🎶 Heartless — The Weeknd 🎶
Around 4pm, I made my way back to Pedri's house after having prepared for our "meeting" back at the office in the meantime. This time, I was considerate enough to ring the bell and to my surprise, he even came to open up. He was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, while I stood there in my perfectly ironed suit pants and white blouse, completely buttoned up.
"Oh, so now we ring the bell?" he asked me with an annoyed look on his face.
"Look, I don't want my first job to be a living hell. So can we just try and be professional and get along?" I asked, almost pleading.
"First job? Aren't you like... old?" he asked bewildered as I got inside and put my laptop on his dining room table.
"Wow, thanks. I wonder how you pick up girls with... charms like that" I said and rolled my eyes before sitting down and opening my laptop.
He sat down across from me and looked at me, not really knowing what to do.
"Do you have like an iPad or do you do your agenda on your phone?" I asked, having opened my e-mails and calendar.
"Uh... I can fetch my iPad" he simply said and stood up to go upstairs, returning with the device a minute later. He opened up his calendar too and looked at me again.
"Good. So, I did new colour codes. Red - most important colour is game day, training is orange. Green is Barca stuff, yellow is national team stuff. Blue is sponsor and media things and purple is private. Any problems with that?" I asked.
"Colour codes..." he muttered under his breath, but I chose to ignore him.
"Very well, so it's Madrid this weekend, then you're going to Saudi. Is everything for your family's travels settled or do I need to organise anything for them?" I asked.
"Ouh... um... I'll ask them... uh... Wow, you're really... prepared" he stammered.
"Well, it's my job, what did you expect?" I asked.
"Uh... I don't know, the last guys didn't even ask me about my family, I don't know" he replied, just looking at his iPad.
"Well, they're travelling there with you to see you. Don't expect me to plan your parents' dinner dates, that's definitely not my job" I tried to joke and indeed, his right side of his lips curled up in some sort of half-smile. Cute. Huh, what? Not cute.
"Let's continue." I said, but he spoke up instead.
"Do you want to come too?" he asked.
"Uh... to your parents' dinner date?" I asked back, not knowing what he meant. He laughed, I saw him do that for the first time. He looked very attractive, I now understood the girls' hype around him.
"No! I meant to Saudi Arabia! You know, the Supercopa and stuff" he replied.
"Oh... Unless my presence is essentially needed, it wasn't in my plans. It's stated in my contract that I need to know about business trip with a two week notice..." I mumbled. I had negotiated that clause with Mr Corrado since I couldn't just drop my kids without notice - I needed to tell my parents beforehand to watch them for me as they also had private lives and weren't my personal full-time nannies. Rodrigo's parents tried to help whenever they could too, but since they lived in Sevilla, it wasn't exactly around the corner and they also had to make time for visits. And the girls were still too small to leave them with a random babysitter for days. But I didn't want to tell Pedri all of this stuff, because frankly, it wasn't his business.
"Oh... sure. Good to know" he said and... did I hear a wince of disappointment? No, I was just imagining things.
"Anyways, we've got your 100 Barca appearances coming up later this month, if everything goes well. Then Spotify Spain has asked you to put together some sort of playlist... match day tunes that get you in the mood. Or whatever. You want to do it yourself or shall I?" I asked.
"You? Mozart was probably the top artist when you were young! I'm doing it myself" he chuckled, but I didn't find it funny at all. Did I really look that old? I knew that motherhood had definitely made me more mature but... I felt self-conscious now and didn't say anything.
"Fine. Please just try and pick out... nice songs. Not ones about drugs and fucking bitches, you know?" I said and he just grinned. Great, I'd definitely have to listen to the whole playlist when he'd be done and eventually delete some songs from it.
"Good. Last thing is an interview and shoot with... Reboot? What is that?" I asked, so that I could prepare myself accordingly.
"They do like... recovery devices for athletes" he simply replied and shrugged.
"So... the interview will probably be more about... your athletic life" I said.
"Yeah, I doubt they'll ask me how many girls I fucked last month" he shot back and I just raised an eyebrow, my eyes still on my computer.
"How many girls did you fuck last month?" I asked him, more rhetorically than seriously.
"Pah, maybe 10,15?" he chuckled.
"I sure hope you're wearing a condom. I have no interest in dealing with either an STD or a pregnancy. Or both." I said and glared at him.
"Yeah, chill. I have everything under control. And I don't know why we're discussing my sex life once again" he said annoyedly and stood up to walk to the kitchen.
I started packing up my stuff now as we were finished talking about the January plans.
"Well, I'll see you... uhhh... sometime. I'm just a call away if you need anything" I said and pressed my lips together in a smile.
"Mhm. Bye bye" he just replied and I walked myself out alone.
The rest of the week thankfully passed quickly and without any more complications. It seems like Pedri had been serious about him being abstinent as I hadn't seen any videos of him out with girls on Twitter. On Sunday, Barca was playing against Atletico and I made myself comfortable with my Dad on the couch in the living room after having brought the kids to bed. Mum had gone out for a "girls night" with her friends, but I was happy to have some time alone with my father.
"How is work going?" he asked, not trying to hide his curiosity.
"Good. He is a pain in the ass but I'm just trying to stand above things and do my job" I said, pointing at the TV when the number 8 was being shown.
It was my first time actually following a player in a match, until now I had mostly been the superficial watcher, stopping whatever chore I was doing to stand behind the couch to watch two or three minutes until I'd continue doing my work. But now I wanted to see if the hype around Pedri was comprehensible - and yes, it was. That guy was just amazing on the ball, dribbling past other players and he helped score the first and only goal of the evening.
When the game was finished, I debated on sending him a congratulatory message, but eventually decided against it, we weren't close at all and it wasn't part of my job to compliment him on literally doing his.
