Sure Thing • Gavi

Chapter 22: International Duties

🎶 Girl Almighty — One Direction 🎶

We pulled up into a parking lot at La Masía, where not much was going on right now as the school year hadn't started yet. Pablo walked towards the entrance of the building where a woman and a man were apparently already waiting for him.
"Good morning, this is Victoria. These are Belen and Rodrigo from our social media team" Gavi introduced us.
"Victoria Hernandez. La Vanguardia" I introduced myself and greeted them. I tried to sound professional but I didn't know what Pablo's plan was, if it was to just let the news of us being together spread slowly or... something else. But those two didn't ask any further questions and Belen gave him a jersey shirt with "Gavi 100" written on it.

They photographed him in front of the La Masía sign and took some videos of him and just after ten minutes Belen said that they were done.
"Rodrigo, can you take one of us too?" he asked and pointed at me.
I pointed a finger on myself and looked at him with my eyes wide open and he just nodded and signalled me to come over. I did as he said and he told me to hold the shirt one one side while he was holding the other.
"Smile here please" Rodrigo said and pointed to his lens. We both flashed our biggest smiles and Pablo said: "First milestone with you."
Needless to say, me knees got weak and butterflies flew around not only in my stomach, but my whole body.

We got going again then and when we got into his car, Pablo quickly gave me a kiss before driving me back home.
"Call each other tonight?" he asked before I got out and I nodded, giving him another kiss. And just like that he was off, taking a plane to Madrid where he would be with the national team for the next few days.

Work went quite well and on Thursday, us political reporters got the official e-mail with the infos on the start of the application process to be the next correspondent in Syria. I spent all night writing my letters of application and motivation, even though I was pretty sure to not be chosen as they usually gave the spot to older journalists with more years of experience, but I wanted to try nonetheless. I did feel bad to not tell Pablo about it, but we had just gotten together and I didn't want to add any more doubts to the relationship we had just started. And there really was a 99.9% chance of me not getting the job done anyways, so there was no need to upset him.

I was typing an article for the Sunday edition on Friday morning when my phone dinged as I got a new message.

+34 xxx xxx xxx
Hi Vicky, this is Pedri! Pablo gave me your phone number. Do you have any plans for tonight? I'm hosting a watch party and it would be fun if you could come too ☺️
Oh and congrats on being girlfriend and boyfriend 👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻

Vicky Hernandez (Pablo gf)
Thanks 😂
I actually had plans to watch the game with my brother, but I'd love to come if I can bring him?

Pedro Gonzalez Lopez
Yeah, no problem, bring him along!
I'll text you my address in a sec

Vicky Hernandez (Pablo gf)
Great! Shall I bring something? Food? Drinks?

Pedro Gonzalez Lopez
Pablo said you can cook, and as we're all hungry single men, food would be great 😂

Vicky Hernandez (Pablo gf)
Haha, will do!
Pablo sent me a list with allowed stuff from your nutritionist so I know what to do 💪🏼

Pedro Gonzalez Lopez
Bro hit the jackpot, she's bringing food 🤤🤤
SORRY
THAT MESSAGE WASN'T FOR YOU
🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥🫥

Vicky Hernandez 👩🏻‍🍳 (Pablo gf)
😂😂😂

Kike and I showed up at Pedri's at 8 with one lasagna in each of our hands that I had quickly prepared at home. Thankfully, when I had time on my hands, I often cooked ahead various stuff that I could just freeze and them just warm up and eat whenever I had a long day at work or no energy to cook. And so I was able to scramble together a lasagna after work with some frozen Bolognese sauce I already had that we could just stuff into the oven here.

"Hey! You came! With... a lot of food! And your brother!" Pedri said, staring incredulously at what was in our hands.
"Yeah, just stuff it in the oven at 180°, it should be ready in 45 minutes" I said.
We got inside and I greeted Ferran and Fermín, whom I already knew and three other guys who were other friends.
Kike was definitely a bit starstruck, but he hid it very well. They were already showing the build-up on TV and Pedri had been so nice to bring me a glass of water already.
"Vallés! She definitely does a better job than me!" I chuckled as I observed her professionally delivering inside infos on tonight's game.
"Nah, I thought you were funnier. I loved the side-eye you gave to Aymeric when you were done interviewing him. And that question about his missed penalty was pure gold" Ferran said and laughed.
"Shut up" I said and laughed.

"You know, I'm also kind of a footballer myself" Kike said while the guys were discussing the game ahead and I had to stifle a laughter.
"Really? What was your youth club? What was your position?" Pedri asked curiously.
"Shut up Kike, you scored a lucky goal in the Year 11 vs Year 10 El Clasico at School and broke your nose two minutes later by running into the goalpost because you were looking at a girl in the stands. I'd hardly call that being a footballer." I said and all the guys broke out in laughter while my brother turned dark red.
"Still more of an athlete than you, who faked an injury in PE just to be sent to the school doctor who you fancied to show off your freshly grown Cup A boobs at 14" he countered and I had to laugh, as everyone else in the room. I loved the sibling banter with my brother and we were both extremely good at it.

Gavi was in the starting line-up and I was very excited to see him play for Spain today. They had to win today to keep their hopes for a EURO's quali alive. And we definitely had the upper hand in the game from the start, Pablo was giving it his all again, despite having to play with a helmet and he was throwing himself again in every direction, I had to look away every time he went in for a tackle. Shortly before the end of the first half he picked up a yellow card, which wasn't any news to me now. Maybe I should start celebrating games where he wouldn't get booked, instead of his wins. He was subbed off in the 58th minute, looking very unhappy with the decision - however we went on to win the game with an easy 1-7.

We thanked Pedri for the evening and got going after staying a bit more to listen to the comments of the pros. It was always interesting, even though I wasn't in sports journalism, to listen to what a professional had to say about such a game.

Pablo sent me a voice message when he was boarding the plane back to Spain, he was happy about the win but obviously wished to play longer the next time. He promised to call me tomorrow when he would be back at the training center so we could talk for a while.