without fail when i see someone talking shit about malenia with low-key sexist comments, i look at their profile and 99% of the time it’s like ‘27, male’ and i nod at the complete and utter lack of surprise
Summary: Armin Arlert- your trusted tutor and close friend. When you go to his dorm for another tutoring session, you find out he’s done a little too much studying of the female anatomy.
Content: nerd!armin, smut, virgin!armin, p in v penetration, no use of condom, not proofread
“Hey. You did really well today.” Armin whispered, hand gently rubbing your shoulder.
Face wet with tears, you muster a smile and turn your head to look at him. God, this was embarrassing. Absolutely losing your shit over math? In front of your cute tutor?
“Don’t feel embarrassed.” Armin adds, like he was reading your mind. “Everyone has their academic struggles. Math can be hard, I get it.”
Liar.
There was no way Armin had ever struggled with math as much as you have. After all, he’s tutoring you in it.
“Yeah. Thanks, Armin.” You wipe your face with the back of your hand, closing your laptop and book, packing them away in your bag.
It wasn’t his fault, but Armin felt horrible. As your tutor and friend, he was willing to do whatever possible to make sure you understand the concepts.
Armin stands up with you, catching your hand before you leave. “Hold on.”
You stop, turning to back to Armin. “Hm?”
“Listen, why don’t you, um… come to my dorm tomorrow? Eren is going to be out with Mikasa all night, so we’ll have privacy for more tutoring.”
After taking a moment to consider Armin’s offer, you nod. “Fine with me. I have some other work I need to finish, though. Is seven okay?”
Armin nods, letting go of your hand so you could get on your way. “Yeah, that’s alright!”
You smile at him again, giving Armin a small wave before leaving the library. He returned the gesture before sitting back down, already thinking about tomorrow night.
You had been over to Armin’s dorm before, so there was nothing different about it this time around.
Armin didn’t remember feeling this jittery about it, though.
“Sasha,” you look over at your best friend, who is sprawled on her bed, lazily typing something. “Can we move our boardwalk night to the one after tomorrow?”
Sasha looks over at you, brow raised. “Depends on why we have to.”
“It’s because I’m going to Armin’s dorm tomorrow night for more tutoring.” This catches Sasha’s attention - she’s sitting up now.
“Oooh, a date? It’s about time.” She giggles. A look of confusion flashed across your face. You walk over to your bed, unpacking your backpack.
“What do you mean by that?” Sasha gets up, going over to you and grabbing your shoulders from behind.
“I mean,” she starts, smirk getting wider. “I see how you two interact, and I see this trope playing out. Starts as your cute, smart tutor, you guys become friends…”
Rolling your eyes, you turn to face her. “Whatever you’re thinking will not happen. I can think someone is on the better-looking side without liking them.”
Sasha shrugs, returning to her bed. “Think what you want.”
You scoff, climbing up into your own bed for a quick power nap; but Sasha’s words lingered in the back of your mind as you drifted off.
“So, how much time will you need for tutoring and fucking?” Eren teases. Armin turns to face him, looking almost horrified.
“Eren! T-that’s not what’s going to happen! She just needs more tutoring, that’s all!”
Eren chuckles, tossing his head back. “I think I know what you’re tutoring her in.” Armin’s face is bright red now, and he’s looking down at the floor.
“Seriously, though. Mikasa and I leave at 6:30, and as much as I love her, her social battery can drain pretty quickly depending on the day. So, how long will you two need?”
Armin looks up, taking a second to think. “Uh… until 9:30?” It sounds more like a question than an answer.
“I’ll stay out of your way until 10.” Eren gives Armin a small punch on the shoulder.
“Quick lesson time, Armin. Always be respectful, give her whatever she needs, and immediately back off and ask if she’s okay if she looks uncomfortable.”
“I’d do all that in the first place.” Armin mutters, slowly starting to get annoyed.
“Oh, one more thing.” Eren reached into his desk for something, grinning. “Take this.”
He grabs Armin’s hand, pushing something small into it. One glance and Armin knows it’s a condom.
“What the hell, Eren.” He’s back to blushing now, but he doesn’t give the condom back.
“Hopefully it fits. Always use one of those, though. Lifesavers.”
“Do me a favor and don’t delve into your sex life with Mikasa for me.”
Eren looks offended, as if Armin were losing a once-in-a-lifetime lesson by not letting him talk anymore. Armin shoves the condom into his backpack, muttering something about ‘keeping Eren’s words in mind’.
Armin’s nerves are shooting through the roof all of the next day, only worsening when it hit two minutes past seven and you hadn’t knocked on his door yet.
He fiddled with the sleeves of his shirt, replaying Eren’s words from the evening before. The condom he was gifted still sat in his backpack, which was neatly tucked next to his desk.
Then you knocked.
Armin hurried over to the door, calming down when he was met with the sight of your smiling, kind face.
“Hey, Armin. Thanks for this, you really didn’t have to.”
Stepping into his dorm, you take off your shoes, looking around. Armin’s side was evident - anime and video game posters covered the wall.
“Don’t worry about it. You can come to me any time.” Armin ushered around, pulling the chair from Eren’s desk and sitting it next to his own. “Have a seat. Do you have your book?”
You nod, sitting down and flipping open to the page you were studying yesterday.
Armin's steady finger slowly moved across the textbook, pointing out key words and example equations. Your eyes were hardly ever on the pages; instead, they were focused on Armin's face.
His glasses drooping down to the tip of his nose, his blonde hair falling perfectly around his face, pink lips gently uttering words that didn't even process in your mind.
Armin paused, looking over at your transfixed expression.
"Are you alright?"
You blink, sitting up straighter in a flash. "Oh, yeah. Hey, Armin, why don't we, uh... pause?"
Armin raises an eyebrow, eyes curious. "Pause? We just started."
Instead of answering, you think back to yesterday's encounter with Sasha. Perhaps you could turn this into a date; even you couldn't deny the attraction and respect you held for Armin.
That's why your lips were on his before you had a second to think.
Armin's body froze up--were you seriously doing this?
Closing his eyes, Armin leaned forwards, pressing his lips deeper into your own, the flavor of your sweet chapstick making its way to his tastebuds.
You pull away just as your tongues fully intertwine, noticing the way Armin's face immediately dropped.
"Can we go to your bed? This chair is hurting my back."
You didn't have to tell him twice. Armin pulled you up, dragging you both on top of his mattress.
In the midst of sloppy kisses, clothes are ripped off and tossed onto the floor without a single care. Armin’s hands roam up your bare back, holding you steady to keep kissing him, your hard nipples pressing against his chest only feeding his growing erection.
Pulling away for breath, you look down at his bright, blushing face. “Are you a virgin, Armin?”
His face grows hotter, and he nods, clearly embarrassed.
“Don’t be ashamed.” You giggle, brushing a strand of blonde hair away from his eye. “I still would be too if it wasn’t for a stupid decision I made a few years ago.”
Sitting up, you tug at the waistband of his boxers. “What do you say we take these off?”
Armin’s expression is a mixture of arousal, shock, and nervousness. He nods again, but stops before you can take them off.
“W-wait! I have to get something.” He mumbles, getting out of bed to go over to his backpack, grabbing the condom Eren had given him. You let out an amused laugh, recognizing the metallic wrapper.
“You came prepared, huh? You knew this would happen?”
Armin waves his hands in front of him, condom clutched between this thumb and palm. “No, I swear! This was Eren’s stupid idea, he gave it to me…”
“I see.” You notice Armin tentatively pulling down his boxers, hands shaky.
His cock sprang free, pretty and leaky; you almost drooled at the sight of his pink tip covered in precum.
Stretching your legs straight, you slide your own panties off, pussy half-visible to Armin, and you swear you see his cock grow. “Come on, what are you waiting for?”
Armin shuffles back onto the bed, ripping the condom open, silently praying that it would fit, that he and Eren were close in size.
“I’m on the pill.” You blurt out. It was the truth, but you were also dying to feel Armin raw inside of you.
Armin pauses. “But shouldn’t we still…?” All it takes is for him to see you shake your head no for him to drop the condom to the ground.
He pulls you under him, somewhat confident for a virgin.
Armin’s trembling hands reach for your thighs, spreading them open for him to take a look. It seemed pretty similar to the female sexual diagrams he has studied before you came over, except your pussy looked ten times better.
He’s salivating at the view in front of him, now nothing but desperate to get balls deep into your pussy.
“Do you know where to go?” You let Armin lift your legs up higher.
He nods. “I’ve done my studying.” Even though he was quite shy about admitting the research he had done, Armin sure wasn’t ashamed.
“Really?” You wouldn’t be surprised if Armin was telling the truth. The way he slung your legs over his shoulders to correctly position himself was big enough of a hint.
With a shaky breath, Armin positioned himself at your entrance, wet tip prodding your hole. As long as he didn’t cum quick, everything would be okay; but that was much easier said than done.
He almost loses it the second you took him in past his tip, your pretty pussy squeezing him just right. Armin’s hips stuttered at the new sensations, his body practically screaming that he was a virgin.
“Take your time.” You whisper, a small whimper falling from your lips when he continues to push forwards.
Armin settles once he’s all the way inside your walls, long dick filling up every bit of space you had. His hips roll in small, calculated movements, testing the waters to see how long he could hold out.
It’s been a long time since then.
Sweat drips from Armin’s forehead onto your skin, your cunt stuffed full of his loads.
Armin didn’t know how to use his dick, not until the raw, animalistic instincts of sex kicked in.
Now he was pounding relentlessly into your sore pussy, pretty moans and whimpers mixed in with the lewd sounds of sex.
“Ah, A-Armin!” You cry out, eyes shut tight, back arching up off the mattress. His glasses were long strewn aside, but his blurry vision was still carefully fixated on your tits bouncing with every sharp thrust.
Armin pulls out and shoved his cock back in, tip hitting right up against your sweet spot, drawing you closer to release.
You’ve lost count of how many times you and Armin had both came. Four? Five? It didn’t matter. He was fucking you so good, you were seeing stars.
“I’m gonna c-cum!” Armin moans out, hips moving at a sloppy, fast pace, slapping against your own.
Cum squirted out of the sides of your hole each time Armin thrusted back in, the slick mess coating his dick making it harder to keep steady.
Reaching down, you massage your clit, sending you over the edge once again.
Clamping down hard on his cock, you cum hard, more of your sticky liquid coating his dick, a frothy ring of white forming around his base.
“Oh my god!” Armin gives one final, hard thrust into your pussy, shooting another fat load of cum into your hole. He pulls out, finally spent from all the fucking.
Armin lowers your legs, keeping them spread so he could take two thumbs and open the folds of your pussy, watching stupid amounts of cum drip out on onto the blankets.
He runs a thumb up your sensitive slit, listening to your whimpers as he does.
Licking his thumb clean, Armin takes a second to savor your sweet taste. “You taste delicious.”
“T-thank you.” You hand Armin his glasses.
This is the first time he’s seeing you clearly—your chest rapidly rising and falling, the cum seeping from your folds, the rosy tint on your cheeks. The sight is ethereal.
Armin collapses next to you, completely and utterly fucked out from your elongated session of intimacy, his body still shaking. Slowly, you turn your head to him, ready to ask the question that had been lingering in the back of your mind.
a/n: i tried to match the “clipped” post i made of their own reaction pics that go viral, and this idea came into my head because i’m OBSESSED with both edits and reaction pics hello this is two in one lemme eat
synopsis: the kinds of reaction pics they take that go viral on the internet (after posting them under the comment section of a tik tok edit of you).
he’s LOCKED IN… but not in the soccer way. in the “that’s my girlfriend and i’m about to act like i never got PR trained” way.
he uploads that dumbass smug pic of himself looking to the side, biting his lip with those fake blush lines like he just got caught doing something freaky.
caption: “you could say i know her.”
LIKE??? stand up bro 😭
the replies are immediately:
“HE THINKS HE WON 😭 (he did…)”
“why is he acting like he bagged a celebrity… oh wait-”
he keeps refreshing the comments, too, watching it blow up, analyzing engagement like it’s game footage.
but internally he’s just: that’s my girl. that’s MY girl.
you text him like “delete that.”
he responds: “no. this is important.”
itoshi rin
he HATES that this edit exists.
not because of you, but because now EVERYONE is looking at you.
he watches it once. then again. then again. jaw tight the whole time.
he’s not even planning to comment… but the comment section is full of people thirsting and now he’s irritated.
so what does he do?
he uploads a picture of himself looking off to the side, hand half-covering his mouth, faint blush, brows furrowed like he’s pissed about it.
there is no caption.
and yet, somehow it’s the most liked comment.
replies are like:
“HE’S JEALOUS I CAN FEEL IT” “why does this feel threatening, but so cute at the same time??”
he refuses to elaborate. will not like replies. will not engage.
but when you bring it up, he mutters something like “they’re annoying.” “who?” “... the comments.”
translation: everyone looking at you is pissing me off, but i’m not saying that out loud.
itoshi sae
sae is the WORST because he’s CALM about it.
he watches the edit once, expression unchanged, but there’s that tiny pause at the end.
he already knows it’s good. of course it is. it’s you.
he doesn’t overthink it. just opens his camera, takes a clean, effortless mirror selfie – neutral expression, slightly messy hair, insane face card as usual, a small thumbs up.
caption: “mine.”
lowercase. period. done.
THE AUDACITY???
comments explode:
“HE SAID ONE WORD AND ENDED US ALL” “why is that so scary but i fw it” “[name] is so lucky 😒”
he doesn’t respond to anyone. not even you.
you text him: “you’re insane.”
he replies quickly: “am i wrong tho?”
and that’s it. conversation over. he’s already moved on.
but the picture? still gaining likes like it’s collecting rent.
nagi seishiro
he absolutely did NOT want to move at first.
reo had to be like “if you don’t comment something, someone else will.”
nagi sits up immediately. threat recognized.
sets a timer. drops to his hands and knees like he’s pledging allegiance to you specifically.
the photo is slightly blurry because he didn’t bother retaking it.
caption: “my religion.”
comments lose their minds:
“HE’S SO REAL FOR THIS” “blink twice if she has you hostage”
he doesn’t even check the notifications after. phone face down. mission accomplished.
later when you ask him why he did that and he just shrugs like “because it’s true.”
and then goes back to napping like he didn’t just go viral for being down bad.
mikage reo
he PLANNED this. like lighting, angle, expression… all intentional.
the pose: sitting back, relaxed, smiling like he just secured a billion-dollar deal, lightly clapping with just his thumb and pinky.
it SCREAMS: yes. exactly. that’s my girlfriend.
caption: “invested early.”
people in the comments FREAK out:
“HE TALKING LIKE STOCKS I’M CRINE 😭” “oh! when did ROI = girlfriend”
he’s replying to comments, too, being subtly cocky: “good taste, right?”
you call him out and he’s like “what? i’m just supporting you.”
supporting… while staking ownership in the most billionaire-coded way possible.
bachira meguru
he finds the edit and immediately starts giggling like he’s just been personally blessed by the universe.
watches it on loop. like… an unhealthy amount of times. like “why is this edit 10 hours long?”
Unwanted attention: Much to your dismay, you attract the attention of a Targaryen prince.
A new addition in the family: Scenes from your first pregnancy.
Papa: Their daughter calls Aerion by his name instead of Papa.
Did you think the same?: After a comment from Daella, Aerion wonders if you ever thought the same as her.
Walk: Baela still doesn't walk, much to your dismay, and it's Aerion's fault.
Victory
A Worried Husband: Aerion notices how different your second pregnancy is from your first.
Jealousy: Fossoway!reader would lowkey get jealous when a lady tries a little too hard when talking to Aerion.
Baela’s Fifth Name Day: Ronnal Baratheon gives Baela a gift; Aerion is not happy about this new friendship.
The Witch and the Storm: After Baela and Daella tell Viserra a story, she goes in search of Aerion.
A conversation with your daughter reveals something that Aerion doesn't like + pt 2
Asks and headcanons
The original concept
Jacaerys Velaryon as the son of Aerion
How did Maegor end up with his name
How do Raymun and Steffon react when they meet your children with Aerion
Aerion doesn't want Egg to hold Baby Baela
Daeron as Baby Baela's favorite uncle
The soft side of Fossoway!Reader
Fossoway! Reader trying to convince Raymun that she can't stand Aerion
What would happen to Fossoway!Reader if one of her children turned out to be evil?
Are any of the children evil?
Fossoway!Reader would be so pissed when she remembers that Aerion named her baby boy Maegor
Grandfather Maekar and Baela
What color hair Fossoway!readers kids would has + What about length? + Would any of Fossoway!Readers kids have a strip of hair that was a diff color than the rest like their uncle Valarr?
Fossoway! Reader does not tolerate anyone speaking ill of Aerion
Grandfather-Granddaughter Days
Aerion would be trying so hard go prove one of his babies looks just like him
Maekar would be soft with his grandkids
Some random lord would try to put a wedge between Fossoway!Reader and Aerion
Baela would be the most outgoing toddler ever
If Valarr were still alive
Maegor would eventually grow up and be like “dad wtf you named me after someone that was Cruel and that everyone hated?"
Would Reader and Aerion be scared knowing of the alleged curse over the dark haired Targaryens?
Fossoway!Reader would confuse Aerion
Maekar learning Reader and Aerion named their daughter Dyanna and tearing up
Aerion and Reader's reaction when the kids don't want to play with Maegor + The silbings as protective siblings of baby Maegor
Reader and Aerion's reactions when their daughters begin to be courted
Maekar would milk the “old granddad” card so much
Aerion and Reader's reaction when they discover that Dyanna is with a Lannister boy
Maekar and Jacaerys <3
Aerion is miserable and pathetic when Reader goes to visit her homeland
Do Aerion and reader have a favorite child or do they try their best to not show favoritism?
Grandpa Maekar takes a nap and the children are worried that he is dead
More Jealous!Reader
Steffon vs Aerion
The kids are not interested in playing Cyvasse
Baela and uncle Daeron
Imagine Aerion drink the wildfire but "somehow" survive
Aerion and clothing
AU:Aerion becomes mad with grief after Reader's death
I'm evil and want you to have a visual image of Aerion looking like a madman in front of the court
Aerion was like, "a dragon doesn't burn, but if I die, at least I'll be with my wife again."
How would everyone react when Brynden is exposed for nearly killing Fossoway wife and do you think Aerion would kill him?
AU Aerion and Reader in Lys
Fossoway Widow!Reader: Raymun's mother, aka Fossoway!Reader's aunt, ends up having an affair with Maekar.
Fossoway!Reader catching Maekar and Fossoway Widow!Reader doing yk
Modern AU
Modern Baby Daddy!Aerion Headcanons
The relationship between Aerion and Fossoway!Reader would evolve into something romantic
Can I ask how Aerion is in the modern au?
Modern Aerion loses his mind when he sees that Fossoway!Reader follows Vallar on Instagram but not him.
Drop Dead
Modern fossoway! reader and aerion having a mini ailent crashout everytime they wait for a pregnancy test result
Will Reader get pregnant again before finishing college?
Modern Aerea loves to ragebait Aerion
Modern Aerea and Baela would rage bait Aerion by saying “wow I’m so hungry, I could eat that tall guy Duncan that mom had a crush on back in the day”
ruin the friendship | oscar piastri social media au
pairing: oscar piastri x fem bff reader
you already do everything together - is it time to ruin the friendship?
day fourteen of aston martini's advent calendar
MASTERLIST | OSCAR PIASTRI MASTERLIST
yourusername
liked by charles_leclerc, jackdoohan and 398,302 others
tagged: oscarpiastri
yourusername: pooks is back from war (mclaren) and is looking particularly 'wife who dies flashback scene' here
view all comments
user1: saw the word wife and got excited
user2: she was calling oscar her wife?
user3: in what world would oscar not be her wife?
logansargeant: can you stop fucking teasing us like this for fucks sake
yourusername: a lot of emotions there buddy
logansargeant: yeah i have a lot after hanging out with you two emotionally stunted assholes for three years
oscarpiastri: he's so fond of us
logansargeant: can you people pull your heads out of your asses before i perform a colonoscopy on you to find my will to live
yourusername: why is your will to live in my asshole
logansargeant: SHUT UP YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
oscarpiastri: is he okay?
user4: logan sargeant cause of death: oscar and y/n will they won't they psychosis
user5: i mean he's just saying what we're all thinking
user5: maybe minus all that colonoscopy stuff
charles_leclerc: this is all very cute
charles_leclerc: you kissed yet?
oscarpiastri: excuse me?
charles_leclerc: you heard me kangaroo
yourusername: okay frenchie no need to stick your nose in
charles_leclerc: so there's something for me to stick my nose in?
oscarpiastri: why do you people keep trying to reach into us?
yourusername: CREEPS xxx
oscar & logan's chat - y/n & fernando's chat
oscarpiastri
liked by fernandoalo_oficial, olliebearman and 2,194,304 others
tagged: yourusername
oscarpiastri: the pasta didn't stand a chance
view all comments
user7: I'M GONNA LOSE MY FUCKING MIND
user8: i've had enough
user9: @maxverstappen1 put them in time out i beg
maxverstappen1: i might have to intervene
oscarpiastri: this sounds like a threat
maxverstappen1: it is!
yourusername: the white wine lost the fight too
oscarpiastri: your drool on my jacket says otherwise
yourusername: that was merely a calculated nap
oscarpiastri: okay sleeping beauty
user10: hold me back.
user11: sleeping on his shoulder? HIM LETTING HER DROOL ON HIM? HOW DO THEY NOT REALISE
user12: we need a taylor swift intervention STAT
fernandoalo_oficial: @yourusername this doesn't look like what we planned?
yourusername: trust the process old man
fernandoalo_oficial: ummmmmm no you are a train wreck and need to be kept under control
oscarpiastri: who the fuck are you calling a train wreck
fernandoalo_oficial: it's okay, you can be birds of a feather lovebirds
fernandoalo_oficial: BECAUSE YOU'RE BOTH AS BAD AS EACH OTHER
gabrielbortoleto: please get together already, fernando is so old he might actually have a heart attack
oscarpiastri ???
yourusername ???
yourusername
liked by fernandoalo_oficial, charles_leclerc and 1,764,941 others
tagged: oscarpiastri
yourusername: friendship? we don't know her. it's strictly love, pasta and making acquaintances with his tongue xxx
view all comments
user13: it's finally happened but like idk what to do
user14: i honestly thought i'd die before this happened so i'm stumped
user15: the whole house confused
logansargeant: my fingers are making acquaintances with my tongue because this post is making me gag
yourusername first you complain that we aren't together and now that we are, you're STILL COMPLAINING
logansargeant it's my god given right
yourusername then my foot has a god given right to be up your ass
oscarpiastri don't even ask me to defend you bro
logansargeant why would i? you died on her sword before you knew what her spit tasted like
jackdoohan can we please stop getting gross, them finally being properly lovey dovey was gross enough on its own
user16 oh they're going to be insufferable
yourusername YOU GUYS ASKED FOR THIS
oscarpiastri NO TAKEBACKS
fernandoalo_oficial congratulations chica! now stop texting me about how 'pooks is looking particularly scrumptious tonight'
yourusername okay...
yourusername but you're still proud of me?
fernandoalo_oficial of course!
oscarpiastri wait your agony aunt was FERNANDO ALONSO and mine was logan?
logansargeant rude!
yourusername no offence logan but i needed a winners advice on this
logansargeant fair but still rude
oscarpiastri here's to getting pasta together for the rest of our lives
yourusername and cuddling in the taxi home <3
oscarpiastri and god bless taylor swift
yourusername and fernando alonso
fernandoalo_oficial we can't escape each other
fin.
note; love how this is not christmas at all... well! i love this song and i love oscar and need to see him happy right fucking now - so here you go! also so many fernando x taylor references in this advent calendar i need to calm down (another reference and i didn't even mean this one)
also - i have a super busy weekend so prewrote these ones, but it might mean that day 15 might be a bit later than the usual 6pm BST
warnings: fluff, idiots in love, couple showering tg, soft!joe, clingy!joe, joe loves being pampered after coming home from tour, lmk what i missed!!
word count: 1.8k
a/n: OKAY GUYS!!!! So this is pt1 of the 200 followers celebration, i may post the smau tmrw (yes i decided to do one, BUT THERES ALSO A SMAU FOR THE BDAY TOO SO DW). i hope you guys likey dis, i thought it was cute heh. ENJOY!
It had been exactly 1 week since Joe had left for his tour in Chicago. You've been alone at the apartment back in California for a week. You missed Joe to the point where you slept in his clothes, slept on his side of the bed, drank out of his mug- he hadn't even been gone for long.
But you missed him. Too much actually. Every time he'd open his phone, he'd have atleast 40 texts from you, and 20 missed calls. It made him sad, but it was a tad annoying.
As of now, you were laying on the couch, cozied up in one of Joe's favorite hoodies, sweatpants, and his blanket that he claims is just for looks- but you secretly see him sleep with it.
You'd tried turning on the tv to take your mind off of him, but you just couldn't. A soft groan left your lips, and you reached over to the coffee table to grab you phone. Instantly, you saw Joe as your lockscreen and it just made you want him even more.
So without another second, you switched over to your messages, and texted him (along with your other 9 million texts).
you: joeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
you: joe :(
you: i miss you, please answerrrr.
you: joe
you: joe read 5:47pm
joe: Why are you spamming me, what's wrong?
you: i miss you so bad.
joe: I know sweet girl, I'd be with you if I didn't have to tour.
joe: I'll be home in a few days. I promise.
you: a few days is too loonggg. i've already suffered alone for a week.
joe: Hold up baby, I'm walking around downtown right now. Don't wanna lose my phone.
you: joe. delivered
With a pitiful whine, you locked your phone, and slammed it onto the carpet, clearly upset. You just wanted your boyfriend. Your beautiful beautiful boyfriend. You stuffed your face under a pillow, embracing the darkness. Maybe a nap would help you relax.
Little did you know, Joe was actually already back in California. He'd gotten back this morning, and decided to surprise you. He was supposed to tour for another week- but luckily for him, it was delayed to next month.
Matt, Jake, Wesley, Javi, Dalton and obviously- Joe, were walking side by side down the busy streets of LA. His friends had laughed when he showed them the texts, you were just a little whiny thing that got on his nerves. But he'd be damned if he didn't love you still.
"You think she's gonna freak?" Dalton mumbled, glancing at Joe who was shades down, his travel back under his arm.
"Oh yeah. You saw those texts, did you not? She's begged me to come home for like- the entire week!" He chuckled.
The group shared a laugh, then Jake spoke up.
"Can we stay for a bit, or is it just you two." He tilted his head.
Joe didn't answer right away, he gave a small shrug, shaking his head, "I mean, I'm sure she wouldn't mind. I don't mind, personally."
"Good, because i'm not ready to sit in airport for hours to wait on my flight, back to New york. Nope." Jake shook his head stubbornly.
Joe seemed to blatantly brush past the fact that theyd been standing infront of the complex for over 30 minutes, chatting their hearts away.
"Oh- Shoot, didn't even notice we were here." Joe mumbled, grabbing his wallet.
The doors to the fancy apartment complex slid open, waves of cool, rich air hitting all of them.
"I'm so ready to see this." Wesley smiled, following Joe down one of the long hallways, and into an elevator. The boys were crammed in, definitely exceeding the weight limit- But who cared? They had places to be.
"Oh i bet." Joe laughed softly.
Surprisingly you didn't hear any of the chatter from the boys outside of the room, despite how loud they were. Napping just hadn't seemed to work out for you. With a soft whine, you tossed the blanket, and the pillow off of you, and walked over to the kitchen.
Just as you were about to grab a plate, you heard the lock click. Your heart jumped, and you froze. Intruder? Joe?.. No way it was joe, right?
Your hand slowly reached over to the knife block, but when the door opened, you were met with the man you had been texting for a week, your boyfriend.
An excited squeal left your lips, and your unhappy face turned into one of the happiest grins he'd even seen. Like a dog missing it owner after work.
"Your home, your home!-" You jumped into his arms, knocking the breath right out of his lungs, and making his bag drop onto the floor.
"Mmph- Baby, i can't brea- I cant breathe." He groaned, trying to claw you off of him.
His friends giggled behind him. Joe seriously wasn't lying when he said you were a "clingy" woman.
---
It had been around 30 minutes, and everyone was cooling off from the long plane ride. Bags were slung by the door, beers were already open- And Joe was very rudely being taken by his friends.
You were sat directly next to Joe, who was turned towards his friends instead of you. How rude! You nudged your head against his side, and he only moved his hand down to thread through your hair.
You shut your eyes at the gesture, but it just- wasn't enough to satisfy you.
It wasn't until he spoke, that spiked your interest.
"Alright. It was nice having you guys over but I'm so ready to shower- and go to bed." He huffed.
The boys stood up, stretching out their limbs, saying their goodbyes to you and Joe, while conversating along the way.
"Hey, and text me about next month- About Chicago." He called out.
"Yeah we will. Later Joe!" Wes called out.
"Cya, Wes."
Once the apartment was finally you and him alone, he looked down to you. His fingers traced along your jaw, the shell of your ear, the slope of your nose- It was a cute little gesture, but you needed more.
"Your gonna shower, right?" You asked quietly.
"Mhm, what about it?"
..
"Can i join?" You looked up at him with those big eyes of yours. It was hard to say no when you looked like that.
"I mean- Yeah sure. You missed me that much?" He smiled, looking down at you.
"Oh more than you know." You giggled.
A chuckle rumbled through his body, and his fingers gave your scalp one last scratch, before pat your side.
"Alright up you go." He grunted, standing up and stretching out his long limbs.
You watched him walk off to the bedroom to grab a fresh pair of shorts (bc we all know Joe sleeps in just his boxers and shorts mm). Your movements became jumpy, and excited. You and Joe had done this a few times, and it always got the best reactions out of you when he said yes.
When he walked into the bathroom, you were already on the counter, kicking your little socked feet like a little kid on christmas.
"Jeesus- Baby we've done this like 9 times, whats got you so excited." He mumbled, turning to shut and lock the door.
"I'm just so excited." You giggle.
He leaned down to kiss your forehead, brushing hair out of your face, before pulling his shirt off. You watched him undress, completely mesmerized. It wasn't in a sexual manner, and Joe could tell.
Joe knew when you were asking for sex, and when you were asking to just be loved on. He knew your boundaries, and respected them heavily.
Once he was undressed, he helped you out of your clothes in such a gentle way. When you were fully undressed, his eyes didn't wander, his hands didn't roam- He just kissed your temple, and helped you off the counter.
The shower was decently sized, with a shelf you claimed as your seat everytime you showered. Joe stepped in after you, and turned on the water. It was warm, steamy- And just set the vibe perfectly.
He pulled you into his arms under the stream of water, the warmth embracing both of your bodies. Your fingers carded through his soaked hair, almost black from the water. He hummed, ducking his head forward for you.
You leaned forward to squirt some of his shampoo into your palm. He felt the cold substance against his scalp and it made him shiver. When he felt your fingers scratch the shampoo into his hair, his forehead leaned forward onto your shoulder, completely relaxed.
You felt so safe and content here with him. This felt like a mother washing her son. The way he leaned against you with complete trust- Melted your heart.
With a soft nudge, your helped him back under the water, covering his eyes with your hand, as the other made sure all of the foam was rinsed out. You quickly ran some conditioner through his hair, then kissed the side of his damp cheek.
"Thank you, love." He spoke softly, his hand rubbing broad stripes up your back.
To return the favor, he reached to the shelf behind him, and squirted some of your shampoo into his palm. He reenacted your movements. The grabbing motion, the raking- He did pretty well at washing your long hair, for having such short hair himself.
It was like the more he washed your hair, the more your eyes fluttered closed. You could fall asleep. Right here, in the shower.
---
After your very much needed shower with Joe, you had dressed him, he had dressed you, then the two of you were off to the kitchen.
He sat at the island, hands clasped as he watched you cook. He had offered to help, or even do it all himself- but this was your chance to pamper him, and you barely got those chances.
At one point, as you were pushing beef around in the pan, you felt his arms wrap around you. You smiled, and looked over your shoulder to see his perfect tan face.
"Smells good." He spoke softly, hands interlocking at your belly.
"Its your favorite." You smiled, reached a hand back to boop his nose.
He hummed at that. You knew he didn't like to see you moving around the apartment like some housewife. He enjoyed it more when he was able to take part in chores, or do them by himself.
"Go sit, honey. its done." You kissed his cheek
"Can I help put it on a plate- Please you've done everything since I got home." He spoke softly.
"Joe I got it baby-"
"Please?"
God how could you ever say no to that beautiful face.
Summary: The daughter of a legendary football manager has one simple dating rule: no footballers - a rule that becomes increasingly difficult to follow after meeting Alexia Putellas
Word Count: 13.4k
You’re just friends.
You repeat that sentence so often over the following weeks that it begins to sound rehearsed, like if you say it enough times it might eventually become true. You say it with complete conviction. You say it the way you say things in court when you need the room to believe you before they've had the chance to think too hard about it.
The problem is that you've been a lawyer long enough to recognize when someone is arguing a losing case.
You tell your parents anyway. You tell your brothers. You tell your friends. Curiously, not a single one of them appears remotely convinced.
Your mother responds with the kind of smile that mothers seem genetically programmed to produce whenever they know something their children haven’t admitted to themselves yet. Your father just raises an eyebrow before pointedly returning to whatever he had been doing, managing to communicate more skepticism through a single arched brow and studied silence than most people could achieve with an entire prepared argument. Your brothers don't even attempt the courtesy of restraint. They exchange one look - the particular look they have been perfecting since childhood, the one that means they are about to enjoy this at your expense - grin at one another, and immediately begin referring to Alexia as your girlfriend purely because they know with absolute certainty that it annoys you.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Mhmm.”
“We’re friends!”
“Of course…”
“Stop looking at me like that!!”
None of them stop.
The thing is you genuinely believe it. Or at least some carefully maintained part of you is still committed to believing it, because the alternative requires a conversation you aren't ready to have and a vulnerability you have spent most of your adult life successfully avoiding.
Because friends talk, right? Friends spend time together. Friends call each other.
It is perfectly normal, you reason, to feel your entire mood improve the moment your phone lights up with Alexia’s name after she’s finally escaped training, only to spend the next forty-five minutes listening to her recount some ridiculous story from the gym while she drives home through Barcelona traffic. It is perfectly normal to make dinner plans three or four nights a week because neither of you particularly enjoys eating alone. Perfectly normal to wander through bookstores on Sunday afternoons, to argue over which café makes the best cortado, to send each other pictures of dogs you pass on the street because you know they’ll make the other smile.
That is friendship. Isn’t it?
And if those dinners occasionally stretch until well after midnight because neither of you notices the restaurant has emptied around you… Well friends lose track of time.
If you end up napping together on her couch because you stayed up way too late talking the night before… Her couch is just really comfy.
If she starts casually reaching for your hand whenever the streets become crowded, or if you instinctively gravitate toward one another in every room without consciously deciding to… Surely that’s just habit.
You are aware, somewhere beneath all of this careful reasoning, that you are doing what you always do when the truth is inconvenient: constructing a very competent argument for the version of events you'd prefer to be living in. You are, after all, professionally trained to make flimsy positions sound airtight. You can make a jury believe almost anything if you choose your words carefully enough.
The jury, in this case, consists of your mother's knowing smile, your father's single raised eyebrow, your brothers' matching grins, and the persistent, quiet voice somewhere in the back of your own mind that has been trying to get your attention for weeks.
None of them are buying it either.
Which is fine. They don't have to buy it. You are perfectly capable of maintaining a position under pressure - it is, in fact, one of the things you are paid to do - and if everyone in your life has decided to find your friendship with Alexia quietly hilarious, that is their prerogative. You are unbothered. You are composed. You are a woman who knows her own mind.
You are also, three weeks after the gala, standing in the bathroom of your apartment spending an unreasonable amount of time on your hair before going out to meet her friends, which is a thing that friends do all the time and means absolutely nothing.
She had suggested it over dinner the week before, insisting that you'd already heard so many stories about one another that proper introductions were long overdue. You had agreed right away, which you told yourself was because you were a socially confident person who enjoyed meeting new people, and not at all because Alexia had asked you with that particular smile and you had never once successfully said no to it.
The music in the club is thick enough to feel in your chest, colored lights sweep lazily across a packed dance floor while people squeeze together around crowded tables balancing cocktails they definitely paid too much for. Conversation requires raised voices and exaggerated gestures, and every few minutes a burst of laughter somewhere across the room rises high enough to clear the music before being swallowed back into it.
The moment you arrive, Alexia’s hand settles comfortably on your lower back, her palm warm and certain through the fabric of your dress as she guides you through the crowd.
The group is already gathered near the back of the club - a cluster of warmth and noise and overlapping conversations that parts easily to absorb you both. You recognize almost every name from the countless stories Alexia has already told you over late-night dinners and phone calls, and the recognition appears to be mutual. There are smiles, hugs, introductions, and more than one expression that feels suspiciously knowing.
You choose to ignore that part.
Instead, your attention immediately lands on Alba.
Within minutes the two of you are teasing Alexia with the effortless coordination of people who have only just met but somehow already understand the assignment. Growing up with brothers had taught you one universal truth: if you wanted to win over someone’s sibling, the quickest route was always joining forces against them.
“What the hell?” Alexia groans dramatically after the two of you gang up on her for what must be the fifth time in ten minutes, dropping her head against your shoulder with exaggerated despair. “I should have known better than to introduce you two.”
Alba laughs so hard at your teasing, she nearly spills her drink. You reach over and pat Alexia’s head with theatrical sympathy.
“Oh, please. You’re fine.”
“I’ve been betrayed.”
Despite the complaint, you can feel Alexia laughing against your shoulder, the sound vibrating warmly through you.
Alexia lets out one final dramatic sigh before lifting her head from your shoulder, though not before pressing a soft kiss against the fabric covering it. The gesture so casual and absentminded that she barely seems aware she’s done it.
You are aware. You are extremely aware. You simply decide, in the spirit of your ongoing commitment to the friends narrative, not to examine that too closely.
The kisses are friendly too. Obviously.
Ever since that first night they had quietly become part of whatever this strange, undefined thing between the two of you was. Sometimes they were nothing more than a quick greeting when one of you arrived late to dinner or a soft goodbye after you’d walked her to her door. Other times they happened reflexively, a kiss against your temple while you’re laughing, your cheek when she’d won an argument, your shoulder when she was already leaning against you anyway.
And occasionally they lingered. One kiss would become two, then three, until you found yourselves standing outside your apartment making out beneath a streetlamp while one of you laughed into the other’s mouth about how late it had gotten.
In your defense, Alexia was exceptionally, unfairly attractive.
“I’m gonna grab a drink from the bar,” she says, after another few minutes of thoroughly deserved teasing from you and Alba. “Come with me?”
The invitation feels almost unnecessary. Your hand is already reaching for hers before she’s finished speaking.
Her fingers lace through yours as though they've done it a hundred times - which, you realize with a start, they very nearly have at this point - and together the two of you weave toward the bar. Neither of you acknowledge the fact that very few people who describe themselves as just friends spend quite this much time with their fingers comfortably intertwined.
The bar is crowded enough that Alexia naturally steps closer, her shoulder pressing against yours as people move behind you. Her body angles toward you in that instinctive way it always does now, like she simply defaults to closing whatever distance remains between you. You lean into her just as naturally.
The closeness no longer feels new. It just feels right.
“So,” she says once you’ve both ordered your drinks, turning toward you with the kind of undivided attention that still catches you off guard no matter how often she gives it. “How did your meeting go this afternoon?”
Your entire expression brightens.
You launch into the story, explaining how opposing counsel had attempted to quietly slip an additional liability clause into the final contract draft, clearly hoping it would slide through unexamined before signing. You describe the increasingly transparent excuses they'd produced once you pointed it out, the uncomfortable silence that followed when you refused to let the conversation move on, and your eventual decision to suspend the entire agreement until every questionable provision had been properly addressed.
You know you’re rambling.
Alexia never makes you feel that way.
She listens with the same complete concentration she always does, never once allowing her attention to drift despite the music thundering around you. Every question she asks builds easily from the last answer you gave, revealing not only that she’s been listening, but that she remembers details you mentioned weeks ago about the case, the clients involved, and even the senior partner who had initially assigned it to you.
“You said their general counsel was difficult from the beginning,” she says thoughtfully. “So this probably wasn’t the first time they tried something like that?”
You shake your head, unable to hide your smile.
“No. Just the first time they tried it with me.”
“You are such a badass,” she says, beaming and squeezing your still interlaced fingers with genuine admiration. “I’m really proud of you.”
The compliment shouldn’t affect you as much as it does.
You have graduated near the top of your class. You have been praised by senior partners whose approval is notoriously difficult to earn. You have clients who request you specifically for negotiations that other associates won't touch. None of that has ever produced quite the sensation that those five words from Alexia manage in approximately three seconds.
Heat rushes to your face before you have any hope of stopping it.
Alexia watches the blush spread across your cheeks with an expression that can only be described as fond - the particular softness that appears in her eyes sometimes when you're not expecting it. It’s like she's caught a glimpse of something she wasn't supposed to see and has quietly decided to treasure it anyway. She doesn't tease you. She never teases you about this. She just lets herself look at you, warmly and without apology, until the embarrassment somehow deepens for entirely different reasons.
Thankfully, the bartender chooses that exact moment to slide your drinks across the counter.
You reach for yours quickly, grateful for the distraction, taking an unnecessarily long sip. The cold liquid gives you something else to focus on besides the fact that one simple compliment from Alexia has managed to unravel you so completely. When you lower your glass, she’s still smiling.
"Dance with me?" you ask, because it seems like the most efficient way to stop her looking at you like that.
She sets her drink down before you've finished the sentence. She doesn't answer. She just takes your hand.
For a while, everything is wonderfully ridiculous. The two of you laugh far more than you actually dance, deliberately exaggerating the worst moves you can think of until you’re both doubled over with laughter. Alexia attempts something she insists is a trend right now before immediately admitting it looks stupid. You retaliate with an enthusiastic and completely faithful recreation of something your brothers had sworn was cool when you were teenagers, which earns you a look of such pure delight from her that you keep going long after you probably should have stopped.
The people around you either stare in amusement or wisely pretend not to know you, and neither of you could possibly care less.
You haven't laughed this freely in years. The thought arrives quietly between one song and the next and stays there.
As the music and energy around you gradually changes, so does the space between you.
Without really thinking about it, you reach forward and hook a finger through her belt loop, drawing her the final few inches closer until the distance between your bodies disappears.
Alexia glances down at your hand before meeting your eyes, and then, without a word, her hands find your waist and turn you smoothly until your back rests against her front, the movement so fluid that you've barely registered what's happened before you're already settling into her.
Instinctively, you relax into her.
Her arms stay loosely around you, the two of you moving together with an ease that feels less like something you're doing and more like something you've simply fallen into, the way you fall into conversations and silences and all the other rhythms the two of you have accumulated without noticing. Every now and then she leans closer to say something in your ear, her voice low beneath the music, and you feel her laughter against the side of your neck before it reaches you as sound.
It is impossibly easy to forget where you are.
Your entire world narrows to the warmth of her behind you, the weight of her arms, and the quiet certainty that every time you shift, every time you tilt your head back slightly, her eyes are already there waiting for yours. She looks at you with an intensity that makes the rest of the room feel very far away - like the crowd and the music and the sweeping lights have faded away, and the only thing that is actually real and close and present is her.
It takes the tightening of her arm around your waist to pull you back.
You glance over your shoulder. Her easy smile has disappeared. Her eyes are fixed somewhere beyond you, their warmth replaced by a focused intensity that catches your attention.
“Is something wrong?” you ask quietly, resting your hand over hers where it lies against your waist.
Alexia barely blinks before letting out a huff.
“No…” she says, her eyes never leaving the spot she’d been watching. “I just don’t like the way she’s looking at you.”
Curiosity gets the better of you.
Following her line of sight, you glance toward the bar where a woman is leaning casually against the polished countertop with a drink in her hand. There is nothing especially subtle about the way she’s watching you. The moment your eyes meet hers, she offers an undeniably interested smile that lingers just a fraction of a second too long before her bold gaze begins to travel slowly and appreciatively across the length of your figure.
You feel Alexia shift imperceptibly behind you.
Her hand settles a little more securely against your hipbone, in a subconscious gesture of claiming that reveals far more than she likely ever intended. For someone who always seemed so composed, so measured in everything she did, the flicker of jealousy catches you a little off guard.
And, to your own surprise, you like it. A little too much.
The wave of possessiveness makes her fingers twitch against your skin as she grasps you lower on your hips, pulling your back flush against her. You can feel the erratic rhythm of Alexia’s hot breath fanning across the sensitive skin of your neck as she struggles to hold herself back from doing anything more.
But you do want more. You don’t want her to hold back.
You reach back and thread your fingers through the silken strands of her hair, pulling her face into the curve of your neck. You tilt your head slightly to offer silent permission that she immediately acts upon.
She presses her lips to your exposed throat, leaving a trail of hot, wet kisses. A helpless shudder runs though your frame at the contact and your blood begins to run hot with desire.
Alexia can undoubtedly feel the frantic race of your pulse beating directly against her mouth, because you can actually feel the satisfied curve of her smile pressing into your skin as she continues to lavish your neck with desperate, breathless attention.
Unable to endure the distance between you any longer, Alexia’s hands tighten gently around your waist before she turns you to face her in one smooth movement. There isn’t a hint of hesitation left in either of you now. The second your eyes meet, she closes the space between you again, kissing you with the confidence of someone who has been thinking about doing exactly that for far longer than she’d ever admit.
Your hands find her shoulders, her waist, anywhere you can reach, and around you the music pounds on and the lights sweep past and none of it registers even slightly.
Eventually you pull back just far enough to steal a breath. Barely an inch separates you.
Alexia is already looking at you, a soft, disbelieving smile spreading across her face as if she can’t quite believe you’re standing there either. The sight of it makes something inside your chest tighten so suddenly that you’re forced to simply stare at her for a moment, quietly struck all over again by how unfairly beautiful she is.
When she catches you admiring, that smile only grows. Her eyes are warm with unmistakable amusement as she watches you completely lose your train of thought. You open your mouth like you’re about to say something clever, something capable of recovering at least a shred of your dignity.
Nothing comes out.
She laughs quietly at your expense before closing the distance once more, clearly deciding that whatever you had been about to say couldn’t possibly be as important as kissing you again.
Fuck, you think to yourself as you smile helplessly into the kiss.
This whole being friends thing would be so much easier if she wasn’t such a ridiculously good kisser.
------
The problem with insisting you’re just friends is that, somewhere along the way, the two of you have become very bad at behaving like it.
There is nothing particularly unusual about spending an entire Saturday together, at least not by the increasingly questionable standards you and Alexia have established over the past few months. You spend most of your free time together anyway, so when a rare weekend arrives with neither of you pulled away by work, football, or family obligations, there is never really any question of who you’ll spend it with.
The water was too cold for swimming, just like you'd warned her it would be, but neither of you had really come to swim.
You'd driven north out of the city before the sun had fully cleared the horizon. Alexia's hand rests easily on the gearshift between you, occasionally drifting over to rest on your knee whenever the road straightens out long enough for her to risk it. By the time you reach the beach, the morning haze was already burning away, leaving behind one of those impossibly blue Catalan skies that make tourists believe the weather is always like this.
You ate lunch on paper plates balanced on your knees, sitting on a worn blanket Alexia produced from the trunk of her car with the casual efficiency of someone who has done this before, with other people, in other lives. You don't ask about that. You've stopped letting yourself wonder about the women who came before you, mostly because the answer to that question has started to feel uncomfortably close to a question about yourself that you aren't ready to answer either.
Afterward you walk. For hours, it turns out, though neither of you notices until the sun has shifted considerably and your feet ache pleasantly from the sand. She tells you about her childhood summers here, when her family was still too poor to go anywhere else. She tells you about a ridiculous argument her father had with a fishmonger when she was nine and the particular shade of blue the water turns right before sunset, which she insists exists nowhere else in the world.
Her hand finds yours somewhere around the second hour and doesn't let go again.
By the time you arrive back at her house, the golden hour has settled over the city, slanting low through the kitchen windows and catching on dust in the air like something out of a film neither of you would ever admit to liking unironically. The house smells like rosemary and the lemon tree growing wild just outside her back door, and when she pulls you toward the kitchen counter, flour already dusting one forearm from some earlier attempt at organization, you don't resist.
"You're terrible at this," you tease, watching her stretch a piece of dough so thin it tears straight down the middle.
"I'm a footballer, not a chef."
"Clearly."
She flicks a small handful of flour at you in retaliation. It lands across the front of your shirt, and your indignant gasp only makes her laugh harder, hip-checking you out of the way so she can reach the rolling pin.
You've noticed, over the course of the afternoon, the particular way her hands keep finding you.
Her fingers brushing the small of your back as she reaches past you for the olive oil, her palm settling briefly at your waist when you lean over to check the oven, the warm slide of skin against skin whenever your shirt rides up just slightly and her hand happens to be there, thumb tracing absent, unhurried circles against your hip like she's barely aware she's doing it.
In the car earlier, her hand had drifted from the gearshift to your knee and stayed there for the better part of twenty minutes, her thumb stroking slow lines along your inner thigh while she drove one-handed and talked about absolutely nothing, as though she had no idea what that was doing to you.
She knew exactly what it was doing to you.
By the time the pizzas are assembled - yours lopsided and overloaded with toppings, hers absurdly minimalist in a childish way that of course you tease - the sun has dropped low enough that the yard is bathed in that deep amber light that makes everything, even Alexia covered in flour with sauce on her cheek, look like it was lit on purpose.
You carry the trays out to the little wood-fired oven tucked into the corner of her patio, and while the pizzas cook, you stand together. Her arm settles affectionately around your waist, her chin finding the curve of your shoulder as the two of you watch the flames through the small glass door.
"This was a good day," she says quietly, her voice low against your skin.
"Mhm." You lean back into her without thinking about it. "Best one in a while."
She presses a kiss to your neck, just below your ear, and you feel it more than you hear the soft sound she makes against your skin.
Dinner happens somewhere in there too - eaten at the small table on the patio, candles flickering despite there being no real need for them this early, the pizzas devoured with the kind of enthusiasm that makes conversation sparse and laughter frequent.
But even as you eat and talk, something else has been quietly building beneath the surface of the evening, present in every glance that lasts a fraction too long, every touch that lingers slightly past necessity.
You feel it most clearly while washing dishes.
Alexia stands beside you at the sink, drying what you hand her with the same unhurried patience she brings to everything, occasionally bumping her hip against yours just to watch you nearly drop a plate. The kitchen has gone quiet around you, the easy chatter of the day finally settling into something heavier, something charged.
When you finally set the last dish in the rack and reach for the towel hanging over her shoulder, she doesn't move out of the way.
You look up. She's already looking at you.
There's a stillness in her expression that wasn't there a moment ago, the playfulness from earlier replaced by something darker and far more deliberate. Her hazel eyes track slowly down from your face to your collarbone and linger there, unhurried, unapologetic.
"You're staring," you say, though your voice comes out quieter than you intend.
"I know."
She doesn't look away. If anything, her gaze drops further, tracing the line of your throat, the curve where your shirt has slipped slightly off one shoulder, and when her eyes finally lift back to yours there's nothing remotely subtle left in them.
"Alexia."
"What?" The corner of her mouth tips up, slow and shameless. "Can't a woman appreciate the view in her own kitchen?"
Your pulse picks up traitorously.
She steps closer, crowding you gently back against the edge of the counter, one hand coming up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear with a tenderness that contradicts entirely the heat simmering just beneath it. Her fingers trail from your ear down the length of your neck, slow enough that you feel every inch of the movement, before settling at your jaw.
"You've been doing that thing all day," she murmurs.
"What thing?"
"That thing where you think I don't notice you looking at me." Her thumb brushes along your bottom lip, deliberate and unhurried. "I notice everything you do, cariño."
The endearment, soft and unfamiliar on her tongue, does something to your chest that you don't have time to examine before she's closing the last bit of distance between you. She kisses you the way she hasn't kissed you before - slow at first, almost teasing, like she's testing how long she can draw this out before either of you breaks.
You break first.
Your hands fist in the front of her shirt, dragging her closer, and the kiss deepens immediately. Her hands find your waist and gripping with a firmness that has nothing teasing left in it. She presses you fully back against the counter, the edge biting pleasantly into your hip, and you feel the low sound that escapes her when your fingers slide up into her hair.
"Ale-" Her name comes out half a warning, half a plea, and you're not entirely sure which one you meant it to be.
She pulls back only far enough to look at you, her breathing already uneven, her eyes dark in the dim kitchen light. There's a question in her expression, clear as anything she's ever said aloud - patient, certain, leaving the choice entirely in your hands the way she always does.
You answer her by pulling her back in.
This kiss is different from every one that came before it. There's no restraint left in it, no careful pretense that this is anything other than exactly what it is. Her hands slide beneath the hem of your shirt, palms warm against the bare skin of your waist. You arch into the touch, a quiet gasp escaping against her mouth that makes her smile even as she kisses you harder.
"Tell me to stop," she breathes against your jaw, her lips trailing slowly down the line of your throat, "and I will."
You don't.
Instead your hands find the hem of her own shirt, tugging gently, and the sound she makes when you finally slide your fingertips across her abs is enough to undo whatever was left of your hesitation.
She lifts you onto the counter with an ease that probably shouldn’t turn you on as much as it does.
The cool marble meets the back of your thighs, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating off her. She settles between your knees, like she's been waiting all day for exactly this - for the kitchen to go quiet, for the light to dim just enough, for you to finally stop pretending you weren't both circling toward this since the night you met.
You've never felt anything like this. Like you've been lit a flame somewhere deep in your chest, and every place she touches you only feeds it. You've also never felt this wanted - not admired, not desired in the abstract way strangers look at you across crowded rooms, but wanted, specifically, entirely, by the only person whose attention has ever made your pulse stutter like this.
"Upstairs," you murmur against her mouth, because the counter is wonderful but you want her somewhere you can actually touch all of her.
She doesn't argue, letting you pull her by the hand through the dark house. You lead her the framed photos and the shoes kicked off by the door, up the stairs two at a time until you're both stumbling slightly into her bedroom, lit only by the pale wash of moonlight through the open window and the distant glow of the city beyond it.
You turn to face her, and the look in her eyes nearly stops your heart.
Her gaze is dark, fixed entirely on you. It burns with an intensity that makes you feel like the only thing that exists in the room, in the city, in the world. You reach for her shoulders and push gently, until she sits on the edge of the bed. The soft exhale that leaves her when you settle your weight against her, knees bracketing her hips, sounds like relief.
"You're sure?" she asks quietly, her hands resting at your waist. Her thumbs trace slow lines against your skin like she needs the reassurance of touching you even while she waits for your answer.
"Alexia." You take her face in both hands, tilting it up so she has to look at you. "I have never been more sure of anything."
Something shifts in her then, the last thread of hesitation finally gives way. You reach for the hem of your shirt and pull it over your head, baring yourself to her for the first time. The sound that escapes her when she looks at you is barely human. Reverent, almost helpless, like she'd been holding herself together by a single thread and you'd just cut it.
She gathers you against her slowly, her hands sweeping up your back with a tenderness that makes your throat tighten. When she finally lays you back against the sheets and follows you down, the weight of her settling over you feels less like desire and more like coming home.
She kisses you sweetly at first, slow and careful. Before her mouth begins to wander, tracing down the column of your throat, across your collarbone, lower still, and every place her lips touch leaves a trail of fire behind it. Your hands find her hair, her shoulders, the strong line of her back, anchoring yourself to her as the slow burn building all day finally catches.
She murmurs against your skin as she moves, words half-formed and barely audible, more felt than heard. How beautiful you are. How she's been wanting this for longer than she probably should admit. How she just wants to make you feel good.
You're too far gone to manage anything coherent in return, the words dissolve somewhere before they reach your mouth, but the soft, broken way her name falls from your lips seems to be answer enough. It's all the encouragement she needs to keep going.
She pulls your nipple into her mouth, rolling the bud gently against her tongue. Your head rolls back uncontrollably as a soft moan leaves your lips. You should be embarrassed to already be reacting in this way when she hasn’t even fully touched you. You can’t bring yourself to care.
She hums softly in response, the sound vibrating through your skin like a secret meant only for you. Her mouth is warm, unhurried, lavishing attention on one breast and then the other with the kind of patience that speaks of weeks of stolen kisses, lingering-touches, and carefully guarded longing finally set free.
Her hands map your body with slow reverence, palms gliding over the curve of your waist, the dip of your ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts as if committing every inch to memory.
You thread your fingers through her hair, holding her close as she kisses a lazy path down the center of your chest. Every press of her lips feels like worship. She lingers at your navel, tongue dipping in just enough to make your stomach flutter, then lower still, until her breath fans hot against the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. She parts them gently, settling between them with no rush, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the crease where thigh meets hip. The ache between your legs has grown deep, but she doesn’t dive in. Instead, she savors you - nuzzling, licking, sucking lightly at the soft skin until you’re trembling beneath her.
When her fingers finally trace through your folds, it’s feather-light at first, spreading the slickness she’s drawn from you with patient strokes. She explores every inch like she has all night, circling your entrance, teasing your clit with the barest pressure until your hips lift in quiet pleading. Only then does she ease one finger inside you, slow and deep, curling gently as if testing the way your body welcomes her.
There is nothing friendly about the pet names that you cry out when you feel her inside you.
“Bebé yes! Right there.” You moan as she finds a spot that makes you see stars. That seems to be the sign she needs to stop being gentle with you and press deeper in the way you need.
Her eyes darken with hunger at the sound of your voice, but even now she doesn’t rush. She adds a second finger with the same deliberate care, stretching you open inch by inch, her thumb stroking your clit in slow, perfect circles that match the rhythm of her hand. Her mouth returns to your breast, sucking harder now, teeth grazing just enough to sharpen the pleasure. Every thrust of her fingers is measured, dragging against that sensitive spot inside you until the coil of heat low in your belly winds tighter and tighter.
“Fuck mi amor, don’t stop,” you gasp, nails digging into her shoulders.
You’re lost in it - the wet sounds of her fingers moving in you, the weight of her body pressed between your thighs, the way she whispers your name against your skin like a prayer.
She lifts her head to watch you, dark eyes locked on your face as she drives you closer to the edge. “That’s it, mi amor,” she murmurs, voice rough with want. “Let go for me. I’ve got you.”
The build is exquisite, nearly overwhelming in its sweetness, and when the peak finally breaks over you, it shudders through your entire body in long, rolling waves that leave you gasping her name. She stays with you through every pulse, murmuring soft praises, her fingers gentling but not leaving until the last tremor fades and you’re boneless beneath her.
Hours later, after you've both had your fill, you lie tangled together in the dark, the sheets twisted somewhere around your ankles. The window is still open, and the night air carries in a faint breeze that mixes with the warmth still radiating between your bodies.
Your head rests against her chest, rising and falling with her breathing as it slowly steadies beneath you, the frantic rhythm from earlier settling into something slow and even. Her fingers trace absent, lazy patterns along your bare shoulder, unhurried, as though she has no intention of moving from this exact position for the rest of the night.
You listen to her heartbeat gradually return to normal, counting it without meaning to, matching your own breathing to its tempo until you can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins.
You know this will probably change everything. Being this vulnerable with someone always does. There’s no version of tonight that doesn't follow you both into tomorrow, into next week, into whatever comes after. Some part of you, the careful, guarded part that has spent twenty-eight years building walls around exactly this kind of moment, already senses the shift happening quietly in the dark.
But you can't bring yourself to name it. Not yet. Not with her skin still warm beneath your cheek and her fingers still moving idly against your shoulder, like she has all the time in the world.
So you stay quiet, matching the slow rise and fall of her chest, listening to the distant sound of the cars drifting through the open window, and let yourself simply exist in the stillness for as long as it lasts.
You don't dare speak. You're too afraid that any word, however small, might shatter it.
------
You'd think that after sleeping together, introducing Alexia to your family would stop feeling like such a monumental step.
Unfortunately, the two of you are still pretending that whatever this is doesn't require a label. That night or the many, many nights that followed, none of them have apparently been enough to prompt either of you to say the thing that would make all of this significantly simpler. You exist instead in the same comfortable, wordless arrangement as before, only now it comes with the memory of her hands on your skin and the particular way she looks at you afterward, like she is quietly terrified of how much she means it.
So a label-free dinner with your entire family it is.
The whole thing is your mother's idea, which surprises nobody.
A week earlier, after receiving the phone call confirming your promotion, Alexia had stolen you away for a celebratory dinner, insisting that such an achievement deserved far more than a takeaway pizza and a bottle of supermarket wine on your couch. The evening had been perfect, just the two of you tucked into your favorite little restaurant. Alexia spending most of dinner looking impossibly proud every time you spoke about your new role, her chin resting in her hand like she was genuinely content to just sit there and watch you be happy.
Unfortunately for you, your family had no intention of letting that be the only celebration.
"We're having dinner," your mother announced over the phone in the tone that has never once in your life indicated any possibility of negotiation.
"Mama…"
"No arguments."
"I already celebrated."
"You celebrated with Alexia."
"…Yes."
"Now you're celebrating with us."
You had assumed that settled the matter. It hadn't.
"And Alexia is coming too."
You blinked. "What?"
"She's important to you, isn't she?"
"Well… yes, but-"
"Then she should be there."
You had tried explaining that introducing someone you'd known for barely two months to your entire family over a sit-down dinner might be considered, by most reasonable people, a little intense. Your mother had remained entirely unbothered. She has always possessed a particular gift for treating your objections as though they are simply a slightly inconvenient part of the conversation that she's already decided to move past.
Which is how, exactly one week later, you find yourself standing in your apartment putting the finishing touches on the table while checking the clock for what must be the tenth time in as many minutes.
Alexia arrives over half an hour early.
When you pull open the door, you find her standing there balancing an enormous bouquet of flowers in one arm, a bottle of wine tucked neatly beneath the other, and a paper bag whose contents remain a complete mystery. She is wearing the dark green shirt you've told her twice looks particularly good on her, which means she chose it deliberately and will never admit it.
The sight makes you smile. But it's the expression on her face that makes you laugh. For perhaps the first time since you’ve known her, Alexia looks genuinely nervous.
“You didn’t have to get me flowers,” you tease the moment you see the bouquet.
She rolls her eyes so dramatically that you immediately feel better.
“The flowers are for your mother.”
She brushes past you before you have a chance to answer, already making herself at home in the familiar way she always does. Your apartment stopped being a place she merely visited somewhere around the fifth or sixth week. You close the door behind her and watch with quiet amusement as she walks straight into your kitchen, opens the correct cabinet on the first try, and pulls down a vase before filling it with water from the sink.
You don't even blink.
She already knows where you keep the coffee mugs, the good olive oil, the spare phone charger, and apparently the flower vases too.
Perhaps that should concern you. Perhaps it should prompt some honest internal reflection about exactly how many evenings the two of you have spent together over the past two months, and what that quantity might suggest about the nature of whatever you're both still refusing to call what it obviously is.
Instead, you decide not to examine that thought too closely.
"Besides," she continues while carefully arranging the bouquet with slightly more concentration than flower arrangement probably requires, "I know better than to get you roses. Miss 'Roses are so cliché.'"
A laugh escapes you. “Oh really?”
She glances over her shoulder. “Really.”
You fold your arms across your chest. "Alright then, smarty pants. What flowers would you get me?"
She doesn't even pause to think.
“Sunflowers during the fall and winter because they remind you that warm weather always comes back eventually, and wildflowers in the spring and summer because you always stop to look at them even when you’re in a hurry.”
She says it so matter-of-factly, like it's simply a thing she knows, that for a moment you can only stare at her.
You hadn't realized she'd noticed that. Then again, Alexia notices everything. She always has.
The warmth that blooms across your face is impossible to hide. Without really thinking about it, you step closer, take her face gently between your hands, and press a quick kiss to her mouth that leaves her smiling before you've even fully pulled away.
"I got that one right then?" she asks, looking entirely too pleased with herself.
"You got that one very right."
The satisfaction on her face lasts less than three seconds before the nerves return all at once.
"Oh." She blinks, suddenly remembering. "And I got your father a Spanish red because I looked up an old interview where he mentioned it was his favorite." She lifts the bottle with visible uncertainty. "I don't actually know if it's any good. I just bought the most expensive one the supermarket had."
"Alexia." You lightly smack her shoulder.
“What?”
“How much did you spend?”
“It was only like seventy euros…”
“Seventy??”
"I would've spent more," she adds quickly, clearly sensing she has somehow managed to argue herself into a worse position. "That was just the nicest one they had."
You stare at her in complete disbelief, opening your mouth to continue the lecture about spending too much money, but before you can, she quickly reaches for the mysterious paper bag she's been carefully protecting since she arrived.
"And this is actually for you," she says, holding it out with a grin so transparently hopeful that your mock outrage immediately begins losing ground. "Well technically it's for your brothers too." A brief pause. "But mostly you."
Curiosity gets the better of you. You peek inside.
Your entire face lights up. “No way…”
It’s from your favorite bakery. More specifically, your favorite bakery since you were six years old.
The tiny family-owned place tucked onto the corner of the street you used to walk home from school every afternoon, where the smell of fresh pastries drifted out onto the pavement long before you passed the front door.
You had taken Alexia there barely a week after meeting her, insisting she couldn't genuinely claim to be from Barcelona until she'd been inside. The visit had quickly become one of your favorite memories of the two of you. The women behind the counter had greeted you by name before you'd even spoken, then immediately abandoned all professional restraint to tell Alexia things you would have very much preferred remained private.
"She used to stand right there," one of them had laughed, pointing toward the front window. "Every afternoon, she'd press her little nose against the glass."
"You got in trouble for that?" Alexia had asked.
"Oh, constantly," the woman replied. "She left fingerprints everywhere."
"I did not."
"She totally did. But she was far too cute for us to stay angry."
You had hidden your face in your hands while the entire bakery laughed. Alexia, meanwhile, had looked positively delighted - storing every detail away with the cheerful thoroughness of someone collecting ammunition.
Rather than buying one or two things like any reasonable person, she'd insisted on ordering one of everything in the display case.
"Alexia," you'd laughed. "There are fifteen different kinds."
"I know."
"We're not going to finish all of those."
She'd simply accepted the enormous paper bag from the bewildered cashier and smiled at you. "You've had decades to figure out your favorite. Now it's my turn."
The two of you had carried the impossibly heavy bag across the street to a little park overlooking the neighborhood where you'd grown up, spending the next several hours on an old wooden bench splitting every pastry in half, ranking them with ridiculous seriousness, arguing over which deserved first place, and somehow talking until the sun had slipped entirely behind the rooftops.
Standing in your kitchen now, looking into the bag, you feel something press softly against the inside of your chest.
She remembered. Of course she remembered.
"Thank you, Ale," you say, and your voice comes out quieter than you intended. "Will you help me set these out for dessert?"
"Of course."
The two of you fall into the rhythm that has become so natural over the past two months that neither of you has to think about it anymore. You clear space on the kitchen island while Alexia opens boxes and transfers pastries onto serving plates. Somehow she always seems to know exactly what you need before you've asked for it - moving out of your way a half-second before you reach past her, handing you a dish cloth the moment you realize you need one, filling the silence between tasks with easy conversation about your plans together later in the week and a particularly baffling training exercise her coach had apparently inflicted on the squad that morning.
By the time the doorbell rings half an hour later, the nervous energy that had greeted you at the door has nearly entirely dissolved. When Alexia looks up from the counter at the sound, she actually jumps slightly, having momentarily forgotten there were even guests coming.
You disappear into the entryway and return a moment later with your parents and brothers, all of them carrying enough takeaway bags from your favorite sushi restaurant to comfortably feed twice the number of people currently standing in your kitchen. The noise level doubles within approximately four seconds of them crossing the threshold.
Alexia is already moving before anyone has fully stepped inside.
She reaches for several of the heavier bags your mother is carrying, relieving her of them with the quiet, instinctive kindness she extends to everyone, always. Your mother thanks her, but instead of simply accepting the help, she reaches up and cups Alexia’s cheek with unmistakable affection before pulling her into one of those warm, all-encompassing hugs that You watch Alexia freeze for half a second. Then you watch her melt.
When your mother finally releases her, there is a faint pinkness coloring Alexia's face that definitely wasn't there a moment ago, and she blinks once or twice as though recalibrating. Your mother simply pats her cheek with quiet satisfaction and moves past her toward the kitchen, already asking about the pastries she can see laid out on the island.
Your brothers are next.
Rather than offering anything as restrained as a handshake, Alexia greets each of them with the easy, confident clasp that turns naturally into one of those casual half-hugs athletes always seem to give each other. The whole interaction looks so unexpectedly effortless that you let out an undignified snort of laughter, earning yourself two offended looks from your brothers - though the grins beneath them suggest they're quietly impressed despite themselves.
Which leaves only one person.
You watch Alexia take the smallest, almost imperceptible breath before turning toward your father.
He's already looking at her with the warm, entirely genuine smile that has always made him seem younger than he is.
"Alexia," he says, as though the name itself is a welcome. "It's so good to finally meet you."
The emphasis on finally is accompanied by the briefest glance in your direction. You look at the ceiling.
Alexia steps forward and takes the hand he offers, her grip firm despite the nerves you know are still quietly present somewhere beneath the surface. "Thank you, sir. It's an honor."
"The honor's mine." He shakes her hand warmly, and then, because he cannot help himself, because retirement has given him nothing but time and your mother has given up trying to stop him: "I've been watching your season, you know. That Champions League match against Bayern a few weeks ago-" He shakes his head with the slow, genuine admiration of someone who has spent his entire life studying the game and still finds moments in it that surprise him. "Holy smokes."
Alexia blinks. Her brain visibly short-circuits.
Your father, blissfully unaware that he’s currently making one of the best players in the world look completely starstruck, continues without missing a beat.
“The movement before your opening goal was exceptional. Everyone will talk about the finish because that's what ends up in highlight reels. But your positioning thirty seconds earlier-" He gestures animatedly, clearly replaying it in precise detail somewhere behind his eyes. "You'd already won that battle before the ball ever reached your feet. That's the kind of thing most people watching will never notice."
He stops. Looks at Alexia. Then at the rest of the family, who are all watching him with varying degrees of patient amusement.
The sheepish smile arrives right on schedule. "I've started talking football, haven't I."
“A little,” your mother says dryly from somewhere behind a glass of water.
He laughs. “We'll save the rest for after dinner before everyone revolts.”
Alexia finally finds her voice again. “I’d… I’d really like that.”
There is something in the quiet sincerity of it that makes your father smile all over again, differently this time, like he's just confirmed something he already suspected. He doesn't look at you when he smiles. He doesn't need to.
Dinner begins the way every family dinner always has, with complete and utter chaos.
The moment everyone sits down, every plan dissolves into six people reaching across one another for chopsticks, containers opened simultaneously from four different directions, platters nudged around the table while someone loudly insists you simply have to try the one they've just put directly in front of themselves. Soy sauce travels in three directions at once. Someone steals food from someone else's plate before they've finished what's in front of them. Your brothers begin arguing over the last piece of tempura before either of them has actually finished what is already sitting in front of them. Your mother keeps quietly rolling her eyes as though this exact scene has been repeating itself for decades.
It is loud and completely unorganized and it feels, as it always has, like home.
Alexia slots into the middle of it as though she has been having dinner with your family for years rather than minutes.
She never dominates the conversation, but she never disappears into the background of it either. She laughs when one of your brothers says something ridiculous, which is often enough to keep her consistently entertained. She tells stories when the table turns naturally toward her, and she listens with such unhurried, genuine interest when someone else is speaking that it becomes impossible to imagine her sitting anywhere else.
Papa loves her immediately, you can see it happening in real time, which does absolutely nothing to help the sensation quietly expanding in the center of your chest.
Watching her fit this effortlessly into your world does something strange to you.
It feels right. Entirely, uncomplicatedly right, in a way that you have no framework for because nothing in your life has ever made you feel quite like this.
Which is precisely when your brothers decide to intervene.
“So,” the eldest begins, wearing the particular expression that has always signaled trouble for you.
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
Alexia looks between the two of you with amused interest. “What?”
“You know how she likes pretending she’s always been sophisticated?”
“I do not pretend!”
“Umm yes you do.”
Before you have any opportunity to mount a defense, the two of them launch into an enthusiastic joint retrospective of every humiliating story they can think of from the last twenty-eight years. The tree you had insisted you could climb despite all available evidence. The school play where you had confidently improvised an entirely new ending after forgetting your lines and then refused, for years afterward, to acknowledge this had happened. The spectacularly misguided attempt to impress a boy by riding your bicycle with no hands, which had ended with you sailing directly into a rose bush while the boy watched from a safe distance.
You groan louder with every story. Alexia is laughing so hard that tears begin gathering in the corners of her eyes, the kind of real, helpless laughter that she can't manage to keep quiet no matter how many apologetic looks she attempts to send in your direction between each new revelation.
Eventually the conversation drifts, as good conversations always do, finding its own natural current. Your mother turns toward Alexia with the same thoughtful, unhurried curiosity she has carried all evening.
"Tell me about your foundation," she says simply.
The transformation is immediate. Alexia's entire face changes.
You have seen that expression countless times before, usually sitting across from her at your kitchen table long after midnight while she excitedly sketched ideas across legal pads.
She speaks about the programs already running in Spain, then about the expansion into Mexico and Colombia and the different challenges each location had presented. She talks about what they're building toward next - the Dominican Republic, the partnerships she hopes to establish there, the specific communities she wants to reach and why. Her voice becomes more animated as she goes, her hands moving with the slightly unselfconscious expressiveness that only appears when she's talking about something she genuinely loves.
Your mother asks thoughtful questions, having her own experience with your father’s charity work. Alexia answers every one of them with unmistakable passion.
You find yourself smiling before you even realize you’re doing it.
This has always been your favorite part of her world.
Football itself has never really captured your attention, and Alexia knows that better than most. While she occasionally tells you about training sessions or particularly funny moments in the dressing room, the conversations the two of you return to most often are the ones that exist beyond the pitch. She tells you about the leadership challenges that come with captaining a team full of different personalities, about mentoring younger players who are experiencing the same pressures she once faced herself, and, more than anything else, about her foundation.
That is where her heart lives.
Over the past two months, the two of you have spent countless evenings sitting across from one another while she talked through ideas that she admitted she hadn’t shared with anyone else yet. She trusted you with the dreams she was almost afraid to say out loud, the frustrations that came with trying to grow something meaningful, and the quiet fears that accompanied every ambitious decision she made.
She brought you spreadsheets and funding proposals and expansion plans and asked you to find every flaw in them, which you did, ruthlessly and with genuine excitement, because making her ideas structurally stronger felt like the most useful thing you could possibly offer her. More than once you had disappeared so completelyinto an explanation of international liability frameworks or nonprofit governance structures that you'd only surfaced again when Alexia reached across the table and took your hand, watching you with a quiet smile that meant she'd been listening to every word.
You always make it better, she'd said once while lifting your hand briefly to her lips.
Now, watching her speak so passionately across your kitchen table, you can’t help feeling proud. You know how much of herself she has poured into every word she’s saying.
Without realizing it, your smile has softened into something your family has almost certainly never seen before.
Across the table, your father notices.
When your eyes meet his, he doesn't say anything. He simply raises one eyebrow and allows the smallest, most insufferably knowing smile to appear at the corner of his mouth before returning his attention to Alexia.
You look away immediately.
Unfortunately, you're fairly certain he already has everything he needs.
------
A few weeks later, you’re somehow still trapped in the strange limbo the two of you have created together.
You’re definitely not friends.
Friends don’t spend four or five nights a week together until one of you inevitably falls asleep in the other’s bed. Friends don’t become the first person the other calls after a good day, a terrible day, or anything remotely interesting in between. Friends don’t know the code to one another’s homes, keep spare toothbrushes in each other’s bathrooms, or casually wander into the kitchen to make breakfast while the other is still asleep.
Friends definitely don’t end most evenings the way you two do.
But girlfriends…
Girlfriends talk about what they are. Girlfriends ask difficult questions. Girlfriends define things, give them names, build something deliberate and acknowledged.
The two of you have somehow managed to skip that part entirely.
Neither of you seems willing to be the first to disturb whatever fragile balance you’ve accidentally built together. You spend so much time convincing yourself that asking the question might ruin everything that you never actually ask it. Some part of you is genuinely terrified that naming it will make it real enough to lose, that the conversation will introduce a pressure neither of you knows how to hold, and that one honest sentence spoken at the wrong moment might undo months of something you have no adequate word for.
Alexia carries a different fear. As far as she knows, your one unwavering rule still exists. She has heard you say it more than once, watched you wrestle with it the night you met, listened to you repeat it with complete sincerity even as everything between you quietly became something your rule was never designed to accommodate. And even now, even after everything, she assumes that some part of you still believes this can't possibly be permanent. That the woman who spent her entire adult life swearing off footballers couldn't really have meant to end up here, in this life, tangled up in hers.
So she doesn't ask either.
The result is an oddly peaceful sort of misery.
When you’re together, it never matters. The uncertainty seems to evaporate the moment one of you walks through the other’s front door, replaced by laughter, easy conversation, shared meals, and the quiet domestic routines you’ve established in only a few months.
It's when you're apart that the uncertainty begins creeping back in - arriving in the small hesitations, the half-second pauses before sending a message, the questions you begin composing in your head and then talk yourself out of before you've finished forming them.
You'll finish work and instinctively reach for your phone before wondering whether texting her too fast makes you seem too attached. She'll finish training and spend twenty minutes debating whether calling you would be interrupting your evening. Neither of you ever actually stops. But the hesitation is there, and it's growing.
Tonight feels different from the moment Alexia arrives.
At first you assume she's just tired after training - the season is deep into its most demanding stretch and you've learned to read the particular kind of exhaustion that lives in her body after hard weeks on the pitch. But as the evening stretches on, the feeling becomes impossible to explain away. She keeps drifting away halfway through her own sentences before catching herself several seconds later, her eyes going somewhere else for a moment, then returning to the room with a blink and a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. More than once you notice her staring blankly at the television without appearing to register what's happening on the screen. Every few minutes she wipes her palms against her sweatpants before folding her hands together again, only to pull them apart seconds later.
Something is bothering her. You just can't figure out what.
The two of you are sprawled across opposite ends of your couch, halfway through another episode of the crime drama you’ve become hopelessly addicted to together. Your legs are comfortably intertwined across the cushions, while Alexia absentmindedly massages the sole of one of your feet with slow, practiced movements.
She started doing it a few weeks ago after noticing you wince while taking off a pair of heels following a long networking event. Apparently she’d decided your sore feet were now her responsibility.
Usually, she’d be talking over half the episode. She has an endless supply of commentary about every character, confidently predicting plot twists that somehow always turn out to be correct while teasing you for inevitably believing the wrong suspects every single week.
Tonight there is nothing. The television plays on. Alexia just stares at the screen.
Eventually, you can’t ignore it any longer.
You reach for the remote and pause the episode mid-scene. The sudden silence seems to pull Alexia back into the room, though only physically. Her eyes remain fixed on the frozen television screen for another second before finally drifting toward you.
“Are you okay?” you ask quietly, your voice carrying more concern than you’d intended. “What’s going on?”
She blinks, almost as though she’d forgotten you were watching her too.
“It’s nothing…” she says with a small, unconvincing smile. “I’m okay. You can press play.”
You don’t move, you just continue looking at her.
The stubborn silence stretches between you, until she finally lets out a quiet breath through her nose and drops her gaze into her lap.
“I just…” she begins, only for the words to dissolve before they ever really arrive.
The silence that follows is unlike the comfortable ones the two of you usually share. It feels heavier, full of thoughts she’s clearly been carrying around for hours, maybe even days, without quite finding the courage to say them aloud.
You don’t rush her. You just wait, watching as she wipes her damp palms against her sweatpants again before intertwining her fingers together, only to pull them apart again a few seconds later. The nervous habit is so unlike her that it sends a quiet knot twisting through your stomach.
“I just wanted to ask you something.”
The uncertainty in her voice is enough to make your chest tighten. “What is it?”
She lets out a slow breath through her nose, her eyes fixed on the coffee table rather than on you. It’s obvious she’s rehearsed this conversation over and over again in her head, searching for the right words, only to discover there probably aren’t any.
“Well…” she says eventually, still avoiding your gaze. “You know we’ve got a really big match on Saturday.” You nod. “Against Madrid. At Camp Nou.”
“Yes, I know.”
For a brief moment you think she’s about to ask you something football-related, maybe whether you’d seen the funny tweet she’d sent you or whether you’d seen one of the interviews promoting the match.
Instead, she quietly asks, “I was wondering if… maybe you’d want to come.”
The words hang between you.
Before you have the chance to respond, she keeps going, speaking a little faster now, as though she’s afraid that if she stops she’ll lose the nerve to finish.
“It’s just…” She shrugs helplessly. “It’s a really important match for me, and… I don’t know…” A nervous laugh escapes her. “I just thought it’d be nice if you were there.”
Only then does she finally lift her eyes to yours.
“You could sit with Alba and the rest of my family.”
The smile she offers you is careful. Small and hopeful in a way that is too painful to look at.
“Ale…” The single word is enough. You watch her shoulders sink before you’ve even managed to finish the sentence.
“I’m just…” you hate yourself for hesitating. “I’m not sure.”
The disappointment crosses her face before she has a chance to hide it. She quickly smooths it away, but you’ve learned her expressions far too well over the last few months to miss it.
She turns back toward the paused television, blinking once before giving a tiny nod.
“No,” she says quietly. “It’s okay. I get it.”
The words are calm. Almost too calm. You can hear the effort it takes for her to make them sound that way.
You reach across the couch for her hand. Your fingers close gently around hers, your thumb slowly brushing across her knuckles until, after a moment’s hesitation, she allows your fingers to lace together.
“Alexia…” She doesn’t look at you. “Please… you have to understand where I’m coming from.”
“I know.”
“No.” Your voice is softer than before. “I don't think you do.”
That finally makes her turn her head.
The hurt in her eyes is so open, so completely unguarded, that it nearly steals the rest of your sentence before you’ve had the chance to say it.
You look down at your joined hands instead.
“Football…” you begin quietly, struggling to explain something you've spent your entire life trying to make sense of yourself, and trying not to make it sound like an accusation against the thing she has devoted her entire life to. “Football has taken so much from me that I honestly don’t know how to separate it anymore.”
Your thumb continues tracing subconscious circles across the back of her hand.
“I spent my childhood measuring my life around fixtures and transfer windows and press conferences. Birthdays got moved because of matches. Vacations got interrupted because somebody wanted to negotiate a contract. Every time I heard the front door open, some part of me wondered if Papa was actually home for the evening or if he’d just forgotten something before leaving again.”
You swallow.
“And every time I hear sixty thousand people cheering inside a stadium…” Your voice becomes almost painfully quiet. “…some part of me is still that little girl sitting in the stands wondering why football always seemed to need him more than I did.”
The words settle heavily between you.
“I know that isn’t fair to you.”
“It isn’t,” she whispers.
You squeeze her hand a little tighter. “I wish it weren’t true.”
She finally meets your eyes again.
“But sitting through ninety minutes…” You shake your head helplessly. “I think I’d be miserable, Ale. Not because it’s you.” Your voice grows more certain. “Never because it’s you.”
She says nothing.
“I’ll celebrate with you afterward.” She doesn’t answer. “I’ll make your favorite dinner. Win or lose.”
Her expression doesn’t change.
“You can come here after the match, tell me absolutely everything that happened, complain about the referee if you need to.” You smile weakly. “Which you definitely won’t because you’re gonna win.”
A tiny flicker appears at the corner of her mouth. Encouraged, you continue.
“And when you do, you can make me sit through every single replay of your goals while explaining exactly why everyone else’s positioning was wrong.”
For the briefest moment, something almost surfaces. Then it retreats.
“How about that?”
Alexia lowers her eyes once more. “Yeah…” The word is barely louder than a breath. “I guess so.”
She isn't agreeing because you've made her feel better. She's agreeing because she cares about you enough not to keep asking for something she already understands you can't give her. Somehow that quiet act of acceptance hurts infinitely more than an argument would have.
The atmosphere in the apartment shifts so subtly that, at first, you convince yourself you’ve imagined it.
Nothing has physically changed. The television remains paused on the same frozen frame, your legs are still tangled together on the couch, and your hands remain loosely intertwined where they have been for the last several minutes. Yet the warmth that had filled your apartment only moments ago has quietly drained away, replaced by a silence that neither of you seems to know how to navigate.
You try. God, you really try.
You tell her about the ridiculous argument currently unfolding between your brothers over where to go on vacation this year. You tell her about your mother’s latest attempt to convince your father to finally throw away sweaters he’s owned since the nineties. You even dramatically reenact a particularly insufferable interaction with one of the partners at work that would normally have Alexia laughing before you’d reached the punchline.
Tonight she smiles when she’s supposed to smile. She nods at exactly the right moments. She even lets out one or two polite little laughs that sound more like habit than genuine reactions. But her heart never quite finds its way back into the room.
You can feel it. She is sitting beside you and still is not entirely there.
Nearly ten minutes pass like that before she suddenly stretches, the movement slightly too deliberate.
"Well…" She rises slowly from the couch. "It's getting kind of late." Your stomach drops before she's even finished the sentence. "I should probably head home."
“Ale…” She keeps her eyes fixed on the arm of the couch as she reaches for her jacket. “Please.”
Your own voice has grown quieter without meaning to. “Can we just talk about this?”
I'm not upset."
"You are."
"I'm really not."
A short, humorless laugh escapes you before you can stop it. "Okay." You rub a hand across your face. "Then you're disappointed." She doesn't answer. "And honestly that's worse."
For the first time since standing up, Alexia goes completely still. Her back remains partly turned toward you.
“I can’t help how I feel.” The sentence is spoken so simply that it strips away every carefully constructed argument you’d been preparing in your head.
“I know,” you answer quickly, taking a few steps toward her. “I know that.”
Your own emotions are beginning to rise now despite every effort you’ve made to stay calm.
“But I can’t help how I feel either.”
She closes her eyes for the briefest moment, drawing in one slow, measured breath as though she’s trying to gather enough composure to get through the next few minutes without falling apart. When she opens them again, there is a quiet resignation behind them that hadn’t been there before, and without another word she finishes pulling on her jacket, smoothing the sleeves with hands that still haven’t completely stopped trembling.
“Alexia…”
Your voice catches just enough that both of you hear it.
She freezes. Her hand rests on the zipper of her jacket, her back still partly turned, but she doesn't take another step toward the door.
For several long seconds, neither of you speaks.
The silence fills the apartment with everything the two of you have been carefully avoiding for weeks. Every unasked question, every conversation that got close and then swerved, every moment you both chose the comfort of not knowing over the risk of finding out.
Then, without turning around, she asks so quietly that you almost don’t hear it.
“What the hell are we even doing?”
The words hit you with enough force that your stomach drops straight through the floor. “What…?”
She turns to face you.
There are tears shimmering in her eyes now, making the hazel seem impossibly bright beneath the warm light of your apartment. She blinks rapidly, refusing to let them fall, and in that effort you see the full cost of how carefully she has been holding herself together all evening.
You have seen Alexia exhausted. You have seen her frustrated after difficult days. You have never seen her look this uncertain.
“I’m just…” A small, broken laugh escapes her. She shakes her head at herself, exasperated. Then the laugh fades. “I’m confused all the time.”
The words come more freely now, as though the first crack was the only thing that needed to give way.
Your chest tightens so sharply it hurts. “Alexia…”
“You say we’re not together.”
“I never said-”
“You won’t come to my biggest match.”
“It’s not about-”
"But then…" She gestures helplessly between the two of you, her eyes searching your face as though she's hoping you'll offer her something she can hold onto. "Then you look at me the way you do. You kiss me. You hold my hand. You introduced me to your family." Her voice drops, just slightly. “And every single time I think… okay maybe I finally understand what this is,” She stops, swallowing hard. “…something happens that makes me realize maybe I don’t.”
The room feels impossibly small. You step toward her instinctively. “Of course I care about you.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Alexia…” You shake your head, your own frustration beginning to mix with panic. “Me not going to one football match doesn’t suddenly mean I don’t care about you. That’s not fair.”
“It isn’t even about the stupid match,” she mutters with exasperation.
She shakes her head, stopping herself from saying more. She takes another slow breath before forcing herself to look back at you. “I should go.”
“Ale, please!”
You reach for her hand automatically. She lets you take it, doesn’t pull away. But for the first time since you’ve known her she doesn’t squeeze back. The absence of that tiny, familiar gesture somehow hurts more than if she had walked away entirely.
“We should talk about this!”
Alexia’s expression softens in a way that only makes everything hurt even more.
“I know.” Her voice is barely above a whisper now, stripped of all the certainty that usually defines her.
“It’s just…” She glances toward the clock hanging above your kitchen, as if time itself has suddenly become the villain in this conversation. “It’s late.”
Neither of you acknowledges how pathetic that excuse sounds. You both know that if this were really just about the time, neither of you would sleep anyway.
“And I’ve got a huge match this weekend.”
The sentence lands between you with devastating finality.
Football. Always football.
It has been woven through every important moment of your life for as long as you can remember, demanding sacrifices before you were old enough to understand why they were necessary.
You had spent years convincing yourself that you had finally escaped it. Then you met Alexia.
She takes a slow, careful breath, forcing herself to keep moving before she changes her mind. “Maybe…” she says quietly. The word catches somewhere in her throat. “Maybe we can hang out on Sunday.”
She tries to smile. It doesn’t reach her eyes.
“We’ll talk then. Okay?”
Something inside your chest quietly gives way. It’s a slow, painful collapse, like the final support beam giving out beneath a building that had already been cracking for far too long.
Because all you hear isn’t Sunday. All you hear is after football.
Again football comes first. Football decides when difficult conversations happen. Football decides when she has to leave. Football standing between you and the woman in front of you, who looks as heartbroken as you feel, because football has decided that tonight isn't the night either of you gets to fix this.
Rationally, you know that isn't what's happening. Alexia isn't choosing football over you. She has a squad depending on her, a stadium that will be full on Saturday, responsibilities that existed long before you did and will exist long after this conversation. You know all of that.
But grief isn't rational. And the frightened little girl who still lives somewhere in your chest - the one who learned too young not to ask if Papa was coming home because the answer always depended on a fixture - doesn't understand Champions League schedules. She only knows that once again, football is asking someone she loves to walk away from her.
And once again, it wins.
Your throat tightens until speaking feels impossible. You force yourself to smile anyway.
“Yeah…” The word comes out small, almost childlike. “Okay.”
Alexia studies your face for a long moment, like she’s trying to memorize it. Then she steps forward one last time.
She cups your cheek with a tenderness that nearly undoes you on the spot before leaning in to press the gentlest kiss against your skin. It lingers for only a heartbeat, carrying everything neither of you has managed to say tonight, before she slowly lets her hand fall away.
“I’ll call you,” she whispers.
You nod, because you no longer trust your voice to carry anything worth saying.
She offers you one final smile before she turns.
You watch her cross your apartment. Watch her reach for the handle. Watch her hesitate for the smallest fraction of a second, it's like some part of her is silently begging you to stop her, to change your mind, to stop being stubborn.
You don’t.
The door closes behind her with a quiet click that seems far too small a sound for the size of what it leaves behind. Silence rushes in immediately, filling every corner of the apartment, and you stand perfectly still in the middle of it, staring at the closed door, willing it to open.
It doesn’t.
The apartment feels enormous without her in it. Too quiet. The couch still holds the impression of where she was sitting. Her half-empty glass of water remains on the coffee table beside yours.
Your chest begins to ache with an almost physical weight as every memory crashes into you at once. Sitting alone in school auditoriums while someone else's father occupied the seat beside your mother. Standing at the front window because Papa had promised he'd be home for dinner. Learning, somewhere between Munich and Manchester, to stop hoping out loud because hope was just disappointment with better timing.
You had promised yourself, in the quiet determined way of someone who has been hurt enough to mean it, that football would never again have the power to take someone you loved away from you. You had built your life around that promise. You made it your only rule. You held it for years without wavering.
You were so careful. So unbelievably careful. And somehow football had found you anyway.
Your knees finally give out beneath you.
You slide helplessly down the wall until you're sitting on the kitchen floor, back pressed against the cabinet doors, hands trembling in your lap while you stare at the front door through blurred vision and try to convince yourself you're overreacting.
Then the first sob tears itself out of your chest. It is harsh and completely uncontrollable.
Another follows before you’ve recovered from the first, then another after that, until your entire body folds in on itself and you wrap your arms tightly around your knees, crying with the kind of grief that has been building for years rather than hours.
You should have stuck with your fucking rule.
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Author's Note: Heyyyy so I'm sorry about the angst there at the end... but so many happy moments before that right 😅 And more happy moments to come, I promise :) I love you guys so much and am so grateful for all the love this story has received!
any hcs of baelor and maekar with grandkids?? and similarly of valarr and daeron being not at all concerned about their dads introducing their toddler to a shitton of swear words while y/n loses her mind?
(y/n can be either valarr/daeron's wife or maekar/baelor's wife, whatever you like)
(headcanons as their wives and grandmas)
I think they both would be super excited to meet their grandbaby. Maekar would be nonchalant about it or maybe even slightly cold and make Daeron stress about it but her cooing and dotting on the little baby in her arms would soften Maekar up
'No we are not having another."
Spoil the baby rotten - doesn't matter if it's a week, month or year old. At every part of their life they have all that's the best and it's all from grandpa. She doesn't even know he buys stuff for the baby but she probably does it too in secret from him.
They aren't pushy about meeting the baby - after six kids they know how easily parents of a baby can be overwhelmed and how much attention is placed upon them, so they take it easy, let the young pair get used to being parents and enjoy the quiet, intimate time as a little family.
Would not back the curses - he knows that he probably shouldn't do it and set a better example but they just slip out. He can't really stop them after not holding back in front of his own children. He tries to do better seeing how scandalised she looks or hear her dramatic gasps every time a tiny, itty, bitty 'fuck' slips out in front of the grandbaby.
Would probably gets sentimental after meeting the baby for the first time. Just remembering how it was all those years ago when he held Daeron in his arms for the first time and then every other of his kids. He would just stare into the wall in the chamber after everything looking like a sad, wet dog and relive all those moments when they were all small.
Scolds Daeron each time he holds the baby.
'You have to secure the head, I clearly didn't do it when you were a baby and look how it turned out'
He's a bitch but he cares even though he doesn't want to admit it.
He is SO SO happy. Like literally so happy to be a grandad and hold his grandbaby.
I can see he tearing up first time Valarr brings him the baby and gets Baeor to hold them. Like he's feeling the little feet and fists writhe around and the soft baby noises and pin, chubby cheeks and he just can't help but get teary.
'Having another would be really unwise, my love'
He tries to convince her AND himself
Would absolutely love the sight of her holding the baby. Of how soft and caring she is and how she still look so beautiful - just like she was when Valarr and Matarys were small.
Would love babysitting or helping with the baby in general. He knows how newborns can tire one out so he is more than eager to help and watch over the babe even if for few hours while Valarr and his wife naps.
Would bring the babe to council meetings 100%. He knows that it's the least appropriate place for a babe but can't bring himself to part from his grandbaby.
And he does that to show off too. Generally I think he would show off his grandbaby a lot - strolling around the court while rocking it gently to sleep, any time a foreign lord or lady would come he would somehow turn the conversation this way so that he can boast being a grandpa.
The babe as much as sneezes? A maester from citadel is called immediately. Like he doesn't play about his grandbaby's health and wants what the best for them (he should've vaccinate Valarr too ngl)
He spoils them just like Maekar does - they have the best everything, toys, blankets, clothes, crib. Anything that can be think of. He doesn't listen when Valarr tells him to stop spoiling his child - he does it anyway.
'I spoiled you, it's only fair I do it with the little one too."
I don't think he'd curse in front of a baby. Or that he curse a lot at all. But if it would slip out, he would be extremely guilty and try to do everything so the babe would not pick it up. Would feel even worse if his wife heard him do it.
