Sure Thing • Gavi

Bonus Chapter 5: Roman Holiday

🎶 Buona sera ciao ciao — Italian Disco Mafia 🎶

27th December 2027

The past few months had been rough, very rough. After the attacks, I was so afraid to return to Barcelona, but I had to. I was afraid of the people's opinion on me - and there were surprisingly many trying to blame me for the tragedy. My uncle had been put behind bars, but that hadn't stopped the Catalan independence movement to continue fighting for their own state. Only in November had I attended my first game of the season at Camp Nou, and Pablo was so overjoyed that he somehow managed to score a hat-trick. Which showed me that his need for me was stronger than anyone trying to separate us - and I needed to be there for him more than anything else.

We still hadn't talked about a new wedding date, because it was somehow a weird feeling to re-plan everything, and wanting to celebrate everything again. In the midst of all the stress, Chiara had delivered a stillborn baby boy, who she named Mateo, in memory of his father. As soon as she had physically recovered, she had packed her bags and booked a one-way ticket to Argentina for herself and her daughter. Since then, neither Irene, nor me had heard much from her, except for a few photo updates from Matilda since we both were her godmothers. But I could understand that she wanted to get away from everything and everyone - especially me. We had had an extensive talk and she obviously didn't blame me for what happened, but somehow, deep down, she would always associate me with her husband's death.

Christmas had come around and Pablo and I both hadn't been in the mood to celebrate in grand fashion with any of our families, also because the football season wasn't exactly going well - Barca was currently only sitting at 5th in the table. And so, the perfect man he was, he had surprised me with a trip to Rome over the Christmas days, to get away from our daily lives. We had gone to midnight mass at St Peter's on Christmas Eve, which was such a touching moment. He had also played his celebrity card and his assistant had managed to get us a private audience with the Pope himself. Pablo brought him a signed jersey and in exchange, we had gotten a blessing for our relationship and future marriage.

We were currently visiting the millionth church on this trip and admiring the breathtaking architecture as we sat in one of the rows in the back, my head leaned on his shoulders.
"Hello, excuse me?" we heard someone say and turned our heads to see a priest. "Hi, are you Gavi?" he asked and I smiled, letting out a soft laugh.
"Yeah, yeah, I am" my fiancé replied and smiled too.
"This is so cool, I'm a huge Barca fan! Could I have a picture with you?" he asked and I signalled him to give me his phone so that I could take it. They stood next to each other and I clicked the button a few times until I gave him back his phone with a "Here you go".

"Thank you so much, if there's anything I can do for you, or special prayer intentions, please just tell me" he said and I nodded.
"Thank you so much,-" I started, but Pablo cut me off.
"Actually, yes, there's something you could do. Could you marry us?" he asked and both the priest's and my jaws dropped.
"Pablo..." I whispered.
"What? We want to get married, but we both know that it's... just not cut to be like we planned last year" he replied and I knew he was right.

"Um... I can do it but... are you sure that you wouldn't want your family or friends with you?" the priest asked, but Pablo and I just looked at each other with glimmering eyes. We only needed each other.
"We're sure. We were supposed to get married already, so we have all the documents, I'm sure I can forward them via e-mail" I told the priest.
"Um... ok then! Uh... this is unexpected..." the priest stammered but I just grabbed Pablo's hand - I was so excited. We were getting married!

"Let's say we meet here again at 5pm? I'm not offended if you have second thoughts..." the priest said and we nodded.
"We won't have. Thank you so much, Father" Pablo said and hugged him in his ecstasy. The priest turned around and walked away, mumbling something to himself as my fiancé and I walked out of the church.
"Oh my gosh! We're really doing this?" I half-asked, half-exclaimed.
"We are! We're getting married!" he replied happily and pressed a kiss onto my lips.