Lize rolls the joint with practised ease that makes me regret ever leaving Amsterdam.

It's late, but I have fully recovered from my Ibiza headache over these past two days at home. Well, sort of at home. I'm staying with my cousin and her husband for a bit before I visit Papa. He is far too invested in the build-up to Wimbledon to pay me any useful attention, and I don't think I fancy being left to my own devices in that house. It gets quite boring when the only things to do are stare at awards or flick through photo albums my mother thought were too heavy to take to Australia with her.

The night is temperate, at best – a climate I think I much prefer to the sweltering heat of Barcelona. I mean, even if the Spanish girls remain adamant about it not being that hot, I still sweat out half my bodyweight during training in April.

Lize's house is terraced and not too far away from the city-centre, with three bedrooms and a lovely paved garden with a writing studio (a glorified shed) at the bottom of it. We are sitting at the table, chairs pulled close together so that we can look at the dim light from the studio, both of us wondering when – if ever – her husband will join us.

Noa has been in bed long enough to actually be asleep, and Lize tells me that she finds entertainment in reading if she is still awake. It is a newly acquired skill for her, but one that her mother is glad she has. Noa is like me, in that sense. I preferred reading, too. I used to only sleep because I would be too tired for football the next day otherwise.

My cousin curses under her breath, and I almost forget that this woman is a teacher, surprised to see an aged face when I look up at her. I had expected to see a teenage version of herself. "Can you go get me a lighter? There should be one in the drawer."

"Which drawer?" I ask, feeling truly like I should have visited sooner.

"You know the one. In the kitchen." She gestures to something that I can't decode, and so I pretend I know what she means and take myself back inside.

I like Lize's house for a lot of reasons. It's warm when it needs to be, and it is just as comforting as my cousin's presence. I think of it like a promise, or a glimpse into my own future. A home full of love with a child who giggles more than she cries.

Their achievements, of which all three of them have many, are modestly filed in cupboards or kept in their own bedrooms, and there is no overbearing pressure to be the best the minute you step inside. It is different to the house I grew up in, definitely; a house whose walls heaved with success and roof threatened to fall down at the slightest thought of failure. A house that absorbed arguments like a sponge until someone squeezed and it all came pouring out. A house that saw what leaving does to a family, and witnessed the making of champions.

There are pictures hanging on the walls, proudly stating who they are and where they have come from. Family photographs in studios are few among the ones taken at football games and tennis matches – where my sweaty face is often kissing Noa's rosy cheeks, or Jaimie has stopped her tears to animatedly converse with all of them.

I find the lighter in a drawer in a kitchen as Lize promised, and flick it on and off a few times before resolving that I shouldn't leave my cousin with a joint and no way to smoke it any longer. It would be like dangling a lollipop in front of a child but telling them they are allergic to sugar.

"Good, you found it." Lize smiles, kicking my shin gently as I sit down. "What took you so long?"

"You're quick to frame pictures," I comment, meaning nothing by it really.

I had noticed scenes from the Champions League hanging up in place of another match they had attended. The photograph was taken by a professional, and was of Noa and I. And Alexia.

"You're slow to realise you're in love," she replies with a smile. She says no more, placing the joint between her lips and inhaling as she brings the flame to the other end. It lights with an underwhelming orange glow. "I like that picture, if we're thinking about the same thing. I like how happy you look. You don't smile that genuinely often."

"It has been a miserable year so far."

She inhales once more, blowing the smoke out to the side though the wind carries it right back to us anyway. I take it from her, slotting it between my own lips, letting the smoke fill my lungs as I breathe in. "I suppose it has. Partly your own fault, though. Jaimie and I have had a good laugh at your idiocy."

"You two are always ganging up on me," I say as I breathe out. The first toke usually does nothing unless you lie and tell yourself otherwise, but the smoke warms my body pleasantly anyway. "I bet Noa's happy. Leah Williamson, Alexia Putellas, and me. Lucky kid."

"She doesn't know yet. I was waiting for you to tell me that it's official."

Lize follows Sam, and would have seen her story. I don't want to think about my mother also following Sam, choosing instead to keep my dignity. Plus, I had texted Jaimie as soon as I could, and Jaimie spills all her secrets to Lize. And maybe her girlfriend, too.

"Sorry to disappoint," I say, flicking the ash from the joint before passing it to Lize once more. I don't like to smoke too much. "I told her that we should wait for a bit. I want to focus on the World Cup. We only slept together – it's not like we have gone out or anything."

Lize's smirk is that of no confidence in my story. "And what did she tell you?"

"She..." What did she say? All I really want is you? "She understood. She's Alexia Putellas, after all."

"Well, at least you are open to the idea of it now. There was a time when you–"

"Don't. I hear enough about it from everyone else." I am ready for them to lay one 'I told you so' on top of another, until they pile up into a mountain and I can scale and jump off. "I did hate her. It wasn't that I told myself I did because of something else, but rather that there was always an underlying attraction. Maybe it added to it by frustrating me, I don't know. But I did hate her." Obviously, things change.

"She gave you reason to. You and Jaimie are not the best at grappling with the idea of second-place. I think it's your father that's the problem, really. He's always been a bit... pushier than most." My uncle and aunt, Lize's parents, were far more relaxed. Lize's mother is my father's sister, and has three children: Lize, Lara who's married, and Luka who is the youngest of our Dutch cousins.

"We are successful," I say, perhaps defending him. I'm not sure. I have never quite understood how far I agree with his methods. I'm not like Jaimie, who is so secure in her beliefs that she can argue with Papa and forgive Mumma. "So are you, though," I then realise. "I wish I had a child and a nice, stable marriage."

"I wish I had millions of Euros and lived on a yacht, childless and husbandless."

It is then that Lize's husband, Finn, emerges from his studio, wiping the weary look from his face as he takes in the sight of us a quarter of the way through a joint. He laughs to himself, a private laugh, and joins us, pulling out the chair opposite his wife.

"I've finished," he tells his wife with a smile. What, exactly, he has finished is a secret kept between the two of them, and I do not feel inclined to ask. "Nice to see that neither of you have changed, despite the added wrinkles."

"We don't have wrinkles!" both Lize and I declare, knowing he is only trying to provoke us.

Finn and Lize married earlier than most, when he was twenty-four and she was twenty-two. I was still a teenager. I missed a match at Lyon for their wedding, though I probably would not have played anyway. I like him, and find that he gives sensible advice I should sometimes listen to.

"Congratulations, by the way." I raise my eyebrows at him, taking a deep hit as I do. "For your updated relationship status. You know, Lize's far from a romantic except when it comes to you and your captain. I'm sick of it, really."

"Hey, I thought you were invested," says Lize, glaring at him with annoyance woven into the love in her eyes. "You said that you hoped they'd get together."

"I did. I do."

I laugh, comfortably high. "Thanks, Finn." The darkness swirls around us, despite the light of the kitchen illuminating the garden just enough so that we can see. I blink back the haze I know comes from the weed.

"No problem."

"Hey, did you know that Fleur has once again been offered captaincy?"

It's not a big, big deal. Sherida mentioned stepping down after the World Cup, wanting a more low-key role. Andries tries to coax me into it. I refused.

Still, everyone else who knows seems to find it monumental. "That's the third time, isn't it?" Finn clarifies, accepting my decision. I nod. "Surely they should learn their lesson. If you don't want it, you don't want it."

"I agree."

"Oh, don't be so humble, Flootzy. You're the best there. I don't know why you're surprised every time they offer it to you."

I would be a terrible captain right now. I think I'd need to be five years older to even think about leadership. When I was a child, I often was the captain, as the star player on most teams usually are. I don't need a title to show my devotion to the teams I play for, and I don't want the added responsibility that comes with it. I think it would hold me back, to put it selfishly.

"Maybe if I ever play for Ajax again," I say, just to sate her need to be told she's not wrong. "I've been thinking about that, you know. Playing for Ajax again."

"Okay, Johan Cruyff. Feeling like going to America, too?" Finn's smile is amused, yet still kind. He has told me before that he is in awe of me. I reciprocated, because he is a very intelligent man.

"No, no. I couldn't – it's too isolated." It is different over there. I know that I don't need to secure a spot on the national team, but I would feel removed from it nonetheless. "It's just that all these girls grow up worshipping Barcelona, and then they play for them and it's a dream come true. They never have to leave Barcelona, sometimes. I wish I had something similar. I wish the quality was better here, and that the league was more... known."

"You could come back and have a hand in that," says Lize, a firm believer in having to make the change yourself.

I reach for the joint in Finn's hands, inhaling when he hands it over, putting off my answer. And then, once I have told myself that I am high, I formulate my response. "Maybe, when my contract expires. Maybe I will."

She takes my answer for what it is: a somewhat empty promise. A possibility.

I consider it, though, when I am lying in bed a few hours later.

What will I do after four years playing in Spain?

I certainly don't want to re-sign, unless something was permanently fixing me to the spot. My time at Chelsea was good, but I don't see why I should return, and Lyon definitely was struck off the list of possible clubs years ago.

England is cold and rainy, and I might as well play in the Netherlands if I am craving that climate.

I think I should go home sometime. Assuming that Barcelona doesn't become somewhere I hold dearer than I already do.

notes:

this one worked, weirdly

idk what happened but i beg it does not happen again

i really like this chapter but tbh it's a filler i just wanted to think abt fleur smoking ganj bc i can't cuz of preseason 😭😭😭😭

thanks for reading xx