randombush3

[randombush3]

You wrote the reader so well. I don’t know if I hate her or feel bad for her. Also, Alexia is a dummy in the sweetest way like she really just wants to be close to R. The fic was great and I thought the ending fit it so well 🫶🏼

Thank you so much! That was the intended effect and yeah, Alexia is, as she said, a fucking idiot. But it was sweet and in another universe they could've been together.

I'm glad you liked the ending 🫶

[randombush3]

three parts only u can’t do this to us 😔

alexia's eyes opened, what more can be done 😫

why can't everyone else just send in their comments and analysis and hcs and i can relax xx

[randombush3]

Im so invested in the story please make it a series 😩 pleaseee

It's way too long and time-consuming but I might do an extra bit set five years later 😅

[randombush3]

Ouch. part of me wishes I hadn't gotten so invested...but also I'm addicted to the pain you inflict (lovingly. as in, ty, I love your fics, but also fuck you. lovingly. :D)

We’re all in a toxic relationship over here 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

[randombush3]

GIRL 🫩

Im tired too 😔

[randombush3]

Sorry. I just can’t help myself 😔

open your eyes

alexia putellas x reader

part one, part two

summary: you hide in Barcelona to delay the inevitable and, well, the footballer is just too enticing

words: 13651

content warnings: smut, mentions of drugs and some more morally-grey behaviour

notes: i like this ending. it wasn't where i was originally heading towards but it felt right and so here we are. i'll proofread it later bc i'm about to take a lengthy nap

When Alba finds you with your tongue down her sister’s throat, the first thing she acknowledges is how elegant you make it look. 

The second is how terrifying your glare is as you laser through her, dismembering limb from limb. 

She’s not welcome anymore.

It’s a feeling she doesn’t know. Not here, not in Alexia’s home, which is an extension of her home. An extension built with gold, but the gold comes from hard work and the hard work comes from Papi, so the gold comes from home. Home with Alexia, like always. Like she had promised her in a hospital years ago, holding scrawny baby-Alba and declaring it with the kind heart and the soft eyes that she gets from Papi, too. 

This home is strong. Has seen a lot. Perseveres. (That’s Mami.) 

Alba learnt once about sisterly love. Pushing and pulling but the rope never breaks and the free fall never comes. 

Tonight it’s like seeing Alexia jump off a cliff. Still attached, still bonded, but with little care for anything other than what’s at the bottom. Feels the drop in her stomach. 

It’s going to drag them all down. 

You’re staring and Alba’s staring but Alexia is saying nothing.

She has moved away from you now, leaning on the opposite worktop, wiping her lips dry as if she can make Alba believe she hasn’t seen a thing. 

Alba says, “Does she speak Catalan.” Not really asking, not surprised you don’t. Says it in Catalan too, just because it stings Alexia more. The silence is enough. “You’re going to kill yourself when this ends.” 

Alexia flinches. 

“You’re in love with her and she is never going to choose you.” 

“Get out,” Alexia replies. 

This is a catalyst. 

This is the tug of the recoil start that jolts the generator into action. The generator whirs and grumbles, getting hotter. Hotter. 

Hotter. 

A fan won’t cool it this time. Water might start a fire. 

Hotter. 

Alexia is kissing you and pressing you into her bed. Alexia will message Alba tomorrow and ask her not to be angry. Alexia is jerking the rope between her and her sister and she is pulling the cord for the generator and she is licking between your thighs. 

Alexia will one day think about this moment in her life and remember. But she can’t know now what she’ll remember then, because then that universe crumbles and that universe — this universe — is a good one, despite all that she is and does. 

It just keeps getting hotter. 

Hotter. Hotter hotter hotter.

Blackout. 

Then you’re no longer there. A flight is booked. “My father’s finally home.” Not a real excuse, but said like one and accepted like one. 

Alexia’s chest aches with brief jealousy. The monotony of your voice quickly snaps her out of it. 

You think of your father as Augustus Caesar. The first Roman Emperor, though he was not an emperor and not a dictator and not violating the Roman Republic, to the knowledge of the Roman Republic.

Augustus was careful and curated. Neat categories of propaganda, neat projects lined up with the greater good in mind, neat expectations for every member of his family. Pax. Latin for peace. Augustus was the bringer of pax. 

Augustus’ daughter was not neat. Wild like a caged animal. Wilder because she is caged. Rabid at the thought of being free, rabid at the thought of being captured once more. 

Your father is tempted to exile you to a remote island when you walk in through the front door. 

“Daddy’s angry,” Minnie whispers in your ear as if you haven’t gathered. She points to his study. Past the library, down a corridor you don’t know. You don’t know it because he’s never there. When he’s there, he doesn’t speak to you. If he’s there. 

It’s a nice lamp, you think, as your father throws it. 

Not at you. You look like the woman who caressed his cheek and wiped his tears and found the strength to ignore the way he’d pant a dead woman’s name into a living corpse’s ear until the corpse had a baby and the baby became something new. So not at you.

“I expected so much more of you,” he says between the fragments of glass and clank of metal. Red bleeds from your palm as you try to pick up the pieces. “You’re so clever. So brilliant. You’re going to be wasted in that marriage, but you’ll tell Richard things when no one else is around and you’ll give him ideas. You’d be working for me if you had agreed to.” 

Your father is Augustus who is desperately searching for a successor but is finding them all dead. Dying. 

Companies and meetings and dinner parties with clients don’t make more children. More children don’t make better children. Fewer children still make worse. 

His head is in his hands and your blood stains his white shirt when you try to comfort him. You don’t know why you’re comforting him. “You’re all spoilt.” 

There’s a knock at the door. 

“Your brothers are home.” Dead. Dying. His eyes squint as though he has a headache and he reaches over to his cures. A globe set in mahogany. Fucking imperialism. He flicks open a latch, flicks open the globe. “Whisky?” 

You shake your head. 

“Too much of it. Dinner with the Lord Mayor, remember?” 

“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t shut up about Hong Kong.” 

“Had to drown him out.” 

“You had to drown him out,” echoes your father. As explicit a dismissal as he will ever give. 

Minnie is waiting outside.

“Heard a crash,” she says as she cradles your head and holds you. 

“Daddy wouldn’t,” you say back, but you’re not sure and you know that this is lost. “Do you know where the boys are?” 

“Caravan.” 

You’re not surprised. 

The Caravan is the pimp-seat of many a party. Far back in the field behind the garden, far away enough for the smell of weed to dissipate and the sounds of whatever event of the night to be inaudible. 

The boys like the Caravan because they can talk about things your mother would scold them for. They can hide and be easily found but not easily disturbed. They can be the three brothers they were before the woman your father loved was gone and your mother replaced her. 

It feels sacrilegious to step inside. Every time. But you do it. 

“Hello,” your older brother says immediately, half-shocked to get a look at you. He blinks a few times. “I thought you were in Spain?” 

“Obviously not.” It feels a little bit like when you had stood in Alexia’s doorway and she, puzzled, had let you in. They don’t want you here. They do want you here. No one can ever decide. 

You size the three of them up. All fatter. Rounder faces, happier faces. Circles of stress underneath their eyes regardless. Matching unintentionally in quarter-zips and chinos, wellies muddy just like yours. Muddy from the walk to the Caravan. A walk you despise. 

You point at your favourite. The third brother. The one who leaves and dies and returns to his sybaritic life because that’s how it works. 

“I need to talk to you,” you command. The boys — men, you should say — share a look. One that they wear when a woman tells them something and they cannot refuse: this one’s not a choice, mate. So he gets up, an obedient dog called to heel for once in his life, and follows you outside. You look back over your shoulder, nose scrunching at the stench of stale weed and dried bodily fluids. “Daddy’s cross with us, by the way. Says we’re all spoilt.” 

A guffaw. A rumble of protest.

Your third brother leads you to where you have always gone: the fence by the line of trees, the seat which the two of you carved out for each other. 

The confession bubbles out before you realise what you are saying. 

“I was fucking a woman. In Barcelona.” 

He smiles and you see the diamond-head of a poisonous snake before you. Even if the poison is slow to work. Even if you love the very thing that bites. 

“Fez won’t be too happy.” 

The look you give him is a pained one. How could he get to you too? The hurly-burly is almost done and you will be the only loser here. 

Maybe Alexia, as well. 

“I was fucking a woman too,” your brother then says, starting like a parable against merciless indulgence. Not that he speaks with a hint of regret. “She left. Didn’t want to see me ever again.” 

“What did you do?” you ask; this doesn’t feel like a diversion. 

He taps the side of his nose. “She wanted me to stop. I told her she couldn’t stop the inevitable.”

“The inevitable,” you mutter. Duty. Legacy. Maintenance. 

How has your family survived this long? 

How have they overcome their greed and cowardice? Mismanagement and selfish decisions? 

Duty. Legacy. Maintenance. 

“You’ll marry him, you know. You would choose this life every time.” 

“Would I?” 

His eyes meet yours. Nothing like yours. Haunted and still haunting. Your father must have relished in the shame of this son — an excuse never to look at those eyes — because this son is the picture of his love. And for all that precious love, he is still corrupted. 

Once upon a time, he would have told you what you wanted to hear. 

Yes, I’ll come to your concert. 

Yes, I’ll be home to see you. 

Yes, I love you more than anything in the world. 

Yes. I promise. 

Life is no longer a fairytale. 

“Every time.” 

You dream of Alexia that night, but then what happens doesn’t count. It’s a dream. Not real. 

Kisses empty, hands too light. An illusion. 

It’s all an illusion. All a trick. 

…

You fucking hate football and you fucking hate football matches. It’s far too jovial and loud and the colours give you a headache. Bad company, too. 

Carlota’s rather smug today. You’ve ventured to Madrid for some final, not too frustrated as the last Christmas present you needed to dole out had to be picked up anyway. Alexia has mentioned a Supercopa the other day when explaining why she’d be gone for a few days. “You have a TV,” she’d stated, breathless as you tried to shut her up with wandering hands. 

It wasn’t your idea to come to the match, though. If it were, you’d at least be in a box (although the godforsaken stadium doesn’t have a single one). Yet Carlota insists that pitchside is more fun, eyes glimmering with sparks of subterfuge. “The players feel real, like people rather than Papá’s investments. Not that you needed more proof.” 

And so, because you neglect to tell her and she neglects to scan the stadium before the match, Alexia doesn’t know that you’re here. 

She’s not playing selfishly. Not really. Her passes are crisp and her transitions fast, and she feels so alive. She always feels alive when she’s playing football. Even when the match is theirs and Madrid is simply scrambling for a consolidation-goal. 

She lets herself enjoy it. A little flair, a step over and a nutmeg. A long ball to change play. A pass that makes her instrumental on the pitch. 

The Madrid player panics as she comes towards her, white shirt waving like a white flag and her surrender slightly pathetic. She doesn’t even try with her tackle; it’s just plain dirty. Ankles. Studs. 

It hurts a little bit but Alexia will get over it. She trained enough in December to have reinforced her steel and bolstered her hatches. 

Mapi points at her and then at herself. Alexia presses her finger into her chest. 

She’ll take the freekick. 

The referee hands her the ball, shouting at the Madrid players to stop jostling the Barça players and for the Barça players to be patient for a moment. It’s a tense moment. The football is grassy and slippery and everything she knows. 

The football is her life, her focus, her reason. 

Not you. No. 

The football. 

Football. 

Alexia turns to the crowd, absorbing the energy from already-celebrating culers. 

And you. A hallucination, because she obviously thinks about you too much. Because she can’t stop, not even when she’s playing football. 

Except, she wouldn’t imagine Carlota beside you with her arms crossed and a smug smile plastered on her lips. Nor would she have this fantasy with you in a white jumper, because she’s not an idiot and it’s naked or her Barça jersey. Nor would you be trying very hard not to look at her like you’re enjoying it, glaring futilely as if the whole debacle is a nuisance. 

You’re not going crazy, you mouth to Alexia when she stares for a moment too long, never abandoning your quest for indifference. 

Alexia takes in a deep, deep breath. 

She barely cares when she kicks the ball and it flies into the back of the net. 

After, there is singing and dancing and cheering in the changing rooms. Steam rolls out from the showers like a warrior’s mist on a Homeric battlefield, engulfing Real Madrid’s wounded as they crawl away in a staggering defeat that renders them humiliated and far from catching up to Alexia’s favourite team in the whole, wide world. 

Your text is better than the medal slung around her neck and the trophy Mapi has forced her to chug champagne from. 

Meet me afterwards? You’ll see me when you come outside. 

Oh and keep the medal on.

Her response is instantaneous: 

10 mins.

She’s showered. She’s changed. She’s victorious. 

And then she’s ambushed, and it feels a lot like the engagement party last September. This wolf pack’s average age is considerably lower, though. 

“Jana, Patri, Kika.” Her voice is firm. The names blur into one. It’s also too impatient for someone who doesn’t have somewhere else to be. 

Patri is grinning, face tinged with red from the exertion of the conga line around the room that has only just ended. Her medal is on, too, although the ribbon must be very durable to have coped with the movement. 

“You,” Patri says as she plonks down beside Alexia conspirationally, “were impressive. Impressing.” 

Alexia doesn’t bother looking up, choosing instead to adjust her socks as if a wrinkle would ruin her outfit. She’s in team-issued sweats. She’s a footballer and that’s clear and so she plays dumb, even to her kind. 

“I was enjoying myself.” 

Jana sits down on her other side. “If I nutmegged half of Madrid and smirked about it, you’d give me a talking to about egos and sportsmanship and not letting ‘it’ get to my head.” 

“You’d never do that,” Alexia states with the implication of that scenario being impossible for reasons other than Jana’s profound professionalism and maturity. When she gets called ‘feisty’, she digs her grave deeper. “And maybe I was in a good mood.” 

“Mmm,” Patri hums, glancing at Jana and then at Kika, who’s blocking Alexia from scurrying away. “See, I only get that kind of good mood when my family is visiting to watch me play. A rare occurrence, which you don’t understand. But it’s a case of caring about them caring. Wanting to make it worth coming to.” 

Alexia’s eyes dart between the three. 

“What are you getting at?” 

Kika peels a banana and takes a bite out of it, the smell pungent and unwelcome amongst the waft of sweat and alcohol. She raises her eyebrows in encouragement and that seems to be the signal to abandon subtly. 

“Was she here?” 

Alexia stares. Not at any of them in particular. Just gormlessly and innocently, as if she’s going to get away with this. 

“Who?” 

“Oh, come on,” Jana groans. “Your woman. The girlfriend. She was in the crowd!” 

Alexia exhales, slow and measured but only for practicality. Only because she will protest but doesn’t know how just yet. “I don’t have a–”

“Don’t insult us with that bullshit,” Patri cuts in. “We’re not blind. You completely froze and looked into the crowd right before your freekick. Like you were soaking up someone else’s support.” 

“I have no recollection of that. Could’ve been anyone.” 

It’s a poor defence. 

“Sure,” Jana snorts. “Anyone you let tear up your back and leave scratch marks that show up through your training shirt.” 

(That had been a good night.) 

The banana in Kika’s mouth soon becomes a choking hazard, but there is hardly anyone left in the changing room to care. Most people are now celebrating on the bus. 

“I’m just saying,” continues the stupid, naive, and nosy defender, voice steady like she has become the team’s latest statistician. “The hickey under her jaw last week wasn’t subtle. And she missed that one team dinner. When I asked where she was, Mapi said ‘occupied’.”

“Occupied,” Patri repeats, pretending to be solemn. It’s a jarring situation to be in. “That must have been in the biblical sense, right, Ale?”

Alexia covers her face with her hands, because this is embarrassing and she probably doesn’t have enough time to be interrogated. 

“You’re both disgusting.” 

Jana’s correction comes in swiftly. “We’re observant. You think you’re subtle, but we literally watched you try to a hide a smile when you got a text just now–” 

“Smiles can be prompted by things other than my imaginary girlfriend.” Lie. Twists the knife, the lie, but she’s saving herself here and she’s left with few options. 

“Yeah, yeah, capi.” Kika’s not convinced. It’s like the three of them can smell dishonesty. 

Patri leans in. “So, was she there?” 

Alexia shrugs. 

“Maybe.” 

“Maybe, she says!” Patri rolls her eyes. “That was a give-me-another-Balón-de-Oro performance but for one woman who will probably sleep with you tonight. You don’t need to do that stuff to impress people, Ale, because you already do.” 

The compliment is wrapped in betrayal, but Patri is never serious enough for Alexia to feel guilty. 

Her phone buzzes again. 

It’s been 8 but hurry up. I have a surprise for you. 

Alexia sighs dramatically, but her smile is audible and the girls almost shriek. “Well. I’ve been summoned.” Jana’s finger is spasming as she points at the device, like she’s pressing a self-destruct button over and over again. Before they can scream that the ‘maybe’ has just texted her and they caught her at the scene of the crime, Alexia stands up. “Adéu. Estoy orgullosa de vosotras.” 

Barbed comment lingering in the air as she reminds them of her position as captain-wisewoman-mentor, Alexia saunters off. She’s quite intrigued about the surprise. 

The press gets ignored as Alexia marches towards you. They shout questions and congratulate her for her goal and the win, but not even her favourite journalist can get her to stop. The dregs of the players following her are swept up in their storm instead.

It’s funny. 

The first thing she sees when she leaves the stadium is a barrage of fans pressed against a few metal barriers. So much excitement, so much anticipation. 

The fans aren’t her prying teammates or the journalists who weave different meanings into her words and make her stop reading the news. The fans are supportive and loving and they worship her. They are a reward for her victories and hard work. They are like diamonds set in gold, each competing to shine the most for her attention. 

She can’t walk past them. It wouldn’t be right. 

Alexia gives her softest smile to the little girl in front of her, crouched slightly to be eye-level, the weight of the medal around her neck brushing the girl’s jacket as she leans in for a photo. It’s a tender moment – a reprieve that makes her forget about the ache ache in her thighs, the raucous changing room, the endless questions. The little girl beams, cheeks flushed with happiness, and Alexia ruffles her untidy curls gently before standing back up. 

Then a horn blares. 

A sharp, confident beep-beep that slices through the clamour. 

She turns instinctively, brows furrowed. The tide of noise goes out before rushing back in like a haphazard crescendo, full of reactions to the Porsche 911 cruising towards their beloved footballer. Her jaw tightens, not out of irritation, but because her stomach is suddenly tight, too. 

You’re behind the wheel, shades on as though you can’t be fucked to show the rest of the world where you choose to fix your gaze. It’s ridiculous. Perfect. And when you pull to a stop, stepping out slowly, the car door closes with a soft thunk and you don’t say a word. You just fold your arms across your chest, smirk set deeply, nails painted a new shade of fuck-me red after you had them trimmed for increasingly frequent acts of lesbianism. 

Alexia short-circuits. 

Absolutely freezes for half a second before reality shoves time forwards. 

Doesn’t know if this reality is a reality her body can take. 

She looks away, quickly, just in case the way her mouth goes dry can be seen on the videos that are undoubtedly being recorded. She’s still next to the cluster of fans, but her attention is now a tornado that will shred anything that isn’t you. 

Her gaze flickers back to the girl she’s just taken the photo with, suddenly remembering that she’s still there, clutching a sharpie and looking up at her idol with wide eyes. A very selfish part of Alexia also remembers that the girl has already got her photo.

“I–” Alexia begins, then stammers, then resets. She crouches back down, hands on her knees, not sure what she’s going to say until the words come out. “I have to go now, nena. My… my friend is here.” 

The girl’s mother pats her on the shoulder. “Even footballers need to get lifts,” she says calmly. Responsibly. 

Alexia thanks her with her eyes. The woman cocks her head ever so slightly to the side: she gets it. 

She waves goodbye, thanking the rest of them outloud, and then turns. She starts walking towards you. 

Each step is a test of strength. Stay composed, don’t run, don’t trip, don’t drop her toiletries bag. Her hands are sweating. 

By the time she reaches you, you’ve already walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for her. 

It’s declaratively possessive. 

She doesn’t even try to hide the way she oggles. You look maddeningly good. She can smell your perfume – the one that you wore at the exhibition opening, the one that acted as a fucking pheromone and drove her crazy until she could finally fuck you. She clenches her jaw. 

“You could’ve warned me.” 

The seats are wine-red and leather. Comfortable in an uncomfortable way. She places her toiletries bag by her feet and the car roars into life once more. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” you tease.

You’re pouting. You’re fucking pouting. You leave her and you fuck her and you do things like this. Things that mean you care but prove that you don’t. 

The engine sings as you drive out of the stadium carpark. Alexia’s body harmonises. 

“You could’ve told me you were coming,” she says next, because it’s easier than telling you how happy she is that you did. 

“I didn’t know I was.”

“So you were going on a drive around Madrid in this? Por casualidad.” 

You click your tongue and take one hand off the steering wheel, flicking your shades up as if you’ve had enough of the show. You’re clear of spies now. 

“It’s not my car, actually.” And Alexia thinks you’ve gone mad. You’ve finally cracked – your family, your engagement, your thing with her… it has gotten to you! It was only a matter of time, she supposes. 

You laugh. 

“Ale, your face.” 

You called her Ale. 

“Hm. No, it’s not my car. It’s a belated Feliz Navidad.” 

“A belated…” she trails off. Commits the word ‘belated’ to memory for when she needs it. “Carlota gave you a car?” 

You laugh again. This feels cruel. She doesn’t know where you’re taking her. 

“Carlota’s never bought me anything past a packet of gum at a Tesco.” Alexia groans. She hates being at your mercy like this; when it’s obvious that you have her ensnared and begging to stay. “You’re very slow, hunky footballer.” 

She opens her mouth to protest but words don’t come fast enough to beat you to it. 

“Obviously, this is your Christmas present.” 

Alexia blinks. 

Then she blinks again. 

She stares at you, at the road, at the leather interior like maybe it’ll explain what’s happening. Like maybe the seats will sprout lips and vocal cords and the ability to say, this is yours. Start crying now. 

“No lo entiendo…” she finally mutters.

You glance at her quickly, smirk muted now, before slowing down and turning onto a quieter street lined with trees that are ready for winter to be over. To the right, there’s a small restaurant with warm lights and a waiter standing outside smoking a cigarette. 

“You heard me.” 

“It’s mine?” Where would she even park this? She only has two spaces in her complex. 

You hum. “Yours.” 

Alexia scoffs. “You–” she gestures vaguely at the dashboard, the doors, the image of you sitting in her car saying ‘yours’ like it refers to something else. “You can’t just buy me a car. For Christmas. I didn’t get you anything!” 

“It came late,” you offer kindly, as if that is going to make her feel less confused. “You make me come so hard I think I’ve met the most controversial man of omnipotence.” 

Alexia chokes. Actually chokes on spit. In her mouth. It’s ungraceful and pathetic and it makes your smile widen. 

“I’m just kidding. I thought it was a practical gift and I hate your other car.” 

“I have to drive the Cupra. It’s a sponsorship deal.” 

“Not the Cupra,” you reply. You’re pulling up on the curb, parking the Porsche on the road as though it’s a bog-standard Ford that’s running out of miles and missing a window. “The other one. I’m so sick of seeing the buggers zip around.”

You’ve always wanted to stick your middle finger up at your father. Being photographed with a footballer, driving her like a chauffeur, and doing all of that in a Porsche? So deserved. Possibly stroke-inducing.

“Your family owns the make.” 

A flicker of surprise crosses your face. Alexia must have finally looked you up. “And it’s not as cool as this. This is yours. Free from shackles. No sponsorship deal here.” It’s also not tainted by the other girls Alexia has presumably picked up in her sleaze-car. It’ll be claimed by you (the two of you) when you have sex in it later. 

Forcefully, Alexia breathes in and out until she feels a bit calmer. You seem to encourage this, staying put for as long as it takes. 

When she’s done, you tap her thigh lightly. 

“Let’s get some lunch. Afterwards, I’ll take you back to the team hotel.” Alexia briefly wonders where Carlota must be if you’re here with her. “Then tomorrow, when you’re recovered, come pick me up. You’ve got to drive this thing back to Barcelona and it would be bad manners to leave you in solitude.” 

Captain Alexia Putellas is wearing a medal that she has won multiple times before. She has so many golds that she’d probably lose track of this one on the shelf. 

She has led her team to greatness once more. 

She has come out on top. 

She is the best. 

Yet she can only nod at you, limp and turned on and confused.

“Como quieras,” she breathes.

…

It’s sunny outside today. It’s nice. Pleasant. 

Alexia looks good with her hair down like this. Relaxed in spite of her life and this mess. Sexy. 

She doesn’t understand the concept of buttons when she’s with you, leaving her oversized shirt open like a glorified coat. You can see her nipples through her bralette. You curse the breeze on the balcony. 

A thought swims into mind. 

Lick them. 

You shake it out of your head. It would be an absurd reaction to her ranting about her sister and her opinions or whatever it is she is so passionate about. You have no idea how you have crept into morning coffees like this. 

But Alexia notices your eyes lingering too low down. Of course she does. 

She pauses midsentence. Her lips stay parted, but the words evaporate. 

You’re still holding your mug (a ghastly thing she made at a pottery workshop and claims to remind her of you), but drinking from it seems impossible. As if you can’t remember. The ceramic is warm in your hands, but your gaze is warmer, drifting up only when it’s too late. 

You’ve been caught.

She arches an eyebrow. “¿Estás escuchándome o qué?”

Your mouth opens. Closes. You like when she speaks Spanish. When she husks it out in acquiescence, as if she’s given into something. A fantasy. A present just for you even though she speaks it all the time. 

Bumbling, you settle on, “sort of.” 

“Sort of,” she repeats, a little smirk curling the corner of her mouth. She shifts on the metal chair, and the shirt falls further off one shoulder like it’s a provocation. “What were you thinking about?” 

The mug makes a soft clink as you set it down on the chairs’ matching table. “Does it matter?” 

Alexia leans forwards, arms crossing under her chest, abs flexed beneath that. You could take a photograph. You’d submit it to National Geographic. You’d buy Carlota’s painting of her too. So that no one else can see it: no one else should get to see this. 

“That depends on your answer.” 

You should look away and dig deep for a slither of self-restraint. Instead, you exhale slowly through your nose. “I was thinking,” you say, voice low, “about how silly it would be to pretend I wasn’t staring.”

“Oh?” She’s standing up now, every muscle flexing and tensing and bulging and stirring up something very primal. “Honest and horny? What a woman you are.” 

It sounds a little too soft. A little too like she’s just as in awe of you as you are her. But you don’t care or you don’t hear it, because you’re only looking hungrier and Alexia is too addicted to that to come clean. She really should come clean. 

“I try,” you murmur, and in two steps, she’s in front of you. Not kissing you, but close enough that the fabric of her shirt brushes your leg. 

She smells like the coconut from her morning shower. You think of your au pair, of her fingers stroking down your back as you cried and cried and cried, distraught with having too many people and distraught with having no one at all. Alexia’s skin is warm from the sun, her thigh brushing yours as she leans in. 

“I know you want to kiss me,” she states, grinning. She looks pretty when she grins. You like her teeth. And that it’s not playful, not innocent. Her eyes drop to your lips. “Bésame, idiota.”

You lean forwards. Her hand comes up, brushing a strand of hair from your cheek, journeying to your jaw and grazing the bone there. 

Bone could touch bone. Bone wants to touch bone. So desperately. So earnestly. 

And there’s a gap of longing before you kiss her. She doesn’t know if you feel it; the throb of her feelings, the need and the want and the pure power of having you. She doesn’t know if she’d want you to. If that would be moral. Or fair. 

But it’s there. No one can deny that. 

You chalk it down to her being attractive and you, ovulating. 

You might be ovulating? 

The kiss lands slowly. Deliberate, at first. A test of will and a taste of bitter coffee because sugar isn’t allowed like that. Her mouth is soft, steady: she knows how to kiss away the layers of your lips until she can finally get to the truth. Even if that truth is never heard. 

One hand slides behind your neck, firm and coaxing, pulling you in deeper. You tug gently at the edge of her shirt. This is the forbidden fruit but it is sweet and it is warm and the shirt is gone – on the floor where it doesn’t matter. Good, you think, the chair creaking quietly under the combined weight of new hips on your hips, thighs on your thighs. 

“Alexia,” you gasp into her mouth, words becoming breath that she chooses to ignore. Alexia has blinded herself when given a warning. She no longer heeds them. She doesn’t have it in her. 

She kisses you again, tongue moving with a hungry rhythm. Her weight settles more fully in your lap, strong muscle a force that is satisfyingly suffocating. She’s warm. The chair protests again but it possesses no authority, and it could go on groaning as much as it’d like because it would never be heard. You can’t exist past Alexia and her mouth and her tongue and the coffee and everything that makes your insides twist. 

You reach up, fingertips trailing over the strong planes of her back. Her skin is pulsing under your touch. Her shoulder blades extend and contract like wings – like Icarus, like she is chasing the golden luxury of the Sun. You pretend not to know how that story ends. 

Her kiss stutters when your palm slides under the bralette, lifting it up. You hear her sigh, sharp and shaky. You feel it in your mouth, too. Her hands dig into you, holding herself steady as she tenses and relaxes and tells you to keep touching her. You’re craving. 

Her nipples are hard against your fingers and you can’t help yourself. You circle your thumb once. Slowly. 

She shudders. A snake bites in the back of your mind and you wonder if this is too intimate. Too special. 

Too good to be true. 

But she responds with a throaty sound of approval. Or demand. 

She breaks the kiss, breath coming fast. “You’re…” Her voice falters, lashes fluttering as her forehead dips to yours. “You’re worse than me.”

It has no meaning, really. You’re both as bad as each other. 

You’re grinning proudly anyway. “You like that.” 

She doesn’t argue. She rolls her hips once, firm and intentional. You bite your lip so hard you taste metal and red. She’s still straddling you, powerful and deliberate and trembling under your touch. 

“You’re so warm,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “Podría vivir dentro de ti. Quiero vivir dentro de ti.” 

“You’re too big,” you tease, but in this context it feels like something different and it only spurs another roll of her hips. 

You bury your face into the crook of her neck, biting lightly, tasting the sweat just starting to form. She chuckles at your groan, but you only murmur, “this is what you do to me,” into her and she leaves you be. Until her hand brushes yours, latches onto it, pulls it down from her chest and pushes it towards the waistband of her pyjama shorts. 

“I need you,” she whispers when you resist the guidance into her underwear. 

“The neighbours are getting a show.”

“A good show.” Her voice is breathy and weak and she needs you (she told you that already). 

Your eyes dart from the blonde hair hanging over your face like a canopy to the eyes that go with it and then to the other balconies in your view. There’s an old lady sitting not too far away who has made a point of turning her chair around. 

“Inside,” you say. 

There’s no more fuss after that. 

She’s wet and ready and it doesn’t take much. A few strokes of your fingers  have her falling into your body like she trusts you to catch her. The floor is cold against your bare skin but it’s fine. You don’t care. 

And then Alexia stands – chiselled as though Doryphoros and Aphrodite have become one. You can’t resist worshipping that. She seems to feel the same. 

Her tongue is skilled and precise. Meticulously. Competitive. 

She makes you come quicker than you did her, wiping the sweat from your brow after you point that out like it’s supposed to be a complaint, shutting you up by kissing you with messy, greedy lips. Hates when you complain. Hates that you’ll never be satisfied and she’ll never be satisfied and none of this will never be enough. 

“Easy-peasy,” she says when she flops onto the sofa with you in her lap. 

You laugh. 

“Who taught you that?” 

She scoffs. “I know English.”

You scoff too. “If you say so.” Then, when you have caught your breath and decided that this is the best exercise and this is what keeps your heart beating and this is something you cannot live without, you pose your challenge: “Do you know what a hen party is?” 

Her face twists with the effort to come up with an idea. “I need a hint.” 

“It’s before a wedding.” 

The wedding, specifically, but that would taint the feeling of her arm around your waist and your head on her chest. 

“Una despedida de soltera. With the women and the bride. Friends, no?” 

You smile. “Yeah. Americans call it a ‘bachelorette party’.” 

“Eso,” she says, triumphant. Her accent curls around the ‘r’s when she repeats it in English and you don’t correct her. You like it too much. 

You look up at her: a flushed face and parted lips. A bruise blossoming just behind her ear. You want to touch her, to reach out your hand and press it along your face, feel each indent and mould it into clay. You could have it done. Have a portrait made. Have it hung in Notting Hill and pretend you care about women’s sports.

You could immortalise Alexia if you wanted to. 

You realise you want to. 

“Come to mine.” 

She’s tensing under you now, her heartbeat speeding. But she has to act normal. She has to. 

“Where is it?” she asks, painfully drawn out as though it has been forced. 

“Zanzibar.” 

She shakes her head. “That’s too far. I don’t have time.” 

“I’d move it,” you murmur sincerely. “I would. But I can’t.” You frown, desperate to convince her. “If it’s money–” 

“It’s not money–” 

“It’s all paid for. A private island. There’ll be, like, five other people. And you can meet my friends.” That’s not quite the correct number, but you’d argue a case of semantics. 

Alexia’s not sure she wants to do that. 

“Carlota will be there.” 

It’s held out like a prize, a reward. She has to give you this. It’s fucking February. 

“Carlota hates me,” Alexia points out, her voice squirming to get out of this even if she physically remains underneath you. 

“Hannah will be there?” you offer instead.

Alexia sighs. She remembers everything everyone has said. She knows she will hate this and she… she loves you, but– “I am out of place in this life.”

Really, she means she will be out of place in a celebration of your marriage to someone else. The feelings are buried but they are not gone, instead having taken root deep in her stomach that leaves it churning at every mention of her impending doom. 

“I want you there,” you set out firmly. “The girls are harmless, really. And they’d be impressed by you.” You run a hand up her arm. “We’d have our own villa. Right in a lagoon. It’s two in each one.” 

“Do people not care?” 

You shrug. “Doesn’t matter what they think.” 

“This is fucking insane.” She shakes her head. “You’re insane.” 

“I had my… assistant—” Not your assistant, but rather your handler. “Check your calendar. We arranged it to coincide with the international window. Apparently, you can miss that.” 

She groans, because it’s tempting but it’s not putting her career first and that’s what should be her priority. “Montse already hates me.” 

“I’ll talk to her myself.” 

“She’s not a reasonable woman.” 

You smirk. “Neither am I.” 

“I don’t want to miss camp.” 

“It’s two matches. Belgium and England. If you really want, I’ll have you on a chartered flight to London before you play England. I know you’re taken with the country.” 

“Taken?” She knows the word in various contexts — has studied it in gruelling English lessons. She can’t tell what you meant though. 

“Well, I’m from England.” 

“You support England?” 

She’d never thought about this properly. 

“Darling, you know I don’t give a fuck about football.” 

“Oh, sí que sé.” 

“So. Coming? Or going to leave me alone in a lagoon villa with seven other insufferable brats, unfucked? In a bikini… in the sun… on a private island that’s basically just you and me.” 

“It is your bachelorette party.” 

You laugh. “Yeah, so I’m still perfectly on the market.” 

“I need to go back for the England game.” 

“I’ll call my father and ask for the family plane.” 

She thinks you’re joking. 

You’re not. 

You don’t know what you want with Alexia half the time. She’s too confusing and you’re too elusive and the wedding date is constantly crawling closer, so you need this. 

It can be the end. It can be the middle. It can be anything. 

But it needs to be real. 

You press a kiss to her neck, the silence now far too emotional and heavy and distracting. You should probably get going – Alexia has training and you have, well, whatever you have. Maybe you’ll pester Carlota at the studio. Maybe you’ll call Saskia. 

A cord of muscle protrudes from her neck and you want to bite it. She stops you. 

“You have a plane?” 

You don’t answer. 

She moves, unsettled. The wild animal stays wild and cannot be tamed. It can be befriended but bangs and pops will always scare it away. 

“I need to go to training.” You stand up, too. You don’t want to be the only one with fingers in the pie. “I can take you to Carlota’s house.” 

“No need. Same destination.” 

She raises an eyebrow. “Fucking another footballer on the side?” 

It’s barbed. Thorns to hide a soft fleshy middle. Insecurity. She wants to be the only one. 

“Richard is there.” 

She’s not the only one. Can’t be. Not when you’re you and you’re beautifully greedy, so politely soul-destroying. She knows she’s not but it still hurts every time she remembers. 

“Car deal with the men’s team. Scam, again. We benefit more. The cars are getting a reputation for being too classic and chic.” It’s said like a bad thing. Her confusion spurs you on, and you’re now in nice clothes that are hers, taken from her wardrobe and suddenly made classic and chic, too. “Money needs business. Footballers have more money than the gents these days.” 

“Too much money,” Alexia finds herself agreeing, swept downstream and no longer fighting the current. She opens the car door for you; you slip into the passenger seat. Let her hold your thigh until the training facility comes into view. You say nothing when she pulls over quickly — not late because she always leaves early — and leans over the console, leans over with one objective in mind. 

“You left a hickey,” you say as you pull your jumper down. Cashmere. Her jumper, actually. You reapply your nude lipstick and wipe the old coat from Alexia’s lips. 

She plays dumb. 

You sigh. 

“I guess it can’t be seen unless someone tries to kiss me there again.” You say it teasingly. Her jealousy is sweet. Cute. A joke. 

She shouldn’t be jealous. 

The girls are confused by her bad mood. Alexia doesn’t have bad moods these days, since these days are good and happy. 

“What happened?” asks Irene very gently, because she knows about fragility and love. She knows about this, too, because Mapi knows. Alba can’t keep a secret so big: Alba needs to let it out sometimes. “You need to smile. The big boss is giving a tour today. They’re going to watch us train for a bit. Before the men’s team.” 

“We’re an appetiser,” Alexia says. Irene gives a bitter laugh. Alexia knows that laugh, has laughed that laugh herself. So much change but so much change is needed still. A whirlpool really. Circles.

“Ponte las botas.” 

She goes out. 

The girls are chattering until she tells them to be quiet. Silence ripples with fear. 

“The club has an important sponsor touring today.” Murmurs of excitement. Poor sods. “Sports cars… for the men’s team. But we want them to look at us too. Don’t we?” 

They nod. Soldiers in their ranks. Agamemnon is speaking and telling them not to give up on the ninth year of the war. 

“Train hard. Keep the intensity high. Mistakes will be punished.” 

This morning’s Alexia is dead. Soft, sun-kissed, sipping coffee and kissing lithely. It all disintegrates now. She’ll be made a fool of in her home, but this team will not suffer at your hands.

The whistle blows and things should make sense. The drills should be simple and comforting. But Alexia just feels stupid. 

She’s a fucking idiot. 

And you’re watching. You’re watching her quite intently, hand in the man’s hand. Smirking. Having your cake and eating it. 

There’s a water break. Vicky’s got a cramp and the physios call for a reprieve. It’s only training, but training harder does make you stronger. 

Jana and Salma are talking and they pull Alexia in. She’s half grateful to have avoided Irene’s pity. Salma and Jana are saying things that make Alexia feel sick, though. 

“Hostia, qué guapo.” Salma likes boys but it’s Jana who says this. “Y rico.” 

“Eres lesbiana,” Salma says as she squirts water in Jana’s face. “Le tengo yo. Yo me quedo aquí para ver si le gusto.” 

Alexia’s face twists. “No seas desesperada. Tiene novia.”

“¿Novia? Un hombre como él puede tener to’ lo que quiere. De cualquiera.” 

“Tía,” Jana says, resting her hand on Alexia’s shoulder. “Mírale. I would fuck him. For money or for fun.” 

“I’d let him do dirty, dirty things to me.” 

“I’d suck—”

“Basta,” Alexia warns. “He’s decent. Probably a horrible person. You could do better.” 

The girls look at their captain for a moment. A rare occurrence to wind her up enough and get a response. Alexia takes a sip of her drink. 

“The girlfriend’s hot too. I’d have a threesome,” Jana continues anyway, with no trepidation or sense of self-preservation. Dumb kids. 

“Yeah, me too. I mean, look at those tits.” 

Alexia’s jaw tightens. Someone is in her pantry stealing her food.

She inhales sharply. 

The vultures turn on their heels with hungry stares. She’s suddenly becoming very interesting. 

Salma smirks, elbowing her lightly. “What? You’re thinking it too.” 

“I don’t objectify people I don’t know.” 

“That’s the only type of people you can objectify!” 

“No.” It’s firm. They’ve crossed the line. Who knows why. “No, they’re our sponsors. Not some fantasy.” 

It’s not a fantasy. Not anymore. Not when she can see how perfect you look with him, slotting into place in the machine which you built and own. His hand holding your hand. Joan Laporta remarking about beautiful couples and his invite to the wedding. 

The whistle blows. Training resumes.

I’m a fucking idiot, Alexia thinks again. 

…

Every fortnight, the Barça girls get a day off. Alexia hates them, trains anyway. Wakes up early so she doesn’t lose the routine — you get out of the routine, you get out of the habit of winning. If you don’t win, what have you done then? 

She doesn’t care today.

Today she is asleep. With you. Dozing until the afternoon because you do this a lot and you don’t want her to leave for the gym or her massage or any stupid sponsorship deal. “I’ll give you more money than them,” you grumble, face in her neck.

The threat feels real. She stays. Can’t not stay. Wishes she could get up and leave you but won’t be able to ever leave you, will only be able to be left.

You’re warm. Soft. Cuddled into her side, leg slung over her hips, deadweight but nothing, too. Asleep, breathing deeply. 

Alexia’s not asleep. The sun is too bright and her body is screaming in contradiction and pleasure and pain. All at once. It’s slightly overwhelming. 

You don’t wake up. 

She lies there. Patiently. 

Thinks about how used to this you are. So much money, so much time. Time is yours to mould, malleable under your command. Alexia is like time, in regards to you. A toy, isn’t she? A doll whose arms move when you want them too. Life revolves around you. You’re too enticing. More enticing because you know you’re enticing. More privileged because you know it’s all yours for the taking. And she’s taken. All of her. 

She wants to die here. Die and live in this moment. There’s not an afterlife, has come to terms with the fact that Papi is dead and dead means gone. Gone means not here, though she feels him in her bones. Alexia’s only a footballer, reckons you’re better equipped to ponder about the meaning of things. A purpose for someone who does not need one. She assumes that the philosophers she has never thought about were the same. Alexia has no time for wisdom like that. 

“Thinking?” 

You’re awake. She checks the time. It’s late to have just come back to life. 

“I made a bad pass,” she says. She can’t subscribe to your thoughts. Needs to show you that she’s different. Needs to convince herself that she’s thinking about football. 

“I’ve never… been with an athlete before you. But I like the simplicity.” You’re calling her stupid, probably.

She pokes your stomach. Wants it to feel like a dagger, like Macbeth with his illusions and his guilt and passive blame. Could blame someone else. When asked about this later, she’ll say she was fogged by too much pressure. This can’t be her fault. 

“You sleep so long.” 

“Hopefully, one day I won’t wake up.” You smile. Alexia hated the thought of that, more than she’s growing to hate you. Hated you because she loves you, though. Hates that you don’t feel the same. 

She caresses your cheek, leans in to kiss you. Her phone rings instead. 

“On ets?” Oh. It’s her mother. 

“Hola, Mamá. A casa.”

You turn over, bare skin exposed as the duvet folds over on itself. Alexia reaches out to touch you. Draws her hand back in. 

“Doncs, afanya’t. Avui dinem juntes.” You wake up really fucking late. “Porta la noia també — ja ho sé, amor, ja ho sé.” 

Hates her mother too. Perceptive. Knows her too well. 

Her mother knows that she has bought a new bikini. Had asked her where she’s going, because it’s February and Alexia doesn’t get breaks. Or doesn’t take them. Whatever. 

Zanzibar, Alexia had revealed. Had said the hotel was sponsoring her. Lying to her mother was something she did to protect her. 

Yes, I’m fine. 

Yes, I can sort out the funeral. 

Yes, I can pay for this, Mamá. 

Yes, I like the fame, because the fame means I can pay for you now. The fame makes me rich, Mamá, for you, Mamá, and I like it. 

“Was that your mum?” You’re sitting up and cupping her cheek. You’re naked and she wants, wants, wants, but her family calls. “Can I stay here? Carlota and Hannah are in Capri.” 

She kisses you. Delays her answers, wants to think about what she’s doing even if she’ll do it anyway. Your hand brushes across her knee, across the surgery scar. It hurts when you touch it — a phantom ache but an ache nonetheless. You touch it and it isn’t healed. Wants you to heal her, though. Wants you. 

“¿Tienes hambre?” 

The drive to Mollet isn’t long. She lives close to home. An amusing thought. Buckinghamshire can go fuck itself, because West London is a microcosm but at least it’s a different county. Alexia must love home. Must not want to escape it. 

A clamour surrounds the Porsche as it rolls through narrow streets. Streets narrowed by cars parked on both sides, mind. No driveways here. No estates. No crunching gravel underneath expensive tyres. Not here, not in Mollet del Vallès. Only the clamour of little children squealing at the sight of the woman behind the wheel, hands reaching out to run along the shiny metal until Catalan barks out of the car and warns them not to get fingerprints on such a pristine surface. Still, they engulf the car with footballs in their small arms and questions of when said footballs will be kicked around in the cages with their idol. On the streets, they offer. Anywhere. 

They’re excited to see her. Alexia smiles. Hopes you’re smiling too. 

Eventually, after a slow journey to her final destination, she parks up. You look out of place against the satellite dishes and plastic balcony chairs. She leads you inside the building she once called home anyway. 

“You’re taking me to your family.” There’s that Oxford degree. Genius. Worked it out the moment you left. For some reason, you chose not to demand she turn around. “Why?” 

“You said you were hungry.” Not the real reason. Alexia couldn’t name the real reason if she tried. Desperation, probably. Alexia can’t just be a body if the body has a family and a home and a life that you can be tempted into. 

The lift’s broken. You’re happy to take the stairs – it’s only three flights. The lights make a buzzing sound. You imagine that for all Carlota has tried to give you, this is the true life of the Catalan people. Carlota can speak the language all she wants. Doesn’t compare, though. 

3A. Nice. “Alba and I shared a room until we moved here,” Alexia says quietly. “We hated being separated. She used to sleep in my bed.” It sounds pained. The bond can never be broken but this rope is taught. She opens the door because it’s never locked. You drop her hand, following her inside. 

You have grown up in a stately home. That’s what they’re called. You can’t escape the name. Minnie is a servant, really, as much as she is a mother and a wisewoman, too. Minnie lives in fear that she will lose her job to the National Trust. That the money will run out and the wings will close one by one, from west to east like a setting sun. For dignity’s sake, the sun should’ve set decades ago. But duty, legacy, maintenance. Sell out to a corporation. Make money like it’s new money. Grow up in a stately home and cling to being stately. Buy a Louis Vuitton bag in anger of growing up in a stately home. Give the bag away to a friend from China, whose father is a CCP tycoon with a packing peanut empire. Resign to the notion that you have grown up in a stately home and all other walks of life will hate you. Resent you. Eat you, because that is what they should do. 

Hope one day to say we lost Belle Reve and go crazy. Instead, you know that Richard brings salvation. Not an heir, but a reinforcement if the dead and dying brothers kick the bucket and Caesar Augustus is truly fucked. 

You look at the flat. Small. Loved. Frayed at the edges but the fraying fabric has been kissed and smells of sweet, old perfume. You wish you could marry Alexia in this moment. Absorb the life, be absorbed by the life. Die in the smell of something traditional and secret, with the soft chatter of her mother berating her for losing track of time. Hear the words ‘family is important’ and not want to bring a knife to your wrists. 

A kiss is pressed to your cheek. “Hola, cariño. ¿Qué tal?” 

Familiarity even where it’s not warranted. 

“Pleasure to meet you.” Politeness has been drilled into you. Reception, learning to pour from a teapot. Eight-years-old, dinner, finally allowed, with esteemed guests who pinch cheeks and ask you about horseriding. “You must be so proud of your daughter.” 

“You speak Spanish.” Alexia’s mother is a short woman with a kind face. A face twisted in impressed confusion. 

“We’re working on the Catalan,” Alexia says with a laugh. 

Her mother seems charmed. Another one bites the dust. It’s far too easy a game – doesn’t even require much effort. Alexia feels sick. She likes it. Sort of. 

You sit in the chair that her father once took. The fourth chair at the table, not really your fault that you touch the dormant volcano. The other unoccupied seat has sunglasses in front of it: Alba must be here, just hiding for now. 

“Now, the food is almost ready. I always overcook, so don’t you worry. If I had known–” she glares at Alexia, “then I would have made something more extravagant. Just simple fideuà. Have you tried it before?” 

You shake your head. Doesn’t feel right to nod when it had been from the de Montcada chef after a night out in Monaco. You’d been helicoptered back when things started to get a little too rowdy. Carlota had been so embarrassed. 

“It’s like paella,” Alexia explains. Hums at something her mother says to her in Catalan. Takes your hand under the table. “Would you like a drink?” 

“Alba’s just gone to get some beers. Your uncle drank us dry the other day. Those stupid men and their stupid men’s matches.” 

“It was a good match,” Alexia protests in her uncle’s defense. A pseudo-father. Forever in-need of his approval.

“Sure it was.” 

You smile. Alexia Putellas’ mother doesn’t really like football. Maybe she’s gotten sick of it. Maybe hates how it twisted her daughter; chewed her up and spat her back out when she couldn’t walk and couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep. Eli is a woman hardened by grief. Softened by it, too. Sorrow recognises sorrow. You grieve a parent too, but you don’t know her and she isn’t yours.

A few moments later, Alba returns. Places the six-pack in the fridge before she notices your presence. Takes her seat and picks up her fork and then feels the suffocation of her father’s ghost when the table is overfilled and her sister won’t make eye-contact. 

She realises it’s you. The fork becomes a potential weapon. It’s old and every prong is blunt, but she could do it. Oh, she could do it if she used enough force. 

Calmly asks Alexia what the fuck you’re doing here. Won’t take the bullshit answer she’s given. 

“This won’t make her love you.” Catalan again. Eli flinches because mothers like to think they can’t be fooled but are often blinded by their longing for their children’s happiness. Mothers do terrible things. Medea. Eli could break down like Medea and curse her husband’s betrayal – gone too soon – and absolve her children of their suffering. Should’ve done that sooner, though. A bit too late for murder. “Alexia.” 

“Alba.” 

“Alexia, this is such a bad idea.” 

“This is… nothing. It’s nothing. She’s just here.” 

“Here. Here at home, because that’s normal. Alexia, she’s–” Turns to her mother because she can't look at Alexia anymore. A corruption of her sister now. “Mami, she’s engaged! She's engaged to a man.” 

Alexia stands. What a ridiculous thing for her sister to say. Wants to rip off her mouth. Alexia is so angry. 

“You have no right to say that.” 

“The truth belongs to everyone.” 

“Truth is a fucking illusion.” Illusion. Everything is an illusion, but that epiphany has already come to you. “Mami, it’s not like that. It’s not like that.” 

Alba used to climb into Alexia’s bed at night and ask Alexia to tell her stories. Stuff about her day – the matches she played, the boys she humiliated. The girls Alexia slowly realised she liked. The girl that one day kissed her. The ball she kicked so well the Barça scout called their parents. Alba left the bed when Alexia said the girl had come over and they had done stuff. Stuff for adults, Alexia had said with a blush and Alba standing in the corner of the room in disgust. Didn’t take much to coax her back into the bed then. Needed to be close to her sister. Would overlook things.

You look uncomfortable. Alba doesn’t care. Lets it settle into you and bury itself deeply, because she can’t do that with the fork. Won’t put down the fork now. 

“It is like that. Alexia has fallen in love with an engaged woman. I warned her, oh, I warned her. Told her: this is a very bad idea. Have you noticed how Alexia has started lying to us?” That’s a hook. Catches their mother’s attention with that one, who looks at Alexia with a heartbroken gaze. Hurts to see her daughters like this. Kill them both to save them, or save them by not killing them. “Zanzibar. That’s not a sponsorship, is it, Alexia?” 

Alexia’s hands are fists on the table. She wants to bang the wood and break it. Looks at her bulging muscles and knows she’s strong enough to do it, if she wanted to. “I didn’t think you’d like the truth. I didn’t mean–” 

“What is Zanzibar, then?” Eli cuts in. She only wants the facts. Will leave the thunder and lightning to the girls. 

“A bachelorette!” 

No one speaks then. 

Alba gets up. “I’m sorry, Mami, but I have to go. I can’t sit here and watch my sister become who she’s becoming. I can’t be complicit in this. I can’t even look at her.” Doesn’t look at her. Simply mutters, “you can’t have us both, Alexia.”

…

They can’t stop her from going to Zanzibar, so they don’t. 

Alexia arrives after everyone else. Goes to Las Rojas for a day just to remind Montse how much she owes her. Flies out from Madrid. 

You need to get a speedboat to the island. She lets the sea spray onto her straightened hair and flexes her stomach, stretching out from the flight and the tense anticipation. Forgets all stress when she sees you. 

Bikini. Oh, it’s a nice bikini. 

Your hair is wet from a morning swim and you’re grinning as she steps onto the jetty. “You made it!” you squeal, running towards her and jumping into her arms. Could be a different life, she thinks. 

She holds you tightly. “That flight almost killed me. And I have a training plan to follow while I’m here. And I’m going back soon.” 

“I know, I know.” It’s honey dripped into her ear. You sigh. “Put me down. You’re squeezing the life out of me.”

“You like how strong I am.” 

Your fingers curl around her bicep. She flexes. “I’ll take you to the suite first. You can freshen up, and then I’ll introduce you to the girls.” 

“The pack of wolves?” 

“Oh, darling, when they see you, it will be like throwing an antelope steak to a pack of hungry lionesses.” 

Alexia follows you down the jetty, the sun warm on her back. The island is ridiculous: white sand, green lawns, absolutely no one here. A helipad. Far too expensive to be worth it. Too expensive to exist in the overlap of Alexia being rich and you being rich. Even if you somehow make the gap not matter.

You take her hand as you pull her along wooden decking raised above a lagoon. The lagoon you’d promised. Suites lining either side. 

“We’re all staying here. I put you in mine,” you say like you’re offering her fruit. The same forbidden fruit. Sweet and inevitable. “Couldn’t have you anywhere else. Too far.” 

She hums. “Too far for what?” 

You look over your shoulder, walking backwards for a few steps, wet hair sticking to your collarbones. “For anything I might want.” 

Feels her jaw clench. The humidity clings to her. Her abs tighten under the weight of your gaze. You’re not even trying. You never try – Alexia always tries. You don’t try and the world orbits you anyway. Too irresistible. 

The suite is stupid. Made with local materials, you explain. A private pool. A sun deck. She steps inside and smells you. Perfume citrusy for the holiday and the tang of suncream. You drop your towel, pick up a glass of passionfruit juice from a shell made into a tray like you’re not half-naked and making her whole body burn. 

“Would you like to shower?” you ask, already slipping out of your bikini top, undoing delicate bows with delicate fingers. Not even glancing at her. “You smell like an airport.” 

She stalks towards you. Irresistible, like she said. Unfair. Enticing as you let her back you into the shower, which is outside, which is absurd, which is much like you to have booked. To have seen and gone, yep, that’s how I want to spend my last few moments of freedom. 

“You’re insane,” she says in a low voice. Means it. Really means it. 

“I know,” you murmur, pressing your mouth to her jaw. “But here you are.”

Her hands are already at your hips. Doesn’t kiss you yet. Breathing too hard for that. You tilt your chin up: a dare, a challenge. You know she hates those. 

“This isn’t part of the training schedule.” 

You lean in closer, whispering. “Fuck the training schedule.” 

And she breaks. Kisses you hard, hands grabbing skin, forgetting everything else, all the logic she twirled between her fingers on the plane, everything except the curve of your thigh when it lifts against her hip. You laugh into her mouth. She swallows it.

She’s meant to be rinsing off the travel. Meant to be getting ready. But instead you’re gasping against wet tile, her fingers inside you, her mouth at your shoulder. No idea when she pulled down those pathetic excuses for bikini bottoms. Doesn’t care. You’re already undone, holding on to her neck like that’s a worthy anchor. When you come, it’s desperate and it’s an Alexia Alexia Alexia as if that is allowed. 

Afterwards, she lets you drape her in white linen from her suitcase. Lets you unbutton the shirt scandalously and kiss her sternum and bite down. “Greedy,” she calls you, but it’s taken as a compliment. You douse her in your perfume and run your fingers through blonde hair. Peel her fingers off your thighs as she holds onto you and decides the meet-and-greet can wait. 

“Can’t wait,” you disagree, because you’re a hostess. “They’re waiting at the Beach Bar. How many cocktails deep do you want them to be?” Sort of a warning. She smirks at how possessive it sounds. Like a queen who is scared she will be dethroned. 

The walk is short, shaded by palms. She can hear them before she sees them. Sharp-voiced, glittering, expensively tanned. Daughters of terrible fathers who love their fathers because that is what they have been taught to do. Daughters of Eden, who are so tempted but somehow not yet exposed to the real world. And Hannah, of course. Who’s standing beside Carlota. 

Alexia steps into view and suddenly it’s very quiet. An outsider. Something new to unravel. Alexia wants to reach out and touch you but you’re too far away for that.

“This is Alexia.” Your voice is sweet, threatening. They might as well bow to you. Feels like you’ve never been hated – this is where that all comes from, Alexia thinks. “She has become a dear friend in Barcelona. Basically royalty over there. Be nice.” Awkward to say such a thing in front of Carlota de Montcada, but it seems your opinion holds more sway than the history books on the shelves of Catalan schools. 

The girls descend. 

Ravenous. 

Gets saved by Hannah, Carlota’s girlfriend. An American, equally an outsider. Asks her girlfriend to remind everyone about their next round of shots and then asks Alexia if she’d like something to drink. Hannah tries to hide her pity as Alexia watches you dive into the ocean with women she doesn’t know. 

Hannah hands Alexia a glass of something cold and green — a cucumber, mint, and gin concoction. Not bad, surprisingly. Still, she doesn’t drink. Not while she’s in season. She sips anyway, because she’s supposed to look like she belongs here. 

“Come on,” Hannah says under her breath, nodding towards a pair of empty loungers under a palm. “I’ll do the rounds for you.” 

Alexia follows. Grateful, maybe. Or too confused to resist. Her gaze darts back to you. Wants you to acknowledge she’s watching. Tries not to care when you don’t. Her fists tighten on the lounger.

“So,” Hannah says, settling beside her with a sigh. “That’s Saskia and Bea–” she gestures to two girls in matching bikinis, lounging on one big sunbed like they’re one being with four legs. “Boarding school with her. Typical gentry, family friends, ‘all our estates were built by the same architect’ malarky. Saskia’s dad had to apologise to the people of Zimbabwe on behalf of the family exploits. Bea’s mother owns, like, half of Mayfair. Saskia’s the Maid of Honour, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t… Well, Saskia doesn’t stand for bullshit. Let’s just say that.”

Alexia’s eyes land on the pair with interest. Maid of Honour. The woman tonguing the straw of her strawberry daiquiri, thigh being slapped for Bea’s attention, is apparently your best friend. No wonder you’ve never mentioned her. 

“Then you’ve got the Oxford bunch.” A horrible Americanism. Hannah does it to herself. She counts them off with her fingers nevertheless. “Siya’s the one in the Hermès cover-up. Brilliant. Scary brilliant. Has maybe three degrees. Has the money to keep doing them. Writes articles for just about every important publication and owns a few of them, too. I think she hooked up with your girl once. Carlota might’ve said.” 

Alexia swallows. Holds back the reaction. Doesn’t blink so she can watch Siya adjust her sunglasses and toss back her hair like she knows she’s being watched. Watches her shout something at you as you wade back to shore. Watches you laugh. 

“Cassie,” Hannah goes on, because it’s never-ending. “Also Oxford. Massive ego. Nearly married a Saudi prince but refused to convert. Was offered a job at the UN but turned it down because she ‘didn’t like Geneva’. Fucks women almost exclusively but calls herself pansexual because she thinks it makes her sound more generous.” Alexia’s eyes are being opened against her will. “And that’s Georgie – red hair and trying to get her drone to work. Went into AI but got bought out by a tech firm. Now she’s basically a retired billionaire. Most likely to go ‘I’m not political’ while dating someone who’s technically under sanctions.” 

Furrowed brows. “She’s dating one of them?” This is more confusing than trying to play a major tournament and keeping up with which teammate needs a hug because they just knocked out their girlfriend. 

“No. She’s dating some guy who’s richer than God. He lives in Dubai.” Hannah takes a sip of her own drink. “But she’s got a thing for your girlfriend. They all do, in some obscure capacity.” 

Ignores that she’s called you her girlfriend. Nonsensical to do such a thing while she’s here as you prepare to get married to someone else. A cruel blow or a quiet mercy. Hannah won’t choose and won’t let Alexia get off so easily. 

“And finally,” says Hannah, pointing to the last undescribed woman with a jut of her chin. “That’s Sara. Quiet one. Not really sure what she does but I’m fairly certain it involves several offshore accounts and a few diamond mines. You don’t notice her until it’s too late.” 

Alexia blinks. “Too late for what?” 

Hannah shrugs. “I think you know.” 

Too late is something Alexia does know. Hates that Hannah knows she knows. 

They sit in silence for a moment. Alexia keeps her expression steady, thoughts locked behind her teeth. You’re now ordering something at the bar, twirling a lock of hair around your finger as you point to the infinity pool at the sirens grouping around it. 

“You alright?” Hannah asks. 

Doesn’t answer yet. Watches you as you let Cassie braid your wet hair, positioned away from Saskia because she had whipped you with her tongue as you’d walked past with more drinks. You’re annoyed at Saskia, and Alexia remembers that she doesn’t take any bullshit. Reminds her of Alba. She’s not speaking to Alba. 

“These girls…” Alexia starts. 

“...are all the same.” Hannah’s resigned to it. She’s probably been on holiday with half of the friend group and suffered and coped and loved Carlota through it all. “I’ve made my peace with it. Carlota has the same blood as half the Spanish monarchy. I just hang on and enjoy the ride.” 

Alexia studies her. Hates studying anything other than match footage but feels the need to assess Hannah’s intentions. “Why are you helping me?” Hannah understands Spanish, too. Feels like a perk. Or a trap. 

Hannah shrugs again. “I’ve been there. But with you… they’re all going to be in love with you in about three hours. I figured you might want a friend.”

The days in Zanzibar stretch like silk. They slip through calloused fingers. 

Each morning, she’s up before the sun burns too high. The sand is still warm beneath her feet and her sports bra is damp with sweat before she even starts the first set of sprints, but she will beat the oppressive heat because that’s what she needs to do. There’s a routine. Always a routine. She runs the length of the beach, back and forth, back and forth. Won’t keel over. Takes a sip of water from a glass with cucumber shavings in it. Moves onto burpees. Squats. Planks. Footwork drills. Brushes off sand and cools off in the sea. The salt of her sweat meeting the salt of the earth. She’s the salt of the earth; knows it now after coming here. The ache in her body is the point. 

She doesn’t look up when they start watching. When they have well-dressed servants drag out the loungers early. Just after sunrise. Bea and Saskia matching again – always, like it’s a uniform. Books with titles she would never pick up. Theories and speeches and histories explained like they aren’t tapestries hanging in their homes. 

They ogle without shame, whispering in French, in clipped code, in old family words that she tunes out anyway. They’re fascinated. Of course they are. Alexia is different. Alexia is built from something real. Sweat drips down her back and she hears it in their sighs. 

And you hate it. She’s aware you hate it. You don’t join them, too proud to do so. A show of possession, to be so tired from long nights that you can’t make it to the loungers in time. They know she comes from your suite. They know and they’re jealous, but it won’t leave this island. 

You emerge like you’ve been waiting. A silk robe from Japan. A sleepy smirk. Bare feet on the deck of the suite, arms folded, hair unbrushed. You don’t whistle – you give her the credit of not coming when she’s called. Even if the rabid dog is addicted and wants to return. You just wait. Arrogantly. 

And like always, when Alexia is just breathless enough, just worn down enough – when her hands go to her hips and her chest heaves and everything is burning – you tilt your head, raise a single brow, and disappear back inside.

The rabid dog is addicted and wants to return. 

Forces herself to walk back. Waves at Saskia, because Saskia is always glaring. 

Moans as you press your palms to her lower back, sweaty in your bed. The bed is damp. The bed is always damp. Makes you make it wet and then lets you lead her to the outdoor shower like a sacrificial lamb. A ritual. Take the bowl and knife and drain her blood because she will obey. 

Lets you work coconut shampoo into her hair. Kiss the sweat off her collarbone. You moan when you taste salt. She moans when your thigh nudges between hers. You tell her she’s being good. You tell her deserves a reward. 

You tell her you want her again before dinner. 

Dinner is long tables and flickering candles. Hair blow-dried because there wasn’t enough time to get ready. Alexia orders a salad with salmon on the side – knows it’s not on the menu but that you had sent the chef her nutrition plan because you’re grateful she came during camp. You always sit far away from her, though. Can’t be too grateful. 

She’s trapped beside Hannah and Carlota. The latter has been quiet all evening. Composed, cool, cheeks tinted with red, though, as if she has been in an argument. Alexia almost jokes about trouble in paradise but pulls back because that’s really not the right thing to say.

When dessert arrives, which Alexia won’t touch, Carlota finally speaks. Not to Hannah. Hannah is checking her emails. To Alexia. 

“She’s not being fair to you.” Carlota’s Catalan is so smooth, so refined. She could wear the crown. Royalty opposite royalty, here. 

Alexia startles. Glances at her. “Sorry?” 

“I said: she’s not being fair to you.” 

Hannah stills beside her. Does she speak Catalan too? Does she love Carlota that much?

Alexia doesn’t respond at first. Her fingers curl tight around the stem of her glass. She doesn’t drink much. Not while she’s in season. But this is needed. This is needed to swallow the heat rising in her throat.

Carlota continues, fork delicately slicing through meringue. “It’s obvious, you know. To everyone. You’re the special event. Being shown off. There’s a gym here, but you’re not in the gym, because she never told you where it was.” Alexia hadn’t asked. Likes the sand because it’s punishing. Likes how you don’t correct her because you can see her from a window in the suite. “But she… she does what she’s always done. She can’t help it.” 

Alexia feels embarrassed, briefly. Then chooses not to be. “I don’t expect anything from it,” she says, voice clipped. 

The lie is brushed away. “It’s so cruel,” Carlota murmurs. “She doesn’t want to marry him, but it’s so ingrained in her to do it, and you’ve got to be afraid, right? If this were all you’d known? But it isn’t okay. To have brought you here.” 

Alexia thinks back to Carlota’s studio and the smell of paint. Paint smeared on her cheek. So far from the woman opposite her now. 

All hiding. Blue pill or red pill. 

Hannah’s hand slides under the table and finds Calota’s knee. It’s a quiet gesture. Reproach or support, one cannot tell. But she’s there. You’re not here. You’re at the other end, talking to Saskia about why you don’t like Plutarch. Who even is Plutarch? 

“Why are you telling me this?” Alexia asks. 

Carlota’s head turns to you. You wink at her. Point to Saskia and roll your eyes. 

She turns back. “Because you don’t deserve it, Alexia.” 

What do I deserve, then?

…

Midnight. The suite is dark. The sea is calm. 

Alba has messaged her. Her sister must have seen the date creeping closer to March. Funny because Alexia thinks of the word marcharse and March and how it has all been obvious from the beginning. 

Lets you kiss her anyway. It’s not March yet. Plays England tomorrow. Will probably not step onto the pitch, because Montse will see her tan and get angry, call her lazy and useless. Alexia will have to bite her tongue and not retaliate, because then Jenni was crucified for nothing. Nothing. Life would be nothing if Alexia can’t play.

You slide over her languidly. So much skin, so much heat. A soft groan of, “I don’t want you to go,” and a laugh that doesn’t mean to demean Alexia’s one true passion but does so anyway. 

She closes her eyes as your hand slides down the ridges of her stomach. Down into the depths of muscular thighs. Hungry. Wanting.

Gasps as you thrust inside her. Two fingers. “Feel good?” 

“Yes,” she says to feed your ego. Loves to feed it because then you speed up, and you straddle her and find a better angle. 

Her thighs tense around your wrist, hips stuttering, breath catching in her throat because she’s trying not to make a sound. Always holding back. Always controlled. Winning, still. 

You lean down, press your mouth to her neck. Hot tongue. Sharp teeth, too. She shudders, shudders underneath you because that’s what you make her do. Shudders because you make her feel so good. 

Keeps her eyes shut as you keep moving in and out. Another finger. Desperate, tonight. The both of you. Chasing something that’s running away, that has always been running away. Decaying. Dying. Dying, dead. Alive. 

So alive like this. Could be an illusion but you love the illusion. You love her, you love it. You’re already planning visits to Barcelona after the wedding. Could see Carlota, too. Ask for her forgiveness. 

You love her, you know. A sick kind of love. Not the love she deserves, but then again, who are you to decide what she deserves?

And she comes. Cries out, restraint gone. Back arches and the tattoos burn like embers that can still be lit. 

You stroke her cheek. Kiss away the tear that has rolled down it. Kiss her lips, her temple, her chin. 

“This feels like our honeymoon,” you say. 

Alexia opens her eyes.

[randombush3]

Jesus fucking Christ. Looks like I gotta go back and read hold me close again. Life’s terrible enough why can’t my AUs just be a lil angsty then end up ok??

This relationship was never going to work out

HMC is a low bar for needing to feel happy but at least they’re together at the end, that’s true

[randombush3]

the emojis make the post really

open your eyes

alexia putellas x reader

part one, part two

summary: you hide in Barcelona to delay the inevitable and, well, the footballer is just too enticing

words: 13651

content warnings: smut, mentions of drugs and some more morally-grey behaviour

notes: i like this ending. it wasn't where i was originally heading towards but it felt right and so here we are. i'll proofread it later bc i'm about to take a lengthy nap

When Alba finds you with your tongue down her sister’s throat, the first thing she acknowledges is how elegant you make it look. 

The second is how terrifying your glare is as you laser through her, dismembering limb from limb. 

She’s not welcome anymore.

It’s a feeling she doesn’t know. Not here, not in Alexia’s home, which is an extension of her home. An extension built with gold, but the gold comes from hard work and the hard work comes from Papi, so the gold comes from home. Home with Alexia, like always. Like she had promised her in a hospital years ago, holding scrawny baby-Alba and declaring it with the kind heart and the soft eyes that she gets from Papi, too. 

This home is strong. Has seen a lot. Perseveres. (That’s Mami.) 

Alba learnt once about sisterly love. Pushing and pulling but the rope never breaks and the free fall never comes. 

Tonight it’s like seeing Alexia jump off a cliff. Still attached, still bonded, but with little care for anything other than what’s at the bottom. Feels the drop in her stomach. 

It’s going to drag them all down. 

You’re staring and Alba’s staring but Alexia is saying nothing.

She has moved away from you now, leaning on the opposite worktop, wiping her lips dry as if she can make Alba believe she hasn’t seen a thing. 

Alba says, “Does she speak Catalan.” Not really asking, not surprised you don’t. Says it in Catalan too, just because it stings Alexia more. The silence is enough. “You’re going to kill yourself when this ends.” 

Alexia flinches. 

“You’re in love with her and she is never going to choose you.” 

“Get out,” Alexia replies. 

This is a catalyst. 

This is the tug of the recoil start that jolts the generator into action. The generator whirs and grumbles, getting hotter. Hotter. 

Hotter. 

A fan won’t cool it this time. Water might start a fire. 

Hotter. 

Alexia is kissing you and pressing you into her bed. Alexia will message Alba tomorrow and ask her not to be angry. Alexia is jerking the rope between her and her sister and she is pulling the cord for the generator and she is licking between your thighs. 

Alexia will one day think about this moment in her life and remember. But she can’t know now what she’ll remember then, because then that universe crumbles and that universe — this universe — is a good one, despite all that she is and does. 

It just keeps getting hotter. 

Hotter. Hotter hotter hotter.

Blackout. 

Then you’re no longer there. A flight is booked. “My father’s finally home.” Not a real excuse, but said like one and accepted like one. 

Alexia’s chest aches with brief jealousy. The monotony of your voice quickly snaps her out of it. 

You think of your father as Augustus Caesar. The first Roman Emperor, though he was not an emperor and not a dictator and not violating the Roman Republic, to the knowledge of the Roman Republic.

Augustus was careful and curated. Neat categories of propaganda, neat projects lined up with the greater good in mind, neat expectations for every member of his family. Pax. Latin for peace. Augustus was the bringer of pax. 

Augustus’ daughter was not neat. Wild like a caged animal. Wilder because she is caged. Rabid at the thought of being free, rabid at the thought of being captured once more. 

Your father is tempted to exile you to a remote island when you walk in through the front door. 

“Daddy’s angry,” Minnie whispers in your ear as if you haven’t gathered. She points to his study. Past the library, down a corridor you don’t know. You don’t know it because he’s never there. When he’s there, he doesn’t speak to you. If he’s there. 

It’s a nice lamp, you think, as your father throws it. 

Not at you. You look like the woman who caressed his cheek and wiped his tears and found the strength to ignore the way he’d pant a dead woman’s name into a living corpse’s ear until the corpse had a baby and the baby became something new. So not at you.

“I expected so much more of you,” he says between the fragments of glass and clank of metal. Red bleeds from your palm as you try to pick up the pieces. “You’re so clever. So brilliant. You’re going to be wasted in that marriage, but you’ll tell Richard things when no one else is around and you’ll give him ideas. You’d be working for me if you had agreed to.” 

Your father is Augustus who is desperately searching for a successor but is finding them all dead. Dying. 

Companies and meetings and dinner parties with clients don’t make more children. More children don’t make better children. Fewer children still make worse. 

His head is in his hands and your blood stains his white shirt when you try to comfort him. You don’t know why you’re comforting him. “You’re all spoilt.” 

There’s a knock at the door. 

“Your brothers are home.” Dead. Dying. His eyes squint as though he has a headache and he reaches over to his cures. A globe set in mahogany. Fucking imperialism. He flicks open a latch, flicks open the globe. “Whisky?” 

You shake your head. 

“Too much of it. Dinner with the Lord Mayor, remember?” 

“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t shut up about Hong Kong.” 

“Had to drown him out.” 

“You had to drown him out,” echoes your father. As explicit a dismissal as he will ever give. 

Minnie is waiting outside.

“Heard a crash,” she says as she cradles your head and holds you. 

“Daddy wouldn’t,” you say back, but you’re not sure and you know that this is lost. “Do you know where the boys are?” 

“Caravan.” 

You’re not surprised. 

The Caravan is the pimp-seat of many a party. Far back in the field behind the garden, far away enough for the smell of weed to dissipate and the sounds of whatever event of the night to be inaudible. 

The boys like the Caravan because they can talk about things your mother would scold them for. They can hide and be easily found but not easily disturbed. They can be the three brothers they were before the woman your father loved was gone and your mother replaced her. 

It feels sacrilegious to step inside. Every time. But you do it. 

“Hello,” your older brother says immediately, half-shocked to get a look at you. He blinks a few times. “I thought you were in Spain?” 

“Obviously not.” It feels a little bit like when you had stood in Alexia’s doorway and she, puzzled, had let you in. They don’t want you here. They do want you here. No one can ever decide. 

You size the three of them up. All fatter. Rounder faces, happier faces. Circles of stress underneath their eyes regardless. Matching unintentionally in quarter-zips and chinos, wellies muddy just like yours. Muddy from the walk to the Caravan. A walk you despise. 

You point at your favourite. The third brother. The one who leaves and dies and returns to his sybaritic life because that’s how it works. 

“I need to talk to you,” you command. The boys — men, you should say — share a look. One that they wear when a woman tells them something and they cannot refuse: this one’s not a choice, mate. So he gets up, an obedient dog called to heel for once in his life, and follows you outside. You look back over your shoulder, nose scrunching at the stench of stale weed and dried bodily fluids. “Daddy’s cross with us, by the way. Says we’re all spoilt.” 

A guffaw. A rumble of protest.

Your third brother leads you to where you have always gone: the fence by the line of trees, the seat which the two of you carved out for each other. 

The confession bubbles out before you realise what you are saying. 

“I was fucking a woman. In Barcelona.” 

He smiles and you see the diamond-head of a poisonous snake before you. Even if the poison is slow to work. Even if you love the very thing that bites. 

“Fez won’t be too happy.” 

The look you give him is a pained one. How could he get to you too? The hurly-burly is almost done and you will be the only loser here. 

Maybe Alexia, as well. 

“I was fucking a woman too,” your brother then says, starting like a parable against merciless indulgence. Not that he speaks with a hint of regret. “She left. Didn’t want to see me ever again.” 

“What did you do?” you ask; this doesn’t feel like a diversion. 

He taps the side of his nose. “She wanted me to stop. I told her she couldn’t stop the inevitable.”

“The inevitable,” you mutter. Duty. Legacy. Maintenance. 

How has your family survived this long? 

How have they overcome their greed and cowardice? Mismanagement and selfish decisions? 

Duty. Legacy. Maintenance. 

“You’ll marry him, you know. You would choose this life every time.” 

“Would I?” 

His eyes meet yours. Nothing like yours. Haunted and still haunting. Your father must have relished in the shame of this son — an excuse never to look at those eyes — because this son is the picture of his love. And for all that precious love, he is still corrupted. 

Once upon a time, he would have told you what you wanted to hear. 

Yes, I’ll come to your concert. 

Yes, I’ll be home to see you. 

Yes, I love you more than anything in the world. 

Yes. I promise. 

Life is no longer a fairytale. 

“Every time.” 

You dream of Alexia that night, but then what happens doesn’t count. It’s a dream. Not real. 

Kisses empty, hands too light. An illusion. 

It’s all an illusion. All a trick. 

…

You fucking hate football and you fucking hate football matches. It’s far too jovial and loud and the colours give you a headache. Bad company, too. 

Carlota’s rather smug today. You’ve ventured to Madrid for some final, not too frustrated as the last Christmas present you needed to dole out had to be picked up anyway. Alexia has mentioned a Supercopa the other day when explaining why she’d be gone for a few days. “You have a TV,” she’d stated, breathless as you tried to shut her up with wandering hands. 

It wasn’t your idea to come to the match, though. If it were, you’d at least be in a box (although the godforsaken stadium doesn’t have a single one). Yet Carlota insists that pitchside is more fun, eyes glimmering with sparks of subterfuge. “The players feel real, like people rather than Papá’s investments. Not that you needed more proof.” 

And so, because you neglect to tell her and she neglects to scan the stadium before the match, Alexia doesn’t know that you’re here. 

She’s not playing selfishly. Not really. Her passes are crisp and her transitions fast, and she feels so alive. She always feels alive when she’s playing football. Even when the match is theirs and Madrid is simply scrambling for a consolidation-goal. 

She lets herself enjoy it. A little flair, a step over and a nutmeg. A long ball to change play. A pass that makes her instrumental on the pitch. 

The Madrid player panics as she comes towards her, white shirt waving like a white flag and her surrender slightly pathetic. She doesn’t even try with her tackle; it’s just plain dirty. Ankles. Studs. 

It hurts a little bit but Alexia will get over it. She trained enough in December to have reinforced her steel and bolstered her hatches. 

Mapi points at her and then at herself. Alexia presses her finger into her chest. 

She’ll take the freekick. 

The referee hands her the ball, shouting at the Madrid players to stop jostling the Barça players and for the Barça players to be patient for a moment. It’s a tense moment. The football is grassy and slippery and everything she knows. 

The football is her life, her focus, her reason. 

Not you. No. 

The football. 

Football. 

Alexia turns to the crowd, absorbing the energy from already-celebrating culers. 

And you. A hallucination, because she obviously thinks about you too much. Because she can’t stop, not even when she’s playing football. 

Except, she wouldn’t imagine Carlota beside you with her arms crossed and a smug smile plastered on her lips. Nor would she have this fantasy with you in a white jumper, because she’s not an idiot and it’s naked or her Barça jersey. Nor would you be trying very hard not to look at her like you’re enjoying it, glaring futilely as if the whole debacle is a nuisance. 

You’re not going crazy, you mouth to Alexia when she stares for a moment too long, never abandoning your quest for indifference. 

Alexia takes in a deep, deep breath. 

She barely cares when she kicks the ball and it flies into the back of the net. 

After, there is singing and dancing and cheering in the changing rooms. Steam rolls out from the showers like a warrior’s mist on a Homeric battlefield, engulfing Real Madrid’s wounded as they crawl away in a staggering defeat that renders them humiliated and far from catching up to Alexia’s favourite team in the whole, wide world. 

Your text is better than the medal slung around her neck and the trophy Mapi has forced her to chug champagne from. 

Meet me afterwards? You’ll see me when you come outside. 

Oh and keep the medal on.

Her response is instantaneous: 

10 mins.

She’s showered. She’s changed. She’s victorious. 

And then she’s ambushed, and it feels a lot like the engagement party last September. This wolf pack’s average age is considerably lower, though. 

“Jana, Patri, Kika.” Her voice is firm. The names blur into one. It’s also too impatient for someone who doesn’t have somewhere else to be. 

Patri is grinning, face tinged with red from the exertion of the conga line around the room that has only just ended. Her medal is on, too, although the ribbon must be very durable to have coped with the movement. 

“You,” Patri says as she plonks down beside Alexia conspirationally, “were impressive. Impressing.” 

Alexia doesn’t bother looking up, choosing instead to adjust her socks as if a wrinkle would ruin her outfit. She’s in team-issued sweats. She’s a footballer and that’s clear and so she plays dumb, even to her kind. 

“I was enjoying myself.” 

Jana sits down on her other side. “If I nutmegged half of Madrid and smirked about it, you’d give me a talking to about egos and sportsmanship and not letting ‘it’ get to my head.” 

“You’d never do that,” Alexia states with the implication of that scenario being impossible for reasons other than Jana’s profound professionalism and maturity. When she gets called ‘feisty’, she digs her grave deeper. “And maybe I was in a good mood.” 

“Mmm,” Patri hums, glancing at Jana and then at Kika, who’s blocking Alexia from scurrying away. “See, I only get that kind of good mood when my family is visiting to watch me play. A rare occurrence, which you don’t understand. But it’s a case of caring about them caring. Wanting to make it worth coming to.” 

Alexia’s eyes dart between the three. 

“What are you getting at?” 

Kika peels a banana and takes a bite out of it, the smell pungent and unwelcome amongst the waft of sweat and alcohol. She raises her eyebrows in encouragement and that seems to be the signal to abandon subtly. 

“Was she here?” 

Alexia stares. Not at any of them in particular. Just gormlessly and innocently, as if she’s going to get away with this. 

“Who?” 

“Oh, come on,” Jana groans. “Your woman. The girlfriend. She was in the crowd!” 

Alexia exhales, slow and measured but only for practicality. Only because she will protest but doesn’t know how just yet. “I don’t have a–”

“Don’t insult us with that bullshit,” Patri cuts in. “We’re not blind. You completely froze and looked into the crowd right before your freekick. Like you were soaking up someone else’s support.” 

“I have no recollection of that. Could’ve been anyone.” 

It’s a poor defence. 

“Sure,” Jana snorts. “Anyone you let tear up your back and leave scratch marks that show up through your training shirt.” 

(That had been a good night.) 

The banana in Kika’s mouth soon becomes a choking hazard, but there is hardly anyone left in the changing room to care. Most people are now celebrating on the bus. 

“I’m just saying,” continues the stupid, naive, and nosy defender, voice steady like she has become the team’s latest statistician. “The hickey under her jaw last week wasn’t subtle. And she missed that one team dinner. When I asked where she was, Mapi said ‘occupied’.”

“Occupied,” Patri repeats, pretending to be solemn. It’s a jarring situation to be in. “That must have been in the biblical sense, right, Ale?”

Alexia covers her face with her hands, because this is embarrassing and she probably doesn’t have enough time to be interrogated. 

“You’re both disgusting.” 

Jana’s correction comes in swiftly. “We’re observant. You think you’re subtle, but we literally watched you try to a hide a smile when you got a text just now–” 

“Smiles can be prompted by things other than my imaginary girlfriend.” Lie. Twists the knife, the lie, but she’s saving herself here and she’s left with few options. 

“Yeah, yeah, capi.” Kika’s not convinced. It’s like the three of them can smell dishonesty. 

Patri leans in. “So, was she there?” 

Alexia shrugs. 

“Maybe.” 

“Maybe, she says!” Patri rolls her eyes. “That was a give-me-another-Balón-de-Oro performance but for one woman who will probably sleep with you tonight. You don’t need to do that stuff to impress people, Ale, because you already do.” 

The compliment is wrapped in betrayal, but Patri is never serious enough for Alexia to feel guilty. 

Her phone buzzes again. 

It’s been 8 but hurry up. I have a surprise for you. 

Alexia sighs dramatically, but her smile is audible and the girls almost shriek. “Well. I’ve been summoned.” Jana’s finger is spasming as she points at the device, like she’s pressing a self-destruct button over and over again. Before they can scream that the ‘maybe’ has just texted her and they caught her at the scene of the crime, Alexia stands up. “Adéu. Estoy orgullosa de vosotras.” 

Barbed comment lingering in the air as she reminds them of her position as captain-wisewoman-mentor, Alexia saunters off. She’s quite intrigued about the surprise. 

The press gets ignored as Alexia marches towards you. They shout questions and congratulate her for her goal and the win, but not even her favourite journalist can get her to stop. The dregs of the players following her are swept up in their storm instead.

It’s funny. 

The first thing she sees when she leaves the stadium is a barrage of fans pressed against a few metal barriers. So much excitement, so much anticipation. 

The fans aren’t her prying teammates or the journalists who weave different meanings into her words and make her stop reading the news. The fans are supportive and loving and they worship her. They are a reward for her victories and hard work. They are like diamonds set in gold, each competing to shine the most for her attention. 

She can’t walk past them. It wouldn’t be right. 

Alexia gives her softest smile to the little girl in front of her, crouched slightly to be eye-level, the weight of the medal around her neck brushing the girl’s jacket as she leans in for a photo. It’s a tender moment – a reprieve that makes her forget about the ache ache in her thighs, the raucous changing room, the endless questions. The little girl beams, cheeks flushed with happiness, and Alexia ruffles her untidy curls gently before standing back up. 

Then a horn blares. 

A sharp, confident beep-beep that slices through the clamour. 

She turns instinctively, brows furrowed. The tide of noise goes out before rushing back in like a haphazard crescendo, full of reactions to the Porsche 911 cruising towards their beloved footballer. Her jaw tightens, not out of irritation, but because her stomach is suddenly tight, too. 

You’re behind the wheel, shades on as though you can’t be fucked to show the rest of the world where you choose to fix your gaze. It’s ridiculous. Perfect. And when you pull to a stop, stepping out slowly, the car door closes with a soft thunk and you don’t say a word. You just fold your arms across your chest, smirk set deeply, nails painted a new shade of fuck-me red after you had them trimmed for increasingly frequent acts of lesbianism. 

Alexia short-circuits. 

Absolutely freezes for half a second before reality shoves time forwards. 

Doesn’t know if this reality is a reality her body can take. 

She looks away, quickly, just in case the way her mouth goes dry can be seen on the videos that are undoubtedly being recorded. She’s still next to the cluster of fans, but her attention is now a tornado that will shred anything that isn’t you. 

Her gaze flickers back to the girl she’s just taken the photo with, suddenly remembering that she’s still there, clutching a sharpie and looking up at her idol with wide eyes. A very selfish part of Alexia also remembers that the girl has already got her photo.

“I–” Alexia begins, then stammers, then resets. She crouches back down, hands on her knees, not sure what she’s going to say until the words come out. “I have to go now, nena. My… my friend is here.” 

The girl’s mother pats her on the shoulder. “Even footballers need to get lifts,” she says calmly. Responsibly. 

Alexia thanks her with her eyes. The woman cocks her head ever so slightly to the side: she gets it. 

She waves goodbye, thanking the rest of them outloud, and then turns. She starts walking towards you. 

Each step is a test of strength. Stay composed, don’t run, don’t trip, don’t drop her toiletries bag. Her hands are sweating. 

By the time she reaches you, you’ve already walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for her. 

It’s declaratively possessive. 

She doesn’t even try to hide the way she oggles. You look maddeningly good. She can smell your perfume – the one that you wore at the exhibition opening, the one that acted as a fucking pheromone and drove her crazy until she could finally fuck you. She clenches her jaw. 

“You could’ve warned me.” 

The seats are wine-red and leather. Comfortable in an uncomfortable way. She places her toiletries bag by her feet and the car roars into life once more. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” you tease.

You’re pouting. You’re fucking pouting. You leave her and you fuck her and you do things like this. Things that mean you care but prove that you don’t. 

The engine sings as you drive out of the stadium carpark. Alexia’s body harmonises. 

“You could’ve told me you were coming,” she says next, because it’s easier than telling you how happy she is that you did. 

“I didn’t know I was.”

“So you were going on a drive around Madrid in this? Por casualidad.” 

You click your tongue and take one hand off the steering wheel, flicking your shades up as if you’ve had enough of the show. You’re clear of spies now. 

“It’s not my car, actually.” And Alexia thinks you’ve gone mad. You’ve finally cracked – your family, your engagement, your thing with her… it has gotten to you! It was only a matter of time, she supposes. 

You laugh. 

“Ale, your face.” 

You called her Ale. 

“Hm. No, it’s not my car. It’s a belated Feliz Navidad.” 

“A belated…” she trails off. Commits the word ‘belated’ to memory for when she needs it. “Carlota gave you a car?” 

You laugh again. This feels cruel. She doesn’t know where you’re taking her. 

“Carlota’s never bought me anything past a packet of gum at a Tesco.” Alexia groans. She hates being at your mercy like this; when it’s obvious that you have her ensnared and begging to stay. “You’re very slow, hunky footballer.” 

She opens her mouth to protest but words don’t come fast enough to beat you to it. 

“Obviously, this is your Christmas present.” 

Alexia blinks. 

Then she blinks again. 

She stares at you, at the road, at the leather interior like maybe it’ll explain what’s happening. Like maybe the seats will sprout lips and vocal cords and the ability to say, this is yours. Start crying now. 

“No lo entiendo…” she finally mutters.

You glance at her quickly, smirk muted now, before slowing down and turning onto a quieter street lined with trees that are ready for winter to be over. To the right, there’s a small restaurant with warm lights and a waiter standing outside smoking a cigarette. 

“You heard me.” 

“It’s mine?” Where would she even park this? She only has two spaces in her complex. 

You hum. “Yours.” 

Alexia scoffs. “You–” she gestures vaguely at the dashboard, the doors, the image of you sitting in her car saying ‘yours’ like it refers to something else. “You can’t just buy me a car. For Christmas. I didn’t get you anything!” 

“It came late,” you offer kindly, as if that is going to make her feel less confused. “You make me come so hard I think I’ve met the most controversial man of omnipotence.” 

Alexia chokes. Actually chokes on spit. In her mouth. It’s ungraceful and pathetic and it makes your smile widen. 

“I’m just kidding. I thought it was a practical gift and I hate your other car.” 

“I have to drive the Cupra. It’s a sponsorship deal.” 

“Not the Cupra,” you reply. You’re pulling up on the curb, parking the Porsche on the road as though it’s a bog-standard Ford that’s running out of miles and missing a window. “The other one. I’m so sick of seeing the buggers zip around.”

You’ve always wanted to stick your middle finger up at your father. Being photographed with a footballer, driving her like a chauffeur, and doing all of that in a Porsche? So deserved. Possibly stroke-inducing.

“Your family owns the make.” 

A flicker of surprise crosses your face. Alexia must have finally looked you up. “And it’s not as cool as this. This is yours. Free from shackles. No sponsorship deal here.” It’s also not tainted by the other girls Alexia has presumably picked up in her sleaze-car. It’ll be claimed by you (the two of you) when you have sex in it later. 

Forcefully, Alexia breathes in and out until she feels a bit calmer. You seem to encourage this, staying put for as long as it takes. 

When she’s done, you tap her thigh lightly. 

“Let’s get some lunch. Afterwards, I’ll take you back to the team hotel.” Alexia briefly wonders where Carlota must be if you’re here with her. “Then tomorrow, when you’re recovered, come pick me up. You’ve got to drive this thing back to Barcelona and it would be bad manners to leave you in solitude.” 

Captain Alexia Putellas is wearing a medal that she has won multiple times before. She has so many golds that she’d probably lose track of this one on the shelf. 

She has led her team to greatness once more. 

She has come out on top. 

She is the best. 

Yet she can only nod at you, limp and turned on and confused.

“Como quieras,” she breathes.

…

It’s sunny outside today. It’s nice. Pleasant. 

Alexia looks good with her hair down like this. Relaxed in spite of her life and this mess. Sexy. 

She doesn’t understand the concept of buttons when she’s with you, leaving her oversized shirt open like a glorified coat. You can see her nipples through her bralette. You curse the breeze on the balcony. 

A thought swims into mind. 

Lick them. 

You shake it out of your head. It would be an absurd reaction to her ranting about her sister and her opinions or whatever it is she is so passionate about. You have no idea how you have crept into morning coffees like this. 

But Alexia notices your eyes lingering too low down. Of course she does. 

She pauses midsentence. Her lips stay parted, but the words evaporate. 

You’re still holding your mug (a ghastly thing she made at a pottery workshop and claims to remind her of you), but drinking from it seems impossible. As if you can’t remember. The ceramic is warm in your hands, but your gaze is warmer, drifting up only when it’s too late. 

You’ve been caught.

She arches an eyebrow. “¿Estás escuchándome o qué?”

Your mouth opens. Closes. You like when she speaks Spanish. When she husks it out in acquiescence, as if she’s given into something. A fantasy. A present just for you even though she speaks it all the time. 

Bumbling, you settle on, “sort of.” 

“Sort of,” she repeats, a little smirk curling the corner of her mouth. She shifts on the metal chair, and the shirt falls further off one shoulder like it’s a provocation. “What were you thinking about?” 

The mug makes a soft clink as you set it down on the chairs’ matching table. “Does it matter?” 

Alexia leans forwards, arms crossing under her chest, abs flexed beneath that. You could take a photograph. You’d submit it to National Geographic. You’d buy Carlota’s painting of her too. So that no one else can see it: no one else should get to see this. 

“That depends on your answer.” 

You should look away and dig deep for a slither of self-restraint. Instead, you exhale slowly through your nose. “I was thinking,” you say, voice low, “about how silly it would be to pretend I wasn’t staring.”

“Oh?” She’s standing up now, every muscle flexing and tensing and bulging and stirring up something very primal. “Honest and horny? What a woman you are.” 

It sounds a little too soft. A little too like she’s just as in awe of you as you are her. But you don’t care or you don’t hear it, because you’re only looking hungrier and Alexia is too addicted to that to come clean. She really should come clean. 

“I try,” you murmur, and in two steps, she’s in front of you. Not kissing you, but close enough that the fabric of her shirt brushes your leg. 

She smells like the coconut from her morning shower. You think of your au pair, of her fingers stroking down your back as you cried and cried and cried, distraught with having too many people and distraught with having no one at all. Alexia’s skin is warm from the sun, her thigh brushing yours as she leans in. 

“I know you want to kiss me,” she states, grinning. She looks pretty when she grins. You like her teeth. And that it’s not playful, not innocent. Her eyes drop to your lips. “Bésame, idiota.”

You lean forwards. Her hand comes up, brushing a strand of hair from your cheek, journeying to your jaw and grazing the bone there. 

Bone could touch bone. Bone wants to touch bone. So desperately. So earnestly. 

And there’s a gap of longing before you kiss her. She doesn’t know if you feel it; the throb of her feelings, the need and the want and the pure power of having you. She doesn’t know if she’d want you to. If that would be moral. Or fair. 

But it’s there. No one can deny that. 

You chalk it down to her being attractive and you, ovulating. 

You might be ovulating? 

The kiss lands slowly. Deliberate, at first. A test of will and a taste of bitter coffee because sugar isn’t allowed like that. Her mouth is soft, steady: she knows how to kiss away the layers of your lips until she can finally get to the truth. Even if that truth is never heard. 

One hand slides behind your neck, firm and coaxing, pulling you in deeper. You tug gently at the edge of her shirt. This is the forbidden fruit but it is sweet and it is warm and the shirt is gone – on the floor where it doesn’t matter. Good, you think, the chair creaking quietly under the combined weight of new hips on your hips, thighs on your thighs. 

“Alexia,” you gasp into her mouth, words becoming breath that she chooses to ignore. Alexia has blinded herself when given a warning. She no longer heeds them. She doesn’t have it in her. 

She kisses you again, tongue moving with a hungry rhythm. Her weight settles more fully in your lap, strong muscle a force that is satisfyingly suffocating. She’s warm. The chair protests again but it possesses no authority, and it could go on groaning as much as it’d like because it would never be heard. You can’t exist past Alexia and her mouth and her tongue and the coffee and everything that makes your insides twist. 

You reach up, fingertips trailing over the strong planes of her back. Her skin is pulsing under your touch. Her shoulder blades extend and contract like wings – like Icarus, like she is chasing the golden luxury of the Sun. You pretend not to know how that story ends. 

Her kiss stutters when your palm slides under the bralette, lifting it up. You hear her sigh, sharp and shaky. You feel it in your mouth, too. Her hands dig into you, holding herself steady as she tenses and relaxes and tells you to keep touching her. You’re craving. 

Her nipples are hard against your fingers and you can’t help yourself. You circle your thumb once. Slowly. 

She shudders. A snake bites in the back of your mind and you wonder if this is too intimate. Too special. 

Too good to be true. 

But she responds with a throaty sound of approval. Or demand. 

She breaks the kiss, breath coming fast. “You’re…” Her voice falters, lashes fluttering as her forehead dips to yours. “You’re worse than me.”

It has no meaning, really. You’re both as bad as each other. 

You’re grinning proudly anyway. “You like that.” 

She doesn’t argue. She rolls her hips once, firm and intentional. You bite your lip so hard you taste metal and red. She’s still straddling you, powerful and deliberate and trembling under your touch. 

“You’re so warm,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “Podría vivir dentro de ti. Quiero vivir dentro de ti.” 

“You’re too big,” you tease, but in this context it feels like something different and it only spurs another roll of her hips. 

You bury your face into the crook of her neck, biting lightly, tasting the sweat just starting to form. She chuckles at your groan, but you only murmur, “this is what you do to me,” into her and she leaves you be. Until her hand brushes yours, latches onto it, pulls it down from her chest and pushes it towards the waistband of her pyjama shorts. 

“I need you,” she whispers when you resist the guidance into her underwear. 

“The neighbours are getting a show.”

“A good show.” Her voice is breathy and weak and she needs you (she told you that already). 

Your eyes dart from the blonde hair hanging over your face like a canopy to the eyes that go with it and then to the other balconies in your view. There’s an old lady sitting not too far away who has made a point of turning her chair around. 

“Inside,” you say. 

There’s no more fuss after that. 

She’s wet and ready and it doesn’t take much. A few strokes of your fingers  have her falling into your body like she trusts you to catch her. The floor is cold against your bare skin but it’s fine. You don’t care. 

And then Alexia stands – chiselled as though Doryphoros and Aphrodite have become one. You can’t resist worshipping that. She seems to feel the same. 

Her tongue is skilled and precise. Meticulously. Competitive. 

She makes you come quicker than you did her, wiping the sweat from your brow after you point that out like it’s supposed to be a complaint, shutting you up by kissing you with messy, greedy lips. Hates when you complain. Hates that you’ll never be satisfied and she’ll never be satisfied and none of this will never be enough. 

“Easy-peasy,” she says when she flops onto the sofa with you in her lap. 

You laugh. 

“Who taught you that?” 

She scoffs. “I know English.”

You scoff too. “If you say so.” Then, when you have caught your breath and decided that this is the best exercise and this is what keeps your heart beating and this is something you cannot live without, you pose your challenge: “Do you know what a hen party is?” 

Her face twists with the effort to come up with an idea. “I need a hint.” 

“It’s before a wedding.” 

The wedding, specifically, but that would taint the feeling of her arm around your waist and your head on her chest. 

“Una despedida de soltera. With the women and the bride. Friends, no?” 

You smile. “Yeah. Americans call it a ‘bachelorette party’.” 

“Eso,” she says, triumphant. Her accent curls around the ‘r’s when she repeats it in English and you don’t correct her. You like it too much. 

You look up at her: a flushed face and parted lips. A bruise blossoming just behind her ear. You want to touch her, to reach out your hand and press it along your face, feel each indent and mould it into clay. You could have it done. Have a portrait made. Have it hung in Notting Hill and pretend you care about women’s sports.

You could immortalise Alexia if you wanted to. 

You realise you want to. 

“Come to mine.” 

She’s tensing under you now, her heartbeat speeding. But she has to act normal. She has to. 

“Where is it?” she asks, painfully drawn out as though it has been forced. 

“Zanzibar.” 

She shakes her head. “That’s too far. I don’t have time.” 

“I’d move it,” you murmur sincerely. “I would. But I can’t.” You frown, desperate to convince her. “If it’s money–” 

“It’s not money–” 

“It’s all paid for. A private island. There’ll be, like, five other people. And you can meet my friends.” That’s not quite the correct number, but you’d argue a case of semantics. 

Alexia’s not sure she wants to do that. 

“Carlota will be there.” 

It’s held out like a prize, a reward. She has to give you this. It’s fucking February. 

“Carlota hates me,” Alexia points out, her voice squirming to get out of this even if she physically remains underneath you. 

“Hannah will be there?” you offer instead.

Alexia sighs. She remembers everything everyone has said. She knows she will hate this and she… she loves you, but– “I am out of place in this life.”

Really, she means she will be out of place in a celebration of your marriage to someone else. The feelings are buried but they are not gone, instead having taken root deep in her stomach that leaves it churning at every mention of her impending doom. 

“I want you there,” you set out firmly. “The girls are harmless, really. And they’d be impressed by you.” You run a hand up her arm. “We’d have our own villa. Right in a lagoon. It’s two in each one.” 

“Do people not care?” 

You shrug. “Doesn’t matter what they think.” 

“This is fucking insane.” She shakes her head. “You’re insane.” 

“I had my… assistant—” Not your assistant, but rather your handler. “Check your calendar. We arranged it to coincide with the international window. Apparently, you can miss that.” 

She groans, because it’s tempting but it’s not putting her career first and that’s what should be her priority. “Montse already hates me.” 

“I’ll talk to her myself.” 

“She’s not a reasonable woman.” 

You smirk. “Neither am I.” 

“I don’t want to miss camp.” 

“It’s two matches. Belgium and England. If you really want, I’ll have you on a chartered flight to London before you play England. I know you’re taken with the country.” 

“Taken?” She knows the word in various contexts — has studied it in gruelling English lessons. She can’t tell what you meant though. 

“Well, I’m from England.” 

“You support England?” 

She’d never thought about this properly. 

“Darling, you know I don’t give a fuck about football.” 

“Oh, sí que sé.” 

“So. Coming? Or going to leave me alone in a lagoon villa with seven other insufferable brats, unfucked? In a bikini… in the sun… on a private island that’s basically just you and me.” 

“It is your bachelorette party.” 

You laugh. “Yeah, so I’m still perfectly on the market.” 

“I need to go back for the England game.” 

“I’ll call my father and ask for the family plane.” 

She thinks you’re joking. 

You’re not. 

You don’t know what you want with Alexia half the time. She’s too confusing and you’re too elusive and the wedding date is constantly crawling closer, so you need this. 

It can be the end. It can be the middle. It can be anything. 

But it needs to be real. 

You press a kiss to her neck, the silence now far too emotional and heavy and distracting. You should probably get going – Alexia has training and you have, well, whatever you have. Maybe you’ll pester Carlota at the studio. Maybe you’ll call Saskia. 

A cord of muscle protrudes from her neck and you want to bite it. She stops you. 

“You have a plane?” 

You don’t answer. 

She moves, unsettled. The wild animal stays wild and cannot be tamed. It can be befriended but bangs and pops will always scare it away. 

“I need to go to training.” You stand up, too. You don’t want to be the only one with fingers in the pie. “I can take you to Carlota’s house.” 

“No need. Same destination.” 

She raises an eyebrow. “Fucking another footballer on the side?” 

It’s barbed. Thorns to hide a soft fleshy middle. Insecurity. She wants to be the only one. 

“Richard is there.” 

She’s not the only one. Can’t be. Not when you’re you and you’re beautifully greedy, so politely soul-destroying. She knows she’s not but it still hurts every time she remembers. 

“Car deal with the men’s team. Scam, again. We benefit more. The cars are getting a reputation for being too classic and chic.” It’s said like a bad thing. Her confusion spurs you on, and you’re now in nice clothes that are hers, taken from her wardrobe and suddenly made classic and chic, too. “Money needs business. Footballers have more money than the gents these days.” 

“Too much money,” Alexia finds herself agreeing, swept downstream and no longer fighting the current. She opens the car door for you; you slip into the passenger seat. Let her hold your thigh until the training facility comes into view. You say nothing when she pulls over quickly — not late because she always leaves early — and leans over the console, leans over with one objective in mind. 

“You left a hickey,” you say as you pull your jumper down. Cashmere. Her jumper, actually. You reapply your nude lipstick and wipe the old coat from Alexia’s lips. 

She plays dumb. 

You sigh. 

“I guess it can’t be seen unless someone tries to kiss me there again.” You say it teasingly. Her jealousy is sweet. Cute. A joke. 

She shouldn’t be jealous. 

The girls are confused by her bad mood. Alexia doesn’t have bad moods these days, since these days are good and happy. 

“What happened?” asks Irene very gently, because she knows about fragility and love. She knows about this, too, because Mapi knows. Alba can’t keep a secret so big: Alba needs to let it out sometimes. “You need to smile. The big boss is giving a tour today. They’re going to watch us train for a bit. Before the men’s team.” 

“We’re an appetiser,” Alexia says. Irene gives a bitter laugh. Alexia knows that laugh, has laughed that laugh herself. So much change but so much change is needed still. A whirlpool really. Circles.

“Ponte las botas.” 

She goes out. 

The girls are chattering until she tells them to be quiet. Silence ripples with fear. 

“The club has an important sponsor touring today.” Murmurs of excitement. Poor sods. “Sports cars… for the men’s team. But we want them to look at us too. Don’t we?” 

They nod. Soldiers in their ranks. Agamemnon is speaking and telling them not to give up on the ninth year of the war. 

“Train hard. Keep the intensity high. Mistakes will be punished.” 

This morning’s Alexia is dead. Soft, sun-kissed, sipping coffee and kissing lithely. It all disintegrates now. She’ll be made a fool of in her home, but this team will not suffer at your hands.

The whistle blows and things should make sense. The drills should be simple and comforting. But Alexia just feels stupid. 

She’s a fucking idiot. 

And you’re watching. You’re watching her quite intently, hand in the man’s hand. Smirking. Having your cake and eating it. 

There’s a water break. Vicky’s got a cramp and the physios call for a reprieve. It’s only training, but training harder does make you stronger. 

Jana and Salma are talking and they pull Alexia in. She’s half grateful to have avoided Irene’s pity. Salma and Jana are saying things that make Alexia feel sick, though. 

“Hostia, qué guapo.” Salma likes boys but it’s Jana who says this. “Y rico.” 

“Eres lesbiana,” Salma says as she squirts water in Jana’s face. “Le tengo yo. Yo me quedo aquí para ver si le gusto.” 

Alexia’s face twists. “No seas desesperada. Tiene novia.”

“¿Novia? Un hombre como él puede tener to’ lo que quiere. De cualquiera.” 

“Tía,” Jana says, resting her hand on Alexia’s shoulder. “Mírale. I would fuck him. For money or for fun.” 

“I’d let him do dirty, dirty things to me.” 

“I’d suck—”

“Basta,” Alexia warns. “He’s decent. Probably a horrible person. You could do better.” 

The girls look at their captain for a moment. A rare occurrence to wind her up enough and get a response. Alexia takes a sip of her drink. 

“The girlfriend’s hot too. I’d have a threesome,” Jana continues anyway, with no trepidation or sense of self-preservation. Dumb kids. 

“Yeah, me too. I mean, look at those tits.” 

Alexia’s jaw tightens. Someone is in her pantry stealing her food.

She inhales sharply. 

The vultures turn on their heels with hungry stares. She’s suddenly becoming very interesting. 

Salma smirks, elbowing her lightly. “What? You’re thinking it too.” 

“I don’t objectify people I don’t know.” 

“That’s the only type of people you can objectify!” 

“No.” It’s firm. They’ve crossed the line. Who knows why. “No, they’re our sponsors. Not some fantasy.” 

It’s not a fantasy. Not anymore. Not when she can see how perfect you look with him, slotting into place in the machine which you built and own. His hand holding your hand. Joan Laporta remarking about beautiful couples and his invite to the wedding. 

The whistle blows. Training resumes.

I’m a fucking idiot, Alexia thinks again. 

…

Every fortnight, the Barça girls get a day off. Alexia hates them, trains anyway. Wakes up early so she doesn’t lose the routine — you get out of the routine, you get out of the habit of winning. If you don’t win, what have you done then? 

She doesn’t care today.

Today she is asleep. With you. Dozing until the afternoon because you do this a lot and you don’t want her to leave for the gym or her massage or any stupid sponsorship deal. “I’ll give you more money than them,” you grumble, face in her neck.

The threat feels real. She stays. Can’t not stay. Wishes she could get up and leave you but won’t be able to ever leave you, will only be able to be left.

You’re warm. Soft. Cuddled into her side, leg slung over her hips, deadweight but nothing, too. Asleep, breathing deeply. 

Alexia’s not asleep. The sun is too bright and her body is screaming in contradiction and pleasure and pain. All at once. It’s slightly overwhelming. 

You don’t wake up. 

She lies there. Patiently. 

Thinks about how used to this you are. So much money, so much time. Time is yours to mould, malleable under your command. Alexia is like time, in regards to you. A toy, isn’t she? A doll whose arms move when you want them too. Life revolves around you. You’re too enticing. More enticing because you know you’re enticing. More privileged because you know it’s all yours for the taking. And she’s taken. All of her. 

She wants to die here. Die and live in this moment. There’s not an afterlife, has come to terms with the fact that Papi is dead and dead means gone. Gone means not here, though she feels him in her bones. Alexia’s only a footballer, reckons you’re better equipped to ponder about the meaning of things. A purpose for someone who does not need one. She assumes that the philosophers she has never thought about were the same. Alexia has no time for wisdom like that. 

“Thinking?” 

You’re awake. She checks the time. It’s late to have just come back to life. 

“I made a bad pass,” she says. She can’t subscribe to your thoughts. Needs to show you that she’s different. Needs to convince herself that she’s thinking about football. 

“I’ve never… been with an athlete before you. But I like the simplicity.” You’re calling her stupid, probably.

She pokes your stomach. Wants it to feel like a dagger, like Macbeth with his illusions and his guilt and passive blame. Could blame someone else. When asked about this later, she’ll say she was fogged by too much pressure. This can’t be her fault. 

“You sleep so long.” 

“Hopefully, one day I won’t wake up.” You smile. Alexia hated the thought of that, more than she’s growing to hate you. Hated you because she loves you, though. Hates that you don’t feel the same. 

She caresses your cheek, leans in to kiss you. Her phone rings instead. 

“On ets?” Oh. It’s her mother. 

“Hola, Mamá. A casa.”

You turn over, bare skin exposed as the duvet folds over on itself. Alexia reaches out to touch you. Draws her hand back in. 

“Doncs, afanya’t. Avui dinem juntes.” You wake up really fucking late. “Porta la noia també — ja ho sé, amor, ja ho sé.” 

Hates her mother too. Perceptive. Knows her too well. 

Her mother knows that she has bought a new bikini. Had asked her where she’s going, because it’s February and Alexia doesn’t get breaks. Or doesn’t take them. Whatever. 

Zanzibar, Alexia had revealed. Had said the hotel was sponsoring her. Lying to her mother was something she did to protect her. 

Yes, I’m fine. 

Yes, I can sort out the funeral. 

Yes, I can pay for this, Mamá. 

Yes, I like the fame, because the fame means I can pay for you now. The fame makes me rich, Mamá, for you, Mamá, and I like it. 

“Was that your mum?” You’re sitting up and cupping her cheek. You’re naked and she wants, wants, wants, but her family calls. “Can I stay here? Carlota and Hannah are in Capri.” 

She kisses you. Delays her answers, wants to think about what she’s doing even if she’ll do it anyway. Your hand brushes across her knee, across the surgery scar. It hurts when you touch it — a phantom ache but an ache nonetheless. You touch it and it isn’t healed. Wants you to heal her, though. Wants you. 

“¿Tienes hambre?” 

The drive to Mollet isn’t long. She lives close to home. An amusing thought. Buckinghamshire can go fuck itself, because West London is a microcosm but at least it’s a different county. Alexia must love home. Must not want to escape it. 

A clamour surrounds the Porsche as it rolls through narrow streets. Streets narrowed by cars parked on both sides, mind. No driveways here. No estates. No crunching gravel underneath expensive tyres. Not here, not in Mollet del Vallès. Only the clamour of little children squealing at the sight of the woman behind the wheel, hands reaching out to run along the shiny metal until Catalan barks out of the car and warns them not to get fingerprints on such a pristine surface. Still, they engulf the car with footballs in their small arms and questions of when said footballs will be kicked around in the cages with their idol. On the streets, they offer. Anywhere. 

They’re excited to see her. Alexia smiles. Hopes you’re smiling too. 

Eventually, after a slow journey to her final destination, she parks up. You look out of place against the satellite dishes and plastic balcony chairs. She leads you inside the building she once called home anyway. 

“You’re taking me to your family.” There’s that Oxford degree. Genius. Worked it out the moment you left. For some reason, you chose not to demand she turn around. “Why?” 

“You said you were hungry.” Not the real reason. Alexia couldn’t name the real reason if she tried. Desperation, probably. Alexia can’t just be a body if the body has a family and a home and a life that you can be tempted into. 

The lift’s broken. You’re happy to take the stairs – it’s only three flights. The lights make a buzzing sound. You imagine that for all Carlota has tried to give you, this is the true life of the Catalan people. Carlota can speak the language all she wants. Doesn’t compare, though. 

3A. Nice. “Alba and I shared a room until we moved here,” Alexia says quietly. “We hated being separated. She used to sleep in my bed.” It sounds pained. The bond can never be broken but this rope is taught. She opens the door because it’s never locked. You drop her hand, following her inside. 

You have grown up in a stately home. That’s what they’re called. You can’t escape the name. Minnie is a servant, really, as much as she is a mother and a wisewoman, too. Minnie lives in fear that she will lose her job to the National Trust. That the money will run out and the wings will close one by one, from west to east like a setting sun. For dignity’s sake, the sun should’ve set decades ago. But duty, legacy, maintenance. Sell out to a corporation. Make money like it’s new money. Grow up in a stately home and cling to being stately. Buy a Louis Vuitton bag in anger of growing up in a stately home. Give the bag away to a friend from China, whose father is a CCP tycoon with a packing peanut empire. Resign to the notion that you have grown up in a stately home and all other walks of life will hate you. Resent you. Eat you, because that is what they should do. 

Hope one day to say we lost Belle Reve and go crazy. Instead, you know that Richard brings salvation. Not an heir, but a reinforcement if the dead and dying brothers kick the bucket and Caesar Augustus is truly fucked. 

You look at the flat. Small. Loved. Frayed at the edges but the fraying fabric has been kissed and smells of sweet, old perfume. You wish you could marry Alexia in this moment. Absorb the life, be absorbed by the life. Die in the smell of something traditional and secret, with the soft chatter of her mother berating her for losing track of time. Hear the words ‘family is important’ and not want to bring a knife to your wrists. 

A kiss is pressed to your cheek. “Hola, cariño. ¿Qué tal?” 

Familiarity even where it’s not warranted. 

“Pleasure to meet you.” Politeness has been drilled into you. Reception, learning to pour from a teapot. Eight-years-old, dinner, finally allowed, with esteemed guests who pinch cheeks and ask you about horseriding. “You must be so proud of your daughter.” 

“You speak Spanish.” Alexia’s mother is a short woman with a kind face. A face twisted in impressed confusion. 

“We’re working on the Catalan,” Alexia says with a laugh. 

Her mother seems charmed. Another one bites the dust. It’s far too easy a game – doesn’t even require much effort. Alexia feels sick. She likes it. Sort of. 

You sit in the chair that her father once took. The fourth chair at the table, not really your fault that you touch the dormant volcano. The other unoccupied seat has sunglasses in front of it: Alba must be here, just hiding for now. 

“Now, the food is almost ready. I always overcook, so don’t you worry. If I had known–” she glares at Alexia, “then I would have made something more extravagant. Just simple fideuà. Have you tried it before?” 

You shake your head. Doesn’t feel right to nod when it had been from the de Montcada chef after a night out in Monaco. You’d been helicoptered back when things started to get a little too rowdy. Carlota had been so embarrassed. 

“It’s like paella,” Alexia explains. Hums at something her mother says to her in Catalan. Takes your hand under the table. “Would you like a drink?” 

“Alba’s just gone to get some beers. Your uncle drank us dry the other day. Those stupid men and their stupid men’s matches.” 

“It was a good match,” Alexia protests in her uncle’s defense. A pseudo-father. Forever in-need of his approval.

“Sure it was.” 

You smile. Alexia Putellas’ mother doesn’t really like football. Maybe she’s gotten sick of it. Maybe hates how it twisted her daughter; chewed her up and spat her back out when she couldn’t walk and couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep. Eli is a woman hardened by grief. Softened by it, too. Sorrow recognises sorrow. You grieve a parent too, but you don’t know her and she isn’t yours.

A few moments later, Alba returns. Places the six-pack in the fridge before she notices your presence. Takes her seat and picks up her fork and then feels the suffocation of her father’s ghost when the table is overfilled and her sister won’t make eye-contact. 

She realises it’s you. The fork becomes a potential weapon. It’s old and every prong is blunt, but she could do it. Oh, she could do it if she used enough force. 

Calmly asks Alexia what the fuck you’re doing here. Won’t take the bullshit answer she’s given. 

“This won’t make her love you.” Catalan again. Eli flinches because mothers like to think they can’t be fooled but are often blinded by their longing for their children’s happiness. Mothers do terrible things. Medea. Eli could break down like Medea and curse her husband’s betrayal – gone too soon – and absolve her children of their suffering. Should’ve done that sooner, though. A bit too late for murder. “Alexia.” 

“Alba.” 

“Alexia, this is such a bad idea.” 

“This is… nothing. It’s nothing. She’s just here.” 

“Here. Here at home, because that’s normal. Alexia, she’s–” Turns to her mother because she can't look at Alexia anymore. A corruption of her sister now. “Mami, she’s engaged! She's engaged to a man.” 

Alexia stands. What a ridiculous thing for her sister to say. Wants to rip off her mouth. Alexia is so angry. 

“You have no right to say that.” 

“The truth belongs to everyone.” 

“Truth is a fucking illusion.” Illusion. Everything is an illusion, but that epiphany has already come to you. “Mami, it’s not like that. It’s not like that.” 

Alba used to climb into Alexia’s bed at night and ask Alexia to tell her stories. Stuff about her day – the matches she played, the boys she humiliated. The girls Alexia slowly realised she liked. The girl that one day kissed her. The ball she kicked so well the Barça scout called their parents. Alba left the bed when Alexia said the girl had come over and they had done stuff. Stuff for adults, Alexia had said with a blush and Alba standing in the corner of the room in disgust. Didn’t take much to coax her back into the bed then. Needed to be close to her sister. Would overlook things.

You look uncomfortable. Alba doesn’t care. Lets it settle into you and bury itself deeply, because she can’t do that with the fork. Won’t put down the fork now. 

“It is like that. Alexia has fallen in love with an engaged woman. I warned her, oh, I warned her. Told her: this is a very bad idea. Have you noticed how Alexia has started lying to us?” That’s a hook. Catches their mother’s attention with that one, who looks at Alexia with a heartbroken gaze. Hurts to see her daughters like this. Kill them both to save them, or save them by not killing them. “Zanzibar. That’s not a sponsorship, is it, Alexia?” 

Alexia’s hands are fists on the table. She wants to bang the wood and break it. Looks at her bulging muscles and knows she’s strong enough to do it, if she wanted to. “I didn’t think you’d like the truth. I didn’t mean–” 

“What is Zanzibar, then?” Eli cuts in. She only wants the facts. Will leave the thunder and lightning to the girls. 

“A bachelorette!” 

No one speaks then. 

Alba gets up. “I’m sorry, Mami, but I have to go. I can’t sit here and watch my sister become who she’s becoming. I can’t be complicit in this. I can’t even look at her.” Doesn’t look at her. Simply mutters, “you can’t have us both, Alexia.”

…

They can’t stop her from going to Zanzibar, so they don’t. 

Alexia arrives after everyone else. Goes to Las Rojas for a day just to remind Montse how much she owes her. Flies out from Madrid. 

You need to get a speedboat to the island. She lets the sea spray onto her straightened hair and flexes her stomach, stretching out from the flight and the tense anticipation. Forgets all stress when she sees you. 

Bikini. Oh, it’s a nice bikini. 

Your hair is wet from a morning swim and you’re grinning as she steps onto the jetty. “You made it!” you squeal, running towards her and jumping into her arms. Could be a different life, she thinks. 

She holds you tightly. “That flight almost killed me. And I have a training plan to follow while I’m here. And I’m going back soon.” 

“I know, I know.” It’s honey dripped into her ear. You sigh. “Put me down. You’re squeezing the life out of me.”

“You like how strong I am.” 

Your fingers curl around her bicep. She flexes. “I’ll take you to the suite first. You can freshen up, and then I’ll introduce you to the girls.” 

“The pack of wolves?” 

“Oh, darling, when they see you, it will be like throwing an antelope steak to a pack of hungry lionesses.” 

Alexia follows you down the jetty, the sun warm on her back. The island is ridiculous: white sand, green lawns, absolutely no one here. A helipad. Far too expensive to be worth it. Too expensive to exist in the overlap of Alexia being rich and you being rich. Even if you somehow make the gap not matter.

You take her hand as you pull her along wooden decking raised above a lagoon. The lagoon you’d promised. Suites lining either side. 

“We’re all staying here. I put you in mine,” you say like you’re offering her fruit. The same forbidden fruit. Sweet and inevitable. “Couldn’t have you anywhere else. Too far.” 

She hums. “Too far for what?” 

You look over your shoulder, walking backwards for a few steps, wet hair sticking to your collarbones. “For anything I might want.” 

Feels her jaw clench. The humidity clings to her. Her abs tighten under the weight of your gaze. You’re not even trying. You never try – Alexia always tries. You don’t try and the world orbits you anyway. Too irresistible. 

The suite is stupid. Made with local materials, you explain. A private pool. A sun deck. She steps inside and smells you. Perfume citrusy for the holiday and the tang of suncream. You drop your towel, pick up a glass of passionfruit juice from a shell made into a tray like you’re not half-naked and making her whole body burn. 

“Would you like to shower?” you ask, already slipping out of your bikini top, undoing delicate bows with delicate fingers. Not even glancing at her. “You smell like an airport.” 

She stalks towards you. Irresistible, like she said. Unfair. Enticing as you let her back you into the shower, which is outside, which is absurd, which is much like you to have booked. To have seen and gone, yep, that’s how I want to spend my last few moments of freedom. 

“You’re insane,” she says in a low voice. Means it. Really means it. 

“I know,” you murmur, pressing your mouth to her jaw. “But here you are.”

Her hands are already at your hips. Doesn’t kiss you yet. Breathing too hard for that. You tilt your chin up: a dare, a challenge. You know she hates those. 

“This isn’t part of the training schedule.” 

You lean in closer, whispering. “Fuck the training schedule.” 

And she breaks. Kisses you hard, hands grabbing skin, forgetting everything else, all the logic she twirled between her fingers on the plane, everything except the curve of your thigh when it lifts against her hip. You laugh into her mouth. She swallows it.

She’s meant to be rinsing off the travel. Meant to be getting ready. But instead you’re gasping against wet tile, her fingers inside you, her mouth at your shoulder. No idea when she pulled down those pathetic excuses for bikini bottoms. Doesn’t care. You’re already undone, holding on to her neck like that’s a worthy anchor. When you come, it’s desperate and it’s an Alexia Alexia Alexia as if that is allowed. 

Afterwards, she lets you drape her in white linen from her suitcase. Lets you unbutton the shirt scandalously and kiss her sternum and bite down. “Greedy,” she calls you, but it’s taken as a compliment. You douse her in your perfume and run your fingers through blonde hair. Peel her fingers off your thighs as she holds onto you and decides the meet-and-greet can wait. 

“Can’t wait,” you disagree, because you’re a hostess. “They’re waiting at the Beach Bar. How many cocktails deep do you want them to be?” Sort of a warning. She smirks at how possessive it sounds. Like a queen who is scared she will be dethroned. 

The walk is short, shaded by palms. She can hear them before she sees them. Sharp-voiced, glittering, expensively tanned. Daughters of terrible fathers who love their fathers because that is what they have been taught to do. Daughters of Eden, who are so tempted but somehow not yet exposed to the real world. And Hannah, of course. Who’s standing beside Carlota. 

Alexia steps into view and suddenly it’s very quiet. An outsider. Something new to unravel. Alexia wants to reach out and touch you but you’re too far away for that.

“This is Alexia.” Your voice is sweet, threatening. They might as well bow to you. Feels like you’ve never been hated – this is where that all comes from, Alexia thinks. “She has become a dear friend in Barcelona. Basically royalty over there. Be nice.” Awkward to say such a thing in front of Carlota de Montcada, but it seems your opinion holds more sway than the history books on the shelves of Catalan schools. 

The girls descend. 

Ravenous. 

Gets saved by Hannah, Carlota’s girlfriend. An American, equally an outsider. Asks her girlfriend to remind everyone about their next round of shots and then asks Alexia if she’d like something to drink. Hannah tries to hide her pity as Alexia watches you dive into the ocean with women she doesn’t know. 

Hannah hands Alexia a glass of something cold and green — a cucumber, mint, and gin concoction. Not bad, surprisingly. Still, she doesn’t drink. Not while she’s in season. She sips anyway, because she’s supposed to look like she belongs here. 

“Come on,” Hannah says under her breath, nodding towards a pair of empty loungers under a palm. “I’ll do the rounds for you.” 

Alexia follows. Grateful, maybe. Or too confused to resist. Her gaze darts back to you. Wants you to acknowledge she’s watching. Tries not to care when you don’t. Her fists tighten on the lounger.

“So,” Hannah says, settling beside her with a sigh. “That’s Saskia and Bea–” she gestures to two girls in matching bikinis, lounging on one big sunbed like they’re one being with four legs. “Boarding school with her. Typical gentry, family friends, ‘all our estates were built by the same architect’ malarky. Saskia’s dad had to apologise to the people of Zimbabwe on behalf of the family exploits. Bea’s mother owns, like, half of Mayfair. Saskia’s the Maid of Honour, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t… Well, Saskia doesn’t stand for bullshit. Let’s just say that.”

Alexia’s eyes land on the pair with interest. Maid of Honour. The woman tonguing the straw of her strawberry daiquiri, thigh being slapped for Bea’s attention, is apparently your best friend. No wonder you’ve never mentioned her. 

“Then you’ve got the Oxford bunch.” A horrible Americanism. Hannah does it to herself. She counts them off with her fingers nevertheless. “Siya’s the one in the Hermès cover-up. Brilliant. Scary brilliant. Has maybe three degrees. Has the money to keep doing them. Writes articles for just about every important publication and owns a few of them, too. I think she hooked up with your girl once. Carlota might’ve said.” 

Alexia swallows. Holds back the reaction. Doesn’t blink so she can watch Siya adjust her sunglasses and toss back her hair like she knows she’s being watched. Watches her shout something at you as you wade back to shore. Watches you laugh. 

“Cassie,” Hannah goes on, because it’s never-ending. “Also Oxford. Massive ego. Nearly married a Saudi prince but refused to convert. Was offered a job at the UN but turned it down because she ‘didn’t like Geneva’. Fucks women almost exclusively but calls herself pansexual because she thinks it makes her sound more generous.” Alexia’s eyes are being opened against her will. “And that’s Georgie – red hair and trying to get her drone to work. Went into AI but got bought out by a tech firm. Now she’s basically a retired billionaire. Most likely to go ‘I’m not political’ while dating someone who’s technically under sanctions.” 

Furrowed brows. “She’s dating one of them?” This is more confusing than trying to play a major tournament and keeping up with which teammate needs a hug because they just knocked out their girlfriend. 

“No. She’s dating some guy who’s richer than God. He lives in Dubai.” Hannah takes a sip of her own drink. “But she’s got a thing for your girlfriend. They all do, in some obscure capacity.” 

Ignores that she’s called you her girlfriend. Nonsensical to do such a thing while she’s here as you prepare to get married to someone else. A cruel blow or a quiet mercy. Hannah won’t choose and won’t let Alexia get off so easily. 

“And finally,” says Hannah, pointing to the last undescribed woman with a jut of her chin. “That’s Sara. Quiet one. Not really sure what she does but I’m fairly certain it involves several offshore accounts and a few diamond mines. You don’t notice her until it’s too late.” 

Alexia blinks. “Too late for what?” 

Hannah shrugs. “I think you know.” 

Too late is something Alexia does know. Hates that Hannah knows she knows. 

They sit in silence for a moment. Alexia keeps her expression steady, thoughts locked behind her teeth. You’re now ordering something at the bar, twirling a lock of hair around your finger as you point to the infinity pool at the sirens grouping around it. 

“You alright?” Hannah asks. 

Doesn’t answer yet. Watches you as you let Cassie braid your wet hair, positioned away from Saskia because she had whipped you with her tongue as you’d walked past with more drinks. You’re annoyed at Saskia, and Alexia remembers that she doesn’t take any bullshit. Reminds her of Alba. She’s not speaking to Alba. 

“These girls…” Alexia starts. 

“...are all the same.” Hannah’s resigned to it. She’s probably been on holiday with half of the friend group and suffered and coped and loved Carlota through it all. “I’ve made my peace with it. Carlota has the same blood as half the Spanish monarchy. I just hang on and enjoy the ride.” 

Alexia studies her. Hates studying anything other than match footage but feels the need to assess Hannah’s intentions. “Why are you helping me?” Hannah understands Spanish, too. Feels like a perk. Or a trap. 

Hannah shrugs again. “I’ve been there. But with you… they’re all going to be in love with you in about three hours. I figured you might want a friend.”

The days in Zanzibar stretch like silk. They slip through calloused fingers. 

Each morning, she’s up before the sun burns too high. The sand is still warm beneath her feet and her sports bra is damp with sweat before she even starts the first set of sprints, but she will beat the oppressive heat because that’s what she needs to do. There’s a routine. Always a routine. She runs the length of the beach, back and forth, back and forth. Won’t keel over. Takes a sip of water from a glass with cucumber shavings in it. Moves onto burpees. Squats. Planks. Footwork drills. Brushes off sand and cools off in the sea. The salt of her sweat meeting the salt of the earth. She’s the salt of the earth; knows it now after coming here. The ache in her body is the point. 

She doesn’t look up when they start watching. When they have well-dressed servants drag out the loungers early. Just after sunrise. Bea and Saskia matching again – always, like it’s a uniform. Books with titles she would never pick up. Theories and speeches and histories explained like they aren’t tapestries hanging in their homes. 

They ogle without shame, whispering in French, in clipped code, in old family words that she tunes out anyway. They’re fascinated. Of course they are. Alexia is different. Alexia is built from something real. Sweat drips down her back and she hears it in their sighs. 

And you hate it. She’s aware you hate it. You don’t join them, too proud to do so. A show of possession, to be so tired from long nights that you can’t make it to the loungers in time. They know she comes from your suite. They know and they’re jealous, but it won’t leave this island. 

You emerge like you’ve been waiting. A silk robe from Japan. A sleepy smirk. Bare feet on the deck of the suite, arms folded, hair unbrushed. You don’t whistle – you give her the credit of not coming when she’s called. Even if the rabid dog is addicted and wants to return. You just wait. Arrogantly. 

And like always, when Alexia is just breathless enough, just worn down enough – when her hands go to her hips and her chest heaves and everything is burning – you tilt your head, raise a single brow, and disappear back inside.

The rabid dog is addicted and wants to return. 

Forces herself to walk back. Waves at Saskia, because Saskia is always glaring. 

Moans as you press your palms to her lower back, sweaty in your bed. The bed is damp. The bed is always damp. Makes you make it wet and then lets you lead her to the outdoor shower like a sacrificial lamb. A ritual. Take the bowl and knife and drain her blood because she will obey. 

Lets you work coconut shampoo into her hair. Kiss the sweat off her collarbone. You moan when you taste salt. She moans when your thigh nudges between hers. You tell her she’s being good. You tell her deserves a reward. 

You tell her you want her again before dinner. 

Dinner is long tables and flickering candles. Hair blow-dried because there wasn’t enough time to get ready. Alexia orders a salad with salmon on the side – knows it’s not on the menu but that you had sent the chef her nutrition plan because you’re grateful she came during camp. You always sit far away from her, though. Can’t be too grateful. 

She’s trapped beside Hannah and Carlota. The latter has been quiet all evening. Composed, cool, cheeks tinted with red, though, as if she has been in an argument. Alexia almost jokes about trouble in paradise but pulls back because that’s really not the right thing to say.

When dessert arrives, which Alexia won’t touch, Carlota finally speaks. Not to Hannah. Hannah is checking her emails. To Alexia. 

“She’s not being fair to you.” Carlota’s Catalan is so smooth, so refined. She could wear the crown. Royalty opposite royalty, here. 

Alexia startles. Glances at her. “Sorry?” 

“I said: she’s not being fair to you.” 

Hannah stills beside her. Does she speak Catalan too? Does she love Carlota that much?

Alexia doesn’t respond at first. Her fingers curl tight around the stem of her glass. She doesn’t drink much. Not while she’s in season. But this is needed. This is needed to swallow the heat rising in her throat.

Carlota continues, fork delicately slicing through meringue. “It’s obvious, you know. To everyone. You’re the special event. Being shown off. There’s a gym here, but you’re not in the gym, because she never told you where it was.” Alexia hadn’t asked. Likes the sand because it’s punishing. Likes how you don’t correct her because you can see her from a window in the suite. “But she… she does what she’s always done. She can’t help it.” 

Alexia feels embarrassed, briefly. Then chooses not to be. “I don’t expect anything from it,” she says, voice clipped. 

The lie is brushed away. “It’s so cruel,” Carlota murmurs. “She doesn’t want to marry him, but it’s so ingrained in her to do it, and you’ve got to be afraid, right? If this were all you’d known? But it isn’t okay. To have brought you here.” 

Alexia thinks back to Carlota’s studio and the smell of paint. Paint smeared on her cheek. So far from the woman opposite her now. 

All hiding. Blue pill or red pill. 

Hannah’s hand slides under the table and finds Calota’s knee. It’s a quiet gesture. Reproach or support, one cannot tell. But she’s there. You’re not here. You’re at the other end, talking to Saskia about why you don’t like Plutarch. Who even is Plutarch? 

“Why are you telling me this?” Alexia asks. 

Carlota’s head turns to you. You wink at her. Point to Saskia and roll your eyes. 

She turns back. “Because you don’t deserve it, Alexia.” 

What do I deserve, then?

…

Midnight. The suite is dark. The sea is calm. 

Alba has messaged her. Her sister must have seen the date creeping closer to March. Funny because Alexia thinks of the word marcharse and March and how it has all been obvious from the beginning. 

Lets you kiss her anyway. It’s not March yet. Plays England tomorrow. Will probably not step onto the pitch, because Montse will see her tan and get angry, call her lazy and useless. Alexia will have to bite her tongue and not retaliate, because then Jenni was crucified for nothing. Nothing. Life would be nothing if Alexia can’t play.

You slide over her languidly. So much skin, so much heat. A soft groan of, “I don’t want you to go,” and a laugh that doesn’t mean to demean Alexia’s one true passion but does so anyway. 

She closes her eyes as your hand slides down the ridges of her stomach. Down into the depths of muscular thighs. Hungry. Wanting.

Gasps as you thrust inside her. Two fingers. “Feel good?” 

“Yes,” she says to feed your ego. Loves to feed it because then you speed up, and you straddle her and find a better angle. 

Her thighs tense around your wrist, hips stuttering, breath catching in her throat because she’s trying not to make a sound. Always holding back. Always controlled. Winning, still. 

You lean down, press your mouth to her neck. Hot tongue. Sharp teeth, too. She shudders, shudders underneath you because that’s what you make her do. Shudders because you make her feel so good. 

Keeps her eyes shut as you keep moving in and out. Another finger. Desperate, tonight. The both of you. Chasing something that’s running away, that has always been running away. Decaying. Dying. Dying, dead. Alive. 

So alive like this. Could be an illusion but you love the illusion. You love her, you love it. You’re already planning visits to Barcelona after the wedding. Could see Carlota, too. Ask for her forgiveness. 

You love her, you know. A sick kind of love. Not the love she deserves, but then again, who are you to decide what she deserves?

And she comes. Cries out, restraint gone. Back arches and the tattoos burn like embers that can still be lit. 

You stroke her cheek. Kiss away the tear that has rolled down it. Kiss her lips, her temple, her chin. 

“This feels like our honeymoon,” you say. 

Alexia opens her eyes.

[randombush3]

i genuinely do not know why ur my favourite author because all u do is PUT ME IN PAIN

heheheeehehwhehehehehhehehdehdhdhhwhwhe

You love it though

[randombush3]

Just a question but for the caught in the landslide series is ale going to be endgame? Because i honestly don’t know if I can handle it if she isn’t 😭

You don’t have to say but I honestly really hope Alexia is endgame I’m just wondering

READ IT ANYWAY but

No. She isn’t. Sorry.

[randombush3]

I wanna give the reader a good slap ‘round the face.

Guys stop she’s my traumatised baby

But valid

[randombush3]

girl….

Anon…

Please don’t give me the silent treatment

[randombush3]

bruh reader is literally evil and I want her to fuck off rn that last line was literally diabolical but the rest of the chapter also was GET MY BABY OUT OF THEREEE

nah, not evil. just a coward and a victim of her world

i felt really bad for alexia but again, cowardice. knew it was bad and wrong but did it anyway

two cowards in cowardly love

[randombush3]

open your eyes

alexia putellas x reader

part one, part two

summary: you hide in Barcelona to delay the inevitable and, well, the footballer is just too enticing

words: 13651

content warnings: smut, mentions of drugs and some more morally-grey behaviour

notes: i like this ending. it wasn't where i was originally heading towards but it felt right and so here we are. i'll proofread it later bc i'm about to take a lengthy nap

When Alba finds you with your tongue down her sister’s throat, the first thing she acknowledges is how elegant you make it look. 

The second is how terrifying your glare is as you laser through her, dismembering limb from limb. 

She’s not welcome anymore.

It’s a feeling she doesn’t know. Not here, not in Alexia’s home, which is an extension of her home. An extension built with gold, but the gold comes from hard work and the hard work comes from Papi, so the gold comes from home. Home with Alexia, like always. Like she had promised her in a hospital years ago, holding scrawny baby-Alba and declaring it with the kind heart and the soft eyes that she gets from Papi, too. 

This home is strong. Has seen a lot. Perseveres. (That’s Mami.) 

Alba learnt once about sisterly love. Pushing and pulling but the rope never breaks and the free fall never comes. 

Tonight it’s like seeing Alexia jump off a cliff. Still attached, still bonded, but with little care for anything other than what’s at the bottom. Feels the drop in her stomach. 

It’s going to drag them all down. 

You’re staring and Alba’s staring but Alexia is saying nothing.

She has moved away from you now, leaning on the opposite worktop, wiping her lips dry as if she can make Alba believe she hasn’t seen a thing. 

Alba says, “Does she speak Catalan.” Not really asking, not surprised you don’t. Says it in Catalan too, just because it stings Alexia more. The silence is enough. “You’re going to kill yourself when this ends.” 

Alexia flinches. 

“You’re in love with her and she is never going to choose you.” 

“Get out,” Alexia replies. 

This is a catalyst. 

This is the tug of the recoil start that jolts the generator into action. The generator whirs and grumbles, getting hotter. Hotter. 

Hotter. 

A fan won’t cool it this time. Water might start a fire. 

Hotter. 

Alexia is kissing you and pressing you into her bed. Alexia will message Alba tomorrow and ask her not to be angry. Alexia is jerking the rope between her and her sister and she is pulling the cord for the generator and she is licking between your thighs. 

Alexia will one day think about this moment in her life and remember. But she can’t know now what she’ll remember then, because then that universe crumbles and that universe — this universe — is a good one, despite all that she is and does. 

It just keeps getting hotter. 

Hotter. Hotter hotter hotter.

Blackout. 

Then you’re no longer there. A flight is booked. “My father’s finally home.” Not a real excuse, but said like one and accepted like one. 

Alexia’s chest aches with brief jealousy. The monotony of your voice quickly snaps her out of it. 

You think of your father as Augustus Caesar. The first Roman Emperor, though he was not an emperor and not a dictator and not violating the Roman Republic, to the knowledge of the Roman Republic.

Augustus was careful and curated. Neat categories of propaganda, neat projects lined up with the greater good in mind, neat expectations for every member of his family. Pax. Latin for peace. Augustus was the bringer of pax. 

Augustus’ daughter was not neat. Wild like a caged animal. Wilder because she is caged. Rabid at the thought of being free, rabid at the thought of being captured once more. 

Your father is tempted to exile you to a remote island when you walk in through the front door. 

“Daddy’s angry,” Minnie whispers in your ear as if you haven’t gathered. She points to his study. Past the library, down a corridor you don’t know. You don’t know it because he’s never there. When he’s there, he doesn’t speak to you. If he’s there. 

It’s a nice lamp, you think, as your father throws it. 

Not at you. You look like the woman who caressed his cheek and wiped his tears and found the strength to ignore the way he’d pant a dead woman’s name into a living corpse’s ear until the corpse had a baby and the baby became something new. So not at you.

“I expected so much more of you,” he says between the fragments of glass and clank of metal. Red bleeds from your palm as you try to pick up the pieces. “You’re so clever. So brilliant. You’re going to be wasted in that marriage, but you’ll tell Richard things when no one else is around and you’ll give him ideas. You’d be working for me if you had agreed to.” 

Your father is Augustus who is desperately searching for a successor but is finding them all dead. Dying. 

Companies and meetings and dinner parties with clients don’t make more children. More children don’t make better children. Fewer children still make worse. 

His head is in his hands and your blood stains his white shirt when you try to comfort him. You don’t know why you’re comforting him. “You’re all spoilt.” 

There’s a knock at the door. 

“Your brothers are home.” Dead. Dying. His eyes squint as though he has a headache and he reaches over to his cures. A globe set in mahogany. Fucking imperialism. He flicks open a latch, flicks open the globe. “Whisky?” 

You shake your head. 

“Too much of it. Dinner with the Lord Mayor, remember?” 

“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t shut up about Hong Kong.” 

“Had to drown him out.” 

“You had to drown him out,” echoes your father. As explicit a dismissal as he will ever give. 

Minnie is waiting outside.

“Heard a crash,” she says as she cradles your head and holds you. 

“Daddy wouldn’t,” you say back, but you’re not sure and you know that this is lost. “Do you know where the boys are?” 

“Caravan.” 

You’re not surprised. 

The Caravan is the pimp-seat of many a party. Far back in the field behind the garden, far away enough for the smell of weed to dissipate and the sounds of whatever event of the night to be inaudible. 

The boys like the Caravan because they can talk about things your mother would scold them for. They can hide and be easily found but not easily disturbed. They can be the three brothers they were before the woman your father loved was gone and your mother replaced her. 

It feels sacrilegious to step inside. Every time. But you do it. 

“Hello,” your older brother says immediately, half-shocked to get a look at you. He blinks a few times. “I thought you were in Spain?” 

“Obviously not.” It feels a little bit like when you had stood in Alexia’s doorway and she, puzzled, had let you in. They don’t want you here. They do want you here. No one can ever decide. 

You size the three of them up. All fatter. Rounder faces, happier faces. Circles of stress underneath their eyes regardless. Matching unintentionally in quarter-zips and chinos, wellies muddy just like yours. Muddy from the walk to the Caravan. A walk you despise. 

You point at your favourite. The third brother. The one who leaves and dies and returns to his sybaritic life because that’s how it works. 

“I need to talk to you,” you command. The boys — men, you should say — share a look. One that they wear when a woman tells them something and they cannot refuse: this one’s not a choice, mate. So he gets up, an obedient dog called to heel for once in his life, and follows you outside. You look back over your shoulder, nose scrunching at the stench of stale weed and dried bodily fluids. “Daddy’s cross with us, by the way. Says we’re all spoilt.” 

A guffaw. A rumble of protest.

Your third brother leads you to where you have always gone: the fence by the line of trees, the seat which the two of you carved out for each other. 

The confession bubbles out before you realise what you are saying. 

“I was fucking a woman. In Barcelona.” 

He smiles and you see the diamond-head of a poisonous snake before you. Even if the poison is slow to work. Even if you love the very thing that bites. 

“Fez won’t be too happy.” 

The look you give him is a pained one. How could he get to you too? The hurly-burly is almost done and you will be the only loser here. 

Maybe Alexia, as well. 

“I was fucking a woman too,” your brother then says, starting like a parable against merciless indulgence. Not that he speaks with a hint of regret. “She left. Didn’t want to see me ever again.” 

“What did you do?” you ask; this doesn’t feel like a diversion. 

He taps the side of his nose. “She wanted me to stop. I told her she couldn’t stop the inevitable.”

“The inevitable,” you mutter. Duty. Legacy. Maintenance. 

How has your family survived this long? 

How have they overcome their greed and cowardice? Mismanagement and selfish decisions? 

Duty. Legacy. Maintenance. 

“You’ll marry him, you know. You would choose this life every time.” 

“Would I?” 

His eyes meet yours. Nothing like yours. Haunted and still haunting. Your father must have relished in the shame of this son — an excuse never to look at those eyes — because this son is the picture of his love. And for all that precious love, he is still corrupted. 

Once upon a time, he would have told you what you wanted to hear. 

Yes, I’ll come to your concert. 

Yes, I’ll be home to see you. 

Yes, I love you more than anything in the world. 

Yes. I promise. 

Life is no longer a fairytale. 

“Every time.” 

You dream of Alexia that night, but then what happens doesn’t count. It’s a dream. Not real. 

Kisses empty, hands too light. An illusion. 

It’s all an illusion. All a trick. 

…

You fucking hate football and you fucking hate football matches. It’s far too jovial and loud and the colours give you a headache. Bad company, too. 

Carlota’s rather smug today. You’ve ventured to Madrid for some final, not too frustrated as the last Christmas present you needed to dole out had to be picked up anyway. Alexia has mentioned a Supercopa the other day when explaining why she’d be gone for a few days. “You have a TV,” she’d stated, breathless as you tried to shut her up with wandering hands. 

It wasn’t your idea to come to the match, though. If it were, you’d at least be in a box (although the godforsaken stadium doesn’t have a single one). Yet Carlota insists that pitchside is more fun, eyes glimmering with sparks of subterfuge. “The players feel real, like people rather than Papá’s investments. Not that you needed more proof.” 

And so, because you neglect to tell her and she neglects to scan the stadium before the match, Alexia doesn’t know that you’re here. 

She’s not playing selfishly. Not really. Her passes are crisp and her transitions fast, and she feels so alive. She always feels alive when she’s playing football. Even when the match is theirs and Madrid is simply scrambling for a consolidation-goal. 

She lets herself enjoy it. A little flair, a step over and a nutmeg. A long ball to change play. A pass that makes her instrumental on the pitch. 

The Madrid player panics as she comes towards her, white shirt waving like a white flag and her surrender slightly pathetic. She doesn’t even try with her tackle; it’s just plain dirty. Ankles. Studs. 

It hurts a little bit but Alexia will get over it. She trained enough in December to have reinforced her steel and bolstered her hatches. 

Mapi points at her and then at herself. Alexia presses her finger into her chest. 

She’ll take the freekick. 

The referee hands her the ball, shouting at the Madrid players to stop jostling the Barça players and for the Barça players to be patient for a moment. It’s a tense moment. The football is grassy and slippery and everything she knows. 

The football is her life, her focus, her reason. 

Not you. No. 

The football. 

Football. 

Alexia turns to the crowd, absorbing the energy from already-celebrating culers. 

And you. A hallucination, because she obviously thinks about you too much. Because she can’t stop, not even when she’s playing football. 

Except, she wouldn’t imagine Carlota beside you with her arms crossed and a smug smile plastered on her lips. Nor would she have this fantasy with you in a white jumper, because she’s not an idiot and it’s naked or her Barça jersey. Nor would you be trying very hard not to look at her like you’re enjoying it, glaring futilely as if the whole debacle is a nuisance. 

You’re not going crazy, you mouth to Alexia when she stares for a moment too long, never abandoning your quest for indifference. 

Alexia takes in a deep, deep breath. 

She barely cares when she kicks the ball and it flies into the back of the net. 

After, there is singing and dancing and cheering in the changing rooms. Steam rolls out from the showers like a warrior’s mist on a Homeric battlefield, engulfing Real Madrid’s wounded as they crawl away in a staggering defeat that renders them humiliated and far from catching up to Alexia’s favourite team in the whole, wide world. 

Your text is better than the medal slung around her neck and the trophy Mapi has forced her to chug champagne from. 

Meet me afterwards? You’ll see me when you come outside. 

Oh and keep the medal on.

Her response is instantaneous: 

10 mins.

She’s showered. She’s changed. She’s victorious. 

And then she’s ambushed, and it feels a lot like the engagement party last September. This wolf pack’s average age is considerably lower, though. 

“Jana, Patri, Kika.” Her voice is firm. The names blur into one. It’s also too impatient for someone who doesn’t have somewhere else to be. 

Patri is grinning, face tinged with red from the exertion of the conga line around the room that has only just ended. Her medal is on, too, although the ribbon must be very durable to have coped with the movement. 

“You,” Patri says as she plonks down beside Alexia conspirationally, “were impressive. Impressing.” 

Alexia doesn’t bother looking up, choosing instead to adjust her socks as if a wrinkle would ruin her outfit. She’s in team-issued sweats. She’s a footballer and that’s clear and so she plays dumb, even to her kind. 

“I was enjoying myself.” 

Jana sits down on her other side. “If I nutmegged half of Madrid and smirked about it, you’d give me a talking to about egos and sportsmanship and not letting ‘it’ get to my head.” 

“You’d never do that,” Alexia states with the implication of that scenario being impossible for reasons other than Jana’s profound professionalism and maturity. When she gets called ‘feisty’, she digs her grave deeper. “And maybe I was in a good mood.” 

“Mmm,” Patri hums, glancing at Jana and then at Kika, who’s blocking Alexia from scurrying away. “See, I only get that kind of good mood when my family is visiting to watch me play. A rare occurrence, which you don’t understand. But it’s a case of caring about them caring. Wanting to make it worth coming to.” 

Alexia’s eyes dart between the three. 

“What are you getting at?” 

Kika peels a banana and takes a bite out of it, the smell pungent and unwelcome amongst the waft of sweat and alcohol. She raises her eyebrows in encouragement and that seems to be the signal to abandon subtly. 

“Was she here?” 

Alexia stares. Not at any of them in particular. Just gormlessly and innocently, as if she’s going to get away with this. 

“Who?” 

“Oh, come on,” Jana groans. “Your woman. The girlfriend. She was in the crowd!” 

Alexia exhales, slow and measured but only for practicality. Only because she will protest but doesn’t know how just yet. “I don’t have a–”

“Don’t insult us with that bullshit,” Patri cuts in. “We’re not blind. You completely froze and looked into the crowd right before your freekick. Like you were soaking up someone else’s support.” 

“I have no recollection of that. Could’ve been anyone.” 

It’s a poor defence. 

“Sure,” Jana snorts. “Anyone you let tear up your back and leave scratch marks that show up through your training shirt.” 

(That had been a good night.) 

The banana in Kika’s mouth soon becomes a choking hazard, but there is hardly anyone left in the changing room to care. Most people are now celebrating on the bus. 

“I’m just saying,” continues the stupid, naive, and nosy defender, voice steady like she has become the team’s latest statistician. “The hickey under her jaw last week wasn’t subtle. And she missed that one team dinner. When I asked where she was, Mapi said ‘occupied’.”

“Occupied,” Patri repeats, pretending to be solemn. It’s a jarring situation to be in. “That must have been in the biblical sense, right, Ale?”

Alexia covers her face with her hands, because this is embarrassing and she probably doesn’t have enough time to be interrogated. 

“You’re both disgusting.” 

Jana’s correction comes in swiftly. “We’re observant. You think you’re subtle, but we literally watched you try to a hide a smile when you got a text just now–” 

“Smiles can be prompted by things other than my imaginary girlfriend.” Lie. Twists the knife, the lie, but she’s saving herself here and she’s left with few options. 

“Yeah, yeah, capi.” Kika’s not convinced. It’s like the three of them can smell dishonesty. 

Patri leans in. “So, was she there?” 

Alexia shrugs. 

“Maybe.” 

“Maybe, she says!” Patri rolls her eyes. “That was a give-me-another-Balón-de-Oro performance but for one woman who will probably sleep with you tonight. You don’t need to do that stuff to impress people, Ale, because you already do.” 

The compliment is wrapped in betrayal, but Patri is never serious enough for Alexia to feel guilty. 

Her phone buzzes again. 

It’s been 8 but hurry up. I have a surprise for you. 

Alexia sighs dramatically, but her smile is audible and the girls almost shriek. “Well. I’ve been summoned.” Jana’s finger is spasming as she points at the device, like she’s pressing a self-destruct button over and over again. Before they can scream that the ‘maybe’ has just texted her and they caught her at the scene of the crime, Alexia stands up. “Adéu. Estoy orgullosa de vosotras.” 

Barbed comment lingering in the air as she reminds them of her position as captain-wisewoman-mentor, Alexia saunters off. She’s quite intrigued about the surprise. 

The press gets ignored as Alexia marches towards you. They shout questions and congratulate her for her goal and the win, but not even her favourite journalist can get her to stop. The dregs of the players following her are swept up in their storm instead.

It’s funny. 

The first thing she sees when she leaves the stadium is a barrage of fans pressed against a few metal barriers. So much excitement, so much anticipation. 

The fans aren’t her prying teammates or the journalists who weave different meanings into her words and make her stop reading the news. The fans are supportive and loving and they worship her. They are a reward for her victories and hard work. They are like diamonds set in gold, each competing to shine the most for her attention. 

She can’t walk past them. It wouldn’t be right. 

Alexia gives her softest smile to the little girl in front of her, crouched slightly to be eye-level, the weight of the medal around her neck brushing the girl’s jacket as she leans in for a photo. It’s a tender moment – a reprieve that makes her forget about the ache ache in her thighs, the raucous changing room, the endless questions. The little girl beams, cheeks flushed with happiness, and Alexia ruffles her untidy curls gently before standing back up. 

Then a horn blares. 

A sharp, confident beep-beep that slices through the clamour. 

She turns instinctively, brows furrowed. The tide of noise goes out before rushing back in like a haphazard crescendo, full of reactions to the Porsche 911 cruising towards their beloved footballer. Her jaw tightens, not out of irritation, but because her stomach is suddenly tight, too. 

You’re behind the wheel, shades on as though you can’t be fucked to show the rest of the world where you choose to fix your gaze. It’s ridiculous. Perfect. And when you pull to a stop, stepping out slowly, the car door closes with a soft thunk and you don’t say a word. You just fold your arms across your chest, smirk set deeply, nails painted a new shade of fuck-me red after you had them trimmed for increasingly frequent acts of lesbianism. 

Alexia short-circuits. 

Absolutely freezes for half a second before reality shoves time forwards. 

Doesn’t know if this reality is a reality her body can take. 

She looks away, quickly, just in case the way her mouth goes dry can be seen on the videos that are undoubtedly being recorded. She’s still next to the cluster of fans, but her attention is now a tornado that will shred anything that isn’t you. 

Her gaze flickers back to the girl she’s just taken the photo with, suddenly remembering that she’s still there, clutching a sharpie and looking up at her idol with wide eyes. A very selfish part of Alexia also remembers that the girl has already got her photo.

“I–” Alexia begins, then stammers, then resets. She crouches back down, hands on her knees, not sure what she’s going to say until the words come out. “I have to go now, nena. My… my friend is here.” 

The girl’s mother pats her on the shoulder. “Even footballers need to get lifts,” she says calmly. Responsibly. 

Alexia thanks her with her eyes. The woman cocks her head ever so slightly to the side: she gets it. 

She waves goodbye, thanking the rest of them outloud, and then turns. She starts walking towards you. 

Each step is a test of strength. Stay composed, don’t run, don’t trip, don’t drop her toiletries bag. Her hands are sweating. 

By the time she reaches you, you’ve already walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for her. 

It’s declaratively possessive. 

She doesn’t even try to hide the way she oggles. You look maddeningly good. She can smell your perfume – the one that you wore at the exhibition opening, the one that acted as a fucking pheromone and drove her crazy until she could finally fuck you. She clenches her jaw. 

“You could’ve warned me.” 

The seats are wine-red and leather. Comfortable in an uncomfortable way. She places her toiletries bag by her feet and the car roars into life once more. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” you tease.

You’re pouting. You’re fucking pouting. You leave her and you fuck her and you do things like this. Things that mean you care but prove that you don’t. 

The engine sings as you drive out of the stadium carpark. Alexia’s body harmonises. 

“You could’ve told me you were coming,” she says next, because it’s easier than telling you how happy she is that you did. 

“I didn’t know I was.”

“So you were going on a drive around Madrid in this? Por casualidad.” 

You click your tongue and take one hand off the steering wheel, flicking your shades up as if you’ve had enough of the show. You’re clear of spies now. 

“It’s not my car, actually.” And Alexia thinks you’ve gone mad. You’ve finally cracked – your family, your engagement, your thing with her… it has gotten to you! It was only a matter of time, she supposes. 

You laugh. 

“Ale, your face.” 

You called her Ale. 

“Hm. No, it’s not my car. It’s a belated Feliz Navidad.” 

“A belated…” she trails off. Commits the word ‘belated’ to memory for when she needs it. “Carlota gave you a car?” 

You laugh again. This feels cruel. She doesn’t know where you’re taking her. 

“Carlota’s never bought me anything past a packet of gum at a Tesco.” Alexia groans. She hates being at your mercy like this; when it’s obvious that you have her ensnared and begging to stay. “You’re very slow, hunky footballer.” 

She opens her mouth to protest but words don’t come fast enough to beat you to it. 

“Obviously, this is your Christmas present.” 

Alexia blinks. 

Then she blinks again. 

She stares at you, at the road, at the leather interior like maybe it’ll explain what’s happening. Like maybe the seats will sprout lips and vocal cords and the ability to say, this is yours. Start crying now. 

“No lo entiendo…” she finally mutters.

You glance at her quickly, smirk muted now, before slowing down and turning onto a quieter street lined with trees that are ready for winter to be over. To the right, there’s a small restaurant with warm lights and a waiter standing outside smoking a cigarette. 

“You heard me.” 

“It’s mine?” Where would she even park this? She only has two spaces in her complex. 

You hum. “Yours.” 

Alexia scoffs. “You–” she gestures vaguely at the dashboard, the doors, the image of you sitting in her car saying ‘yours’ like it refers to something else. “You can’t just buy me a car. For Christmas. I didn’t get you anything!” 

“It came late,” you offer kindly, as if that is going to make her feel less confused. “You make me come so hard I think I’ve met the most controversial man of omnipotence.” 

Alexia chokes. Actually chokes on spit. In her mouth. It’s ungraceful and pathetic and it makes your smile widen. 

“I’m just kidding. I thought it was a practical gift and I hate your other car.” 

“I have to drive the Cupra. It’s a sponsorship deal.” 

“Not the Cupra,” you reply. You’re pulling up on the curb, parking the Porsche on the road as though it’s a bog-standard Ford that’s running out of miles and missing a window. “The other one. I’m so sick of seeing the buggers zip around.”

You’ve always wanted to stick your middle finger up at your father. Being photographed with a footballer, driving her like a chauffeur, and doing all of that in a Porsche? So deserved. Possibly stroke-inducing.

“Your family owns the make.” 

A flicker of surprise crosses your face. Alexia must have finally looked you up. “And it’s not as cool as this. This is yours. Free from shackles. No sponsorship deal here.” It’s also not tainted by the other girls Alexia has presumably picked up in her sleaze-car. It’ll be claimed by you (the two of you) when you have sex in it later. 

Forcefully, Alexia breathes in and out until she feels a bit calmer. You seem to encourage this, staying put for as long as it takes. 

When she’s done, you tap her thigh lightly. 

“Let’s get some lunch. Afterwards, I’ll take you back to the team hotel.” Alexia briefly wonders where Carlota must be if you’re here with her. “Then tomorrow, when you’re recovered, come pick me up. You’ve got to drive this thing back to Barcelona and it would be bad manners to leave you in solitude.” 

Captain Alexia Putellas is wearing a medal that she has won multiple times before. She has so many golds that she’d probably lose track of this one on the shelf. 

She has led her team to greatness once more. 

She has come out on top. 

She is the best. 

Yet she can only nod at you, limp and turned on and confused.

“Como quieras,” she breathes.

…

It’s sunny outside today. It’s nice. Pleasant. 

Alexia looks good with her hair down like this. Relaxed in spite of her life and this mess. Sexy. 

She doesn’t understand the concept of buttons when she’s with you, leaving her oversized shirt open like a glorified coat. You can see her nipples through her bralette. You curse the breeze on the balcony. 

A thought swims into mind. 

Lick them. 

You shake it out of your head. It would be an absurd reaction to her ranting about her sister and her opinions or whatever it is she is so passionate about. You have no idea how you have crept into morning coffees like this. 

But Alexia notices your eyes lingering too low down. Of course she does. 

She pauses midsentence. Her lips stay parted, but the words evaporate. 

You’re still holding your mug (a ghastly thing she made at a pottery workshop and claims to remind her of you), but drinking from it seems impossible. As if you can’t remember. The ceramic is warm in your hands, but your gaze is warmer, drifting up only when it’s too late. 

You’ve been caught.

She arches an eyebrow. “¿Estás escuchándome o qué?”

Your mouth opens. Closes. You like when she speaks Spanish. When she husks it out in acquiescence, as if she’s given into something. A fantasy. A present just for you even though she speaks it all the time. 

Bumbling, you settle on, “sort of.” 

“Sort of,” she repeats, a little smirk curling the corner of her mouth. She shifts on the metal chair, and the shirt falls further off one shoulder like it’s a provocation. “What were you thinking about?” 

The mug makes a soft clink as you set it down on the chairs’ matching table. “Does it matter?” 

Alexia leans forwards, arms crossing under her chest, abs flexed beneath that. You could take a photograph. You’d submit it to National Geographic. You’d buy Carlota’s painting of her too. So that no one else can see it: no one else should get to see this. 

“That depends on your answer.” 

You should look away and dig deep for a slither of self-restraint. Instead, you exhale slowly through your nose. “I was thinking,” you say, voice low, “about how silly it would be to pretend I wasn’t staring.”

“Oh?” She’s standing up now, every muscle flexing and tensing and bulging and stirring up something very primal. “Honest and horny? What a woman you are.” 

It sounds a little too soft. A little too like she’s just as in awe of you as you are her. But you don’t care or you don’t hear it, because you’re only looking hungrier and Alexia is too addicted to that to come clean. She really should come clean. 

“I try,” you murmur, and in two steps, she’s in front of you. Not kissing you, but close enough that the fabric of her shirt brushes your leg. 

She smells like the coconut from her morning shower. You think of your au pair, of her fingers stroking down your back as you cried and cried and cried, distraught with having too many people and distraught with having no one at all. Alexia’s skin is warm from the sun, her thigh brushing yours as she leans in. 

“I know you want to kiss me,” she states, grinning. She looks pretty when she grins. You like her teeth. And that it’s not playful, not innocent. Her eyes drop to your lips. “Bésame, idiota.”

You lean forwards. Her hand comes up, brushing a strand of hair from your cheek, journeying to your jaw and grazing the bone there. 

Bone could touch bone. Bone wants to touch bone. So desperately. So earnestly. 

And there’s a gap of longing before you kiss her. She doesn’t know if you feel it; the throb of her feelings, the need and the want and the pure power of having you. She doesn’t know if she’d want you to. If that would be moral. Or fair. 

But it’s there. No one can deny that. 

You chalk it down to her being attractive and you, ovulating. 

You might be ovulating? 

The kiss lands slowly. Deliberate, at first. A test of will and a taste of bitter coffee because sugar isn’t allowed like that. Her mouth is soft, steady: she knows how to kiss away the layers of your lips until she can finally get to the truth. Even if that truth is never heard. 

One hand slides behind your neck, firm and coaxing, pulling you in deeper. You tug gently at the edge of her shirt. This is the forbidden fruit but it is sweet and it is warm and the shirt is gone – on the floor where it doesn’t matter. Good, you think, the chair creaking quietly under the combined weight of new hips on your hips, thighs on your thighs. 

“Alexia,” you gasp into her mouth, words becoming breath that she chooses to ignore. Alexia has blinded herself when given a warning. She no longer heeds them. She doesn’t have it in her. 

She kisses you again, tongue moving with a hungry rhythm. Her weight settles more fully in your lap, strong muscle a force that is satisfyingly suffocating. She’s warm. The chair protests again but it possesses no authority, and it could go on groaning as much as it’d like because it would never be heard. You can’t exist past Alexia and her mouth and her tongue and the coffee and everything that makes your insides twist. 

You reach up, fingertips trailing over the strong planes of her back. Her skin is pulsing under your touch. Her shoulder blades extend and contract like wings – like Icarus, like she is chasing the golden luxury of the Sun. You pretend not to know how that story ends. 

Her kiss stutters when your palm slides under the bralette, lifting it up. You hear her sigh, sharp and shaky. You feel it in your mouth, too. Her hands dig into you, holding herself steady as she tenses and relaxes and tells you to keep touching her. You’re craving. 

Her nipples are hard against your fingers and you can’t help yourself. You circle your thumb once. Slowly. 

She shudders. A snake bites in the back of your mind and you wonder if this is too intimate. Too special. 

Too good to be true. 

But she responds with a throaty sound of approval. Or demand. 

She breaks the kiss, breath coming fast. “You’re…” Her voice falters, lashes fluttering as her forehead dips to yours. “You’re worse than me.”

It has no meaning, really. You’re both as bad as each other. 

You’re grinning proudly anyway. “You like that.” 

She doesn’t argue. She rolls her hips once, firm and intentional. You bite your lip so hard you taste metal and red. She’s still straddling you, powerful and deliberate and trembling under your touch. 

“You’re so warm,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “Podría vivir dentro de ti. Quiero vivir dentro de ti.” 

“You’re too big,” you tease, but in this context it feels like something different and it only spurs another roll of her hips. 

You bury your face into the crook of her neck, biting lightly, tasting the sweat just starting to form. She chuckles at your groan, but you only murmur, “this is what you do to me,” into her and she leaves you be. Until her hand brushes yours, latches onto it, pulls it down from her chest and pushes it towards the waistband of her pyjama shorts. 

“I need you,” she whispers when you resist the guidance into her underwear. 

“The neighbours are getting a show.”

“A good show.” Her voice is breathy and weak and she needs you (she told you that already). 

Your eyes dart from the blonde hair hanging over your face like a canopy to the eyes that go with it and then to the other balconies in your view. There’s an old lady sitting not too far away who has made a point of turning her chair around. 

“Inside,” you say. 

There’s no more fuss after that. 

She’s wet and ready and it doesn’t take much. A few strokes of your fingers  have her falling into your body like she trusts you to catch her. The floor is cold against your bare skin but it’s fine. You don’t care. 

And then Alexia stands – chiselled as though Doryphoros and Aphrodite have become one. You can’t resist worshipping that. She seems to feel the same. 

Her tongue is skilled and precise. Meticulously. Competitive. 

She makes you come quicker than you did her, wiping the sweat from your brow after you point that out like it’s supposed to be a complaint, shutting you up by kissing you with messy, greedy lips. Hates when you complain. Hates that you’ll never be satisfied and she’ll never be satisfied and none of this will never be enough. 

“Easy-peasy,” she says when she flops onto the sofa with you in her lap. 

You laugh. 

“Who taught you that?” 

She scoffs. “I know English.”

You scoff too. “If you say so.” Then, when you have caught your breath and decided that this is the best exercise and this is what keeps your heart beating and this is something you cannot live without, you pose your challenge: “Do you know what a hen party is?” 

Her face twists with the effort to come up with an idea. “I need a hint.” 

“It’s before a wedding.” 

The wedding, specifically, but that would taint the feeling of her arm around your waist and your head on her chest. 

“Una despedida de soltera. With the women and the bride. Friends, no?” 

You smile. “Yeah. Americans call it a ‘bachelorette party’.” 

“Eso,” she says, triumphant. Her accent curls around the ‘r’s when she repeats it in English and you don’t correct her. You like it too much. 

You look up at her: a flushed face and parted lips. A bruise blossoming just behind her ear. You want to touch her, to reach out your hand and press it along your face, feel each indent and mould it into clay. You could have it done. Have a portrait made. Have it hung in Notting Hill and pretend you care about women’s sports.

You could immortalise Alexia if you wanted to. 

You realise you want to. 

“Come to mine.” 

She’s tensing under you now, her heartbeat speeding. But she has to act normal. She has to. 

“Where is it?” she asks, painfully drawn out as though it has been forced. 

“Zanzibar.” 

She shakes her head. “That’s too far. I don’t have time.” 

“I’d move it,” you murmur sincerely. “I would. But I can’t.” You frown, desperate to convince her. “If it’s money–” 

“It’s not money–” 

“It’s all paid for. A private island. There’ll be, like, five other people. And you can meet my friends.” That’s not quite the correct number, but you’d argue a case of semantics. 

Alexia’s not sure she wants to do that. 

“Carlota will be there.” 

It’s held out like a prize, a reward. She has to give you this. It’s fucking February. 

“Carlota hates me,” Alexia points out, her voice squirming to get out of this even if she physically remains underneath you. 

“Hannah will be there?” you offer instead.

Alexia sighs. She remembers everything everyone has said. She knows she will hate this and she… she loves you, but– “I am out of place in this life.”

Really, she means she will be out of place in a celebration of your marriage to someone else. The feelings are buried but they are not gone, instead having taken root deep in her stomach that leaves it churning at every mention of her impending doom. 

“I want you there,” you set out firmly. “The girls are harmless, really. And they’d be impressed by you.” You run a hand up her arm. “We’d have our own villa. Right in a lagoon. It’s two in each one.” 

“Do people not care?” 

You shrug. “Doesn’t matter what they think.” 

“This is fucking insane.” She shakes her head. “You’re insane.” 

“I had my… assistant—” Not your assistant, but rather your handler. “Check your calendar. We arranged it to coincide with the international window. Apparently, you can miss that.” 

She groans, because it’s tempting but it’s not putting her career first and that’s what should be her priority. “Montse already hates me.” 

“I’ll talk to her myself.” 

“She’s not a reasonable woman.” 

You smirk. “Neither am I.” 

“I don’t want to miss camp.” 

“It’s two matches. Belgium and England. If you really want, I’ll have you on a chartered flight to London before you play England. I know you’re taken with the country.” 

“Taken?” She knows the word in various contexts — has studied it in gruelling English lessons. She can’t tell what you meant though. 

“Well, I’m from England.” 

“You support England?” 

She’d never thought about this properly. 

“Darling, you know I don’t give a fuck about football.” 

“Oh, sí que sé.” 

“So. Coming? Or going to leave me alone in a lagoon villa with seven other insufferable brats, unfucked? In a bikini… in the sun… on a private island that’s basically just you and me.” 

“It is your bachelorette party.” 

You laugh. “Yeah, so I’m still perfectly on the market.” 

“I need to go back for the England game.” 

“I’ll call my father and ask for the family plane.” 

She thinks you’re joking. 

You’re not. 

You don’t know what you want with Alexia half the time. She’s too confusing and you’re too elusive and the wedding date is constantly crawling closer, so you need this. 

It can be the end. It can be the middle. It can be anything. 

But it needs to be real. 

You press a kiss to her neck, the silence now far too emotional and heavy and distracting. You should probably get going – Alexia has training and you have, well, whatever you have. Maybe you’ll pester Carlota at the studio. Maybe you’ll call Saskia. 

A cord of muscle protrudes from her neck and you want to bite it. She stops you. 

“You have a plane?” 

You don’t answer. 

She moves, unsettled. The wild animal stays wild and cannot be tamed. It can be befriended but bangs and pops will always scare it away. 

“I need to go to training.” You stand up, too. You don’t want to be the only one with fingers in the pie. “I can take you to Carlota’s house.” 

“No need. Same destination.” 

She raises an eyebrow. “Fucking another footballer on the side?” 

It’s barbed. Thorns to hide a soft fleshy middle. Insecurity. She wants to be the only one. 

“Richard is there.” 

She’s not the only one. Can’t be. Not when you’re you and you’re beautifully greedy, so politely soul-destroying. She knows she’s not but it still hurts every time she remembers. 

“Car deal with the men’s team. Scam, again. We benefit more. The cars are getting a reputation for being too classic and chic.” It’s said like a bad thing. Her confusion spurs you on, and you’re now in nice clothes that are hers, taken from her wardrobe and suddenly made classic and chic, too. “Money needs business. Footballers have more money than the gents these days.” 

“Too much money,” Alexia finds herself agreeing, swept downstream and no longer fighting the current. She opens the car door for you; you slip into the passenger seat. Let her hold your thigh until the training facility comes into view. You say nothing when she pulls over quickly — not late because she always leaves early — and leans over the console, leans over with one objective in mind. 

“You left a hickey,” you say as you pull your jumper down. Cashmere. Her jumper, actually. You reapply your nude lipstick and wipe the old coat from Alexia’s lips. 

She plays dumb. 

You sigh. 

“I guess it can’t be seen unless someone tries to kiss me there again.” You say it teasingly. Her jealousy is sweet. Cute. A joke. 

She shouldn’t be jealous. 

The girls are confused by her bad mood. Alexia doesn’t have bad moods these days, since these days are good and happy. 

“What happened?” asks Irene very gently, because she knows about fragility and love. She knows about this, too, because Mapi knows. Alba can’t keep a secret so big: Alba needs to let it out sometimes. “You need to smile. The big boss is giving a tour today. They’re going to watch us train for a bit. Before the men’s team.” 

“We’re an appetiser,” Alexia says. Irene gives a bitter laugh. Alexia knows that laugh, has laughed that laugh herself. So much change but so much change is needed still. A whirlpool really. Circles.

“Ponte las botas.” 

She goes out. 

The girls are chattering until she tells them to be quiet. Silence ripples with fear. 

“The club has an important sponsor touring today.” Murmurs of excitement. Poor sods. “Sports cars… for the men’s team. But we want them to look at us too. Don’t we?” 

They nod. Soldiers in their ranks. Agamemnon is speaking and telling them not to give up on the ninth year of the war. 

“Train hard. Keep the intensity high. Mistakes will be punished.” 

This morning’s Alexia is dead. Soft, sun-kissed, sipping coffee and kissing lithely. It all disintegrates now. She’ll be made a fool of in her home, but this team will not suffer at your hands.

The whistle blows and things should make sense. The drills should be simple and comforting. But Alexia just feels stupid. 

She’s a fucking idiot. 

And you’re watching. You’re watching her quite intently, hand in the man’s hand. Smirking. Having your cake and eating it. 

There’s a water break. Vicky’s got a cramp and the physios call for a reprieve. It’s only training, but training harder does make you stronger. 

Jana and Salma are talking and they pull Alexia in. She’s half grateful to have avoided Irene’s pity. Salma and Jana are saying things that make Alexia feel sick, though. 

“Hostia, qué guapo.” Salma likes boys but it’s Jana who says this. “Y rico.” 

“Eres lesbiana,” Salma says as she squirts water in Jana’s face. “Le tengo yo. Yo me quedo aquí para ver si le gusto.” 

Alexia’s face twists. “No seas desesperada. Tiene novia.”

“¿Novia? Un hombre como él puede tener to’ lo que quiere. De cualquiera.” 

“Tía,” Jana says, resting her hand on Alexia’s shoulder. “Mírale. I would fuck him. For money or for fun.” 

“I’d let him do dirty, dirty things to me.” 

“I’d suck—”

“Basta,” Alexia warns. “He’s decent. Probably a horrible person. You could do better.” 

The girls look at their captain for a moment. A rare occurrence to wind her up enough and get a response. Alexia takes a sip of her drink. 

“The girlfriend’s hot too. I’d have a threesome,” Jana continues anyway, with no trepidation or sense of self-preservation. Dumb kids. 

“Yeah, me too. I mean, look at those tits.” 

Alexia’s jaw tightens. Someone is in her pantry stealing her food.

She inhales sharply. 

The vultures turn on their heels with hungry stares. She’s suddenly becoming very interesting. 

Salma smirks, elbowing her lightly. “What? You’re thinking it too.” 

“I don’t objectify people I don’t know.” 

“That’s the only type of people you can objectify!” 

“No.” It’s firm. They’ve crossed the line. Who knows why. “No, they’re our sponsors. Not some fantasy.” 

It’s not a fantasy. Not anymore. Not when she can see how perfect you look with him, slotting into place in the machine which you built and own. His hand holding your hand. Joan Laporta remarking about beautiful couples and his invite to the wedding. 

The whistle blows. Training resumes.

I’m a fucking idiot, Alexia thinks again. 

…

Every fortnight, the Barça girls get a day off. Alexia hates them, trains anyway. Wakes up early so she doesn’t lose the routine — you get out of the routine, you get out of the habit of winning. If you don’t win, what have you done then? 

She doesn’t care today.

Today she is asleep. With you. Dozing until the afternoon because you do this a lot and you don’t want her to leave for the gym or her massage or any stupid sponsorship deal. “I’ll give you more money than them,” you grumble, face in her neck.

The threat feels real. She stays. Can’t not stay. Wishes she could get up and leave you but won’t be able to ever leave you, will only be able to be left.

You’re warm. Soft. Cuddled into her side, leg slung over her hips, deadweight but nothing, too. Asleep, breathing deeply. 

Alexia’s not asleep. The sun is too bright and her body is screaming in contradiction and pleasure and pain. All at once. It’s slightly overwhelming. 

You don’t wake up. 

She lies there. Patiently. 

Thinks about how used to this you are. So much money, so much time. Time is yours to mould, malleable under your command. Alexia is like time, in regards to you. A toy, isn’t she? A doll whose arms move when you want them too. Life revolves around you. You’re too enticing. More enticing because you know you’re enticing. More privileged because you know it’s all yours for the taking. And she’s taken. All of her. 

She wants to die here. Die and live in this moment. There’s not an afterlife, has come to terms with the fact that Papi is dead and dead means gone. Gone means not here, though she feels him in her bones. Alexia’s only a footballer, reckons you’re better equipped to ponder about the meaning of things. A purpose for someone who does not need one. She assumes that the philosophers she has never thought about were the same. Alexia has no time for wisdom like that. 

“Thinking?” 

You’re awake. She checks the time. It’s late to have just come back to life. 

“I made a bad pass,” she says. She can’t subscribe to your thoughts. Needs to show you that she’s different. Needs to convince herself that she’s thinking about football. 

“I’ve never… been with an athlete before you. But I like the simplicity.” You’re calling her stupid, probably.

She pokes your stomach. Wants it to feel like a dagger, like Macbeth with his illusions and his guilt and passive blame. Could blame someone else. When asked about this later, she’ll say she was fogged by too much pressure. This can’t be her fault. 

“You sleep so long.” 

“Hopefully, one day I won’t wake up.” You smile. Alexia hated the thought of that, more than she’s growing to hate you. Hated you because she loves you, though. Hates that you don’t feel the same. 

She caresses your cheek, leans in to kiss you. Her phone rings instead. 

“On ets?” Oh. It’s her mother. 

“Hola, Mamá. A casa.”

You turn over, bare skin exposed as the duvet folds over on itself. Alexia reaches out to touch you. Draws her hand back in. 

“Doncs, afanya’t. Avui dinem juntes.” You wake up really fucking late. “Porta la noia també — ja ho sé, amor, ja ho sé.” 

Hates her mother too. Perceptive. Knows her too well. 

Her mother knows that she has bought a new bikini. Had asked her where she’s going, because it’s February and Alexia doesn’t get breaks. Or doesn’t take them. Whatever. 

Zanzibar, Alexia had revealed. Had said the hotel was sponsoring her. Lying to her mother was something she did to protect her. 

Yes, I’m fine. 

Yes, I can sort out the funeral. 

Yes, I can pay for this, Mamá. 

Yes, I like the fame, because the fame means I can pay for you now. The fame makes me rich, Mamá, for you, Mamá, and I like it. 

“Was that your mum?” You’re sitting up and cupping her cheek. You’re naked and she wants, wants, wants, but her family calls. “Can I stay here? Carlota and Hannah are in Capri.” 

She kisses you. Delays her answers, wants to think about what she’s doing even if she’ll do it anyway. Your hand brushes across her knee, across the surgery scar. It hurts when you touch it — a phantom ache but an ache nonetheless. You touch it and it isn’t healed. Wants you to heal her, though. Wants you. 

“¿Tienes hambre?” 

The drive to Mollet isn’t long. She lives close to home. An amusing thought. Buckinghamshire can go fuck itself, because West London is a microcosm but at least it’s a different county. Alexia must love home. Must not want to escape it. 

A clamour surrounds the Porsche as it rolls through narrow streets. Streets narrowed by cars parked on both sides, mind. No driveways here. No estates. No crunching gravel underneath expensive tyres. Not here, not in Mollet del Vallès. Only the clamour of little children squealing at the sight of the woman behind the wheel, hands reaching out to run along the shiny metal until Catalan barks out of the car and warns them not to get fingerprints on such a pristine surface. Still, they engulf the car with footballs in their small arms and questions of when said footballs will be kicked around in the cages with their idol. On the streets, they offer. Anywhere. 

They’re excited to see her. Alexia smiles. Hopes you’re smiling too. 

Eventually, after a slow journey to her final destination, she parks up. You look out of place against the satellite dishes and plastic balcony chairs. She leads you inside the building she once called home anyway. 

“You’re taking me to your family.” There’s that Oxford degree. Genius. Worked it out the moment you left. For some reason, you chose not to demand she turn around. “Why?” 

“You said you were hungry.” Not the real reason. Alexia couldn’t name the real reason if she tried. Desperation, probably. Alexia can’t just be a body if the body has a family and a home and a life that you can be tempted into. 

The lift’s broken. You’re happy to take the stairs – it’s only three flights. The lights make a buzzing sound. You imagine that for all Carlota has tried to give you, this is the true life of the Catalan people. Carlota can speak the language all she wants. Doesn’t compare, though. 

3A. Nice. “Alba and I shared a room until we moved here,” Alexia says quietly. “We hated being separated. She used to sleep in my bed.” It sounds pained. The bond can never be broken but this rope is taught. She opens the door because it’s never locked. You drop her hand, following her inside. 

You have grown up in a stately home. That’s what they’re called. You can’t escape the name. Minnie is a servant, really, as much as she is a mother and a wisewoman, too. Minnie lives in fear that she will lose her job to the National Trust. That the money will run out and the wings will close one by one, from west to east like a setting sun. For dignity’s sake, the sun should’ve set decades ago. But duty, legacy, maintenance. Sell out to a corporation. Make money like it’s new money. Grow up in a stately home and cling to being stately. Buy a Louis Vuitton bag in anger of growing up in a stately home. Give the bag away to a friend from China, whose father is a CCP tycoon with a packing peanut empire. Resign to the notion that you have grown up in a stately home and all other walks of life will hate you. Resent you. Eat you, because that is what they should do. 

Hope one day to say we lost Belle Reve and go crazy. Instead, you know that Richard brings salvation. Not an heir, but a reinforcement if the dead and dying brothers kick the bucket and Caesar Augustus is truly fucked. 

You look at the flat. Small. Loved. Frayed at the edges but the fraying fabric has been kissed and smells of sweet, old perfume. You wish you could marry Alexia in this moment. Absorb the life, be absorbed by the life. Die in the smell of something traditional and secret, with the soft chatter of her mother berating her for losing track of time. Hear the words ‘family is important’ and not want to bring a knife to your wrists. 

A kiss is pressed to your cheek. “Hola, cariño. ¿Qué tal?” 

Familiarity even where it’s not warranted. 

“Pleasure to meet you.” Politeness has been drilled into you. Reception, learning to pour from a teapot. Eight-years-old, dinner, finally allowed, with esteemed guests who pinch cheeks and ask you about horseriding. “You must be so proud of your daughter.” 

“You speak Spanish.” Alexia’s mother is a short woman with a kind face. A face twisted in impressed confusion. 

“We’re working on the Catalan,” Alexia says with a laugh. 

Her mother seems charmed. Another one bites the dust. It’s far too easy a game – doesn’t even require much effort. Alexia feels sick. She likes it. Sort of. 

You sit in the chair that her father once took. The fourth chair at the table, not really your fault that you touch the dormant volcano. The other unoccupied seat has sunglasses in front of it: Alba must be here, just hiding for now. 

“Now, the food is almost ready. I always overcook, so don’t you worry. If I had known–” she glares at Alexia, “then I would have made something more extravagant. Just simple fideuà. Have you tried it before?” 

You shake your head. Doesn’t feel right to nod when it had been from the de Montcada chef after a night out in Monaco. You’d been helicoptered back when things started to get a little too rowdy. Carlota had been so embarrassed. 

“It’s like paella,” Alexia explains. Hums at something her mother says to her in Catalan. Takes your hand under the table. “Would you like a drink?” 

“Alba’s just gone to get some beers. Your uncle drank us dry the other day. Those stupid men and their stupid men’s matches.” 

“It was a good match,” Alexia protests in her uncle’s defense. A pseudo-father. Forever in-need of his approval.

“Sure it was.” 

You smile. Alexia Putellas’ mother doesn’t really like football. Maybe she’s gotten sick of it. Maybe hates how it twisted her daughter; chewed her up and spat her back out when she couldn’t walk and couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep. Eli is a woman hardened by grief. Softened by it, too. Sorrow recognises sorrow. You grieve a parent too, but you don’t know her and she isn’t yours.

A few moments later, Alba returns. Places the six-pack in the fridge before she notices your presence. Takes her seat and picks up her fork and then feels the suffocation of her father’s ghost when the table is overfilled and her sister won’t make eye-contact. 

She realises it’s you. The fork becomes a potential weapon. It’s old and every prong is blunt, but she could do it. Oh, she could do it if she used enough force. 

Calmly asks Alexia what the fuck you’re doing here. Won’t take the bullshit answer she’s given. 

“This won’t make her love you.” Catalan again. Eli flinches because mothers like to think they can’t be fooled but are often blinded by their longing for their children’s happiness. Mothers do terrible things. Medea. Eli could break down like Medea and curse her husband’s betrayal – gone too soon – and absolve her children of their suffering. Should’ve done that sooner, though. A bit too late for murder. “Alexia.” 

“Alba.” 

“Alexia, this is such a bad idea.” 

“This is… nothing. It’s nothing. She’s just here.” 

“Here. Here at home, because that’s normal. Alexia, she’s–” Turns to her mother because she can't look at Alexia anymore. A corruption of her sister now. “Mami, she’s engaged! She's engaged to a man.” 

Alexia stands. What a ridiculous thing for her sister to say. Wants to rip off her mouth. Alexia is so angry. 

“You have no right to say that.” 

“The truth belongs to everyone.” 

“Truth is a fucking illusion.” Illusion. Everything is an illusion, but that epiphany has already come to you. “Mami, it’s not like that. It’s not like that.” 

Alba used to climb into Alexia’s bed at night and ask Alexia to tell her stories. Stuff about her day – the matches she played, the boys she humiliated. The girls Alexia slowly realised she liked. The girl that one day kissed her. The ball she kicked so well the Barça scout called their parents. Alba left the bed when Alexia said the girl had come over and they had done stuff. Stuff for adults, Alexia had said with a blush and Alba standing in the corner of the room in disgust. Didn’t take much to coax her back into the bed then. Needed to be close to her sister. Would overlook things.

You look uncomfortable. Alba doesn’t care. Lets it settle into you and bury itself deeply, because she can’t do that with the fork. Won’t put down the fork now. 

“It is like that. Alexia has fallen in love with an engaged woman. I warned her, oh, I warned her. Told her: this is a very bad idea. Have you noticed how Alexia has started lying to us?” That’s a hook. Catches their mother’s attention with that one, who looks at Alexia with a heartbroken gaze. Hurts to see her daughters like this. Kill them both to save them, or save them by not killing them. “Zanzibar. That’s not a sponsorship, is it, Alexia?” 

Alexia’s hands are fists on the table. She wants to bang the wood and break it. Looks at her bulging muscles and knows she’s strong enough to do it, if she wanted to. “I didn’t think you’d like the truth. I didn’t mean–” 

“What is Zanzibar, then?” Eli cuts in. She only wants the facts. Will leave the thunder and lightning to the girls. 

“A bachelorette!” 

No one speaks then. 

Alba gets up. “I’m sorry, Mami, but I have to go. I can’t sit here and watch my sister become who she’s becoming. I can’t be complicit in this. I can’t even look at her.” Doesn’t look at her. Simply mutters, “you can’t have us both, Alexia.”

…

They can’t stop her from going to Zanzibar, so they don’t. 

Alexia arrives after everyone else. Goes to Las Rojas for a day just to remind Montse how much she owes her. Flies out from Madrid. 

You need to get a speedboat to the island. She lets the sea spray onto her straightened hair and flexes her stomach, stretching out from the flight and the tense anticipation. Forgets all stress when she sees you. 

Bikini. Oh, it’s a nice bikini. 

Your hair is wet from a morning swim and you’re grinning as she steps onto the jetty. “You made it!” you squeal, running towards her and jumping into her arms. Could be a different life, she thinks. 

She holds you tightly. “That flight almost killed me. And I have a training plan to follow while I’m here. And I’m going back soon.” 

“I know, I know.” It’s honey dripped into her ear. You sigh. “Put me down. You’re squeezing the life out of me.”

“You like how strong I am.” 

Your fingers curl around her bicep. She flexes. “I’ll take you to the suite first. You can freshen up, and then I’ll introduce you to the girls.” 

“The pack of wolves?” 

“Oh, darling, when they see you, it will be like throwing an antelope steak to a pack of hungry lionesses.” 

Alexia follows you down the jetty, the sun warm on her back. The island is ridiculous: white sand, green lawns, absolutely no one here. A helipad. Far too expensive to be worth it. Too expensive to exist in the overlap of Alexia being rich and you being rich. Even if you somehow make the gap not matter.

You take her hand as you pull her along wooden decking raised above a lagoon. The lagoon you’d promised. Suites lining either side. 

“We’re all staying here. I put you in mine,” you say like you’re offering her fruit. The same forbidden fruit. Sweet and inevitable. “Couldn’t have you anywhere else. Too far.” 

She hums. “Too far for what?” 

You look over your shoulder, walking backwards for a few steps, wet hair sticking to your collarbones. “For anything I might want.” 

Feels her jaw clench. The humidity clings to her. Her abs tighten under the weight of your gaze. You’re not even trying. You never try – Alexia always tries. You don’t try and the world orbits you anyway. Too irresistible. 

The suite is stupid. Made with local materials, you explain. A private pool. A sun deck. She steps inside and smells you. Perfume citrusy for the holiday and the tang of suncream. You drop your towel, pick up a glass of passionfruit juice from a shell made into a tray like you’re not half-naked and making her whole body burn. 

“Would you like to shower?” you ask, already slipping out of your bikini top, undoing delicate bows with delicate fingers. Not even glancing at her. “You smell like an airport.” 

She stalks towards you. Irresistible, like she said. Unfair. Enticing as you let her back you into the shower, which is outside, which is absurd, which is much like you to have booked. To have seen and gone, yep, that’s how I want to spend my last few moments of freedom. 

“You’re insane,” she says in a low voice. Means it. Really means it. 

“I know,” you murmur, pressing your mouth to her jaw. “But here you are.”

Her hands are already at your hips. Doesn’t kiss you yet. Breathing too hard for that. You tilt your chin up: a dare, a challenge. You know she hates those. 

“This isn’t part of the training schedule.” 

You lean in closer, whispering. “Fuck the training schedule.” 

And she breaks. Kisses you hard, hands grabbing skin, forgetting everything else, all the logic she twirled between her fingers on the plane, everything except the curve of your thigh when it lifts against her hip. You laugh into her mouth. She swallows it.

She’s meant to be rinsing off the travel. Meant to be getting ready. But instead you’re gasping against wet tile, her fingers inside you, her mouth at your shoulder. No idea when she pulled down those pathetic excuses for bikini bottoms. Doesn’t care. You’re already undone, holding on to her neck like that’s a worthy anchor. When you come, it’s desperate and it’s an Alexia Alexia Alexia as if that is allowed. 

Afterwards, she lets you drape her in white linen from her suitcase. Lets you unbutton the shirt scandalously and kiss her sternum and bite down. “Greedy,” she calls you, but it’s taken as a compliment. You douse her in your perfume and run your fingers through blonde hair. Peel her fingers off your thighs as she holds onto you and decides the meet-and-greet can wait. 

“Can’t wait,” you disagree, because you’re a hostess. “They’re waiting at the Beach Bar. How many cocktails deep do you want them to be?” Sort of a warning. She smirks at how possessive it sounds. Like a queen who is scared she will be dethroned. 

The walk is short, shaded by palms. She can hear them before she sees them. Sharp-voiced, glittering, expensively tanned. Daughters of terrible fathers who love their fathers because that is what they have been taught to do. Daughters of Eden, who are so tempted but somehow not yet exposed to the real world. And Hannah, of course. Who’s standing beside Carlota. 

Alexia steps into view and suddenly it’s very quiet. An outsider. Something new to unravel. Alexia wants to reach out and touch you but you’re too far away for that.

“This is Alexia.” Your voice is sweet, threatening. They might as well bow to you. Feels like you’ve never been hated – this is where that all comes from, Alexia thinks. “She has become a dear friend in Barcelona. Basically royalty over there. Be nice.” Awkward to say such a thing in front of Carlota de Montcada, but it seems your opinion holds more sway than the history books on the shelves of Catalan schools. 

The girls descend. 

Ravenous. 

Gets saved by Hannah, Carlota’s girlfriend. An American, equally an outsider. Asks her girlfriend to remind everyone about their next round of shots and then asks Alexia if she’d like something to drink. Hannah tries to hide her pity as Alexia watches you dive into the ocean with women she doesn’t know. 

Hannah hands Alexia a glass of something cold and green — a cucumber, mint, and gin concoction. Not bad, surprisingly. Still, she doesn’t drink. Not while she’s in season. She sips anyway, because she’s supposed to look like she belongs here. 

“Come on,” Hannah says under her breath, nodding towards a pair of empty loungers under a palm. “I’ll do the rounds for you.” 

Alexia follows. Grateful, maybe. Or too confused to resist. Her gaze darts back to you. Wants you to acknowledge she’s watching. Tries not to care when you don’t. Her fists tighten on the lounger.

“So,” Hannah says, settling beside her with a sigh. “That’s Saskia and Bea–” she gestures to two girls in matching bikinis, lounging on one big sunbed like they’re one being with four legs. “Boarding school with her. Typical gentry, family friends, ‘all our estates were built by the same architect’ malarky. Saskia’s dad had to apologise to the people of Zimbabwe on behalf of the family exploits. Bea’s mother owns, like, half of Mayfair. Saskia’s the Maid of Honour, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t… Well, Saskia doesn’t stand for bullshit. Let’s just say that.”

Alexia’s eyes land on the pair with interest. Maid of Honour. The woman tonguing the straw of her strawberry daiquiri, thigh being slapped for Bea’s attention, is apparently your best friend. No wonder you’ve never mentioned her. 

“Then you’ve got the Oxford bunch.” A horrible Americanism. Hannah does it to herself. She counts them off with her fingers nevertheless. “Siya’s the one in the Hermès cover-up. Brilliant. Scary brilliant. Has maybe three degrees. Has the money to keep doing them. Writes articles for just about every important publication and owns a few of them, too. I think she hooked up with your girl once. Carlota might’ve said.” 

Alexia swallows. Holds back the reaction. Doesn’t blink so she can watch Siya adjust her sunglasses and toss back her hair like she knows she’s being watched. Watches her shout something at you as you wade back to shore. Watches you laugh. 

“Cassie,” Hannah goes on, because it’s never-ending. “Also Oxford. Massive ego. Nearly married a Saudi prince but refused to convert. Was offered a job at the UN but turned it down because she ‘didn’t like Geneva’. Fucks women almost exclusively but calls herself pansexual because she thinks it makes her sound more generous.” Alexia’s eyes are being opened against her will. “And that’s Georgie – red hair and trying to get her drone to work. Went into AI but got bought out by a tech firm. Now she’s basically a retired billionaire. Most likely to go ‘I’m not political’ while dating someone who’s technically under sanctions.” 

Furrowed brows. “She’s dating one of them?” This is more confusing than trying to play a major tournament and keeping up with which teammate needs a hug because they just knocked out their girlfriend. 

“No. She’s dating some guy who’s richer than God. He lives in Dubai.” Hannah takes a sip of her own drink. “But she’s got a thing for your girlfriend. They all do, in some obscure capacity.” 

Ignores that she’s called you her girlfriend. Nonsensical to do such a thing while she’s here as you prepare to get married to someone else. A cruel blow or a quiet mercy. Hannah won’t choose and won’t let Alexia get off so easily. 

“And finally,” says Hannah, pointing to the last undescribed woman with a jut of her chin. “That’s Sara. Quiet one. Not really sure what she does but I’m fairly certain it involves several offshore accounts and a few diamond mines. You don’t notice her until it’s too late.” 

Alexia blinks. “Too late for what?” 

Hannah shrugs. “I think you know.” 

Too late is something Alexia does know. Hates that Hannah knows she knows. 

They sit in silence for a moment. Alexia keeps her expression steady, thoughts locked behind her teeth. You’re now ordering something at the bar, twirling a lock of hair around your finger as you point to the infinity pool at the sirens grouping around it. 

“You alright?” Hannah asks. 

Doesn’t answer yet. Watches you as you let Cassie braid your wet hair, positioned away from Saskia because she had whipped you with her tongue as you’d walked past with more drinks. You’re annoyed at Saskia, and Alexia remembers that she doesn’t take any bullshit. Reminds her of Alba. She’s not speaking to Alba. 

“These girls…” Alexia starts. 

“...are all the same.” Hannah’s resigned to it. She’s probably been on holiday with half of the friend group and suffered and coped and loved Carlota through it all. “I’ve made my peace with it. Carlota has the same blood as half the Spanish monarchy. I just hang on and enjoy the ride.” 

Alexia studies her. Hates studying anything other than match footage but feels the need to assess Hannah’s intentions. “Why are you helping me?” Hannah understands Spanish, too. Feels like a perk. Or a trap. 

Hannah shrugs again. “I’ve been there. But with you… they’re all going to be in love with you in about three hours. I figured you might want a friend.”

The days in Zanzibar stretch like silk. They slip through calloused fingers. 

Each morning, she’s up before the sun burns too high. The sand is still warm beneath her feet and her sports bra is damp with sweat before she even starts the first set of sprints, but she will beat the oppressive heat because that’s what she needs to do. There’s a routine. Always a routine. She runs the length of the beach, back and forth, back and forth. Won’t keel over. Takes a sip of water from a glass with cucumber shavings in it. Moves onto burpees. Squats. Planks. Footwork drills. Brushes off sand and cools off in the sea. The salt of her sweat meeting the salt of the earth. She’s the salt of the earth; knows it now after coming here. The ache in her body is the point. 

She doesn’t look up when they start watching. When they have well-dressed servants drag out the loungers early. Just after sunrise. Bea and Saskia matching again – always, like it’s a uniform. Books with titles she would never pick up. Theories and speeches and histories explained like they aren’t tapestries hanging in their homes. 

They ogle without shame, whispering in French, in clipped code, in old family words that she tunes out anyway. They’re fascinated. Of course they are. Alexia is different. Alexia is built from something real. Sweat drips down her back and she hears it in their sighs. 

And you hate it. She’s aware you hate it. You don’t join them, too proud to do so. A show of possession, to be so tired from long nights that you can’t make it to the loungers in time. They know she comes from your suite. They know and they’re jealous, but it won’t leave this island. 

You emerge like you’ve been waiting. A silk robe from Japan. A sleepy smirk. Bare feet on the deck of the suite, arms folded, hair unbrushed. You don’t whistle – you give her the credit of not coming when she’s called. Even if the rabid dog is addicted and wants to return. You just wait. Arrogantly. 

And like always, when Alexia is just breathless enough, just worn down enough – when her hands go to her hips and her chest heaves and everything is burning – you tilt your head, raise a single brow, and disappear back inside.

The rabid dog is addicted and wants to return. 

Forces herself to walk back. Waves at Saskia, because Saskia is always glaring. 

Moans as you press your palms to her lower back, sweaty in your bed. The bed is damp. The bed is always damp. Makes you make it wet and then lets you lead her to the outdoor shower like a sacrificial lamb. A ritual. Take the bowl and knife and drain her blood because she will obey. 

Lets you work coconut shampoo into her hair. Kiss the sweat off her collarbone. You moan when you taste salt. She moans when your thigh nudges between hers. You tell her she’s being good. You tell her deserves a reward. 

You tell her you want her again before dinner. 

Dinner is long tables and flickering candles. Hair blow-dried because there wasn’t enough time to get ready. Alexia orders a salad with salmon on the side – knows it’s not on the menu but that you had sent the chef her nutrition plan because you’re grateful she came during camp. You always sit far away from her, though. Can’t be too grateful. 

She’s trapped beside Hannah and Carlota. The latter has been quiet all evening. Composed, cool, cheeks tinted with red, though, as if she has been in an argument. Alexia almost jokes about trouble in paradise but pulls back because that’s really not the right thing to say.

When dessert arrives, which Alexia won’t touch, Carlota finally speaks. Not to Hannah. Hannah is checking her emails. To Alexia. 

“She’s not being fair to you.” Carlota’s Catalan is so smooth, so refined. She could wear the crown. Royalty opposite royalty, here. 

Alexia startles. Glances at her. “Sorry?” 

“I said: she’s not being fair to you.” 

Hannah stills beside her. Does she speak Catalan too? Does she love Carlota that much?

Alexia doesn’t respond at first. Her fingers curl tight around the stem of her glass. She doesn’t drink much. Not while she’s in season. But this is needed. This is needed to swallow the heat rising in her throat.

Carlota continues, fork delicately slicing through meringue. “It’s obvious, you know. To everyone. You’re the special event. Being shown off. There’s a gym here, but you’re not in the gym, because she never told you where it was.” Alexia hadn’t asked. Likes the sand because it’s punishing. Likes how you don’t correct her because you can see her from a window in the suite. “But she… she does what she’s always done. She can’t help it.” 

Alexia feels embarrassed, briefly. Then chooses not to be. “I don’t expect anything from it,” she says, voice clipped. 

The lie is brushed away. “It’s so cruel,” Carlota murmurs. “She doesn’t want to marry him, but it’s so ingrained in her to do it, and you’ve got to be afraid, right? If this were all you’d known? But it isn’t okay. To have brought you here.” 

Alexia thinks back to Carlota’s studio and the smell of paint. Paint smeared on her cheek. So far from the woman opposite her now. 

All hiding. Blue pill or red pill. 

Hannah’s hand slides under the table and finds Calota’s knee. It’s a quiet gesture. Reproach or support, one cannot tell. But she’s there. You’re not here. You’re at the other end, talking to Saskia about why you don’t like Plutarch. Who even is Plutarch? 

“Why are you telling me this?” Alexia asks. 

Carlota’s head turns to you. You wink at her. Point to Saskia and roll your eyes. 

She turns back. “Because you don’t deserve it, Alexia.” 

What do I deserve, then?

…

Midnight. The suite is dark. The sea is calm. 

Alba has messaged her. Her sister must have seen the date creeping closer to March. Funny because Alexia thinks of the word marcharse and March and how it has all been obvious from the beginning. 

Lets you kiss her anyway. It’s not March yet. Plays England tomorrow. Will probably not step onto the pitch, because Montse will see her tan and get angry, call her lazy and useless. Alexia will have to bite her tongue and not retaliate, because then Jenni was crucified for nothing. Nothing. Life would be nothing if Alexia can’t play.

You slide over her languidly. So much skin, so much heat. A soft groan of, “I don’t want you to go,” and a laugh that doesn’t mean to demean Alexia’s one true passion but does so anyway. 

She closes her eyes as your hand slides down the ridges of her stomach. Down into the depths of muscular thighs. Hungry. Wanting.

Gasps as you thrust inside her. Two fingers. “Feel good?” 

“Yes,” she says to feed your ego. Loves to feed it because then you speed up, and you straddle her and find a better angle. 

Her thighs tense around your wrist, hips stuttering, breath catching in her throat because she’s trying not to make a sound. Always holding back. Always controlled. Winning, still. 

You lean down, press your mouth to her neck. Hot tongue. Sharp teeth, too. She shudders, shudders underneath you because that’s what you make her do. Shudders because you make her feel so good. 

Keeps her eyes shut as you keep moving in and out. Another finger. Desperate, tonight. The both of you. Chasing something that’s running away, that has always been running away. Decaying. Dying. Dying, dead. Alive. 

So alive like this. Could be an illusion but you love the illusion. You love her, you love it. You’re already planning visits to Barcelona after the wedding. Could see Carlota, too. Ask for her forgiveness. 

You love her, you know. A sick kind of love. Not the love she deserves, but then again, who are you to decide what she deserves?

And she comes. Cries out, restraint gone. Back arches and the tattoos burn like embers that can still be lit. 

You stroke her cheek. Kiss away the tear that has rolled down it. Kiss her lips, her temple, her chin. 

“This feels like our honeymoon,” you say. 

Alexia opens her eyes.

[randombush3]

bestie will you have some smut for us in this new chapter?

Naturally

[randombush3]

😭 make us suffer, reader get marry and we all suffer… but remember “good luck, babe!”, alexia suffers, reader, and after months or years she come back to ale … you came a whole series of this fic 😭

Good luck, babe! is so so so apt

And dw, there will be suffering

[randombush3]

Please make us suffer so much and alexia and reader but at the end maybe reader come back to ale please… much much angs soul crushing but end up together against all odds

I sense all my readers are masochists but I love it