Sure Thing • Gavi

Chapter 19: Heartbreak

🎶 Let Me Down Slowly — Alec Benjamin 🎶

My brother and I arrived late at night in Barcelona and he moved into his new apartment which was just the one next to me. Some time ago, the apartment had covered the whole floor, but my parents had renovated it and made three small flats out of it. One was occupied by me, one now by my brother and the third one was rented out.

Since we hadn't talked much after the game, Gavi had invited me over to his place on Monday evening. It was a very relaxing day for me, since I still had that day and the next one off and I used it to clean my apartment, wash my laundry and do some grocery shopping. In the evening, I drove to Pablo's place and he had also just returned from training. I cooked us a vegetable paella with the ingredients he had at home and we spent a chill and relaxed evening together. He had asked me to stay over and I had brought my computer and a small bag with the necessaries with me and by the time I woke up on Tuesday, he had already gone training.

After showering and getting dressed, I went to a coffee shop to get a cappuccino before making my way back to his apartment. We were going to spend this evening also together since I wasn't free the next few nights and then he was off to play against Osasuna in Pamplona.

When I got home, I quickly washed my hands but couldn't find a small towel, so I went into the hallway and opened up one of the cupboards, hoping to find one there. When I opened one of the doors, I got almost buried under dirty laundry that had fallen out of it. Fuck, he had just stuffed everything in here and it looked like he hadn't washed his stuff in weeks. Since I had some time on my hands, I decided to help him out and divided his stuff into different piles that I would wash one after the other. Thankfully, he had a drier which meant that the drying process went by quicker. While the first machine was going, I also changed his bedsheets and opened up all the windows. When the first stuff had come out of the drier I put everything together and laid it out on his bed, as I didn't know where he put away his clothing.

Then I plugged in the iron and ironed the necessary stuff like shirts and trousers. While I was doing this, I watched Canal 24H and learned that Barca had signed Joao Felix and Joao Cancelo today, on the last day of the transfer window, and that Gavi had been called up to the national team for the upcoming EURO qualifier games. By six in the evening I was done with all the laundry and had also washed off the kitchen counters with some detergent. I had now opened the fridge to see what he had and what I could cook with that, when I heard a key in the door lock.

Gavi POV

Today had been a shitty day. I hadn't performed well today in training and Xavi had shouted at me in front of everyone. Then, my mum had called me and said that she had spontaneously driven up to the city and wanted to have lunch with me. I had hoped that this would cheer me up a bit, but unfortunately it had been quite the opposite. She had asked me what's new and I told her that I was seeing someone. To say that she was unimpressed was the understatement of the year. She reminded me of everything that I had given up for my dream and to continue focusing on football as now was the time to establish myself as a great player and gamemaker. When she asked me about more details on the girl and I inevitably had to tell her that she was five years my senior, she fell off of every possible cloud she had been floating on. She seeded a lot of doubts in me, stuff that I hadn't even thought about until now, like how my life could change from one day to the other with a transfer or in the worst case, a career-threatening injury. Or that she would definitely want to start thinking about a family and kids soon and that I probably wasn't, which she was right about. Or that she would inevitably always have an upper hand that I wouldn't be able to control in the relationship because of her age. My head was still swirling around all of her thoughts when I walked up the stairs to my apartment.

When I unlocked the door to my flat, I was hit with an unknown smell... it smelled... fresh and... clean? My TV was running on Canal 24H and a very smiling Vicky appeared in the hallway.
"Hey, you're back! Congrats on the call-up!" she said excitedly and pressed a kiss on my cheek. I walked into my bedroom to leave my training bag when I saw the whole bed full of clean laundry. There was a stack of ironed shirts and another one with ironed trousers.
"What the fuck has happened here?" I asked incredulously.
"Oh, I clean-" she said, but I interrupted her.
"I can see that. Are you my mother or what? Why did you go through my stuff?" I shouted.
Fuck, why did she behave like my mother. I felt like a seven-year-old version of me coming home after school after my mum had cleaned everything.
"I just... Stumbled across the laundry and had time on my hands, I thought you would be happy" she mumbled disappointedly.
"Happy about what? You treating me like a child? Like I can't survive without you cleaning up after me?" I said angrily.
"Sorry, I thought you'd be happy! There's no need to shout like that!" she now also said in a very angry tone.

"Is this how you think you can land me into marrying you and have a family with you?" I shouted, full of doubts after the conversation with my mother today.
"WHAT? Who ever said something about marriage?" she asked.
"Oh come on! Your biological clock is ticking! As if you aren't looking for a husband right now! I'm fucking 19, what do you want from me?!" I shouted.
"Fuck off, Pablo." she now said, stuffed her phone into her bag and left.