"Later."
Aina Cerdà was laughing as she hung up.
She took the phone away from her ear and shook her head at it, still smiling, and then she looked to her right.
And Olivia was doing exactly the same thing.
Phone coming down. Smile still on her face. Ending a call she had clearly not wanted to end.
The two of them looked at each other.
And both of them started laughing.
"Are you girls sure you want to be going now?"
Nora had come out onto the step with a cloth over one shoulder.
"There is no rush. Honestly."
"At least stay until your father gets back," Núria said from her chair. "He has only gone to drop your aunt and the rest of them off. He will not be an hour."
Getting back to Barcelona had been an ordeal of mythical proportions.
The traffic out of the airport had been the worst any of them had ever seen, which everybody had expected. What nobody had expected was David's car simply refusing to start when they finally got to it, at which point all seven of them and their luggage had been reorganised into Oriol's.
Oriol had driven to the farm first, because Núria had spent several hours on a train and then several more in a car and was, in her own words, finished with the entire day.
Then he had gone back out to drop David, Isabella and Andrew.
And the girls had stayed at the farm, insisting they would find their own way back to the apartment.
"There is no need, Mamá." Aina held up her phone. "The driver should be here any minute."
"Oh." Nora shrugged. "Okay, then."
Olivia had drifted a few steps away and was looking out at the fields, arms folded, still smiling at nothing in particular.
Nora watched her for a second.
Then she smiled.
"Well, Olivia."
Olivia turned round.
"I think we can safely call your trip to Spain a success, ehn?"
"HAHAHA!"
Aina howled.
"Mamá!"
"What? What did I say?"
"You know exactly what you said."
"I said it was a successful trip."
"MAMÁ."
And Núria, from her chair, without looking up:
"She came here for a holiday and she is leaving with a boy."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"GRANDMA!"
Olivia had both hands over her own face.
"Okay. Okay, I am getting in the car now."
"We have not even seen the car yet."
"I will walk."
Aina's phone rang.
"Oh. That is him."
She answered it and put a finger in her other ear.
"Hello? Yes. Yes, that is us."
She turned and looked down the track.
"No, keep coming down. Keep coming. You should see a farmhouse on your left, with the white."
She listened.
"Yes. That one. Okay, we are coming out now."
She hung up and turned round.
"Okay, Livie. Let us go."
"Hm."
The goodbyes took eleven minutes, which is roughly standard.
Aina got to her grandmother first and bent down and got both arms round her, and Núria held on and patted her back and said about four things into her ear that were half instruction and half blessing, none of which Aina was going to remember.
"Eat something. Properly. Not those things you eat."
"Yes, Grandma."
"And call your mother."
"She is standing right there."
"Call her anyway."
Then Olivia came over, slightly hesitant, and Núria simply reached up and took her hand in both of hers.
"Come here."
Olivia bent down.
Núria kissed her on both cheeks and then held onto her hand for a moment longer, and said something in Spanish that Olivia did not entirely follow, and which she understood completely.
"Thank you," Olivia said.
Núria patted her hand twice and let it go.
Nora hugged Olivia properly, the whole way, one hand on the back of her head.
"You take care of yourself."
"I will."
"And you." She turned and got Aina. "You girls are coming back here before you leave, yes? Before you go back to the States."
"Yes, Mamá."
"Because if you disappear and I do not see you again before you fly, I am going to be very upset with you and you will hear about it for a year."
"We are coming back." Aina laughed. "It is still a few days. We will branch here before we go."
"Good."
"Bye, Mamá."
"Bye, my love."
The car came up the track and the two of them climbed into the back of it.
"Okay," Aina said, pulling the door shut. "So. I have been waiting all morning to ask you what he actually—"
Olivia's phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
And her face lit up.
"Oh. It is Dan."
She answered it.
"Dan."
"HOW IS MY SINGER?"
Olivia had to move the phone away from her ear and Aina, sitting next to her, heard every word of it.
"HAHAHA. Hi, Dan."
"Olivia Rodrigo. Superstar. How are you, kid?"
"I am good." She was already laughing. "I am really good."
"You sound good. You sound completely different, actually." She could hear him grinning. "Seems that trip did you some justice."
"Oh, I really needed it, Dan."
"Yeah?"
"I did." She looked out of the window at fields going past. "Spain is so beautiful. Genuinely. I did not want to come here and I have been here for weeks and I do not want to leave."
"Well, that is what I wanted to hear." His voice softened. "That is exactly what I wanted to hear. That is what you needed, kid. You were burning out."
"Yeah."
She said it very softly, and she was smiling.
"Yeah."
"Well, good," Dan said. "Because I have got even better news for you."
"Better than what?"
"The launch is ready."
Olivia sat up.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Like ready ready?"
"Ready ready. Locked. The label has signed everything off."
"Oh my God."
"And listen to me, because this is the part." He was talking faster now. "They love it. Olivia, they genuinely love it. I have been in this business for years now and the reaction they gave just wow."
"Dan."
"They are talking about bringing the date forward."
"Bringing it forward?"
"Bringing it forward, so that you make the eligibility window."
There was a pause.
"For what?"
"For the Grammys."
"WHAT?"
Aina's head snapped round so fast she nearly took her own neck off.
She grabbed Olivia's arm with both hands and started shaking it, silently, mouthing something enormous and incomprehensible.
"Wait." Olivia had a hand over her own mouth. "Wait, wait. Dan. The GRAMMYS?"
"The Grammys."
"Are you serious right now?"
"I am not joking with you. I would not joke about this."
"Dan."
"Told you they loved it hahaha..."
"They doubled the marketing budget, Olivia. Doubled it.Nobody does that unless they think they have got something."
Olivia made a noise.
It was not a word. It was somewhere up in a register that human beings do not usually produce, and Aina immediately produced one back, and then both of them were slapping each other's hands and shrieking in the back of a car.
Aina had her ear pressed almost against the phone.
Then she caught herself, looked up at the front, and put a hand up.
"Sorry."
The driver, watching all of this in the mirror, just laughed.
"That," Dan said, "was more or less my exact reaction."
"HAHAHA."
"Without the shrieking. There was no shrieking on my end."
"There was definitely shrieking on your end."
"Okay there was some shrieking on my end."
"HAHAHA."
Olivia pushed her own hair back with one hand and let out a long breath.
"Dan, I cannot believe."
She could not get to the end of it.
"I cannot believe this... i mean i just... now its... is this really happening."
"Well." His voice came down and warmed up. "You had better start believing it, kid."
"I have been telling you this, you have something."
"I know."
"No, listen to me for a second. I am being serious now."
She listened.
"When you first came into my office you were sixteen years old and you had a guitar you could barely play and about four songs, and I told my wife that night that I had just met somebody who was going to be enormous. Do you remember what you said to me? You said, do you actually think anybody will listen to it."
Olivia had gone very quiet.
"And I told you then and I will tell you again now. You are the most talented person I have worked with in this entire career. Not one of. The most."
"Dan."
"And that album is going to take the world apart. I am not saying that as your producer. I am saying it because I have heard it eleven hundred times and it still gets me."
"Well, of COURSE it will."
Aina said it loudly, directly into the phone, from about four inches away.
"She is my best friend."
"HAHAHA."
Olivia shoved her.
"Sorry," she said into the phone. "Do not mind her."
"Is that Aina?"
"Yes."
"Well, Aina is right." Dan laughed. "Aina is completely right. That album is going to take the world by storm."
"Okay, so." He was moving on already, back into business. "Ask her whether she wants to come back with you tomorrow morning, because if she does I will have them book two seats instead of—"
"Oh, yeah, sure, she can—"
Olivia stopped.
"Wait."
She sat forward.
"Tomorrow morning?"
"Tomorrow morning."
"Dan, I thought I had until."
Beside her, Aina's face changed.
"Yeah, we had to move everything." Dan said it lightly, the way you say something you have already accepted. "Once the label brought the date forward, everything else came forward with it. The whole schedule shifted."
He paused.
"Honestly, if I could get you back today I would. Tomorrow morning was the earliest flight I could get."
"Wait, I."
Olivia's voice had gone somewhere small.
"I."
She looked at Aina.
Aina was already looking at her.
Neither of them said anything.
"Olivia."
Dan's voice had changed. It was not the kind producer anymore.
"Olivia, listen to me for a second."
"Yeah."
"I know. Okay? I know this is a shock and I know I have just dropped it on you suddenly and I am sorry about that especially since you seem to be enjoying your stay. I genuinely am."
He let a beat go.
"But this is it, kid."
"..."
"This is the thing. This is the actual thing. Everything you have been doing since you were fifteen years old since you ever wanted, every session, every bad demo. All of it was for this."
Olivia was looking out of the window and not seeing anything.
"We are at the line. We are standing on it. And there is an enormous amount to do before we can push you over it, and none of it, not one single piece of it, can happen while you are four thousand miles away."
He softened.
"The marketing meetings. The launch. The label want you in the room. There are people who need to look at you and hear you talk about this record before they put their money behind it, and I cannot do that part for you."
A pause.
"I have watched you want this for a bit now."
"Yeah."
"And now it is here."
He said the last part very gently.
"We cannot delay it any more, dear."
Olivia did not answer straight away.
She sat there in the back of a car going through the Catalan countryside with a phone against her ear, and she looked out at fields she had spent the last few weeks driving past, and she did not say anything at all for about four seconds.
"So."
Dan cleared his throat.
"Tomorrow, then?"
And Olivia Rodrigo closed her eyes.
"Yeah."
Her voice came out low.
"Yeah. Tomorrow."
...
"Arghhh."
"That is the spot."
Mateo King was standing under water hot enough to be legally questionable with both hands flat on the tiles in front of him and his head hanging.
"Ohhhhh."
He tipped his face into it.
Every single thing in his body hurt in a way he had not previously experienced. Not injured hurt. Just used. His shoulders. His back. Something in his ribs he did not remember doing. The whole of both quads.
And the water was going straight through all of it.
"Ahhh."
He stayed there for a very long time.
And somewhere in the middle of it, standing in his own shower with steam coming off him, it started arriving.
We won the Champions League.
He smiled with his eyes shut.
We actually won the Champions League.
He could see it. The ball leaving Messi's boot. The sky and the floodlights coming into view as he turned his back on the goal. Sixty-five metres of empty grass. Pedri hitting him at full speed. Thirty thousand people making a noise he could still feel in his chest a day later.
I scored two goals in a Champions League final.
He laughed once, out loud, in the shower.
I am seventeen.
Then he frowned.
Hold on.
How did I actually get back here last night?
He rewound. The club. Ronaldinho. The drink, which he could still taste somewhere at the back of everything. The pendulum. Pedri dancing, badly. A microphone.
Then a gap.
Then a bed.
Who brought me back?
He genuinely could not produce an answer.
Somebody must have. I did not walk.
Did I walk?
And then his eyes opened.
"Wait."
Wait. I think there was a.
He remembered it now. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, face down on a duvet with one shoe on, a sound.
[DING]
He shut the water off with one hand and stood there dripping.
And he looked.
[Reminder.]
[Host has unclaimed rewards pending.]
[Reward issued.]
[Season completion bonus has been calculated and issued.]
[Please review at your earliest convenience.]
[...]
[The Host appears to be unconscious.]
[Reminder will repeat.]
Mateo grinned.
"Ha."
He wiped water out of his own eyes.
Okay. Okay, what have we got?
The panel expanded.
[SEASON COMPLETION BONUS.]
[Achievement recognised: Domestic League Championship and UEFA Champions League title secured in a single campaign.]
[Reward tier: Major.]
[Standard reward package prepared.]
Mateo's eyebrows went up.
And then the text continued itself in front of him.
[Reward package amended.]
[Reason: urgent physical condition detected in Host.]
[Priority reallocation initiated.]
Mateo stopped moving.
What?
[Scan complete.]
[Result: Possible talus fracture identified, right ankle.]
[Associated damage: ligament tearing, soft tissue trauma, inflammation of surrounding structures.]
[Estimated recovery under conventional treatment: significant.]
[Do you wish to accept the reallocated reward?]
[...]
[Host is not responding.]
[Host has been unresponsive.]
[Emergency provision triggered. Reward issued automatically.]
[All fractures repaired. All tears repaired. All inflammation cleared.]
[Right ankle restored to optimal condition.]
[Host's lower body is now in peak physical state.]
Mateo stood in a shower cubicle with water running off him and did not move a single muscle.
"Fracture."
He said it out loud.
"A fracture?"
He looked down.
At his own right ankle.
It looked exactly like an ankle. It had looked exactly like an ankle all morning. He had walked on it, stood on it, sat on a floor and got up off a floor and stretched on it, and it had not said one word to him since he woke up.
So it was actually that serious.
He put a hand flat on the wall.
It was that serious and I did not.
He thought about the landing. The sound he had not noticed. Mendy taking his leg out from under him and him running sixty-five metres afterwards anyway. Pedri jumping on him in the dressing room. Getting swung around by six men. Dancing. A parade. A bus.
I did all of that on a broken ankle. ooh it should have been cured by then, is that why it stopped hurting, how didnt i notice it
And then, standing there in the steam, Mateo King felt something he did not entirely have a word for.
He put a hand on his own chest.
Thank you.
He did not know who he was saying it to. He was not sure there was anybody in there to say it to.
He said it anyway.
Genuinely. Thank you.
Wait.
It is not finished.
There was more underneath it.
[Additional reward.]
[Achievement recognised: Top scorer, 2020/21 UEFA Champions League. 12 goals.]
[REWARD: FINESSE.]
[A permanent refinement to the Host's striking technique. Contact with the ball is subtly adjusted at the point of execution, increasing revolution and curve on placed shots. The effect is minor in isolation and considerable in aggregate.]
[Shots that were previously six inches wide will now be six inches inside the post.]
[Already applied.]
Mateo read that twice.
"Wow."
He said it to an empty bathroom.
He came out about ten minutes later with a towel round his waist and another one going over his head, rubbing at his own hair.
He was still turning it over. Both of them. The finesse thing, which he was already imagining in about nine different situations, and the other thing, which he had not stopped thinking about since the water went off.
He got to the bed and picked up his phone one-handed, still drying his hair with the other.
Two messages.
Olivia ⭐💗
See you soon 🙂
And underneath it, a few minute later:
Also we need to talk when I get there
Mateo read them both.
And he smiled.
you > cannot wait 😊
He put the phone down.
Picked it up again.
Put it in the other hand and carried on drying his hair.
Then he stopped.
He sat down on the edge of the bed with the towel still over his head and opened the browser.
And typed it in.
talus fracture
He read it out loud, quietly, to himself.
"The talus is the bone that connects the leg to the foot."
He kept going.
"It sits between the tibia and the heel bone. Talus fractures are uncommon and usually result from high-energy trauma such as a fall from height or."
He stopped.
He looked down at his own right ankle.
Then back at the screen.
"Because of the limited blood supply to the bone, healing can be slow and complications are common."
He read that sentence again.
Then he moved his foot in a circle.
Nothing. He pressed the sole flat into the floor and pushed down, properly, putting real weight through it.
Nothing at all. He knew the system had cured it but he still had to check i guess it was subconsious.
He put a hand under his own heel and lifted the whole leg and turned the ankle both ways and there was not one thing in there. No ache. No warning. No small bright line up the outside of his thigh.
It was the best his leg had felt in about two months.
He went back to the search bar.
And typed something else.
how long is a footballer out with a talus fracture
He scrolled.
And he stopped scrolling.
"Six to twelve months?"
He said it out loud.
He sat there on the edge of his own bed with a towel on his head and a phone in his hand and read it three more times to make sure he had understood it.
Six months.
At the absolute best.
He would have missed the Euros. He would have missed the start of next season. He would have spent his entire summer in a boot and his entire autumn in a gym, and he would have come back in December at the best, if he came back properly at all, into a body that had spent half a year forgetting how to do this.
Everything.
He would have lost everything.
He knew he was exaggerating, but that would have been disastrous
Mateo King sat very still.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
He jumped about a foot.
"Yeah?"
His voice came out wrong and he cleared his throat.
"Yeah, who is it?"
"It is me."
Balde's voice, through the door.
"Dude, come out."
A pause.
"Enrique is picking the Euros squad."
A/N
If you want to read chapters ahead with uploads and to support me subscribe to my Patreon below There is also a picture of how mateo looks like posted and later there would be votes and all on the site some you wont need to pay to vote but you can if you want to support me thanks
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