Mr. Brightside || João Félix

T H I R T Y - T W O

I have been arguing with the girl at the front desk for over ten minutes already.

"I just need Christian Pulisic's room number," I repeat.

"I know miss, but I just can't be giving out that type of information," the lady told me again.

"I'm not some random creep," I groan, "I'm his friend, and he leaves in a couple hours, I just want to see him, please."

"Our policy is our policy, I'm sorry but I can't change the rules for you," she says and I groan.

"Sofia," a voice calls out to me. "You're looking for Christian ?"

"Yeah, umm yeah, have you seen him ?" I ask.

"No, but he should be back soon, would you like to wait for him in his room ?" He asks.

"Uh yes please," I sigh.

"I'm Gio, Giovanni Reyna," he smiles at me holding his hand out for me to shake.

"Sofia, dos Santos, but I get the feeling you already knew that," I laugh shaking his hand.

"Best feminine player in the world, rings a bell," he laughs.

"I wouldn't say I'm the best," I smile.

"Ah, you should rethink that, because many would," he smiles. "Come."

I follow him into the elevator but the desk lady calls out to me again. Ughh I've had enough of her.

"Umm miss, you can't," she begins but Gio cuts her off.

"It's okay, she's with me," he reassures her.

He leads me into the elevator and we take it up to their floor. We begin walking through the hall after we step out of the elevator until we land on a room. He pulls his key card out of his pocket and unlocks the room door.

"We're bunking together," he says as he holds the door open for me to walk in.

"So," I say trying to break the awkward silence as I sit on Christian's bed. "How'd you take the loss ? Wait don't answer that, that was uncalled for, sorry," I say after I processed the question.

"No, no, it's fine," he reassures me. "It sucked, but we'll survive, this was my first World Cup after all. Im proud of myself, I'm proud of my team, we gotta head back, train extra hard, and come back better than ever."

"Yeah, you're hosting next World Cup," I say, "gotta make the most of it."

"Yeah," he smiles. "What about you ? How confident are you ?"

"In Portugal ? Or in myself for my World Cup ?" I ask.

"Both," he shrugs.

"I'm confident in Portugal, we have a good team, we'll see how it goes I suppose," I say and he nods. I don't want to touch up on my rigged tournament theory because I barely met the boy, who knows who he'll tell. "And as for me, we'll have to see how that goes too," I laugh, "I mean I won my sub 20 World Cup trophy, but this is the big leagues, I have faith in myself and my team but I know other teams have trained hard, so we'll see."

Just then Christian walked in.

"Where have you been ?" I ask, "and why haven't you replied to my messages ?"

"I did text back," he says grabbing my phone off the bed, "you just haven't noticed. You have missed calls from your dad," he tells me and I take my phone from him.

"I'll be back," I sigh, "let me call him back," I say exiting the room.

"You called ?" I say into the phone as he picks up.