Oli's purring underscores the awkward silence with a blissful ignorance. He relishes the firm strokes of my hand as I run it along her back, needing to feel normal just as much as he needs the attention. Alexia's eyes scan along every inch of my apartment. She has never been inside, apart from that time when her stupid dog wreaked havoc on my poor cat. Her lips twitch into an almost-smile as she catches sight of the gleaming metal displayed on shelves on one wall of my living room. A silver Champions League medal. Courtesy of Barcelona.

I was on the bench for that match, following a minor injury from training earlier that day. There is only once in my life when I have felt more helpless than I did that day, when I watched my team be hung, drawn, and quartered in a Champions League final. What tops that is watching Scarlett die. Both are tough topics.

I remind myself that Alexia's collection of silver medals from the same competition is larger than mine. I won it twice when I played for Lyon. Her gaze lingers on the shiny gold, hardening in determination. I let out a sigh, feeling the exhaustion wringing out of me as though a dam has opened and I have no choice but to respond.

"Are you hungry?" I ask her, setting my bags down on the sofa. She does the same, broken out of her trance by my question.

"No," she replies curtly, though she watches as I open the fridge to help me decide whether or not the tightness in my stomach can be quelled with food. "Tienes hambre. Podemos a comer." I shake my head, finding myself too lazy to make anything.

Weirdly enough, she sits down on the sofa with Oli in her lap, both of them very comfortable. Fucking traitor. I turn on the TV, checking the time on my phone as I do. Jaimie wants to phone me; she is concerned that my fine-ness could be a front and that I am potentially curled into a ball in the corner of my apartment. I call her quickly, talking in Dutch, watching the conversation fall on deaf ears as Alexia focuses on the late-night Spanish TV.

Telling Jaimie about my company may have been a bad idea, because she – rather loudly – reminds me of the current occupation of my spare bedroom. I crane my neck round from my position, catching sight of the state of the room. Her clothes are everywhere. She tells me that the sheets are dirty, and I have no intention of inquiring further into why she is so insistent she change them herself when she returns. I can infer.

"So what the fuck am I supposed to do?" I groan, walking over to the sofa and taking a seat as far away from Alexia as possible. She glances over at me, but the conversation is of no interest to her. The tightness in my stomach is always present when she is near me. I shuffle so that I am pressed against the end of my sofa, increasing the distance between us. Oli's purrs sound like the cold song of betrayal. "Can I make her sleep on the sofa? Do I take the sofa?" I can hear Jaimie roll her eyes. She is preoccupied, though she is hiding it quite well. I think that my sister sometimes forgets she can prioritise her own life over me, and, more importantly, that she has a right to do so. I am not her charge.

"I am going to change." Alexia stands up, tipping Oli off her lap gently. "The bathroom?" I point to the correct door. My cat follows her as she pads, bag in hand, away. I tell Jaimie that I will tell her to sleep in my bed. I am a heavy sleeper, and I can sleep in a lot of places. Alexia does not seem like the kind of person to fall asleep easily, judging by the bags under her eyes.

Stretching out on top of the plush cushions, I flex my fingers and toes, trying to wake myself up a bit more. The TV is uninteresting if it is a language I cannot understand, and so I switch the channel to Netflix and continue watching Queer Eye. Jaimie likes it and has forced me to watch it with her enough times for me to vaguely enjoy it.

Alexia takes a whole episode of the show to be done, though I think she had been on the phone in the bathroom at one point. Privacy would not be an issue if she were to talk in Spanish or Catalan, but the red rims of her eyes and the sniffle of her nose is probably why she stayed locked in there. I wonder what she has been crying about. What does she have to be crying about?

Oli brushes up against her legs as she returns to her position, though this time he sits so that she cannot give him any attention and avoid my presence at the same time. Meaning she has to move closer. Our legs touch. It doesn't feel like I have stepped too close to the burning fires of Hell. It's weirdly natural.

I try to contain my shudder.

"When do you sleep?" Alexia asks, though both of our gazes remain trained on the TV screen.

I realise that I am still in my travel clothes, and that I had waited for Alexia to come out of the bathroom despite having my own ensuite. It must be some subconscious mistrust that I rightfully have for a woman I do not like. She could have hurt Oli or something. (Oli has moved so that he is curled into her side, but I pretend to not notice his back-stabbing behaviour.)

Standing up, I tell her that I'm going to change, letting that information be the answer to her question. Though she is dressed for sleep, she looks wide awake. I wonder if I will be able to keep my heavy eyelids open long enough for her to drift off and no longer be such a problem in my home. "You can get food from the fridge. Or water." She nods, and returns to her fascination with a show I'm not entirely sure she can understand (though Alexia could just pretend to not understand English to minimise the amount of conversations we have), her fingers dragging through Oli's soft fur as he nuzzles further into her. My cat must not have a sense of smell. He must be unaware that this is Nala's owner – our arch enemies.

I take my time in the bathroom, enjoying the feeling of the hot water running down my skin, soothing my tired muscles. My fingers smooth over the tattoos Alexia asked me about yesterday. I have five, but she did not see the butterflies below my left boob because then she'd have seen me naked. That would be mortifying. I did have to explain the Dutch saying on my wrist – something she had, apparently, been curious about for a while. 'Heb je geen paard gebruik dan een ezel' means 'if you don't have a horse, use a donkey'. I got it with Jill and Aniek after we won the Euros in 2017 as a reference to my minor stint of playing for Australia. It reminds me of how I got here.

Well, not here exactly, because I fear I will not have an explanation for why Alexia Putellas is sprawled on my sofa with my cat inside my apartment if anybody were to ask. I hope no one ever finds out about this. They probably won't. Although I am a little scared of Alexia's fanclub (Clàudia, Jana, Cata, Bruna and so on) because they really make the sides obvious. It's not that they don't like me, it's more that there is a clear divide and they have chosen to follow their superhero. Which I understand. Lucy and Keira were explaining this to me on the coach.

Alexia has moved when I pad out of the bathroom, my bare feet making almost no sound. She jumps as I appear behind her in the kitchen, shoulders that were slumped suddenly tensing hard. If she were not wearing a jumper, it would be easy to see the rippling muscle of her back. I quickly shift my focus to the passport she is thumbing her way through.

"Your name is not Fleur?" She flicks to the identification page to show me. I stand beside her, leaning on the counter. It's far away enough to not be touching. "Laurine Matilda Elena Philipa de Voss," Alexia reads out, not attempting to make the names sound vaguely Dutch. "Muy largo."

"My roepnaam is Fleur," I explain, though she looks at me blankly as if that is no help. Alexia's eyes show tiredness very well. They are dull in comparison to how brightly they shine when she is on the pitch.

"In English?"

"Calling name." Scarlett found the concept weird in that it is more than a nickname. "My mother chose Fleur, and my father chose Laurine, but my grandmother, aunt, great-grandmother, and two of my cousins are called that too. I'm called Fleur so that we don't get confused."

"Do they only have one name in Holland?" she jokes, smiling in a way that tells me she sort of understands, but not enough to not find it strange. "I saw on your... But there was no explanation."

"You've looked me up?"

"He hecho una investigación."

She glances away from my eyes, but I cannot pinpoint where she looks. She sets down my passport gently, letting it flop closed on the worktop. The air feels thick, as though someone has pumped my kitchen full of fog, blurring my vision. But I can see her. Quite clearly. I can see how beautiful she looks, and how her brain whirs, presumably translating her next sentence. I can see the loose hair that falls from her messy bun. I can see how she looks right back at me after a moment, with the same defiance her eyes held the night we kissed.

I bite my lip, releasing it once the sharp pain breaks the seal on this moment and allows the real world to flood right back in. "You can't sleep in my spare room." It is somewhat of an apology, but I force myself to sound harsher than I feel. "I will take the sofa. I love my sofa."

She tilts her head slightly. "Es tu cama."

"It's fine." I spot the engagement ring sitting beside the fruit bowl, praying Alexia hasn't seen it. Jaimie wanted to look at it properly, and must have neglected to return the ring and the note to its place in the back of my wardrobe. I should not have stared at it, because Alexia follows my line of sight.

"Que bonito," she murmurs, her tone tentative and gentle. She sounds as if she is tip-toeing across thin ice. "You said no."

"Wasn't asked."

"Ah, because you were not together." It shouldn't be this simple to her. I shouldn't want to tell her everything. "Es muy complicado, sabes. Amor es complicado."

"Claro. Pero no quiero que lo sea." She raises her eyebrows, most likely impressed by my fast improvement. María is a wonderful teacher.

Her pensive silence is broken with a sigh. "Es tu cama. You sleep in your bed."

"You look exhausted. I will survive."

"You need beauty sleep for your documentary." She nods to the printed filming schedule that has also been left out by Jaimie. I have been convinced, guilted into it with promises of inspiring younger generations and not having a camera anywhere near my ensuite. "Not that you are not–"

"It's fine, Alexia." I don't want her to say it. Thinking it is... enough. We can keep it to ourselves and pretend nothing is happening. Because that's true. "The sofa is comfortable and I will have Oli."

"Soy tu capitana." She does not let me forget it. "You need good rest. Sleep in your bed, and I will sleep on the sofa."

"You can't sleep on your own after a match," I whisper, not wanting to say it too loud in case someone was listening and sprung out to catch us. It feels like I am doing something illegal. "You don't fall asleep."

She nods. "Yo sé."

"Do you want me to?" The end of my question is implied. I hate Alexia, but she deserves to sleep. She is a good captain and a good player and an alright person.

Alexia's cheeks turn pink, but she says nothing, simply wrapping her fingers around my wrist and leading me towards my own bedroom. With her back to me, she is unable to see how my eyes widen, and thankfully she cannot hear how my heart starts to pound against my chest. This is by far the weirdest situation I have been in with the person I hate. Oli yowls as we shut the door on him, scratching at the wood to be let in. Alexia sits on the right side of my bed, seemingly focused. I pull the covers up, getting underneath them.

Am I really doing this?

I can feel the warmth of her body next to mine. (So yes, I am.)

We stay separate, the air between us a pathetic cushion to keep everything feeling professional. Alexia turns from her right to her left, and then to her right again. She kicks her legs slightly, and then adjusts the pillows. It's hard to sleep with her making so much noise, but I let myself listen to her dissatisfied sighs and rustling in hopes it helps me drift off.

It doesn't.

It gets later and later. She still can't sleep. I want to sleep.

Her arm stretches out, brushing against me as I keep myself on the edge of the opposite side of the bed. Her leg soon follows.

I have had enough. She continually surprises me with how irritating she can be.

Alexia turns once more, but I have turned too. We are facing each other, unashamed of our tousled hair and closing eyelids. Suddenly, I feel as though I am a lead weight about to fall through my mattress. My heart... stops.

I get it now.

"Fleur?" Her question is hushed and empty and as though she is affirming whether or not this is real. There is no request other than for me to do something. Anything.

I look at her and hope she understands. She shuffles closer, and the barrier of air that I had been pretending was as secure as the Berlin Wall deflates and disappears. It is gone. She is pressed against me. Alexia is pressed against me.

My arms wrap around her waist as she leans her head on my chest, and she says nothing about the racing heartbeat she hears nor the lack of breaths I am taking. I don't want to think about it. It feels good. I... hate her? But it feels good. And it feels like it should have always happened. But nothing is really happening. Nothing at all.

notes: 

i have no excuses other than me being lazy but thank my hangover because i don't want to ever show my face again and so i finished this chapter!!!!!!

also that means i have NOT read through it so we move and we forgive pls

 He hecho una investigación = it was an investigation (as in 'research')

no quiero que lo sea = i don't want it to be 

es tu cama = it's your bed

thanks for reading babes xx