art • joão félix

a warm welcome

• • •

after getting dressed and ready in more appropriate outfits, aka dress pants, a crop top and a blazer -i wanted to look formal, but also hot, sue me-, we were finally ready to go greet the new kid on the team.

we took two separate cars, because there were seven of us, so the girls and i went in mine, and the four guys rode with ferran.

once again, ronnie beat me and sarah to the aux, and put on the hamilton soundtrack again, which made me laugh.

"how does hamilton, an arrogant, immigrant, orphan, bastard, whore's son. somehow endorse thomas jefferson, his enemy. a man he's despised since the beginning. just to keep me from winning." all three of us sang along to the start of 'your obedient servant'.

sarah, who had only seen hamilton twice -on ronnie's and my orders-, spoke up. "dude, lin-manuel miranda is a lyrical genius."

ronnie and i shared a knowing look and nodded.

sarah hummed along to the songs while on her phone, which i saw through the rearview mirror. "hey, who are you texting?" i asked, curious.

"i'm not texting, i'm just looking up this félix guy. he's kind of hot." she shrugged.

ronnie cackled. "show me." she took one look at sarah's phone and immediately declared: "not my type." she paused for a second, contemplating. "actually, he's kind of your type, claw."

she showed me a picture. "he's hot, i thought so when i first saw him at the 2022 world cup. and a week later, my for you page was full of edits of him." i commented.

i continued. "i never thought twice about him because he played with ronaldo, and i can't be liking a guy who plays on the same team as barça's arch-enemy." i shrugged.

this logic was true. if you supported barça, you immediately became a messi fan and started disliking ronaldo. it's just the way it is. i'll admit ronaldo is a great player, there's a reason they call him the goat, but the real goat is messi.

even if he isn't in barça anymore...

the girls, who had grown up with the same mentality, agreed. "but now that he plays for barça..." ronnie trailed off.

i laughed at her comment. "we're way too busy with the band, come on." i smacked her on the arm playfully.

sarah shrugged. "of course we're busy, but so are they. think about it. dating a football payer who gets up early for training and goes to bed late for games totally aligns with our schedule when we have concerts." she pointed out.

i'll give her this: sarah was born to be a negotiator. she had a way of convincing you about everything that come out of her mouth. it's why her and our manager were so close: they worked on business negotiations together.

i laughed. "you guys really want me to get back out on the dating game."

"yeah, you're always home. it's depressing. and frankly, you could date anyone you wanted. i mean, look at you: gorgeous, kind of famous... you could pull louis patridge if you wanted to." ronnie shrugged.

i glared at her when we hit a red light. "i don't want to. he lives in the US. i'm not giving up barcelona for any man."

that much was true. i took pride in my home town. i'd been to los angeles, and paris, and london, but i would never leave barcelona.