, not caring who hears. His hand stretched out for you to come and grab.

Softer, harder, in-between

You know just how to get to me

You look at him stood there, so exhausted and sweaty. His under thermals sticking to his torso like a second skin. You still love him. You love him more than you have ever loved anything in your entire life.

You look at Marco, whose looking at you with raw and stormy eyes. A glint of betrayal lingering in the blueness of them.

He is stable, you are deep.

You look back at Pedro.

The difference between them so stark now they are almost side by side.

Marco is safe, and stable, and he loves you.

Pedro is fire, and uncontrollable passion, and you love him.

Tears well in your doe eyes.

I know just how to get what I need

"I'm sorry," You tell him with a broken voice. You had used him, and he had never even known. That made you a horrible person, but you couldn't help it. You couldn't even look at him, eyes flicking to your feet as you took off the Real Madrid scarf and handed it back to him.

Then, you turned to where your Pedro was waiting and set off down the stairs.

I wanna feel guilty

I wanna feel that it's wrong

You grab his hand, and all them sparks that left your life months ago came back. He helps you over the advertising board and onto the pitch. When your feet reached the green turf, it was like time stood still. It was just you and him, looking though each other as the weight of the moment crushed you from all angles.

You didn't know how to speak, your heart hammering so loudly against the cage of your ribs and washing away all the noise of the post match chaos.

You blink away watering eyes, the vision of the boy you left behind and the hurt all coming back. You glance back to the stands in a moment of weakness, and you hope he's gone but he's not. Marco hadn't moved, he still stood in the stands with the scarf firmly gripped in his hand and a stunned look on his face.

Pedro followed your glance, to the guy in the stands. He knew the look on Marco's face because he had shared that same look when you left Barcelona all them months ago. It was heartbreak. The guys heart was being smashed under the light of the Bernabeu stadium. Pedri couldn't even pretend to feel bad for a single moment, you were his woman even if he was stupid enough to never put a label on it all them months ago.

"Y/n," Pedri said, stepping closer and bringing your wide eyes back to him.

You opened your mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Just a small, broken whimper fell from your lips and you tried to hold it together. Camera's were around, although focussed more on the other activities on the pitch than you and Pedri.

"I didn't mean it," Pedro told you, his hands cupping your red flushed cheeks and forcing you to keep looking at him so you can see just how bare and honest he is being. He's laying his heart out in front of you.

I wanna know peace again

wanna be singing a different song

"You said football meant more than I ever could," You say through gritted teeth, that anger from months ago simmering under the surface. The anger you never got to let out because you just left instead. "You said that to me Pedro, you told me I was nothing but a distraction that was getting in the way," You pull out of his hands, holding his wrists in your own.

Pedri whinces, hearing the pain in your voice. For the first time, he's seeing the damage those words caused. The way you were broken by him.

"I never meant it, not a word. I was angry and scared, I was playing like shit and I only seemed to think about you. I didn't care about the football, I cared about you and I panicked," His hands were trembling, his lips were parted and his eyes were pleading. "I have thought about that night so many times, just trying to rewrite a version where I wouldn't lose you"

You stood there, you heart feeling like it's been torn in two again. Pedro was never honest with his emotions, he never told you how he felt but he would show you. That's what kept you in that situationship for months, but you weren't that same girl any more. You had built up new walls, crafted a new life in a new city with a new job. A life that was different and removed from the one you had in Barcelona.

"You lost me, Ped," You whisper. "You were cruel, and you took me for granted,"

"I know, I know, but I want to be better. I want to make it up to you, fix things. You're all I think about"

Pedri stepped closer again, brushing a hair behind your ear. "Please," His voice cracked, "let me fix it."

You looked at him, really looked. His face was flushed from the match, his chest still rising and falling with the remnants of adrenaline. But his eyes -- they were wide and soft, like they used to be when you would fall asleep on his chest, his heartbeat steady beneath your cheek. You had memorised those deep brown eyes once. You’d drowned in them and you had never really resurfaced.

"I'd leave football tomorrow if it meant I wouldn't lose you again"

"No," Your breath hitched, "Don't say stuff you don't mean"

"I mean it," He said firmly, not a falter in his voice.

"I can't just go back, I have a life here now. A job in the city, an apartment. Friends."

it's only a question if somebody brings it up

“I’m not asking you to go back,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “I’m asking you to go forward. With me. Let me be part of that life. Wherever it is, whatever it looks like. I'll travel to you every free day. I want this to work.

You body swayed slightly, caught in the whirlwind of this situation. The pull of your past so strong, but the weight of you present resting on your shoulders. Marco is still here, but you don't love him. You never could. You could never love anyone in the way you love Pedri.

But can you trust him again? Can you trust him to not break your heart because you don't think you could survive that again.

Pedri noticed your hesitation and let his thumb caress your cheek. You eased into it like his touch was never absent.

I'm pushing it down and praying

"One chance, that's all I can give you," You hush quietly, scared to make it a real statement. Scared to go back to the past.

A smile broke onto Pedri's face, almost disbelieving.

"That's all I need,"

౨ৎ

The santiago bernabeu was electric, the air so thick with tension and rivalry. El clasico was so much more than just a game, the green turn was no longer a field but a battleground. The centre stage where pride, history and passion all collided.

You sit in the family section beside your mother and siblings, just behind the home bench of your father's team Real Madrid, with a pounding heart because tonight is the night.

It's been five months since you left that room on a summer morning in Madrid, after you had spent the night with him. "Spent the night' seems like an understatement because it stained you for much longer than that. If felt much more than that. He opened you up and found you that night. Lost souls bonding. And then you left like it meant nothing, because it couldn't mean anything. You're white, he's blue and garnet. You're forbidden, off limits. Two bodies that should have never touched.

But you did, and now you're here, sat in a white top with Mbappe on the back and a Real Madrid scarf wrapped around your neck to protect your skin from the kiss of winter.

You tried to get out of coming, tried to make up any excuse but none of it worked. You're father was adamant you be here to support him and you're mother agreed citing the importance of family unity.

For the past five months, you have thought of him every night. Even when you tried your hardest not too. Even when you were wrapped in the arms in another man. The guy you were casually seeing, the one you picked up off a cringey dating app to try and distract yourself from him.

Pedri.

Fucking Pedri.

He came it to your life like a dark storm and destroyed everything in it with his stupid honey coloured eyes, and his stupid lips and the stupid way he touched you like nobody else could.

You bite at your nails, the ones you painted white in the spirit of tonights game. You foot bops up and down and you feel sick thinking about seeing him. In a way you just want to get it over with, see him, feel that gravitational pull of lust and whatever the other strange feeling is that lingers in your chest, then never see him again.

The lights of the stadium illuminates the green turf and the stands which are full of white shirts. Anticipation looms as Hala Madrid! plays through the speakers and the crowd thunders out the words. It's so loud you can feel it beating in your chest. You've never been in an atmosphere like it.

When the players begin to exit the tunnel, you stand up and applaud like everyone else in the stands.

You can't help but smile with pride when you see your father lead them out in his suit and tie. His face so unemotional and focussed, you never usually saw him like that because at home he was just your dad and not football legend Xabi Alonso. That cold look breaks when he comes to stand in the managers box just in front of where you're sat, and his straight lips jump into a proud smile. You wave quickly, because even though your now twenty one you will always be his little girl. His favourite child although he would never admit it.

You don't notice, but Pedri is watching you. His jaw slacked the moment he saw you as he lined up for the anthems and handshakes.

The feeling he had laid awake craving for the past five months came flooding back into the marrow of his bones.

That hunger, that lust, that passion and the ache to touch your soul again.

His eyes trailed you up and down as you stood to give your dad a wave and a quick thumbs up, he knew you had not seen him and he took advantage of it. You're hair was slicked back into a bun, you're skin glowing under the white floodlights rather than the red lights in a club. A real madrid scarf wrapped around your neck, that hurt but it was too be expected.

The jersey hurt more.

Number 9. Mbappe's.

Real Madrid's princess in the jersey of Real Madrid's starboy.

Jealousy and borderline anger swirls in his stomach, the feeling aching his organs. His clenches his hands, only briefly, a fist balled and gone in seconds. His jaw tightens and he rolls his neck out.

Where you and Mbappe a thing? It would make sense. A perfect couple.

Pedri has to close his eyes, and looks away from you. He can't handle it. You make him feel so much of everything. You frustrate him, but you also excite him. He can't tell if he hates you or wants to have you. Maybe it's both. He thinks it's both.

He lets out a big puff of air and locks his mind onto winning this game because if you are dating Mbappe, Pedri is going to make sure to embarrass him in front of you.

In the stands, your eyes drift to him but he's not looking at you. He's focussed and his thick brows are so furrowed that he almost looks angry. His jaw is stiff and sharp, it makes you remember kissing it. His stubble is slightly grown out and it's making you almost purr. Your bodies reaction betraying your mind.

It's all coming back, the memories of that night. The way he felt inside you, and the way he nipped at your skin with your teeth. The way he grunted and groaned your name like it was his gospel.

Lust lingers beneath the surface of your skin like a vibration. Frustration burns it.

You smooth the jersey you're wearing just to give your hands something to do.

A few moments later, the whistle blew and the game kicked off.

The match began. The match in the centre of your chest lit.

You tried to stop your eyes drifting to number 8, but it's hard to stop the pull of a two magnets. You watched as he controlled Barcelona's tempo with every pass and creation of every play. His vision of the game and his skill on the ball was breathtaking or maybe that was just because of how much seeing him made you want him again. He captivated you, and not just with the memories of his tongue running across your flaming skin but with the way he seemed to breath football. The ball was merely an extension of him, connected and controlled.

Minutes felt like hours with the tension in the stadium. This game was so personal, so much more. So much history.

Your father was yelling on the sideline, your hands were in a prayer shape over your plump nude lips. You wanted him to win so bad, wanted your dad to prove to the world just how good you knew he could be.

But Barcelona were making it difficult, Pedri was making it difficult.

He was running riot in the midfield. Interceptions left and right, putting pressure on the boys in white. He even managed to outskill Mbappe at one point. He was giving the best performance of his career. It made you shift in the plastic seat, brushing the white jersey again. Number 9 on your back in black because it was the closest to Number 8.

When half time came, the score was 0-0 but the game had been far from boring. It was so intense, chance after chance, shot after shot. In all honesty it was a goalkeeping masterclass on both sides.

Blood would be drawn but it would come in the second half.

You father didn't even look up as he walked into the tunnel making your brows furrow in sadness. Once you watched him go, your eyes looked back without much thought.

They caught the honey brown orbs of Pedri.

He was watching you already, because when you were near him he couldn't help himself.

Everything fades into a low humming, a ringing in your ears and all you can feel is the strong thrum of your beating heart. You swallow the lump wedged in your throat.

Pedri lifts a gloved hand and wipes the sweat from his forehead, he had just put in the greatest first half of his career. The spanish newspapers already writing their article for tomorrow, but he wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking about you and how he was doing it all just to impress you, just to make sure you realised Mbappe was the wrong guy.

Pedri dropped his eyes first, his own heart pounding more now than it had been after running on the field for forty five minutes straight. Why was it you, the one girl in the world that was off limits, that made him feel this way? His body alive with current and tingling under your doe eyed gaze.

When he saw you it was like being cracked by lightening.

Ignited and sparked.

He walked into the tunnel with his head down, ready to focus back on the game. He needed to win, there was no excuse and everything was still left to play for.

The bernabeu was deafening as it stood around her at the beginning of the second half. The chants, the whistles every time a rival player touched the ball. The place beat with a heart of it's own. White scarfs twisting like small tornados as fans tried to increase the energy of their boys in white.

You sat still. Even though all around you were stood. Pedri's eyes had struck you still. It hurt to look at him and you wondered if it hurt him to look at you.

You played with the tassels of your scarf just to give your hands something to do other than shake.

The camera's panned to you and your family for only a few moments, on the outside you were thankful you looked calm, poised even. A lifted chin and a face filled with pride rather than worry. You looked like the daughter of a legend, but inside you were coming undone by a boy with the potential to be one.

You sit yearning just to feel him again. Your body needs him like flowers need the sun.

In the fifty fourth minute, it happened.

Pedri, with the ball at his feet, danced passed defenders finding gaps that no one else could see. Fluid and precise. He took a shot, outside the box, and the ball soared into the top corner of the net with such powerful force. It was a perfect goal.

A goal that sent the stadium into a stunned silence. Shouts only coming from the Barcelona fans in the away section.

You stood too in nothing but disbelief. You breaths heavy, your chest rising up and down.

You watched him sprint towards the corner flag with his tongue out and arms wide in celebration. His teammates swarmed him. Slapping him on the back and offering him passionate hugs.

It was displayed on the big screen, his smile and his flushed cheeks. His usually puffy hair wet and sticking to the sheen of his forehead. It was cruel of god to make an untouchable man so attractive. It was like some sort of sick joke, like the universe was teasing you. Dangling something you can't have, not in public anyway.

That dull ache bloomed in you're chest like something so fatal, hiding in the creases carved between your ribs.

When Pedri was let free by his teammates, he looked at you and winked. Smugly. So handsomely. It made your stomach flip and your cheeks flush. He's flirting with you so boldly, openly and in front of your father but in a way that only you two would know.

He knows you're watching him, that you have been the whole game and that he's playing the most incredible football he ever has.

He feels unstoppable. He feels like he's got you. He feels like he's just sealed the games fate. He's on top of the world.

But then he's not.

Because minutes later, the man whose name you wear on your back scored. Mbappe's retaliation is beautiful and satisfying. It wipes the smile of Pedri face. It creates a scowl instead, especially when he sees you jump up from your seat and scream in glee filled celebration.

You gave Mbappe a celebration you could never give him.

That jealousy rattled him again. More forceful this time. He yelled into his hands, Spanish swear words flying into his palms in annoyance. Barcelona's defence has switched off, in a game where they had to be on all the time.

Barcelona had to do better if they wanted to destroy their rivals on their home turf.

And after the score turned 1-1, they did do better.

A new life struck them.

The game became even more fierce, and even more fast paced. Gavi thundered into tackles, Bellingham danced the ball with brilliance. Tensions built and built. Words spitting, yellow cards being flashed left and right.

You held your breath when Pedri ended up in an altercation with Mbappe. Hands pushing chests, foreheads pressing foreheads. Players separating them. And even though you're in the stands, you some how feel like you're in the middle of it. That Pedri's frustration comes from the fact you're in another man's jersey.

The game continued on.

Barcelona scored again, a rebound off the woodwork and flicked in by the experienced Lewandowski.

Then, they scored their third in the dying minutes of the game. An incredible volley from the young yamal. It hit the net like a bullet shot from a gun.

The bernabeu was deflated, your father was deflated. Thousands of people sunk back into their seats, head buried in the scarfs they were once swinging. Bitterness lingered in the air, Barcelona had got the best of them tonight.

The final whistle blew. Real Madrid's heads dropped while the men in blue and garnet jumped all around the field in celebration.

You stood up, gathering your things and following your family into the hallways of the stadium to wait for your father to finish his job. Usually, you would just leave but you're mother said it was important to stay and support him on a difficult night, so you stayed. You waited while he went through all his press obligations and as he tried to pick up the spirit of his beaten players.

The rest of the stadium had emptied. The corridors eerily quiet as the fans left. You were walking around aimlessly and with boredem, not really knowing where your feet were taking you but it was more entertaining than sitting in a waiting room staring at a blank wall.

You walked for a little longer until the noise of studs pull yours eyes in a direction.

You have to scoff, because who else would it be.

Pedri.

You don't know where you are in the stadium but you get the feeling you're on territory you shouldn't be because he looks shocked and he's shirtless with damp curls and droplets of water trailing down his toned stomach. Some loose black shorts around his waist and a water bottle in his hand.

Flashes of you on top of him cross your mind but you shake them away.

You felt the sparks flying. You felt his steel hit your flint.

You both stood, paused like you were both scared to move. The silence stretched on, the tension thickening in the air like a morning fog.

Then, he smirked. That stupid fucking smirk. The one of quiet confidence, the one which tells you that he remembers the effect he has on you. The one which tell you that he knows five months hasn't changed a single thing.

His eyes flicker to your jersey.

"Tough luck, Princess," His voice is hoarse and raw, full of charged emotion and arrogance.

You lean on a cocked hip, trying not to stare at his abs.

"You'll lose next time," You say, holding your chin high.

He laughed.

"I'm serious, we'll be better next time," You continue with a furrowed brow.

He looked at you, actually more through you than anything.

"We," He repeated. "Is he, we?,". His tone straightens as he nods to the nine in the centre of your stomach.

"Well, he plays for my dad, so yes,"

"Does he play for more?," You know what he's asking for you and you can't tell if you hate it or love it. You know it makes you hot under the scarf that now feels too tight around your neck, but is that from attraction or anger.

"I told you footballers aren't my thing, I meant that." You tell him with tight lips.

"Si, and then we fucked," He shrugged.

You're jaw dropped, like he had just slapped you. It was arrogant and rude, and your stomach betrayed you by flipping.

"Fuck you,"

Pedri licked his teeth holding back a smile because he loved to see you this wound up. The way your cheeks were tinted with a rose, and the small crease between your eyebrows. The slight vein on the side of your head poking under the smooth skin.

He moved slightly closer, and it was beginning to feel like the club hallway all over again but he's already shirtless. No alcohol to blame either. Just you and him. The raw energy of something forbidden sizzling between you.

You can smell him, he's freshly showered and lingers of jasmine. The cardamon and grapefruit cologne sticking sweetly to his skin.

"You already did," He smiles under his breath because at heart he's still just a boy.

"You're so immature," You roll your eyes, then blinking hard trying to will away the heat between your thighs. Not here. It can't be here. "and annoying," You add on.

He keeps moving closer, backing you to a wall.

"Keep talking dirty," His eyes now gleaming with something like primal hunger and possession.

"God, you're insufferable sober,"

Your back hit the cold wall.

"Then walk away," He challenges.

You stay put because you can't do it, even though your mind wants to your body betrays you in every way.

"Exactly," Pedri whispers with nothing but ego as he inches closer to you, his arm pressing to the wall above your shoulder.

Your whole body was tense, because you knew he wasn't bluffing. You knew that look in his eye -- wild and focused, the same way he looked at you in the club and beneath him in the dark bed sheets you gripped onto.

"I hate you," You whisper against his lips.

"You don't, and that is what you hate,"

Then, like deja vu, he crashed his lips into your again in the middle of your father stadium. You fall into him like a puzzle piece slotting into place. Your hands in his air, his on your hips. You've done it all before but it will never get old.

This feeling would never die.

When you pull apart you're breathless. So is he. You're hands are resting on his bare chest and you can't help the way you're smiling.

"Give me your phone," You order him quickly and quietly, scared of who could come round the corner at any moment.

You type in the address to the studio apartment you had began renting in the cities suburbs. A private sanctuary away from home, one that your father pays half the rent for. That makes this even more wrong.

"It's my place, come at midnight and don't let anyone see you" You spoke quickly, then you push him back and adjust your jersey. You bring a finger and wipe around you lips to rid any smudged lipstick. Then you walk away, not looking back.

He watches you because you're unbelievable and everything you do makes his head a dizzying mess.

Midnight.

Only a few hours away.

-౨ৎ ⋆｡˚-

Your apartment was dark, only lit by a few candles when you heard the knock on the door. Not too loud, not too desperate -- just enough to let you know he was here.

You hesitated a few seconds before you opened the door. Not wanting to seem like you were eager or like you had been waiting for him on the couch for thirty minutes.

00:21

That was the time. He was twenty one minutes late. You thought he wasn't coming at one point but no he just wanted you to wait. Teasing you before he had even arrived.

You answered the door in a grey sweatshirt and some brandy melville teddy bear shorts. Your legs smooth and bare from the shower you had taken. You hair now down and wavy, slightly messy around your bare face.

He stood on the other side with the hood of his black hood up and hiding his face. His hands in the pockets of his grey sweats.

You're purring inside.

You step to the side to let him in and shut the door behind him.

The charged tension is back in the atmosphere around, lingering like a rain cloud about to break free.

It's just you and him now. No jerseys, no football. Just two people trying not to give in to something so obvious.

It was awkward for a few seconds, neither of you wanting to make the first move but when it gets to much and too overwhelming he break its.

He kissed you again with that same passion he always seemed too. A sensual mix of heat, hunger and tenderness.

You fell apart in his arms as you made your way to the bedroom, ripping off each others clothes on the way. Panting breaths and hushed moans the only noise in the place.

Before you can even catch a breath, he's inside you and it feels like home. You're biting at his shoulder to keep quiet, he's grunting into the hair covering your ear. You're skin is sticky with a light sweat.

It goes on like that all night. Different positions, coming undone for him each time, over and over.

Then you fall asleep in his arms, until the morning light wakes you up.

This time, you can't run and Pedri is still here.

The air feels different than last time, like this meant something more.

Like something had snapped into place and you were set on a path you could never stray from.

Like you and Pedri had just become a dirty little secret fated to exist again and again.

౨ৎ