🫠

You put the beer down.

It has been four weeks. Four weeks since the AC Hotel, since the blaugrana you left on the floor and Argentina-cabezona-ed your way through a morning DM exchange that ended with her saying casual back to you with the kind of patient kindness that should have, frankly, scared you off the entire enterprise.

It hasn't scared her off. That's the problem.

Alexia has not gone silent. She has done the opposite of silent — she has stayed in the small periphery of your phone for a month, watching your stories within ten minutes of you posting them, reacting sparingly to things in a way that you have come to recognize as deliberately calibrated. A fire emoji on a video of you nutmegging Lavogez in training. A single red heart on a picture of you on your couch with a glass of wine and your feet up. 

She is, you have realized over the last few weeks, interested. And not even in a quiet, private way. It’s open and in your face. She asks questions, she follows it up with more questions, she offers things about herself with no prompting. 

Alexia is, and it pains you to take notice for reasons you shall not investigate, sweet. Caring and kind.

You have not reacted to anything she has posted. You have watched every story she has put up within the first hour and you know she knows. Kills you a little to know that you may react to something and she would take forever to notice because there are other thousands of people claiming her attention too. And now this. When can I see you again?

You stare at the message. You stare at the beer, sweating slow rings onto your table. Your mother would tell you to be civilized and use coasters. It is a small act of rebellion to not do it.

You think — and it is the kind of thinking that you do not have to organize — that the safe answer is I don't know. Or maybe the safe answer is to not answer at all and then, in three days, pretend you have only just seen the message.

You type:

I'll be in Barcelona next week. That work?

You hit send before you can overthink it.

You see the Read indicator land. The three dots appear immediately.

@alexiaputellas: yes. weekend?

You exhale, insecurity pressing hard inside your chest.

Friday through Tuesday. Girls trip with Lu and some friends from home. We'll be around.

You add, because something in you has to have an out:

if you're around

@alexiaputellas: I’ll be around.

A second message follows.

@alexiaputellas: text me when you get in. She sends you her phone number. Alexia Putellas phone number. You could probably sell that to your clubmates for thousands. It’s a thrill that it is just yours though.

You set the phone down face up on the table and drink the rest of it in one long swallow.

Text me when you get in. The flat assumption that of course you are going to text her when you get in, that the entire reason you mentioned the trip was so that this could be arranged, that the casual frame the two of you have agreed to the last time you talked about it is just that — a frame.

You do not text back.

You let the yes sit there and do its work.

* * *

You take the morning train to Barcelona.

Lucía is already on it when you board — she has been visiting her cousin in Vitoria and got on at the previous stop — and she waves at you from a seat by the window with three cans of beer already lined up on her tray table.

"¡Argentina! ¡Vamos!"

"It is nine in the morning."

"It is vacation."

"It is — Lu —" You sit down across from her. She slides one of the beers across to you. You stare at it.

"You drink the beer, che. We are on a trip. The trip starts when you drink the beer."

She has a point so you chug.

Lucía's three friends from her hometown are meeting you in Barcelona. You have met them before, at one of Lucía's birthday things last year — three women in their mid-twenties who all knew each other from school, all of them fun in the specific way Lucía is fun, and it’s summer so why not?

Off season for you and Lucía, rare time to have and let go.

You arrive at Sants at one in the afternoon. The other three are waiting outside the station. Lucía screams when she sees them. They scream back. There is hugging, there is kissing, there is a full minute of overlapping Spanish where you stand off to the side with your duffel bag and let the reunion happen without you. One of them — Sara, you think? Pilar? — turns to you and pulls you into a hug as if she has known you forever, which you suppose she has, by association.

"La argentina," she says, beaming. "We've missed you."

“It’’s been a minute."

"She told me you scored on Barça this year."

"That is true, actually."

"¡Ja!"

Lucía is grinning. The five of you walk to the metro.

The Airbnb in Gràcia is small, top floor, four bedrooms with one double and three singles, a tiny terrace with plants on it, the smell of someone else's laundry still in the air. You drop your bag in the single room with the smallest window because you enjoy your privacy and Lucía has already claimed the double "in case I get lucky." The other three — Sara or Pilar, and her two friends Nuria and Marta — are unpacking and mixing drinks.

"What's the plan tonight?"

"Cenamos. Then we go out. Sara found a place."

"¿Qué tipo de lugar?"

"Un sitio bueno."

You shrug because anything goes.

You shower and change. Then you find yourself sitting on the small terrace with another beer and Lucía sits down beside you with a glass of wine and you both watch the sky over Gràcia turn the kind of orange that only happens in Spanish summer.

"Che."

"Hm."

"How long has it been?”

"How long has what been what?”

She wiggles her eyebrows in that silly way that always makes you laugh and you snort into your beer. You roll your eyes, face flushing with embarassement. 

"Lu."

"I am not going to ask. I am just saying. I know it has been a while. And we are in Barcelona, che, in July, and I am very prepared to leave the key under the doormat for you if needed. That is all I am saying."

“Please stop talking.”

“This is good for your performance, che. Trust me. Do not confirm or deny. I am simply — making logistical arrangements. As your friend."

You laugh. You can't help it.

"Como amiga?”

"Sí."

"You are gross."

"I know."

She reaches over and pats your knee, twice, brisk and matter-of-fact. Then she gets up and goes back inside to find her shoes.

You sit on the terrace for another minute, alone.

You do not text Alexia yet.

* * *

Dinner is in the Born. You eat too much. Sara has theories about every restaurant in the neighborhood and explains them at length, Marta and Nuria join her. Lucía is in her element — she is louder in this group than she is at the club, looser, less professional if you can ever describe her as such. You like to watch her. You are quietly fond of all of them.

After dinner you walk to a wine bar. After the wine bar you walk to the place Sara has been advertising all night, which turns out to be a club in the Eixample with a line out the door but it’s warm outside so it’s not a big deal.

Inside it is loud and crowded and dark in the specific Spanish-club way. The music is bad. The drinks are too expensive. Lucía is delighted. Sara and her friends disappear into the crowd within ten minutes, all three of them on the prowl in different directions. Lucía and you find a small high-top table near the bar.

You order a gin tonic. Then another. You pace yourself because you don’t actually want to be drunk if you…when you —

It is around eleven-thirty when you stop being able to ignore the message you have not sent.

You glance at the clock on your phone. Ten-thirty. Alexia is a professional athlete in mid-July off-season; she is probably in her apartment doing something slow and human, watching something, reading something, not on her phone.

You think about her saying text me when you get in in a voice you remember. A little raspy, accent underneath.

You could have texted her earlier, you should have. The small semblance of control of having the decision was a little high. You are ready to let go of it for a moment.

You go to the bathroom — the kind of nightclub bathroom that is too dark and smells like old piss and has someone crying in one of the stalls. You look at yourself in the mirror. Gin tonic glaze, a small smudge of mascara, your hair behaving better than it has any right to in this humidity. You look like a woman in a bar in who is about to do something she has been pretending not to want for six weeks.

You type.

hey. in barcelona. you up

You stare at it and shudder internally. That’s just horrible

You try again.

hey. in barcelona if you are around

You hit send.

The three dots appear quicker than they have any right to appear.

Alexia: yes

Alexia: where are you?

You type name of the club which is two blocks from the Diagonal. You add, but I can come over, and you hit send before you can think about it.

Alexia: yes. come over.

Alexia: I'll send the address.

She does just like that. God, Alexia’s phone number and address. You wonder, briefly, if you wandered into some kind of parellel universe. 

You wash your hands and leave the bathroom. Need to find your friends and ditch them clear.

Lucía is at the bar with two new drinks ordered and a girl with a septum piercing leaning on the stool next to hers, mid-conversation. You touch Lucía's elbow. She turns her head and sees your face — she does not need to ask.

"¿Te vas?"

"Yeah."

She nods, very slightly. Then grins wild, like you just handed her some prize.

"Key's under the doormat," she says. Mild. "Take your time."

"Lu."

"Andá, che."

You leave a kiss on her cheek. You weave back through the crowd toward the door. Sara catches your eye across the room, mid-laugh with someone, and waves. You wave back and keep moving. You do not see Marta or Nuria. You hope they are having a good time.

You step out into the Eixample night.

The air is cooler than inside the club but still summer-warm, the kind of night where the city has decided not to go to bed yet. People are smoking on every corner. A scooter passes too close. You order an Uber and do not have to wait more then 5 minutes to climb up into a random black car.

You watch Barcelona slide past the window. The mid-summer crowds, the orange streetlamps, the open doors of bars with people spilling onto the sidewalks.

You arrive at her building in eleven minutes. It is, as expected, a fancy building in a fancy neighboorhood with a doorman who looks you up and down.

There is a private landing and a single door, and the fact of that — that she has a whole floor, a whole hush, a whole life up here above the city that watches her — sits in your chest for a second and does not sit comfortably.

You knock anyway. You are already here. What is one more reality check.

Alexia opens the door in shorts and a soft old Barcelona training top, barefoot, hair loose, and there is the smell of something warm drifting out from behind her — a candle, incense, something. Her face is bare. Her hazel eyes are exactly as you remember them, which is the problem. She is smiling.

"Hi."

"Hi."

You walk past her. The apartment is— probably belongs in a magazine of some kind. The heavy one, that sits on waiting rooms in offices you could never get in. Open plan, a kitchen out of a showroom, a long low couch. Alexia closes the door behind you and the lock clics as you turn around.

She is leaning against the door, hands in her pockets, watching you take in the space. There is no tension in her face. There is no expectancy. She looks, somehow, like she has had no one over in a long time and is glad to have someone over now — not specifically you, just someone — and it is one of the most disarming things you have ever seen on her face.

"You want a drink?"

"Sure."

Alexia moves past you into the kitchen. You follow. There are already two glasses on the marble counter, you notice, and an open bottle of red breathing beside them. She has already poured one of the glasses. 

She picks up the bottle and glances at you. "Wine?"

"Yeah."

You look around the kitchen while she pours. There's a small bowl of olives on the counter. A board with cheese on it, a couple of slices of bread, cut. Small plates stacked. The whole arrangement says I was going to eat something, you arrived, let me share. 

But you have an inkling at the bottom of your stomach that this isn’t the case at all. That she set this up for you both. 

You take the wine glass.

"Salud," she says. Quiet.

“Salud." You clink your glass with hers and take a sip.

She is watching you over the rim of her glass. The candle smell is from somewhere else in the apartment — not the kitchen, maybe the living room, maybe further back — and the kitchen light is low, and she  is gorgeous like this. Just like this, comfortable and soft. "How's the trip?"

"Good."

"Where are you staying?"

"Gràcia. Lucía rented an Airbnb."

"Mm." Small smile. "You with her tonight?"

"Her and some friends."

"Sounds fun."

"It is."

A beat. Alexia is not pushing, you are not sure she is someone who ever does it. She is asking the way someone asks when they want to know, when the asking itself is the point, when the answer is less important than the small fact of having been told.

You drink more wine.

"You eat?"

"Yeah, we ate. Big dinner."

She nods. She looks down at the cheese on the board — maybe her dinner, you realize, that you have just told her you don't need it — and she does not move it.

"How was the day off?" you ask, because something has to be said. "Did you train?"

"Light. Just gym."

"Mm."

"How's Sociedad?”

"Pre-season's still far out. Everyone's bored."

"You bored?"

"A little."

She tips her head. "What do you do when you're bored?”

You don’t think Alexia means it to be flirty, even if sounds like it is. It’s worse because you think she is interested — truly. In you, in what you actually do when you are bored and that she would file that information away. Refer to it if needed. 

You don’t know what to do with that so you do the other thing instead.

You set your wine glass down on the counter and step toward her.

She watches you do it. Her eyebrow doesn't lift, exactly, but something moves through her face — ah. here, then — and she sets her own glass down beside yours, slow, and does not look away from you while she does it.

You put a hand on her hip.

"Come here."

You kiss her, and it is faster than the last time, and you let it be. Her mouth is warm and tastes of the wine. You push up into her and she meets you exactly where you are, no faster, and you walk her two steps back into the counter until the edge of it catches her hips. You kiss her harder than you meant to. Her hand slides up into your hair.

She breaks first, for breath.

"Hola." Soft. Half a laugh in it.

"Hi."

"You don't want to—"

"No."

"Okay." She doesn't push. Her hand smooths the hair back behind your ear like she is putting something away. "Bedroom?"

"Yeah."

She walks you down the short hall and the warm smell gets stronger — it is the bedroom, of course it is — and she pushes the door with her shoulder and you follow her in and stop.

Two candles on the dresser, already burning. The light low. The bed turned down — the corner of the duvet folded back the way they do in hotels, except this is her own bed in her own apartment and she has done it with her own hands. A glass of water on the nightstand. A clean towel folded over the chair.

She did all of this in the time between yes, come over and the buzzer. Between you typing can I come now from a club bathroom that smelled of piss and her opening the door to you barefoot.

You do not let your face do anything. You are good at that, at least.

She catches it anyway — glances back over her shoulder, a little unsure, her eyes already gone dark but a faint color rising in her cheeks. "Too much?"

"It's nice."

She watches your face half a second longer.

"Ven." She says, smile soft. 

Her hand finds the hem of your shirt and tugs. A question.

You step into her.

You kiss her again, slower this time — you cannot help it — and her hands come up to your waist and lift your shirt off over your head, and you let her. You strip hers off in return.

No bra. Again.

You have thought about her chest more than you would admit to a living person. In the four weeks of watching her stories you have thought about it in training, on the train, in the shower sometimes with your hand between your legs and your jaw set against making noise. And here it is, better than the memory — small, high, perfect, the candlelight pooling under the curve of each breast and catching her nipples already tight in the warm air. Her stomach below is flat and cut, a footballer's stomach, the muscle just visible, a line of shadow down the center of it. She is stupidly, unreasonably beautiful, and she is standing in her own bedroom letting you look, and you want to put your teeth in her.

You push her back onto the bed. She goes — falls into the pillows, blonde hair spilling loose around her face, thighs parting under you without being asked — and looks up and waits.

You climb over her.

You had a plan. Quick, efficient, get your mouth on her and take her apart, stay in the half of the night where you are the one doing and nothing is being asked of you.

Her mouth is right there. You go slow anyway.

You kiss her deep and unhurried and she opens under it, and she is patient with you — even now, after you turned down her questions and walked her in here — one hand coming up to hold your jaw, kissing you back like she is hungry still. It undoes something. You break it before it can undo more.

You bite along her jaw. Down her throat, to the hollow where her pulse is slamming, and you suck there, hard enough to feel her breath catch, hard enough to mark her if you stayed — and the thought of Alexia Putellas walking into pre-season with your mouth printed on her neck makes you clench around nothing. You drag your teeth down instead. Her collarbone. The soft skin under it.

You take one perfect pink nipple into your mouth and suck, and Alexia makes a sound too close to a whine to be anything else, and her spine bows up off the pillows to push more of herself into your mouth. You give her teeth, careful, and she gasps. "Ay — joder —" You flatten your tongue over it to soothe and she shudders under you, and her hand is in your hair now, gripping, nails dragging. You move to the other one. Draw it deep into the wet heat of your mouth and work it with your tongue and she keens, actually keens, the composed woman who gives nothing away in the mixed zone falling apart under your mouth over her own tits.

You pull off with a wet sound. Her nipple is stiff and shining in the candlelight where your mouth was.

"You're loud," you tell her, mouthing at the soft curve of her breast, pampering the skin there.

"Cállate." No heat in it. Her chest is heaving. "Sigue —"

You go lower before the tenderness climbing your throat can get its hands on you. Down over her sternum, over the flat of her stomach, and you drag your open mouth across the muscle there just to feel it flex under your tongue — she is all lean hard lines under the softest skin, and you take your time with the contrast, licking a slow path down the center of her because you can, because she is letting you, because no one else gets to. You press your mouth to her hipbone and bite it, gently, and she inhales.

The line of muscle cuts down into the waistband of her shorts. You hook your fingers into it and look up the length of her — past that flat stomach, past her heaving chest — and her eyes are already black, her bottom lip caught white between her teeth.

"Por favor," she says.

Alexia Putellas is saying please to you, and you have not even taken her shorts off yet.

You take them down slow, the underwear with them, drag them off those long legs and drop them off the side of the bed, and she is bare, thighs already fallen open for you, and she is soaked. Slick shines on the inside of both thighs. She has been like this since the door — since before the door, since the kitchen, standing there mild and pouring your wine with her thighs pressed together and all of this going on underneath the calm. The understanding lands hot and low in you.

You settle between her legs. You do not put your mouth where she wants it.

You kiss the inside of one thigh instead, high up, where the skin is hot and damp and tastes of her, and you drag your tongue through the slick smeared there and she makes a low frustrated sound and her hips tilt up, chasing, trying to put herself against your mouth.

"Argentina." Strained. "Don't — don't tease.”

"I'm not doing anything," you tell her, lips still against her thigh, kissing and nipping.

"Sí, lo estás haciendo —“

You lick another slow stripe up the crease of her, close, not close enough, and her hand comes down and lands in your hair and pushes — Alexia reaching for control the way she always will, the way she leads on the pitch, trying to steer your mouth where she needs it.

You let her move you exactly one inch. Then you resist, and you look up her body, and you wait until she looks back.

"Ask properly.”

Her jaw works. You watch her fight it — the pride, the composure — and you watch her lose, because she is too wet and too far gone to win it, and it is the single hottest thing you have ever done to anyone.

"Por favor." It comes out cracked. Her fingers tighten in your hair. "Put your mouth on me. Por favor, cariño — please —“

You reward her.

You put your mouth on cunt, flat and full, one long stroke of your tongue up through her, and the taste of her floods your mouth — tangy and sharp and, the taste you have not stopped thinking about for a month — and she moans loud, almost a mewel, no dignity left, nothing held back at all.

"Dios — ay, sí —“

You find her clit and you circle it, slow, and you stay. You meant to be messy and you have gone reverent instead and you cannot make yourself stop. Her hips chase up off the bed and you press her back down with a forearm across her stomach and hold her there, take her at the pace you set, and she groans at being pinned. She tastes like more the wetter she gets. You lap at her, suck her clit soft between your lips, let it go, and every change pulls a different sound out of her — a moan, a whimper, a high cracked thing when you suck — and you are cataloguing them, greedy, wanting the whole set for yourself.

"Más — more, right there, más —" She is directing again, hips straining under your arm. "Inside, put — cariño, por favor —“

She asked nicely enough.

You bring a hand up and press two fingers to her entrance, and you sink them in, and she is hot and gripping and slick to the knuckle, opening around you like she has been waiting. You curl up into the soft front of her and her stomach goes rigid under your forearm and she cries out, sharp and high.

"Ahí — there, ahí, ahí, no pares —“

You don't. You give her exactly that — the same curl, the same rhythm, your mouth steady on her clit — and you feel her start to come apart under you. Her thighs shake at your ears. Her whole stomach draws tight. Her hand leaves your hair and skids down blind across her own belly until it finds your other hand where it pins her, and she covers it and laces her fingers through yours and presses down, hard, like she needs somewhere to put all of it.

She comes with a long cracked cry that climbs and breaks in the middle, and then the language goes — the Spanish gone with it, and what spills out of her is Catalan, fast and soft and useless to translate and you do not need a single word. Her thighs seize around your head. Her hips buck up into your mouth. Around your fingers you feel her clench and pulse, hard, again, again, riding it out on your hand.

You stay with her through all of it. Then you gentle — your tongue going soft and slow, working her down and not off, licking through her and drawing another shiver up, carefully avoiding her clit now where she has gone too sensitive to take it. You keep going a little longer than you need to just because she lets you clean her up. Her sounds go small and whiny. Her hips sink back into the bed.

You ease your fingers out — slow, one last shudder out of her — and you bring them to your mouth and taste her off your own hand, unhurried, while she watches you do it through half-lidded eyes, and something flickers across her wrecked face at the sight of it.

You press one kiss to the inside of her thigh. It is too soft and you do not let yourself look too long at what that means.

You settle half over her, your face at her throat, and her arm comes up on its own and folds around the back of your neck, holding you there. Her heart is going hard and fast against your cheek, and you lie in the wreck of her breathing and feel it, slowly, begin to come down.

Here’s the part you can’t stand. The insecurity of it being all too much, too real.

You can do the sex. You can put your mouth on her and your fingers in her and bring her to a climax that has her going loud. You cannot do this. You cannot lie against her after and be there. You do what you know how to do instead. You lift your head off her and you want her again — harder this time, and you the one doing, back in the half of this where nothing is being asked of you.

"Ale."

"Sí." Rough. Wrecked. She drags her eyes half-open.

"You have a strap?"

Something moves through her face — interest, heat, and under it a flicker of something that is almost a question but stops. She lets it go.

"Sí." Her hand smooths down your spine. "You want me to—"

"No. I'll wear it."

She holds your eyes a second. Then she tips her chin toward the nightstand. "Drawer. Top one."

You roll off her and sit up on the edge of the bed and you open it.

It is right there. The harness and the strap folded clean on top of a bottle of lube, all of it set at the very front of the drawer — where a person lying in this bed could reach it without having to lean, without having to break from whoever they were reaching for. She keeps it where she can get to it in the dark. The heat that goes through you at that has nothing to do with what is about to happen, and you shut the drawer on it.

You stand and step out of your jeans — still on, you never got them off, too fast for that — push them down, and you are in your underwear at the side of her bed with Alexia watching you. 

You turn around with the harness in your hands.

Alexia is up on her elbows, hair a wreck of blonde across the pillow, cheeks still flushed from coming, thighs loose and open, watching you with a small private smile at the corner of her mouth that lands somewhere between I'm enjoying this and I'm not going to do you the favor of being shy about it. Naked and gold in the candlelight. The most composed woman you know, spread across her own bed like she has nowhere to be.

"Come here," she says, gesturing with her hand.

You climb on. She sits up and takes the harness out of your hands and works it onto you herself — both hands at your hips, quick and sure, the small efficiency of someone who has done this, and you make yourself not think about the someone. She pulls the last strap tight. Then she runs her palm once over the front of you, the shape of you in it, considering, and leans in and presses a kiss just below your navel that makes you clench tight against nothing.

She picks up the lube.

"Let me."

She slicks you slow — the warm drag of her palm down the length of the strap, her eyes coming up to yours while she does it — and you feel it mostly secondhand, the base of it pressing against your clit each time her hand moves, and it is enough to make your breath go short. She is doing it to watch your face. You know she is.

She sets the bottle on the nightstand and rises up on her knees and kisses you, and this one is deep and slow, her tongue in your mouth, and she catches your bottom lip between hers and sucks, filthy, until your hands tighten hard on her waist.

She breaks it. Her forehead drops against yours.

"How do you want me?"

Christ. Her, of all people, handing you that.

You cannot say it out loud. You put your hands on her hips instead and turn her, firm, until her back is to you.

"Like this." Low. "That okay?"

"Sí."

She goes down without making you ask twice — onto her elbows, then lower, chest to the duvet, hips tipped up to you, that long back a single line from her shoulders to where her hips meet her thighs, littered with tattoos you know nothing about. Her hair spills forward off her shoulders and pools on the bed in front of her face. Her thighs fall open. Her ass is round and perfectly lit in the candlelight and she is presenting it to you, Alexia Putellas face-down and lifted for you to take, and the sight of it lands hot and greedy.

You put a flat hand on the small of her back. Just to feel her under your palm. She makes a small needy sound at the touch alone and you clench again around nothing.

You bring your other hand down between her thighs. Still slick, still hot, wet smeared on the inside of her thighs. You drag two fingers up through her and circle her clit, slow, and watch her shoulders flex and roll. She groans into the duvet.

"You want it?" you ask.

"Sí — por favor —"

You sink two fingers into her instead, just to feel her take them, just to make her wait one more second, and she gasps and her hips press back into your hand.

"Cariño —" muffled, strained — "basta, no juegues — give it to me—"

You ease your fingers out. You line the strap up and press the head against her.

"Breathe."

You push in — just the head, the first inch — and she is tight, tight even like this, even soft and prepped, and you go slow because she is taking her time opening around you. Her breath stutters. You hold there and watch her back.

"Okay?"

"Más." She rocks back to take more of you.

"Tell me if it's too much."

"No — dame más —"

You give her more. You sink another inch, slow, and feel her stretch to take it — feel it through the base dragging against your own clit as you press, both sensations at once, her opening around you and the dull good pressure against you — and it drags a low groan up out of your chest before you can stop it.

You push the rest of the way in.

She makes a long broken sound into the duvet and her hips press back flush against yours and stay there, and you hold still, both hands gripping her hips, and you look at where you meet — the base of the strap flush to her, the whole length of you buried in her. 

Alexia Putellas bottomed out on your cock on her hands and knees — and the heat of it is not secondhand at all. It is hard and full and mean and yours.

"Joder." It comes out of you low. "Look at you."

She whines.

"Taking all of it." You drag your palm up the line of her back. "You good?"

"Sí — sí, muévete — move, por favor —"

You pull back slow, almost all the way out — the drag of it a high of its own — and push back in, and the sound she makes is wet and shapeless.

You set a rhythm. Slow at first. You watch the way she takes you — the way her back arches, the way her ass gives against your hips each time you bottom out, the way her thighs shake when you go deep. The strap is shining with lube and her, the slick of it obscene and audible in the quiet, the wet catch of every stroke when it disappears inside her. Her hair is everywhere and her shoulder blades cut and shift in the low light.

You speed up. The bed gives a faint creak under it. She is moaning steadily into the duvet now, rough groans, the sound pouring out of her without shape, and you watch the muscle work in her back and the small jump of her ass every time you drive home and your own breath is going ragged, your stomach tight, the base grinding a dull ache into your clit with every thrust — good, not enough, never going to be enough from this and you don't chase it. You pour it into her instead.

"Más fuerte —" she gets out. "Harder — cariño, harder—"

You give it to her harder. You lean forward, brace one hand flat on the bed beside her, change the angle so you are driving down into her from above, and she sobs — sharp, surprised, the sound of a woman who did not know that angle was coming — and her hand shoots back blind and grabs your thigh and holds on.

"Ahí — right there, right there, no pares —"

You don't stop. Same depth, same rhythm, and you feel her start to come apart under you, her language starting to slip — the Catalan bleeding back in, fast and raw, and she is not translating it and you are not asking her to. You watch the damp curl of hair at the back of her neck. Her shoulders start to shake.

You bring your free hand up and push two fingers into her mouth.

She takes them. Takes them — sucks immediately, hot and wet, her tongue working the pads of them, moaning around your hand, and you feel yourself get drenched at the filthy obscene fact of it, her mouth full of your fingers and her cunt full of your cock and both of them yours at once.

"That's it," you breathe. "Dios, look at you."

She moans around your fingers. You pump them slow against her tongue, in time with your hips, and she is completely gone now, wrecked at both ends, and you could keep her exactly like this for the rest of the night.

But you want to see her.

You ease your fingers out of her mouth — she makes a small lost sound at the loss — and you pull back and slip out of her, slow, and she groans, and before she can grieve it you get a hand on her hip and turn her.

"Come here. On your back."

She rolls. Boneless, easy, letting you move her — hair fanning across the pillow, chest flushed pink from her collarbones down, mouth swollen, eyes gone black and glassy and finding yours. She is obscene like this, wrecked and open and looking up at you, and for one second the looking snags at something in your chest — her face, right there, no way to avoid it now — and you shove it down and hook a hand under her thigh instead.

You lift her leg, open her up, and press back into her in one long slow stroke, and you both groan.

Face to face is deeper. She feels it — her back arches off the bed, her hands come up and grip your forearms, nails biting in.

"Ay — joder, cariño —"

"Yeah?" You start to move, driving down into her, watching her whole body take it. "That deep enough?"

"Sí — sí, sí —"

You brace one hand on her thigh, keeping her open, and bring the other down between you and find her clit, swollen and hard, and circle it in time with your hips, and she keens — high and helpless, nothing composed left in it — and her hips buck up to meet you.

Then you stop. Buried deep, hips flush to her, everything held still.

She makes a wrecked sound of protest and tries to grind up against you, and you press your hand flat to her stomach, where she is full, and hold her down.

"Tell me you want it."

"Cariño —"

"Say it." You give her one slow stroke, all the way out and all the way back in, and then still again, and watch her fall apart at the loss of the rhythm. "I want to hear you."

"I want it." Cracked. Her hands scrabble at your forearms. "Te quiero — I want it, please, no pares —"

Not enough. You start moving again, shallow and unhurried, watching her chase it, keeping it just under what she needs.

"Want what?" Low. Mean. You do not know where this version of your voice comes from — only that having her under you, made to answer, is the closest thing to control you have felt all night. "Use your words, Alexia."

Her face does something — the pride, the pitch composure, the woman who gives nothing away — and you watch it break, watch her decide she wants this more than she wants to keep it.

"I want you to fill me." It spills out of her, wrecked, all the polish stripped off, her hands clawing at your hips, digging in. "Quiero estar — I want to be full, cariño, por favor — full, like this, dame —"

The captain saying the filthy thing out loud, for you, because you made her — it goes through you like a current, and something in your chest snaps its leash.

"Puta madre." You give it to her. Hard, deep, the way she asked — and the answer punches out of you now too, your own mouth gone as filthy as hers. "That what you wanted? That full enough — Alexia Putellas begging to get stuffed—"

"Yes — sí, sí —"

"Look at you take it." You are driving into her, watching where you split her open, watching her tits jump with every thrust. "Whole city thinks they know you. Nobody gets you like this. Wide open, dripping on my cock, begging for it—"

She sobs. Her nails rake down your forearms.

"—that's mine." It leaves you before you can stop it, rawer than the rest, truer than you meant. "Tonight that's mine."

"Tuya—" she gasps, "sí, tuya, cariño —"

You cannot hold what it does to you. You bury it in her — in the drive of your hips, in your fingers circling harder at her clit — and she is climbing fast now, faster.

It builds in her thighs first — you feel them start to shake around you — then her stomach draws rigid, then she clenches hard around the strap and the base grinds sharp against you, almost, almost, and you breathe through it and keep your rhythm and do not chase it because this is hers.

"Cariño — I'm — me voy a —"

"I know. Look at me." And she does, she drags her eyes to yours, black and wet and wide open, and you hold them. "Come on, Alexia. Give it to me."

She breaks.

She comes with her eyes on yours and then losing them, head driving back into the pillow, a long cracked cry breaking into Catalan halfway through — si us plau, si us plau spilling out of her, please, please, the last word she has left — her thighs seizing around your hips, her clenching around you in hard fast pulses under your fingers, and you fuck her through every one of them, slow now, gentling your hand, watching her come apart on your cock with her surrender in Catalan and nothing at all held back.

You ride her down. You slow your hips, slow your fingers, ease her through the aftershocks until she is twitching and oversensitive and pushing weakly at your wrist.

You still. You are still buried in her, both of you breathing hard, her chest heaving, sweat at her hairline, her eyes half-shut and glassy and finding yours again.

The base of the strap is a dull unfinished ache against you. You leave it there. 

You should pull out. Find your clothes. This is the part where you go.

Instead you remember — unbidden, clear — the first time, in that hotel room: how she'd made a small unhappy sound when you'd slipped out of her too soon after, how she'd said no, wait, quédate un momento, wanting to keep you inside a little while longer, wanting to stay joined. 

You had filed it away without meaning to. You have carried it four weeks without looking at it.

You lower yourself down onto her instead of pulling back — carefully, keeping the strap seated inside her, easing your weight down until you are chest to chest, her breasts soft against yours, her heartbeat slamming through both your ribs. She exhales like something in her has been waiting for it. Her arms come up around your back, pulling you in. Her thighs stay loose around your hips.

"You want me to stay in a bit?" Your mouth is at her ear. Quiet. A kiss to the side of her head. "I remember you liked it. Before."

She goes still under you. Just for a second. Something catches in her breath that is not from the sex.

"Sí." Barely there. Her arms tighten across your back, her own lips trace your cheek, not quite a kiss. "Quédate."

Stay.

The word echoes inside your ribs, that one soft word, and you press your face into the pillow beside her head so she cannot see what it does to you. You stay. You hold still, full weight down on her now, her hands stroking slow up and down your spine, and you let her keep you there — joined, close, the tender thing you can just barely stand to give because it is still, technically, you giving it.

You bring your face into her hair. Just for a second. Just because she cannot see you doing it. You breathe her in and you do not let yourself think about how much you remembered.

* * *

You stay like that for a long minute. Long enough that her breathing goes even under you and your own follows it without asking permission.

Then she moves — slow, unhurried — easing you up off her chest, and you let her slip the strap free and you both breathe at the loss of it. She reaches down and works the harness loose at your hips, and you lift up so she can get it off you, and she sets it aside on the floor without making anything of it.

She rolls you gently onto your back.

You go before you fully understand what it means — and then she is kissing down your throat, your sternum, her blonde hair dragging warm over your ribs, her mouth headed somewhere with clear intent, and everything in you locks.

You catch her jaw.

Both hands, gentle, clumsy with how fast you moved. You lift her face up off your stomach and bring her back up the length of you until she is level with you on the pillow, and your thumb lands on her cheekbone, and you have no plan at all for what to say now that you have stopped her.

Alexia blinks at you. Her face goes uncertain in a way you have never seen on it.

"Did I —" She stops. Starts again, quieter. "Is this not — did I do something wrong?"

"No." It comes out of you fast, too fast. "God. No. Ale, no."

"Because if you don't want —"

"That's not it." You are still holding her jaw. You make your hands soften. "That's really not it."

She looks at you a moment. Then her hand comes up and covers one of yours where it's cradling her face, and she turns her mouth into your palm and kisses it, and she does not let it go.

"Then let me." Low. Simple. "I want to make you feel good too. You did — cariño, you did all that. Let me."

And there it is: the thing that scares you worse than her body. She is not being polite. She wants it — wants to be allowed to give you something — and you can hear underneath it the fact that this matters to her, that it is not an even trade she is proposing, it is a feeling she is trying to hand you.

You cannot take it. Not tonight. Not sure you could ever.

"It was enough." You brush your thumb across her cheek, because it is easier than saying anything else. "Tonight. Just — that." You tip your chin down at her, the flush still on her chest, the mess of her hair. "I like watching you like this. Getting you like this. That was the whole thing I wanted."

She searches your face. She is not convinced. But something in her decides not to make you defend it, and instead a slow crooked smile arrives.

"You just want to hear me like that," she says, shy but with a teasing to it. It makes you shiver, the lit on her voice, the pride under it.

”Maybe." You feel your face go hot. "Is that allowed?”

"Mm." She settles her cheek back into your palm, considering you. "Very selfless of you, Argentina."

"I'm a giver."

"Claramente." She's fully grinning now, that private thing at the corner of her mouth, and she leans in and kisses you — soft, nothing behind it — and it is so easy to kiss her back that you forget, for a moment, to be careful.

She tucks herself into your side.

Her head goes to your shoulder. Her arm settles across your stomach. One bare leg slides over yours, and she goes loose and heavy against your side, and your arm has come up around her back without your permission at all. Her fingers move idle on your ribs, tracing little shapes. Yours have found the ends of her hair and you are combing through them slowly, over and over, without having decided to.

Neither of you says anything for a while.

Her thumb passes back and forth over your sternum. You feel the drag of her leg settling heavier across yours. She turns her face and presses her mouth to your shoulder, absent, not a kiss so much as a resting place, and her breath goes warm against your skin. Your hand moves down her back and follows the line of her spine, up and down, learning it. The candles tick.

It is so easy. That is the whole problem. Your body has gone unguarded and it is fitting itself to hers like it has been waiting the entire night to be given permission, and the stray thought arrives, horrifying in its simplicity: you could just stay.

You go rigid.

You feel it happen from the outside — the shoulder under her cheek turning to stone, the hand on her back stopping mid-stroke — and you cannot get it back.

"Maybe I should —" It's out before you've built the rest of it. Your voice sounds wrong. "I should probably —"

She lifts her head off your shoulder.

Alexia looks at you for a second, hazel eyes clear now. Whatever she finds there, whatever passes through her football brain, she does not chase it, and she does not let you finish the sentence either.

"Hey." Quiet. Her hand flattens warm on your chest, steadying. "Shower first. With me. Before you go."

Before you go. She hands it to you exactly like that — the exit folded right into the invitation, so you don't have to be the one to reach for it. You could kiss her for that. You don't.

"Yeah." It comes out rougher than you mean. "Yeah, okay."

* * *

You sit on the bed for one more second after she crosses to the bathroom.

Your hands are tacky with lube and her. There is sweat at the back of your neck and a small ache between your hips from the harness.

The candles are still burning on the dresser and you think you should put them out, but it feels too much like a ending so you don’t.

You get up and go to the bathroom instead.

The water is already running and you stop in the bathroom doorway. Through the fogging glass you can see her — back to you, head tipped into the spray, water sheeting down her shoulders, her hair still up in its loose knot. Steam climbs the mirror and makes everything hazy like the edges of a dream — which maybe this whole night is.

She turns. Through the glass and the steam, Alexia looks at you — water on her face, lashes clumped dark, one hand flat to the tile — and she smiles, inviting.

She lifts a hand. Come.

You step in.

The spray is heavy without stinging and the heat closes over you all at once, and your shoulders drop before you can think to stop them. She takes your wrist, gentle, and draws you further under, and then she turns you — both hands at your shoulders, not asking, just moving you — until your back is to her chest and the water runs down your front. Wet skin against wet skin, a closeness that makes you gasp. Her chin comes to rest on your shoulder.

She kisses the top of it. Once. Then her hands lift away.

You hear the small click of a bottle. The squeeze of it. And then her hands are in your hair.

You go still.

Her fingers are working at your scalp, slow circles at your temples, at the base of your skull, at the crown. She does it like she has done it before — finds a tangle and works it out without pulling. Her thumb traces small careful circles behind your ears.

You stand under the water with your eyes closed and you bring a hand up, blind, behind you. You find her hip and let your palm settle there. 

Her hands keep moving in your hair. "Tilt back."

You tilt your head back. She tips it gently the rest of the way, her hand cradling the base of your skull, and she rinses your hair under the spray. The water runs white and then clear. Her fingers comb through. You feel her thumb pass once over the soft place behind your ear.

She does it deliberately. You know she does.

"Conditioner now."

“Mm." You try to remember a time when you were this relaxed and come up empty.

The click again. She works it through the lengths, lifts the weight of your hair off your neck, combs it down with her fingers all the way to the ends. Her knuckles graze the top of your spine.

"Other way," she says softly.

You turn. Now the spray hits your shoulders, and Alexia is in front of you, close, her hands coming up into your hair from the front to work the conditioner to the roots. Your hand finds her ribs without being told to. Just there. Resting.

She is concentrating — brow faintly furrowed, lower lip caught between her teeth, wholly given over to the small task of washing another person's hair. Alexia is…too much. Too good for you. 

You close your eyes so you don't have to hold that.

You hear her shift closer. Then her voice, low, right against the wet at the side of your face:

"You're so beautiful like this."

Your eyes open.

She isn't looking at you. She's looking at her own hand in your hair, like the line came out of her without permission — like she'd been thinking it and her mouth said it before she could catch it back.

There’s a small pink tint to her cheeks and it’s not from the shower. Your throat shuts as you search for words that are as honest as what she just gave you and find yourself lacking — as usual.

So you you kiss her instead.

She makes a small startled sound against your mouth. Her hands go still in your hair. Then she kisses you back — open and unhurried — and one of her hands stays cradled at your nape, conditioner-slick, fingers spreading wide. The water runs down between your bodies. Your hand stays on her ribs the whole time and does not ask for anything more.

She breaks it first. Breathes out against your mouth — half a laugh, caught off guard, the little shy sound she makes sometimes. 

“Cariño."She exhales against your mouth.

She kisses the corner of your mouth once more. Then she steps back just enough to look at you, and her palm comes up to cup the side of your face, her thumb passing once across your cheekbone, and you let her.

She turns you again — gently, both hands — and rinses the conditioner out. Combs through one more time, which is not remotely necessary and you both know it and neither of you says so.

"There."

You open your eyes. She's smiling. Her own hair is still knotted up dry at the back of her head — she has done all of you and none of herself.

You lift your hand. You bring it to the wet hair at her temple, where a few strands have come loose from the tie and stuck to her skin, and you tuck them back, clumsy, your knuckles brushing her cheek. It is the only thing you can manage. It is nowhere near enough for what she has just done to you.

She turns her face into your hand for half a second. Then she reaches past you for the soap, easy, letting you off the hook.

"Turn around. Let me get your back.” Her hand finds your hip easily.

You let her.

You realize, standing there with her palms moving warm over your shoulders and the whole day rinsing off you, that you would let this woman do almost anything to you.

Almost. Not the last thing. Not reach your heart.

When she gets to your ass, she pauses. You don’t need to turn to know she is smiling, smug and satisfied.

"You did a lot of work tonight," she comments, fingers digging in.

"Yeah?"

"Sí." She pinches your side, a tease. “Strong core."

You snort, before you can help it.

She washes you the rest of the way down. Then she turns you again, slow, and she rinses you under the spray.

Then she steps back and she finally — finally — takes her hair out of its tie and steps under the water herself. She does her own hair fast. Methodical. Like she is making up for time she did not spend on it.

You think about asking if she wants you to do hers. The thought is its own decision.

She finishes. The bathroom is full of steam and quiet. She steps out, reaches for a towel, hands you one without looking. You wrap it around yourself.

Her eyes catch yours in the mirror. You smile without meaning to and Alexia smiles back.

You think you have been played, somewhat, and that maybe the sex would have been less intimate than this.

* * *

You find your clothes on the bedroom floor and dress fast, before the candles still burning on the dresser can say anything else to you.

She comes out to the living room after you, pours two glasses of water, hands you one. You drink half of it standing up.

She folds herself onto the long low couch with her own glass, one knee bent up, hair damp and dark on her shoulders, an old t-shirt on now and nothing you can see under it. She isn't looking at you. She's scrolling something on her phone with her thumb, easy, unbothered — too casual not to be performative, but you let it be.

You sit down beside her, thighs touching, catching her attention. She puts the phone to the side.

You lean over and kiss her once more, because Alexia is that addictive.

She kisses you back, once. Then a smaller one, a peck, and she tips her forehead against yours, arms wrapping over your shoulders.

"Stay," she says. Quieter. Not asking.

You close your eyes.

"I can't."

"Argentina."

"Lu's expecting me." Technically a lie. Nobody is expecting anyone anymore. "I told her I'd—"

"It's okay." Her thumb brushes along your jaw. She breathes out against your mouth, and you feel the sigh she doesn't voice. "Hey." She lifts her forehead away. "Podés irte."

The disappointment goes across her face so fast you almost miss it. Almost.

Then she smiles, small and real, and lets you off the hook for the second time tonight.

"Okay," you say.

You both stand.

You walk to the door together and she leans a shoulder against the frame beside it, arms loose, close enough that you can still feel the warmth coming off her. She waits. She is very good at waiting. It has been the whole problem from the beginning.

And you should say thank you, or goodnight, or I'll text you, or anything honest. Instead you hear your own voice come out light and easy and awful:

"This is — this is casual, right? We're on the same page?"

Her head tips.

Alexia looks at you for a long second. And you watch it happen — you watch her face close, the warmth going out of it, everything folding back behind the composed mild nothing she wears in public after a loss, or even a bad game. You have never had that face turned on you. You did that.

Then she pushes off the frame and steps away without a word. She walks down the hall to the bedroom and you hear a drawer slide open, and then she comes back into the hallway holding the blaugrana.

The same shirt. From the hotel. Washed and folded into a neat square.

She presses it gently against your chest.

You catch it on instinct, both hands.

"Sí." Steady. Her eyes on yours and nothing moving in her face at all. "Casual, Argentina."

"Right." Your voice comes out wrong. "Okay. Cool."

"Buen viaje."

You leave.

You don't quite notice how long the Uber takes to drive you back, just that it does.

You sit in the back with the blaugrana folded on your lap and your hand flat on top of it. You watch Barcelona pass the window and you almost convince yourself that you came out of it unscathed.

When the driver pulls up to the Airbnb, the key is under the doormat, as promised. The apartment is dark and silent when you let yourself in.

You pad to your single room with the blaugrana and sit down on the bed, putting it on the pillow beside you.

You bend over and put your face in your hands for a second. You get up because you can't stand yourself right now: your skin, cleaned by her, touched by her so tenderly, so carefully. You did not deserve it.

You cross the hallway and peek into Lucía's double, and she is alone in it. You slip in without a sound and curl up at her side. She opens her eyes slowly, bleary.

"Back from your little adventure, che?" she whispers, voice rough, pulling your arm over her side until you are spooning. "Didn't want to sleep over?"

"Hm, missed you too much." You let her pull you, teasing in your voice. It's easy with Lu; it's easy with lots of girls, because they don't matter as much as Alexia. "Didn't get lucky, Lu?"

"What do you mean?" she mumbles, already drifting off. "I've got a pretty thing in my bed right now."

And you let her soft snores lull you to sleep. * * *

You wake up in Lucía's bed with the light already high and the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen, and you lie there a while, and you already know how the rest of it goes. 

You will hook up with Alexia three of the four nights you have left in the city. You will fuck her. She will fuck you. You will not sleep over on any of those nights either.

The last night you will be at the club, drinking more than usual because it is the last night and everyone will be looser for it, and Sara — or Nuria, you won't even remember which — will tease you about your mystery Barcelona girlfriend, and something in you will come loose. Your chest will go tighter and tighter until you can't breathe around it. You will drink too much. You will kiss a random girl who looks nothing like Alexia, which is exactly entire point. You will wake up the next day with the worst taste in your mouth, still smelling of club and smoke and the cheap perfume of the girl you pressed into a bathroom stall.

Alexia will have texted.

you're not coming over tonight, cariño?

And then, later, smaller:

are you ok?

It will make you feel like shit, which, to be fair, matches the hangover. You will have earned every part of it.

You will text back and apologize. drank too much, lost track of time, you know how it goes.

She will answer that it's fine. That she was just worried.

Worried about you. Imagine that. Alexia Putellas, awake at two in the morning, worried about mediocre little you.

You will leave Barcelona telling yourself you are going to make it right. This season you are going to make all of it right with her.

Then Manchester City will come calling, and they will want you.

You. The insanity of it. The best moment of your career — and no Champions League, no group stage, no chance of ever drawing Barcelona — and you will think about Alexia. Briefly. Stupidly. While you are already saying yes, while you are already going.

You need it on the record that you thought about her.

You don’t even overthink it. Your breathing is still ragged, you feel 30 seconds away from collapsing. You knock on the door, Alexia answers immediately, as if she has been waiting next to it. You don’t spare her a look and go lie down on the bed, throwing your slides on the floor. You put your head in the pillow and scream in frustration.

“Hey.” Alexia says softly. She comes to sit on the other side of the bed, close to you. She caresses your back up and down in comfort. “What’s wrong ?” You can hear the worry in her voice. To be fair, it must be confusing to her.

You groan and turn your head toward her. Her eyes are full of compassion. God, you love those eyes. “My agent called, about the contract.” You scrub a hand over your face. “I still have no freaking idea what I want to do.” You feel a lump in your throat, you absolutely won’t cry in front of her. Not because of a contract.

You take a deep breath to calm yourself. “Then there is the whole shitshow created by Vicky. I’m not literally mad at her but fuck with this whole contract thing it’s starting to be too much.” You’re rambling, she doesn’t stop you.

Her thumb traces slow circles between your shoulder blades, and it feels good, it’s grounding. You could get lost against the sensation, feeling the warmth of her palm even through your shirt.

“What can I do to help ?” Alexia is nice, too fucking nice. And her eyes are soft and–. “Hey, calm down, you’re shaking.” You haven’t even realized you were, you try to breathe in and out, it isn’t working much. She presses down her hand against your lower back, you shiver at the sensation.

She misinterprets your reaction and pulls her hand back slightly, hovering in a rare moment of awkwardness. She looks like she doesn’t know quite how to comfort you, and honestly, you can’t blame her.

You take a deep breath once your heartbeat stops pounding in your temple. “I’m sorry for coming here every time I’m overwhelmed.”

She furrows her eyebrows. “Hey no.” She says quickly. “You can come here anytime you need.”

The words land somewhere behind your ribs. Suddenly looking at her feels like a terrible idea. “What a good captain.” You deflect. How weird would it be for you to run away right now ? Because you definitely trust neither your instincts nor your mind right now.

She rolls her eyes, annoyed at you. “You know I’m not doing that just because I’m your captain.” You’re not that convinced it’s true. “And I have a single room, I'd be alone otherwise.”

You chuckle, starting to finally not feel like you’re gonna break down in an instant. “Oh yeah poor you, we can switch if it’s making you suffer too much.”

“We could.” Her tone is too serious for your liking.

“I was kidding Ale. I don’t have a problem with sharing my room.”

She searches your face, relaxing at whatever she finds there. She doesn’t push. “You’re feeling a bit better ?”

You nod, better because you don’t feel like you’re gonna implode. You can still feel how tense your body is. The conversation with your agent is playing on loop in your brain. Her presence is the only thing soothing your mind, you want to feel her palm against your back again.

Alexia still has a worried look, something in your chest goes soft at the sight. You look at her face, your mind can’t stop thinking about how beautiful she is. Her eyes, her lips, the feeling of her body against yours after the game against England, the way she has been opening her door without question for you. The adrenaline of panic is morphing into something else.

You also need a distraction, badly.

“Do you want to help me make a very bad decision right now ?” Confusion is written all over her face. Then your gaze drops to her lips, completely devoid of subtlety, before snapping back to her eyes. You watch recognition flare in them, followed by something much heavier.

She seems to hesitate. “I don’t want to take advantage of the state you’re in,” she whispers. Her jaw tenses. She looks away, then back at you. For a second you feel a cold shiver, worried you’ve gone too far. Then her eyes can’t stop themselves from looking down at your lips, and you exhale.

“Ale.” Her eyes snap back to yours. She’s on the edge of a cliff, you need to convince her to jump. “It’s not the first time I’m thinking about it,” you admit.

Her throat bobs, her eyes fluttering shut for a fraction of a second. Then, the distance between you vanishes. Her lips are soft against yours. Instinct takes over, your hand flies to her jaw, your thumb tracing her cheekbone. It feels great, more than great. Your mind goes blank while butterflies explode in your stomach, heat rushes through you so quickly it leaves you lightheaded.

She breaks the kiss first. When your eyes open, she’s already staring down at you, searching. She is entirely breathtaking. A smile breaks across her face, wider and softer than any victory you’ve ever seen her celebrate on the pitch.

The first words she says are “You see I was right to be trying to fix everything from the start.” She seems happy with herself, the words take a moment to register.

Oh yeah, you did basically tell her she was too much of a try hard when captaining the team. You can’t believe she’s thinking about that right now. She adds smugly “I’m a great captain, ain’t I ?” You shut her up with a second kiss. She smiles against your lips before melting when she feels your tongue.

Somehow you end up in her lap, her hands firm against your hips, grabbing the fabric of your shirt. When the kiss breaks because you unfortunately are both humans that need air, you press open mouth kisses on her jaw. You then lick the length of it. Alexia murmurs a curse and you kiss her again.

You put a centimeter of space between your two mouths. “We both know why I’m doing this, I need to take my mind off things. I don’t get why you’re doing this.” You murmur against her lips. You need to know why, to be sure she wants this.

Alexia’s eyes are dark with want, her breathing uneven. You can’t even imagine what she looks like when she’s close to coming undone. You want to discover that. “Maybe I just want to fuck you.” Her voice is lower than usual. Your brain short-circuits. For a few seconds, there's nothing but a buzzing sound. That might be the hottest thing you’ve heard in your life. You weren’t expecting Alexia of all people to say that.

As soon as thoughts come back, you kiss her again, this time more hungrily, teeth clash but neither of you care. Her hands slide under your shirt. Her palms are warm, almost sweaty. The heat of her skin against yours makes you feel like you're completely overheating. You pull back just enough to yank the fabric over your head, tossing it blindly across the room.

Alexia's eyes fix on the newly revealed skin. She has seen you like that plenty of times in a locker room. You will admit the context is a bit different. “You’re beautiful,” she breathes out. She puts her hands on the small of your back to push you closer to her, soft with her movements. She is too when she discovers your neck with her mouth. She takes her time to figure out what you like, the spots that make your breath hitch. You hump against her thigh and you can feel her smile in your neck.

Deciding Alexia is wearing far too many clothes, you reach for the hem of her shirt. You both end up laughing as you awkwardly struggle with the fabric, but you finally manage to yank it off and toss it blindly into the room. Looking down at her, your smile turns hungry. She is nothing but muscle, and you want to feel every bit of it under your palms and lips. You catch her earlobe between your teeth in a gentle nip. “Everything still okay ?”

She laughs softly. “More than okay cariño.” You weren’t expecting the endearment term, but you don’t dislike it. Your mouth goes to her neck, and her breathing stops for a second or two. You test things. First, you bite softly and she lets out a small moan, so you do it more. Then, you realize kisses don’t have much effect, so you bite and lick instead. You’re very careful to not leave anything close to a mark, that would be very hard to explain for her.

“Lie down,” you murmur. She doesn't hesitate, shifting lower until she’s flat on the mattress. Straddling her hips, you look down at her. She is a glorious sight. As your hand strokes down her abs, she flexes beneath your touch. “Show off,” you tease, swatting at her playfully.

Her thighs spread, welcoming you into the space between them. As you lower yourself, you drag your teeth lightly along her collarbone. Her hips grind up against you in response, you anchor a hand firmly on her hip to pin her to the mattress.

You always love your first time with a woman because that’s when you totally discover her body. You take your sweet time with Alexia, and she’s not complaining. Her bra is on the floor a few minutes later. She has her hand in your hair while you’re worshiping her abs, to be fair they deserve it. You know she’s getting impatient when she starts to push your head down gently.

You smile and go lower. You remove her sweats and underwear in the same motion, the teasing has gone on long enough. You part her thighs and you’re out of words for how wet she is. “Don’t comment.” She groans out. You look up at her and her cheeks are pink, it’s kinda cute.

You honor her request and stay quiet. Instead of stopping the tease like you promised yourself, you trail slow licks and sharp bites down the inside of her thighs. Her muscles twitch against your lips. The moment you move directly over her heat, her body tenses in stark anticipation, your breath catching against her cunt.

When you finally comply and lick, her whole body reacts. Her hips jump up and you put your forearm around her midriff to stop that from happening again. Her moan is low, throaty, and dangerously loud considering your surroundings. “Ale, I love that sound,” you murmur against her skin, smoothing a kiss into her inner thigh, “but you can’t be this loud here.” Without a word, she pulls a pillow over her face to bury the noise. Fuck, you miss the sound already.

Navigating her pleasure is harder in the silence, but you read her body instead. The way her hand knots into your hair, the sudden, sharp tension in her muscles. You lose all sense of time, you could spend a lifetime right here. Every low rumble buried in the pillow urges you onward. You press a single finger to her entrance, looking up to catch her eye. “Can I ?”

She gets the pillow away from her face for a second. “You don’t need to ask.” Her voice is a mess, low, hoarse, broken, you can’t believe you’ve done it. She’s pushing your head down to where it was before. Your finger enters her without any resistance, you can tell she’s already really close. You immediately enter a second one.

Her walls pulse around your fingers while your tongue keeps up its steady rhythm. It doesn’t take long for her to completely break. You feel the exact moment she comes undone. Her hips arch high against your mouth, chasing the friction, before she collapses back against the sheets. Not even the pillow can swallow the raw, broken cry she lets out.

You remove your fingers gently and move back up her body, leaving a wet trail while doing so. The pillow falls away from her face. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes still unfocused. You kiss her once, brief and soft, then again on her shoulder, tracing the curve of her waist while her breathing slowly settles.

As you linger over her shoulder, she hooks a finger under your chin, tilting your face up to look at her. You can’t help the smile that breaks against her lips as you lean in. “You’re too smug,” she complains, though she doesn't pull away.

You kiss the line of her jaw and go to her ear. “You were so loud you needed a pillow to muffle your moans.” You say, your voice intentionally low, before tugging at the lobe with your teeth. She has an arm around your shoulders, her fingers dig into it at your words and you hiss because her nails are pointy.

You position yourselves on your arms so you can look down at her. “Do you still carry a strap in your suitcase ?” She rolls her eyes and swats at your shoulder while murmuring idiot. “Hey that was a genuine question.”

Her cheeks are tinted a bit pink, not from her orgasm. “I don’t have one at all times no. For quite obvious reasons I wasn’t planning to get lucky during camp.” You hum and press your mouth to the hollow of her throat, feeling the frantic pulse against your lips.

“So you were planning to get lucky during your trip to Valencia ?” It’s half teasing and half genuine curiosity. Her breath catches when you scrape your teeth against her pulse point while your right hand starts to travel down her body, she shivers when you trace her ribs. You use your left arm to not put your whole weight on her.

“Yeah, I have a girl I was seeing– Fuck.” She stops when your hand reaches the inside of her thigh and your short nails dig into the soft flesh there. You smile against her shoulder and bite it. “Why are you asking these questions right now ?” She complains.

Your hand moves between her legs, your index finger tests how wet she still is, careful to still avoid her clit for now. She’s drenched, some new wetness already coating your fingers. “Maybe I just want to hear your voice.” It’s also some curiosity that came after Vicky told you the story. You’re quite satisfied that Alexia used the past tense when talking about the girl. You won’t dwell on that, not now, not anytime really.

Shifting downward, your mouth finds her breast, swirling your tongue over her skin before pulling her into your mouth. She clamps her forearm over her face, desperately hiding her moans. You let her go with a slow, teasing drag of your teeth. She drops her arm just long enough to glare at you. “I can’t believe that’s your choice of conversation.”

Your fingers toy with her entrance, brushing past her wetness but deliberately withholding what she wants. “I think that's a perfectly appropriate topic. I would love to use a strap on you.” The sheer bluntness of it makes her breath hitch. Before she can recover, you finally sink your fingers inside her, drawing out a low, throaty moan.

It takes her a moment to collect herself enough to talk back. “I had no idea you would be such a yapper.” You chuckle against her skin, raising some goosebumps as your tongue moves to her other breast. This time she anticipates the touch, quickly burying her face in her arm to muffle the sound. It’s a shame, you don’t want any teammates hearing you through the walls, but god, you want to hear her.

Your mouth travels up her chest, a sharp bite to her forearm prompting her to uncover her face. “Imagined sex with me a lot, Putellas ?” You don’t give her a chance to answer as your fingers start moving inside her again, catching her gasp with a kiss. You track her reactions through pure instinct, the intakes of breath when you do certain movements, her fingers gripping your hip every time you hit that spot.

The kisses start to get messy the moment your thumb grazes her clit. She loses her composure completely, unraveling into a mix of breathless Catalan you don’t understand and raw noises you can’t hope to muffle. To quiet her down, you press closer, offering your shoulder for her to bite. It makes the movements a little clumsy, the angle a bit awkward, but you maneuver around it, keeping your fingers moving in a steady rhythm.

You will be able to hide the bruise on your shoulder, but your back is going to be a disaster if she keeps clawing at your skin. “Easy with the nails, tiger,” you gasp against her hair, “you’ll leave marks.” She doesn’t say anything, but she takes the hint, wrapping her hands back around your hips and smoothing her palms flat against your skin.

Her teeth on your shoulder sting, but it’s the kind of sharp pain that only feeds the pleasure. Sensing how close she is, you lock into the rhythm, driving into what’s working. Then, she snaps. Her body arches in a mirror image of her first orgasm, her teeth sinking agonizingly deep into your shoulder as she clamps down impossibly tight around your fingers. A second later, just like that, the tension breaks, and she falls quiet against the bed.

You’re careful when you remove your fingers. Alexia still has her eyes shut, breathing heavily, her whole body covered in sweat. You want to take a mental picture because she looks like a work of art. You’re proud to have done it.

She comes back to her senses slowly. When her eyes finally open, you hold her gaze and make a show of sucking your soaked fingers, drawing a breathless laugh from her. But as her eyes drift to your shoulder, her smile fades into a wince. “I didn’t realize I was biting so hard. I’m sorry,” she says softly, tracing her thumb over the rapidly forming bruise.

“Don't worry. If it had been too much, I would've told you,” you murmur, leaning down to kiss her gently. Her breathing is finally evening out, her skin growing cooler and less flushed as the adrenaline begins to fade.

Her gaze drifts down your body, her eyebrows arching. “How the hell do you still have so many clothes?” she asks. You shrug, looking down at your intact bra and sweatpants. You hadn’t really noticed the layers while your focus was entirely on making her come, but now that the dust has settled, a heavy, demanding ache is building between your thighs.

“It’s supposed to be your job to remove them,” you tease. “You’re not even the one who removed my shirt.”

An arm locks around your hips as she suddenly reverses your positions, settling herself firmly on top of you. “I had no idea you would be such a brat in bed.” Letting out a soft laugh, you guide her jaw down to meet your mouth, biting gently at her bottom lip before releasing it.

You lick her lips teasingly. “You don’t seem to mind it much.”

“I’m gonna shut you up,” she promises, her breath hot against your lips. She presses a hard kiss to your mouth, then drags her lips down your jaw to the hollow of your neck. Her untied hair brushes softly over your collarbone.

She starts nipping too hard against the sensitive skin, forcing a hiss from your throat. “Hey, easier on the teeth. I don’t mind them later on, but it’s too much right now.” She breathes an apology against your throat, instantly adjusting. Driven by the ache between your legs, you push down on her shoulder. “Ale, hurry up.” Before you can move her, she grabs your wrist, holding you completely still.

“Let me enjoy you,” she retorts, her mouth lingering at the top of your chest. Your throat goes completely dry. Looking down at her, you realize you would let Alexia do absolutely whatever she wants to you.

Then, she abruptly sits up. “I need a hair tie.” You let out a miserable groan at the sudden loss of her weight on top of you as she pads toward the bathroom. In the sudden quiet, a flicker of doubt creeps in about what the hell you’re doing. It evaporates the second she steps back out, twisting her hair into a messy bun. You take the opportunity to shamelessly drink in the sight of her naked body. Fuck, she’s a goddess.

She climbs back over you, settling into her position on top while you loop your arms securely around her shoulders. Her mouth returns to the top of your chest, but she pauses, looking up at you as her fingers play with the clasp of your bra, silently waiting for your consent. A single nod is all it takes, and she doesn’t waste a second.

Her grin turns almost boyish as she unhooks the fabric, stripping your bra away and tossing it aside. “You’re gorgeous,” she whispers against your skin before drawing one of your nipples into her mouth. Your back arches instinctively at the sudden rush of pleasure, prompting her to press a heavy hand down to steady your hips. She takes her time painting your chest with her tongue, sending waves of heat rippling through your entire body.

When she finally migrates lower, she stops at your stomach, mapping your abs with a slow, passionate mix of lips and tongue. “I have better abs than you, don’t I?” you tease, panting slightly. In lieu of an answer, she presses her thigh firmly up between your legs. The sound you let out is close to a whimper, but nobody can prove it.

“Seems like I found a way to shut you up,” she teases back. She bites gently at your stomach, testing your reaction. The desperate way you grind your hips against her thigh in response seems to give her all the satisfaction she needs.

Her hand toys with the waistband of your sweats. “Don't be a tease,” you breathe out. She tugs them down the moment you lift your hips to help her, discarding the fabric somewhere in the room. A sharp gasp escapes your lips when the chill of the A/C strikes your flushed skin.

Alexia parts your thighs with her hands, her gaze darkening. “Fuck, you’re wet. Are you turned on by your own talking ?”

You let out a breathy laugh at her words. “Your lips and tongue may have played some part too,” you admit.

She looks up at you with a radiant smile, she kisses a tender spot above your knee, her palms sliding up your inner thighs. But as her fingers start to graze your center, you grip her wrist, holding her back. Alexia instantly freezes, concern replacing the heat in her dark, dilated eyes. “Is everything okay ?”

You’re deeply touched by her immediate softness. “Yes, amor,” you murmur, the pet name slipping out naturally in your eagerness to reassure her. “It’s just that those nails aren’t going inside me.” Alexia looks down at her hands and winces in realization. The press-ons are long, and they’re the kind of pointy you don’t want to take any risks with.

“I know how to use them, it won’t hurt,” she promises softly.

You look down at her hands again. A girl had told you that exact same thing once, and you’d ended up sidelined for a week. Having to explain that particular injury to the club physios was easily the most humiliating moment of your life. “Still a no,” you state firmly.

She nods, letting the matter drop without any further argument. “If I’d known this was happening, I would have taken them off,” she whines.

Sorry Alexia, next time I will tell you in advance “Hey just so you know in a few hours I’m gonna be mad enough to fuck someone I absolutely shouldn’t be fucking.

You push the intrusive thought far away before it can ruin the momentum. Instead, you cup her chin with your right hand, tilting her face up to force her to look at you while your thumb caresses her cheek. “You do realize you have other ways to pleasure me besides your fingers, right ?”

A small fire relights in her eyes as a wicked smile creeps across her face. She plants one last kiss above your knee, her lips trailing a slow path back up your inner thigh before she finally settles herself between your legs. Strands of loose hair escape her bun, brushing softly against your skin. When she finally looks up at you, her expression is completely sinful.

“What do you want ?” She’s so close that the warm air of her breath brushes against your skin as she speaks, making you shudder.

“What do think, Alexia ?” you reply, thoroughly exasperated. Of all the times for her to play dumb, she picks right now.

“I don’t know,” she whispers, refusing to break eye contact. Her nails trail a light, maddening scratch across your abs, driving you absolutely crazy. “Want to play some poker ?”

“I think it’s a bit too late for strip poker, Ale.” You know exactly what she wants, she's waiting for you to ask her to eat you out. But two can play this game.

The low huff of her laughter sends a rush of warm air over your center, making you twitch. “I won’t get you to beg for it ?” She mocks disappointment, but the playful glint in her eyes tells you she’s secretly thrilled by your resistance. Sliding her palm upward, she presses it flat against your sternum, feeling your heart hammering wildly beneath her touch. Despite your defiant words, she knows exactly what kind of effect she has on you.

“You’ll need to do better than that next time, Capi.” You don’t know if it’s the challenge, the promise of a next time, or the deliberate use of her title that makes something snap inside her. Frankly, you don't care, because her tongue finally connects with your clit. You aren't usually the loudest, but the sudden contact forces a low, trembling moan from your throat.

“Careful of the noise, cariño,” she murmurs against your skin. In response, you press your heel firmly into her spine, pushing her back down between your thighs to make her understand she needs to get to work. A muffled huff of laughter escapes her against your sensitive skin, entirely amused by your impatience.

As she goes down on you, you guide her rhythm, adjusting her pace with a mix of breathless words and guiding hands. She is incredibly good at following orders, you quickly realize. The sensation of her mouth feels so much better than any of the thoughts you're trying to outrun. Tangling your fingers into the loose strands of her bun, you cup the back of her neck, tugging sharply whenever she hits the perfect spot. Meanwhile, your free hand blindly traces the sharp line of her jaw, mapping its rhythm as she drives you out of your mind.

Once you start getting close, you whisper, “Look at me.” The raw heat in her eyes is almost enough to push you over the edge on its own. When she begins to lower her gaze to bury herself back between your thighs, you command, “No, look at me while you do it.”

You refuse to break eye contact. The hand on her jaw shifts to the side of her face. Initially meant to direct her, it’s now the only thing keeping you anchored. Your other hand fists blindly into the sheets, white-knuckled and straining. Even though there is zero risk of her pulling away, your heels remain locked against her lower back, pinning her right where you want her.

You know she feels it the exact second your orgasm hits. It starts with a ragged gasp before you completely run out of air, your thighs locking tight as an electric rush fires through every cell of your body. She guides you through the crest of it, her tongue never missing a beat.

The moment it threatens to turn into overstimulation, you tap her cheek, and she gets the memo instantly. She trails slow, soothing kisses up your torso until her mouth meets yours, tasting yourself on her lips. You loop your arms around her shoulders, holding her steady while her head sinks into the crook of your neck as you slowly float back down to reality.

As your heart rate finally settles, you start tracing the exposed tattoos on her back with your fingertips. You don’t ask about their meanings, and she seems perfectly content with the quiet intimacy for a few minutes. “I’m gonna fall asleep,” she whispers, her breath warm against your neck.

You kiss the crown of her head, and she burrows deeper into your side. “We should at least take a shower,” you murmur. She groans in protest, even though she knows you’re right. “Come on, Capi.” You give her ass a light, playful slap to tell her it's time to move, and she instantly nips at your neck in revenge. Laughing, you untangle yourself from her and stand up. Left without your warmth, it doesn’t take her long to follow your lead.

Getting clean takes a while, given how much kissing and touching happens under the water, but you eventually finish. You quickly discover that Alexia is a massive cuddler after sex, and you find yourself liking it a lot. It takes zero convincing on her part to get you to spend the night. She offers you some of her clothes to sleep in, but you almost left the room entirely when she tried to hand you a pair of Barça shorts. Plain cotton ones had to do instead.

You settle onto the bed, laying back with her resting on top of you just like before. Her hair is untied now, draping over her bare back as you slowly run your fingers through the damp strands. “I still find it so funny that you’re such a yapper in the bedroom when you’re not like that at all in real life,” she teases softly.

A sudden wave of self-consciousness hits you, even though you know it’s stupid. “Tell me if you want me to tone it down,” you say, though it sounds a bit more broken than intended. Some of your exes hated that, and you had to make conscious efforts to tone it down with them, so you know you can.

Alexia instantly shifts from her comfortable spot against your chest to look you in the eyes. “Hey, it wasn’t a criticism. I think it’s incredibly hot.” She presses a tender kiss to your cheek, then another to your lips. You could easily get used to this. Fuck, that's a dangerous thought. Suddenly, her gaze drifts to your shoulder and she winces. “Are you sure my biting didn’t hurt too much? It looks pretty bad.”

“I already told you it was okay Ale.” You put your hand around her hips and tug her back down on top of you. “I will figure something out to hide it.”

Neither of you asks what tonight means, or if it will ever happen again. There is no easy answer to that. Or, at least, none that would satisfy either of you right now. It’s still early, considering you arrived just after dinner, but exhaustion is finally catching up to you.

You’re already starting to drift off when Alexia shatters the quiet by bringing up the one topic you wanted to avoid. “You should really start talking about your contract, you know,” she says softly. “Not necessarily with me, but if you just let the clock run out without weighing your options, you're going to regret it. Even if you would have chosen Real anyway.”

You let out a long sigh. Maybe it’s because you’re in a great mood after the sex, but your mouth talks for you. “It’s just… It feels like there is what I want to do and there is the rational thing to do.”

Alexia hums in acknowledgement. “I feel like the heart should always beat the reason. But that’s particularly true in your situation.” Maybe Alexia is an idealist, you’re not. You’re so fucking afraid of making the wrong choice.

“I feel like my heart is telling me to stay just because it’s safe, not because it’s the best choice.” Staying at Madrid where friends, family, and your childhood club are is just so easy. You’re not sure it’s what’s best for your career.

“You’re looking at it too much like there is a good and a wrong answer.” Her tone is soft, her thumb is caressing your side, the words still sting. “Career choices are rarely that easy. You have to choose what is the most likely to make you the happiest in the long run. And that depends on a ton of things : winning trophies, money, closeness to family and friends, the atmosphere in the club you’re joining, the city you’re going to. And happiness isn’t a perfect equation, especially when it’s related to football where results can’t be predicted. You can make the right choice on paper and have it end up being the wrong one because life happens.”

“Very reassuring.” You say ironically. Alexia is trying and you’re maybe being a little too mean. “Thank you, for the words. I think I have trouble figuring out how happy football can make me.” That’s not an admission you make often. You love football with your whole heart, you’re not sure you want it to be your whole life.

“What do you mean ?” You can hear she’s perplexed, it must be confusing for Alexia to hear someone say that.

“It’s just… I’ve never won at club level, so I don’t know how much winning makes it worth it. I’ve also never been the closest of friends with my teammates. Like yeah, I will hang out with them outside of the mandatory things from time to time, but I don’t want my whole circle to be about it. In Madrid, most of the people I hang out with don’t give a fuck about football. I feel like having a life outside of it makes it easier to commit to it when I’m actually on the pitch or training. Like it’s easier to not burn out.”

That’s why I never messed with another footballer before, you add mentally.

You continue. “Munich was miserable for that. I didn’t really realize it at the time because I couldn’t compare. But god, I’ve been so much happier in Madrid. At the same time maybe it was only the context, maybe I was too young when I went to Bayern. It would be perfect if there was another club in Spain I could go to, so I could still be fairly close to everyone. But I’m never going to Barcelona.”

“I mean you could consider it.” You roll your eyes and gently bite her earlobe, she jumps in surprise. “Idiot.” She mumbles.

“I think… I would love to experience somewhere else, just for one year and if I’m miserable, I can go back. But I’m afraid of burning bridges with Real. And I’m afraid that they’re gonna perform while I’m gone. Imagine if Real reaches the semis of the Champions League the season I’m not here ? I would be miserable. Why can’t I fucking duplicate myself.”

She laughs softly at your words. Then takes a more serious tone. “You’re linking the comfortable choice with it being the bad choice. As you said, football isn’t what you are.” She takes a deep breath. “Everyone tells me football is too much what I am, you know. Even Jenni told me that.” Her laugh is almost bitter. “Olga told me that all the time too.”

“Wait, Olga as in our teammate, since when ?” You interrupt, trying to make some sense.

“No !” She laughs. “Olga is the name of my ex, she has nothing to do with football.” That was an awkward mistake to make on your part. “Anyway, my injury forced me to reconsider things. I was actually more available for my friends and family, hanging out with them more. I realized everything I was missing out on because of football. It’s so easy to get caught up with the constant pressure from everyone : the media, the fans, the front office…”

“Do you think you would have left Barça at one point, if not for the injury ?” You’re curious.

“Yeah.” She answers honestly. “And then I would have realized everything that’s not football that I have in Barcelona.” There’s a pause. “To be clear, I’m not saying our situations are entirely comparable. I have the luck that my childhood city also has the best club in Europe. It’s easier to stay when you’re winning everything, it would be stupid not to. I just wanted to say to not push aside too much the outside of football aspects when taking the decision.”

“Thank you, a lot.” You say sincerely. You kiss the top of her head. “I think it really helps to talk about it, it’s just hard to.”

“Anytime.” She answers without hesitation. She snuggles even closer to you. “We should go to sleep.”

You look at your phone, it’s only 10PM, why did you decide to be a professional athlete again ? “Yeah, I will put my alarm early so I can go back to my room with Vicky before she wakes up. I will just tell her I came back late in the night.”

“Okay,” Alexia says softly. She moves to turn off the bedside lamps as you set up the alarm to 6AM. Once the room is dark, she gets back to her previous position on top of you. She kisses you, a long one but without heat behind it, before her head settles on your shoulder. One of your arms circles her waist, while the other circles her shoulders. “Goodnight cariño,” she whispers.

“Goodnight Ale,” you whisper back. In the back of your mind, a million alarm bells are screaming at you, a frantic reminder of just how compromising this situation truly is. But exhaustion has taken over. Wrapped up in her warmth, you let her touch drown out the noise until there is nothing left but silence.

-----------

A/n : It was my first time writing smut, I'm quite happy with how it turned out (Don't ask me how much time I spent writing and rewriting it, I know the whole scene by heart now). I hope it doesn't feel too rushed.

"There it is."

"For the menu."

"Mm."

"Arsenal nuggets."

"That is the part I cannot get past, Leah. Arsenal nuggets. Just... why?"

"Arsenal is awesome."

"Fuck Arsenal."

"Well, fuck you," Leah flicks back, completely unbothered now that she knows you enough to catch that you say that about most teams. First few times she was ready to throw hands. You figure you could take her. Maybe.

And now, because she knows your bullshit, Leah continues to build her case. She builds it the way you imagine she organises a back four: calm, patient, deeply certain she is correct.

"Here's my thinking," she says. "You took paella — which is rice, which is the most boring thing on earth, no offence to your Spanish —"

"They are not my Spanish."

"— you took rice and you made an entire squad of professional footballers lose their minds over it. You made me eat shellfish. I do not eat new things, Jude. Ask anyone. I am famously difficult. And you got me to do it."

"Thought it was my glowing personality that got you to do it."

"Your personality couldn't get me past the door, Judes, trust me."

"That was your doing." She points at you with a gloved finger. "So here is my question. If you can do that with rice — rice — imagine what you could do with something that already tastes good."

"A chicken nugget."

"A chicken nugget."

"You want me to elevate the chicken nugget."

"And possibly make it dinosaur-shaped. Yes."

You stare at her.

Leah Williamson stares back, entirely sincere, breath fogging in the cold, and you have the brief, vertiginous thought that this is your life now. That somewhere a younger version of you, the one who almost finished culinary school, the one with the knives and the plan, would be horrified. That version of you wanted copper pans and arsey head chefs and the word emulsion. This version of you is being talked at about dinosaur nuggets by a Lioness in a puffer jacket and is, on some humiliating level, considering it.

"They would have to be good nuggets," you hear yourself say.

Leah's whole face opens up.

"Jude."

"I said would. Conditional. Hypothetical."

"You're going to do it."

"I am going to think about telling you to fuck off."

"You're going to do it and you're going to put them on the menu and call them Lee's special —"

"Ok, you know what, why don't you take the fucking nuggets and shove —"

— and that is the precise moment the kitchen door opens behind you.

Not all the way. Just enough. The broken brick scrapes against the floor the way it always does, and the warm light from the kitchen widens across the wet stone of the alley, and you turn, mildly, expecting Hayley, or Carl, or Paddy come to tell you the soup is running low or that table six has a complaint or that the world is, in some new and minor way, ending.

Wouldn't be the first time.

But it is not Hayley.

Or Carl.

And it is not Paddy either.

It is Alexia Putellas.

Standing in the doorway of the kitchen you mop every night, under the bad yellow light you have personally complained about for a year, is Alexia Putellas.

And the first thing your brain registers — before the beanie, before the scarf, before any of the cardiac event that is about to follow — is that she has edges. That she has weight. That she is, in the most basic and shocking sense, taking up space in a doorway, displacing air, casting a shadow against the wet stone of the alley. For months she has been a face inside a phone, a voice inside a speaker, a flatness you have held in your hand at arm's length and turned this way and that. 

Now there is a woman in three dimensions in your alley and she has depth. She has her own air around her. She has, you notice with a small lurch, a height and a shape and a way of standing that the phone never told you about.

Then your brain catches up to the rest and simply stops. Goes dark. Throws the whole switchboard. There is a sound in your ears like a held note. You are distantly aware that you are still holding a cigarette and that it has burned down further than it should have and that the small live coal of it is now very close to your fingers.

She is wearing a beanie too.

That is the detail your ruined brain decides to fixate on. Not the fact of her, here, real, breathing actual London air. The beanie. It is blaugrana. It is, unmistakably, a Barça beanie, blue and garnet, pulled down over her ears, and she is wrapped in a scarf so enormous and so woollen that it has swallowed most of the lower half of her face, and her nose has gone slightly pink at the tip with cold, and the overall effect — Alexia Putellas, two Ballons d'Or, the best footballer of her generation — the overall effect is of a very warm, very startled teddy bear.

Teddy bear with the most intense hazel eyes you have ever seen.

You burn your fingers on the cigarette.

You do not react to it. You are not currently in your body enough to react to it.

"Oh — Alexia!"

That is Leah. Leah, who is functioning. Leah, who lives in a world where Alexia Putellas appearing in an alley is nice and not a cardiac event. She steps forward, easy, warm, already pulling a glove off to shake hands.

"Lovely to see you. Keira said you might be coming over — the lasses' match? You good?"

"I am good." Alexia shakes the offered hand. Her voice does the thing it does, the careful thing, the second-language thing where each word gets set down deliberately, like she is laying bricks and wants them level. The lingering accent gives everything a musical sound, like she is singing and not speaking. "Cold. But good."

"It's grim out, yeah. You get used to it. Sort of."

Alexia's mouth moves behind the scarf. A small thing. Could be a smile.

You are still not speaking. You are aware that the not-speaking has gone on slightly too long. You are aware of this the way you are aware of a smoke alarm in another room.

Leah, oblivious, gestures at you with her newly bare hand.

"Have you two met? This is Jude. She's the chef round here. She's the reason the food's any good — she's the reason any of us keep turning up, honestly."

And there it is. The introduction. Have you two met. As if you have not. As if Alexia Putellas is not the most insane relationship of your entire adult life. As if you do not have her saved in your phone under her full name because you wanted the whole thing to light up when she called.

You open your mouth.

Your brain, still mostly offline, hands you the only words it can find on short notice.

"Hi," you manage to say. It's a struggle. You couldn't be pressed to even tell which language you spoke.

To Alexia.

Whom you have known for months.

Alexia looks at you. Properly, now. The scarf is still up over her chin but her eyes are not hidden at all, and they find yours and hold them, and there is something in them — warm, and amused, and steady, and a little bit like she has been waiting a long time to do exactly this — and she says, very gently, in front of Leah Williamson and God and the alley at the back of your miserable pub:

"Hola."

The alley goes very quiet.

Leah looks between the two of you. She's frowning a little, the way one might look at a puzzle piece that doesn't fit.

You watch her do it. And maybe something does fit, because Leah just nods a little, like she approves of the interaction, and decides, with the instinct of a genuinely decent person, that whatever this is, it is not hers to be standing in the middle of.

"I'm going to go," Leah says, points over her shouder "and see about the soup."

Nobody answers her.

"Right," she says. "Soup. Good talk, Jude. Think about the nuggets."

She edges past Alexia in the doorway, claps you once on the shoulder on her way through, and is gone, back into the warm and the noise, and the kitchen door swings most of the way shut behind her, leaving you and Alexia Putellas in a London alley in the cold with one broken brick and the smell of onions and a cigarette you have now definitely let burn out.

You drop it. Step on it. Buy yourself the half-second.

It does not help.

She is still here when you look up. That is the thing your brain keeps snagging on, every two seconds, like a needle skipping. She is still here. She has not dissolved. She is a person and she is standing in your alley and she came through your kitchen to do it.

"Hi," you say again. Just to make sure you actually said it.

It is the smallest word in the English language and it is all you have got.

"Hola," she repeats.

And that — that does it. That cracks it open. Because you have heard her say Hola before, on a screen, lamp-lit, six weeks ago, and you said it back so badly she laughed, and here it is again, the real one, the in-person one, the one with cold London air in it, and something in your chest that has been wound tight as a fist since the door opened just — lets go.

You laugh. You don't mean to. It comes out half a breath, helpless.

She is smiling now. You can see it even with the scarf. It has reached her eyes, both the small crinkles at the corners, and you think, distantly, dangerously: I am in so much trouble.

"You're here," you say, brilliantly.

"I am here."

"At my pub."

"At your pub." Her head tilts. "It is very ugly, Jude. Worse than the photos."

"Yeah, I know."

"Lucy said. I did not believe how much."

"It grows on you. Like mould."

That gets a proper laugh out of her, surprised, the breath of it clouding in the cold, and you would, in this moment, set fire to the rest of your life to keep hearing it.

You should say something normal. You should ask how she got here, who she is staying with, how long, why nobody warned you, why your hands have not stopped doing a small stupid thing at your sides. You should, at minimum, stop staring.

But you figure, in that small space of time, that you don't care about any of it. She might as well be here to announce the start of another World War, or that Oasis are going into hiatus again, and it wouldn't make a difference. You only care that she is here. In front of you. Within touching distance.

Alexia shifts her weight, tucks her chin a little further into the enormous scarf, and asks, with the careful, deliberate placing of someone who has clearly thought about the question:

"So. Do English people hug?"

And you — you absolute disaster, you poet of the north, you woman who has wanted nothing for months except to be in a room with this exact person —

"Not really," you say.

The silence that follows is immediate and total.

Not really.

NOT REALLY.

Why. Why would you say that. She has flown to a different country. She is standing in your filthy alley dressed like a teddy bear having clearly, clearly signposted a hug, has practically filed the paperwork for a hug, and your stupid panic-wired mouth has looked at the open goal and kicked the ball directly into the river.

Alexia blinks.

Then — because she is not stupid, because she has spent a considerable time learning the exact shape of your particular brand of catastrophe — she starts to laugh. Quiet, and astonished, and delighted, one hand coming up near her mouth.

"No?" she says.

"No, I —" You drag a hand down your face. "We don't, as a — culturally we're a bit — it's a whole repressed island thing, we wave, mostly, it's grim —"

"Okay."

"— but —"

You stop. You breathe. You look at her, pink-nosed and bundled and here, and you find, somewhere under the wreckage of your composure, one single working thought, and you grab it with both hands.

"But I'm half French," you say.

Alexia goes still.

"So," you say. "If you wanted. You could. Hug the French side."

For a moment she just looks at you, and you cannot read it, and the cold gets into the gap, and you think that's it, you've done it, you've finally said the thing too stupid to recover from —

"Sí," Alexia says. "Okay. I hug French side."

And then she is crossing the alley.

And then she is there, against you, both arms coming up around your shoulders, and the enormous scarf is in your face and it smells of cold air and someone's perfume, hers, most likely, and she is solid and real and warmer than the night had any right to leave her, and her chin fits over your shoulder like it was measured for it, and your arms come up around her on pure animal instinct, no brain involved, the brain having left the building entirely, and you hold on.

You hold on.

She is taller than you somehow expected and exactly the height you somehow knew. She holds on too. Not a polite hug. Not an English wave with arms. She holds on like she means it, like she has been planning the structural details of it, one hand flat between your shoulder blades, hugging you tight, so close, and you stand in your terrible alley with Alexia Putellas in your arms and you think, with the last functioning corner of your mind:

Oh.

Oh, I'm done for.

Neither of you says anything for a while. The pub thumps warmly behind the door. Somewhere a long way off a siren goes by and fades. Your fingers, the burnt ones, do not hurt at all.

When she pulls back, she does not go far. Just enough to look at you. Her cheeks are pink and it is not all the cold now and you are choosing, generously, not to mention it.

"Your French side is good at hugs."

"Best part of me."

"Mm." She considers you. "I will decide this myself."

You just stare at each other for another small, stupid moment. You think you have a goofy smile on your face that you can't control and Alexia, bless her, only tilts her lips back at you.

"It's nice to meet you," you breathe out, softer than you mean.

"Cariño..." Alexia exhales and you can feel the fondness underneath. The warmth. "You already know me."

You take her inside because it is freezing and because if you stay in that alley one more minute you are going to do something with your face that you cannot take back.

The kitchen swallows you both in heat and light. Alexia stops just inside the door and looks — at the steel, the hob, the stack of receipts with the pencil on top, the chaos of it, the small kingdom of it — and you watch her look, and you feel weirdly nervous, because what she thinks or says matters so much to you and you fear, truly, that she will look around and find it wanting.

She picks up the pencil.

Turns it over once in her fingers.

Puts it back exactly where it was.

"What?" you say.

"Nothing." But she is smiling again. "You write on the bad paper. On the receipts."

"I don't lose them."

"Jude. Get a notebook."

"Everybody keeps saying that."

"Correcto."

You don't know what correcto means but you want to keep hearing it. Anything she says, you want to hear it.

You take her out into the pub and the night gets, somehow, even more surreal. Because the whole gang is there — the actual gang, the people from the photos, the names from the voice notes — and they have colonised the long table by the window, and there is Jana lifting both arms like you have personally arrived to be knighted, and there is Lucy Bronze waving a soup spoon, and Aggie, and Keira, and a small dark-haired girl tucked under Lucy's arm who must be Ona, and Hayley behind the bar pretending to wipe something while watching the pair of you cross the room with the focus of a hawk.

You feed them.

That is the part that steadies you, in the end. The thing you know how to do. French onion gone deep and dark and sweet, the cheese pulled into ropes; the leek-and-potato pale and silky; bread you and Carl baked that morning. You bring it out in a clatter of bowls and the table makes the noise good tables make, and Alexia sits down among them in her ridiculous beanie and picks up a spoon and tastes the onion soup, and goes very quiet, and then looks up at you across the table with an expression you are going to keep for the rest of your natural life.

"Jude."

"Yeah?"

"This is —" Her English fails her. She says something in Catalan instead, low and quick, to Jana, who answers back with a gentle smile on her face. "It is very good. It is — muy bueno. Delicioso."

"Muy bueno." You do your best to repeat it, and although half the table laughs, Alexia doesn't. She only looks.

"You should be proud."

"I don't really do proud."

"You should learn." She says it lightly. It does not feel light.

You should leave her there, with her friends, with the soup, with the warm. That would be the polite thing. The not-getting-ahead-of-yourself thing.

She is... you don't think she is here for you. You are not that vain. You are not vain in the slightest actually but you can't help yourself because she is right here.

Your friend. Your crush. Mostly, the person who has heard you the most these past few months. The person you wanted to tell everything.

So, instead of doing the sensible thing, halfway through clearing bowls, you lean down near her ridiculous beanie and you say, quiet, just for her: "You can come sit in the kitchen, you know. If you want. While I work. It's warmer. And the company's worse, which you'll enjoy."

Alexia looks up at you.

"Yes," she says, immediately. No deliberation, no brick-laying. Just yes.

So she does.

She perches on the spare bench by the pass, beanie finally off, hair doing something soft and flattened and human, and she watches you cook. And you cannot quite get over it — that this is the same Alexia who watched you through a phone screen six weeks ago in this exact kitchen, off-shift, badly lit, and that now she is here, in the room, on the bench, the realest possible version.

You cook and you show off, a bit. You will deny this later. You do the thing with the pan. You explain your processes without being asked. You let her taste things off the spoon, blowing on them first like she is small, and she rolls her eyes at you but she lets you.

You talk.

It is so easy it is almost frightening. It is the thread, the same thread, the months of it — except now it has a face across the bench and a voice in the actual air and a laugh you do not need a phone speaker for. She tells you about the flight, about Ona, about Jana's homemade sign and her match. She talks slowly, insecure about her English but not about what she is saying.

And you tell her about the nuggets. She makes you describe the Arsenal nuggets twice because your accent makes it hard but then she laughs so hard the second time she has to put her face in her hands.

The pub empties around you. You half-notice it. Last orders, the scrape of chairs, Hayley flicking lights off in sections, Carl leaving with a grunt and a look at you that you decide not to interpret. The gang peels away in twos. And still you are talking, and still she is on the bench, knees pulled up now, entirely at home in your wreck of a kitchen, and it occurs to you, with a small quiet shock, that this is the longest and best date you have been on in years and you have not so much as sat down.

It ends because Jana falls asleep.

You find her when you finally go through to lock up — Jana Fernández, professional footballer, dead to the world on a window bench with her coat over her like a blanket and her mouth slightly open. You and Alexia look at her for a moment, like exasperated but fond parents.

"That's my cue," she says, head nodding towards Jana.

"Yeah."

You walk her to the door. The pub is dark behind you now, just the till light and the fairy lights Paddy refuses to turn off. You can feel the cold seeping from the outside.

"Alexia."

"Mm."

You are not going to chicken out. You decided that somewhere around the soup. You are going to be, for once, exactly as brave as the moment requires.

"What are you doing tomorrow?"

She looks at you. The corner of her mouth goes.

"I do not know," she says. "What am I doing tomorrow?"

"I could — there's stuff. London stuff. I could show you. The good bits. If you wanted."

"With you."

"With me. Obviously with me. I mean, if you want to."

Alexia laughs, and pulls her beanie back on, the stupid blaugrana one, down over her ears, and looks at you from inside her enormous scarf that swallows her whole like a teddy bear who has just been offered the entire world.

"Yes," she says. "Okay. Tomorrow. With you."

She goes to wake Jana up.

You stand in the doorway of your dark, ugly, beloved pub and watch Alexia Putellas haul a sleeping centre-back upright by the elbow, and you think that you are, without question, completely done for.

You find that you do not mind even slightly.

*

Alexia arrives from what — she believed it was — her very first date with Jude feeling very confused.

It is drizzling outside. It has been drizzling for hours. Drizzling, she has learned, is the default state of London in the same way cold is the default state of everything north of the Pyrenees and damp is the word Jude says approximately a thousand times a day.

Not that Alexia cares. She likes the sound of Jude's voice. Likes her accent. Likes the rhythm of her words and would gladly listen to Jude recite back the dictionary to her just to hear her speak.

She takes her coat off. Hangs it on the hook. Notices, dimly, that her hair has gone slightly curly in the way it does when the air is wet, the way Alba used to tease her about when they were children, Alexia parece un caniche. She doesn't care about it now.

She walks down the corridor toward the kitchen on autopilot, not sure how her face is looking in this exact moment.

Jana is sitting at the dining table with her laptop open, typing nonsense, probably answering her emails, when she registers Alexia's footsteps in the corridor and snaps upright like she has been electrified.

"Ale!"

She is on her feet before Alexia is fully through the doorway, bouncing once on the balls of her feet the way she used to do at training when she was particularly excited.

"Ale, tía, how was it? How was — what are you doing here? You said tonight, you said you would be back tonight, it is not even — it is barely — did you come to get a bag? Are you taking a bag back to her place? Should I leave the flat, should I —"

Alexia does not answer.

Alexia stands in the doorway in the slippers Jana left for her at the door, looking at Jana, and turns the entire afternoon over in her mind for the fifth time since she got in the cab, like a Rubik's cube she has been carrying since the café. Click. Click. Click. The colours will not line up. They have not lined up the whole way home. They are not lining up now.

"Ale?"

Jana's voice has gone quieter. Has noticed. Has clocked, in the way Jana clocks, that whatever this is, it is not what either of them had pencilled in for this afternoon.

Alexia opens her mouth.

What comes out is the question she has been trying to put words to since approximately three o'clock this afternoon. It comes out in the careful, deliberate register of a woman conducting a real cultural inquiry into something she does not, for the life of her, understand.

"Jana," she says.

"Sí."

"Are English people..."

She stops. Tries again.

"Are English people slow?"

Jana stares at her.

"What?"

"In the — feelings. The. Cómo se dice. Reading rooms. When you are — flirting —"

"Ale."

"— I want to be clear, I am asking seriously. Are they slow?"

Jana sits back down. Now she is the one very much confused.

"Tía," she says. "What happened?"

Alexia does not, at this point, know.

Alexia, in fact, would like to know.

She crosses to the chair opposite Jana and sits in it with a contained, slightly-too-upright posture. Spreads her hands over the table like she is ready to hold a meeting. 

The most important meeting of her life: Understanding her English crush.

Jana shuts the laptop.

"Start from the beginning."

*

She wakes at seven. Of course she wakes at seven. Her body does not understand that the league is suspended for the international window, that she is in another country, that the only thing she is meant to do today is meet Jude. Her body, which has been on the same schedule since she was sixteen, has decided that seven is seven and that is, regrettably, that.

She lies in bed for a while. She gets up. She does her stretches on Jana's spare-room carpet because she cannot help herself. She goes to the kitchen.

Jana is, predictably, still asleep.

Alexia makes toast. She makes coffee. She eats standing up at the counter, looking out of the small kitchen window at the grey, wet, English sky, and she does not think she is excited and she is, quite obviously, excited. The toast is unnecessarily long-chewed. The coffee is unnecessarily savoured. She is killing time and she knows it.

At a quarter past nine, her phone buzzes on the counter.

Jude: morning. it is drizzling. default state of the country.

Alexia smiles before she has fully read it.

She types back slowly, because she would like the message to look like a message a normal woman has spent zero seconds composing.

Alexia: morning. what time should i meet you?

Three dots. They appear and disappear twice. Then:

Jude: twelve? i can come pick you up from jana's

Alexia: ok. what should i wear?

Jude: layers. and shoes you don't love.

Alexia: ok.

She sets the phone down on the counter and finishes her coffee, and her chest is doing something small and warm that she has come to associate with Jude and Jude only. The London girl who gets her all warm.

Alexia smiles into her mug.

*

By half past ten, she has, against all reason, three outfits laid out on Jana's spare-room bed.

This is humiliating. She is aware that this is humiliating. She is Alexia Putellas. She has been photographed in evening wear by people whose names she does not need to know. She has signed contracts with fashion houses. She has, on more than one occasion, walked a red carpet in heels, and she had not, in any of these moments, felt anything resembling what she is feeling now, which is the precise, low-grade panic of a woman who does not know what shoes you don't love technically means.

She is examining the third outfit, too smart, obviously too smart, what is wrong with her, when Jana wanders past the door in pyjamas with her bowl of yoghurt and stops dead.

"Tía."

"Do not."

"Tía, what are you doing?"

"I am picking clothes."

"You sure? Because from here it looks like your luggage exploded over your bed."

"This is a normal amount of clothes to pick from."

Jana, very slowly, comes into the room. Sets the bowl down on the dresser. Crosses her arms. Alexia throws her a glare.

"I have been waiting like six months for this. I am allowed three minutes." She looks, with theatrical care, at the bed. "Show me the contestants."

Alexia, against every instinct, points.

"That is too much," Jana says immediately. "That is a - what, a date for a Michelin restaurant. She is taking you on a walk, Ale, she said layers and shoes you don't love. She did not say shoes you don't love and also a silk shirt. No."

"Okay."

"That one." Jana tilts her head. "Too - too capitana. You look like you are about to read a statement to the press."

"It is just a sweater."

"It is your captain sweater, Ale. I know that sweater. That sweater has given speeches."

"You are inventing problems."

"I am identifying problems." Jana points at the third outfit. "That."

"That?"

"That. The white shirt. With the jeans. The good jeans. And the trainers, yes, those, the ones you said were too casual to bring, thank God you brought them anyway. Layers. Real layers. A jumper over it. The jacket you brought for the cold, the one with the inside pocket, sí, that one."

"It is too plain."

"It is not too plain, Ale, would you look at your face for once? You have a - bueno, you have everything, tranquila. You don't need the silk shirt. You need to look like a normal woman who has come to England to see a girl."

Alexia is not an insecure woman. A little bit shy, yes, maybe timid, but not insecure. But she wonders if this is how a teenager feels on their first date. Or a date that mattered.

She just wants to make sure Jude knows that she is deeply interested.

"I also came to England to visit my friend."

"Yeah, okay, you can lie to yourself, but if Jude was living in Berlin, you would be speaking German right about now."

Alexia laughs once, despite herself. Jana, sensing weakness, picks the outfit up off the bed and presses it into Alexia's arms.

"Wear it."

"Fine."

"And, Ale."

"¿Qué?"

"Wear the big earrings. Not the small ones. The gold ones. Trust me."

"Jana."

"Trust me."

Alexia puts on the white shirt and the jeans and the trainers, ties her hair back, leaves it loose, ties it again, leaves it loose again, decides to leave it loose, and puts in the gold earrings, and stands in front of Jana's hallway mirror and looks at herself.

She looks like a woman who has come to England to see a girl.

She looks, in fact, quite good.

Jana, watching from the doorway, gives her a single small nod that contains, somehow, the satisfaction of an entire scouting career.

"Perfecta."

"Gràcies."

"Go and ruin her."

"I am not going to ruin her, Jana —"

*

Jude arrives at five to twelve.

Alexia knows because her phone buzzes with a here. no rush, and she goes to the window and looks down.

There is Jude on the pavement outside Jana's building. The drizzle has stopped for a rare minute, but Jude still has the hood up and her hands in the pockets of a black jacket, the small frame of her tilted back to look at the row of windows. She finds Alexia's almost instantly. Alexia is, in fairness, not exactly hiding. Jude's face lights up in that crooked grin of hers and she gives her not quite a wave and not quite anything, and lifts a hand.

Alexia lifts one back.

Behind her, Jana, who is on the sofa now, still in pyjamas and browsing through Netflix, lifts her head.

"Is she here?"

"Sí."

"Bo." Jana waves at the window without getting up, a small dismissive Catalan flick. "Tell her hola from me. Suerte, capi."

Alexia goes down the stairs at a pace that is, she tells herself, perfectly normal. She is not running. She is walking, briskly, with the small, efficient steps of a woman who has somewhere to be and is not, particularly, excited about it.

She is, she finds at the bottom of the stairs, a liar.

She pushes the door open and steps out into the brisk cold, and there is Jude, who has taken her hood down now, hair slightly damp at the front, looking at her with the asymmetrical half-smile that does, briefly, terrible things to Alexia's heartbeat.

"Hi," Jude says.

"Hola," Alexia says.

There is a beat where they just look at each other. The kind of beat that has been happening between them in real time, in person, for about thirty hours now, and which Alexia is not yet used to and is not yet sure she will ever be. Jude shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other, extends an arm, and pulls Alexia into a half-hug that is so very weird but warm at the same time.

Jude smells like rain and also wood. Her jacket has droplets of rain clinging to it, but the grey hoodie underneath is soft. Alexia is a little dizzy from the proximity alone. Rewards Jude with a kiss to her cheek that turns the tips of her ears a bright pink.

Alexia doesn't try too hard to hide her grin.

"Right, so, right —" Jude babbles, recovering first, stepping back. She tips her head down the road. "Walk?"

"Yes."

"We'll get the bus in a bit. And the tube. I'm taking you on a proper London tour, the actual one. Two-storey buses, walk a bit, tube one stop, walk a lot, that's how you do it."

"Sí, alright."

"Postcards are for tourists. We do it properly."

"Vale."

They set off. The day is grey and cloudy, doing its London thing, half-hearted and absolutely committed at the same time, and Jude pulls her hood back up almost immediately.

Alexia thinks, faintly, that it's the perfect day for a date.

*

If this was a movie, this would be the part where a collection of cutesy scenes of them both would overlap under slightly poppy music. Well, if this was a movie, Alexia could do with better weather and minus the huge rat that appeared in the walkway.

But, be that as it may, she would still choose this movie with her and Jude at the centre of it. And the supposed movie goes like this:

They walk first. Just walk. Through streets Alexia does not know, in a direction Jude clearly does, past pubs and laundrettes and a Turkish grocer and a man arguing on a phone in what might be Polish. Jude does not point things out. She just walks and lets Alexia look, with her hands in her jacket pockets and her hood up, occasionally glancing sideways like she is checking Alexia is still there.

They cross a road. The light is red. A van comes too fast around the corner because the van does not care about the light, and Jude, without looking, without even appearing to register that her own hand is doing it, puts her palm flat against the small of Alexia's back and stops her at the kerb.

The van goes past.

Jude takes her hand away.

She does not, as far as Alexia can tell, notice she did it at all.

Alexia notices.

The hand was steady. The hand was warm even through the coat. The hand was, in the brief two seconds it was there, the most attentive hand Alexia has been near in possibly two years. And Jude has already kept walking and is saying something about a bakery up ahead that is rude to customers but does good sourdough.

Vale, Alexia thinks. Vale.

They get to a market eventually. Broadway, Jude says, with the small proprietary pride of someone showing off a thing they did not personally build but feel responsible for anyway. It is a Sunday market. There are stalls of cheese and oysters and Vietnamese sandwiches and people in identical raincoats moving in slow, packed waves down the central aisle. Jude takes her elbow, briefly, to steer her past a man with a pram, and lets it go.

Alexia looks in wonder. She's been to London. She's a footballer, of course she has been to London. But not Jude's London.

It's more special this way.

"What do you want?" Jude asks.

"Anything."

"That is not an answer."

"Whatever you choose."

"Come on, give me something to work with here, Putellas."

"Tortilla. If they have it."

Jude raises an eyebrow.

"This is England."

"You said anything."

"I said anything we have."

"You said anything."

She gets a small, surprised laugh out of Jude. That one is becoming a project, she has decided, getting Jude to laugh, really laugh, the half-broken, winded sound she makes when she is caught off guard. Then Jude marches her down to the back of the market to a Spanish stall Alexia did not see coming, and points at the tortilla under the glass, and says:

"I can't believe you knew."

"I did not know. I hoped."

They eat it standing up under an awning while it drizzles again, sharing a fork. Jude does not seem aware of the fork-sharing as a piece of information. Alexia is extremely aware of it. The tortilla is good, properly runny in the middle, salty, the potatoes still holding their shape, and Alexia tells Jude this in slow, deliberate English, and Jude looks at her with something between pride and indigestion and says yeah? in the voice of a person very happy about providing good food.

"Sí, Jude."

"Cool. Right. Cool."

She pays before Alexia can. Alexia, in her interior, files this as well. She has spent her entire adult life paying for things, being expected to pay for things, being assumed to pay for things, and the fact that Jude in her stupid jacket has just bought her a tortilla for six pounds fifty off a stand in a Hackney market does, in a way she is not prepared for, undo something small in her.

She files everything today. She is a one-woman archive.

*

Alexia has lost count of the places they saw. But somewhere after Jude showed her her favourite statue in the city — the Peter Pan one, in Kensington, which does not surprise her at all — they reach Liv's place.

Jude is offhand about it, the way she is offhand about everything. She says, We can pop in, if you want. My friend's doing a thing. Pastries. She'll be insufferable but she'll feed us. And Alexia, who would at this point follow Jude into the river, says, Yes. Okay.

Liv's thing turns out to be a small Sunday pop-up in a railway arch in some part of East London Alexia could not point to on a map. Warm and full of the smell of butter and burnt sugar and the precise atmosphere of cool young women who have decided to do food. There is a hand-lettered chalkboard menu. There are tiny tarts arranged like jewellery. There is a queue. Jude bypasses the queue, because Jude is family here, the way she is family in three other corners of this city Alexia is starting to understand, and goes around the back, and Alexia follows.

Liv is mid-pipe, bag of crème pât in one hand, curls escaping a clip, frown of concentration, until she looks up.

"Oh," Liv says.

She says it the way Hayley said it. Alexia is starting to recognise this Oh. It has, she has learned, two stages: the first stage is that face is famous, and the second stage is the small, much more important one, which is that face is here, with Jude.

Liv does the second one in about a second and a half.

She does not say anything immediately. She sets the piping bag down, wipes her hands on her apron and comes around the counter, and she shakes Alexia's hand, and she says, with the careful, dry, slightly evil warmth of a woman who has clearly heard things:

"Lovely to meet you."

"You too."

"Did you know I was present for Jude's first desperate message to you?"

"Liv," Jude groans, rolling her eyes a bit.

"What? I was. It was so funny."

"You're embarrassing me."

"I think you embarrassed yourself, actually."

Jude is going pink again. Alexia is delighted. Liv stuffs a small pastry box into Jude's hands and a single, glossy almond croissant into Alexia's, and waves them out.

On the way out, Alexia eats half the croissant and offers Jude the other half, and Jude takes it without thinking, eats it, and there is buttery flake left at the corner of her mouth that Alexia will not point out, because pointing it out would mean either reaching to brush it or telling her, and Alexia does not currently trust her hands.

Jude wipes her own mouth, eventually.

Alexia grieves slightly.

*

They walk further. Jude shows her things. Not the postcard things. A canal Alexia did not know London had, a bench Jude particularly approves of, a graffiti piece on a wall she always stops to look at. She talks about Charli. She talks about Graham. She talks about her mother, only once, and only in passing, but Alexia talks about her father, and they smile because they know how rare it is. Someone to understand.

She does not talk about herself in any other way. She lets Alexia talk too, slowly, in her stilted English, asks her questions in the careful, patient way of a person who actually wants the answer, does not finish her sentences for her when she searches for a word.

Alexia thinks, somewhere around three o'clock: I am in love with this woman.

The thought arrives quietly. Without ceremony. Without the panicked qualifier she would normally bolt onto it. It's a simple fact. A fact that has been building through screens and late-night talks and misunderstandings across channels.

She is in love with Jude. She just needed to look at her to confirm it.

Vale, she thinks. Okay.

It is at this point that she decides, with the calm tactical clarity of the captain she is, that she is going to do something about it. Today. This afternoon. Before the cab home, before Jana's flat, before another night of Cariño over a screen and Jude smiling at her with three hundred miles between them.

She is going to kiss her.

She is Alexia Putellas. She has done harder things.

*

The café is the last stop.

It is small. Tucked into a side street. The kind of place with one barista and four tables and a window that has steamed up against the cold. Jude orders for both of them, not overbearing, but like someone who knows food: Flat white, and a long black, and one of those almond things if there's any left. She pays again, despite Alexia's small Catalan protest, and they take their drinks to the corner table by the window because the corner table is the only free table, and also because Alexia has been steering them subtly toward the corner table since they walked in.

It's the smallest table, private, away from the door, and it forces them to sit so close together, side by side, that her leg is touching the whole length of Jude's thigh, and that makes her giddy in a way she hasn't been since she was, maybe, seventeen.

Jude takes a sip, then wraps her hands around her flat white and leans back into the booth to look at Alexia properly.

"This is alright, isn't it?"

"It is very alright."

"Did you like it? Our..." Jude trails off, eyes darting out, finger tapping the side of her cup once. "Day?"

Alexia feels her cheeks heat up. God, she is a grown woman.

She smiles shyly. "Sí. Very good day."

The light from the window is grey and soft. The drizzle has slowed to almost nothing outside. There is some quiet music from a speaker behind the counter. The café smells of coffee and warm milk and the wet wool of everyone's coats.

Alexia takes a breath.

She does it in stages. Like a penalty.

She tucks the loose strand of hair behind her ear. It has been damp-curled there all afternoon and she has been ignoring it on purpose and now she tucks it, slow, deliberate, the way she has done in approximately four similar situations and seen reliably understood.

She wets her lower lip.

She leans forward.

It is an inch, maybe. Maybe two. Enough to close the distance between her side of the small table and the middle of it. Enough to bring her face into the warm light coming off the window. Enough to put her mouth, and she has, despite herself, been looking at Jude's mouth, off and on, for most of the afternoon, the small chapped corner of it where she bites in the cold, enough to put her mouth into the conversation.

She looks at Jude's mouth.

She lets it be obvious.

She has, in her life, done this exact sequence of three small movements and watched it land successfully approximately one hundred percent of the time. She is not bragging. It is simply true. Tuck. Wet. Lean. The other person reads the page. The page is read.

Jude reads the page.

Alexia sees her read the page.

There is, for about a quarter of a second, a flicker in Jude's face. Something that arrives and goes again so fast that Alexia, even in the act of clocking it, half-wonders if she imagined it.

Then Jude sits back.

She sits back, picks up her flat white with both hands, takes another sip, and says, with a breezy, slightly too-breezy lightness to her voice:

"Anyway, did I tell you about the thing Taco did the other day?"

Alexia's lean, half-completed, suspended in mid-air, has nowhere to go.

She holds it for one more half-second.

Then she recovers, because she has been giving press conferences since she was twenty, and she straightens up smoothly and picks up her own coffee and wraps her hands around it and says, with the carefully constructed neutrality of a woman not breaking eye contact with the abyss:

"No. What did Taco do?"

"Right. So. We have this, it's a, okay, so first you need to know that he is fat. He is a fat, fat, diabetic, criminally entitled dachshund."

"I am aware of Taco's situation."

"Right. Yeah. Anyway. The other day..."

And Jude is off. She is gone. Properly gone. Both hands moving now, the coffee abandoned, her face doing the thing it does when she is telling a story she is fond of, her accent getting worse with every sentence, mimicking Taco's expressions, mimicking the noises he makes, in a way Alexia would, on any other day, find so charming she would have to sit on her hands.

It is charming.

That is the worst part of it. It is so charming. Jude is animated and bright and entirely focused on telling Alexia about her stupid sausage dog, and Alexia, who would, an hour ago, have considered being told a fifteen-minute Taco story to be the highest possible privilege of her current life, finds herself sitting opposite this story with a cup of hot coffee turning into a cup of merely warm coffee in her hands and a small cold thing setting up shop somewhere under her sternum.

She listens. She nods. She makes the small encouraging noises. She laughs, once, real, despite herself, at the part where Taco apparently glared at Jude for an entire afternoon.

But under all of it.

Under all of it she is sitting in the corner of a small London café with her hair tucked behind her ear and her lip still slightly wet and her body still slightly leaned forward, and she is recalculating. In real time. With the precise, slightly nauseous focus of a player who has just realised her read of the match was wrong.

She had this wrong.

She has had this wrong, possibly, for some time.

She thinks back, frantically, while nodding at honestly whatever Jude is babbling on about. She thinks back through the day. The hand on the small of her back. The hand on her elbow. The fork-sharing. The way Jude's smile went asymmetrical when she said I will not get bored of you. The way Liv teased Jude. The way Jude turned pink. The way Jude offered her a coat she had not asked for when the drizzle picked up. The way Jude has spent the whole afternoon being, in every possible measurable sense, attentive.

That was all real. She is sure that was all real.

But maybe that was...

Friends, she thinks. The word lands in Catalan first. Amigues.

Maybe that was just how Jude is with friends. With people she likes. With Charli, with Hayley, with Liv. Maybe Jude is just like that. Maybe Alexia, who has been turning these small things over in her hand all afternoon and assigning each one a value, has been overweighting the currency.

Maybe the lean-in was, to Jude, an actual, literal lean-in. English people are notoriously weird; Lucy had said so. Keira took months to properly hug her.

Maybe Jude, sweet and slightly chaotic Jude, took it as a closeness she was not equipped to receive without panic, and stepped back.

Maybe Jude does not want this.

Maybe Jude is being kind. Maybe Jude has been being kind for close to six months, and Alexia, who is famously not stupid, has been doing what people do when they are lonely, which is reading kindness as something else.

The cold thing under her sternum makes itself larger.

She makes herself smile at the Taco story anyway.

They walk back to Jana's neighbourhood after the café. The drizzle starts up properly again. Jude is quieter on the walk than she was earlier, and Alexia cannot tell if she is reading that correctly either now, can no longer trust her own instruments. She tells herself a lot of things, all of which she has time to formulate at length, because there is a comfortable silence between her and Jude that she now suspects is, in fact, simply silence.

They stop at the steps to Jana's apartment building.

"Today was..." Jude scratches her jaw. "Yeah. That was a good one."

"It was very nice. Thank you."

"You don't have to —"

"I want to thank you."

"Yeah. Alright. You're welcome."

There is a small, awkward pause where, twenty-four hours ago, Alexia would have stepped forward and hugged her without thinking. She does not step forward now. She is not sure what the rules of hugging are anymore. She has, evidently, been getting all the rules wrong.

Jude solves it for her, in the end. Steps in. Wraps both arms around her. Briefly. Tight, then released. Pats her once on the back, in the way one pats a teammate. Steps back.

"Get inside before you freeze."

"Okay."

"Text me, yeah?"

"Okay."

She watches Jude walk back down the road in the drizzle, hands in her pockets, hood up, and she stands there for too long after Jude is gone, because she does not yet have what it takes to walk into Jana's flat and explain any of this.

She walks in anyway. Eventually.

*

"That is," Jana says, after a long pause, when Alexia has finished laying it out in pieces on the kitchen table, "the worst recap I have ever heard."

"Jana."

"I am serious. That is genuinely the worst recap. You have just described an extremely successful date and concluded it went badly."

"She leaned back, Jana."

"She panicked."

"She did not."

"Ale."

"She did not panic, she... she sat back, and she drank her coffee, and she talked about her dog."

"Tía."

"¿Qué?"

Jana looks at her for a long moment, with that deep thinking face Alexia has seen across fields for three seasons. "You leaned in to kiss her."

"...yes."

"And she leaned back."

"Yes."

"And then she talked about Taco."

"Yes."

Jana puts her face in her hands. Snorts a little.

"That is a woman who is in love with you."

"Jana, it is not..."

"You are both grown women acting nervous and stupid."

"Well, I can't disagree with that."

"I don't know what happened. Maybe you will just have to do the grown-up thing and talk. Use words."

Alexia grumbles. She knows she is pouting and that is not a good look on her. Or it is, but it is not very mature. She doesn't want to talk.

She wants to bat her eyelashes at Jude and kiss her senseless.

"She will have to talk. I already did the lean-in thing. I took a fucking plane for her. I..."

"So you admit that you didn't come to see me, puta."

"Not the point, Jana."

Jana bangs her head on the table. Alexia pouts even more.

*

You didn't need to show up to the shift today. Nobody was expecting you to. You showed up anyway because if you didn't do something with your hands for the next hour or so you were probably going to punch your own face.

Stupid, stupid, thick as a mule.

The soundtrack of your mind right about now.

Carl took one look at your face and shoved you toward the kitchen, sat you down on a stool, and dropped a huge sack of potatoes into your lap. The guy knows what's up and doesn't ask questions about it. He is, in his own crap way, one of the best people in your life.

You peel so many potatoes in the span of two hours that they will probably be on the menu for the next three months. You sigh.

You don't know why you panicked.

Actually you do know why. You just don't want to admit it.

You didn't know how you felt or how deep it was until Alexia was right there, right in front of you, looking so beautiful and so eager and real.

Even under London's horrible weather she was somehow brighter. You wanted to tell her that.

You wanted to tell her everything.

You were pretty sure you were in love, so utterly in love, the moment she bit into her stupid tortilla — really? Tortilla in London? — and groaned slightly at the taste and talked for a while with a drop of the sauce near her chin and you just kept looking at it. At her. At impossible hazel eyes and pink lips and —

Your mind went Oh.

It could not go Oh at a worse moment.

The peeler slips and scrapes the tip of your finger and you hiss. Fucking hell.

You should have kissed her. She leaned in. She looked at your lips. She clearly wanted to.

Then your mind decided, in the precise instant the lean was happening, to remind you that you fuck up most things in your life even if you love them dearly. So you recoiled. You panicked. You drank your fucking coffee like a coward.

Here is Alexia, who is kind and patient and so nice, so unbearably lovely to you, and you will, you absolutely will, fuck that up.

Look at you. Fucking it up even now. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

You let your head fall into your hands.

They smell weird. Starch and onion and the iron of a small cut you have only just registered.

That's when Hayley finds the perfect moment to poke her head in. She takes in your pathetic frame propped against the kitchen counter, gives you the precise up-and-down of a woman about to start something, and says:

"Weren't you supposed to be out celebrating your sucessful date today?"

You groan.

"How come everyone knew it was a date before me?"

"Because not all of us are as thick in the head as you, Jude."

"Cheers."

"What did you think it was?"

You consider. There is no good answer. You go with the worst one.

"Like, a casual hang-out between pen pals?"

Hayley stares at you. Stares at you with such concentrated, unmasked pity that you wipe your face just to check, because for all you know you have been crying for an hour and nobody told you.

"Jude."

"Don't."

"She took a plane."

"I am aware she took a plane, Hayley."

"To London."

"I am aware she came to London."

"And she could go anywhere. Anywhere, Jude. It is fucking London. Sloane Square. The Shard. A nice restaurant in Mayfair. Any one of which she could afford on the change in her coat pocket." Hayley is, you realise distantly, working herself up to something. "And she chose to come here. To this pub. To this sticky, shit-lit, mould-infested pub. To see your sorry ass."

"Ugh."

"Don't ugh me, you deserve to feel stupid right now, you twat. I should hit you over the head with the frying —"

She stops mid-sentence. Looks over her shoulder. Someone is at the door. Whoever it is has just done something that makes Hayley's face change.

She turns back. Her expression has gone grim.

"Well," she says. "I guess her mates are going to do that for me."

"What?"

You do not get to finish that what, because Hayley steps aside and Jana is already pushing through the door to the kitchen like she owns it, deeply pissed off and absolutely committed, and behind her, looking like a woman who has been dragged into a war she did not sign up for, is Aggie.

Carl's voice, from out front: "Oi. You can't —"

"I do not care," Jana says without turning around, "what your rules are."

"Right then."

You hear Carl give up. You imagine the small, defeated shrug. 

This is, you note in passing, possibly the most unsanitary moment in this kitchen's history. Which is, given the state of this kitchen, quite an accolade.

Jana is making a beeline for you.

You raise the potato peeler in front of your chest like a small inadequate sword.

"What?"

The angry Catalan pokes your sternum with a very pointed, very expensively manicured nail.

"What."

Aggie, behind her: "Jana, mate, maybe just —"

"Not now, Aggie."

Aggie throws her hands up. Mouths sorry at you over Jana's shoulder. You appreciate it. You will be remembering Aggie's failed peacekeeping efforts in your will.

Jana pokes you again. Harder.

"What is wrong with you?"

You avoid her eyes. Many things are wrong with you. You wouldn't even know where to start the list.

"Look —"

"No. You look, you self-entitled prick —"

"That's a big word for you, Jana —"

"— I have been learning English for months, do not test me right now. Look. What is wrong with you? Do you not know when someone is into you? Do you not have eyes? Do you not — Aggie!"

"I haven't said —"

"I am ripping her a new one, come on, I am in a flow."

"I was going to say maybe the kitchen isn't —"

"Where else, Aggie. Where else am I supposed to do this. The pub? With Norman here?" She gestures sharply over her shoulder. "I do not want Norman in this conversation."

"Fair."

You did not think you were capable of being amused right now. Turns out you are. You hide it badly.

Jana sees it. Pokes you a third time. The third poke is, frankly, going to bruise.

"Do not smile at me, Jones."

"I'm not."

"You absolutely are."

"Where is she?"

That stops Jana mid-poke.

You don't entirely know why the question came out so fast. Some part of you, the part that has not been doing well for the last twenty hours, needs to know that Alexia is somewhere. Somewhere warm. Somewhere not crying. Somewhere not getting on a plane back to Barcelona without telling you.

Jana studies your face for a second. Her own softens, just barely, and then she remembers she's furious and the soft thing snaps back away.

"She is at Harrods."

"Harrods?"

"Lucy and Ona dragged her. Said they needed perfume. Nobody needs perfume. They are distracting her, Jude. While I am here. Dealing with this." She gestures at the entirety of you. "Three grown women are sacrificing their Monday morning to fix your fuck-up. Three. Plus me. Four. Aggie —"

"I'm support staff, I have made it very clear —"

"— Aggie is here for emotional support of the whole project."

Aggie nods at you, seriously. "It's true. I'm support staff."

"Right."

"They are walking her around Harrods looking at perfume she does not want," Jana continues, "while I am here in this — this — this mould fortress trying to find out whether you have any idea what you did yesterday."

"I know what I did yesterday."

"Do you."

"Jana —"

"Do you, Jude. Because she came home and asked me, with her actual mouth, if English people were slow."

You wince.

"I —"

"And I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Because I knew what had happened. Because I have known what was going to happen for six months. Because she has been talking about you for six months. Like — like a teenager. Like a teenager with — with a science crush, an obsession, on a girl in a band, do you understand what I am saying to you —"

"Jana, gently —"

"I am being gentle, Aggie!"

"You are not being gentle —"

"I am being Catalan gentle, which is different —"

"You're calling her a mould fortress —"

"Did you hear me call her a mould fortress? I called the pub a mould fortress, the pub is a mould fortress, the pub is the thing she keeps coming back to even though it is a mould fortress, which is the entire point, Aggie, focus."

You set the peeler down. Slowly. Very carefully. The way you would set down a weapon, surrendering.

"Jana. I —"

"And you know what I think." Jana is pacing now. Small kitchen. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn. "I think you are afraid of her."

"That's not —"

"I think you take one look at her and you see La Reina and you flip out, Jude. I think you see two Ballons d'Or and a capitana armband and a face on a billboard in Madrid and you decide you are not enough for it. I think you have decided that for her. You have decided what she is allowed to want. You have decided she is too much."

"Jana —"

"Because if that is what is happening here, Jude. If that is what you see when you look at her. Then you should — you should say so. And we should — we should call it. Right now. Because she does not deserve to be in love with a person who only sees La Reina and not her. She has had enough of those. They are exhausting. She has had a lifetime of them. She does not need another one. Not from you. Not from someone she has — she has —" Jana's hands are doing something in the air now, something furious and helpless, "— put up on the wall in her own head, Jude. Do you understand what I am — Aggie, help me, English, help me —"

"She means Alexia thinks the world of you," Aggie translates, gently.

"That. I mean that, exactly. Gràcies, Aggie."

"You're welcome."

"So if you cannot —"

You stand up.

You don't mean to. Your body stands up before your brain has signed off on it. The stool scrapes back loudly on the kitchen tile. The potato peeler hits the counter. The half-peeled potato in your other hand goes back into the sack.

The kitchen goes very quiet.

Jana stops mid-pace.

You are not, in your normal life, a person who gives speeches. Speeches are Charli's department. Speeches are for managers and politicians and people who have, at some point, willingly stood in front of a room. You are a kitchen woman. You communicate in pans being banged, doors being closed, fags taken in the alley. Speeches are not, traditionally, your medium.

You give one anyway.

"I don't give two fucks," you say, "if Alexia is Alexia Putellas."

Jana opens her mouth.

"Don't. Let me. I don't give two fucks. She could be a — hot dog seller. On the street. With a little cart. Lionel Messi'scousin's plumber, I don't care. La Reina or whatever the fuck you entitled fucks call her — I do not give a single shit."

"Jude —"

"Let. Me."

Jana closes her mouth. Aggie has frozen with her hand still half-raised in peacekeeping position.

Somewhere behind them, the kitchen door has cracked open another inch. You don't look. You can feel Hayley's energy in it. You suspect Carl is behind her. You will be dealing with all of it later.

"I am not afraid of La Reina," you say, and your voice is, you note with a small distant interest, doing something. Going thicker. Going steadier. Going somewhere you didn't sign up for. "Don't insult me. Don't insult her. Don't pretend that's what this is. That'd be easy. That'd be a problem I could fix by reading her Wikipedia and doing a couple of breathing exercises."

"Then what —"

"Listen. I am afraid of Alexia Putellas. My friend. The person I — I —" you stop, find the word, grab it, "like. The one who saved me as Jude. Who calls me cabrona. Who sent me — she sent me a voice note last Tuesday at eleven at night telling me about how her grandmother used to make leek soup. Leek soup, Jana. Eleven at night. Not because there's a reason to tell me about her grandmother's leek soup. Just because. Just because she wanted me to know."

Nobody says anything.

"She listens to my crap, Jana. All of it. The stupid stuff. The Carl stuff. The Eggy stuff. The Mum stuff, sometimes, when it slips. She listens like — like she's taking notes. Like there's going to be a test. Like the worst thing she could do is forget any of it."

You drag a hand down your face.

"I'm not afraid of La Reina. I'm afraid of Alexia. The person. The one I'm —" you exhale once, hard, "— in love with."

The kitchen goes silent.

Properly silent.

Even the extractor fan, which has had a slow grinding fault for two years, picks this exact moment to develop a sudden interest in nothing.

Jana stares at you.

Aggie stares at you.

Behind them, the door has opened the rest of the way. Hayley is standing in it, mouth slightly open. Carl is behind her, tea towel slung over his shoulder, holding a half-peeled onion, looking as though he has just walked into a confession booth. 

Jana's whole face changes.

Slowly. Like a door swinging.

The fury goes out of her in stages. Her shoulders drop. Her hands lower from where they were doing the helpless Catalan thing in mid-air. Her mouth, which had been open to argue, closes.

And then she smiles.

Wide. Slow. Wild. The smile of a woman who has just heard, after months of careful and not-so-careful intelligence work, exactly the sentence she has been waiting to hear out of your mouth.

"Bo."

"Don't."

"Allà està. There you go."

"Don't do this."

"I knew you had it in you."

"Jana, I will throw this peeler at you."

"You won't, you are in love. You are too soft to throw things now."

Aggie, very quietly: "She has a point."

Jana steps forward. Pokes you. Differently, this time. Once. In the centre of your chest. Your heart, right there. 

Almost — almost gentle. Almost.

"So. Jude. My friend. My idiot."

"Mm."

"What are you going to do about it."

And the thing is.

The thing is, you know.

You have been knowing, in the back of your head, since the moment the peeler slipped and you understood why you panicked. You have been knowing it the whole time Jana was shouting at you. You have been knowing it through Hayley's she could afford it on the change in her coat pocket and Carl's silent shrug at the door and the small, painful image of Alexia at Harrods being walked past perfumes she does not want.

You know what you are going to do.

You wipe your hands on your apron.

You look at Jana.

"Right," you say. "I need you to keep her at Harrods for another two hours."

Jana's smile widens further.

"Sí, capitana. What for?"

You pick the peeler back up. Set it down on the counter properly this time. Take your apron off over your head. Reach for your jacket.

"I've got a plan."

*

Alexia arrives at Jana's apartment exhausted. She has been exhausted since yesterday, really. Emotionally drained, in the precise way only a person who has spent twenty-four hours running through every possible interpretation of one quarter-second flicker on someone's face can be. Now she also has two bottles of perfume she did not want, three jumpers she did not need, and a coat Lucy talked her into.

It is not, she suspects, going to fit in her luggage.

Luggage she has to organise soon enough. She has one more day here in this damp city before she goes back to her sunny routine of training and matches and press, to Barcelona where the sun is hard and white and her flat is quiet. 

Jude has not said a word.

Nothing. Not a text. Not a voice note. Not a hi or a sorry about earlier or even a taco says hello, which Alexia, in the cab back from Harrods, had been bargaining for in some humiliating corner of her mind as a bare minimum acceptable response.

Alexia thinks herself patient. Thinks herself resilient. Has been told, in approximately thirty interviews over the last decade, that her composure under pressure is one of her defining qualities.

She has found out, in regards to her English crush, that she is none of those things.

She sighs. Drops the Harrods bags inside the door with a small dispirited thud. Toes her trainers off. Considers, briefly, whether it would be insane to lie face-down on Jana's hallway rug for fifteen minutes.

Decides it would be only mildly insane.

Decides to compromise: face-down on the couch. Shoes off. Maybe a blanket. Maybe a small dignified weep into Jana's cushions, which Jana will pretend not to notice when she gets in.

Lucy and Ona went to get drinks somewhere. They tried to bring her. She declined. She has, she has decided, earned an evening alone on a sofa, in a country where she does not have to be Alexia Putellas for anyone.

She pads down the hall to the living room.

Her phone buzzes in her coat pocket.

She ignores it.

Three steps later it buzzes again. Then again. Then a fourth time, faster than is reasonable.

She pulls it out.

It is Instagram. The DMs. The thread that has begun all of this. The impossibility that turned into her catching a plane to London to see about a girl.

@jisthejones: tomatoes

She stares at the screen.

The notification has come in mid-sentence. The dots are still moving. There is, evidently, more.

@jisthejones: pasta @jisthejones: or make from scratch? would she like that? do you make it from scratch? you do, don't you. christ. @jisthejones: get the good cheese. the gratey kind. parm if they have proper parm.

Alexia, who has just been walking down a hallway, has, without realising, stopped.

She is standing in Jana's corridor in her socks with her coat half-on, looking at her phone like it has slapped her.

The dots keep moving.

@jisthejones: clean the flat. @jisthejones: actually properly clean the flat, jude, hoover the corners, don't be a coward  @jisthejones: scrub taco. he stinks.

Jude is doing lists again. Like the first time.

She lets out a small noise that is not, technically, a laugh. She walks the rest of the way to the sofa in a daze, sits down, watches the dots move.

@jisthejones: candles? do you own candles? you don't own candles. buy candles. @jisthejones: not weird ones. just nice candles.

Alexia's mouth does something at the corner.

There is a small, hot, completely unreasonable jealous spike that arrives somewhere around would she like that, because the she in would she like that is unattributed, and Alexia, who is a fully-grown woman with a Champions League medal, is briefly outraged by a hypothetical she who exists only because Jude has not specified.

She types, before she can stop herself.

@alexiaputellas: jude, you are doing it again —

Her thumb hovers over send.

She does not press send.

Because the dots are still moving again and Jude is going to beat her to it. She wants to know what comes next.

The dots move.

The dots stop.

The dots move again.

Then, two messages, one after the other:

@jisthejones: apologise for being such a dumbass. @jisthejones: ask the pretty footballer out. maybe. if she forgives you.

Alexia goes very still.

She reads it twice.

The dots come back.

One more message.

@jisthejones: do you forgive me for being such a nervous wreck, ale?

Alexia's eyes do, betrayingly, the thing.

The thing she has been refusing to do all day. The thing she did not do in the cab. The thing she absolutely was not going to do in Jana's hallway with two hundred pounds of unnecessary clothing piled at her feet.

The thing she is, now, doing on Jana's sofa in her socks, looking at a phone screen, alone.

Just a little.

She wipes her face with the back of her wrist. Idiota. She is being an idiota. This is, in objective terms, four messages on Instagram from a woman in a sticky pub in South London who has, by her own description, just told herself off in writing for being a coward.

It is also, simultaneously, the single most romantic thing that has happened to Alexia Putellas in possibly five years. Possibly, her whole life.

She types, very carefully, because her hands are not entirely steady.

@alexiaputellas: there is nothing to forgive, cariño.

She looks at it.

Adds, because she wants Jude to hear it the way she means it:

@alexiaputellas: you don't have to.

The dots come on immediately. Like Jude has been waiting on the other end with her thumb hovering. And Alexia can imagine it clearly and the smile she wears is fond. So fond.

@jisthejones: i want to.

And then:

@jisthejones: come over tonight? my place. i'll cook. proper date.

Alexia reads that one approximately four times.

She types:

@alexiaputellas: proper date? @jisthejones: proper date. like, capital P, capital D. @jisthejones: with a tablecloth. probably. if i can find one. @jisthejones: i'll text you the address. say yes, ale.

Alexia sits there on Jana's sofa in her socks looking at her phone, and her face is doing a thing she will not be able to describe later when Mapí asks her about it, and she has gone, in the space of approximately ninety seconds, from face-down-on-the-couch-energy to a kind of horizontal vertigo, like the floor has tilted up under her and she is on the verge of sliding off.

She types:

@alexiaputellas: yes.

Adds, before she can be embarrassed by it:

@alexiaputellas: sí. okay. yes.

The little seen indicator pops up immediately.

Then a single response, a beat later:

@jisthejones: ❤️

Alexia, on Jana's couch, makes a sound that is not, technically, a sound a Ballon d'Or winner is supposed to make.

She presses the phone face-down against her chest.

She breathes once.

Twice.

Then she sits bolt upright, with the abrupt clarity of a woman whose tactical brain has just rebooted at full operating capacity, and yells, into the empty flat:

"Jana!"

No answer. Jana is, of course, still out. The Catalan rescue squad has been on duty all day and is currently, somewhere across town, on the third drink of a well-deserved debrief.

Alexia calls her.

It rings three times. Jana picks up against a background of cheerful pub noise.

"Sí, capi."

"Jana."

"Mm."

"Jana, I need you to come back."

"Are you okay?"

"I — yes. Sí. It is — Jana, Jude texted."

There is a long pause on the line. The background noise dims. Alexia can hear, very faintly, what is possibly Lucy in the distance going what is happening, what is she saying.

"Oh," Jana says, in a voice that is doing a terrible job of sounding surprised. "Bueno. And what did Jude say."

"She invited me to her flat. Tonight. For dinner."

"Que bonito."

"Jana, you do not sound surprised."

"I am very surprised, capi, I am shocked, I am gobsmacked —"

"Jana."

"Mm?"

"I need to go back to Harrods."

There is another pause.

"Ay, Ale."

"Don't."

"Ay, capi."

"Jana, do not —"

"You want to buy —"

"Don't say it."

"— lencería —"

"JANA."

"I am only confirming!"

"Confirm in your head."

"I am bringing Lucy. She has excellent taste."

"You are not bringing Lucy."

"Lucy will be delighted —"

Alexia closes her eyes.

"You are coming back. Alone. Now. We are going. Quietly. Like normal adults."

"Quietly. Like normal adults."

"Promise me, Jana."

"Promise. I will not even tell Ona."

A pause. Alexia wants to bite her phone.

"You can bring Ona, she has good taste."

"YAY! Girl's shopping trip!"

Alexia has the good sense to pull her phone far away from her ears. She sighs. She needs all the help she can get.

"Come on, hurry up."

"Anything for love, capi."

Jana hangs up.

Alexia sits on the sofa with her phone in her hand and her two hundred pounds of unnecessary clothing piled at her feet, and the small leak in her eyes has, somewhere in the middle of the lingerie negotiation, dried up entirely.

She is going to Jude's flat tonight.

For dinner.

Proper date. Capital P. Capital D.

She gets up off the sofa.

Goes to her room. Pulls every item out of her case. Lays them on the bed. Picks up the phone again.

Types one more message.

@alexiaputellas: cariño? @jisthejones: yeah? @alexiaputellas: should i bring wine? red or white? @jisthejones: bring whatever you want, ale. you could bring tap water for all i care. @jisthejones: just come.

Alexia smiles at her phone like an idiot.

Outside, the drizzle starts up again against Jana's living-room window. London weather at its finest.

She does not even mind.

put some music on. what? put some music on. it’s my first live stream, you know. lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo. barça. come on. i’m going to ring patri. my first live stream. get ready with ale.

get ready for the party. no, no party. don’t say that. have you put on some other trousers? yes. lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo. barça.

let’s see what they say. you’re the best, we love you. and i love you all too. hi, thanks. ay, i’ve got a bruise—look at the bruise from the tackle, eh. seriously? you’ve been knocked out. yeah, yeah. look. folks. whatever it takes. the fourth champions league, folks.

uh, what a face. i'm going to put on a bit of make-up. you keep an eye on the time, okay? in six minutes…we're off. we have to go off live. how long will it take? less. go and put your make-up on. i’m fine. nothing, just a bit. put some on me too, won’t you? well, hang on. get ready with sal—eh, with serra and ale. stop, wait. you do it. you’re such a show-off. i don’t know. will we have time? i don’t have your lipstick shade.

put some music on, put some music on. what music do you want? the copyright will come up. let them say what music. what music do you want? "and the four that are missing,” they say, from the champions league. yeah. yeah. what have you put on for me? whatever i see. ah, right. quevedo. let’s see if the volume’s right for me, shall we? i put on too much make-up because i don’t have your blush. mine’s a bit darker.

oh, well. let’s see what they say. the brunette. ah, the brunette. oh how white. it’s just that i’m a bit darker. i don’t have time to dry my hair. man, even though it’s just text. you’ve really gone overboard, haven’t you? “i love you, i love you so much.” “i love you so much,” they say. what did you think? what did you make of it? what, the match? the match. sure, whatever. what did you think of the match? lots of nerves or not. where is she? and vicky? where’s vicky gone? vicky’s tummy was acting up. surely, right? yes, yes, yes. ah, well. look, it's your mum, forever and ever. mum, see you in a bit. here it is, sort of. join me. with my heart racing in that first half. yeah, it’s just that it’s been…so what now? what now? congrats, no, culers, or what? what, culers, how are you?

esmee! esmee! what? oh, patri. patri. hey, are you calling me? we’re live i mean, i was just asking you to come over. ay. we’re doing a ‘get ready with us’ video. say hi to the live stream. hey, champions. i’m coming. right, 615. and down. and down, come on. come on. i’ll put this on. i don’t mind. right, so some blush. look how pretty ale is. well, i’m no make-up professional, eh. i mean… you’ve done a little course, haven’t you? no. ah, no. well, on tiktok then. but haters, no hate please. look, the brush doesn’t, it doesn’t go like that. right, right. well, never mind.

we trust you, as always. yes. it doesn’t have to be. and tomorrow we’re off to celebrate in barcelona, eh. tomorrow in barcelona. eh, i don’t know if it’s official yet, eh. i think so. to plaça maria cristina, everyone, tomorrow. here’s the sister, the middle sister. here we are. get ready. photo. you’re the best. photo, photo. wow they want to see this photo. don't upload it. i’ll upload it later. i’ll upload it now, right. i’ll upload it now.

love you all. we’re a bit late, aren’t we? a bit. salma’s said to do a retake, but i’m telling you, we’re not the last ones. no, salma’s told me to do a retake in the room. we should...check the chat, see who...who says we’re coming in last. let’s see if you can guess. come on, it’s obvious who’s coming last. let’s see if the people with...if they know who’s coming… let’s see if we say that name in every interview, every single one. come on, what do you say? who do you think is going to be last? in theory we’re leaving. no, hang on. in a minute. in a minute, in theory we’re leaving. salma i say. in a minute and she’s in the bathroom, you know? i don’t know. a bit of mascara. come on, you’re pretty anyway. and you. vicky, they say she’s got it. but look how you’ve written vicky. no, because no, no, she’s not on time now, poor thing. oh my. mami. salma, they say. oh dear. bingo. or vicky. bingo. or kika. no, not kika – kika’s already downstairs with the girls.

which of the sisters takes the longest? alexia. and who’s the first? me. come on. no, i’ve been here ages, haven’t i? yeah, well, but you’re the second one – let’s see which one. do you want to help me choose some glasses? because today’s a glasses day. yeah, yeah. i was going to put them on, but i said: i don’t care. no, wait. can you open that? yes, because we’re leaving now. have you asked Salma? hey, the card, take it. are you calling salma? if salma’s on the bus and we’re not, that’s a fine waiting to happen, isn’t it? i think they’re already here. those ones, those ones. alexia, how pretty. i’m not taking these off all day. what do you think salma’s phone’s like? i’m calling her right now. right, girls. it’s gone straight to voicemail. for god’s sake.