control - Alexia Putellas

12.

This is my favorite chapter of 'control' so far! Enjoy ☕️✍🏼

"You know... I think it was a smart idea to join you. The air up here is so pleasant, much fresher than downtown", Alexia tells cheerfully as she walks with in front of Erin, following a narrow hiking path, her bleached, straightened hair tied up in a high ponytail.

With a smile on her delicate lips, her gaze fixed on the ground to avoid tripping over rocks coming out of nowhere, Erin felt the mild breeze of the sea tickling against her pale skin.

"Well, thank you for accompanying me. Although I'm sure a guide would've told me more about this route", Erin quips with a soft smile, surprised when Alexia aprubtly comes to a stop and turns to face her, causing the therapist to almost run into her.

Almost.

"Phew... Um-", Erin stops herself, standing still.

"Are you complaining about me not having personal conversations on a professional walk?", Alexia asks, sounding surprised, a playful expression on her face as her sparkling hazel eyes twinkle at Erin.

The power those eyes held.

With a shrug of her shoulders, the breathtakingly beautiful blonde allows her gaze to linger on the captain for a few more seconds, before squeezing herself through the small gap between Alexia's athletic figure and the cliff face, further along the narrow path.

And as much as she tried, she couldn't suppress the smile that kept forming on her lips.

"We are two strangers on a peaceful public path, there's not a soul around. No one will know we are here", Erin teases serenely, her cold hands clasped around the straps of her green backpack, adding, "And it's not like you talk much anyways"

These words had Alexia standing still.

"W... what?," the athlete asks in surprise, her gaze following Erin as the slender blonde strides around a right-hand turn, disappearing from her field of vision for a moment.

"You know what I'm talking about. You- wow", marvels the blonde, completely stunned, the volume of her soft voice increasing the closer Alexia comes.

And as the athlete had reached the destination as well - the place where she had been so many times before - it was clear to her, of course, why Erin was looking down at the city with that sparkle in her eyes.

Because the view was absolutely spectacular.

"Bonita... this is Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor. Looks huge from the outside, but inside is smaller than expected. The special thing about this place is that when the vision is clear, you can see the Pyrenees in the north...", Alexia starts explaining, putting herself in the role of the guide Erin was asking for, and takes a few steps forward with her, before pointing to a somewhat blurry, barely visible mountain range far in the distance.

Bonita.

There was the word again.

The one that Alexia had tried to suppress and Erin thought she would never hear again.

The blonde is stunned, as she gazes at the huge mountain range that she must've missed on her flight to Barcelona a few days ago, ignoring what Alexia just said even though it had her heart rate pick up, and is surprised to be tugged in a different direction by warm fingers wrapping around her wrist.

"The Costa Brava is to the east. The view is... increíble. But a little nicer in the morning, because that's when Barcelona is a little foggy and the sun rises... right there", the midfielder continues, a concentrated look on her flawless visage as she locates the exact building where the sun had risen the last time she visited that place.