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3one3 · 8 years

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The Sequel - 789

Chelsea, England

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea players, and random awesome OC’s

(okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“You know what’s funny? Schü and I went on our first date at the restaurant here, if you don’t count the lunches and dinners we had in Florida when I was 100% positive he was 100% not interested in having sex with me.”

“What, you thought he was interested in having riding lessons with you?”

“No. I don’t know. I just thought he was bored or something.”

“Remarkable.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m getting another drink.”

“Ohmetoo! Same again, please, thank you.”

Juan deliberately bumped into Christina’s arm so her elbow would fall off the table when he got up to go to the bar. Their watering hole of choice for a rainy Monday night was the basement for a trendy Shoreditch boutique hotel. She wanted to see Juan because two weeks of horse showing and visiting André meant two weeks without any friend-dates, and he wanted to go out. Christina rode the horses that weren’t in Zurich with her over the weekend and then took Lukas shopping in the city. Mostly they were out for food. She wanted to visit her favorite market to get some really good meat and produce to cook with while she was home for a few days. Prolonged exposure to hotel food often did that to her. The little boy “helped” her make blueberry and oats muffins. He thought chia seeds were magic. Stirring them in water and watching it turn to gel was so much fun for him. Using magical ingredients in place of others to make her baked goods more healthy was so much fun for his mom. So was experimenting with cocktails in a rather plainly decorated but colorfully lit bar and music venue. Her drink of choice was made from Aperol, Bombay Sapphire, Campari, grapefruit juice, and ginger ale. Juan placed her second one down beside her cheese plate. She forgot to schedule dinner between baking and getting dressed to go out.

“What are you having?” she asked him curiously when the next glass to touch down on the table was not the same as the stemware his first drink was served in.

“Johnnie Walker.”

“Ew.”

“Do you want to stay for whatever the musical act is or do you have a curfew?” the footballer inquired from the relaxed posture immediately resumed upon returning to his seat. Juan was in a pretty good mood. A slight blip at White Hart Lane was wiped away with a win at home against Hull after almost every team in the large chasing pack managed to stumble and distance themselves even further from Chelsea’s heels. They also recovered from some Diego Costa drama. Everything was great. The Spaniard also just took on another marketing project- his father’s restaurant. Perhaps most obviously in terms of reasons for him to be relaxed, was his happiness at Christina being back in town and available to hang out.

“I don’t really care,” she told him with grilled sourdough in one hand and her cocktail in the other. “Espen is staying over to do Lukas in the morning because I have a shoot, so it doesn’t matter when I get home.” The bar under the Ace Hotel was known for its 7-days-a-week live entertainment and late nights. Some nights it was more like a packed club. On Monday at a little after 9 it was just a bar with some people really pushing the limits of “after work drinks”, and a few little conclaves whose lives evidently afforded them the freedom to go out for boozing and lounging on weeknights. If there was a crowd coming specifically to see whomever the scheduled artists were, they weren’t there yet.

“Who or what are you shooting for?”

“A German horse magazine. I did the interview in Leipzig so they’re just coming to do the pictures, which evidently necessitates having some people from adidas come dress me.” Three-to-one he’s saying something like “In that case, you should sleep over and let me UNdress you” in his head, the brunette in leather leggings surmised. She rubbed a square paper napkin between her fingers to get rid of crumbs, and then flipped her hair over its part, removing it from her face.

“What was the last legitimately interesting interview question you were asked? I get the same ones over and over for years.”

“I don’t know.” Her nose wrinkled a little on its own volition, and she paused with her drink on its way to her mouth. “I kind of don’t pay attention anymore. I don’t even think about the answers, let alone the questions. I haven’t given a consciously honest interview in...more than a year, probably. I used to care. I used to always try to be brutally honest. I’m tired of the same questions over and over, as you say, and I think I was tired of having to share so much of myself. I used to like being really transparent. It was important to me. It was also emotionally exhausting. People used to find it novel and fun and refreshing and then after a while they just tried to use it against me all the time, so F that. If you’re going to twist everything I say and make drama, I’m not going to give real answers anymore.”

“I have a very serious and important question for you, cariña.” Juan’s lips stayed flat and un-emotive, but his eyes sparkled with his typical kind of guile. Christina raised a brow to invite him to make his inquiry. “When are you making me fried chicken?”

“Wednesday!” She sat back in her boxy wood chair and smiled like the cat who got the canary, even as she licked spicy cranberry jam off her thumb. “I got a bunch of fresh chicken today. I’ll make the buttermilk up for it tomorrow so it can soak overnight. You can make yourself free for Wednesday dinner, yes?” It was novel to have the ability and opportunity to surprise the player.

“For the fried chicken, yes, absolutely.”

“Good. I’m going to invite Nat and the kids too, and Eden I guess. Otherwise I have too much leftover chicken and not enough days to eat it.”

“Why are you so giggly?” The Chelsea man was skeptical about his ex-girlfriend’s persistent, gaping smile. The giggles were in her eyes too, and even in her skin. She was a little red from her off-the-shoulder sweater all the way up to her cheeks. “You look like you’re keeping a secret. Are you going to use some weird, healthy, disgusting ingredient to bread the chicken and be like “Surprise! It tastes as good but it’s really...seaweed flour”?” She used her newly re-cleaned fingers to shake her hair back where it belonged, and pinched some of the length between her index and pointer fingers to gesture with it at her friend.

“You are as paranoid about food as Schü. I made chunky mashed potatoes while I was in Dortmund and trying to save Stef and Mario’s relationship with an intimate dinner for four, and he was like smell testing the bowl because he was sure I snuck cauliflower in with the potatoes.” Christina used her little cheese knife to get some soft Brie for her next piece of bread, but she hardly broke eye contact to do it, and her smirk remained.

“Seriously. You’ve been borderline giddy all evening, with the exception of talking about interview questions.” The player’s head tilted to his right, like a dog might do when he’s asked a question or wishes to ask one of his human. “Do you have some secret you’re keeping?” She thought absently that he might have assumed she was concealing some seduction plot for later on. That wasn’t the case. She did make her underwear choices with the possibility of that sort of thing in mind, but it wasn’t made up yet as to whether or not she wanted to get into that.

A curious thing happened on her visit to Dortmund. It became apparent that sleeping with someone else a couple of times made sleeping with her husband again way better than usual. There was no telling why, or what was even different about it. It just felt good, physically and emotionally. The parts that were supposed to be special felt special, and the parts that were supposed to make her melt into a warm soup of satisfaction did that too, on a level higher than the equivalent experiences just a week or so earlier. André enjoyed it too. He had that inevitable sense of relief that his girl didn’t seem in any way tainted, or spoiled. Her visit was much too short for his liking but much better than he expected, in part because they stayed in bed for a lot of it. Still, Christina was wary of the concept of rushing to Juan’s bed the minute she had the free time and opportunity. And that definitely wasn’t what had her smiling out of her pores.

“What did you do yesterday again?” she asked back of her friend, with a concerted effort to squeeze her brows discerningly and questioningly- an act to try to suppress the smirking. “Remind me.” The Spaniard was confused.

“I went to Paris with Taylor, to look for a book she wants. And to eat. I told you this.” His burlier brows were pinched too, because he didn’t understand her line of questioning or what it had to do with her cocktail-infused perma-smiles.

“And what didn’t you do, that you otherwise normally would on a Sunday when your BFF is competing?”

“Watch the stream?”

“Nah, more normally than that. I know you don’t always watch,” she laughed.

“I didn’t wish you luck. I was trying to give T my attention all day, and you made it pretty clear last week that you didn’t want to talk about-“

“Relax!” There was persistent, tame laughter in the face of the player’s self defense. “I’m not complaining. I’m not asking what you didn’t do like I’m mad about it. Use your head, Juanin,” Christina challenged. He grew desperate without a clue what she was trying to get him to deduce or conclude. The violent shaking around of the ice in his glass matched the almost perturbed look in his eyes. I’ll put him out of his misery, I suppose. “You didn’t ask me how the qualifier went!”

“Like I said, you made it seem like you didn’t want-“

“I’m not complaining! I’m just trying to tell you that I won! That I’m happy because Dirk was excellent and absolutely perfect and we won the qualifier. Derp.” The rider folded her left leg up to put her platform sneaker flat on her seat, and continued to look devious above the rim of her drink, which she then sipped carefully in hopes that her friend’s face wouldn’t contort in any more comical ways that might make her laugh and thus choke.

“Oh, fantastic. Well why didn’t you just say that from the beginning!” He remained perturbed and appeared even frazzled. This delighted his ex. He looks like someone has done him some injustice, she thought. He’s incredulous but I think it’s actually because he’s upset with himself for not asking me about the horse show. I’m sure he did remember that I said last week not to talk about horse showing because last week was a hellacious nightmare of calamity and it wasn’t even my fault, but I bet he still meant to at least ask how the show went, she worked out in her head while reaching over to shove him in the arm- a teasing gesture. Either way, he is so cute when he’s off his game, or when anything unexpected happens, really.

“I’m trying not to make a big deal out of wins,” she demurred, her own composure regained and her cocktail half gone. “They never used to be a big deal. It was just normal to win. So I’m treating it like a normal thing, in hopes that it actually becomes normal again. Kind of like the US media and Donald Trump. But yes, I am in a good mood, and- Actually, hold up for just a second.” Christina raised one finger and took a deep breath. “I want to amend my previous statement. The winning part isn’t so important, or the normal thing. The performance is. D-Money was uhhmazing. He had wings and turbo boosters and FRIC suspension. But that use-“

“What suspension?”

“FRIC. Front and Rear InterConnected, for F1. Mercedes developed it at the end of the V8 era and Ferrari complained and complained until Charlie decided it was illegal. You know how roll bars link the front right to the front left and the rear right to the rear left? FRIC was a hydraulic system designed to connect front and rear, to work like a roll bar but for pitch, to try to keep ride height stable. I trust I don’t need to explain why that would be advantageous.”

“You’re an insufferable know-it-all at times, cariña. Stop knowing things you have no right to know,” Juan insisted. He also tried somewhat halfheartedly to get the attention of a waitress who was less than halfheartedly committed to doing her job.

“This isn’t even like uber nerd level F1 knowledge. It was discussed on TV. Ted Kravitz probably explained it on his iPad in a phone booth or something.”

“What?”

“Never mind. We should go to a race together this year though.” Christina briefly considered righting her most relaxed posture in the broad chair when the waitress walked up to the table. She felt like she was relaxing on a couch at home, and ordinarily that wasn’t an acceptable state of being for her in a bar, but it was awfully comfortable. She just looked up at the young woman instead, and then over at Juan, since she didn’t know what he summoned her for.

“She needs a piece of cake, or a tart, or something like that.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes you do. She does,” he nodded at the server.

“I have a pecan tart with vanilla mascarpone and blackcurrants, toffee pudding with ginger ice cream, ice cream by itself, roasted pineapple with fresh passion fruit and coconut sorbet, and chocolate and brioche butter pudding with rum raisin ice cream.”

“You want the thing with the chocolate?” The player looked at Christina with large and innocent, almost childlike eyes. He clearly believed some celebration was necessary despite her explicit wish to downplay her World Cup qualifier result, or the performance that earned it, as it were. She had no interest in dessert of any kind but his expression was too cute and genuine to deny. The idea of seeing his face fall- of disappointment moving in- was too terrible. Instead the rider nodded to the waitress and held up two fingers to request two spoons. If he was making her have bread pudding and ice cream, he was going to have to eat some too, and she was sure he’d have no objections. “You’re already having a fizzy drink so I didn’t think champagne was an adequate celebration,” he explained once the girl left with the empty glasses from their first round. Christina stared at the part of the table freed up. There was a minimalist depiction of a constellation there. All the tables had them- white drawings on the dark gray tabletops, giving a hint of the celestial about the place. Each table had a very melty white candle in the middle too.

“No celebration is necessary, but okay.”

“Good.”

“I’m gonna need to go home after dessert though because food coma. I’m already full of cheese.” Christina reached for another block of semi-hard British cheese in defiance of her own decree.

“My home.”

“Oh you think so?” she chuckled.

“I know so.” The Chelsea midfielder nodded just one time and a clever smirk spread across his jaw, doing away with all the confusion, bafflement, and innocence of before. She looked all around their table to assess who might be looking, and hurled a piece of cheese in the direction of his face. It bounced off his cheek and chin and ended up in his lap.

“You’re so cheesy!”

“You’re so happy you’re drunk even though you’re not drunk,” he told her while he ate her harmless artillery. “It’s a little weird. I forgot what it’s like. I only see you this happy when you’re naked and sweating. And that’s a different kind of happy.”

“Shhhhhhhhh!”

Juan assured her no one was or could be listening, and that was probably true. The tables immediately surrounding them were empty. They were populated slowly over the course of their dessert eating and a third and final round of drinks. The volume of people showing up late for the band was a surprise to both of them, and kind of unwelcome. Juan had picked that spot for its relative emptiness and super relaxed atmosphere. Nobody bothered him there. It was almost like the bar had a regular crowd and they didn’t care what new people popped in as long as they didn’t change that chilled out atmosphere. That changed with the hour. Christina also couldn’t bear to sit still for a minute longer, or wear all her clothes, for that matter. She was a little drunk and a lot full and very tired, and for her that necessitated comfortable and/or minimal clothing and lying down.

The duo of intoxicated friends took a cab back to Juan’s. Christina was committed to hanging there for a while regardless of anything he might have had in mind about her being naked and sweating, purely because she drank too much to drive and needed that recovery period for the food too. There was couch spooning, and she found a triple play of episodes of The Tudors, and spent much of the first one explaining her Henry VIII era fetish- her self-proclaimed strange obsession with kings and other royal folk sleeping with anyone they wanted, by charm, coercion, or brute force, the “boobs in the face” costumes no doubt scandalized by Hollywood, and the idea of having sex in Victorian-draped beds. The player told her she just had a rape fetish, which she vehemently denied. Her rebuttal also included a thesis about women actually having all the power over the king of many wives. The fact that half of them ended up dead didn’t sway her. To her, Henry VIII was just a hopeless romantic, not in that he behaved like a particularly romantic gent, but in that he fell in love or lust with pretty much everybody and couldn’t keep it in his pants. The male heir problem didn’t figure into her theory. She liked The Tudors because it included all the soap opera drama with just enough of the authentic violence to elevate it above actual soap operas. Also, she thought Jonathan Rhys Meyers was really sexy as a brooding, womanizing king.

“Hoooooow can you enjoy this show?” Juan whined to her halfway through the second episode. She’d been quiet for a while and thus afforded him the opportunity to actually pay attention to the program, and to playing with her hair. “All that happens is two or three people have a quiet conversation about another person betraying someone, then clergy members threaten people or get threatened, and a young man in poofy sleeves flirts offensively with a blushing girl with her breasts in his face. It just goes on repeat. Same thing over and over.” He spoke quietly and tiredly, and he was losing motivation to remain upright on his elbow behind the rider, his head beginning to tip backward into the rear cushion.

“I don’t see how that can be a bad thing. Those are all dramatic and interesting things. There’s a trial coming! This is the kind of shit that goes down when you marry your brother’s wife and then want to bang somebody younger and hotter and need permission from the Pope. The Queen has such pretty jewels. I think Dolce ripped off the costume designers for this show.” Christina insisted on silence for the tense trial before some representatives of the Pope, and Juan nearly fell asleep. He did abandon holding his head up, and laid it down on double stacked pillows behind her. The episode finished when the trial didn’t really go as planned for Henry and his treasonous confidant.

“What else happened this weekend that I didn’t remember to ask about?” the Spaniard questioned with a sleepy yawn. He was more interested in playing with her fingers in his hand in front of her chest than he was in whatever would happen in the third and final episode. It was past both of their bedtimes.

“Tim got an offer for a book deal. A publisher wants me to do a book about...me, I guess. He said they have some writers in mind to help with it and I could use the time between now and the Olympics to meet with them and pick one, and then we’d do it after the games. I’m not interested.”

“Your career is too young to be in a book.”

“I agree.”

“Why do you think it went better this time, baby girl? Can I ask that?”

“I have no idea. I was by myself but I doubt that matters. Hey, I have a question for you.” Christina shifted from her side to her back to ask her question, because she wanted to see his face when he answered. It wasn’t going to be an easy question, however. It was one she felt slightly uncomfortable asking, but deeply curious about the response. Juan didn’t seem wont to let go of her hand, which he held loosely by a couple of fingers, so she just moved it to her stomach, over his sweatshirt that she borrowed for coziness’ sake. He sat up on his elbow again. “You’ve slept with Taylor since we were last together, right?” He nodded and his right eyebrow kind of twitched, which she read as confusion about why she was asking that specific question, and maybe what her feelings about the answer were. But that wasn’t the answer she was most curious about. It was just part of the set up. “Was it better than usual, or not as good? Or the same?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she fibbed, averting her eyes from the sleepy blue ones studying her at close range. The ceiling was a fine safe harbor for hers.

“Yes you do.” The Chelsea creator released her fingers to move some hair from her face, in case she was trying to hide under that too. He uncovered her right eye, previously protected by a curtain of pure cacao. She’d parted her root-boosted and very soft, shiny hair far to the left, which meant there was always some hanging in front of her face. Juan’s pointer finger must have liked the way it felt. He continued combing the relocated strands by her temple.

“I’m just wondering.”

“Why are you wondering? “I don’t know”.” A baby smile accompanied his mocking impression.

“Why does it matter? Whatever I say, you’re going to assume I just want reassurance that you like being with me better.”

“Why do you say that? I don’t assume that. I do assume you already know I’d rather be with you. I’ve made that clear to you, cariña, haven’t I?” The faint but authentic little smile morphed into faint consternation. I have bitten off more than I wanted to chew, Christina reflected. It wasn’t that she couldn’t chew her piece. She just didn’t want to have to. She wished she’d gone for something less substantial.

“Can you just answer my question, and maybe I’ll tell you why depending on the answer.”

“It’s not any different.”

“Okay.”

“Now tell me why.”

“No.”

“Is it not good with him anymore?”

He can hardly contain himself, the rider thought when she gave in and peeked to her left- when she made eye contact. There was eagerness looking back at her, and someone on the verge of validation. I didn’t even think of that. He thinks I’m asking because I don’t like sleeping with Schü anymore, and that that means something. Something good for him. Now I have to crush him and tell him it’s the opposite? How do I always get myself into these stupid emotional quandaries? Ever since I got a fox tattooed on my person my cleverness and cunning have steadily waned. Perhaps my baby fox is growing up and he’s stealing my foxy qualities so that he can be a complete, adult fox. Christina reached for the inky fox cub in the top hat on her wrist and inadvertently chewed her lip. The Spaniard gently nudged her toward giving an answer.

“If you spend three minutes before you answer, I know you don’t say the truth, baby girl.”

“It’s better. It’s amazing. I was hoping you’d say the same so that we could talk about it, but now I realize how stupid that is,” she sighed, eyes back on the ceiling and thus with no idea whether her friend’s face registered disappointment or not. “You wanted me to say it’s bad now.”

“It’s not stupid. You can talk to me about anything.”

“I know I can, but that doesn’t mean I should.”

“Beautiful girl,” Juan mumbled, his gaze still very much trained on her, and her impending dismissive reaction. “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

“Don’t try to get me out of my own stupidity with an empty compliment,” Christina mumbled back.

“I wasn’t, and it’s not empty. You are objectively a beautiful girl, and to me, more than that.” He used his thumb to gently push on her temple and encourage her to turn her head towards him a bit. “Stay tonight,” he implored when she finally looked his way.

“Do I look like I’m going anywhere?” The rider let her bent knees tip over against him, and pushed her pout out for a kiss. She got the innocent sort she was after- the kind that punctuates a decision, or seals an agreement. Hollow as her head said his compliments were, her heart disagreed. His face being that close to her and his hand touching her and his voice near enough to vibrate off her instead of just resonate in her ears could give her heart veto power over her head- could let irrationality and romanticism overrule skepticism and reluctance. Christina lived her life through a filter of skepticism and reluctance. They were like guiding principles. They came naturally to her, by instinct. She was dubious about everything and the reluctance came as a consequence of her never wanting to be wrong, and never wanting to disappoint anyone. Everyone in her life that she loved dearly, be it as a partner, a lover, or friend, and including the horses she was closest to, was able to lure her out of skepticism and reluctance and allow her to indulge the irrational and revel in the romantic. To have a close and endeared relationship with Christina required being able to give her a holiday from her own personality. That was why her relationship with herself was often so rocky. Juan made her want to believe in his compliments.

“Ready for bed?”

“Only if you’re gonna carry me there. I’m too tired to move. My body is already sleeping,” she smiled. It would take more than telling her she was beautiful and giving her a smooch to turn off the sarcasm-dependent part of her personality, which relied on humor to save her from overly intense moments.

“You want me to wake it up?” The footballer withdrew his delicate touch from near her temple and placed his palm on her stomach instead, where the borrowed gray, white, and black sweatshirt was all bunched up from her various wiggles and twists. She warned him not to tickle, and he promised that he meant alternative methods of rousing her body from its figurative slumber. That garnered more eye rolling, so then she did get tickled, and when she was about to tip over that well known line between laughing hysterically and suffering a literal fit of giggles, and not being able to breathe, stomach pain, and panic, her scruffy-faced tormenter actually did pick her up to carry her to bed- only Christina was uncooperative. She ended up being carried predominantly by her butt, with her arms around the back of his neck and one bare leg trying desperately to hold around his waist so she wouldn’t fall, is if she were ever in jeopardy. He set her safely down on her feet near his bathroom door so she could make use of her new toothbrush, or wash her face, but the reigning World Cup champion just got into bed and asked for a t-shirt, since there was no chance she was sleeping in the sweatshirt in his already too hot room, engulfed in the too hot featherbed, covered with the too hot comforter, next to his too hot body.

Juan supplied one of his teeny tiny black tees but tried to stop her from actually putting it on. She intended to take the sweatshirt off, put the shirt on, and then unhook her bra and fish it out. He unhooked the two clasps on the strapless lace garment in one go before she even got the shirt over her head, and just rubbed her back when she turned to scold him in the other half of the bed. There was no act or game afoot. She didn’t really feel like cashing in on André’s understanding again that night. She still went pretty willingly when he used that hand on her back to try to pull her close, and she still let him kiss her with more invention than the prior liplock on the couch.

“Beautiful girl,” the player repeated from close enough that his nose was still touching hers.

“Not tonight, okay?” Christina didn’t move to stop him, or even to put some distance between them. She was still but for tilting her head a bit to kiss one side of his mouth apologetically. He closed his left arm around her waist to stop her from moving away anyway.

“Why?” he asked without disappointment. His nose glanced across her smaller one on his way to giving her another kiss, with his whole mouth.

“I’m tired, and I don’t like the optics,” she explained once given autonomy over her lips again.

“What optics?”

“The I don’t see you for a couple of weeks and the first thing I do is go out with you, spoon on your couch, and have sex optics. It’s like I was gone and busy for two weeks and then hurried to have a date or something.”

“Why do you care what it looks like? That’s like telling yourself what you want isn’t right. We’re the only ones who see. Shouldn’t you be more concerned with wanting it than how it looks?”

“But I don’t want it- that’s what I’m saying.” Oof now I feel bad, and awkward, Christina cringed to herself, imagining that her best friend felt as if he put in all the legwork throughout the night- taking her out, getting her drinks and dessert, suffering through her TV shows so they could cuddle and chit-chat, laying on the tender compliments, getting her to agree to spend the night- and wasn’t getting anything for it. “I’m sorry. I can still go home if you want.”

“Why would I want that?”

“Because you asked me to stay so we can fuck, and-“

“When did I say that?” The player reached for the top of her thigh with the hand that wasn’t on her waist. She was sort of half sitting Indian-style and half leaned over on her hands by his lap from his pulling her closer. He kneaded halfway between her knee and hip, and kissed persuasively at her mouth, which still opened a little for him despite her stated disinterest. The hair around his lips scratched and tickled against her skin. I feel almost a little like catnip, like when the cat gets the little bag of it and rubs his face all over it, but Juanin is slightly less intoxicated by it than a kitty gets. “Hmm?”

“What?” the expat managed to get out before his lips were trying to engage hers again. His tongue staying in its confines made communication, with words anyway, easier than it otherwise could have been.

“When did I ask you to stay so I can fuck you?”

“Why are you-“ Her opportunities to speak were still pretty limited by his slow and soft kissing, however. “Kissing me...and squeeze...my butt...if that’s not what you meant?”

“Why are you kissing me back if you meant not tonight?” the Spaniard questioned before poking his head out more to make sure his face stayed pressed to hers one way or another if she was going to sit up or pull back. Because she didn’t do either of those things, his lips hit hers with a bit more force and she read that as willful intent rather than a physical consequence. I should be more careful with what I say to him about liking when he’s in control, and that whole rape fetish thing. She finally checked out mentally on the smooching and Juan noticed. “We don’t have to have sex,” he assured, nonchalant and casual but still face to face- quite literally, really, with his forehead pushed into hers. “I want you to stay. I missed your body, baby girl- touching, holding, watching it. So beautiful. My angel. Come here,” he whispered while pulling her all the way over with him so they both ended up laying down- him on pillows and her on him. Soon she felt his warm and careful palm moving aimlessly around the small of her back, and the bottom of her butt lifted up. The constant kissing actually stopped. The scruffy face was pressed to her left cheek, and she could feel breath on the top of her shoulder in the form of a contented exhale. And she had no idea what she wanted, or if Juan literally meant he just wanted to touch her or if he was alluding to more than that and thought he could turn her on and change her mind by talking about it that way. Her soft and susceptible core could only withstand so many whispered “baby girls” and “my angels” before shifting.

“Why am I so beautiful tonight, hm?” she inquired, just to buy some time to figure out what she wanted. A little part of her conscience was afraid her best friend found her extra attractive that night because she was so obviously happy. When André told her she looked better happy it annoyed her and she counted it as a strike against him. And yet...I have 100% always found Juanin irresistibly hot when he’s really, really happy and smiley.

“You’re always beautiful.”

“Uhhuh.”

“I said already. I missed you, cariña. We sleep together like 4 times and then you don’t let me see you for 17 days.”

“Aww you counted,” Christina chuckled in his loving hold. She lifted her chin off the front of his shoulder to turn and smooch his cheek. “I can’t allow too much access, or demand will diminish.”

“I assure you it will not.”

“Seriously, and I don’t ask out of vanity, but curiosity- what to you is beautiful? Why is my body so beautiful to you? And don’t give me any bullshit about my abs making you think about my orgasms,” she warned while trying to figure out where to put her arms and hands.

“Your hair is beautiful. I love your hair when you do things with it. Every time you touch it. Your eyes are beautiful and you know it. Your nose, and your lips, and your chin- all beautiful together. Your thighs to me are amazing- the shape, the tone, the skin- all about them. The way you do everything is beautiful to me. You exist and I watch and you’re beautiful, cariña.” Juan explained, his delicate touch still roaming around some of her beautiful parts. He was a little bit flippant about his assessment, like he was amused that she wanted specifics. But most of all he sounded appreciative, and casual. He wasn’t trying to make a romantic declaration, or oversell his answer to make her want more.

“Thank you? Is that what a girl is supposed to say when you tell her her existence is beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re pretty too.”

“Thanks,” Juan laughed. He also moved both hands to her waist, spread them wide, and let them massage their way up her torso. She felt his legs circle around her knees too. It was not an unpleasant way to be immobilized. “Do you want your cashmere blanket to sleep with?”

“In lieu of the comforter or in addition?”

“Either.”

“Are you going to sleep in it with me if I choose in lieu?”

“Yes.”

“Is there jizz on it?”

“No,” the player scoffed. He turned to frown and shake his head at her, and took her poking finger prisoner. It had been poking at the dent in the base of his neck. Taking it was just an excuse to engage with her hand, and his digits were laced between hers a couple of seconds later. The whole concept of lying together and just touching and feeling made her curious again, but the second time it was about something that also gave her trepidation. She couldn’t help but wonder if her friend regularly shared the same activity with his girlfriend in that bed, and if he was so enamored with her body too.

“Do you stop Taylor from putting clothes on and hold her hostage atop your body just to...enjoy hers?”

“Why do you always ask me questions you don’t really want answers to, cariña?” Juan used his hold on her hand to bring it to his cheek, to press the back of it into his scruff and keep it there.

“Insatiable curiosity.”

“While I believe with all of my heart that you have insatiable curiosity, you and I both know that has nothing to do with it,” he scolded.

“If I say yes to the sex can I get out of the lecture you’re about to deliver?”

“No lecture. Take your beautiful body over to that chair and get your blanket.” In yet another surprising and impressive demonstration of the Spaniard’s ability to multitask, he simultaneously removed her hand from his cheek so that he could give it a little kiss, and let go of her side to pat her butt encouragingly. She got up to follow instructions and he got up to fold the comforter out of the way. He left it close enough that they could still tuck their feet under it. Christina wrapped herself up in the expansive navy James Perse blanket and then climbed clumsily over his body back to her spot. I kind of want to be held hostage aga- The thought was hardly complete before Juan invaded her blanket and made sure his also beautiful body was as close to hers as it could be. He rubbed his right hand up and down the outside of her left thigh- possessively almost- and then pulled her leg over his hip and let his palm rest further up, on her butt. The rider did her best to get some of her blanket over him.

“I need to set my alarm still,” she reminded while moving her head around to try to figure out where she was in relation to the nearest pillow.

“You need to talk with me more still.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Now I’m a hostage of him AND this blanket and its over my head and I can’t see and I don’t know where my pillow is and he’s making my thong go too far up my ass. Oh, there. Pillow.

“I like talking with you. I like when your voice is the last thing on my mind before I sleep.”

“Have I not been talking to you for the last 5 hours?”

“Yes.” The Chelsea player who moved one of his large square pillows for her so that they could share it settled in, seemingly for the long haul. He was very close inside the cashmere, and the enshrouding made it possible for Christina to pick up the faintest whiff of Scotch on his breath. It was sweet and woody, in contrast to the citrus and spice of the stuff André liked. It was hard not to think of the German in that situation. She loved that lingering whisky flavor when she kissed him.

“What else do you want to talk about?” Besides sex, my body, and kissing.

“Whatever,” her friend shrugged.

“Let’s talk about how Trump is going to start a war with Iran and we’re all gonna die.”

“Perhaps there is a more...light subject you could come up with for bedtime.”

“Talk to me about football.” Because the only thing mein Schü will tell me about football is how angry he is about it all the time, and I love hearing about football, and I’m annoyed that we’re right back where we were in footballing terms a year ago, only now we’re living in different countries and upending our lives for football. “And I’ll talk about it back. About Chelsea. England.”

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