"We have arrived."
The car pulled up outside Mateo's building and the driver put the handbrake on with the air of a man who had also had a long afternoon.
Aina already had her phone out.
She looked at the total.
Then she looked at the surcharge sitting underneath the total.
"Oh."
She did not comment on it. She just paid it very quickly, the way you do when looking at a number for too long will make it worse, and pushed the door open.
They got out and pulled the two small bags off the back seat, the same ones they had taken to Porto and back.
"Arghhhh."
Aina went straight into a stretch on the pavement, both arms up, twisting at the waist.
"Finally."
She rolled her shoulders.
"My whole body is sore. My actual body. How does sitting down for four hours make you sore?"
She bent sideways.
"That is not even how bodies work."
She straightened up.
And looked over.
Olivia was standing beside the bags with her arms folded, looking at nothing in particular, and there was something a little bit far away on her face.
Not sad exactly. Just somewhere else.
Aina tilted her head.
"Hey."
She came over.
"What has got you looking like that?"
Olivia looked up.
And she smiled, and it worked about eighty percent.
"Nothing."
And Aina grinned.
"Ohhhh."
"Do not."
"Is it that?" She was already leaning in. "Is that what it is? Are you missing your boyfriend already?"
"Aina."
"You have been apart for what, thirty hours?"
"I am not—"
"Do not be sad." Aina spread both hands. "He is right there. He is literally in that building. You are going to see him in about ninety seconds."
"I know that."
"And if it is privacy you are after."
Aina's eyebrows went up and stayed there.
"Because I could always—"
"AINA!"
Olivia's mouth was open.
"TEEHEEHAHAHA."
Aina was gone, doubled over, one hand out.
"Your FACE."
"You are disgusting."
"I did not even finish the sentence."
"You did not have to finish the sentence."
"I was going to say I could go and stay at my mother's."
"You were NOT."
"HAHAHA."
Then Aina straightened up, came over, and hooked both arms around one of Olivia's.
"Hey."
She pressed her forehead against her shoulder for a second.
"Livie. Your album is coming out."
Olivia smiled properly this time.
"Yeah."
"Your actual album."
"Yeah."
She shifted the bag on her shoulder.
"But—"
"No."
Aina pulled back and pointed at her.
"No buts. We are not doing buts."
"Aina—"
"This is huge. Do you understand that? This is the thing. This is what you have been going on about since I met you, and it is happening, and I do not want to hear one single but."
And then her voice came down.
She squeezed Olivia's arm.
"And I am sure it is all going to be fine."
Olivia did not say anything.
She nodded.
"Okay."
Aina let her go and picked up her own bag.
"Come on. Let us go up."
And she was already talking again before they had got to the door.
"Arghhh, I am so tired. I have literally just got back and I want to lie down for nine hours."
She groaned at the sky.
"Hey. Hey, listen. Let us start packing later, yeah? Later. I cannot do that now, I genuinely cannot, I will fall over."
"You know you do not have to—"
Aina stopped walking.
She turned round and looked at Olivia like she had said something deranged.
"And miss your album release party?"
Olivia blinked.
"Yeah." Aina shook her head and started walking again. "No, thanks."
She waved a hand over her shoulder.
"You can tell Dan to book my ticket as well."
Olivia stood there for a second.
And then a smile came onto her face. A proper one, all the way, the first one since she got out of that car.
She went after her, fast, and got both arms round Aina's and hooked into her.
And the two of them went up to that door giggling.
Meanwhile, back in the apartment, the boys were, well.
"Wait, no. Not that one. The spicy one, yeah, that one."
"Remember to get the Five Guys cheeseburger."
"Dude, we get it. You are a good boyfriend. Rest."
"Bro, did you get the Big Masta combo? Yeah, and pick the frankfurter rolls, yeah."
"Wait, the pasta. Is it Bolognese or Carbonara, Gavi?"
"Ohhh, Bolognese. Bolognese for sure."
"Yeah, let us get some McDonald's as well."
"Ohhh yeah. Yeah, I want one too."
They had gone through every last piece of the food the cafeteria people had sent over from La Masia, and then, somehow, within about forty minutes, all six of them were hungry again.
Six young men in one apartment appears to have that effect.
And under the general excuse of celebrating, they had collectively decided that today was a cheat day.
"Okay."
Pedri was scrolling with his thumb, thumbing through four different apps.
"All done."
Balde, who had a controller in his hands and was mid-match, did not look away from the screen.
"Wait."
"No."
"Wait, was there a restaurant that does moro de guandules?"
"Yeah, and drinks," Fermín said, also not looking away, also mid-match.
And Mateo, who was lying sideways across a chair replying to Lamine and about nine other people from La Masia, dropped his phone onto his own chest.
"Oh. Wait, that is true."
Pedri let out a long breath through his nose.
"Arghhh."
He picked his phone back up.
"I am getting tired, man."
He opened the app again.
"Which drinks?"
"Coke."
"Pepsi."
Mateo and Casadó said it at exactly the same time.
And then both of them turned round.
Mateo looked at him.
"You still have not seen the light, ehn?"
Casadó rolled his eyes so hard his whole head went with it.
"I am genuinely still lost as to how a functioning human being can prefer Coke over Pepsi—"
"Because Pepsi tastes like—"
"Okay."
Gavi put a hand up.
"Okay, okay, okay. None of that. Please."
He had seen one of these before. It had taken forty minutes.
He looked over at Pedri.
"Just get half and half. Get some of both."
"Nah." Fermín shook his head. "I want Sprite."
"And Fanta for me," Balde said. "I am not feeling dark currents today."
Pedri was typing.
"Fanta," he muttered. "Guess I will get Fanta for Aina and Olivia as well."
He tapped once more and put the phone down with a small smile.
"Okay. Now I am done."
"Wait."
Balde finally looked up.
"What about my moro de guandules?"
Pedri turned his head and looked at him.
Completely deadpan.
"Serious?"
"What?"
Pedri did not say anything for a second.
Then he looked round the entire room, slowly, at each of them in turn.
"Whose mans is this?"
"HAHAHAHA!"
"OHHHH!"
"Whose mans?"
"Seriously. Whose mans is this?"
"HAHAHA!"
Balde threw a cushion at him.
DING DONG.
Balde's head snapped toward the door.
"Wha—that fast?"
Casadó reached over without looking and smacked him across the back of the head.
"Dude."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"That is not even possible!"
"He genuinely thinks the food is here."
"HAHAHA."
"I got it."
Mateo swung his legs off the chair and got up.
Nobody else moved.
Balde and Fermín were still deep in their game, Balde using Barcelona and up 4-2, which he had mentioned four separate times. Gavi was lying on the floor on his phone. Casadó was on his, laughing at something and not sharing it.
Mateo got to the door and put an eye to the peephole.
And there they were, both of them, standing out in that corridor with bags on their shoulders, arms hooked together, laughing at something.
He smiled.
And opened it.
"Hey."
He leaned on the frame.
"You guys are back."
"Hey."
Olivia was smiling at him.
"No, we are not back," Aina said. "We are just visiting."
Mateo did not even look at her.
He rolled his eyes and muttered it at the ceiling.
"I do not have your time."
Aina stuck her tongue out at him, shoved past him with her shoulder, and went straight into the apartment.
"AINA!"
"HEYYY!"
"Girl, where have you been?"
And then it was just the two of them by the door.
Olivia was still standing out in the corridor with her bag on one shoulder.
She looked up at him.
"Hey."
And Mateo smiled.
"Hey."
Then he tilted his head.
"So."
He gestured vaguely at the space between them.
"What, no hug this time?"
Olivia's face went.
"Oh my God."
"I am just saying. Last time you nearly took me off my feet."
"Shut up."
She hit him on the arm, softly, laughing.
"HAHAHA."
And Mateo reached over and took the bag off her shoulder.
"Come here."
He got the handle of the other one too.
"Let me help you with this."
...
"Hey, guys."
"AINAAA!"
"Hey!"
"There she is."
"How was Porto?"
Aina came into that living room and got four different greetings at once from four people in four different positions, two of whom did not look up from a game.
And Pedri was already up off the couch.
"Hi."
He took the bag off her shoulder before she had even got it properly into the room, and put it down against the wall.
"Hi."
She was smiling at him.
"You were late," he said.
"Argh."
She let her head fall back.
"Do not remind me. The traffic was insane. Genuinely insane, we sat in one place for forty minutes."
"It is because of the match."
"That is what everybody keeps telling me."
And then Mateo came in with the other two bags, and Olivia behind him.
"Hey, guys."
"OLIVIA!"
"Hey!"
"Ohhh, she is back."
"Hey, Olivia."
Pedri turned round.
"Hey."
"Hi, Pedri."
She waved at the room with one hand and about six people said something at the same time.
And with all of them finally together, the energy in that apartment did not drop even slightly.
If anything it went up.
Because this was the second time the whole group had been in one room, which meant every single one of them was already past the bit where people are polite. Nobody was introducing anybody. Nobody was being careful.
They just hung out.
Some of them hung out better than others.
"No. No, no, no, wait."
Pedri was leaning over the back of the couch with both hands out.
"Press O. Press O."
"Which one is O?"
"The circle."
"WHICH CIRCLE?"
"The one that says O on it."
"They all look the same!"
"Tackle him. Tackle. TACKLE."
"I am pressing it!"
"You are pressing X."
"I AM PRESSING WHAT YOU SAID."
"GOOOOAAAL!"
Mateo came straight up off the couch with both arms in the air.
On the screen, it said 6-0.
He was already dancing. Not well. Deliberately not well, an enormous celebration in the middle of somebody else's living room, pointing at the television and then at Aina and then back at the television.
"OHHHH!"
"SIXXXX!"
"Sit DOWN."
Olivia had a fistful of the back of his shirt and was pulling on it, laughing.
"Sit down. You are a bully."
"I am not a bully."
"You are a bully."
She yanked him back down onto the couch and he went, laughing, and she gave him a look that was about forty percent stern and the rest of it was not.
Mateo turned to Aina.
"I am so lost, though."
He gestured at the screen with both hands.
"Is Pedri actually your coach? Is that what is happening here? Is that the level of coaching?"
"HAHAHA!"
"Because I am just checking."
He put a hand up.
"Give your coach the pad, actually. Let me give him another six in the second half."
Aina rolled her eyes so hard she nearly injured herself.
And Pedri, very calmly, without looking up from his own phone:
"Laugh all you want."
He scrolled.
"I was not the one who lost his hair losing, though."
"OHHHHHH!"
"AHHHH!"
"HAHAHAHA!"
The whole room detonated.
And Olivia reached over and put a hand flat on top of Mateo's head and rubbed it.
"HAHAHAHA!"
"OH MY GOD."
"NOT OLIVIA."
"Get OFF."
Mateo was batting her hand away and she was laughing so hard she could barely keep it there, and the room had completely gone.
Mateo rolled his eyes and sat back.
"Whatever."
He folded his arms.
"None of that changes the fact that I am still better than every single person in this room."
And they came for him from all four sides.
"YEAHHHH."
"ARGHHH."
"Oh, here we go."
"You are talking a lot, you know that?"
"You are talking a LOT."
"Should we call Bernal for you?"
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
"OHHHH!"
"CALL BERNAL!"
"Get Bernal on the phone!"
"He does not want to hear about Bernal."
"HAHAHA!"
And Pedri, in the middle of all of it, looked down at his phone.
The tracker had updated.
He checked the time, then checked it again, and then his head came up.
"Hey. Mateo."
Mateo looked over.
"The food is nearly here."
He tipped his head toward the balcony.
"Let us get started."
And Mateo's eyes went wide.
"Oh."
He paused the game mid-match.
"Hey!" Aina sat up. "Hey, what are you—"
"Balcony." Mateo was already standing. "Everybody outside. Food is almost here, let us set it up."
He picked up two glasses off the table.
Then he looked at Olivia and Aina.
"Also."
He glanced at Pedri.
"Pedri and I have a surprise series we can all watch."
Olivia frowned.
"A what?"
Aina turned to Pedri.
"What?"
And Pedri just started laughing.
"Come on."
He stood up and stretched.
"I will show you."
"Yeah, honestly, this place is getting stuffy anyway." Balde was already up. "Let us go outside."
And Fermín, halfway to the balcony door, stopped dead.
He turned round.
"Hey. Dude."
He pointed at Mateo.
"You have got a grill out back, right?"
Casadó's eyes came open.
"Ohhh."
He sat up.
"Ohhh, that is true."
The two of them looked at each other.
And both of them grinned at exactly the same time.
"Dude. Let us grill."
"Wait."
Gavi looked between them.
"Wait, hold on. Is the food not literally already coming?"
Casadó looked at him like he had asked what colour the sky was.
"Dude."
He shook his head.
"You do not grill just to eat."
Gavi stared at him.
"Dude."
He pointed.
"You have been hanging out with Balde too much."
"HEY."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"There should be some sausages in the freezer," Mateo said, walking past both of them. "Knock yourselves out."
"YESSS."
"Let's GO."
And they went, all of them, out through that balcony door in a mess of noise, Balde carrying the entire container of drinks and Gavi carrying nothing at all.
And then it was quiet.
Just the two of them in that living room.
Olivia turned round on the couch and looked at him with her eyes narrowed.
"What series?"
"Hm?"
"What series, Mateo?"
"You will see."
"Since when do you even watch television shows?"
She pointed at him.
"You do not watch anything. You did not know who Tom Cruise was. You have never finished a single film in your entire life. And now you have a surprise series?"
"HAHAHA."
"What is it? What are you two doing?"
"Calm down."
"Do not tell me to calm down."
"Calm down."
He came over and sat down next to her, still laughing.
"You will see it when we go out there."
"That is not an answer."
"It is a bit of an answer."
"HAHAHA."
And then they were both just sitting there, and the laughing came down, and the noise out on the balcony carried on without them.
Mateo looked out through the glass.
Then back at her.
"We should go out."
"Yeah."
She started to get up.
And he did not move.
"When you tell me what you have been wanting to tell me."
Olivia stopped halfway up.
She sat back down.
"What?"
She was still smiling.
"What are you talking about?"
And Mateo laughed.
"You cannot hide anything. You know that, right?"
He gestured at her whole face.
"You wear your entire expression up here. All of it. All the time."
He tilted his head.
"You sure you were an actress?"
"HEY!"
Olivia's mouth fell open and she hit him on the arm.
"HAHAHA."
"I was VERY good, thank you."
"Mm."
"I was on television."
"Mm-hm."
"You are horrible."
And then the laughing came down.
Properly, this time.
And Mateo reached over and took the hand she had hit him with and held it, and turned it over, and ran his thumb across the back of it.
And when he spoke again his voice had gone quiet.
"So."
He was looking at her.
"What is it?"
Olivia looked at him.
At his face, at those hazel eyes, at a seventeen-year-old boy sitting on a couch in a Barcelona apartment with a Champions League medal somewhere in the next room, waiting for her to say something.
And she smiled.
"Well."
She looked down at their hands.
"It is, ehm."
"What?"
"It is." She laughed a little. "It is my album, I suppose."
Mateo sat up slightly.
"Is there—"
"No. No, no." She waved her free hand. "No, everything is good. Everything is great, actually. It is really good."
"Okay."
He frowned.
"So?"
"So my producer played it to the label." She shrugged one shoulder. "And they loved it."
"Wow."
Mateo's whole face opened up.
"Livie, that is amazing. Congratulations. That is—"
Then he stopped.
"Wait."
He was frowning again.
"That is great news. Why are you—"
"Yeah."
She got to the end of it before he could.
"Yeah, it is just, ehm."
She let out a breath.
"They loved it so much that they are moving the release date up."
And Mateo understood.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"How soon?"
"The day after tomorrow."
His eyes went wide.
"Oh."
He shifted forward.
"Okay. So when do you—"
"I have to leave tomorrow."
She said it looking slightly off to the side of him.
"Tomorrow morning."
"Wow."
Olivia was looking at the floor now.
She had known this was going to be the bit. She had been carrying it in a car for two hours and up a set of stairs and through a room full of laughing people, and now it was out, and she did not particularly want to look at him while he processed it.
Her shoulders had come down.
"WOW, that is AMAZING!"
Olivia's head snapped up.
Mateo was beaming.
Not politely. Not the thing people do. His whole face had gone, both eyebrows up, and he had her hand in both of his now and was shaking it slightly.
"Are you serious? Olivia. Are you being serious right now?"
"I—"
"That is AWESOME."
He laughed out loud.
"Your album is actually coming out. Your actual album. The thing you have been going on about since the first day I met you, it is coming OUT."
"Mateo—"
"And they LOVED it."
He was talking faster now.
"They loved it. The label loved it. They loved it so much that they moved the whole thing forward, which means they are not just releasing it, they are betting on it, do you understand that?"
He shook his head.
"Fuck, man."
And Olivia started laughing.
She could not help it. It came up out of her and she put her free hand over her mouth.
"I mean, obviously."
He sat back slightly, still holding her hand.
"Obviously I am going to miss you. Like, properly. There was a whole list of things I wanted to do with you. There were places I was going to take you, I had an actual plan, I was going to—"
He waved it away.
"But."
And then he looked at her.
And his voice came down, and he took her hand in both of his again, and he was smiling at her with his whole face.
"Livie."
"Yeah."
"This is your dream."
He said it very simply.
"This is the thing. This is the thing you wanted."
And Olivia Rodrigo felt something come loose in her chest that had been sitting there since a phone call in the back of a car.
She was smiling properly now. All the way. For the first time since Dan had said the word tomorrow.
"Yeah."
She nodded.
"Yeah, it is."
"Right."
Mateo slapped his own knee.
"Then we need to celebrate."
He stood straight up and pulled her with him.
"Ah—"
She came up off that couch faster than she was ready for and went straight into his chest, and both of them started laughing.
He looked down at her.
"Anyway."
He shrugged.
"At least I have still got you for the whole of today, ehn?"
And Olivia looked up at him.
"Yeah."
She was still smiling.
"Yeah, you do."
...
They were walking to the balcony when she tried again.
"Okay."
Olivia had his hand and was pulling on it slightly.
"Now will you tell me what the surprise is?"
"Nope."
"Mateo."
"Nope."
"MATEO."
"Nope."
She groaned at the ceiling, the whole way, all of it.
And Mateo just laughed at her and pulled the glass door open.
They stepped out.
And the first thing they saw was the grill.
Three boys stood round it, one of whom was holding the tongs, none of whom appeared to have any idea what they were doing.
"No."
Balde had both hands out.
"No, no, no. That is not how you do it."
"Balde."
"Dude. It is upside down."
Casadó turned round with the tongs still in his hand.
"HOW."
He held them up.
"How can a sausage be upside down? It is a CYLINDER."
"You can see it is upside down."
"IT IS A CYLINDER, BALDE."
"HAHAHAHA!"
Olivia was laughing.
Properly laughing, one hand on Mateo's arm, and she had been like that since she walked out of that living room, because ever since the couch she had felt about thirty kilos lighter.
"Hey."
Pedri was over by the far end of the balcony.
"You two are finally here."
Mateo tugged her hand and they went over.
Aina was sitting down with both hands over her eyes.
"Can I open them?"
"Yeah."
She dropped her hands.
And looked at a projector screen that had been set up against the wall, currently displaying nothing at all except black.
"..."
She looked at Pedri.
"What am I looking at?"
Pedri turned to Mateo.
"I have got it up."
"Ohhh."
Mateo was grinning now.
"Great. Perfect."
He turned to Olivia and gestured at the chairs.
"Sit down."
Olivia did not move.
She looked at him with her eyes narrowed all the way.
"Why."
"Sit down."
"Why are you saying it like that?"
"SIT DOWN."
She sat down next to Aina.
And the two of them looked at each other, and then at the two boys now standing in front of a projector screen, and both of them started laughing without knowing what at.
"What are they doing?"
"I do not know."
"Why do they look like that?"
"I genuinely do not know."
"Hey! Guys!"
Mateo was waving at the grill.
"Come here! Come, come, come."
"What?"
"Just come."
And they came, all of them, dragging chairs across the balcony and dropping into them. Gavi came off a phone call, said "yeah, I will call you back," and hung up without waiting for an answer.
Casadó stayed at the grill with the tongs, but turned the whole thing round so he could watch.
And then Pedri and Mateo took the front.
Mateo went first.
"Okay."
He put his hands together.
"Ladies."
He looked over at the boys.
"And."
He tilted his head.
"Well."
"OHHHH!"
"HEY!"
"What does that mean?"
"AHHHH!"
"HAHAHA!"
Balde threw something at him and missed.
"After."
Pedri put a hand up and the noise came down.
"After an intensive five minutes of Google searching."
"HAHAHA."
"Five minutes?"
"It was closer to four."
"To celebrate."
Mateo gestured at Olivia with both hands like a man presenting a prize on a game show.
"Miss. Olivia. Rodrigo."
Olivia put a hand over her face and started giggling.
"Oh my God."
"No, no. Stop. Show some respect."
"MATEO."
"This is a serious moment."
"We present to you," Pedri said.
And the two of them looked at each other.
And said it at exactly the same time as Pedri hit play on the remote.
"BIZAARDVARK."
The reaction was instant.
"OH MY GOD."
Aina's hands went straight over her face.
"NO."
"WAIT."
Olivia had come forward in her seat.
"Wait. How? HOW?"
"HAHAHAHA!"
"How did you even find that?"
"It is on the internet, Olivia."
"IT IS NOT."
"It is very much on the internet."
The theme music started coming out of a speaker on a balcony in Barcelona.
And Olivia put both hands over her own face and did not take them down for about forty seconds.
"I was FOURTEEN."
"We know."
"I was a CHILD."
"We can see."
"Oh my God, do not look at me."
"We are not looking at you."
"YOU ARE ALL LOOKING AT ME."
"Shhhh."
Balde had settled all the way back into his chair with his arms folded.
"Some of us are trying to watch this."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"BALDE!"
"No, seriously. I have heard it is very good."
"I will kill you."
And the day carried on exactly like that.
Laughs and food and jokes and jabs, all of it, for hours. The orders kept arriving in waves and somebody kept having to go down to the gate to collect them and there was an argument every single time about whose turn it was. The sausages eventually got grilled, badly, and everybody ate them anyway.
They watched four episodes. Nobody had intended to watch four episodes.
Olivia was mocked relentlessly, and about halfway through the second one she stopped hiding behind her hands and started joining in, and by the third she was doing impressions of her own lines before they happened, which somehow made everything worse for her and much better for everybody else.
At some point in the middle of all of it, Pedri and Aina ended up at the far end of that balcony on their own for a while, and she told him about tomorrow morning.
It did not dampen anything.
They came back over about ten minutes later and sat back down and carried on, and if either of them was quieter than before, nobody said anything about it.
And when Mateo finally told the girls that he and Pedri had a dinner to go to that evening, and where the dinner was, the reaction on that balcony was loud enough that somebody two floors down opened a window.
Then came the logistics.
Because there were now eight people going, and Pedri's car takes five, and nobody was particularly keen on getting into a taxi with Gavi again after last time.
So Mateo messaged Adrián and asked whether they could use one of the club vans.
And Adrián, who had already fielded three calls from that boy in twenty-four hours, said yes, on the condition that it came back in the same state it left in.
And then, finally, it was time to go.
...
5:17 p.m.
The Messi compound had been transformed, and it had taken most of the day to do it.
Nothing about it was loud. That was the thing. Antonella did not do loud, and she never had.
The lawn at the back of that house had been mown and edged until it looked like something off a television broadcast, and out in the middle of it, running most of the length of the garden, somebody had set a single long table under the open sky. White cloth. Real glassware. Low arrangements down the centre so that people could actually see each other across it, because she had sat at enough dinners where you could not.
Strings of small warm lights ran overhead in three lines from the house to the trees at the far end, not yet switched on, waiting for the light to go.
There were smaller tables scattered around the edges of the grass for people who wanted to stand and hold something. A bar had been set up against the far wall with two people behind it. A long trestle down the side with the food, most of it Argentine, some of it not.
And down the bottom of the garden, where the lawn opened out, there was a football pitch. Full markings. Proper little goals.
It was, all of it, simple.
And it was beautiful.
Antonella came out onto the terrace in a long black gown with her hair up, and stood there for a moment and looked at the whole of it with her hands together.
"Hm."
"It looks incredible."
She turned.
Leo was standing in the doorway in a dark shirt and jacket with his tie hanging loose round his own neck, holding both ends of it in a way that suggested he had already tried once.
Antonella smiled and came over.
"Give it here."
"I can do it."
"Clearly."
"HAHAHA."
She took both ends and started folding them properly, up close, her eyes on the knot.
"You did all of this in one day," he said.
"I did."
"It is genuinely beautiful, Anto."
"I know."
"HAHAHA."
She pulled the knot up to his collar and straightened it with two fingers and then patted it flat with her palm.
"There."
And she looked up at him.
And Leo put a hand on her waist and kissed her.
DING DONG.
She pulled back and let out a breath.
"Okay."
She smoothed the front of her own dress.
"I am going to get the door. Make sure the boys are ready, they were in the—"
"They are ready."
"They are not ready."
"They are mostly ready."
"Leo."
"I will go and get them."
She went through the house and, on the way past, glanced at herself in the hall mirror for exactly one second, adjusted nothing, and opened the front door.
"HELLOOOO!"
"AHHH!"
Shakira was standing there with a boy holding each hand, both of them in small tuxedos, both of them looking extremely serious about it.
"Look at you."
"Look at ME? Look at YOU."
They came together and kissed on both cheeks and then held onto each other's arms and looked at each other properly.
"That dress."
"Do not start."
"No, the dress. Antonella, the DRESS."
"And you." Antonella shook her head. "You are unbelievable. Every single time."
"HAHAHA."
Then Antonella bent down slightly.
"And who are these two gentlemen?"
Milan straightened up.
Sasha looked at the floor and then up again.
"Oh, no." She put a hand on her own chest. "No, no. Look at them. Look at these suits. You are both far too handsome, this is a problem, this is going to cause problems tonight."
"Say thank you," Shakira said.
"Thank you," they said, at slightly different times.
"Oh."
Shakira turned and took something off the step behind her.
"Here. For you."
A bottle of wine, dark, with a ribbon round the neck of it.
"Ohhh."
Antonella took it with both hands.
"You did not have to—"
"I did."
"This is—" She turned it and looked at the label and her eyebrows went up. "Shakira."
"Do not look at it."
"This is beautiful."
"Do not look at the label, that is rude."
"HAHAHA."
Then Antonella blinked.
"Oh, my God. My bad. Come in, come in, come in, what am I doing, come in."
They came through the house and out onto the terrace.
And Shakira stopped.
"Oh."
She put a hand up.
"Anto."
"Hm?"
"Anto, this is gorgeous."
"It is alright."
"It is ALRIGHT?" She gestured at the entire garden. "The table. The lights. Is that a—"
She leaned forward.
"Is that a football pitch?"
"It is a football pitch."
"Of course it is a football pitch."
"HAHAHA."
"Tía Nella."
Milan was pulling at Antonella's hand.
"Where are Thiago and the others?"
"Oh, they are—"
And a voice came from somewhere at the side of the house.
"GUYSSSSS!"
"Come and see this. Come and see the Switch, I just got a new one."
"AHHHHH!"
And both boys were gone.
Straight off the terrace, down the steps, running.
"Hey. HEY." Antonella leaned over the rail. "You be careful!"
"AND NO RUNNING!" Shakira called after them.
Neither instruction landed anywhere.
Leo came out a moment later.
"Shaki."
"There he is."
They hugged, side-on, and kissed on both cheeks.
"Congratulations. Genuinely. What a night."
"Thank you."
Then he looked past her.
"Where is Geri?"
And Shakira groaned with her entire body.
"Do not."
"What?"
"He came home at some point this morning. I do not know when. I heard the door."
She put both hands up.
"He was in a STATE, Leo. A state. And he is still asleep. Right now. As we speak."
"HAHAHA."
"He has been asleep for eleven hours."
"HAHAHAHA."
"You all went wild, ehn?"
And Leo just laughed and did not answer that.
And after the first guest, the rest started coming.
Antonella had been right about footballers.
Piqué was not the only one who did not make it. Two of them were already out of the country. One was on a plane at that exact moment. Another had replied to the group chat with four apologetic messages and a photograph of an airport.
But because she had moved fast, it was still a very good turnout.
Jordi Alba came with Romarey, both of them laughing about something before they had even got through the door.
Sergio Busquets and Elena arrived about ten minutes later, Busquets in a shirt with the collar open and the absolute calm of a man who has been to two hundred of these.
Antoine Griezmann with Erika, and Griezmann already telling a story in the hallway.
Ronald Araújo came with his partner and immediately got pulled into three separate conversations before he had put his jacket down.
Frenkie de Jong and Mikky, who had brought flowers, which Antonella made an enormous fuss about.
Sergi Roberto and Coral, who arrived last of that group and apologised for the traffic, which everybody had also experienced and nobody cared about.
It is a rare thing for a footballer to turn up to something like this on his own.
And then, at 6:34 p.m., the bell went again.
Antonella was mid-conversation with Elena and Romarey and a glass of something when she heard it.
"One second."
She went back through the house.
And about ten feet from the door she slowed down.
Because she could hear it through the wood.
Not one voice. Several. All of them going at once, low and fast and clearly arguing about something, and then somebody laughing and being immediately shushed by two other people.
"Be NORMAL."
"I am being normal."
"Do not embarrass me."
"When have I ever—"
"Last week."
"That does not count."
Antonella smiled to herself.
She did not need to look.
And she opened the door.
"Good evening."
Mateo was standing at the front with his hands behind his back and an extremely well-behaved expression on his face.
"Mateo."
"Thank you for having us."
"Hi, Antonella."
Pedri came in behind him with Aina.
And then four boys in the best clothes any of them owned, standing very upright in a row.
Gavi cleared his throat.
"Mrs Messi."
He put a hand out.
"Thank you so much for hosting us."
And Antonella laughed properly.
"Oh, no."
She took the hand and shook it.
"No, no. None of that."
"Sorry?"
"Antonella. Just Antonella."
"Okay."
He nodded about six times.
"Antonella."
"Better."
She stepped back and waved all eight of them in.
"Come in. Everybody is out on the field already, go straight through, there is food and there is drink and you are not to ask for permission for either."
"Thank you."
"Thank you, ma'am—Antonella."
"Thank you."
"Thank you so much."
And she watched them file past her, all eight, and when the last one had gone she put a hand on the door frame and shook her head, smiling.
"Well."
She said it mostly to herself.
"With you lot here, I suppose we can say the party has finally started."
And it had.
"No, but have you actually heard about the documentary?"
"What documentary?"
"The club one. The season one. It is out tomorrow."
"TOMORROW?"
"Wait, that fast?"
"It is done. Apparently it has been done for a while, people at the club have already seen it."
"Who has seen it?"
"People."
"Which people?"
"I do not know which people, Jordi."
"What platform is it on?"
"Netflix."
"Oh, it is on NETFLIX?"
"Hold on, so they have got footage of—"
"They have got everything."
"Everything?"
"Everything."
"Oh no."
Over by the trestle table, Jorge Messi had somehow acquired four teenagers.
"So all four of you. Same year?"
"Different years, sir." Casadó pointed down the row. "He is younger. We are the same. He is a year below."
"And you are all there now? Living there?"
"Three of us."
"Ah."
Jorge nodded slowly, holding a glass in one hand.
"And what are they like with you? The coaches. Are they hard?"
The four of them looked at each other.
"Yes."
"Very."
"Ah, good."
"HAHAHA."
"No, that is good. That is good. Leo had a man there, when he was a boy, who ran the academy. The headmaster, more or less. Do you know what I am talking about?"
"Old man Francisco," Balde said immediately.
Jorge's eyebrows went up.
"You know him?"
"Yeah Mateo told us, he is the father of our current Dorm supervisor"
"Well." Jorge shook his head. "That man was a TERROR."
"HAHAHA!"
"I am telling you. A terror. Leo used to come home and he would not even want to talk about it. He shouted at those boys for everything. Your socks. Your posture. How you spoke to the kitchen staff. If you left a plate on a table, he would find you."
"Sir." Balde was laughing with his whole chest. "Sir, he sounds exactly like 'dorm mother'."
"Who is 'dorm mother' hahaha?"
"He is the current dorm supervisor."
"He is EXACTLY like that," Fermín said.
"He once made me redo my bed at six in the morning."
"He made me apologise to a door."
"HAHAHAHA!"
Jorge was laughing now too.
"Good. Good, good. You need one of those."
He pointed at all four of them with the glass.
"Every single one of you needs one of those. You will not think so for another ten years and then one day you will."
Down at the other end of the lawn, Olivia and Aina had ended up standing with Shakira.
And Aina was, quietly, losing her mind.
"I just." Olivia had a hand up. "I genuinely do not want to be weird about this."
"Be weird."
"HAHAHA."
"No, please. Be weird. It is the only interesting part of the evening for me."
"Okay." Olivia took a breath. "You are a huge reason I do what I do."
"Ohh."
"Genuinely. Huge. Like when I was nine or ten, in the car with my mum, and—"
"Do not say the year."
"HAHAHA."
"Please. Do not say the year, I am begging you."
"Sorry."
"It is fine." Shakira waved it away, smiling. "It is fine. Thank you. That is a very nice thing to say and I am going to accept it."
She looked between the two of them.
"And look at the pair of you. Honestly."
She gestured at Aina.
"That colour on you."
"Oh my God."
"No, it is beautiful. Where is it from?"
"I do not remember."
"She remembers," Olivia said.
"I remember exactly," Aina said.
"HAHAHA."
And over by the bar, somebody had asked Olivia where she was from.
"California," she said. "Well. I am in LA to be specific."
"Ohhh."
Elena turned round.
"America. I have never been."
"Never?"
"Never. Not once." She shrugged. "I want to. Honestly, I really do, there are about nine places I want to see."
She pulled a face.
"But then you see the news."
"Ah."
"The guns, the—" She gestured vaguely. "I do not know. It frightens me. Is that terrible?"
"No." Olivia laughed. "No, honestly, half of America feels the same way."
"HAHAHA."
"See? See, this is what I am saying."
"Hold on."
Griezmann had turned round with a glass in his hand and an enormous grin on his face.
"Hold on, hold on. Do you two not even want to know how you got home?"
Mateo looked up.
"What?"
Pedri put his drink down.
"What do you mean, how we got home?"
"HAHAHA."
"Antoine."
"You do not remember?"
"Remember WHAT?"
Griezmann was already laughing too much to get it out cleanly.
"Dembélé drove you."
"WHAT?"
"HAHAHAHA!"
"Ousmane drove you back. Both of you. He was the only one in that entire building who had not had a single drink, so he ended up doing about four trips with the liaison guy."
"He DROVE us?"
"He drove about nine people."
"HAHAHA!"
"He was going around collecting people like a school bus."
"Oh my God."
Mateo put both hands over his face.
"I have to text him."
"You have to text him."
"I genuinely have to text him right now."
Somewhere else, Mateo had ended up standing with Leo, Busquets, De Jong and Mikky, and the conversation had turned.
"So you are going in tomorrow?"
"Yeah." Mateo nodded. "Nine in the morning. Adrián called me about it twice."
"Twice?"
"Twice."
"HAHAHA. They are worried about you."
"They are not worried, they just want it on paper."
"That is the same thing," Busquets said.
"How is it, though?" De Jong tipped his head. "Honestly. The leg."
And Mateo shrugged and put his weight onto it, right there, standing on the grass.
"It is fine."
"Fine fine?"
"Fine fine." He rolled the ankle. "I feel good. Genuinely. Better than I felt two months ago."
"Hm."
Busquets did not look convinced, in the manner of a man who has been in football for fifteen years and has heard a great many boys say that.
"Get the scan anyway."
"I am getting the scan."
"Get the scan."
"I AM GETTING THE SCAN."
"HAHAHA."
"Wait."
Antonella had appeared at the edge of a conversation with a glass in her hand.
"Sorry, one second. Has anybody seen Celia?"
"She was inside."
"With the little ones?"
"She was with María Sol about ten minutes ago."
"Right."
She took two steps and stopped.
"If you see her, tell her I need her for the thing."
"What thing?"
"She knows what thing."
"Tomorrow?"
Shakira had actually stopped with her glass halfway up.
"Tomorrow tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow morning." Olivia nodded. "Early."
"Oh, no."
Antonella put a hand on her arm.
"But I thought we had a bit longer. I was going to organise something, a proper girls' afternoon, nails and everything—"
"Ohh, that would have been—"
"I had it PLANNED."
"HAHAHA."
"I am serious. I had it planned. And now you are telling me you are going tomorrow."
"I know."
"Why so soon?"
And Aina answered before Olivia could.
"Because she has got an album coming out."
The little group went up.
"WHAT?"
"An ALBUM?"
"Wait, hold on—"
"Her album. Her first one. And the label loved it so much they moved the release date forward, which is why she has to fly back."
"Aina."
"What? It is true."
"Oh my God."
Shakira had put her glass down entirely.
"Olivia."
"It is not—"
"No, no, no. Do not do that. Do not do the thing."
"I was not doing a thing."
"You were about to do the thing where you make it small." She pointed at her. "Do not. Your first record is coming out. Do you know how many people get to say that sentence?"
"Congratulations."
"Congratulations!"
"That is amazing."
"That is genuinely amazing."
Mikky had both hands up.
"Wait, when? What day? I want to listen to it."
And Olivia was laughing now, going slightly red, and holding onto Aina's arm.
"Thank you. Thank you, honestly. Thank you."
At some point, they ate.
It took about eleven minutes to get everybody seated, because nobody ever sits down the first time they are asked, and Antonella had to do it three times, the last of which was not a request.
But eventually they were all down that long table under the lights, which had come on now, because the sun had gone.
And Leo stood up at the head of it.
The table came quiet.
He did not make a speech. He had made one on a bus in front of a hundred thousand people the night before and he was not about to make another one in his own garden.
He just said grace. Short, plainly, the way you say a thing you have said several thousand times.
And then he looked up and round that table, at all of them, at his family and his teammates and their wives and their children and eight extremely young people at the far end.
"Thank you for coming."
He sat down.
And the table erupted.
"Pass the—"
"The what?"
"THAT. That one."
"Somebody get the—"
"This is incredible."
"Anto, this is incredible."
"She did it in one day."
"ONE DAY?"
"One day."
"That is not possible."
"Tell her that."
Halfway through, Jorge Messi leaned over toward Mateo.
"So. adidas."
Mateo's fork stopped.
"Sorry?"
"They called me, you know. Three of them, actually, but adidas were the ones who would not leave me alone."
"Oh." Mateo blinked. "Yeah. My uncle, ehm. He is my agent. He is handling all of that."
"Your uncle."
"Yes, sir."
"Family."
"Yeah."
And Jorge nodded once, and went back to his plate.
"That is good."
That was it. That was the entire conversation.
And then, somewhere around the second course, it went to the summer.
"Four of you," Griezmann said, gesturing down the table with a fork. "Four of you in that Spain squad."
"Five," Alba said.
"Four."
"Five."
"Who is the fifth?"
"Eric García."
"He is at City."
"He is Spanish, Antoine."
"HAHAHA."
"Anyway." Griezmann sat back. "I just want to say, as a neutral party—"
"OHHHH."
"AS A NEUTRAL PARTY—"
"You are not neutral."
"I am extremely neutral. I just want to gently remind everybody at this table that the reigning world champions are also in this tournament."
"Come ON, man."
"I am not saying anything."
"You are saying something."
"I am saying we should all calm down."
"HAHAHA!"
"He has been waiting to say that all night."
"He has had that ready since six o'clock."
"HAHAHA."
"Anyway, the Euros." Araújo shook his head. "You are all talking about the Euros."
"What?"
"The Copa is the hard one."
"OHHHH."
"Here we go."
"No, no." Araújo put his hands up. "Listen. Listen to me. You lot do not understand how those South Americans get down."
"You ARE South American."
"Exactly. That is exactly my point."
"HAHAHAHA!"
"He is making my point for me."
"Leo, tell them."
And Leo, who had said almost nothing for twenty minutes, put his glass down.
"It is different."
"Thank you."
"It is a different tournament. Different pitches, different referees, different everything." He shrugged. "Nobody there is playing for a nice summer."
"THANK YOU."
"HAHAHA."
And then, inevitably, it came back round to Porto.
"I will not lie to you."
Alba had both elbows on the table.
"At about eighty minutes, I was gone. I had accepted it. In my head, it was finished."
"You had?"
"I had. I was thinking about the flight home."
"Jordi."
"I am being honest! I am being honest with you!"
"HAHAHA."
"I was so afraid," Busquets said quietly, and the table stopped for a second because Busquets does not say things like that.
"You?"
"Terrified."
"HAHAHA!"
"He is lying."
"He is not lying, look at his face."
"Honestly, though." De Jong shook his head. "Eighty minutes. One-nil down. Against that defence."
"That defence was unbelievable."
"That goalkeeper was unbelievable."
"That goalkeeper should not be human."
"And then."
Mateo, from the far end, put both hands out.
"And then we have Messi."
The table went.
"AHHHH!"
"THERE IT IS!"
"THE BOY IS RIGHT!"
Glasses started coming up all the way down that table, and Antonella was laughing and shaking her head, and Jorge was already halfway to his feet, and somebody at the far end shouted something in Catalan.
And Leo sat there in the middle of it with a glass in his hand looking at a plate, entirely unwilling to look up, which made every single person at that table louder.
"To Leo!"
"TO LEO!"
"HAHAHA!"
"And to the boy!"
"AND THE BOY!"
"TO THE BOY!"
And it went on like that for hours.
It was a good while later, well after the table had broken up and people had scattered back out across the lawn in twos and threes, that Mateo found himself inside the house.
He had come in for a glass of water and had not got round to it.
He was standing at the enormous back window instead, looking out at the garden.
At the lights strung across it. At thirty-odd people standing on grass in the dark holding drinks. At four boys down at the far end who had somehow got hold of a ball and were currently playing two versus two against a goal that belonged to a six-year-old.
At Olivia, standing near the bar, talking to Mikky about something with her hands going.
And as if she felt it, she looked up.
Straight through that window, straight at him.
And her whole face changed.
She lifted a hand and gave him a small wave.
And Mateo waved back, and neither of them looked away for about three seconds, and then Mikky said something and Olivia turned back and started laughing again.
Mateo was still smiling at the glass.
"You remember the last time we were here?"
He turned round.
Leo was standing a few feet behind him with a glass in one hand and his tie gone.
Mateo did not answer immediately.
Because he did remember.
A backyard. Two chairs. A plate he had completely emptied, twice, and an enormous amount of embarrassment about it. A man telling him what he actually wanted.
I want to win the Champions League.
And a boy with his mouth half full telling him not to worry about it.
"Yeah," Mateo said. "I remember."
Leo came and stood beside him at the window.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
Out on the lawn, somebody had scored, and four teenagers were screaming about it.
"We would not have won it without you."
Mateo's head came round.
"Ah, come on." He waved a hand. "You scored the equaliser. In the ninety-sixth minute. If you do not score that then there is no—"
"No."
Leo said it flatly.
Mateo stopped.
"I am not being modest and I am not being nice to you," Leo said. "I am telling you a fact."
He was still looking out at the garden.
"You are the reason we won the Champions League this season."
"Leo—"
"Not the goals. I mean, yes, the goals. Twelve of them, and two in a final, and if we are being honest about it you should have had another two."
He shrugged.
"But that is not what I mean."
He turned his head.
"Do you know what this club was in August?"
Mateo did not answer.
"It was finished. Not in the press. In the building. In the dressing room. I was going to leave, everybody knows that now, I had already sent the fax. Half those men out there had stopped believing anything good was going to happen here for years."
He nodded out at the lawn.
"And then a seventeen-year-old walked in."
"And it was not the ability. There are ability players everywhere, there are academies full of them. It was that you came into a broken building and you played like you had not noticed it was broken."
He paused.
"You were so happy to be there that it became embarrassing to be miserable around you."
Mateo let out a laugh he did not mean to.
"That is not—"
"That is exactly what happened." Leo looked at him. "You gave the whole club hope. Not me. Not Koeman. You. On the pitch and off it. And people will write about the goals because the goals are easy to write about."
He turned back to the window.
"But I was there. And I am telling you what actually happened."
Mateo did not have anything to say to that.
He stood there and looked out at a garden full of lights.
"There are talks about the Ballon d'Or."
Mateo choked.
Properly, on nothing, and had to cough into his own fist.
"The—"
He looked over.
"Sorry. The Ballon d'Or?"
Leo did not laugh. That was the thing that got him. Leo did not laugh, and did not smile, and did not soften it in any way at all. He just looked at him.
"Yes."
"Normally I do not care about the campaign," he said. "Any of it. The videos, the interviews, the clubs pushing their players and briefing journalists. I have never had any interest in it and I have won enough of them that it would be ridiculous for me to start now But."
He tilted the glass slightly in his own hand.
"I care about this one."
"..."
"I am going to talk to the club."
Mateo's eyes went wide.
"They should be pushing you for it. Properly. Not as a nice story about a young boy, not as a nice piece for the website. Pushing you."
"No."
Mateo had both hands up.
"No, no, no, no. No. Leo. No."
"Mateo."
"You cannot—" He was stammering now. "You are the— Leo, you have won a league and a Champions League as well, you scored in the final, you got man of the match in the final, you are the one who—"
"Mateo."
"—and I am seventeen, and you are, you are actually you, and I am not going to stand here and let you—"
"I told you."
Mateo stopped talking.
Leo was looking at him.
"On the balcony. Right Here."
He said it very simply.
"I told you I was going to make you the best player in the world."
And Mateo could not say anything at all.
Leo turned back to the window and looked out at his own garden, at all of those people, at a football pitch with four boys on it.
And he smiled.
"This is just the start."
He put his glass down on the ledge.
Then he reached over and put a hand on Mateo's shoulder and squeezed it, once.
"Come on."
He tipped his head at the door.
"Let us go back out. They will be looking for us."
And as he went past, without turning round:
"We are just getting started."
And Mateo King laughed.
He could not help it. It came up out of him in the middle of a living room, and he shook his head at a window, and went after him.
"You know it."
They came out onto the terrace and the noise came back up around them, and somebody immediately shouted something at Leo about the football down at the bottom of the garden, and he was gone into it within about four seconds.
And Mateo stood on the top step for a moment.
His chest was going. Properly going, the way it had not gone since a whistle in Porto, and there was something happening behind his ribs that he did not have a word for.
The Ballon d'Or.
He said the—
"Hey."
A hand slid into his.
Olivia had come up the steps and was standing beside him, and she had his hand already, and she was looking up at him with her head slightly tilted.
She was smiling.
"What is wrong?"
Mateo looked down at her.
At a girl on a terrace in the dark with the lights behind her.
And he smiled, and closed his hand around hers properly, and squeezed it.
"Nothing."
A/N
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