Home is Where the Heart is - Pablo Gavi

Chapter 21: The Man

The best part about Xavi and his unpredictability is that it doesn't matter how close you are with him, you still can't adequately estimate his next move. In this case it turned out well for me, we had a nice easy practice session. My uncle claims it was a reward for such a well played game and to not expect our good fortune to carry over to tomorrow.

When Xavi dismisses us I head straight up to Lily's office, having earlier planned with her to do so. I knock and she welcomes me in.

"Hey," I say as I open the door and close it behind me. I walk over to her desk and pull out the chair across from her.

"Hey chica," she greets me, clicking a few last keys on her computer keyboard before abandoning it and rolling her chair so that she's facing me. I sit down and fold my hands in my lap, trying not to let them damage themselves anymore. The moment I split up from the group outside, the nerves for my interview started to catch up to me. "How's it going?"

"Good," I lie. I hadn't thought of how much pressure this interview was going to be at the time of agreeing to it, but now I'm filled with anxiety. My throat feels closed in and dry while my stomach feels empty aside from nerves bouncing off the walls.

She raises her eyebrows, demanding the truth.

I sigh. "Maybe I'm a little nervous."

She stretches her arms across the desk and holds her palms open to the roof. I place my hands in hers. "It's okay to be nervous," she says, "we can practice to help take down those nerves."

I nod and we both pull our hands away. We spend the next serval hours discussing what I should bring up in the interview and what topics I should avoid. There isn't much, only that I need to use my interview time wisely. This may be my only chance to present myself before people make up their mind about me. Hell, it may already be to late, but we'll only know if we try.

It's the next morning when Gavi pulls up in my driveway. Yesterday he offered to escort me to my interview taking place at Camp Nou. I had been hesitant at first, not wanting him in the room, afraid the interviewer would prefer to speak to or about him like the last one did. Gavi promised he'd wait in a spare room and watch every thing go down on a tv screen, as I had done during his latest interview.

So I run out to his car and jump inside. I'm not wearing my typically training gear this morning---Xavi moved training to this afternoon for whatever reason---instead I'm wearing light blue jean shorts and a casual purple t-shirt with the Barca logo on the chest.

"Hola," Gavi says, starting to back up even before I get my seat belt done up. We're running about half an hour early so I'm not sure why he's in such a hurry.

"What's the rush?" I ask, finally getting my seatbelt done up. I notice how the car goes from without music to playing mine without any provocation; he still must not have figured out how to hook up his car to the Bluetooth.

"I don't want you to be late," he replies, eyes completely on the road.

"The interview doesn't start for 45 minutes and we're about five minutes away from Camp Nou," I explain in an attempt to calm him down.

He glances over at me and I can see the distress on his face.

"Are you okay?" I ask, getting concerned something happened.

He gulps. "A little nervous."

"Why are you so nervous?" 

He shrugs and returns his focus to the road.

"Pablo," I scold.

He sighs. "This is a really big deal for you and I can tell how much it means to you. I'm really hoping it goes well."