Hold Me Close

card games pass time

The pre-camp, unsurprisingly, is tame and boring. With an increasingly more serious atmosphere but a cautious workload, training sessions are mentally intense but, physically, a breeze. After an unwanted review with one of the physios, I get told that my runs around the KNVB centre are not damaging as long as I do not overextend myself. The team doctor also pulls me in for a meeting, having collected the data from the Barcelona medical team. I try not to think about how I'll probably end up on my period during the World Cup. Plenty of other players will be in the same situation, and they will manage just fine. (I have to see the doctor every day to track my cycle no matter how much I protest.)

Alexia is an ever-present notification, and our conversation never seems to end. I start bringing my phone with me if I go to the bathroom during training, just so that I can text her back.

We play Belgium as a pre-World Cup match, instructed to use the time during the game to work out the last of the kinks in our play before we head off to the other side of the world in five days. The pre-camp, no matter how dull, pays off. We win five goals to none, and I get a brace.

Jill and I are discussing the best teams in the tournament ahead of us that evening, and it is then that I realise I am not as inconspicuous as I had hoped. "I don't even know why you're asking me about the Spanish team when you only have to type out a letter for Alexia Putellas to call you," she says with a roll of her eyes. "You're like a teenager. On your phone at training, kicking your feet, twirling your hair."

I snort. "That's never happened."

"It might as well. You're blushing now." I groan, pressing my face into my hands. She giggles, proud that she'd embarrassed me. With most of our teammates no longer in the canteen, we have the place to ourselves. She can tease me however much she wants. "I thought you hated her, though. I think I missed something."

"We got closer."

"The Champions League?" I nod – it was a shared goal. It was easy to be professional about it. Civility just... evolved. "It distracted you guys from it, I get that. And with that distraction, you forgot to carry on hating each other!" She claps, pleased. "I've been waiting for it, I'll be honest. How did you leave things in Barcelona, then?"

Sighing, I know this isn't what Jill wants to hear. "I said we should see what happens after the World Cup. She agreed, Jill, so it isn't like I–"

"What, so you kissed?"

"We slept together."

Her jaw goes slack, mouth wide open. "What?!"

"Oh, I thought that was implied."

"Kissing is different to a whole... You went from, like, -100 to 2000. You hated her, then you tolerated her, and now you... Well, it's clear you like her."

"Ja. I like her."

"But you're not dating her," Jill says slowly, perhaps trying to make sense of it all.

With a shrug, I tell her what I told Jaimie. "I said that we should wait until after the World Cup. Which is sensible."

"Only you would torment Alexia Putellas by not giving her what she wants."

I raise my eyebrows at that. "She's not entitled to me. I could easily tell her no. She'd have to take it."

"But, Fleur, I beg, don't."

"I'm not planning to." I lean back in my chair, staring at the empty plate in front of me as I find a way to manoeuvre this conversation to some other topic. I already think about Alexia enough as it is. I do not need her to be all I talk about as well.