Worlds Apart

Chapter 9

"These songs are stories from the past and present."

~~~~~

I hadn't left the studio in twenty-eight hours. I'd been singing for probably twenty of those hours. I was exhausted and my voice was hoarse, but I was almost done with the last song.

"For you, I would ruin myself; a million little times." I sung as I read off the paper I'd practically destroyed with notes. "Fucking finally." I sighed.

"That was so good!" Taylor said over the intercom. "That's going to be a hit."

"I just ruined my voice for this album. I haven't been able to talk to my girlfriend in over a day! Mark's been watching me like a hawk."

"How about I go make us coffee while you call her? And I'll tell Mark to find a girlfriend."

"Or tell him to go fuck himself." I wished I was joking.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and saw a series of texts from Alessia, but in the end, she knew I was working. I pressed on FaceTime, needing that half face-to-face conversation. When she answered, I smiled.

"I've missed that face." She grinned.

"I've missed you. How's practice going?"

"It was good today."

"That's it? Tell me about it. What'd you do?"

"You need something warm to drink."

"Taylor's getting some coffee."

"Taylor?"

"Swift. She's featured on my album."

"Really?" I nodded. "The girls are going to shit themselves."

"I'll introduce you one day. She's cool."

"I can't believe you say that so casually."

"Okay, now that the Swift shock is over...Tell me about practice."

She softly laughed, running her fingers through her hair. I could see it was still wet from something. Probably a shower, meaning she used that lavender shampoo of hers. I missed how that smelled when she'd lie down next to me and wrap her arms around me.

She talked for awhile about practice. She spent a majority of it doing striking and finishing drills. They played small, sided games before moving to nine on nine. The team did a debrief on Austria, in preparation for their first match in six days. Alessia told me that her and a few girls went out for a shopping trip and paparazzi trailed them until security made them go.

Thank God, I made them stay.

Then the team hung out in the lounge and played different games and had various competitions between them for a while. I was glad she was still having a good time despite the media absolutely hammering her.

I loved listening to her talk about soccer. I didn't know much about the sport, but I'd done some basic research in the two-in-a-half weeks we'd been apart, so I had some idea as to what was going on during the games. I'd gotten in contact with Ella about getting me one of Less's jerseys for the game and she said she worked something out for me already. I was really excited to be heading out tomorrow morning to see her, and she had no idea I was coming so early.

"Babe?"

"Yeah?"

"You seemed a little zoned."