A collection of tweets that perfectly encapsulates how I’m feeling. Part of this was an effort to make myself feel better about things but I think a lot of folks on here could benefit from the sentiment
Alexia's crying already. Vicky and Clara are crying in the back. Her mom and sister are crying. The guy behind her is crying. I'm crying. Good to know that we all lasted a total of 2 minutes
A/N: i really don’t like this chapter but oh well! Anything you guys want to see with this universe just let me know in my asks or comments! thank you so much for you love on the first chapter it means so much. any reblogs or comments will be very much appreciated :)
The room falls quiet for exactly half a second. Not fully silent but enough for your stomach to drop clean through the floor as your eyes lock with Alexia’s across the hospital room.
Recognition flashes instantly across her face. Then amusement. Siri where’s the nearest bridge? You tighten your grip on the patient chart holding it like a shield. Clàudia, meanwhile, remains completely oblivious.
“Doctor,” she repeats cheerfully, waving her spoon vaguely in your direction.
“I just came to check how you were feeling,” you say, forcing your voice back into something professional. “Don’t mind me.”
The room itself feels warm and loud in the way only close groups of people can make a space feel. Half-open takeaway containers cover the windowsill, sports bags are dumped against the wall, and somebody has very confidently stolen the visitor chair for their feet. It’s chaos. Not unpleasant chaos though. It’s just… well a lot.
You step further into the room, trying very hard not to look directly at Alexia again. Unfortunately, that becomes difficult when she’s standing beside Clàudia’s bed with her arms folded, watching you with the same calm focus she had in the café earlier. Only this time you aren’t covered in coffee and panic. Well not visibly.
“How’s the headache now?” you ask Clàudia, pulling your penlight from your pocket.
“Better.”
“Dizziness?”
“A little.”
“Nausea?”
She shakes her head.
You nod, leaning slightly closer to check her pupils again. “Okay, look at my finger for me.”
Clàudia follows the movement easily while the room gradually resumes its background chatter.
You finish the eye exam and straighten again. “Everything still looks stable, which is good.”
“So I can leave?” Clàudia asks immediately.
You let out a slight laugh, she’s persistent you’ll give her that. “Unfortunately the overnight stay still stands.”
Her groan is dramatic enough that a few people laugh. “You’re keeping me prisoner.”
“I’m preventing you from making your concussion worse,” you corrected. “Very different thing.”
“She even said no training for a week,” Clàudia complains to the room like you aren’t standing right there.
“Hey,” you cut in, looking up from the chart, “I’m not a complete monster. I said light training. No contact.”
“Same thing, still sounds terrible,” Clàudia mutters.
“You lost consciousness on the pitch,” you remind her gently. “Missing a game or two won’t kill you.”
Clàudia’s expression immediately turns calculating. Slowly, she looks over at Alexia.“Could you maybe use your captaincy powers to get me discharged quicker?”
A few of the other players laugh quietly. Alexia doesn’t even hesitate. “No,” she says simply. “You heard the doctor.”
You glance down at the chart to hide your smile for a second before continuing. “Your scan was clear, which is reassuring, but concussion symptoms can change pretty quickly during the first twenty-four hours. Keeping you overnight is mostly precautionary.”
Clàudia groans, “okay okay,” Clàudia points at you accusingly. “You were nicer when you brought ice cream.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. It’s easy talking to her. Easier than most patients, actually. She has the kind of personality that fills a room naturally, bright and quick.
Your pager buzzes against your hip before you can say anything else. You glance down automatically. Incoming trauma. Of course.
“I should go,” you say with a quiet sigh. “Other patients unfortunately continue to exist.”
You close the chart and take a small step back toward the door. “Just try and rest, okay? And if the headache gets worse or you feel sick, tell one of the nurses immediately.”
Clàudia gives you a lazy salute with her spoon. “Yes, doctor.”
You nod once before finally risking another glance across the room. Which was a mistake but Alexia is still watching you. With them annoyingly beautiful eyes. Not obviously though. It was not enough that anyone else would notice. But there’s something steady in it. Curious, almost like she’s trying to work you out. For a second neither of you look away but then you remember you are standing in the middle of a hospital room staring at a patient’s captain like a complete idiot. You look down immediately.
“Have a good evening,” you say quickly to the room in general before turning toward the door.
The trauma case takes nearly three hours. By the end of it your shoulders ache, your coffee has gone cold somewhere entirely unknown, and you’re fairly certain you haven’t sat down once since leaving Clàudia’s room. A teenager with a fractured femur after a skating accident.
By the time you finally escape A&E, the hospital corridors have fallen quieter in that strange late-night way hospitals do. Lights dimmed slightly. Voices softer. Exhaustion hanging in the air like static.
You rub a hand over your face as you head toward the vending machines near radiology.
Someone is already standing there. Dark hoodie. Repeatedly pressing the same button with increasing annoyance. You recognise her immediately. Alexia.
Alexia glances sideways at the sound of your footsteps. For half a second she looks surprised to see you then her mouth curves slightly. “This machine hates me.”
You let out a slight chuckle, “It hates us all unfortunately, here let me.”
Alexia steps slightly aside to let you near the machine, watching with open suspicion as you crouch beside it.
“You have to hit it first, then press the button.” You knock twice against the lower panel before pressing the button again. For one long second nothing happens. Then the machine rattles violently before finally dropping the bottle into the tray.
You reach down to grab the bottle before standing again. The corridor suddenly feels much smaller than it did thirty seconds ago. She’s close enough now that you catch the faint scent of her perfume beneath the sharp hospital antiseptic lingering in the air.
When you hand her the bottle, your fingers brush briefly against hers and it should mean nothing. It was a second at most and barely even contact. But the moment her skin touches yours, something strange and immediate settles low in your chest. Warmth flashes through you so quickly it almost catches you off guard, sharp enough that your breath stalls for half a heartbeat. And Alexia feels it too. You see it in the way her fingers pause slightly around the bottle instead of pulling away straight away. In the tiny flicker across her expression. Surprise first, then something softer. The corridor around you suddenly feels far too still.
For one suspended second neither of you move.
You become painfully aware of everything at once; the faint scent of her perfume, the warmth of her hand against yours, the low hum of the vending machine somewhere behind you. Her eyes lift to meet yours and the look in them makes your stomach twist in a way that feels genuinely dangerous. It was like something silently clicking into place between two strangers who should not already feel familiar to each other.
Then Alexia finally takes the bottle fully from your hand, though slowly, like neither of you quite wanted the contact to end. “Thank you,” she says softly.
For a moment you both just look at each other. Them gosh darn hazel eyes. You clear your throat lightly, forcing yourself to step back before your brain completely forgets how to function.
“Well,” you say, aiming for casual and probably missing slightly, “I did violently throw coffee at you this morning, so technically I still owe you.”
Alexia’s smile deepens a little around the edge. “You really feel guilty about that.”
You let out a sheepish little smile, rubbing the back of your neck briefly. “I mean… I did fully launch an iced coffee at you before eight in the morning. That feels like something I should apologise for at least another three to five times.”
She lets out a soft laugh, shaking her head slightly. “Honestly, it’s fine.”
“You say that, but your hoodie definitely disagreed.”
“It survived.”
“Barely.”
The teasing settles something between you a little. The strange intensity from a moment ago softens into warmth instead of tension, though your pulse still feels annoyingly unsteady.
Alexia leans lightly back against the vending machine beside you, bottle loose in her hand now.“So,” she says after a moment, “how long have you been in Barcelona?”
“Two weeks.”
Her eyebrows lift slightly. “Only two?”
You nod.
“That explains the terrible Spanish.”
You place a hand dramatically over your chest. “Wow.”
You stare at her with mock offence. “You are unbelievably rude for someone I just rescued from a vending machine.”
A quiet laugh escapes her again, softer this time, and you feel an embarrassingly immediate sense of achievement because of it.
“I’m kidding,” she says. “Your Spanish is good.”
“It absolutely is not.”
“It’s better than my English.”
You blink at her. “No, see, now you’re just lying to make me feel better.”
Alexia laughs quietly, looking down at the bottle in her hands for a second before glancing back up at you.
“It’s true,” she says. “I understand more than I speak.”
“That’s still better than me. I once told my coworker that i was pregnant instead of embarrassed. Safe to say i was confused when i got congratulated.”
For a second Alexia just stares at you. Then she laughs properly. Not polite laughter. Not the soft amused exhale from earlier. Real laughter, warm and sudden and bright enough that it catches you completely off guard. And god, it does something catastrophic to your nervous system.
You feel your own smile appear instantly in response, helpless against it.
“That is… very different Spanish,” she manages eventually.
“In my defence, they sound similar.”
“They absolutely do not.” Alexia is still smiling at you, eyes warm now in a way that makes your stomach feel annoyingly light.
“Have you managed to see much of the city yet?” she asks.
You let out a small laugh. “No not yet. Well that is if you don’t count the hospital.”
“Very glamorous.”
“Thank you. I’m really getting the full Barcelona experience.”
Her laugh slips out easily again and you realise, with growing concern, that you’re already starting to like the sound of it far too much.
“It’s just been busy,” you admit after a second, leaning lightly back against the wall beside the machine. “Most days it’s work, go home, sleep, repeat.”
Alexia watches you quietly for a moment. Not pitying. Just attentive in a way that makes you suddenly very aware of every word coming out of your mouth.
“You like it though,” she says eventually.
You glance down briefly, smiling to yourself a little. “Yeah. I mean i complain constantly, but honestly i wouldn’t change it for the world.”
“That’s good,” she says. “If you already hate it after two weeks, that would be concerning.”
You laugh softly. “Give me another month. Maybe then.”
“I’ll ask again later.”
There’s an ease between you now that definitely wasn’t there this morning in the café. The conversation moves naturally, like you’ve known each other longer than a single disastrous coffee incident and one hospital room.
Alexia takes another sip of her drink before glancing down the corridor briefly.
“You should actually see Barcelona at some point though,” she says. “The hospital is not our best attraction.”
You smile. “Really? Because the vending machine alone has been pretty unforgettable.”
“That is true. Is a necessary cultural experience.”
You grin, then shrug lightly. “I just haven’t really had time yet.”
Alexia hums quietly like she’s considering something.
“Well,” she says after a second, voice casual enough that it almost sounds accidental, “you clearly need someone to show you the good parts.”
Your stomach does a small, deeply inconvenient flip.
“Oh yeah?” you say carefully.
She nods once, expression unreadably calm despite the faint amusement sitting in her eyes. “Otherwise you’ll leave Barcelona thinking it’s just fluorescent lighting and concussions.”
“That would be tragic.”
“Exactly.”
You look at her for a second too long again. It keeps happening. Every time the conversation slows, your eyes drift back to hers like your brain has entirely given up pretending to be normal around her. And Alexia notices. You can tell she does by the way her mouth softens slightly at the corners.
Somewhere down the corridor, a monitor starts beeping loudly enough to pull you both back into reality. You glance toward the sound automatically, sighing quietly. “Unfortunately, duty calls.”
Alexia smiles properly this time, small but warm. “Of course.”
You push yourself away from the wall, already stepping backwards down the corridor.
“Goodnight, Alexia.”
“Goodnight, doctor.”
Annoyingly, you carry a smile with you for the rest of your shift.
a/n: just a random idea that popped into my head. hope you all like it! any requests or feedback my asks are open! any reblogs and comments are really appreciated:)))
The first thing you learn about Barcelona is that the city moves fast.
Faster than London somehow, despite the golden sunlight spilling lazily across narrow streets and people lingering outside cafés like they have nowhere else to be.
You, unfortunately, very much have somewhere to be.
“Shit.”
You glance at your phone again as you half jog down the pavement, your hospital ID bouncing against your chest. 07:42. Rounds start in eighteen minutes. Eighteen. And you still don’t have coffee.
Your trainer had already warned you that being late during your first month of residency was a fantastic way to make everyone hate you, which meant your current situation could only be described as catastrophic. Now you could go without your coffee, but now that you’d survived three consecutive night shifts fueled entirely by vending machine crisps and professional panic, you knew better than to attempt twelve hours in A&E without caffeine. That was how medical errors happened. Or emotional breakdowns. Possibly both.
So despite the clock actively threatening your career, you dart across the street toward the small café tucked between a pharmacy and a bookshop, muttering apologies in broken Spanish as you squeeze past a couple walking far too slowly for your liking. The little bell above the café door chimes as you stumble inside.
Warmth hits you instantly. Coffee beans. Fresh pastries. Low morning chatter. And a line. Of course there’s a line. You resist the urge to physically scream. Instead, you bounce anxiously on the balls of your feet near the counter, trying to tame your hair with one hand while checking your phone with the other.
Three unread messages.
Marta: Where are you?
Marta: Please tell me you didn’t oversleep again.
Marta: The consultant is already grumpy.
“Oh, brilliant.”
The woman in front of you glances back briefly at your English muttering before returning to her conversation. You shrink slightly into yourself. You still weren’t used to this part feeling visibly foreign everywhere you went. The accent. The hesitant Spanish. The constant fear you’d misunderstood something important.
“Next!”
You step forward immediately, nearly dropping your phone in the process.
“Hi uh café con leche? por favor.”
The barista responds quickly in Spanish. Your brain completely short-circuits.
“…Sí?”
He pauses. You pause back.
“…Grande?” you offer weakly.
A quiet laugh sounds somewhere to your right.
Not cruel.
Just amused.
Still, heat floods your cheeks instantly.
By the time you finally manage to order, your pulse is racing from pure social humiliation alone. You shift your bag higher on your shoulder and risk another glance at the time.
07:48.
You were actually going to die. The barista calls your name a minute later, and you snatch the drink gratefully before immediately trying to multitask like an idiot. Phone between your shoulder and ear. Coffee in one hand. Bag slipping down your arm.
“Hi, Marta, I’m literally on my way right now. yep i’m literally round the corner-”
You turn too quickly and walk directly into someone. The collision is solid enough to jolt you backwards. Cold coffee splashes everywhere.
“Bollocks!”
The word bursts out of you before you can stop it. Several heads turn to look at you in all your embarrassing glory. Perfect. Brilliant. Exactly what you needed.
“Oh my God,” you add immediately afterward, staring in horror at the iced coffee now dripping down the front of someone’s cream hoodie. “I am so sorry. Jesus Christ.”
You crouch instantly, nearly losing your balance as you scramble for napkins from the nearest table.
“I didn’t see you—I mean obviously I didn’t see you because that would be insane, I just—”
“Hey.”
The voice is calm. Warm. You look up and forget how breathing works. Who needs breathing anyway?
The woman standing in front of you is ridiculously beautiful. Dark hair tucked behind one ear. Honey-brown eyes fixed on you with something halfway between amusement and concern. Coffee stains spread across her sleeve and yet somehow she still looks effortlessly composed while you feel like a public safety hazard.
Your brain completely stalls.
“Oh no,” you whisper weakly, because apparently humiliation can, in fact, get worse. One corner of her mouth lifts.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s absolutely not okay,” you say quickly, still clutching a handful of napkins like they might somehow save you from public humiliation. “I just threw an entire iced latte at you.”
The woman’s lips twitch slightly. “An accident.”
“A violent one.”
That earns you a soft laugh.
God that laugh. You were already tired enough to be emotional, and now some breathtaking stranger with perfect hair was laughing at your terrible jokes like they were actually funny.
You hand her the napkins with shaky fingers, trying very hard not to look directly into her eyes again. It doesn’t work. Up close, she’s unfairly pretty. The kind of pretty that makes your thoughts slow down dangerously.
“You don’t need to look so horrified,” she says gently.
“I absolutely do.”
Another laugh. Definitely teasing now. Heat crawls up your neck.
Your phone buzzes aggressively in your pocket again, and you nearly jump out of your skin.
Right. You were catastrophically late.
You pull the phone out just long enough to see three missed calls and a message from Marta reading:
If you’re dead, let me know.
“Oh, shit.”
The woman glances at your phone before looking back at you.
“You in trouble?”
“You have no idea.”
You shove the phone away quickly, tightening your grip on your bag strap. For a second neither of you speak. And suddenly you become painfully aware of how close she’s standing. Close enough to smell her perfume beneath the coffee. Close enough to notice the tiny scar near her eyebrow. Close enough that your stomach does something deeply inconvenient.
You take a hurried step backwards. “I should—go. Before I lose my job before nine in the morning.”
Amusement flashes in her eyes. “That would be impressive.”
“Oh, I’m very talented at embarrassing myself.”
“I noticed.”
You stare at her for half a second before an unwilling laugh escapes you. Her smile widens slightly like she wasn’t expecting that.
Somewhere behind her, someone calls out.
“Alexia!”
The name settles instantly in your mind.
Alexia. Pretty. It suits her.
She glances briefly over her shoulder at whoever called her before looking back at you again. You suddenly realise you’re still standing there holding the empty cardboard drink tray like an idiot.
Right. Leaving. You were supposed to be leaving.
“Sorry again,” you blurt out one last time.
Alexia shakes her head softly.
“It’s okay.”
And somehow the way she says it makes you feel like maybe she actually means it. Which, honestly, only makes this whole interaction more dangerous. You back toward the café door awkwardly before turning and practically fleeing into the Barcelona morning, your face burning hot enough to rival the weather.
By the time you reach Hospital Clínic, you are sweating through your clothes, out of breath, and approximately three minutes away from a stress-induced cardiac event.
The huge glass doors slide open as you hurry inside, weaving through patients and nurses with rushed apologies falling from your mouth every few seconds.
Your trainers squeak against the polished floor. Your phone buzzes again.
Marta.
You answer immediately while still walking. “Please tell me Dr. Alvarez isn’t there yet.” You should’ve probably have learnt by now not to try to multitask but hey hoo.
“You’re alive,” Marta says dryly. “Good. I was deciding whether to report you missing or clinically stupid.”
“Both are possible.”
“You have exactly”—you hear rustling on the other end—“four minutes before rounds.”
You practically jog toward the residents’ room, shoving your bag higher onto your shoulder.
“It’s not my fault Barcelona refuses to believe in efficient walking.”
“You were late because you stopped for coffee again, weren’t you?”
You push open the staff door with your hip. “…Maybe.”
Marta looks up from where she’s leaning against the lockers in navy scrubs, already fully prepared for rounds. The disappointment on her face is immediate. “You are unbelievable.”
“I know. Your hair looks insane.”
“That feels unnecessary right now.” Despite her words, she’s already moving toward you automatically, grabbing the edge of your ID lanyard before it falls off entirely.
Marta had become your closest friend within two weeks of residency mostly because she’d decided, completely unprovoked, that you were incapable of functioning independently. Which, honestly, was becoming difficult to argue against.
“You have coffee on your sleeve,” she says suspiciously.
You freeze for half a second.
“…Occupational hazard.”
Her eyes narrow.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That is the face you make before telling me something catastrophic.”
You shove open your locker quickly to avoid eye contact. “There was a café incident.”
“Oh no.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“You’re blushing.”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
You pull your scrub top over your head aggressively before she can continue interrogating you. “It doesn’t matter because I’m never seeing her again.”
Marta pauses. “Her?”
You immediately regret speaking. Unfortunately for you, Marta’s entire personality is built around detecting gossip at clinically impressive speeds.
“There’s a woman involved?” she demands.
“No.”
“You just said her. There is.”
“There absolutely is not.”
“You just said her.”
You point accusingly at her while trying to tie your hair up at the same time. “You’re why HIPAA exists.”
“We are not in America.”
“Then whatever the European equivalent is.”
Marta grins. “You spilled coffee on a pretty girl, didn’t you?”
You stop moving.
“…Maybe.”
Her expression turns delighted.
“Oh, this is fantastic.”
“She was really beautiful,” you mutter before you can stop yourself.
Marta makes an actual emotional noise.
“You’re doomed.”
Before you can defend yourself, someone knocks against the open door.
“Doctor?” Both of you turn.
An older man stands in the hallway holding a folded newspaper beneath one arm. Mr. Navarro. You smile immediately.
“Morning.”
“You are late again,” he says, though there’s no real annoyance behind it.
“Devastating betrayal from public transport.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“And I meant it yesterday too.”
Mr. Navarro had been admitted three separate times since you started residency due to complications from a previous stroke. He liked complaining about hospital food, flirting harmlessly with nurses, and pretending not to enjoy your company. Which meant he absolutely did.
“You come see me later?” he asks.
“If you behave for physio.”
“I never behave.”
“I’m aware.”
He points a finger at you seriously.
“You’ll be a good neurologist one day.”
Something in your chest warms unexpectedly. Most days residency felt like drowning slowly in paperwork and exhaustion and self-doubt.
But neurology. Neurology still made you feel something. The complexity of it. The humanity of it. The idea that memories and movement and personality could all exist inside delicate electrical pathways.
You loved it despite everything. Before you can answer, Marta suddenly grabs your wrist.
“Rounds,” she hisses. Your stomach drops.
“Oh shit.”
“You have thirty seconds.”
You spin toward the mirror mounted beside the lockers, trying unsuccessfully to flatten your hair into something resembling professional. Marta steps in with a long-suffering sigh, fixing the collar of your scrub top properly.
“You’d genuinely die without me.”
“Probably.”
“I know.”
Footsteps echo further down the corridor. Consultants. Your eyes widen in panic.
“Marta—”
“Go.”
You take off immediately, nearly colliding with a nurse turning the corner.
“Sorry!”
The neurology team is already gathered outside the ward when you arrive breathlessly. Dr. Alvarez glances up from his clipboard as you skid to a stop beside the other residents.
Silence.
You try not to visibly wheeze. One of the junior doctors smirks knowingly. Dr. Alvarez studies you for one long second.
“…Rough morning?”
A few residents snort quietly. Heat floods your face.
“Yes, doctor.”
For a terrifying second, you think he’s about to reprimand you.
Instead, his mouth twitches slightly.
“Try to avoid committing vehicular manslaughter on hospital property next time.”
Relief hits you so hard your knees nearly give out.
“Yes, doctor.”
Then, just like that, rounds begin.
Rounds are, unfortunately, brutal. Not in the dramatic television way where somebody flatlines every seven seconds while doctors yell complicated terminology across hallways.
No. Real hospital rounds are mostly exhaustion and paperwork and desperately trying not to look stupid in front of consultants who can smell fear. Which means you spend the next hour trailing after Dr. Alvarez with a clipboard clutched against your chest, trying to ignore the ache behind your eyes from lack of sleep.
“Differentials?” Dr. Alvarez asks suddenly.
You blink. Oh. He’s talking to you. You glance quickly at the patient file in your hands.
“Possible TIA, but I think the speech disturbances are more consistent with focal seizures considering the episodic presentation.”
A pause. Dr. Alvarez studies you briefly. Then nods once.
“Good.”
Relief settles low in your chest. Tiny.But enough. You loved neurology for moments like that. For the puzzle of it. The strange complexity of the brain. The way symptoms could hide entire stories underneath them if you looked closely enough. Even now, exhausted and running purely on caffeine and adrenaline, you still felt it—that quiet pull toward the specialty every time you stepped onto the neuro ward.
The rest of the residents continue moving down the corridor while Dr. Alvarez stops outside another room. “You’re with Navarro today,” he says without looking up from the chart. “His MRI results came back.” Your heart lifts slightly.
“Okay.”
“And try to convince him physiotherapy is not a government conspiracy.”
“That might be beyond my qualifications.”
A few of the residents laugh quietly. Dr. Alvarez sighs dramatically.
“See? This is why patients like you. You encourage them.”
You grin despite yourself.
By the time rounds finally break, your stomach is growling loud enough to qualify as a medical emergency.
Marta appears beside you immediately.
“You survived.”
“Barely.”
“You also answered a question correctly which was annoying for the rest of us.”
“I’m naturally gifted.”
“You nearly cried trying to order coffee this morning.”
“That feels unrelated.” Marta snorts. The two of you start walking toward the nurses’ station when one of the ward nurses suddenly appears around the corner.
“Doctor?” You glance up automatically.
“There’s a new admission coming up from A&E,” she explains. “Sports injury. Possible concussion. Neuro wanted to assess.”
Your brain immediately switches gears. “What happened?”
“Collision during a football match apparently. She lost consciousness briefly.”
Concern settles instantly into your chest.
“Vitals stable?” The nurse nods.
“CT looks clear so far, but they want monitoring.”
You already reach for the tablet in her hand. “I’ll take it.”
Marta looks at you knowingly. Of course you’d volunteer. Neurology cases always lit something up inside you.
You skim quickly through the preliminary notes while walking. Female. Twenty-four. Head collision during professional match. Transported conscious but disoriented and possible concussion protocol. You push open the assessment room door a few minutes later while reading the chart.
“Hola, i’ve just come in to do some checks if that’s okay?” You step fully into the room, already flipping your mental switch into clinical mode, voice steady in the way it always is when you’re trying to hold yourself together on three hours of sleep.
The patient is sitting upright on the bed, legs slightly swinging, a Barça training top tied loosely at her waist. A medic stands nearby, arms folded, watching with the cautious patience of someone who’s had this argument before.
“Yeah, fine,” she says quickly. “I feel fine.”
“Clàudia,” the medic warns again, softly but firmly.
You give a smile. You move closer to the bed, pulling up a chair with one hand.
“Can you tell me your full name and date of birth. She answers easily, a little impatient but correct.
“Good,” you say. “And do you remember what happened on the pitch?”
“I jumped for the ball. Then I hit my head. Don’t really remember anything from there,” Clàudia Pina says with a small shrug, like she’s more annoyed than worried.
“That’s okay,” you reply calmly, already reaching for your pen torch. “Short-term memory loss after a head injury is quite common, nothing to be concerned about. Can you follow my finger for me, please?”
She does.
“Good,” you murmur, watching closely for any delay or asymmetry. “Keep going.”
Her focus stays steady. You step slightly closer, voice softer but still clinical. “Any double vision at all?”
“No.”
“Good. And any nausea or dizziness when you move your head?”
“A bit dizzy, yeah,” she admits. You nod, noting it down.
“Expected after a collision like that. We just need to monitor you for a few hours to make sure it doesn’t worsen.”
She exhales like she wants to argue but can’t quite find the energy.
“That means I can’t leave.”
“Correct,” you say simply, finishing the last note on the chart. Clàudia drops her head back dramatically against the pillow.
“This is the worst day of my life.”
“I’m almost certain it isn’t.”
“It’s top five.” You fight back a smile as you close the file.
“We’ll keep monitoring you for a few hours, but everything looks reassuring so far.” She perks up slightly at that.
“And training?”
There’s something almost hopeful in the question, like maybe if she asks nicely enough you’ll suddenly rewrite medical protocol for her specifically.
“You’ll need at least a week out. Light training only after symptoms fully resolve. No contact play.”
Her expression falls instantly. “Oh, my captain is not going to like that.”
You shrug lightly. “Well, your captain will have to deal with it.”
The medic makes a quiet choking noise beside you like he’s trying not to laugh. Clàudia points accusingly at you.
“You say that now because you don’t know her.”
“That’s usually how medicine works,” you reply. “I make decisions before terrifying authority figures arrive.”
That earns a proper laugh. You finish updating the chart, then stand. “I’ll come back later and reassess you, okay? If headaches worsen, if you feel nauseous, dizzy, anything changes you tell someone immediately.”
“Yes, doctor.”
“And no sneaking out.”
She looks offended. “I would never.” The medic snorts loudly enough that you glance at him.
“…Right,” you say dryly.
As you step into the corridor, your stomach growls violently enough to embarrass you in front of a passing nurse. Fantastic. You glance at the clock on the wall. You technically have six minutes before Dr. Alvarez expects you back downstairs. Plenty of time. Maybe. The vending machine near radiology hums ominously when you approach it. Half the options are broken. One looks genuinely expired.
You stare at it for a long moment before sighing dramatically.
“Brilliant.”
Eventually you settle for two little hospital ice cream cups from the café fridge nearby and a coffee that somehow tastes both burnt and watery at the same time. Barcelona really had betrayed you today.
When you return to Clàudia’s room twenty minutes later, she’s lying flatter against the pillows with her eyes closed.
You knock gently against the doorframe before stepping inside. “I bring peace offerings.”
One eye opens immediately. You hold up the ice cream cup and her entire expression brightens. “Oh, I like you.”
“That’s concerningly easy.”
“You don’t understand hospital food,” she says seriously.
“I work here. Unfortunately, I do.” You pass her the spoon and ice cream.
She takes it like you’ve handed her something sacred.
“This,” she declares after the first bite, “makes the hospital smell worth it.”
You laugh quietly despite yourself, settling back into the chair to quickly review her obs again.
“What flavour is it?” you ask absently.
“Strawberry.”
“Good choice.”
“It was the only pink one.”
You glance up.
“…Excellent clinical reasoning.”
She grins around another bite.
“And you?”
You lift your tub slightly. “Vanilla.”
“That is the most doctor answer possible.”
You gasp softly in mock offence. “Vanilla is reliable.”
“Vanilla is boring.”
“Some of us enjoy stability, Clàudia.”
“Not footballers.”
You shake your head, smiling despite yourself.
The conversation drifts easily after that. Mostly small things. Barcelona weather. Your disastrous Spanish. The fact you still get lost in the hospital corridors despite working there for weeks.
“You actually got lost?” she asks, delighted.
“In my defence,” you reply, “all hospital basements look like somewhere you’d hide government secrets.”
She laughs so suddenly she winces immediately after. You point your spoon at her.
“See? Medical evidence you should rest.”
“Yes, doctor.”
There’s something strangely easy about talking to her. No awkwardness. No pressure. Just warmth.
Eventually your pager buzzes again. Reality returning.
You sigh dramatically as you stand. “That noise is ruining my life.”
“You’re very dramatic for someone in medicine.”
“I work in neurology. We’ve earned it.”
She smiles faintly as you move toward the door. “Thanks for the ice cream.”
“You’re welcome.” You hesitate briefly. Then add, “Try not to organise an escape attempt while I’m gone.”
“No promises.”
You point at her sternly before leaving.
Hours pass faster after that. Patients. Scans. Notes. Mr. Navarro attempting to flirt with a physiotherapist half his age. Marta stealing half your crisps while insulting your handwriting.
By the time you finally circle back toward Clàudia’s room again, the sun outside has started turning golden through the corridor windows. You push the door open without thinking.
And immediately stop dead. Because the room is full. Not just visitors. An entire football team. Voices overlap everywhere at once; Spanish, laughter, complaints, someone arguing over takeaway food. At least six women turn to look at you simultaneously.Your survival instincts kick in immediately.
“Oh,” you say.
At the centre of the room, Clàudia looks entirely too pleased with herself. “Doctor!” she says brightly, like this is completely normal. You clutch the chart slightly tighter.
Several of the players shift to make space automatically. And then a familiar pair of honey-brown eyes meet yours.
Alexia. Standing beside the bed with her arms folded loosely across her chest.
Looking very, very aware that you are the same chaotic woman who assaulted her with iced coffee twelve hours ago.
Author's Note: i feel like i'am always apologizing for the delay. oh well.
The pub gets a jukebox.
But that is not the beginning of the story. That is the middle. Sort of.
It starts because the pub keeps doing numbers. Paddy is equal parts annoyed and thrilled when he has to call yet another crew meeting like success is not a thing he had ever predicted could happen to him personally. He had not even noticed the numbers, to be fair. It was Hayley, who informed you all, somewhere between pouring a pint and yelling at Norman, that she was close to finishing her Economics degree and wanted to use the pub's finances as her personal project.
Which left you all very confused and also profoundly grateful.
Truth be told, she may or may not have told you about this somewhere in the vague past. Probably a day where she was wearing a particularly low-cut blouse and you most likely did not pay attention to whatever was coming out of her mouth.
Anyway.
Paddy begrudgingly admits that you lot have money. That the lunch service has been a particular success since the new set-up. That Aggie tagging the pub had given them some buzz: the place is now considered "cool," apparently, the way an empty parking lot is considered cool by raccoons and vagabonds, or the way the French are considered rude.
You all clink pints in the late afternoon at the end of a grilling day. You dare ask for a raise, to which Paddy pretends to be deaf for a full minute.
"Fifty quid, mate, for fuck's sake."
"Eh. We'll see."
So with all that, Paddy decides you lot deserve a reward. Something off the list Hayley had drafted. It endears you to this grumpy Irish pudding that he genuinely runs the place like it is a collective effort and not his own private investment.
You think he should fix the walk-in fridge, upgrade the clanging stove, and definitely hire someone for the lunch shift, now that Hayley is too busy looking after the books to help you properly in the kitchen. You need a body. Preferably one quick with knives.
Instead, you get to pick between an air hockey table and a jukebox.
You want the table. Used to play with Charli back when you were kids and you loved it. But Paddy argues someone will throw a puck into someone's eye, which Carl actually thinks is funny. Hayley votes for music, traitor that she is, and Carl eventually agrees.
You really need that knife guy. At least to vote with you.
So. Jukebox.
It is not actually a jukebox so much as something that looks like a jukebox and allows music to be played, but the principle is correct. Everyone gets exactly one coin to choose a song when they come into the pub. If they want more, they have to come up to the counter and ask. If you think the song is shit, you charge. If it's alright, you wink and slide the coin back across like it's a treat.
You tease Aggie for every single one of her music choices and never let her pay.
But your favourite part, the actual reason you are now grateful for the jukebox in a way that is almost moral, is that it has become a very good excuse to talk to Alexia.
You text her on a random morning.
@jisthejones: pick a song
It takes a moment. It always does, because she is Alexia Putellas and you assume she has things to do besides entertaining the goblin who lives inside her phone.
But it's not deliberate, the time. You can tell.
Eventually it comes.
@alexiaputellas: is this trap?
@jisthejones: depends on your taste
@alexiaputellas: sounds like trap
@jisthejones: a song. woman. pick one.
She sends something which, under further investigation, turns out to be Karol G. Catchy. Good swing to it.
Perfect.
Then, later that same day, when there is a lull between the rush of lunch and that weird stretch before dinner and the pub is mostly quiet apart from its usual suspects sipping beer by the windows, you blast it.
The jukebox comes alive with light and sound. Splutters a bit hitting the high notes.
Norman actually splutters back. Mal's beer flies a little. Paddy, who was quietly doing a crossword in a rare display of stillness, throws his pen into the air.
"What the actual fuck?" Paddy puts a hand to his chest. You get worried for a second about your job. "The jukebox is possessed?"
"By a fucking Spanish ghost," Norman adds, reaching for paper to clean up Mal's mess.
You record all of it. Great skit. Resist the urge to post it on the pub's page. Send it to Alexia instead.
@jisthejones: hey. got a gift for you.
She answers later, when you are down to cleaning the kitchen and have just finished convincing Paddy not to hire a medium to investigate the cursed jukebox.
She sends a voice note. Just her laughing. Pure joy, breathless at the end and speaking Catalan nonsense you do not understand and do not care to.
You do not need a translation to feel the way you feel about it.
You keep doing it. Every other day. Your little ritual.
Yours and Alexia's, that is.
*
You do it so often you stop noticing it. Paddy just accepts that this is the soundtrack of his pub now ("Fucking Spanish ghost") and you even catch Carl humming along to Rosalía at some point.
It is funny.
It is funny until Aggie is sitting in front of you at her now usual spot at the counter, and you are scribbling some idea for a recipe you have just had, and Alexia's pick of the morning rolls round again.
Aggie's fork pauses halfway to her mouth.
She frowns at the speakers.
"Hm. I think I know this."
You do not look up. "Mm."
"I definitely know this. Jana listens to it all the time."
You keep your eyes on the page. Continue writing. Continue specifically not writing anything intelligible.
"Mm."
"Who picked it?"
"What?"
"The song. Who picked it? It's a very specific—"
"Customer."
Aggie blinks. "A customer."
"Yeah. Some customer."
She looks at you. She does the thing she does when she is suspicious, which is the same thing she does when she is confused, which is to scrunch her nose up in a way that is unfortunately reminiscent of Taco. You are not equipped for it on a normal day. You are absolutely not equipped for it now.
"A customer," she repeats slowly, "in this pub, picked a deep cut Rosalía track."
"Sure did."
"Jude."
"What."
"Are you having me on?"
"I would never."
"Because the last song before this was also Spanish."
"Was it?"
"Yes."
"Huh."
"And the one before that was sung in Catalan."
"Was it though."
Aggie sets her fork down. Folds her arms on the bar. Leans forward in a way that suggests she is willing to wait you out for as long as it takes.
"Jude."
"Aggie."
"Why is your jukebox more Catalan than Catalonia?"
Your brain does a small panicked lap around the inside of your skull and comes back with absolutely nothing useful. Just a faint ringing sound and a memory of the dead cactus on your windowsill.
You blurt out the first thing that comes up.
"Paella night."
There is a pause.
Aggie tilts her head.
"Sorry?"
"Paella night," you say again, louder, like volume might make it true.
It does not.
"Paella night?"
"Yeah."
"What's paella night?"
"It's a..." you wave a hand, "...night. A paella night."
"Jude."
"It's pre-game music. For paella night. Setting the mood. Getting into it. Spiritually."
"Spiritually."
"Yes."
You drop the pen.
It rolls off the counter.
Neither of you watches it go.
It is a proper disease you have, this. Once you start the bullshit you cannot stop. Charli has been telling you this since you were nine.
Aggie, to her credit, does not call you a liar.
She does, however, look around the pub very slowly. At the framed Durham shirt, now with its Chelsea companion. At the broken cricket bat. At Norman, who is currently attempting to eat a pickled egg in a way that suggests the egg is winning. At everything in this room that is, has ever been, or could ever conceivably be in the future, even glancingly Spanish.
She turns back to you.
"Paella night," she says, deadpan. "Here."
"Yes."
"In this pub."
"That is what I said."
"Run by Paddy."
"Correct."
"Who I am ninety percent sure has never seen a saffron thread in his life."
"Eighty percent. He went to Magaluf once."
Aggie stares at you.
You stare at the wall.
"I thought we were friends, Jude."
"We are."
"And you didn't think to tell me about your weekly Spanish-themed event?"
"It's not weekly," you say, before you can stop yourself, because you are now in the part of the lie where you start making up details, which is the part Charli specifically warned you about. "It's, like. Once a month. We just started."
"Just started."
"Yeah."
"This is the launch."
A beat.
Then Aggie's whole face changes.
Not sceptical anymore. Bright. Properly bright, with the kind of openness that she gets when she is genuinely excited about a thing. The blush has come back without warning.
"Oh, that's actually kind of awesome."
You blink.
"Is it?"
"Yeah. I've never had paella before. Could I bring Jana? She's always complaining she can't find good paella in London. She'll lose her mind."
"Sure. Bring Jana."
"Could I bring some of the others?"
"Sure. Bring whoever."
"How many is too many?"
"There is no upper limit on this," you say, gesturing at the empty pub, which is doing absolutely nothing to support your claim of an active monthly Catalan-themed dinner service, "as you can see."
She laughs. She is delighted now, which is somehow worse than her being suspicious. She is properly excited. You noticed she gets the way she does when she is excited, which involves both hands and a lot of eyebrow movement.
"What date?"
"I'll post it up."
"Is it Catalan paella or Valencian? Because Jana has opinions on this."
"Surprise."
"Are there allergens? Should I let people know? I have a friend who's funny with shellfish."
"Better to avoid the paella then."
She nods, beaming, slides off her stool, and waves at the door on her way out with the wholesome enthusiasm of a girl who genuinely cannot wait to tell her friends about a thing.
The door swings shut behind her.
You let your head hit the counter.
You hit it harder than you mean to.
The pub goes briefly silver round the edges of your vision.
Hayley emerges from the back room holding a clipboard, takes one look at you, sets the clipboard down, and walks calmly behind the bar.
You hit your head again.
She lets you.
By the third one, she puts a hand flat on the counter beside your face.
"Alright, what?"
You do not lift your head.
You explain the situation into the wood.
There is a long silence.
Then Hayley helps you hit your head one more time, properly, with the dignity of a woman who has watched you ruin your own life many times before and is here for the latest.
*
The following conversation is held.
Paddy, Carl, you, and Hayley all clamber up after close, perched on different surfaces with the air of a war council that has suffered.
"What," Paddy says, "is a pa-e-llya."
"That is not how you say it."
"Well, fuck how it is said. What is it."
"It's like fish and chips," you offer, "but with rice. And the fish brought his friends."
Paddy frowns at you like you have just handed him a Rubik's cube.
"Sounds expensive."
"It is expensive."
Hayley shoots you a look. She has become rather attached to the pub's finances now that she is in charge of them.
"Right," you say, "I know I fucked up—"
"Calm down," Carl says, "you haven't fucked up yet."
It is meant supportively. It is not very supportive.
You press your fingers into your temples. Your head is hurting, mostly from all the punishment you have just put it through.
How do you explain that you did not want Aggie too curious about your song choices and so reached for the worst lie available within human grasp?
You don't. You move on.
"Look," you say, "this could actually be a good thing. Nights are slow during the week. Aggie said she'd bring some friends. We could charge an entrance and—"
"We do not deserve the angel that is Aggie," Paddy says solemnly.
Carl nods.
"And we definitely do not deserve the demon named Jude," Hayley adds, pinching at you. You swat her off.
"Would you stop that. We can just call the whole thing off and—"
"That tracks—"
"I think we should try it."
The whole of you stop.
Carl has not moved. He has one finger up, in the air, like a small judge. His voice is deep and even.
"You do?"
Carl is generally the first to tell you that whatever you are trying is stupid. This applies to many things. It applies, specifically, to most things that take place inside a kitchen, but it covers every front.
"The lunch special was a success," he says. "People expect us to keep doing it."
He pauses for maximum effect.
"We should surprise them. Always."
You grin, surprised but not really. Carl is a quiet rebel. You are fairly sure he has been arrested at least once, which counts as significant street cred in your books.
Paddy beams.
"He's right. Keep the surprises coming." He clutches his beanie to his chest like he is taking a vow.
Hayley rolls her eyes, but she is already smiling.
"If you think we can pull this off—"
"Jude can," Carl says. "Right, Jude?"
The smallest nod in your direction.
And you feel, for once, like not quite such a fucking loser.
You scrub at your eyes because they are stinging a little. Must be all the oil floating around in the kitchen.
"Yeah," you say. You give them your best confident grin. It comes out closer to a grimace but you will bullshit through it. "We're kitchen pirates. We can pull it off."
*
The notification on her phone makes her feel things.
Not the words in it. The name behind them.
Jude.
Alexia has been thinking, for a while now, of ways to give Jude her phone number without it coming off as... something. As whatever she does not want it to come off as. It is complicated. She feels like she missed the timing somewhere along the way. Somewhere between knowing Jude's shopping list by heart and their first fight, it should have come up. It did not.
So now it is just annoying.
Annoying to keep checking Instagram for every notification, hoping the next one is the one she wants.
Not like that.
Anyway.
She is sitting at her table, floor-to-ceiling windows letting the moonlight peek through the curtains. The sea is far enough to be less a roar and more a lullaby.
Alexia lets the usual giddiness, which she now associates with Jude's messages, fill her up. It has been an annoying day. Too much tactical training, not enough pitch time, and the next game is too far out.
She is already smiling before she even opens the phone.
Then she frowns.
@jisthejones: what's the best paella you ever had?
@alexiaputellas: that is hard question.
@jisthejones: a top ten then?
@alexiaputellas: jude, what you planning?
Silence.
Alexia waits patiently. Chews her bland protein and carbs and salad. Imagines, not for the first time, what Jude's food must taste like. Jude is English — lovely friend, yes, but tastebud limitations are a known issue. Then again, Jude is also half-French. That gives her an edge.
Alexia is more curious about it than she would like to admit.
@jisthejones: can i call you?
She stops for a beat.
They have not called each other since the first time. Somehow wanting to. Somehow always lacking the perfect excuse.
Before Alexia can reply, Jude is already, well. Being Jude.
@jisthejones: sorry. was that weird?
@jisthejones: the call thing
@jisthejones: the paella thing as well, i figure
@jisthejones: all of it, i'm sorry that i'm weird
Alexia hits the call button before the girl implodes and Alexia gets somehow investigated for long-distance homicide.
The line rings.
The screen blinks and goes from connecting to Jude all at once.
Oh.
It is the sound that arrives in her head before any of the others, and Alexia is grateful she is alone in her house to hear it.
Jude is in a kitchen. Not her own — the pub one, by the look of it. Stainless steel behind her, badly lit, the particular yellow of overhead bulbs that nobody bothers to replace. It is late. Late enough that the rest of the place is clearly empty. Jude is alone. Off shift. The apron is on but loose, untied at the back, like she had put it on and then forgotten about it.
Her hair is brushed back in half-attempt that has clearly given up on itself, dark pieces falling around her temples. There is a smear of something across her jaw. Flour, possibly. Tomato.
She looks, Dios, she looks — Alexia does not finish the sentence in her own head. She does not need to. She has all the information she needs.
Tired. Pleased with herself about something. Handsome in the unfair way Jude is, which is to say that she has clearly not noticed she is. There are pans behind her. Rice on the counter. The pencil tucked behind her ear like she has just come from doing maths.
Alexia drinks a sip of water she does not need.
"Hola."
"Better."
"Practising."
"I see."
Jude grins. Dimple comes out. Alexia files it away in a careful box she has labeled "things I refuse to touch".
"Don't get excited. I have not graduated to cómo estás yet."
"You tell me when?"
"You will be the first to know."
Alexia tilts her head.
"You are in a kitchen."
"I am in a kitchen."
"Why?"
"Because that is where the food is."
"Jude."
"What?"
"It is..." She checks the time at the corner of her own screen. "Eleven for you."
"Closer to midnight, actually."
"And you are in pub kitchen."
"I am in the pub kitchen."
"Why?"
Jude scratches the back of her neck. "Just trying things. For the pub."
"Trying things."
"Yeah."
"Which things?"
Jude looks at the camera with the perfectly innocent face of a woman who has been caught doing something and would like very much not to discuss it.
"Just things, Alexia."
"Mm."
"Don't mm me."
"Mm."
"Alexia."
"Vale, vale. So you do things. And the things are why you ask for paella."
"...amongst other things."
"There are other things."
Alexia narrows her eyes. Jude is grinning now, properly. Not the grimace-grin. The real one. The one that means she is enjoying herself.
"What you not telling me?"
"Nothing."
"You ask me about paella at midnight and you are not telling me anything?"
"Correct."
"Jude."
"It's a surprise."
Alexia goes still.
"What surprise?"
"Wouldn't be a surprise if I told you, would it."
"For me?"
A small pause.
Jude's mouth does something. Tries not to.
"Sort of."
Alexia opens her mouth to ask about ten more questions in a row and then, with admirable discipline, closes it. Files this away too. Sort of for me. She will get back to it. She always gets back to it.
For now she lets Jude have her wall.
"Vale. Then I help with paella, and you tell me later."
"That is the deal."
"You will tell me."
"I will tell you."
Jude laughs. Pulls a stool over, drops onto it with the heaviness of a person who has been on her feet since the morning, and props the phone up against something Alexia cannot see. Probably a flour bag. Possibly a chopping board.
"Right," Jude says. "So. Talk to me."
"About paella."
"About paella."
Alexia leans back in her chair. Pushes her plate away because suddenly she is not interested in it. The thing she is interested in is the kitchen on the other side of her screen and the woman in it.
"Bueno. First. The rice."
"Of course."
"Bomba. Bomba o nada."
"Bomba or nothing."
"Bomba or nothing. You can do Calasparra but bomba is better. Other rice, no."
"What about Arborio?"
Alexia stops chewing the air and stares at her. "Are you trying to anger me?"
"I am asking a question."
"Madre mía. Arborio for risotto. Italian. Mai. Mai. Nunca. Listen. The rice for paella, it must — comès — debe absorber el caldo, but it does not — what is the word."
"Stick together."
"Yes. Yes. Not stick. The grain stays separate. Arborio go cremoso, like risotto. Wrong. Disgusting. Insult."
"Okay, okay, no Arborio. Bomba."
"Bomba."
"Got it."
Jude pulls the pencil out from behind her ear and looks around for something to write on.
She picks up a receipt.
She writes on it. Not even on the clean side, right between the numbers.
In pencil.
Alexia, who can see the entire performance through the screen, makes a noise.
"What you do?"
"Writing it down."
"On a paper you will lose."
"It's fine."
"Jude. Get a notebook."
"No. Next."
Alexia presses her hand against her forehead.
She is going to lose her mind.
This woman writes recipes on receipts. She writes them on the counter. She writes them on the kitchen wall. She is telling Alexia, with a straight face, that this is a system. Alexia thinks, briefly, of her own neat printed pages, her own labelled jars, her own boxes of recipe cards in handwriting she has refined since she was twelve.
She is going to lose her mind.
And she likes it.
This is the worst part.
"Bueno," she says, taking a breath. "Continue. Sofrito."
"Sofrito."
"Yes. El alma. The soul of paella. You do this slow. Slow, slow, slow. Onion, garlic, tomato. Pero fresh tomato, not from can, no, please."
"Fresh tomato."
"Grated. Through the — ràllador?"
"Grater."
"Grater. Sí. You grate it, you put it in pan, you cook until almost dry. Until it become — fosc, dark, almost..." She gestures, looking for the word.
"Jammy."
"What?"
"Jammy. Like jam."
Alexia tilts her head, considering. "Mermelada."
"Yeah, like a tomato jam."
"Sí. Jammy. I learn this word. Bueno. Sofrito must be jammy. If sofrito is not good, paella is not good. Es la base."
"Got it. Jammy sofrito. Bomba rice. What else is non-negotiable?"
"Saffron," Alexia begins.
Turns out Alexia has lots of opinions on paella.
Not a surprise to herself, exactly. She has known this her whole life. But now that there is a willing listener on the other end of a phone in a yellow-lit kitchen in London, the opinions come out in a steady, escalating tide. Saffron. Stock. The unforgivable sin of cube broth. The proteins. No mezclar. The crust. The socarrat, which Jude makes her say three times for the R.
And Jude is — well. Besides her catastrophic note-taking skills, which are a separate and ongoing concern, Jude is a very good listener.
Interested. Asks questions. Adds her own opinions, not annoyingly, not arrogantly. Respectful. Gentle, even. Not the gentleness of a person trying to be careful with you. The gentleness of a person who is genuinely curious about the answer.
Alexia is not used to it.
People ask her things, generally. Reporters. Coaches. Friends. They ask in a way that has a pre-agreed shape, and Alexia answers in the pre-agreed shape, and everybody returns home satisfied. They are not truly interested in her, it's mostly the idea of her they need to confirm it fits. It usually does.
But Jude asks her about how her grandmother used to take the rice off the heat, and the question has no intention at all besides knowing, and Alexia finds herself answering things she had not planned to say.
She tells Jude about her abuela's kitchen. The sound of the pan on the stove. The argument over Valencian versus Catalan that has run uninterrupted in her family since she was small. Her mother's escudella in winter. The first time she ate a bad paella abroad and had to be physically restrained by Alba from saying anything to the chef.
Jude laughs at that one. Properly, head tipped back, the throat-and-shoulders laugh that Alexia is starting to think of as a small private currency she gets to spend on each call.
Then Jude tells her about her own mother.
Not all at once. Bits. The hum she used to do over a deglazing pan. The way she tasted everything with her eyes closed. The small, specific Sundays of being eight years old and standing on a stool because the counter was too high. Jude's voice goes quieter for that part. Not heavy. Just smaller.
Alexia does not interrupt.
She just leans her chin on her hand and lets Jude have the kitchen on her side of the screen, and the small Sunday on the other side of it, and the time it takes to say what she wants to say.
When Jude finally circles back out of it with a small anyway and a half-grin, Alexia just nods once and says, "Thank you for telling me."
Jude blinks.
"For what."
"For telling me."
Jude's mouth does a thing. Her half-smile. Crooked. Alexia's eyes fixate on that.
She does not have an answer ready for that one. Alexia files this away too. Jude has an answer for almost everything; the ones she doesn't are, Alexia is finding, the interesting ones.
They talk about Charli. About Alba. About the time Alexia broke her wrist falling out of an apricot tree at eight, which she has not told anyone in years and which, Jude points out, is now a thing she will absolutely think about every time she eats an apricot. About Jude's awful flat. About the dead cactus on Jude's windowsill, which Jude refuses to throw out on principle. About a holiday Alexia took with her family one summer to a village near Girona where the only restaurant was run by an old man who she got terribly attached to that summer for reasons she did not entirely understand at the time.
Then Jude tells her, with the deadpan composure Alexia is starting to associate with British humour, about a school trip to the London zoo. Charli, aged eleven, tried to confess her undying love to the responsible teacher by reading from a phrase book in French. She accidentally announced her intention to sell him a fridge.
Alexia laughs so hard her abs hurt the next morning.
That is when she realises.
She is still on her chair. Her plate is still in front of her, unfinished. The cutlery is still on the plate. She has not moved. She has not made a single domestic gesture in her own house in over an hour. Her military routine ignored. The lamp is the same. The sea is still doing its thing. Her glass of water is still half full from when she poured it before she opened her phone.
The whole world has, somehow, gracefully, agreed to pause.
It is not even that she has forgotten the time. It is that the time has stopped being a thing she has to manage. Time, when she is talking to Jude, behaves itself. It does not nip at her ankles. It does not hand her a list. It just sits patiently in the corner like a well-trained dog.
She has not had this with anyone in — she does not finish the sentence in her own head, either. She has been making a habit, recently, of not finishing sentences in her own head where Jude is concerned.
Then her wrist buzzes.
Alexia looks down.
The fancy watch — the one that tracks her whole life for her, sleep, hydration, heart rate, presumably mood, possibly tax bracket — is informing her, with the firm patience of a small Swiss tutor, that she has ten minutes to be in bed.
She stares at it.
"What is it?" Jude asks, stretches her neck a little with a wince. Alexia is reminded that her english pen pal has not moved as well.
"My watch."
"What about it?"
"It says I sleep in ten minutes."
Jude blinks. "Your watch tells you when to sleep?"
"For recovery."
"Like a parent."
"Like a parent, sí."
"Christ."
"I have not even — los platos — washed plates yet." She says, a little disgruntled at her own behaviour. Glaring at the plate like it would sort itself out.
Jude grins. "Well, we have been here an hour."
"I know."
"Discussing paella."
"For maybe twenty minutes."
"Yeah."
"And then other things."
"Yeah."
There is a small pause. Comfortable. Neither of them says anything for a moment.
Alexia clears her throat.
"Jude."
"Hmm?"
"I should go."
"I know."
"But—"
She stops. Looks at her plate. Looks at the screen. Decides to risk it.
"I would like to try your food. Sometime. De verdad. Not — not joke. Real."
Jude goes very still.
Then, slowly, she ducks her head. Rubs at the back of her neck. When she looks up at the camera there is a small flush along the line of her jaw that the bad lighting tries very hard to hide and does not quite manage.
"Yeah," she says. Quiet. "Yeah, I'd like that. I'd like to cook for you."
"Bueno."
"Properly. The whole thing."
"Whenever."
"Whenever."
Another beat.
Alexia is the one who breaks it, because if she does not, she is going to say something else, and her watch is now on its second small admonishing buzz and the house is very quiet.
"Jude."
"Yeah."
"You should have my number."
It comes out lighter than she feels. She is grateful, in real time, for the years she has spent learning how to say things lighter than she feels. How to school her face into careful neutrality in front of journalists and what not.
"My phone," she clarifies, rambles. "My number. Por si. In case you have paella question. Instagram is — no es práctico."
"Your phone number."
"Sí."
"For paella."
"Sí."
"Right."
Jude is doing something with her mouth. Trying to keep it under control. Failing slightly.
"Important culinary helpline."
"Jude."
"Catalan paella support hotline."
"Jude."
"Yeah, alright. Send it through. Hit me."
Alexia is already typing it before she can convince herself she shouldn't.
The number pings on the other end.
Jude picks it up. The camera shakes a little, Alexia gets a close view of her, then it's sat down again.
The smirk arrives in stages.
Alexia watches it the way one watches weather come in across the sea. There is the first small lift of one corner of Jude's mouth. There is the tongue against the inside of her cheek. There is the tilt of the head. There is, finally, the full grin, slow and stupid and delighted.
"I got Alexia Putellas's number," Jude says, slowly, as if the sentence has a taste of it's own.
Alexia feels her own face go warm and is grateful, again, that the lamp is the only light.
"You did," she says.
"I have got Alexia Putellas's actual phone number."
"Yes, Jude."
"Saved as Alexia Putellas."
"You can save as you want."
Jude grins at the camera. "I am saving as Alexia Putellas. I want the full effect when you ring. I want the whole name. I want my home screen to feel important."
"Tonta."
"Yeah, whatever that is."
There is a pause.
A small one. The kind that has the entire weight of a thing in it without anyone naming the thing.
Alexia rests her chin against her hand. She is smiling. She knows she is smiling. She has stopped trying to do anything about it.
Jude swallows, but eyes her back. Steady.
She does not deflect this time.
Then, because she is Jude, she does deflect, half a second later, with the neat little timing of someone who knows exactly what she is doing.
"Right. Bed. Putellas. Watch is screaming at you."
"Vale."
"Goodnight, Putellas."
"Goodnight, cabrona."
The screen blinks black.
Alexia just sits for a moment in her quiet house with her uneaten plate and her unwashed cutlery and her watch buzzing one final, judgemental time against her wrist. Lets the evening wash over her, the faint lingering giddiness that tingles under her skin every time Jude is involved.
The box labeled "things I refuse to touch" is bursting at the seams.
She picks up the phone properly. There's a message from an unknown number. Not from Spain.
It reads simply:
Fuck, Barça.
Alexia laughs, delighted.
She opens her contacts. Saves Jude as Jude.
Just Jude.
She does not need anything else.
She is halfway to the kitchen with her plate in her hand when she stops in the middle of the hallway, frowning at nothing.
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait.
Jude never told her about the surprise.
Alexia stands very still, plate in hand, in the dark hallway of her own house, and replays the last hour in her head with the slow horror of a woman who has just realised she has been comprehensively played.
*
You do not want to spoil it, but the night is actually doing good.
Folk who already know the pub stumble by. Some stragglers who maybe saw the post on the place's social media and got curious. Norman and Mal, for all their grumbling, arrive together in what you strongly suspect is a date, and try both types of paella because they cannot decide who is in charge.
You risked yourself with both. Catalan and Valencian, despite Alexia's protests.
You wonder if your colleagues have any idea how much a Catalan football star has influenced the goings of the night. They probably don't. You have not exactly told them. Carl thinks you've been at a course. Paddy thinks you have been on the internet which he says it like it's an actual place. Hayley thinks something else but Hayley always thinks something else and you have made peace with not asking.
There are four huge saucepans of paella perched on the stove, kept warm by you or Carl on a rolling rotation. The rice on the Catalan one looks, if you do say so yourself, suspiciously close to right. Socarrat on the bottom of the pan. Saffron real. Sofrito jammy. Bomba bomba bomba.
You allow yourself a small private moment of pride and then immediately shake yourself out of it, in case it summons disaster.
Paddy folded and hired a guy named Mits, who is half-Chinese, makes insane drinks, and is currently distributing pitchers of sangria across most of the tables with the speed and carefulness never seen before in the walls of this sad pub. La Liga F reruns play on the TV on mute, because the jukebox is being supervised by Hayley and her steady flux of Spanish songs.
Rory and Liv came by earlier, congratulated you on the fucking gorgeous food, Jude, what the fuck and what is, in general, a pretty great night.
You should know better than to relax.
You are too distracted by the sangria, and by Hayley's tits in a corset thing she swears is a typical outfit from bullfights, whatever the fuck that means, when the door swings open.
You raise your head. Smile, because there is Aggie, cute in a pompom beanie. Behind her comes Jana, flushed from the cold, drowning in a jacket two sizes too big for her.
And then half the Lionesses squad barges in behind them.
You blink. Twice.
Hayley's mouth opens.
You close it for her. She swats your hand away.
Aggie clocks you behind the counter and waves enthusiastically.
"Jude!"
What the fuck.
There is Lucy Bronze. Lucy Bronze. In your pub. Lucy Bronze the Lucy Bronze. Wearing a normal coat and a normal scarf, like a normal person. She has another woman tucked against her side, leaner, hair between red and blonde, smiling up at her in that automatic way two people who are no longer dating but have not quite stopped being a unit smile at each other. Keira Walsh. You know who Keira Walsh is.
Then, behind Keira, with the slightly thunderous expression of a woman who has been dragged out by a friend on a Tuesday, is Leah Williamson.
You blink again, more slowly this time, in case you have wandered into a stroke.
Freya Godfrey is taking off her coat with the patient amusement of the person who actually accepted Aggie's invitation.
You make a small, internal noise. Then an outside noise, like a dying seal.
How the fuck am I going to explain this to Charli?
Charli, your darling sister. Charli, who has called you on three separate occasions in tears because she got to share a pitch with Lucy Bronze for fifteen minutes. Charli, who is at home right now, almost certainly watching something boring like a documentary about camels, and who has no idea that her useless little sister is about to feed half the England senior squad in a pub in north London while wearing your lucky faded black t-shirt, the one with a little hole on the collar, and which you are now experiencing visceral regret about.
Hayley elbows you in the ribs. Hard.
"Smile."
"I am smiling."
"It looks like you are dying."
"I might."
"Smile, Jude."
You smile, presumably terribly.
Aggie barrels up to the counter, beaming, fully unaware of the chaos she has imported. Jana slides up behind her, already smirking and just too damn amused at this all being an accident.
"Hi," Aggie says brightly.
"Hi."
"You said bring whoever."
"I did say that."
"They are excited."
"That's nice."
"Freya is mostly here for Spanish food. Lucy heard about it and pulled Keira. Keira pulled Leah. Leah doesn't like new food, generally, but she heard there were chips."
You stare at her. She is so flustered and pleased with herself that you cannot stay annoyed at her.
Jana, behind her, is openly enjoying you.
"Hola, jefe."
"Hola yourself."
"You're making a face."
"I am told that is what is happening, yes."
"Tranquila, they will love it."
"Cheers, mate. Reassuring."
She winks. Actually winks. Then drifts off, two pitchers of sangria already mysteriously in her hands, in the direction of her people.
You take a deep breath.
You count to four.
You let it out.
You are a professional. Or you are, at least, currently doing the most professional thing you have ever done in your life, and you will not collapse before service.
Carl looks across at you from the second pan with his face perfectly neutral.
"Aren't those—"
"Yes."
"Right."
"Big night."
"Big night."
"Better not fuck up the rice."
"Ideally."
You head out from behind the counter with two pitchers of water and a fixed expression of normal hospitality glued to your face.
Aggie's lot have taken over the long table by the window, the one Paddy keeps optimistically calling the family table even though no family has ever, to your knowledge, willingly used it. They are already loud in the easy way professional athletes are loud — a thing you recognise from Charli's teammates, where the volume is a form of mutual permission rather than noise.
Lucy Bronze is laughing at something Keira said. Keira looks pleased with herself in the contained way of a woman who has been making Lucy Bronze laugh since they were both teens and has not yet got bored of it.
Freya Godfrey has unwound her scarf and is making the slow, patient eye-contact of a person already settling in for a long stay.
Leah Williamson is at the end of the bench, arms folded, jaw set, in the unmistakable posture of a woman currently holding a grudge against the friend who dragged her out of her flat.
You go around the table, pouring water. Saying hi in the carefully measured voice of yes, I know who you are, yes, I am being normal about it, please do not take a photograph of my face right now.
And then Aggie introduces you with the proud flourish of a girl presenting her science project— Charli has been known to call you 'frog face' more than once, so this is, all things considered, a generous framing.
"This is Jude. Jude is the cook. Jude is the reason."
"For?" says Lucy.
"For everything. Brace yourselves, lads, this is going to slap."
"Aggie. Please."
Jana, seated diagonally across from you with her chin on her hand, says serenely, "She is right. Es muy bueno."
"Stop."
"Verdad."
You are extremely red, you can feel it, and Hayley is watching from the bar with the smug satisfaction of someone who is going to bring this up forever.
Lucy Bronze tilts her head like this is casual. Like she's exploring unsanitary pubs all the time. "My girlfriend keeps bothering me that there's no good paella in this town. Please help me shut her up."
"Ona is very particular about her paella," Jana adds, nodding along. "All Catalans are."
Oh, of course. Casually name-dropping fucking Ona Batlle like it's no big deal. Why not? That's your life now, apparently.
They are immediately off, Catalan tumbling between them at speed, Keira watching Lucy's face and rolling her eyes with the practised fondness of a person who has been through this kind of nonsense from time to time.
You stand there pouring water like a person on staff at a wedding she was not invited to.
Freya, beside you, comments with a smile on her face, "Very hard to please, these Catalan folk."
"Right."
"It's been a whole mission when she's in town."
Your hand, holding the pitcher, does a very small wobble that nobody notices except you.
"Hm."
For now you focus on the conversation in front of you and on the small private fact that Lucy Bronze's girlfriend is currently somewhere in Spain, possibly on a sofa, not knowing that the captain of her team has been very thoroughly involved in the cooking of this paella from a thousand miles away.
The universe is very funny tonight.
Freya tilts her head at you slightly.
"You're Northern."
"Yeah."
"Where?"
"Seaham. Durham."
She makes a small, satisfied face. "Essex."
"Yeah, I clocked."
"You clocked it from hi."
"You clocked it from hi."
You thought you had had enough with the poshness from Aggie, but apparently here is one more.
Then you get to Leah.
That is the part you are most nervous about, if you are honest.
Because that is Leah Williamson brooding inside your pub. Captain of England. Arsenal legend.
Even you, who do not give two fucks about anything on a good day, do not want to mess it up in front of her.
Leah looks up at you when you reach her end of the bench. Her arms are still folded. Her expression has the faint, professional disgruntlement of a person being made to do something they would not have chosen.
"Water?" you offer.
"Please."
"Sangria?"
"Mm."
"That a yes or a no?"
"That's a maybe."
She is looking at you with the specific, narrow attention of a person who has decided she does not yet have an opinion of you, which means she hasn't noticed the holes in your shirt or the stains on your apron. She has some intense blue eyes you would not like to meet on the pitch.
You make a mental note to ask Alexia how it is to play against her.
You pour the water.
She watches you pour the water, a small pout in place.
You decide, in the spirit of it being a long night, to swing first.
"I've been told you're not having the paella."
"You have been told correctly."
"Why's that?"
"I don't like new food."
"Bold position from a Lioness."
She holds your gaze. Her mouth has the very, very faint suggestion of being on the verge of doing something. You cannot tell what.
You straighten up.
"I'll do you chips."
"That would be welcome."
"With what, pray tell, pride of our nation?"
Keira snorts into her cup. Leah tries and fails to hold her grin.
"More chips."
It is Freya's turn to snort a little.
You go and put the order in to Carl, who looks at the ticket, then at you, then at the table, then back at the ticket, and says, very quietly, "Is she aware that this is paella night?"
"She wants chips."
"That's the captain of England."
"And she wants chips, Carl."
He shrugs. God bless Carl, unshakeable wall that he is.
"I'll do them properly. Beautiful chips."
"Lovely."
The first round of paella, when it goes out, is the moment you have been, low-grade, dreading all evening.
You bring the Catalan pan to the family table and lift the lid and the entire end of the room makes a noise. Aggie gasps. Freya leans forward. Lucy actually leans back in her chair and goes "oh my god."
"That is — Keira, look at the socarrat."
"I am looking. Lucy. Speak quietly."
"It is exactly — Ona is going to cry."
"Lucy, Jesus."
You serve. You explain things. You hear yourself say bomba rice. Catalan. Real saffron. Sofrito. You hear yourself say socarrat without entirely fucking up the R, which you are absolutely going to be telling Alexia about later, in detail.
Jana takes the first bite.
Chews.
Closes her eyes.
Makes a noise that you will absolutely also be reporting back, though not entirely accurately.
"Joder, Jude."
"Yeah?"
"Sí, sí, sí. You little freak. How?"
"Catalan source."
She eyes you over her fork. The look is far too observant. "Mm. Catalan source."
"Yes, Jana."
You break eye contact first because she is enjoying herself far too much and you are fairly certain you are blushing obviously now.
Lucy takes a bite. You track it closely. Goes very quiet. Her eyes close in approximately the same configuration as Jana's.
She swallows. Opens her eyes. Looks at you very directly.
"I am sending my girlfriend a video of this."
"Please do not."
"Ona is going to book a flight."
"Lucy."
"Keira, taste it."
Keira tastes it. Keira closes her eyes too.
"Ona's coming," Keira concedes, around her mouthful.
You think Lucy was about to say something but her mouth is full again.
You put both hands on the back of an empty chair to steady yourself and try, with real effort, not to laugh out loud at the universe.
Fuck yes, you are good.
Freya, mid-bite, says serenely, "This is annihilating my preconception of pub food."
"Cheers, Godfrey."
"I mean it. I am furious about it."
"Take it up with the manager."
"Where's the manager?"
"Currently weeping behind the bar."
You glance over your shoulder. Paddy is, in fact, standing behind the bar, holding a tea towel against his face, watching all of this happen to him with the expression of a man who has been mugged by joy.
You leave him to it.
The chips arrive.
You set the bowl in front of Leah personally. Carl has done them properly, double-fried, salt to specification, the kind of chip that is, in your professional opinion, structurally perfect.
Leah looks at them. Pops one into her mouth, then smirks a little self-satisfied thing.
"Thank you."
She picks up another one.
"Alright?"
"They're alright."
"That's the highest compliment I am ever getting out of you, isn't it."
"Probably."
You linger, despite yourself. There is something perversely satisfying about the project of this woman. You hate people who do not try food. You actually hate picky eaters. It is kind of what makes you suck at handling children.
Leah catches you looking. She raises one eyebrow.
"Can I help you, chef?"
You decide that everything is going so well so far that you might as well ruin it. You pull a chair at her side, turn it, cross your arms over the back like you are a person on a mission.
You are a person on a mission.
"You can maybe eat the paella."
"No."
"It's already on your friends' plates."
"I am aware."
"You already came out tonight."
"Keira was being annoying."
"Well, now I'm being annoying back."
"That's bad for business."
"You are bad for business if you are not eating my paella."
She eats another chip. Watches you. You watch her back. There is a small, mutually amused stalemate.
"Alright," you say, leaning forward, tracing her face for any cracks. She raises her eyebrows, daring. "What's it going to take?"
"To get one bite of paella into me? My price is high."
"Of course it is."
She tilts her head slightly. She looks around the room like she is searching for something. Something to make this impossible. Eyes scan around the bar until they land at the back wall. At the framed shirts hanging on it.
She pops another chip in. They have a satisfying crunch to them that you will make sure to compliment Carl on later.
Then she looks back at you. There is a bit of salt on her lips. You do not know why you notice that.
"Where's the Arsenal shirt?"
You blink.
"What?"
"The Arsenal shirt. On the wall. Where is it?"
You look at the wall.
There is Charli's old Durham strip, framed, lovingly. There is Aggie's Chelsea shirt, signed, dragged into respectability by the affection of the woman who brought it. The wall has, between them, a slightly grubby Celtic scarf that Paddy refuses to explain and the cracked cricket bat of origins unknown.
What is up with footballers and your stupid wall anyway?
"I mean... fuck Arsenal."
Keira raises her eyebrows beside Leah, clearly interested in where this is going. Leah smirks, delighted, like you gave her the right answer.
"Then fuck paella."
"Leah."
"Jude."
"Oh, cute, you caught my name."
"Well, you caught my attention."
You blush a little. Surprised. Pleased underneath, because this is England's finest after all. She waits for your next move.
You sigh, point your thumb back at the wall.
"This pub does not have an Arsenal shirt because nobody has given us an Arsenal shirt."
"I could give you an Arsenal shirt. Signed."
"By you?"
"And the squad."
"For one bite of paella?"
"...don't say it like that, you make it sound stupid."
"It is stupid."
"You have fucking Chelsea up there."
"Hey!" Aggie and Lucy half-heartedly protest. Keira does not bother. Jana and Freya look between the two of you like this is the most intense match of ping-pong ever played.
"So..." you try again, starting to enjoy this, "you'll send a signed Arsenal shirt for the wall in exchange for one bite of paella?"
"I will."
"And if you hate it?"
"You don't get a second bite."
"And if you love it?"
"I won't."
You smirk. Because she will love it. And you are getting one more shirt for the wall. Even if fuck Arsenal. It is a total win-win for you, a person more used to lose-lose.
You stare at her. She stares at you.
You are pretty sure she is having way too much fun with this.
You hold out your hand.
"Deal."
She takes it. Her grip is dry and firm and surprisingly warm. Delicate hands. Well, she has slim arms. Maybe with some paella in her she might have the strength to hit the gym.
"Deal."
You turn to go and get her a plate before she changes her mind. She says, behind you, in a deliberately mild voice:
"Jude!"
"Yes."
"Make it small."
"Like, really —"
"It will be the smallest portion of paella served in Europe tonight, Williamson, I promise you."
You hear her laugh. Not properly. Just a single small huff. But it counts.
You are absolutely going to tell Hayley about this. You are also absolutely going to deny that you are pleased about it. You will be doing both these things in the next ten minutes and Hayley is going to enjoy every second of it.
The smallest portion of paella in Europe is delivered. Leah eats it under the watch of her entire table, who have all stopped what they are doing to observe.
It is a high tension situation.
"This is better than a penalty shootout," Jana whispers, and Aggie shushes her. Lucy is recording with no shame, phone propped on the table. Keira has a hand over Leah's shoulder as support, like the blonde is about to take a blood sample and not taste — arguably — such fucking good grub.
"I hate all of you," Leah says without raising her eyes. She is currently on a stare-down with the plate.
The paella sits there. Very nice, smelling great, the rice perfectly yellow, the seafood glistening. You are not one to be proud of your food. You are not one to be proud, period.
This is different though, because it was a team effort. Your pub crew. Alexia from the other side of the phone. You are proud of them, so you are proud of this.
You want Leah to recognise it, and you cannot quite point out why this matters, beyond wanting the bingo card completely filled out from this table of ballers.
Leah Williamson raises her fork, no wobble to it. Scoops a little rice, no shrimp, not even a little shellfish. This is sacrilegious.
You stop her, hand reaching out. She eyes you like she has been tackled.
"Come on, you are doing it all wrong."
"How the bloody fuck am I scooping rice wrong?"
"Beats me, but you are."
You grab the spoon. Scoop an even portion for her: rice, shrimp, a little shellfish, the bottom of the plate where the socarrat is the tastiest. Present it to her.
She eyes you reluctantly. You smirk.
"Want me to pretend it's a little airplane?"
Lucy howls and whistles. The other girls go along with it. There is a loud cheer of "Leah, Leah, Leah," which would not be misplaced on a stadium. Leah Williamson has a pretty blush, you notice, and a very intense glare.
"Just give it here," she says through gritted teeth.
And in a swift movement, it is all in her mouth.
There is a hanging silence. Tense. Then her eyes widen a little as she chews, mouth too full. Your own face opens and opens in a bright smile. You know this kind of face — you have seen Ratatouille.
It is the face of a woman who has been enchanted by food.
She chews some more. Swallows. And says, eventually, voice a little rough, "It's fine."
Aggie throws a chip at her. Lucy laughs so hard she chokes. Keira pats her on the back without looking, eyes still on Leah. Jana and Aggie and Freya actually bundle into a hug like they have just scored.
You rise to your feet, fist raised in the air. "The captain says it's fine!" you announce loudly, to general clapping of some very confused customers. Hayley and Paddy and even Carl clap from behind the bar.
Paddy goes, "Free round of whatever the fuck we are serving in those pitchers for everyone!"
That gets a good roar out.
At the table, Leah, now blushing furiously, tips of her ears bright red, is trying to — discreetly — sneak another bite. You decide, in good spirit, not to give her shit for it.
She does, however, eat the rest of the small portion. Slowly. Without comment. Without making eye contact with you. And when you pass the table again ten minutes later helping Mits carry the complimentary sangrias, she very quietly holds up her empty plate and says, barely above a normal speaking voice:
"Chef."
"Yeah?"
"Could I have a slightly less small portion?"
You take her plate back to the kitchen with the dignity of a woman who has just won the World Cup. You suspect that win tastes better, though.
*
Hayley is waiting for you at the pass with her arms folded and her face the picture of a woman who has been observing.
"What's this then?"
"Uh?"
"You are flirting with the captain of England."
"I am running a business."
"Is that what we're calling it?"
"It is what we are calling it because that is what it is."
"You did the lean."
"I did not do the lean."
"There was a lean, Jude."
"Hayley."
"And a thing with the eyes."
"What thing with the eyes?"
"The thing. Where you do the eyes."
"I have one set of eyes. I do not have a thing with the eyes."
"Tell that to your eyes."
"Fuck off."
"Jude. Williamson is going to ask you to sign her tits before this evening is out. Do you think she will sign mine?"
"Hayley. Give me back the plate."
She gives you back the plate.
She is grinning. She is going to bring this up forever. You know in your bones that this is going to follow you to your grave and beyond and that small Hayley-shaped ghosts are going to be saying the lean at your funeral.
You take the plate. You serve Leah a slightly less small portion of paella, with as little expression on your face as you can muster.
She takes it with a slight nod. Says nothing. Eats it.
The night moves on from there. It is fun. It is light and bright.
At some point Jana stages a quiet coup at the jukebox. Hayley hands the queue over with the dignity of a deposed monarch, and Jana proceeds to put on song after song that nobody in the pub knows the words to, which does not stop anyone from singing them.
Norman is doing some sort of slow shoulder dance you will be unable to unsee for the rest of your natural life. One of the builders is leading a chorus of La Bamba in the worst phonetic Spanish ever attempted on this island, and Mits is patiently correcting his vowels between pours. Paddy has a tea towel over one shoulder and is conducting nothing in particular with great feeling.
The pub is loud. Properly loud. The good kind.
Aggie pops up at the bar in front of you at some point, beanie askew, cheeks bright pink, sangria balanced precariously in one hand.
"Jude."
"Aggie."
"This is my favourite pub."
"That's a really low bar."
"I do not care. This is my favourite pub. I am claiming it. You cannot stop me."
"Alright, Aggie."
"My favourite."
She wanders off again before you can answer, which is probably for the best, because your throat has done a small unhelpful thing. A little tight. Allergies, most likely.
You stand for a moment, leaning your back against the cool steel of the bar, and you watch your sad pub absolutely come alive, and you feel, for the first time in approximately six years, that you are not actively wasting your one short life.
You pull out your phone.
You do not have a free hand to take a tidy photo, so you flip the camera and lean back into the doorway between the kitchen and the bar.
You point the phone at yourself.
Behind you, the pans are still gently steaming on the stove. The Catalan one's lid is at a rakish angle. Saffron-stained tea towels everywhere. The kitchen looking, frankly, like a war crime.
You are flushed. Your hair is doing something, but you are smiling without entirely meaning to.
You take the photo.
You take a second one of the pub itself. Through the kitchen pass and out into the bar. Aggie mid-twirl. Lucy half-falling off the bench. Mits saluting you with a sangria pitcher. The whole place loud and golden under the bad pub lighting, the kind of full that this place has not been since you walked in.
You open your messages.
@jisthejones: surprise.
@jisthejones: paella night is now a permanent fixture of your favourite london pub.
You attach the selfie. You attach the wide shot of the pub. You hesitate a second, and then before you can stop yourself:
@jisthejones: wish you were here.
You send it.
Then you panic, briefly, and put the phone face down on the counter.
Then you pick it back up.
You watch the delivered tick.
You watch the seen tick.
Across the room, Jana is on her phone too, smirking in the way Jana smirks, pointing it loosely in your direction, in the direction of Leah, making a gesture like holding a pitcher.
Jana winks at you.
You have, in the deep, foundational sense, no idea what is about to happen to you.
But you have a faint, warm suspicion.
You drink your sangria.
The phone vibrates.
@alexiaputellas: oh
Just that. Oh.
You smile down at it.
Then you put the phone in your back pocket and go and pour Leah another sangria, because she has earned it, and because tonight, against every prediction in your life, has been proper.
*
The notification disturbs her.
Alexia is in bed, back resting on the headboard. She is flickering lightly through the book Alba bought her — you should read more, tata, Alba had said when she gave it to her, so Alexia is trying. The lamp is on. Barcelona is warm outside. And the silence and peacefulness of her home help her concentrate.
That is until her phone blares from the nightstand. Alexia glares at it for a full second before picking it up. Then she sees the name and melts, a little.
@jisthejones: surprise.
@jisthejones: paella night is now a permanent fixture of your favourite london pub.
A photo loads.
Alexia looks at it for a long moment, but she is smiling before she even opens it.
It is a selfie. Jude in the kitchen doorway, the pans steaming behind her in soft yellow light. Her hair is down, falling around her face the way it does after a long shift, and there is a softness to her mouth that the camera has caught accidentally — a half-smile that did not have time to compose itself. Her eyes are tired. Not unhappy. The opposite of unhappy.
Alexia's chest does a small, embarrassing thing.
She allows herself, in the privacy of her own bed, to look at the line of Jude's jaw. The shape of her mouth. The way her bottom lip is slightly fuller than the top.
She is going to think about that mouth later. She knows this with the same flat certainty she uses to plan a recovery week.
A second image. The pub itself, full and warm. People mid-laugh. Glasses raised. A pan visible at the edge of the frame.
Then the third message.
@jisthejones: wish you were here.
Alexia closes her eyes.
It is a small thing. It is just words. She is a woman who has read very many words from very many people, and most of them she has filed under kind, flattering, nothing. This one is different.
It sits in her sternum and it blooms all over.
This is a crush, she thinks, calmly, in the dark behind her eyes. I have a crush on her. This is the thing it is.
She lets it be true. Just for a moment. Alone in her own room, where nobody can see her face, where there is no journalist and no teammate and no agent, and the thought is allowed to exist without becoming a problem to be managed.
It is a relief, naming it.
She has known for a while.
She types oh. Sends it. Oh is, she finds, all that is available.
Then, because she is a person who is trying very hard not to lie alone in the dark thinking about Jude's mouth, she scrolls through Instagram.
Lucy has posted something. And to her immense surprise and confusion, Lucy is at Jude's pub. Eating paella.
The story is the paella, golden and steaming, with a shot of socarrat on the bottom of the pan. The caption reads @onabatlle this is for you bb. Alexia smiles. Ona will lose her mind. Lucy will not hear the end of it for a month.
The next is a video of Aggie hugging Jude over the bar, kissing the side of her face. Alexia recognises Aggie's beanie and Jude's careful, surprised stillness. She does not let herself dwell on the kiss.
Keira's stories are next. Three of them. A blurred shot of Lucy mid-bite. A video of someone singing along badly to La Bamba in Spanish. Then a longer clip of the whole pub belting out Bailando, off-key and joyful, with Jana audibly leading from somewhere off-screen.
Alexia is grinning before she realises. Of course. A footballers' night out.
And Jude, Alexia notices, has this thing where she just brings people together.
It is so far from her own life. The whole of it. The bad lighting, the badly-sung Spanish, the sticky floor she can practically see from here. Her real life is white sheets and cold meals and a watch on her wrist that tells her when to sleep. This is something else.
She is happy for Jude. She is happy for Jana, who has clearly appointed herself patron saint of the evening. She is happy for everyone in the photographs, doing the messy human thing on a random Tuesday.
She is also, less convincingly, happy for herself for being able to feel happy for them without becoming sad about it.
Her phone buzzes.
A text from Jana.
Jana: mira esto.
A photo attached.
Alexia opens it.
Jude and Leah Williamson at the counter. Both leaning in. Leah's glass is close to her chest. Jude's elbows are on the wood. Their faces are turned toward each other in the easy, close-range way of two people who have been talking for a while and have stopped tracking the rest of the room.
Jana: wouldn't take too long to visit if I were you.
Jana: everyone wants the chef.
Alexia looks at the photo for longer than she means to.
She does not zoom. She does not need to. She can see Jude's profile clearly enough, and the small lift at the corner of Jude's mouth, and the way Leah is leaning in.
She tells herself it is nothing.
She thinks, distantly: a crush is fine. A crush is fine when it is yours. It is less fine when somebody else is also at the bar.
She does not reply to Jana straight away.
She lies with the phone on her chest for a moment and does an uncharitable inventory of Leah Williamson, which she will be embarrassed about later: tall, blonde, English, captain. Charming, by all accounts. Single, by what she knows. Funny, allegedly, though Alexia has personally never seen evidence of this.
In the same pub as Jude. On a Tuesday.
Alexia exhales slowly.
Then she opens the chat with Jana and types.
Alexia: when do you play next?
She sends it.
She does not pretend it is about anything else. Jana will know anyway. There is no point performing for Jana.
gay panic is so real because just let jill scott and all i could care about was the pretty girl behind the counter serving me 🫠 i hate being a straight looking lesbian
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
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izzy806
theartofmadeline
kaledo-art
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jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
