#technically.. fan..edit.. whatever who cares

Just one of those decisions that hardens inside her all at once, almost before she realises she has made it.

Because after the messages, after letting herself relax into something light and unguarded for the first time in a while, the rest comes naturally. The recoil. The inventory. The familiar tightening in her chest.

Of course it occurs to her.

The possibility that the conversation does not stay there.

A screenshot is all it takes. One print. Two. A funny little post on Twitter or one of the other unholy places on the internet. Her name in someone’s mouth. Her bad English dissected. The fact she answered at all. Then the edits. The comments. The fans. The haters. The people who love her and who wait around to feel entitled to her.

It builds quickly in her head because these things always do.

A little private exchange turned into content.

A small, human moment held up under fluorescent light until it looks ridiculous.

It has never happened, not really. Not like that. But only because Alexia has spent years making sure it does not. Careful with her image, her words, her face. Careful with what she gives and how much. People see what she wants them to see. Or enough of it that the difference barely matters.

It is work. It is discipline. It is survival, some days.

So maybe she thinks too much after every little conversation.

Maybe she gets too far inside her own head.

Maybe she has built such a careful system around herself that even a harmless message thread starts to look like a crack in the wall.

Her reasons are her own.

She does not answer again.

And there is, technically, one more message.

So short she almost misses it.

A notification flashes on her screen one afternoon between physio and media. When she taps into the thread later, it is gone. Deleted. Whatever it was, the stranger thought better of it.

Alexia stares at the little note that says the message was unsent and feels something small and unpleasant twist in her stomach.

Then she closes the app.

And waits.

For the screenshot.

For Mapí to send her a link with six laughing emojis and no context.

For Alba to text what is this.

For her own name to drift across her feed attached to one grainy image of the chat and a thousand stupid opinions. 

Nothing happens.

One day passes.

Then another.

Then five.

No screenshot on Twitter. No stitched TikTok edit with music under it. No fan account posting look who Alexia is talking to. No Reddit thread. No gossip. No sign anywhere that the stranger has taken that odd little exchange and done what almost everyone does now, which is turn it outward. Package it. Share it. Flatten it into proof of access.

The internet stays quiet.

Alexia, against her will, notices.

She notices it in the same way she notices pain that does not come. Carefully. Suspiciously. Waiting for it anyway.

Still nothing.

It surprises her more than it should.

Because the truth is, if anyone on earth had the right to make a joke out of the whole thing, it would have been this person.

It was humiliating enough. Absurd enough.

There would have been an audience for it.

Look what I did. Look who answered me. Look how insane this was.

Instead there is nothing.

Silence.

Privacy, kept intact.

And that unsettles Alexia more than it should.

Not because it means anything huge. Only because it is rare.

This stranger, for all the chaos, understood where the line was.

Or maybe did not even have to understand it. Maybe they just had it.

Alexia thinks about that more than she should.

About the fact that someone can seem so disorganised and still be discreet. That someone can be messy without being careless.

Then training goes badly.

Not catastrophic. Nothing explodes. Nobody gets injured. But one of those sessions where everything feels half a second off. Passes just behind the runner. Touch too heavy. Legs stubborn. Head louder than it needs to be. The kind of day where even water tastes annoying.

By the time she gets home she feels scraped thin.

The flat is quiet. Her body is tired in that dense, inward way. She showers, changes, walks barefoot into the kitchen, opens the fridge, closes it again. Stares for a while at nothing.

Her phone is on the counter.

She looks at it.

Looks away.

Then back again.

There is no grand decision in it. No speech. Just a small, selfish want.

She wants to laugh.

That is all.

Not the laugh she gives teammates, or interviewers, or the careful social version of herself.

A real one. Sharp and private. The kind that catches her by surprise.

Her thumb moves before she has fully justified it.

The thread opens exactly where she left it.

No complaints. No needy follow-up messages. No passive-aggressive question marks. Just the old exchange, and the one deleted message, sitting there like a door she closed herself.

Alexia stares at it for a second.

Then types:

@alexiaputellas: you make the soup?

She sends it before she can reconsider.

The reply comes fast enough that she knows the stranger is online.

@jisthejones: jesus christ

Then, almost immediately:

@jisthejones: sorry. hello. @jisthejones: i thought i’d been put down behind the shed

Alexia snorts. Doesn’t know what shed even means.

But there you are.

Exactly the same voice. Same tumble of embarrassment and jokes arriving in the wrong order.

She leans one hip against the counter and types back with one thumb.

@alexiaputellas: what is shed

The answer is instant.

@jisthejones: just being put on the back burner

Alexia resists the urge to just Google it. Seems like a lot of effort for one stranger, which she does not want to admit to.

Instead:

@alexiaputellas: ? @jisthejones: forgot me.

That gets a little twist inside her chest. Not sure why. Small, but real.

Then another message arrives almost immediately, like they are already done with it:

@jisthejones: and yes i made the soup eventually @jisthejones: it became a matter of pride

Alexia types:

@alexiaputellas: tell me onion story

Adds: 

@alexiaputellas: please

The typing bubble appears at once.

@jisthejones: right @jisthejones: so i wanted to make onion soup @jisthejones: proper onion soup. not sad water with ideas above its station @jisthejones: and i somehow managed to go to 3 different shops and forget onions in all of them @jisthejones: which sounds impossible and yet @jisthejones: by the third shop i was so focused on bread and stock and not buying carrots that looked depressing that i forgot the only thing i actually needed @jisthejones: then i got home and wanted to launch myself into traffic

Alexia’s mouth twitches.

@alexiaputellas: because one onion

The answer comes back at once.

@jisthejones: because MANY onions actually @jisthejones: that was the whole issue

Then, before Alexia can reply, a new notification appears.

@jisthejones sent a photo you can view once

Alexia goes still.

Her whole body tightens automatically.

Photo.

From a stranger.

The reflex is old now. Immediate. Unpleasant.

Too many years of opening messages from people who think fame is permission. Too many unsolicited surprises. Too many things she did not ask to see and definitely did not want.

Her thumb hovers over the screen.

For one second she considers not opening it at all.

Then another message comes through before she can decide.

@jisthejones: actually no sorry ignore that @jisthejones: i’m just some lunatic in your phone

Alexia blinks at the screen.

Then, despite herself, laughs.

The stranger has somehow managed to reject themself on Alexia’s behalf in real time.

A normal picture appears almost immediately after.

@jisthejones: this is less threatening

Alexia opens it.

A hand giving a thumbs-up in front of five onions spread across a kitchen counter.

There are other ingredients scattered around them. Bread. A carton of stock. Butter. Something green in a bag. The photo is dimly lit, clearly taken at night, the sort of kitchen picture sent by someone too tired to care how ugly the lighting is.

And in the bottom corner, near the floor, there are two round eyes staring upward from the dark.

Alexia narrows her eyes.

Then types:

@alexiaputellas: floor has eyes

The reply is immediate.

@jisthejones: oh FUCK

Then:

@jisthejones: wait no @jisthejones: that’s taco

Another picture arrives.

A dachshund, or something dachshund-adjacent and deeply unfortunate, staring up at the camera with mournful black eyes. Brown, sausage-shaped, visibly overweight. Sitting beside a kitchen cabinet like a man who has lost everything except his appetite.

Alexia actually laughs out loud.

@alexiaputellas: poor dog is close to exploding

The answer takes a little longer this time.

Long enough that Alexia imagines the stranger offended on the dog’s behalf.

Then:

@jisthejones: first of all that’s rude @jisthejones: second of all yes he is @jisthejones: but we’re working on it @jisthejones: i adopted him from a shelter about 5 months ago when i was having a rough time and made a series of terrible but heartfelt choices @jisthejones: i got drunk and signed up for their most problematic dog @jisthejones: which in hindsight feels like asking the universe to be funny @jisthejones: and they gave me taco who is diabetic and kinda looks like a seal @jisthejones: he’s already lost half a pound though so @jisthejones: progress

Alexia reads that twice.

Something in her softens.

Not dramatically. Just enough.

There it is again. That same strange mismatch.

Chaos, yes. But not carelessness.

The kind of person who gets drunk, contacts a shelter, and asks for the most difficult dog because something in them cannot stand the idea of the difficult one being left behind.

It is reckless. Generous. A little ridiculous.

Also, Alexia thinks, unexpectedly sweet.

She looks again at the sausage dog and his tragic little face.

Types ‘seal’ on her phone and the corresponding emoji shows up. Actually, the similarity is uncanny.

Then types:

@alexiaputellas: seal is right 🦭 @alexiaputellas: sweet you keep him

Three dots.

@jisthejones: yeah well @jisthejones: i’m annoyingly loyal once i’ve decided something @jisthejones: terrible trait really

Alexia smiles at that. Small and private.

Annoyingly loyal.

Yes. She can believe that.

The thread goes quiet for a moment. Not awkward. Just breathing.

Then Alexia writes, before she can decide not to. Because calling this person ‘stranger’ inside her mind is getting annoying and also... are they a woman? Man? Alien?

@alexiaputellas: what is your name?

The typing bubble appears almost instantly.

@jisthejones: christ right yes @jisthejones: jude @jisthejones: j as in jude. jude jones

A beat:

@jisthejones: pls don’t use my name for fraud.

Alexia looks at the name on the screen.

Jude.

Says it out loud. “Jude.”

Not quite sure she is saying it right. Also very gender-neutral. How annoying. Relents and goes to the translator just to hear the sound of it. Sounds terrible.

But it fits, somehow. Or maybe she is only telling herself that because now she finally has something more solid than @jisthejones and shopping lists.

Another message appears.

@jisthejones: seems only fair now @jisthejones: i made my account public for a minute if you want to stalk properly

Alexia lets out a quiet laugh through her nose.

The audacity of saying it out loud.

She hesitates for a second.

Because admitting to stalking and looking at photos means interest. And until now she could still pretend this was just a casual anecdote. Something stupid to entertain herself with late at night. A strange little thread. A funny mess in her phone. Nothing serious when you do not know each other beyond words on a screen.

But attaching a face to it...

Her fingers twitch over the screen.

She is not, by nature, a particularly curious person. Not the kind who needs to know everything, who clicks through strangers out of boredom or builds whole lives out of scraps. But she feels it now. The pull of it. The need to put a face to the mess on the other side.

Would not hurt to know, would it.

It is not intimate. It is not a big step.

And it is only fair, with Alexia’s own profile sitting open for the whole world to see.

She taps before she can convince herself otherwise.

She can blame the shitty day. The late hour. The private, stupid looseness of the night.

The profile does not say much.

Just Jude and a line of emojis that mean nothing to Alexia except that one of them is a knife, which feels somehow right. The account is sparse. Ten photos, maybe thirteen. Not enough to build a person from. Enough to start.

Five of them are Taco.

Not even good photos of Taco. Different unflattering angles of the same stout little body, as if Jude has made a personal project out of documenting the dog’s least dignified moments. One of him half under a table. One of him asleep upside down, all belly and limp paws. One where he looks frankly furious to be awake at all.

And one, disastrously, of the dachshund stuffed into a taco costume, the shell straining at the seams around his round body.

Alexia snorts out loud.

Actually out loud, alone in her flat, phone in hand.

“Pobre,” she murmurs to the dog in the photo, though he does not look poor so much as chronically overfed and mildly offended by existence.

The pinned post shows three people standing outside what looks like a pub that has lost the will to live.

The sign hangs crooked over the door. The Wag & The Dog. The building itself has the defeated expression of somewhere that smells permanently of beer, maybe old grease too. There is a little board out front with chalk writing too far away to read, one of the windows has a smear on it, and the whole thing looks too grey even in the photo.

The caption says: sad there’s no dog, here’s these people instead

Alexia’s mouth twitches.

One of the comments underneath, from someone called @hayleysupreme300, reads: carl is the dog woof woof

She studies the picture.

An odd group.

On one side there is a huge man with a beard and arms like logs, wearing an apron and looking deeply bothered by being photographed at all. Carl, probably. On the other side, a smaller man, but not by much, red-faced, broad through the middle, a beanie shoved onto his head as if by force. He looks exactly like everyone’s favorite drunk uncle, the kind of man who would shout at a television over sports.

And in the middle, between them, there is a blonde woman.

Very pretty. In the blunt, obvious way a Barbie is pretty. Big smile. Big chest. Tiny waist. The sort of face that probably gets free drinks from men just because.

Alexia tries not to notice the chest.

Does notice the chest.

Annoying.

She assumes this must be Hayley. Which means these are probably Jude’s work people. Or friends. Or both. Hard to tell from one picture. The kind of accidental found family people collect when life does not go according to plan.

Alexia has purposely avoided looking at the other photos.

Building up the moment, apparently.

She does not know why. It is ridiculous. It is not as if this person on the other side of the messages will turn into someone else because Alexia takes three extra seconds to arrive at their face.

Still, when she taps, there is a small tightening in her stomach.

And then there it is.

Or, at least, she thinks it is.

A football pitch in the background. Night game, judging by the lights. Post-match, probably. There are two girls in the photo, close enough together that the resemblance lands before anything else does.

Sisters.

It has to be.

One of them is in kit. Lighter hair, though not blonde exactly, cheeks flushed from effort or cold, one arm flung around the shoulders of the other. Alexia squints at the badge on the chest.

Durham.

The other girl is in jeans and a football jersey with the same crest under a heavy looking jacket, but no match sweat. Just dark-wash denim hanging low on the hips, a cap shoved over darker hair that looks messy under it, a little wavy at the edges. Sharp face. Sharp grin. Same height as the other one, maybe almost exactly. Similar enough to be sisters. Different enough that Alexia lingers.

She does not know why relief arrives first.

But it does.

A woman after all.

Or a girl. Woman. Whatever.

Something in her unclenches so quietly she almost misses it.

Not because that makes anything simpler. It probably does not. Only because the uncertainty had been irritating. Because she had not liked not knowing. Because the shape of the voice in her head matches this better than she wants to admit.

Her thumb hovers over the screen while she looks.

The grin is what gets her.

Not neat. Not posed. Full, crooked, alive. The face of someone already halfway through a joke. Eyes bright under the shadow of the cap. A little reckless-looking, maybe. Handsome in that deeply unfair way some women are handsome. Not polished pretty. Better than that. More dangerous to look at for too long.

Alexia thinks, absurdly, I hope this is her.

Just a hunch.

This girl with the sharp eyes and the grin that looks one second from trouble. This girl feels like the one she has been texting.

But it could be the sister.

The caption settles it.

charli has the uniform but i’m the better player of the two

Alexia laughs softly through her nose.

So the girl in the cap can only be Jude.

Jude.

She looks back at the face. Says the name once in her head against it now that she can. Jude. It sits better like this. Less abstract. More dangerous.

There are more comments under the post.

One that only says lies from, presumably, Charli.

Another from someone else with a string of crying faces.

Jude has answered one of them with history will vindicate me, which feels exactly right and also not helpful for Alexia’s attempts to remain normal about any of this.

She clicks out. Then back in.

Looks again.

The resemblance with the sister is obvious now. Same bones, mostly. Same mouth, maybe. But where Charli in the photo looks all post-match openness and flushed honesty, Jude looks like the calmer trouble between them. Dry humor. Quick mouth. Shadow of a tattoo on her hand.

Alexia flips to the next photo.

Taco again.

Then another. A bowl of something caramelized and glossy, probably onions, though the caption is just redemption.

Another. A blurry mirror picture in a pub toilet, phone covering most of the face, leather jacket, a sliver of waist visible between jumper and jeans, another tattoo peeking out from under. Not posed enough to be a thirst trap. Too careless for that. 

Alexia goes still for a second on that one. Mouth does that thing where it feels a little too dry.

Then scrolls.

A photo of a motorbike parked badly. 

A close-up of Taco in a tiny dog raincoat that it’s too short for him, big eyes looking humiliated enough.

A picture of Jude and the blonde from the pub, Hayley probably, making ugly faces at the camera while carrying what looks like a tray of chips. Jude is half hidden by the angle, but the grin is there again. Meaner, in a funny way.

Alexia realizes she is smiling.

Again.

This has become a problem.

Because now there is a face.

A face means a person.

A real one.

Someone with a bad pub, a sister called Charli, a diabetic sausage dog, a ridiculous amount of loyalty, and hands that apparently send thumbs-up photos in front of onions.

Someone handsome.

Annoyingly so.

Alexia locks the phone for a second and sets it on the sofa beside her, as if distance might restore some proportion to the moment.

It does not.

The picture stays in her head anyway. The cap. The eyes. The stupid caption. The low-slung jeans.

She picks the phone back up against her best sense.

This time she goes slower. More practical about it. As if she is collecting information rather than circling. Which is technically true. No aggressively curated life. No influencer angles. No fake-casual luxury. Just fragments. Mess. Family. Grease. Football. Dog.

Jude looks the way the messages sound.

That, more than anything, feels strange.

Usually people fracture a little between the screen and the face. The version online polished or distorted or emptied out. But here the opposite happens. The face clarifies the voice. Sharpens it. Makes all those messages land differently in hindsight.

i’m annoyingly loyal once i’ve decided something

Yes.

She looks like it too.

Alexia goes back to the Durham picture one more time.

Stays there longer than necessary.

A woman.

She had wanted it to be a woman.

Useful information. Irritating information.

Her thumb hovers over the screen.

Should she say something?

No. Absolutely not.

What would she even say?

i checked your profile and you are, in fact, real. also i like your face. congratulations.

Impossible.

Instead she taps back into the thread, where the last message still waits.

@jisthejones: i made my account public for a minute if you want to stalk properly

Alexia looks at it now with fresh suspicion.

As if Jude knew she would.

As if the whole invitation had been given with that grin already in place.

She types. Deletes. Types again.

Then settles on the safest possible version of the truth.

@alexiaputellas: taco costume is very bad

The typing bubble appears so fast it is almost embarrassing. It would be embarrassing on anyone else but Jude keeps showing she is the type of person who doesn’t care the least about being chill.

@jisthejones: that is actually one of his better looks

Alexia laughs again, phone warm in her hand, the face from the photo still alive behind her eyes.

And just like that, the thread feels different.

Closer.

Not because anything huge has changed. Not because this is suddenly serious. It is not. She can still tell herself that. Still call it a distraction. A late-night indulgence.

But attaching a face to it has shifted something all the same.

Words on a screen had been easy to contain.

Jude Jones, in a cap and jeans, grinning beside her sister under stadium lights, is not.

And Alexia, sitting alone in her quiet flat with her bad training day already fading around the edges, knows enough to recognize trouble when it flickers.

Even the small kind.

Especially the small kind.

__________________________

You don’t message first. Never.

You have established this rule for yourself with the kind of grim internal ceremony usually reserved for vows of celibacy. After months of using Alexia Putellas’s DMs as your personal planner, it feels like the least you can do. A show of manners. Restraint. Basic decency.

Not initiating contact.

Even though you want to.

Which is annoying.

Because the truly surreal part is not just that she answered you once, but that she kept answering. Asked about your fucking dog, gorgeous thing he is, besides the point, and saw your very chaotic, not in the slightest professional social media profile. The idea has not landed yet.

It probably never will. It just sort of floats round your head, bumping into other concepts you also struggle with, like time management and owning up to your shit.

Oh well.

She hasn’t texted you this week, anyway.

You try not to feel anything about it.

You do not have the right to feel anything about it. That would be insane. She is Alexia Putellas. She can disappear back into the void whenever she likes. In fact, that would make perfect sense. She is famous, huge, unfairly attractive.

You try not to linger too long on that last part.

Alexia’s face does something unfortunate to your concentration. If you let yourself think about it for too long, your brain goes a bit soft around the edges. And if you get any more stupid than you already are, someone will weigh you, put a tag through your ear and sell you as livestock.

You check Instagram anyway.

Just for checking.

No new messages.

You groan and tip your head sideways, thudding it lightly against the train window.

Across the aisle, a man in a wax jacket lowers his paper and gives you the sort of disapproving look older British men reserve for public emotion.

You ignore him.

Messages would be good.

Messages would make this godforsaken journey pass faster.

Instead you shove your earphones in. Wired, because you got tired of losing one AirPod every other month and being forced to live lopsided as punishment for your own carelessness.

Charlie is playing today. Home match. Eleven in the morning, which is not a kick-off time so much as a hate crime.

So you woke up while it was still basically night, dumped Taco with Mrs Hargreaves upstairs, who called him “my little diabetic prince” and complained you never let her keep him for more than one night, and legged it to the station half-awake and under-caffeinated.

Mrs Hargreaves is approximately a hundred and talks at the volume of a church bell, but she adores Taco with a kind of aggressive tenderness that makes you feel oddly safe leaving him there. He likes her too. Probably because she slips him medically irresponsible amounts of treats.

You always make the trip when you can if it is a home game.

Contrary to everything that ever comes out of your mouth, you are embarrassingly proud of your sister.

Not in the normal way. In the stupid way. The way that has built itself into your bones after years of doing this with your dad, all the way back to academy days when women’s football still felt like a thing people said “maybe one day” about while acting like they meant “probably not.”

But Graham came. You came. Your mother came too. Every time you could.

And now it is a habit too old to break.

The train crawls north.

Grey sky. Grey fields. Grey little stations where three people stand on the platform like they have been placed there. You drink station coffee so bad it tastes faintly of metal and despair and check your phone one more time.

Still nothing.

Fine.

Durham are playing Sheffield United.

A nil-nil written all over it, probably. Charlie loves a nil-nil in the same deranged way defenders do. Clean sheet, no public humiliation, everyone goes home morally superior.

By the time you get to Maiden Castle, your hands are frozen and your mood has flattened into something survivable.

And there is Dad, exactly where he always is, near the railings with his coat zipped right up and his shoulders set against the wind, doing his best impression of the human statue he likes to pretend he is. Truth is, he is all mush inside.

Your dad had wanted two boys once, one for football and one for the garage. Not a secret. Your mother, bless her, liked to remind him of his “bad luck” constantly. Teasing tone, the way they always did with each other. Real-life enemies-to-lovers. Said she did it on purpose, heard he wanted boys and put out girls.

He took it in stride, unflappable man that he is. Put you and your sister in football anyway, waited to see which one showed more talent and then put the effort behind that. That was you, actually, funny enough. Talented, but with a distinct aversion to rules and tactical positioning.

Charlie was the opposite. Older, focused, too serious in the way only English children can be, thrived. A worker, through and through. Your dad let you play for shits and giggles for a while before things got professional. Impossible to separate you from Charlie anyway at the time.

Then, when it was time to take it seriously, you got thrown inside the garage and told to grab something to fix up. Learned to swear and dismantle half an engine before you were old enough to drink.

Didn’t need two boys after all.

Graham Jones looks like someone who belongs around spanners. Tall, broad through the shoulders, hands permanently marked by grease that no amount of scrubbing ever quite gets rid of, face weathered into practical lines. Hair mostly grey now, always buzzcut season for him because vanity is for other people. His expression, at rest, always slightly suspicious, as if the world is trying something on.

“You look knackered,” he says by way of hello.

“You look old.”

“Cheeky cow.”

You grin and lean in for the quick, awkward shoulder-clash version of affection your family prefers to actual softness. Your mother was the touchy one. Your dad tries, bless him.

The ground feels like it always does. Familiar in the marrow.

You know everyone here. Or near enough. Parents you have watched age in the stands. Younger siblings who used to be little terrors now taller than you and pretending not to remember. Volunteers. Stewards. The woman on the tea stand. Cousin Eggy, somehow not your cousin at all but still universally called Cousin Eggy, turning up with a small pack of teenage boys who scream for ninety minutes like they are being paid by the decibel.

“Jude!” one of Charlie’s teammates shouts from near the tunnel.

You lift a hand.

Another one jogs past and points at you. “Whatcha cooking today, hm? It’s been a minute.”

Charlie jogs right behind her. Light hair in a ponytail always tight, pale skin that suffers under the sun, freckles that make her look younger. She shoulder-checks her teammate, football’s love language.

“Sod off, I want the leftovers this time,” Charlie complains to her teammate’s laughter. “You lot eat too much.”

She turns to the stands, waves off to you both.

“Next time!” you shout back, to half the team’s cheers and Charlie’s roll of eyes.

You cook for them, sometimes when you come over for home games. One or two teammates are considered lucky enough to get on the full meal plan. Charlie grumbles and complains, but you know she is proud that her friends like your food.

You haven’t done it in a while. You should get round to doing it again soon.

Graham sighs without surprise. Used to girls prancing round his house in cleats, making a mess of everything, sometimes sneaking off to your room in the middle of the night to your mother’s cackling laughter and his genuine trauma.

Charlie, years ago and with genuine feeling, had forbidden you from getting off with any more of her teammates after one particularly disastrous stretch in which you kissed two midfielders and a goalkeeper across one spring and forced her to live through the consequences.

The team never lets it go.

By the time warm-ups start, you have been handed two separate cups of tea, one stale biscuit, and three pieces of information you did not ask for about someone’s bowels not working.

This is how football works at this level. Community by overexposure.

Charlie spots you and Graham from the pitch and points. You point back. Graham lifts one hand in the exact same way he has since she was thirteen and all elbows.

The game is exactly what you expected.

Tight. Scrappy. Cold. Sheffield United press well enough. Durham stay compact. Charlie is very good, which you already knew. Vocal, mean in the right moments, times her tackles beautifully. There is one clearance in the second half that has Graham muttering, with deep approval, “That’s class, that,” under his breath like he is evaluating a piece of machinery.

No goals.

Of course.

Nil-nil.

Outsiders would call it boring. Idiots. You know what you are watching. So does Graham. So does Charlie, who comes off looking sweaty and grimly satisfied, the expression of a defender who has done her bit and would now like recognition and maybe tea.

You post a story before the crowd clears.

A stretch of pitch under the pale daylight. Charlie in the distance with the back line. The score tucked into the corner.

charli at work. everyone say thank you to a centre-back

You stare at it for a second before posting.

And yes, fine, there is a reason.

Maybe Alexia will see it.

You hate yourself a little for even thinking like that, but it is there anyway, this quiet little hope tucked into the act. You post it and shove the phone in your pocket before you can spiral into anything too undignified.

Charlie comes over at full speed and shoulder-checks you lightly on arrival.

“Boring match,” you say.

“Uncultured,” she says.

“Nil-nil, Charli.”

“Clean sheet,” she shoots back.

“Still boring.”

She grins. Graham squeezes the back of her neck once, proud as anything and pretending not to be.

Lunch is at home.

You texted Graham the list in the middle of the week. Funny not to have sent it to Alexia’s DMs first. New habits and all that. He likes being useful when you cook, and it gives him something else to do on the weekend.

He always goes oddly quiet and brisk about it, like the shopping itself matters.

It does, really.

He used to do the same for your mum. She would make a list, he would get it all, come back acting like a man who had completed an important sidequest, while she unpacked everything with the air of a queen reviewing tribute.

The house smells like itself. Warm radiators. Washing powder. The ghost of oil and old wood. Home, in all the unfair ways.

You cook because that is the tradition. Or what it used to be.

Graham and Charlie going off to U14 away games and you and Mum staying behind, putting together lunch or dinner for them. You liked those moments when it was just the two of you. Felt special.

You got it from her, cooking, that is.

Today you make something French.

Roast chicken with mustard and herbs. Green beans. Potatoes done in butter until they go golden at the edges. A salad because you are feeding an athlete and an elderly man who does not eat well.

Charlie sits on the counter stealing bits as you go, still in half her tracksuit, shin pads dumped by the door. Graham pretends not to hover and then hovers anyway, pleased with himself for remembering the right mustard and the shallots and the good chicken.

“Got everything,” he says, for the third time.

“I noticed.”

“Even the tarragon.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Woman at the shop said I’d picked well.”

You look over your shoulder and catch the tiny, proud set of his mouth.

“Did she.”

“She did.”

Charlie snorts. “He’s been dining out on that for twenty minutes.”

“Can’t blame him,” you say, and Graham tries very hard not to look pleased by that too.

The food is good.

Charlie eats like someone fresh off ninety minutes of trying to clear crosses with her head. Graham goes suspiciously quiet after the first few bites, which is what happens when something affects him emotionally and he refuses to discuss it.

There is your mum in it, faintly. Not in a way that ruins the meal. Just there. In the mustard. In the heat of the oven. In Graham buying what was on the list and being absurdly proud of himself for it.

The grief is not loud. It rarely is now.

Just the small domestic kind. She is in the empty seat at the table and in the way nobody sings in low, soft French anymore.

It makes you feel funny, coming back here. Always.

But Charlie is happy, which matters.

She points at the chicken with her fork. “That’s fit.”

“Poetry.”

“I’m serious. Better than fit.”

“Careful,” you say. “I’ll start charging.”

“You should.”

Graham clears his throat and says, very seriously, “You could.”

You laugh dryly at that, sidestep the thorny subject of your terrible employment of choice, and reach for your phone while they start arguing about whether Charlie was fouled in the seventy-third minute. Spoiler alert: she wasn’t.

Mostly habit. Mostly because you are weak.

Instagram opens.

Story views.

A list of familiar names. Teammates. People from school. Liv. Hayley. Someone called @eggyuncut for reasons you absolutely do not want explained.

And there.

@alexiaputellas replied to your story

You stop still.

Then open it.

@alexiaputellas: charli is sister?

Your face goes hot.

You read it once. Then again. Then once more just to be sure your phone has not developed the ability to hallucinate.

Alexia Putellas, who has so far existed in your life like a beautiful administrative miracle, has replied to your story from a football ground in Durham.

“What?” Charlie says immediately, because of course she notices. “Why have you gone weird?”

“Not weird.”

“You’ve gone weird.”

Graham glances up from his plate. “Bad news?”

“No.”

“Good news?”

“No.”

“That sounds like good news,” Charlie says, narrowing her eyes.

You turn the phone face down on the table like that will somehow make your own body less obvious.

“Mind your business.”

“Oh, absolutely not.”

She reaches out for it, you push her hand away with a slap, and Graham grumbles, “Charli, stop,” before you go full bickering and end up rolling on the floor like you were back at being twelve and fifteen respectively.

You stick your tongue out for good measure and pick your phone back up, typing under the table, shoulders hunching of their own accord.

@jisthejones: yes @jisthejones: tragically

The typing bubble appears quickly enough to make something stupid lift inside your chest.

@alexiaputellas: she play for durham?

You smile before you can stop yourself.

@jisthejones: she does @jisthejones: centre-back, breaker of shins and all that 

There is a pause.

Then:

@alexiaputellas: defender, i can see

You huff a laugh.

@jisthejones: what does that mean @jisthejones: you can tell by her face?

A longer pause this time. Like Alexia is reading it twice, deciding how much to say.

Then:

@alexiaputellas: by story @alexiaputellas: back line, also, yeah defender has face. also, shoulder. defender’s shoulders @alexiaputellas: tie is good defender game

That gets you.

A quick, helpless grin down at the screen.

Across the table, Charlie notices immediately. Of course she does. She narrows her eyes in your direction, but says nothing yet, just watches with the deep suspicion of an older sister who has seen you become fond of terrible ideas before.

You type back.

@jisthejones: she’ll be thrilled someone respected a nil nil @jisthejones: most people just think it means nobody had any ideas

The answer comes easily.

@alexiaputellas: defenders have ideas @alexiaputellas: just not fun for other people

You laugh through your nose.

That one feels very her somehow. Dry. A little mean. Correct.

@jisthejones: that’s basically charli’s whole personality yes

A beat.

Then:

@alexiaputellas: you go every game?

You look at that for a second.

@jisthejones: home ones when i can @jisthejones: me and my dad have been coming forever

Alexia’s reply takes a little longer.

@alexiaputellas: nice @alexiaputellas: football should be family thing

Small. Simple. Not much.

Still, it lands.

Because it sounds like she means it.

Like there’s something underneath. Like she understand it, being family that is. 

You glance up from the phone. Charlie is still watching you. Not in a teasing way now. More curious than anything. Graham has gone back to his plate with the fixed concentration he usually reserves for car parts.

You look back down.

And because the question about Charlie is there now, warm in your hand, and because some instinct in you says not to stay on football too long, not with Alexia, not when football probably already eats enough of her life, you pull the conversation sideways.

@jisthejones: i cooked after though so everyone recovered 👩‍🍳

The reply comes quicker this time.

@alexiaputellas: what you make?

You smile before you can stop it.

@jisthejones: roast chicken with mustard and tarragon @jisthejones: potatoes in enough butter to become health issue @jisthejones: green beans so we can all pretend it’s balanced

Alexia is quiet for a moment.

Then:

@alexiaputellas: i have to google. tarragon why?You snort, amused.@jisthejones: swear it works, gives that nice smell and a little anise taste you know

Pause. Then:

@alexiaputellas: different choice, estrago with chicken @jisthejones: estragon is very french i guess @alexiaputellas: you know catalan? i he estat patint en anglès? @jisthejones: nonono  i know french , je parle français. it’s a close cousin i guess @alexiaputellas: oh, ok.

Thank your mother for beating French into you as a child. Useful skill, girls are usually impressed. Some of your teachers in culinary school too.

You think that’s the end of it. Disappearance for one more week. But then the typing bubble appears and your heart beats a little.

@alexiaputellas: so you cook a lot?

You read that twice.

There is something in it. Not just politeness. Curiosity, maybe. A little careful, but real.

@jisthejones: depends who’s asking @jisthejones: but if it’s someone hungry, yes

That gets no answer for a few seconds.

Then:

@alexiaputellas: sarcastic

You grin.

@jisthejones: observant

This time the typing bubble appears almost at once, disappears, then comes back.

@alexiaputellas: i mean work @alexiaputellas: this is your job?

That sobers you a little. It should be your job. You won’t tell her that though, she already thinks you are pitiful enough as it is.

@jisthejones: yeah @jisthejones: sort of @jisthejones: kitchen work mostly @jisthejones: glamorous life, minor burns, sharp knives, emotional damage

There is a pause.

Then: 

@alexiaputellas: chef 👩‍🍳

You let out a tiny laugh and shake your head to yourself.

@jisthejones: absolutely not @jisthejones: that is a whole title @jisthejones: i’m more like @jisthejones: goblin with knives

Alexia answers after a long beat, but before you can sand the joke down into something safer.

@alexiaputellas: goblin is ugly fairy. i google. you still chef

You stare at that one a second too long.

Charlie clears her throat very quietly from across the table.

You look up.

She has not moved. Has not smiled. Just tipped her head a little, reading your face with that infuriating sibling accuracy. When she speaks, it is soft enough that Graham does not bother looking up.

“That’s nice,” she says.

You blink. “What is.”

She flicks her eyes toward the phone. “You’ve got a friend.”

You make a face at her on instinct. “Don’t be weird.”

“I’m not being weird.”

“Yes you are.”

Charlie shrugs, but there is something fond in it. Protective, too. Not nosy. Just... relieved in a way that makes you want to throw something at her.

You look back down before she can say anything else.

The thread is still open.

Waiting.

@jisthejones: i cook because i like it

A pause.

Then:

@alexiaputellas: i like cook too @alexiaputellas: when i have time

There is something almost shy in that. Not the wording, exactly. The offering of it.

You soften without meaning to.

@jisthejones: what do you make when you’re not being a professional athlete @jisthejones: and if you say chicken rice broccoli i’ll lose respect instantly

The typing bubble appears. Stops. Comes back.

@alexiaputellas: rude @alexiaputellas: no @alexiaputellas: pa amb tomàquet @alexiaputellas: tortilla @alexiaputellas: fish sometimes @alexiaputellas: things my mum make @alexiaputellas: catalan food is better

You smile into your glass.

@jisthejones: than english food? @jisthejones: not exactly a hard fight

That gets a quicker reply.

@alexiaputellas: yes @alexiaputellas: english food is bad. weather is worse.

You snort.

@jisthejones: well that’s true @jisthejones: but i’m half french so i do need to say the french got there first

Take that.

@alexiaputellas: french always say this @jisthejones: because unfortunately we’re right

Another pause.

Then:

@alexiaputellas: catalan better

You laugh again, quieter this time.

@jisthejones: careful @jisthejones: this is how wars start @jisthejones: but fine @jisthejones: i haven’t tried catalan food @jisthejones: but i agree english food is still shit though

That one gets the first visible softness from her side.

@alexiaputellas: okay this is fair

Charlie gets up to carry plates to the sink and nudges your shoulder as she passes. No comment this time. Just a little bump. A silent, smug good for you.

You hate how much that makes you feel.

Later, when lunch has dissolved into washing up and half-listened conversation and Graham pretending not to hover near the kitchen doorway, you end up with your coat half on, checking train times with a kind of dull Sunday resentment.

Two and a half hours back.

You hate the return journey even more than the way up. The body knows home is over by then. Starts shutting down out of spite.

You look at the thread.

At her last message.

At the fact that Alexia Putellas called you chef twice and has strong feelings about Catalan food.

Before you can decide whether this is undignified, you type:

@jisthejones: i’ve got the 2 and a half hour train back in a bit @jisthejones: if i fall asleep i’ll wake up in scotland

There is a pause after that. Short, but enough for doubt to get a foot in the door.

Too much? Maybe too much.

Then the typing bubble appears.

@alexiaputellas: this happens?

You smile.

@jisthejones: not yet @jisthejones: but i live in fear

That gets:

@alexiaputellas: reasonable

You hover for a second.

Then, because the thought has already happened and because something about this thread has started to feel less like an accident and more like a place you can lean for a minute, you go a little further.

@jisthejones: anyway @jisthejones: if you’re bored later feel free to keep me conscious

The reply does not come instantly.

Not long enough to sting. Just long enough to remind you that she thinks before she gives.

Then:

@alexiaputellas: okay @alexiaputellas: i can talk

Small. Steady. 

You look down at the screen and smile before you can help it.

Two and a half hours suddenly feels less offensive.

__________________________

You get back to your damp little flat so late it stops being funny.

In the morning, you’ll have to wake up at another ungodly hour to make up for ditching the Sunday shift, which is already a bastard of a shift, just so you could go make more mediocre football memories with your family.

You don’t regret it.

Not really.

Not after learning the hard way that these things are not permanent. Sundays. Home games. Charlie muddy and smug. Lunch at the house. The same old route there and back.

You don’t take it for granted anymore.

You decide to pick Taco up in the morning. It’s too late to be knocking on anyone’s door now, and it’s not like Mrs Hargreaves would hear you over her own snoring anyway. The woman sleeps like heavy machinery.

Also, the train ride was not a complete write-off after all.

Alexia spent nearly an hour with you in that thread.

Just talking.

About nothing. About everything. Easy. Suspiciously easy. Like you’d done it a hundred times before instead of never. Like she wasn’t Alexia Putellas and you weren’t sat on a train to London trying not to miss your stop.

You came away with a full paella recipe.

She came away with a decent working knowledge of English football rivalries and why some clubs deserve contempt on principle.

Fair trade.

You don’t know what it means, that it is so easy to talk to her.

That this untouchable woman in another country makes time for it at all.

You don’t know what to do with that.

You just know it happened.

after your cute little date, Simon invites you back to his place!!! As you two walk together, you can’t help but wonder what his place looks like,, especially his bed and what he’d look like in it for whatever reason!!

the moment you get there, you notice how dusty it is. Probably doesn’t have time to clean with all the videos he posts,, maybe you should help with that!! Before you can mention it, Simon’s walking to the kitchen!!

“Ya like eggs, lovie? Nah, don’ care that we’ve already eaten, it wasn’t enough anyways. It was barely a snack, you need to eat more than that.”

while he’s cooking, you can help but watch him. He has a fat ass, how could you not stare!!!!

It’s enough to make you walk up behind Simon and hug his waist!! Your arms wrap around him, making him take a deep breath.

“Lovie, what are you-“

before he can finish, you cup the bulge in his pants, making him gasp and buck into your touch. He’s so cute, begging for your touch like this!!! :))

“.. l-lovie..”

Before you know it, he’s sitting you down on the counter, take out his big cock, groaning as you stroke him!! This isn’t how you expected to be spending your Saturday! :(/ref

“Lovie… I want to feel you… please…”

Simon groans as you slowly bring it inside your hole. Slowly, are you trying to torture him?? :(( your walls feel so tight and slick,, if he didn’t learn to control himself years ago,, he would’ve came!! :((

he lets you take the lead, of course! He’s big and long, he’d hate to accidentally hurt you!! you slowly pull him inside, quickly push him out, and slowly pull him in again,, making Simon whine.

“Lovie.. please.. I need you.. don’t do this to me..”

as you pick up the pace, Simon grabs your hips, moaning and whining like a little bitch! He’s a cute little bitch tho :)) he’s already close to cumming inside you, but the moment he gets too close, you pull out. He groans, and before he gets time to complain, you drop to your knees and take him into your mouth.

“Ah- fuck!”

your mouth feels better than he’d ever imagined, and he’s already close again!! But you won’t let him cum!! :((

“Please.. I’m.. hah, fuck- I’m so close…”

Since he’s begging and being patient like a good boy, you decide to give him what he wants, by deepthroating him until he cums in your throat. He earned it :))

(A/N #2: idk what possessed me to write this. I don’t usually write nsfw,, or at least not anymore,, but yeah. Again sorry if it sucks, haven’t written nsfw in a while,,, bleh bye bye)