stuck on you || draxler

vingt-six

"Do you, like..." C'mon Julian! This your chance! For once, she isn't berating you. "Do you want to come in my place? I mean, it's better than walking home alone."

Marcelle didn't even have to think about it. "Yeah, I'm fine with that."

She didn't know what it was—the fact that she was wandering alone in Paris or because she missed Julian. Maybe it was both. Whatever and whichever it was, she didn't seem to mind when Julian opened the door to for her to enter, walking into the familiar building she used to go to every so often just to visit him and stay the night.

It almost felt like a second home (a third home after her childhood home and of course, her actual flat) because she had spent so much time here. She still had the keys he gave her, so she could let herself in whenever she wanted it to, but she hadn't had the heart to even look at them.

"Congratulations on your Champions League win," Julian spoke, diminishing the silence between them as they rode the elevator up to his flat. "You're going to the final in Cardiff—even further than I've ever went."

"Well, thanks." Marcelle found her cheeks heating up, getting red.

"And that was a nice header you did in the second half."

"Oh, yeah," she tried to laugh is off. It was header, alright. She jumped in the air to head it, only to smash heads with Barcelona defender Leila Ouahabi in the eighty-seventh minute and ending up cradling her head whilst on the ground. She ended up being subbed out right after. "Thanks. It hurt like a bitch, but there wasn't any real damage done other than my feelings."

He chuckled. "It was a really nice match, though. Really, congratulations."

She didn't really know what else to say. Sorry Barcelona beat your ass? It's been way too long since she and Julian actually had a nice conversation together.

In all, she didn't respond, only ever muttering a merci when he opened the door of his flat to her.

It was awkward walking into his flat again after so long. She had slipped off her shoes like it was just a regular day when it really wasn't. Like they hadn't been on and off constantly.

"Did you eat dinner?" Julian asked her, taking off his jacket and tossing it on the couch.

She shook her head.

"I'll order food." He fished out his phone from his pocket and began dialing. "Italian it is? I'm calling that one restaurant we used to go to all the time."

He remembered. A part of Marcelle wanted to die a little when he said what he was ordering on the phone, and it was the exact same order they always had. He had the restaurant on speed dial, and she was surprised when he still had it.

It was like that one time, the first time she had come over to his place.

It was the night of Julian's first ever match for PSG, and Marcelle missed it because of a match she had with her semi-pro club then. They went at it, arguing before eventually ordering Italian delivery food and sleeping in the same bed.

Maybe it then that Marcelle found herself falling for Julian. And maybe she would find herself falling for him again.

"What were you doing out there alone?" He hung up and put his phone down the counter, his eyes worried once he saw Marcelle in front of him. "You aren't dazed, aren't you? Concussion symptoms? Drinking?"

"No," she immediately responded. "Thank God, no."

"Then why were you out there?"

Marcelle crossed her arms and leaned against his marble countertop, trying to avoid eye contact. "Since when did you care?"