Hold Me Close

don't break my heart

I am packed to go back home.

Tomorrow, at nine in the morning, I will be on a flight to Ibiza – a three-day trip with Sam and Erin that serves as a pitstop between now and flying to Amsterdam. This will be the last I see of Barcelona until after the World Cup. I must say that, after it is all finished, I am excited to return to a place I now consider a lesser version of home.

Alexia and I go to the beach, hoping that the sea breeze will take the edge off the pressure stamping down on us.

The sand is warm underneath my feet and the sun washes us in a pleasant sort of heat. The smell of the sea is fresh, the salt carried through the air, and the splash of the waves almost sends me to sleep as Alexia and I sunbathe in a comfortable silence.

I could stay here forever.

She turns onto her stomach, and the movement breaks me out of my daze. The muscles in her back are defined, and her skin is adorned with small tattoos. I let my eyes trace over each one, committing them all to memory, taking in this moment. Relishing the bliss we lie in, I let my head drop against the towel once more, content to stare at the blue, blue sky, lost in my own thoughts.

I wonder what Alexia would say if she knew how I felt. We put out the flames of hatred but it has only allowed a fire of something else to thrive. My cheeks burn, my eyes having made their way back to the expanse of Alexia's body like they are paperclips to a magnet. I try to look at something else now that the sky is impossibly boring in comparison; the children running around in the sea, the family who have just situated themselves a few metres away from us. It doesn't work. Alexia shouldn't look so good.

And, if her back is too much for my little gay brain to handle, her front is even worse.

"Drink water," Alexia says, breaking the silence. She gestures to my face, assuming that I am overheating. I open my mouth to protest, but she has sat up, unscrewing the cap of the bottle before I can say anything. She beckons me towards her. I plant one hand on the towel we are lying on, centimetres away from her thigh, and lean over her. She brings the rim to my mouth, tilting the bottle back slightly, the cool water trickling onto my lips as I part them, heart thumping in my chest. Her thumb swipes the droplet that runs down my chin, but it feels like the contact was made much lower.

"Thank you," I murmur as we stay in this position, her eyes, warm and inviting, too hard to look away from, piercing through the shield of my sunglasses as though they were never there.

She smiles. "De nada."

The moment is promptly ruined by a ball being launched at the space between us, making us both lurch away from the missile at an alarming speed.

"Hola, guapas," calls Patri with a wide, wide grin. Pina, of course, is beside her.

Alexia shakes her head, telling them off in Spanish, but they join us anyway, flicking the lid off the nevera they have brought along. The cans of beer they open hiss loudly, protruding into the silence Alexia and I had settled into earlier.

Pina tugs me upright when she gets bored of sunbathing, dragging me to the water.

"It was Patri's idea to come," she says as we wade in further from the shore. "Ale accidentally told us that you two were here. She is very secretive, you know." Pina's Spanish is politely slowed and enunciated, but I take credit where it is due. "We're happy that you are together."

The water is deeper now, and we start swimming, treading water while I figure out a way to explain the situation.

Somewhat embarrassingly, she reads my expression well. "You're not together?"