Just like we had discussed on the phone I met Alexia, Jenni and Virginia in the lobby of the hotel. I spotted Alexia first. Once she reached me she pulled me into a hug.
"Glad you came." I mumbled out to her.
"Of course." She let go of the hug and turned a bit to Jenni so she could introduce herself.
The tall forward took a step closer. I held my hand out for her to shake. "Eleanore Queen." She pushed my hand away and just like Alexia she pulled me into a hug.
"I know who you are. You're the one who scored the winning goal against us." I let go of the hug and looked sheepishly at the forward.
"Yeah that would be me. Sorry about that." I awkwardly scratched my neck.
"Nah, don't worry about it, it's all good. It's nice finally meeting you, I'm gonna look for Christen." She pointed inside.
"Likewise."
Jenni soon disappeared behind the doors of the room that held the party inside of it. Virginia was the last one to greet me.
"We meet again." She smirked at me.
"Seems so." I laughed. The older woman pulled me into a hug. "Great game tonight."
"Thanks."
"I'm gonna look for Jenni." Her smirk never left her face and she disappeared after Jenni when I turned back to Alexia.
"I like the shirt." I said, grabbing the hem of the shirt she was wearing. It was the one I gave her when we played each other.
"Yeah, I got it from the world's best football player. Maybe you know her? Her name is Eleanore Queen. Star midfielder for the US Women's National Team and soon Barca. She's pretty hot too if you ask me." A light blush made itself present on my cheeks while she looked at the shirt and then back at me.
"Doesn't ring a bell." I shook my head, making her laugh.
"Too bad. You would have liked her."
"Who knows." I laughed. "Wanna go inside and meet my family? Austin would kill me if he knew you were here and I wouldn't have told him "
Alexia giggled at that. "Sure. Seems like he has a favorite though." She winks at me.
"Can you blame him?" I thought in my head.
Alexia followed me inside, saying hello to a few teammates. It didn't take long though before one of my family members found us.
"Alexia! You're here!" Austin ran up to the Spaniard and jumped into her arms making her laugh.
"Austin! Be careful. You're gonna hurt the poor girl." My mother scoffed at the younger boy but that didn't stop him.
"It's okay." Alexia smiled at my mom. "Hola mija. Long time no see." She held him in her arms.
"How come you're here? I mean Spain is already out of the tournament." He asked her confused.
"I decided to stay a bit longer and watch some games. I thought your sister could use some extra support." She let go of Austin but he remained close to the Spaniard, like he was scared that if he would be too far away from her, she would disappear.
"She doesn't need the support because she is the best but she would really like that." He smiled at her and then at me.
"Oh, thanks buddy." I squeezed his shoulder. "Anyway. Mom, dad, minions, this is Alexia. She plays for Spain and Barcelona. Alexia, these are my mom Hellen, my dad, John and these minions are Austin, Penelope, Kelley, Matthew and Tom." I smiled at her.
"Hey, we're not your minions!" Tom pushed my shoulder lightly.
"Aw, hey I was kidding!" I glared at my older brother.
"Funny." My sister stuck her tongue out.
My siblings and I started bickering with each other much to the amusement of Alexia. My mother, though, didn't think it was all that funny.
She hit our heads lightly and took a step closer to Alexia. " Hello, dear. It's nice to meet you."
"Likewise, Ms. Queen." My mom pulled her in a hug.
"Call me Hellen."
Next up was my dad. He was less cool about it. "You play for Barcelona right? You're the captain. This is so cool." He smiled at me "You're friends with the Barcelona captain." He said to me, making Alexia blush.
"Yes dad, thanks for pointing that out." I laughed.
"Anyway. It's nice to meet you." He told Alexia.
Some more small pleasantries were shared between Alexia and my siblings before we made our way to the bar. We talked about everything and nothing and eventually landed on the topic of places that we had visited.
"You know what's funny though. I've been to Paris a couple of times but I've never really seen the city." She took a sip from her drink.
This made me realize that that was also the case for me. I've been here a couple of times but it was always football related. Maybe we should explore now.
"No." She said to me with a serious face.
"What?" I looked at her innocently.
"I know that face." She pointed to my face. "That's you're 'I have a great plan that will get us in trouble' face."
"That's not true." I got up and downed my drink. "Let's go." I grabbed her arm and dragged her out with me.
"What?" She stumbled off the chair, rapidly downing her drink as well before we left the party.
"Where are we going?" She asked while I kept a hold on her hand.
"You'll see." I simply said.
When we reached the front desk I finally let go of her hand. If I would have paid attention to her, I would have noticed the small poute on her face when I let go of it.
Instead I rested both of my hands on the desk in front of me and focused on the receptionist.
"Bonsoir, comment puis-je vous aider?" (Good evening, how can I help you?) She asked.
"Bonne soirée, pouvez-vous appeler un taxi?" (Good evening. Can you maybe call a cab for us?)
"Bien sûr. Un instant s'il vous plaît." The receptionist went to work on her computer and made some calls. I was reading some brochures that were laying on the desk when I felt eyes on me. I faced Alexia. Her eyes were wide and her lips were slightly parted out of shock.
"You speak French." She looked at me in disbelief.
"Yeah. A little bit. Just like I can speak a little Spanish. Just not a lot." I smiled at her.
"Madame, votre taxi est ici." The receptionist informed us.
I smiled at her one more time. "Merci." And went to look for the taxi with Alexia following close behind me.
"I feel like this is a bad idea." She got in the cab after me.
"Just because it's a bad idea doesn't mean it's not going to be a good time." I leaned over to the driver to give him directions.
She playfully rolled her eyes. I placed my hand on her knee to assure her. "Relax, it's gonna be fine. Trust me." And with those words and the physical contact she seemed to relax.
The drive to the center of the city took us a little less than a half hour. I had asked the driver to drop us off at the Arc de Triomphe. As a kid I had always wanted to visit Paris. I had already a few places in mind that I wanted to see and I was set on seeing some of them tonight.
"Let's go. Lots to see and so little time." I pushed her out of the car. She playfully glared at my eagerness.
I got out of the car myself and pointed towards the first thing we would see tonight.
"Starting with the Arc de Triomphe!" Alexia looked in awe at the monument, taking everything in.
"It was built in 1806 in order and honor of Napoleon Bonaparte. It took them thirty years to finish it. After World War one it became a memorial for the fallen soldiers during that war." I rambled on while walking around the monument. Alexia had a smile on her face the whole time, intently listening to me ramble.
"Come on, let's take a selfie." I pulled out my phone and swung my arm around Alexia's neck, pulling her closer so I could take the pictures.
The first one was simply hilarious. I had a big smile on my face while Alexia's was just pure shock. The next one was us both smiling and the last one was her kissing my cheek.
"The last one is my favorite." She hummed when she was looking at my phone over my shoulder.
"Nah, I like the first one better." I teased. She gently pushed my shoulder.
We continued our adventure walking along the Champs-Elysees falling into light conversation. laughing and joking around, teasing each other with every chance we got, taking pictures. The whole walk I rambled on about little facts about the places that we passed, Alexia never once complained about my geeky side coming out.
"So, tour guide. What can you tell me about this place?" She teased me about all the random facts I laid out to her during the walk.
"Well this is Le Louvre. It used to be a castle that turned into a palace that eventually turned into one of the world's most famous museums in 1793 I think. Last year alone they had around ten million visitors." I told her while walking around the domain.
"It's so pretty." She looked at the building.
"Yeah it is." I agreed with her. "You know what I think is so cool about historical buildings is that a thousand years ago people were already walking here. It makes you humble, like we're just a small fraction of it all."
"Waw, that's deep. Never saw you as one." Alexia chuckled.
"There is a lot you don't know about me, Putellas." I laughed and smirked at the brunette next to me.
This seemed to have intrigued her. Instead of focusing on the building she was focusing on me now. "Like?"
"I don't know. What do you like to know?" I kept walking.
"Well you've been stating a lot of facts about these buildings, tell me some about you that other people may not know."
"Oof." I looked at her for a second thinking what I would say. This was a hard one. For a while it was silent between us.
"Okay, I like the smell of summer rain because it brings back a lot of memories about the summers I've had. I'm not a fan of rollerblading. I once fell pretty hard as a kid, maybe that was my fault but anyway since that day they are just not my thing. Ice-skating, I'm cool with, because if you fall with them you don't burn your skin off like with the rollerblades." I stopped walking and faced the brunette that was now standing in front of me.
"Massively scared of spiders. I hate the creatures and you can't convince me otherwise." I pointed at her. This made her laugh.
"I believe that you make your own luck and that you can find it in the small things in life. I have the unrealistic dream of one day opening a small hotel and I would love to see the world. I like discovering new countries and their traditions." I said, twirling around with my arms held out wide.
"That's probably the only unpredictability that I like. I love my family and I think family is very important. I'm one of those people who loves family gatherings."
"I don't like to share my food and if I do that means that you are pretty important to me. The same goes with singing. I love to sing, just not in front of people. With food you can convince me to do almost anything though." Alexia burst out laughing at this statement, fully knowing that with food you indeed could convince me to do almost if not anything. The Spaniard had already used this tactic multiple times to her advantage before.
"I'm very stubborn and I don't like to choose. I hate it. It gives me anxiety and I guess that pretty much it. At least what I can think of right now." I smiled at her.
"I think these are going to be my favorite facts of the evening." She softly said. At this point we started walking again.
"Ha sure they are." I laughed, making her stop for a minute and look at me.
"What? I'm serious." She bumped my shoulder. "Besides you made up the other facts."
I looked at her confused. "No, I didn't."
Again she stopped walking. "You didn't? "
"No." I laughed. "Look it up."
She grabbed her phone and looked it up. Her mouth fell open.
"How do you know all that stuff?" She asked me in disbelief.
I shrugged my shoulders and said, "I read about it."
"Read about it? When? Before we left?" She threw her hand in the air a bit. I had resumed walking again. Alexia slowly followed behind me, still trying to figure out how I knew these things.
"No, a couple years ago" I furrowed my eyebrows. Why was it so hard to believe that I just knew these things?
"And you still remember?"
"I guess. I just like to know things. It makes being a med student a lot easier." I chuckled.
Alexia stopped walking and looked even more shocked.
"You're kidding me?"
I stopped walking again too. I swear at this rate we would never make it to Notre Dame and the Eiffel tower. "What do you mean?"
"You're a med student?" She double checked.
"Yeah, you didn't know?" This time I grabbed her hand and started to drag her along.
"Does this face look like someone who knew?" She pointed to her face with her free hand, following behind me.
"Uhm no."
"How? When? How many hours are there in your day?"
"Twenty four." I chuckled.
"Show off." She mumbled while following behind me.
We walked along the Seine, passed Notre Dame and ended our tour at the Eiffel tower. We took some more pictures, picked up some ice cream along the way and sat down on a field near the tower itself with the perfect view.
"What did you get?" Alexia looked at me curiously.
I shrugged my shoulders because I didn't know. I had told the women behind the counter to just scoop two flavors.
"You wanna taste?" I held out my ice cream for her.
She grabbed my wrist and wanted to taste my ice cream when suddenly I had a great idea. The moment she leaned in to taste it, I slightly pushed my ice cream in her face, bursting out in laughter.
Alexia didn't really think it was that funny. Her glare was soon replaced by a smirk. She dipped two fingers inside the ice cream and smeared it out on my face.
"Hey!" I looked at her in shock.
"Serves you right, Hermosa." We both laughed at our antics. She wiped her face but she had missed a spot.
"You missed a spot." I giggled. She still had a bit of ice cream on the corner of her mouth. I gently grabbed her face with one hand and brushed it away with my tumb.
Alexia stared at me intently and for a minute, we both got lost in the moment. My thumb gently goes over her bottom lip. We stayed in that position for a little longer till a group of people behind us started playing soft music, successfully snapping us both out of our trance.
"Uhm, you're good now." I cleared my throat. The Spaniard just looks down while smiling. She looked back up, biting her lip.
Suddenly she leaned in closer to me and kissed my cheek where there was still some ice cream left from when she smeared some on my face. "Tastes nice." She whispered and then continued to eat her ice cream without a care in the world.
Immediately my cheeks turned red, feeling the effect of the gesture way more than I would like to admit.
When I finally got over my gay panic I could start to relax. We were sitting next to each other, facing the Eiffel tower. Alexia rested her head comfortably on my shoulder.
"You can talk about it, you know." She softly told me without looking up.
"Talk about what?"
"About playing England. I know it's been on your mind ever since you've found out."
I sighed. It was true. Ever since I had found out about England being our next opponent, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
"What is there to talk about? At the beginning of next week either my best friend will crush my dream or I'll crush hers" I sarcastically said.
"Hey, it's gonna be fine."
"What if she hates me after this game?"
"She won't hate you. That girl loves you to pieces and believe me, I know. She's scary when she threatens you, you know." Alexia chuckled, making me laugh slightly.
"Yeah, I know. I live with her." I chuckled but stopped once I realized that I wouldn't live with her anymore. When all this is over I wouldn't go back to London like usual, I would go to a completely new place instead.
"I lived, I mean. I lived with her."
Alexia must have noticed my change in demeanor.
"You're not gonna lose her." She wrapped an arm around my wrist and nestled even further into me.
"How do you know?" My voice was so soft that it was almost impossible to understand what I just said.
"Because the bond you two have is real and it's gonna last. Trust me." She kissed my neck again, sending shivers down my spine.
"By the way, what's it like being the favorite target of your president?" I couldn't really see her face but I knew that she was smirking right now.
"It is something, that's for sure." I chuckled. "But if anything, it made me more determined than ever. I wanna prove him wrong. I mean I'm just so sick and tired of always having to explain myself. Why do us girls always have to do that if we say we love football or we want to be a professional football player? I'm just done."
Alexia didn't say anything. She just listened to me rant with a smile on her face, agreeing with me.
"Don't get me wrong I'm behind the whole equal pay movement and everything but in all honesty I care more about equal opportunities. Make sure that everyone, no matter gender or race, gets to do the thing they love. Give them the same opportunities for crying out loud." I ranted.
Once I realized that I was maybe overreacting a bit, I sheepishly looked down to notice that she was already looking up at me, making me blush a bit.
"Sorry, it just frustrates me a lot." I mumbled embarrassed about my rant.
"Don't be. I totally get it but I know you, don't put too much pressure on yourself, okay?" She looked up at me.
"No promises, but I'll try." I smiled.
We sat there in a comfortable silence for a while longer. She was snuggled into me while I was leaning back a bit on my hands, looking at the Eiffel tower. Suddenly I heard a familiar song in the background. It was the song 'Moments we live for' by In Paradise.
"I love this song." I hummed along to the music and started to sing along softly.
Alexia looked up again and kept staring at me during the whole song with a look of adoration on her face.
"I love it when you sing." She whispered when I had finished.
I laughed at her softly. "Maybe I should sing to you more often then." I kissed the top of her head.
"I would love that."
Around midnight we arrived back at the hotel and walked up to my room. It was a comfortable silence that surrounded us till she broke it.
"That bad idea did turn out to be a good time after all." She smirked at me when we reached my door.
"Goodnight Ella." She kissed me on the corner of my mouth. "See you in Lyon." And she was gone.
I froze at the nickname she used. Ella. There was only one other person who would call me that and that was Cory. Ever since he passed I refused to let people call me by that nickname. Not even my family was allowed to call me that.
But for some reason when Alexia called me Ella it didn't bring back negative feelings. I liked it when she called me that but besides the nickname it was her little action that had me rooted in my place.
If it was her goal to make me go absolutely crazy then it was definitely working. This girl was making me feel things that I wasn't supposed to feel, I swore I wouldn't do love anymore. I was snapped out of my haze by the door that opened behind me.
"Did you guys finally kiss or something?" Kelley leaned in the doorway and smirked.
I simply glared at the defender and crossed my arms like a small child.
"Ooh, I covered for you by the way, you're welcome." She sarcastically said.
"Whatever." I playfully glared at her.
I pushed her inside and closed the door right behind me.