I like you.
"What?"
The word came right out of her, fast, before anything else could.
Wait. Is this a. Is he really saying that. For real?
She stood there stunned, staring at him. Mateo was looking right back at her, steady, serious, none of the joking left in his face. She felt her own hands not knowing what to do with themselves.
"I don't, I"
"I said I like you."
He doubled down. Held her eyes and said it again, plain.
Olivia didn't speak. She just looked at him.
"It's, ehm." Mateo pushed on, trying for confident and not quite getting there. "You know, we've been hanging out more, and I was just" What am I doing. What am I doing, what am I DOING. "I."
He was fumbling. Sinking. And Olivia watched him do it, watched the most famous teenager in Spain stand there in the dark twisting himself in knots, and then she
laughed.
She started laughing.
Mateo blinked at her. Huh. Okay. Guess no isn't the worst thing you can hear.
"Sorry, sorry." She was waving a hand, still going. "Sorry, it's just"
"No, go on." He was trying to look wounded. He couldn't. A small smile was already creeping up the side of his face on its own.
"Sorry." She got a breath. "Is this, like. Is this your first time confessing to someone? Be honest."
"Well, yeah, I mean." Mateo was grinning now, fully, and he reached up and scratched the back of his head. "Look. This is the first time I've felt like this. And it's you. You're the one making me feel like this, and I just." He shrugged, helpless with it. "I want to keep feeling like this. It's nice. I like it. I" He met her eyes. "I like you."
Olivia looked at him.
She really looked at him, all of it, the messed-up hair from scratching it, the open face, the boy who had no idea how to do this and had said it anyway. And she opened her mouth to answer.
And it caught.
Everything she'd been carrying all night came back at once. Joshua. The album. May thirty-first. The tickets already booked. Her mom's voice, if you're not ready, then you're not ready, and that's fine, don't let anybody rush you. The doubt sat right there in her throat where the answer was supposed to go.
"So." Mateo's voice came soft through it. "What do you say?"
She looked up at him again. He was just smiling at her. Waiting. Not pushing.
Love isn't reasonable. Her mom had told her that. What her mom hadn't told her, not fully, was what it actually meant, because the next second her mouth opened on its own and the words
"I like you too."
slipped out before the doubt could catch them.
Mateo's head came up. "Wait. Really?"
The joy on his face was instant and total, no hiding it.
"Yeah." Olivia smiled. "I want to keep feeling that way too."
She stepped in closer, the grass cool under her bare feet, and reached out and took his hand.
And there it went. The worry, the timing, the whole tangle of it, gone the same as it always went the second she was near him.
Right now she wasn't the album or the move or the mess she'd just climbed out of. She was just a girl standing in a dark field holding the hand of a boy she liked, and nothing else needed to exist.
Just them.
They walked back down through the farm hand in hand, arms swinging a little between them. Mateo kept looking over at her, then catching himself and turning his face away.
Olivia laughed. "What?"
He shook his head.
"No, what?" She was grinning. "You keep stealing glances at me. I see you."
Mateo looked at her, then mumbled it. "You, ehm. You look beautiful."
Her cheeks went warm. She looked down, then back up. "This really is your first time, huh."
Mateo's face turned serious. "I guess I was just waiting for something special."
Olivia made a small sound, caught off guard, and put a hand to her chest. "Wow. You sure you've never done this before? That was way too smooth."
He laughed.
"What?" She was smiling at him.
"It's just." He looked off down the slope, still grinning, and then his voice came down softer. "My life. This year. It's just been."
He didn't finish. His hand made a little up-and-down motion, like he was weighing it.
"I just feel so blessed."
His voice had gone quiet now. "I mean, I made the first team. The syst" He caught on the word, shook his head, and went around it. "And then from there I just started playing well, and everything I ever dreamed about started happening, one after another. Playing on the same team as my idol. And now the whole team's about to play for the league, and the Champions League." He laughed under his breath. "The Champions League. Like, what. That's the kind of thing you say out loud and it doesn't even sound real."
Olivia watched him, smiling, as it poured out of him.
He turned to her.
"And then stuff started happening that was even bigger than the stuff I used to dream about." He looked at her, and she looked back, the two of them slowing to a stop. "Like now I've got a girl. A girlfriend."
The word came out of him with visible effort, like he'd had to push it past something.
He looked at her one more time, testing it.
"Girlfriend."
Olivia stepped back, laughing, both hands flying up to her face. "What. Why are you saying it so seriously, dude, why are you so weird about it"
"What?" Mateo was laughing too. "I just like how it sounds."
He reached out and took both her hands. "I'm serious. I really like you."
Olivia, small now, squeezed his hands back. "I really like you too."
This'll do for now, she thought. She was not going to do what her dad did.
A quiet settled over the two of them. Mateo kept looking at her. And then his eyes dropped, just for a second, to her lips.
He swallowed. It was loud.
She wasn't thinking anymore.
"Can I," he started.
"Yeah," Olivia said softly.
He moved in, a little nervous, slow, and she let her eyes fall shut, and
"OLIVIA!"
The scream cut across the whole farm.
Olivia's eyes snapped open. She jerked back, looking around. "Is that"
Mateo's face went from soft to thunderous in half a second. "That. Little."
The two of them came around to the front of the house. Mateo walked silent, jaw set, face giving nothing away.
"What's going on?" Olivia said.
Aina was standing there, halfway through a sentence. "I was"
She stopped.
Her eyes went to the two of them. Then down to their hands. Then back up to their faces. Then their hands again.
"You both"
"Right, it's getting late." Pedri cut in from the side, smooth, before she could land it. "We should probably start heading back."
"Oh," Mateo said. "Yeah, now that you mention it."
"Yeah, plus the gaffer said be in early for training tomorrow," Pedri added.
Mateo groaned.
Pedri laughed. "So."
"Let me go say bye to everyone." Mateo started for the door. "One sec."
"Yeah, me too," Olivia said, falling in beside him.
They headed for the house together, and Mateo had to pass Aina to get to the door. She was staring at him the entire way. He stopped in front of her.
"What," he said flatly.
She gave him a look of pure disgust.
He shoved past her shoulder. "Move."
"No way. You did not."
Mateo rolled his eyes and kept going.
"Oh, no you don't"
She smacked him across the back.
He kept walking, looked back over his shoulder. "Real mature. Child."
"I know you are but what am I."
"I'm not doing this with you." He turned his face toward the door, chin up, gloating. "Unlike some people, I'm grown."
A second smack landed across his back.
His whole face changed. He shut his eyes, opened them. "Okay. Forget being grown."
He spun and went after her.
"AHHH" Aina was already running, shrieking, bolting across the yard.
"Are you serious right now?" Mateo took off after her. "You think you can run from me?"
Off to the side, Olivia shook her head. "Those two."
Pedri just watched, smiling, as Mateo caught up, got both arms around Aina's waist, and hauled her clean off her feet into the air while she screamed and kicked.
"Yes," Pedri said, to no one in particular, grinning.
The goodbyes took a while.
Isabella, Nora, David, all of them out on the steps, hugs going around. Mateo and Olivia and Pedri loaded into Pedri's car.
"Bye, Pedri," Nora said sweetly through the window.
Aina shot her mother a sharp glance. Nora just shrugged.
Aina reached for the front passenger door.
"Oh, let me sit up front, you take the back."
Mateo stepped in smoothly and blocked her from the door. Everyone looked at him.
Off to the side, Olivia shook her head. Who is this guy.
Mateo laughed, too nervous, scratching his neck. "Ha. Ha. I just wanted to stretch my legs out, sit comfortable. My back's been hurting me."
Aina gave Olivia a flat, knowing look. Olivia shook her head.
"Okay then." Aina stepped aside, waving a hand at the seat. "It's all yours."
"Thanks." Mateo grinned, climbing in next to where Olivia would be. "Ehm. It's great for my, you know. Back."
Olivia stared at him. What are you doing.
It wasn't like they were hiding it. They'd been dating for thirty whole minutes. Heh. Dating. He was still happy about that part. It was just that he didn't quite know how to say it yet.
The rest of the goodbyes went around. Mateo asked his parents about getting back, and David said he and Isabella were staying the night. Aina told her mother to say goodbye to her father for her. Nora rolled her eyes. "That one." Oriol, somewhere behind them, called out a slurred "Bye, son" to Mateo. Nora and Isabella and David all wished Olivia goodnight, and she waved back, and then Nora leaned to the window.
"You too, Pedri. It was lovely having you. Come back anytime."
"Oh, yes, it was great being here," Pedri said. "You have a beautiful home."
The car pulled out and rolled off the farmland into the dark.
"Why is it always football, can we please put on some music."
"It's the French league," Pedri said. "Final day, the title's being decided right now"
Aina and Pedri went back and forth up front, and while they argued, Olivia felt something brush her hand.
She looked down. Mateo had stretched his hand across the seat toward hers.
She turned to him and mouthed, big and clear, WHAT ARE YOU DOING.
He just shrugged, smiling.
But she didn't move her hand. The two of them sat there in the back with their fingers playing against each other, smiling out their own windows, until their hands settled and their fingers laced together, and the car carried on through the night.
"Goodnight."
Back at the building, Pedri said his byes and headed into his own place.
Olivia turned to Mateo, smiling, opening her mouth. "Good"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Aina grabbed her by the arm and hauled her toward their room before she could finish.
Neither of those two would be sleeping any time soon. They had things to discuss.
The door shut, and Mateo stood in the hall and laughed to himself.
He went into his own room, dropped backward onto the bed, and lay there grinning at the ceiling. Then he pulled out his phone, opened his messages with Olivia, and started typing.
Goodnight baby.
He looked at it. Laughed. Shook his head and deleted it. "Yeah, I can't say that. Can I."
He thought for a second, then typed again, and this time he wrote about how much he'd enjoyed today. He started to add that he missed her already, that he wished she was right there next to him, then made a face and backspaced over it. He read it once more, then tacked something onto the end about not being able to wait to see her in his dreams.
He hit send, smiling, with no idea he'd just added another twenty minutes to whatever was happening in that other room.
He let the phone drop onto the mattress beside him.
And he lay there in the dark, grinning at nothing, a small helpless laugh shaking out of him. Hehehe.
I love my life.
His shoulders went again. Hehehe.
...
Hehehe.
Mateo sat on the bench thumbing out a message, grinning down at the screen, a little laugh slipping out of him every few seconds.
"And that is what I want from the"
Koeman stopped.
He'd heard the giggling. He turned from the tactics board and found his striker hunched over his phone, smiling at it, typing away, completely somewhere else. One by one the rest of the room turned to look too. Piqué tapped Griezmann on the arm and nodded toward Mateo, who hadn't noticed a single thing.
"Care to share with the rest of us what's so funny, Mateo?"
Mateo's head came up. "What?"
He looked around the room. Every face was on him.
"Oh." He sat up straight. "Sorry, gaffer, I was just" He moved to pocket the phone. "I'll put it away, sorry"
Piqué's hand shot out and swiped it clean out of his grip.
"Mine."
"What" Mateo lunged after it and ran straight into Griezmann, who stepped in front of him grinning. Araújo grabbed his other arm.
"Now, then." Piqué held the phone up out of reach, scrolling. "Let's see who the lucky lady is."
"Or," Dembélé said, "the unlucky one."
The room cracked up. Even the documentary crew in the corner were laughing.
"Piqué, stop, stop, this isn't" Mateo was straining against Griezmann and Araújo, both of them holding him back, both of them losing it.
"Now where was I." Piqué squinted at the screen. "Ah. Here we go. Let's see what we have." His eyebrows climbed. "Ohhh. Oliviaaa."
"Stop, okay, that's enough now"
"Oliviaaa." Piqué drew it out, savouring it, head tilted. "Wow. That's a nice name. Hmm."
"Stop, let's stop"
"Yeah, no." Piqué didn't even look up. He kept reading, and then his whole face opened. "Oh. Oh. Listen to this one. 'I enjoyed last nightttt.' With four T's."
The room detonated.
"WOOOOOO"
It came down on Mateo from every direction at once.
"Last night, eh?"
"Guess he's not just a finisher on the pitch"
"FOUR T's, this boy is in trouble"
Over at the side Pedri had a hand clapped over his mouth, staring at Mateo. "What. How"
Mateo was grinning through it, ears red, still pinned between Griezmann and Araújo. "Guys. Guys, come on."
"Okay, okay, that's enough." Messi came wading in, laughing, waving a hand. He looked at Piqué. "Come on. Leave the kid some privacy."
"Yeah, yeah." Piqué raised his hands and handed the phone back. "I've seen what I needed to see anyway."
Mateo snatched it back. "Just so you know, I'm doing mine right back to you."
The room kept howling.
Koeman cleared his throat at the front. "Okay. Okay. Can we get back to" He glanced at Mateo, and something dry came into his face. "Ehm. Listen. I know this is personal, but with the season nearly over, maybe it'd be best if you"
"What. No. Gaffer, it's not like that"
The whole room went up again.
And that was how the week went.
Mateo kept living his life. Training. Team talks. Medicals. The documentary crew always somewhere in the background with a camera. Hanging out with his girlfriend, even with his cousin and Pedri permanently attached to the situation. And out beyond all of it, the sports world kept turning, loud as ever.
ESPN
MBAPPÉ FIRES PSG TO THE TITLE IN LIGUE 1 THRILLERKylian Mbappé scored twice in a 3-1 win over Rennes on the final day to snatch the crown back, capping a remarkable run since the Frenchman's Champions League exit. Paris hold off a relentless chase to retain the league by a single point.
SKY SPORTS
TEENAGE BREAKOUT MEETS THE KING OF CLAYThe teenage sensation who took the Barcelona Open by storm finally ran into an immovable road, falling to Rafael Nadal as the Spaniard defends his crown. But with the youngster already entered for the French Open in a few weeks, the sport waits to see what the kid does next.
THE ATHLETIC
CHELSEA REST THE LOT FOR MATCHDAY 37Tuchel names a full reserve XI away at Leeds, every first-choice starter left on the bench. The message could not be clearer. His eyes are already fixed on one night in Porto.
MARCA
PUNDIT BLASTS MATEO KING: "ARROGANT AND CLASSLESS"Reacting to the striker's comment after the Real Sociedad win that he "only plays to win," one panel pundit went off. "That's rude. By his logic, if you don't already know you'll win, why turn up? Should Dortmund, Benfica, Ajax just stay home? It's classless. It tells you everything about the boy."
NBA on TNT
PLAYOFFS TIP OFFThe defending champion Lakers look strong out of the gate, LeBron leading the charge. Heavy eyes on a Phoenix Suns side that limped into the bracket. In the East, with Harden ruled out injured, Kyrie and KD are left to carry the Nets.
DAZN BOXING
CANELO CLEANS HOUSECanelo Álvarez dismantled Billy Joe Saunders in a brutal unification bout, adding another belt to the collection.
BUNDESLIGA OFFICIAL
41 AND COUNTING: LEWANDOWSKI ALL BUT SEALS THE GOLDEN BOOTA record-smashing 41 league goals leaves the Golden Boot a formality. After last season's Ballon d'Or snub, could this finally be the goal machine's year for the big one?
WWE
THE HEAD OF THE TABLE ROLLS ONSince returning with Paul Heyman at his side, the once-babyface Roman Reigns has turned heel and swallowed the entire division whole under his new persona.
UEFA
BARÇA WOMEN ARE CHAMPIONS OF EUROPEBarcelona Femení tore Chelsea apart 4-0 to lift their first ever Women's Champions League. The start of a new era?
And then the one that mattered most tonight.
ATLÉTICO MADRID vs BARCELONAWith every other top-five league already decided, the last of the big crowns comes down to the wire. Three points separate them. A title on the line, an old striker chasing redemption against the club that let him go, a young one chasing history. Win or draw and Atléti are champions in their own house. Lose and the door swings open for Barcelona. This one has everything.
TONIGHT
It had finally come.
Matchday thirty-eight. After everything, all of it, the whole long season, it had come.
Maybe it was because a title was sitting right there on the grass tonight. Maybe it was something else. But Mateo felt this one differently. Different even from the Champions League semi-final. He felt lighter than he ever had, and heavier than he ever had, both at once, and he couldn't make the two of them sit still.
The bus ride came and went. Atlético fans screaming on one side of the road, Barça fans roaring on the other. The hotel. The walk. The journey to the stadium. All of it arrived in front of him and none of it fully landed, like he was watching it through glass.
In the away dressing room he sat with his head bowed a little while Koeman stood in the middle of the floor and shouted his motivation into the room. That didn't land either.
The moment it all landed, the moment everything snapped into focus at once, was when a staff member leaned through the door and said the words.
"They said we should start coming out."
Mateo heard it.
He let out a slow breath.
He lifted his head, and he stood.
"It's time."
A/N
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