Cause and Effect

Thirteen

A/N: these two... <3  Mesut is staying at Arsenal... :)  Alexis went to UTD to miss open goals... :/

Alexis picked me up at my house a few hours later, after I'd had time to get ready, and we drove the twenty minutes to his house.

"It's been a while since I've been here," I said, as we walked in the front door, and were greeted joyously by Atom and Humber, his dogs.

"Too right," he nodded. "We always go out. But we've been out so much lately, what with pre-season and all, I figured it would be nicer to have some lazy time together."

"Agreed," I smiled at him. "I'm tired after practice anyways."

"Hmmm, at least we didn't have extra attack practice as well today," he mused. "Oh! I forgot to ask if you were okay? What happened with Neymar earlier?"

My face fell at the recollection of the events that had occurred during training.

"I don't know what happened with him, one minute we were talking like normal, and he said you guys had made it up together, and the next, he fully turned on me, and said all these ridiculous things."

Alexis frowned, taking me in his arms, and pressing a kiss to my forehead.

"Don't let him get to you, you're amazing," he murmured. "If he wants to be like that, ignore him. Besides..." He looked at me, and chuckled. "You have me."

I laughed, and stood on my tiptoes to press my lips to his, and he responded eagerly, his arms moving to hold my waist. Both of us were still laughing a little. It seemed strange how things had worked out for us. But when we pulled apart, and I saw the happiness that emanated from his brown eyes, I was satisfied. When he smiled, it was like the universe had blessed us.

"Nia, will you be my girlfriend?" He asked, the smile still present on his face.

"Of course," I grinned happily, not even needing to think about it.

We made each other happy, we would be silly not to give this relationship a try.

He kissed me again quickly, before Atom and Humber, annoyed at their lack of attention, interrupted us.

"I need to feed them," he told me. "But I got you something, it's in the living room on the coffee table, you go and I'll join you in a minute."

"Okay," I nodded. "Thank you!"

"No problem," he winked at me, before disappearing with his beloved dogs.

I entered the living room, which was really a large open area with several lounge chairs, a TV with a couple gaming consoles, and a stack of games in the corner.

I wasn't surprised by the stack of video games. Alexis wasn't much of a gamer, I knew, but he was a bit of a collector, and he liked to try new things. No, what surprised me was the big Nike box on the coffee table in the middle of the room. It had 'Nia' written on top in permanent marker.

"Lex, what have you done," I chuckled, picking up the box, and sitting on one of the lounges to open it.

I flipped open the lid, and moved the white tissue paper to the side to reveal a pair of gold Air Jordans.

"No you didn't," I gasped, pulling them out, and turning them over.

Sure enough, there on the side was Michael Jordan's signature. At this point, Alexis entered the room, and I leapt up and flew to hug him.

"How did you manage this!?" I exclaimed. "This is incredible, thank you so much!"

"Believe me," he chuckled, "I'd do it a hundred times if I knew I'd get that reaction from you."