"So that hug."
Aina said it the second they were settled on the sofa, legs tucked under them, the apartment quiet around them. She turned to face Olivia with the particular expression she reserved for moments she had been saving.
Olivia turned to look at her.
Aina straightened up, pressed a hand to her own chest, and dropped her voice into something soft and breathy. "I'm so happy for you." She batted her eyes. "Good match. You were brilliant."
"It wasn't like that." Olivia's mouth dropped open.
"Mhmm."
"It wasn't." She turned away, pressing her lips together, and there was a small smile there that she was doing absolutely nothing to hide.
Aina watched her. "Didn't seem like friends though."
Olivia gave her a long sideways look.
Aina raised both hands. "I'm just saying what I saw, girl."
Olivia moved her face away again, chin lifted slightly.
"I'm just saying." Aina leaned in closer, voice dropping. "I thought you weren't..."
She let it hang there.
Olivia looked at her for a moment. Aina held the look, steady, patient, one eyebrow doing most of the work.
Olivia shifted on the sofa. "Okay, I'm actually more interested in you and Pedri," she said, a smile breaking through, "and why it took you so long to get back to the apartment yesterday."
Aina blushed. It moved up her neck fast and she clearly hated it. "What? No." She shook her head. "Hold up, no. We are not talking about me right now." She pointed. "Stop trying to switch the topic."
"Argh." Olivia fell back against the sofa cushion dramatically, arm over her face.
Aina burst out laughing, and then Olivia was laughing too, and for a moment the apartment was just the two of them, the sound of it bouncing off the walls, warm and easy.
Then Aina settled. She curled into Olivia's side, pulling her legs up, tucking herself in, and Olivia shifted to make room without thinking, her fingers moving into Aina's hair.
They stayed like that for a bit.
"You know what I feel," Aina started, her voice different now. Smaller. Real.
Olivia looked down at her, still running her fingers through her hair.
"I love you," Aina said. "You know that. I love you and I want you to be happy, and that's the only reason I dragged you to Spain, and it pains me to say this, it genuinely pains me." She paused. "But my dumb cousin seems to have a knack for doing that. Making people happy. Specifically you."
Olivia was quiet, looking down at her.
Aina tilted her head back to look up at her. "I want you to have this. Whatever this is. I don't want you standing on the edge of it and talking yourself out of it because of some thing you're holding onto." She reached up and touched Olivia's cheek with two fingers, light. "Enjoy yourself. You're here. He's here. Stop overthinking it."
Olivia smiled. It was a complicated smile, the kind that had too many things in it at once, happy and unsure and something else she wasn't ready to name. She looked down at Aina, still playing with her hair.
"Plus," Aina added, her voice sliding back into something dryer, "if I want my ship to sail, you need to put on your big girl pants and sort this whole thing out."
Olivia laughed. "What?"
"I know my cousin." Aina sat up slightly, face serious. "Apart from football, the boy is a complete dunce. He has no reliable function. You will be the one who has to start this. You will be the one doing the heavy lifting, I am telling you right now." She pointed. "It is obvious he likes you. You should have seen his face when you jumped on him last night."
"Aina!" Olivia gasped, covering her face.
Aina was already laughing, shoulders shaking, falling back into the cushions.
"Is everything okay in here?"
They both turned.
Mateo was standing in the doorway in Barcelona sweatpants and a club hoodie, hair still flattened from sleep, holding a glass of water. He looked at the two of them, mid-laugh, faces flushed, Olivia with her hands still over her cheeks.
"Nothing," Aina said, perfectly calm.
The two of them dissolved into giggles again.
Mateo looked at them for exactly two seconds.
Yeah. I'm not doing this.
He turned and went back the way he came. Some questions were not worth asking. Smarter men than him had spent lifetimes trying to figure out what two women were laughing about and had nothing to show for it.
The giggling continued behind him.
Olivia wiped her eyes, still smiling. She looked at Aina.
"Thank you," she said.
Aina looked back at her.
"I know what I want to do."
Aina smiled, slow and warm.
A phone buzzed on the side table. Aina glanced at it, saw it was hers, and pushed herself up off Olivia's lap to go grab it.
Mateo came back out of the kitchen a minute later with two water bottles, one already open in his hand. He crossed the room and held the second one out toward Olivia without saying anything.
"Thanks." She took it.
He nodded and leaned back against the counter, drinking from his own.
She didn't open hers.
She was looking at him. Not in any particular way, just looking, and somewhere at the back of her mind Aina's voice was still running. He likes you. You should have seen his face.
His throat moved as he swallowed. She noticed his hands around the bottle, and she noticed, in a way she hadn't before, that his nails were surprisingly neat. She didn't know why she noticed that.
"What?"
He was looking at her now, water bottle lowered, head tilted slightly.
She blinked. Felt the warmth move into her face. "Nothing." She turned away, turning the water bottle over in her hands. "Aina, what are we—"
She stopped.
Aina was standing by the side table, phone in both hands, staring at the screen. She hadn't moved. She wasn't laughing anymore.
"What's wrong?"
Olivia was on her feet before she finished the sentence, crossing the room. Mateo was already moving too, brows pulled together, stepping around the counter toward her.
They reached her at the same time. Olivia put a hand on her shoulder. Mateo looked at the screen.
"Is everything good?"
Aina didn't answer straight away. Her eyes moved across the screen once more.
Then she said, very quietly, "Yeah."
She looked up.
"It's MIT."
...
While Aina was finding out about her future, Messi, alone in his car, was thinking about the past.
"El complicado."
He said it to himself, almost under his breath, and a smile came with it.
Three years earlier. Luis's living room. The two of them sprawled across opposite ends of the same enormous sofa with a script between them, the pages already creased from being grabbed back and forth.
It was a Gatorade ad, something both of their teams had signed them up for ahead of the 2018 World Cup. The whole premise was the two of them as bitter rivals heading into the tournament, two men on a collision course, and the writers had clearly enjoyed themselves. There was a scene where they unfollowed each other on Instagram. A scene where Luis swept every framed photo of Messi off a shelf into a bin. And one where Messi walked a dog onto Luis's lawn specifically to let it pee there.
They were both wrecked. Luis had the script in one hand and the other pressed flat against his own chest like he was holding himself together.
"What is this," Luis wheezed. "Who even thought of this? Who sat down and wrote this?"
"I'm also shocked," Messi said, grinning.
Luis flopped back into the cushions. "But I guess Hulk finally gets his big screen debut."
"Hulk is too shy to pee with people watching." Messi tossed the script onto the table and stretched out flat, hands behind his head. "It'll never work. We'll be there all day."
Luis laughed, then turned his head against the cushion to look at him. "Too bad we won't actually get to face each other though."
"Hey. It's still possible. The World Cup."
"Hmm." Luis considered it. Then he laughed. "You're so unlucky. Because if we did, oh, I would have shown you." He pulled a face, miming a finish, a celebration, the whole thing. "Right past Argentina. Goodnight."
"Hahaha."
"I'm telling you." Luis pointed at him. "You'd finally see why I'm the best striker. The actual best."
Messi was laughing too hard to answer, one hand over his eyes.
And then Luis went quiet. The laugh settled out of him, and when he spoke again his voice had dropped into something lower.
"But honestly, I'm glad we're not facing each other." He was looking at the ceiling now. "We might never get to play together again, you and me. Not the way it was. But I think M and S will always find a way to stick together. Whatever happens." He turned his head. "When we're done with all this, we retire together. China, maybe. Saudi. I keep hearing America's good too."
Messi looked at him.
"What are you talking about," he said, smiling. "We faced each other last year. The qualifiers."
Luis cracked up. "Okay, fine, fine."
Messi let it settle. Then, lower, almost to himself, "But yeah. I don't want us to face each other either."
Back in the car, Messi took the turn into a quiet street, hands easy on the wheel, and let the memory finish itself.
They never had faced each other at that World Cup. Argentina had gone out in the round of sixteen, four to three against France. Uruguay had gone out to the same France in the quarter-finals, two-nil. If Argentina had won their game, the two of them would have met. And Luis had missed Atletico's opening match against them injured, Maybe there was an angel who passed that day that made them just miss each other , or maybe a devil.
Messi smiled to himself.
"El complicado," he murmured again, and a low chuckle slipped out of him as he drove.
He reached the place and slowed to a stop.
If Mateo had been in the car, he would have recognized it instantly. Francisco and Manuela's restaurant.
He got out. His phone buzzed as he stood, and he checked it. A photo from Antonella, her and the three boys on the beach at Castelldefels, Ciro mid-air over a wave, Thiago caught laughing, Mateo making a face at the camera. Messi smiled and thumbed out a reply. Be back soon. He added a heart and slid the phone into his pocket, then pushed open the restaurant door.
Empty, as usual. He looked around the quiet room, the chairs still up on some of the far tables, the light coming in warm through the front windows.
Old man Francisco was in his usual spot, newspaper open in front of him.
Messi smiled and walked over.
"Old man."
Francisco lowered the paper, frowning, ready to deal with whoever was bothering him. When he saw who it was, his eyebrows went up.
"You too?"
Messi pulled out the chair across from him. "How are you?"
"Old. Tired. The knee, the old wife complains when it rains." Francisco folded the paper and set it down, studying him. "But you. Congratulations. That was something."
Messi dipped his head.
"You've been brilliant. Keep it up." The old man jabbed a finger at the table. "Lord knows we need that sixth one. I'm not getting any younger waiting for it."
"We're trying."
Francisco nodded, satisfied, then his face softened. "And the kid. Next time you're free, bring him round. The little ones miss him. He's been playing well too, that boy."
"I'll tell him."
"Hmm." Francisco grumbled, picking at the edge of his paper. "Just leave out the part about me saying he's playing well." He looked up sharply. "We all know that one doesn't need his head swelling any more than it already does."
Messi laughed. "Noted."
He glanced around the empty room, then checked his phone again, frowning slightly.
"Ehm. Where is everyone?"
Francisco watched him for a moment. Then, almost to himself, "You haven't changed a bit." He said it louder. "Manuela took the children out."
"Oh."
"And the one you're actually looking for went with them."
"Oh." Messi nodded, eyes dropping back to his phone. "Right."
Francisco regarded him over the top of his glasses for a long beat, then set the newspaper aside and pushed his chair back. "Let me bring you the usual."
"Oh, no." Messi looked up. "I just ate. I'm good, really."
The front door swung open.
Two small voices came tumbling in ahead of the bodies attached to them, already arguing about something, already loud.
"I touched it first—"
"You did not, I had it the whole—"
"Did so!"
They burst through, two kids in a tangle, sand still on their legs, and behind them came Luis Suárez, sunglasses pushed up into his hair, grinning, a beach bag over one shoulder.
"Okay, okay, here's the deal," Luis was saying, herding them in. "Whoever gets in the bath first picks the movie tonight. Go."
Both kids stopped dead, looked at each other for half a second, and then exploded toward the back.
"Me first!"
"No, ME!"
They were gone, feet hammering, and Luis laughed after them, shaking his head.
Manuela came in last, carrying the rest of the bags, a towel over her arm. "Where did those two terrors go—"
"Sent them up for their baths," Luis said.
She sighed, dropping the bags onto a chair. "You were always good with them." She said it warmly. "Always."
Luis just laughed, waving it off, turning to set the beach bag down.
"Luis."
He stopped.
He turned toward the voice, and there was Messi, sitting at Francisco's table, watching him.
For a moment neither of them said anything. Then a smile broke across Luis's face, slow and full, and Messi felt his own answer it.
"Leo."
A/N
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