Football AU: Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think 22/22
Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think 22/22
Rating: R (swearing, grownup stuff, etc.)
Summary: The End
April 2019
“Enzo or Boucheron?”
“The long ones,” Stevie bluffs, feeling reasonably confident that Alex has long ago made up her mind about which earrings go with the LBD selected for the evening more than a fortnight ago.
Alex seems to be weighing his answer in front of the gigantic living room mirror before the verdict validates Stevie’s suspicions.
“I love you, pet, but you should try to hold on to your day job best you can,” she sing songs affectionately, dropping the Boucherons back into their minuscule velvet box. “Lilly, would you get the door, love?”
“You already know who it is, he practically lives here,” comes the predictably terse reply, although Lilly-Ella does drag her shredded denim and black tights-clad legs across the sprawling hallway.
“Oh, look. It’s Uncle Chubby!”
She resists the urge to roll her eyes out because she isn’t a teenage cliché, dammit, grungy jeans and hand-painted black tee notwithstanding.
“¡Hola, cariño!” Xabi smiles his most devastating PR smile as he slides past Lily-Ella in an understated breeze of vetiver. The tailored suit and shiny dress shoes are predictably spotless. “I have something for you, wipe that Gerrard pout off your face,” he says casually and hands her a black square. Lily-Ella immediately recognizes it as a vinyl with her name scrawled on it in barely legible handwriting, next to some platitude about how music makes your heart soar or some shit.
“Fuck you!” she spits out, but the corners of her mouth betray her. “I still hate you, just so you know.”
“You wouldn’t let The Black Keys get between us, surely? Not when Stacked Actors happen to be back in town in two weeks… this time not on a school night,” Xabi smirks conspiratorially, strolling into the living room to kiss Alex on the cheek.
“You know he’s not allowed to illegally sneak you into dive shitholes with lax underage drinking policies. Not on a week night,” Lily’s mother reminds her. “She’ll get over it, what you have is special,” she winks at Xabi and Stevie pounces on cue.
“Remember when you used to cling to Xabi’s leg every time he came over? Like a little monkey? You told everyone at school you were going to marry him when you grew up,” he says earnestly, because tormenting your moody teen is just more fun that way.
“I think there was a castle involved, no?” Xabi reminisces as he makes a beeline for Stevie, who’s on the verge of losing his battle with his right-hand cufflink. “We were going to get married and live in a castle in Spain, remember?” he says while expertly clasping Stevie’s cufflink.
Lily-Ella loses her resolve to play it cool, but still says as nonchalantly as possible:
“Remember when you were fat? Oh, yeah… that was last year.”
Xabi sees Stevie trying not to crack up, ignores him and his spawn, takes two steps back and gives him a critical once over.
“You are not wearing that shirt with this suit.”
The pronouncement sounds pretty final to Stevie already.
“Told you,” Alex mutters and shoves half a closet’s worth of unused shirts hanging over the sofa in Xabi’s arms.
“I said: Xabi won’t let you represent the club at an official function looking like an accountant, did I not?”
“Oy, what’s wrong with this shirt?” Stevie asks in a last-ditch attempt kind of tone, but Alex’s hands are already at work undoing his tie knot.
“Everything,” Xabi frowns, going through various pastel versions of the same blue shirt until he stops at the last one on the pile. “I have already spent three hours with Adidas designers today, my eyeballs are tired from looking at ugly, mismatched shirts already.”
Steven laughs despite himself because he can see the scene so vividly in his mind, he can practically feel the football kit designers cowering under Xabi’s stare. He imagines Xabi keeps a massive REJECTED stamp dripping with red ink somewhere in his desk at Melwood which he’s now slamming straight over his shirt choice.
“There. Put this on.”
“You’re so whipped,” Lily-Ella giggles, clutching her vinyl to her chest and doing her best to ignore her father’s glare.
“I look like a proper ponce,” he says later in the car as Alex puts the finishing touches on her makeup.
“You’ll be fine, stop fidgeting,” she smiles into her compact. “Didn’t you practice your speech with Xabi?”
Stevie makes a face.
“Yeah, he said to start with a joke. Very helpful, tha’. He knows I fucking hate speaking at these fucking posh events, goes and organizes the Liverpool Awards or what have you… Like a fancy dress party is what we need to end the season. Not even his job, what the hell’s a gala got to do with football strategy and signing new players anyway, we already pay a bunch of jackasses for PR stuff.”
Alex knows there’s zero real annoyance behind his whinging and lets him to his mumbling knowing he’ll eventually get the better of his stage freight. She takes his hand in front of the photographers and smiles glowingly before she steps back when the reporters corral Stevie and Xabi, Mr. and Mr. Liverpool headlines guaranteed in tomorrow’s papers because they’re an original lot. Alex beams with pride watching Stevie’s nerves evaporate the moment he steps into manager mode.
When he later takes to the speaker’s dais to rapturous applause, Stevie’s eyes dart to their table and she has no doubt about where they’re anchored, doesn’t even have to look to see Xabi’s lips curl almost indiscernibly.
“Been getting a lot of the same question already, so let me get this out of the way first. Yes, Xabi Alonso did dress me tonight. Says real men wear pink.”
Stevie allows for some time for the merriment at his own expense to die down in the room and continues in an increasingly assured tone of voice.
“Probably gonna murder me in cold blood for telling you this, but… Xabi’s a man of many talents. He not only organized this fine gathering, picked the best wines to go with tonight’s entrees, is able to dress himself and runs one of the biggest football clubs in the world, but he’s also quite a gifted story-teller. He was kind enough to translate for me a few chapters of a crime novel he wrote and well… you lot are going to have to go out and pay for it, but…”
There’s laughter threaded with disbelief going around the tables and Stevie thinks some of the mumbling that barely makes its way all the way up to the dais is Carra grumbling about how having to put up with Stevie on a daily basis would drive anyone to murder.
“I’m just a guy from Huyton, no literary critic, me… so I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell Xabi that his story reminded me quite a bit of Liverpool. I know for a fact that everyone at the club wants… hopes that Xabi’s story with Liverpool has many, many chapters still left to unfold because he’s where he belongs. We all know how much he loves the club and we’re all better for it and myself… well… I can’t even argue with the London papers, I’d be lost every single day without Xabi’s drive and determination to keep it all together and make sure we slaughter London clubs on a regular basis.”
The room is so quiet, it would normally be intimidating to realize how much attention they’re paying to his every word, but Stevie doesn’t remember they exist anyway. He sees Xabi across the room, looks for any sign that he gets it and when he knows without shadow of a doubt that he does, that he knows it all and won’t let any mathematics or statistics get in the way, Stevie adds:
“Here at Liverpool, we’ve been written off many times, us, but we always find a way back. So Xabi, thank you for both stories... They’re both far from over. The future is unwritten.”
Rating: R (swearing, grownup stuff, etc.)
Summary: The End
April 2019
“Enzo or Boucheron?”
“The long ones,” Stevie bluffs, feeling reasonably confident that Alex has long ago made up her mind about which earrings go with the LBD selected for the evening more than a fortnight ago.
Alex seems to be weighing his answer in front of the gigantic living room mirror before the verdict validates Stevie’s suspicions.
“I love you, pet, but you should try to hold on to your day job best you can,” she sing songs affectionately, dropping the Boucherons back into their minuscule velvet box. “Lilly, would you get the door, love?”
“You already know who it is, he practically lives here,” comes the predictably terse reply, although Lilly-Ella does drag her shredded denim and black tights-clad legs across the sprawling hallway.
“Oh, look. It’s Uncle Chubby!”
She resists the urge to roll her eyes out because she isn’t a teenage cliché, dammit, grungy jeans and hand-painted black tee notwithstanding.
“¡Hola, cariño!” Xabi smiles his most devastating PR smile as he slides past Lily-Ella in an understated breeze of vetiver. The tailored suit and shiny dress shoes are predictably spotless. “I have something for you, wipe that Gerrard pout off your face,” he says casually and hands her a black square. Lily-Ella immediately recognizes it as a vinyl with her name scrawled on it in barely legible handwriting, next to some platitude about how music makes your heart soar or some shit.
“Fuck you!” she spits out, but the corners of her mouth betray her. “I still hate you, just so you know.”
“You wouldn’t let The Black Keys get between us, surely? Not when Stacked Actors happen to be back in town in two weeks… this time not on a school night,” Xabi smirks conspiratorially, strolling into the living room to kiss Alex on the cheek.
“You know he’s not allowed to illegally sneak you into dive shitholes with lax underage drinking policies. Not on a week night,” Lily’s mother reminds her. “She’ll get over it, what you have is special,” she winks at Xabi and Stevie pounces on cue.
“Remember when you used to cling to Xabi’s leg every time he came over? Like a little monkey? You told everyone at school you were going to marry him when you grew up,” he says earnestly, because tormenting your moody teen is just more fun that way.
“I think there was a castle involved, no?” Xabi reminisces as he makes a beeline for Stevie, who’s on the verge of losing his battle with his right-hand cufflink. “We were going to get married and live in a castle in Spain, remember?” he says while expertly clasping Stevie’s cufflink.
Lily-Ella loses her resolve to play it cool, but still says as nonchalantly as possible:
“Remember when you were fat? Oh, yeah… that was last year.”
Xabi sees Stevie trying not to crack up, ignores him and his spawn, takes two steps back and gives him a critical once over.
“You are not wearing that shirt with this suit.”
The pronouncement sounds pretty final to Stevie already.
“Told you,” Alex mutters and shoves half a closet’s worth of unused shirts hanging over the sofa in Xabi’s arms.
“I said: Xabi won’t let you represent the club at an official function looking like an accountant, did I not?”
“Oy, what’s wrong with this shirt?” Stevie asks in a last-ditch attempt kind of tone, but Alex’s hands are already at work undoing his tie knot.
“Everything,” Xabi frowns, going through various pastel versions of the same blue shirt until he stops at the last one on the pile. “I have already spent three hours with Adidas designers today, my eyeballs are tired from looking at ugly, mismatched shirts already.”
Steven laughs despite himself because he can see the scene so vividly in his mind, he can practically feel the football kit designers cowering under Xabi’s stare. He imagines Xabi keeps a massive REJECTED stamp dripping with red ink somewhere in his desk at Melwood which he’s now slamming straight over his shirt choice.
“There. Put this on.”
“You’re so whipped,” Lily-Ella giggles, clutching her vinyl to her chest and doing her best to ignore her father’s glare.
“I look like a proper ponce,” he says later in the car as Alex puts the finishing touches on her makeup.
“You’ll be fine, stop fidgeting,” she smiles into her compact. “Didn’t you practice your speech with Xabi?”
Stevie makes a face.
“Yeah, he said to start with a joke. Very helpful, tha’. He knows I fucking hate speaking at these fucking posh events, goes and organizes the Liverpool Awards or what have you… Like a fancy dress party is what we need to end the season. Not even his job, what the hell’s a gala got to do with football strategy and signing new players anyway, we already pay a bunch of jackasses for PR stuff.”
Alex knows there’s zero real annoyance behind his whinging and lets him to his mumbling knowing he’ll eventually get the better of his stage freight. She takes his hand in front of the photographers and smiles glowingly before she steps back when the reporters corral Stevie and Xabi, Mr. and Mr. Liverpool headlines guaranteed in tomorrow’s papers because they’re an original lot. Alex beams with pride watching Stevie’s nerves evaporate the moment he steps into manager mode.
When he later takes to the speaker’s dais to rapturous applause, Stevie’s eyes dart to their table and she has no doubt about where they’re anchored, doesn’t even have to look to see Xabi’s lips curl almost indiscernibly.
“Been getting a lot of the same question already, so let me get this out of the way first. Yes, Xabi Alonso did dress me tonight. Says real men wear pink.”
Stevie allows for some time for the merriment at his own expense to die down in the room and continues in an increasingly assured tone of voice.
“Probably gonna murder me in cold blood for telling you this, but… Xabi’s a man of many talents. He not only organized this fine gathering, picked the best wines to go with tonight’s entrees, is able to dress himself and runs one of the biggest football clubs in the world, but he’s also quite a gifted story-teller. He was kind enough to translate for me a few chapters of a crime novel he wrote and well… you lot are going to have to go out and pay for it, but…”
There’s laughter threaded with disbelief going around the tables and Stevie thinks some of the mumbling that barely makes its way all the way up to the dais is Carra grumbling about how having to put up with Stevie on a daily basis would drive anyone to murder.
“I’m just a guy from Huyton, no literary critic, me… so I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell Xabi that his story reminded me quite a bit of Liverpool. I know for a fact that everyone at the club wants… hopes that Xabi’s story with Liverpool has many, many chapters still left to unfold because he’s where he belongs. We all know how much he loves the club and we’re all better for it and myself… well… I can’t even argue with the London papers, I’d be lost every single day without Xabi’s drive and determination to keep it all together and make sure we slaughter London clubs on a regular basis.”
The room is so quiet, it would normally be intimidating to realize how much attention they’re paying to his every word, but Stevie doesn’t remember they exist anyway. He sees Xabi across the room, looks for any sign that he gets it and when he knows without shadow of a doubt that he does, that he knows it all and won’t let any mathematics or statistics get in the way, Stevie adds:
“Here at Liverpool, we’ve been written off many times, us, but we always find a way back. So Xabi, thank you for both stories... They’re both far from over. The future is unwritten.”