Sure Thing • Gavi

Chapter 42: Date Night à la Vicky

🎶 La Bicicleta — Carlos Vives, Shakira 🎶

On Thursday afternoon, I shut off my computer at 4.30, a bit earlier than usual, as I had to pick Pablo up from the Ciutat Esportiva for our date night. I wasn't the most creative in that aspect, but I had thought of something nice and hoped that he would like and appreciate it. It was the least I could do after asking him to pick up me and my drunk friends at 3 in the morning.

When I arrived, there were already some people standing on the street in front of the entrance, and I drove up to the guard, who didn't ask anything and just raised the bar so I could enter the area. Pablo must have told him I was coming. I parked the scooter and made my way inside, curious to see where my boyfriend was spending most of his days as I hadn't been here before. I heard the sound of footballs being kicked and made my way to the training pitches, where I saw the squad. I walked to the stands and sat down on the third row, while admiring my boyfriend, when suddenly there was a commotion with the boys, as Ronald pointed to where I was sitting and some boys were now shouting at Pablo and making primitive, manly sounds. God, men never grew up.

Xavi blew his whistle and he seemed angry.
"Ten more minutes. Are you all 12 and don't have your hormones under control? What do you do in the stadium when a woman sits down in the stands? Forget about the ball?" he shouted.
Shit. I hoped that I didn't cross a line by me being here, maybe one had to register to watch a training session or something.
"Don't worry, he's been in a bad mood all day" I heard a man's voice from behind me and I turned around to see Robert coming down to sit next to me. "Everyone's just excited for Pablo. And you being pretty adds to it" he chuckled and I joined in.

We sat there and watched the end of the session when finally, Xavi blew the whistle and the boys started going inside, but Pablo made sure to walk to the tribune's railing first to greet me and I hurried down to give him a quick kiss.
"You look hot" he said and whistled, making me laugh.
"Hurry up. Your driver's been waiting for some time now" I chuckled and he made his way inside with Robert, who waved me goodbye, following.

After approximately 15 minutes, he appeared freshly showered and said goodbye to his teammates before we walked to my scooter. I pulled out the second helmet from under the seat and he put it on and fastened it.
"When you drive outside, there will be people approaching us. Don't be afraid and most importantly, don't stop, just accelerate and don't brake until after the roundabout." he said and I nodded. We both put our sunglasses on, hoping to fly a bit more under the radar, but who were we kidding. It was common knowledge by now, that Pablo had a girlfriend, especially since those pictures from the nightclub in Oslo were published, but people weren't yet able to connect a name to my person, meaning that the biggest bomb - aka the age gap of five years - hadn't gotten out.

We drove past all the people and our first stop was a pizzeria in Castelldefels.
"Wait here, I'm just picking them up inside" I instructed my boyfriend and gave him a quick peck on the lips before entering the restaurant. After a minute, I got out again with two boxes of pizza in my hand and gave them to Pablo.
"Careful, it's not far now though" I said and started my Vespa's engine again, to drive to a cliff which looked out on the sea a bit south of Castelldefels.

"Wow, I've never been here" he said while admiring the view, with the waves splashing onto the rocks below us.
I hugged him from behind and put my hand on his shoulder.
"I love you, Pablo. Thanks for being there for me, I really appreciate all the effort you're making for being the best man you can be for me" I said and kissed his cheek.
"You're worth it. I don't want a few months or a year. I want a lifetime with you" he answered and looked looked me in the eyes. I nodded and poked his nose with mine.
"Come on Romeo, the pizzas are getting cold" I said and opened the boxes when we had sat down. "Margherita with some extra rounds at training tomorrow for you. Capricciosa with a few extra hours at my desk because I left earlier for our date for me." I said and he laughed.

"How's work?" Pablo asked and I stiffened a bit. I just couldn't keep anything hidden from him, so I answered: "You remember the sports journalist from Vanguardia that interviewed you?"
Pablo nodded: "Yeah, he was cool, what about him?"
I scoffed. "You won't think that any longer. He... is a journalist through and through and found out we're dating. He isn't allowed to break the story... yet. Unless we're not going public before, he'll get a three-page exclusive about our relationship - on the day of El Clasico. And it's going to be a hit piece, given the circumstances and... the history from my father's side of the family" I blurted out.
Pablo looked at me with a shocked face.
"When did he talk to you?" he asked.
I put my head in my hands, I hated having lied to him. Well, I didn't lie lie, but I didn't tell him about something which clearly also involved him.
"That evening when we went out to celebrate Pedro getting the Middle East correspondent job." I replied quietly.
He sighed. "Vicky, why didn't you tell me?!"
"Because I didn't want to put you under any more pressure than you already are. But I... just can't keep something from you." I said and looked at the ground ashamed.
"I can handle it. You don't have to protect me. And I also don't care what he writes about me or us." he stated.
"Yeah, but the world does. Which means that the club does too and they don't need any more bad PR at the moment" I replied, thinking about the current news involving Laporta.

Pablo sat in silence for a few minutes or even more, before a smile appeared on his face.
"Do you trust me?" he asked and grinned.
"Oh God, what do you have in mind?" I asked, he had that mischievous grin on his face and his dimple, my soft spot for him, was showing.
"I think it's hilarious, but it's a surprise. You'll find it hilarious too, I know you well enough by now." he chuckled, apparently finding the idea in his head incredibly funny.
I knew it was pointless to try and press some information out of him, he would never tell me.

After finishing up our pizzas, I took out another small box from my tote bag and my boyfriend looked at me with a confused face.
"Chess? Are you serious?" he asked and raised an eyebrow.
"I want to... help you become better. I'm not a nutritionist like Anna or know anything about fitness... but I'm pretty good at chess. And football is a mental game, so... maybe we could start playing" I mumbled, but his face looked like a question mark.
"Maybe it was a stupid idea, forget it" I said, taking the box to pack it away again and mentally slapping myself. I wasn't his coach, who was I to tell him how to improve at a game he already mastered pretty well.
"No." he said and stopped my hand. "This is incredibly thoughtful of you... I'm just speechless that you even spend time coming up with ideas how to support me. You're... the first one except for people whose job that literally is, to do this for me" he continued and his eyes were shining.
I smiled and looked at the ground, blushing.
"Of course I spend time thinking about you. I want us to be a team, not just two people leading separate lives." I explained.
"I love you, Vicky. You're the best girlfriend I could have ever wished for." he said and put his hand on the back of my head to pull me closer for a kiss.

"But I've only played once or twice, so you have to teach me and be patient" he chuckled and I did too.
I set up the board and explained the various pawns and their allowed moves before we started our first game. I checkmated him in three moves, but it got trickier each time we started a new game. He was still frustrated to not play well, but it was a game that one could only master with time.
"You need to keep a cool head. That's your biggest weakness, you get angry because I beat one of your pieces and then do a hothead move, thinking you'll hit me at a weak point. But you're just hurting yourself because you're exposing yourself even more to my game." I explained when we started packing up because it had already gotten quite dark.

He nodded. "You're right. This is actually a really good game for me. From now on, we'll play every day, this stuff may actually help me improve."
I was beaming with happiness and he laughed because he noticed how happy I was in having succeeded to find something with which I could support his job off the pitch.
We got on my scooter again and I drove us to his house, where we got to bed after getting ready for the night.