exercise a little caution (part 2) - xavi fic
In the beginning, they don't spend mornings together. After the first time, Xavi gets up at six like always. He goes through his normal morning routine, a little groggier than usual: opens the blinds in the kitchen, checks the news, turns his phone on. Gets dressed. David doesn't wake, so Xavi doesn't wake him. He leaves his bedroom curtains closed and a note on the counter that says: Help yourself to anything in the fridge. Gone for a run.
When he comes back, David is gone, and Xavi is prepared for it.
The second time, David wakes up, dresses and leaves when Xavi does, refusing all offers of breakfast. He kisses Xavi's cheek in the parking garage and says, "See you later." Xavi doesn't reply but he does wait until David's car leaves to go back up to the lobby.
So Xavi thinks they have a routine. David never asks to join him, always leaves with Xavi. If he thinks about it too long he will wonder why David needs to get back so early, but he knows all the answers to that one.
Xavi marks the night at his parents’ as the beginning, but it isn’t till much later that David is in Xavi’s bed and he looks up at Xavi and says, “I wanted to kiss you, that night.”
“Why didn’t you?”
David smiles, pleased and laughing at himself. “I was scared,” he says, and Xavi doesn’t believe him. “When were you ever scared,” he says, “I can’t think of a single time you were scared in front of me.”
“What,” David says, drawing out the word like he is appalled. “You are delusional. I am scared in front of you all the time in training.”
Xavi grins. “Shut up,” he says, and sits up a bit, resting on his side. He props his head on his hand and looks at David. “Like you’re scared of me when there’s psychos like Gerard around.”
“But he’s just a liability,” David says. “You’re terrifying. Your disappointed face-“
He pokes a finger at the corner of Xavi’s mouth. “It’s so-“
Xavi raises his eyebrows.
“-It’s so… disappointed.”
Xavi kind of wants to start laughing but he thinks he’s being insulted. “What are you talking about? I don’t have a disappointed face.”
David laughs. “You have it on right now,” he says, and covers up Xavi’s mouth with his hand. “Stop it,” he says, even as Xavi ducks away, “Stop being disappointed at me.”
“I hate you,” Xavi says, and tries to get a hold of David as he chases Xavi for a kiss. “Get off me.”
David kisses him anyway.
“It could be worse,” he says, and kisses Xavi’s cheek, and temple, and neck. “You could look disappointed and then cry.”
“Like Iker,” Xavi whispers, and David nods. “Yeah, like Iker.” They both laugh.
“Don’t tell him I said that,” Xavi says, and pulls the covers over their heads.
He went to her house once. It was a couple of years before Villa joined Barcelona, back when they were just national teammates, casually friendly, comfortable with each other from the time they had known each other. A group of them went to a dinner party at David and Patricia's house and Xavi can't remember the evening but he thinks it was pleasant: good food, good wine, good conversation. It's something that he has forgotten entirely until a month into the whole affair. He comes across the appointment in an old diary and spends a self-indulgent half hour wondering if she remembers meeting him, if she thought much of him.
He tears the leather cover off, and puts the pages into the recycling, but he can't shake that thought.
One day they are lying together on Xavi’s sofa, empty plates and glasses from lunch set across the coffee table and the blinds half closed to keep the sun out of their eyes. David’s hands drift across Xavi’s stomach, rucking up the material there slightly. Xavi is leaning back against his chest and can’t see David’s expression.
“We have a day off tomorrow,” David says. “We should do something.”
Xavi is sort of distracted by the feel of David’s cheek resting against his temple.
“So,” he says. “What are you thinking of?”
David lets out a little breath of laughter and Xavi smiles for no reason. He’s comfortable.
“We never had our day out,” David says, but even though Xavi smiles it isn’t as funny this time. Xavi wouldn’t want to now.
“No, we didn’t,” Xavi says, and then he turns into David a little, brushes his lips along David’s jaw, and David responds.
Mostly at night, lying in bed on his own and staring up at the ceiling, Xavi wonders if anyone knows. He sounds out conversations to himself: goes over everything he could say or not say, the excuses he could make, the truths he could tell. There’s a part of him that knows he will never have these conversations, but there’s a part of him too that wants to have them, so it’s only prudent to be prepared.
The hardest conversations are the ones he has with his family. He doesn’t get very far with those. How could he explain how it happened? It started, and that was bad enough, but then it continued, and now-
He tries comparing it to a different conversation, imagines telling his family that he cheated, in football. Match fixing. He tries to imagine that he throws a game. Only, it’s inconceivable, this, it’s too far outside of Xavi’s world, and so he’s back at square one.
Come December he throws a party. They’ve been on at him for ages, and he gives in.
“You’ve had your family round,” David says, “Why not us?”
“Hey, hey,” Puyol leans into the conversation, “I thought we were your family.”
Xavi shakes his head at him, and Puyol shakes his in return, hair going all over the place. “Bastard,” he says. “What betrayal.”
Andrés smiles at him over Puyol’s shoulder and Xavi laughs.
“Fine,” he says, “You children, you can come over.”
“Party at Xavi’s!” Puyol says, and David claps a hand to Xavi’s back.
“Don’t worry,” he says, “I’ll help you get ready.”
David brings dessert. “You didn’t have to,” says Xavi, taking the dishes from him and trying to peek under the lid. David shrugs. “I like cooking,” he says, and Xavi smiles at him.
“That isn’t cooking,” he says. “That’s baking.”
David narrows his eyes. “Do you want it or not?”
Xavi grins, teasing, and walks back into the kitchen. “Thank you,” he says, over his shoulder.
David follows and catches him up at the counter, crowds Xavi against the cupboard doors and puts his arms around him. He presses kisses to his neck and Xavi leans back against him.
“Hi,” David says. Xavi takes a moment.
David turns him around after a while, lets Xavi frame his face with his hands and only stares back at Xavi. They kiss, slow and languid. Xavi can feel David’s hands warm on his waist. David pulls away.
“Let’s do this in your bedroom,” he says, and Xavi laughs. “Is that a line?”
David gives him a weird look.
“- I need a line on you?”
“No.” Xavi supposes not.
But David comes back to him nevertheless, puts his arms around Xavi and whispers things in his ear.
“I don’t have time,” Xavi says, weakly and with little intention behind it. “The food-“
David grins. “But I brought dessert,” he says. “And that gives you at least an hour.”
It’s an hour and a half before Xavi makes it back to the kitchen. David doesn’t get dressed again but concedes to wear an apron. Xavi has his hands over his face, laughing behind them, and David has him up against the counter again before he knows what’s happening.
“I don’t think,” Xavi says, between laughter and David kissing him, “That this is helping.”
David is laughing too. Xavi groans.
“There is a lot of naked you,” he says, “Very near to me.”
David just lifts his eyebrows, challenging Xavi, and Xavi pushes him away.
“I have to cook,” he says. “Put some clothes on or I won’t be able to feed my guests with a straight face.”
David comes out again in jeans, and Xavi lets it go.
“Just keep out of the way,” he says.
They’re in bed again, because Xavi went to shower, and got waylaid, and David hadn’t been wearing a lot anyway. They’re lying in a tangled mess of sheets, with the late afternoon sun shining through the blinds. David is watching Xavi, and Xavi is talking about who is coming.
“Andrés, Victor, Anna and Yolanda. No, Anna couldn’t come, she has her mother staying. Then: Carles; Malena; Geri.”
“Gerard is coming?”
Xavi sighs. “Yes.” And then, with admonishment, “He’s nice.”
“I know he’s nice,” David says, and leans in to kiss the curve of Xavi’s neck. “But he’s annoying.”
“You’re annoying,” Xavi says, and David looks at him kind of shocked, kind of pleased. “What did you say?”
“You’re annoying,” Xavi says again. “You annoy people.”
“When you say people,” David says, and trails off. He leans in again and grazes his teeth over Xavi’s shoulder. Xavi shakes him off.
“You mean you,” David finishes. “Am I annoying you?”
Xavi considers that since David is asking him this having distracted him from his plan for the day, having got him into bed in the middle of the afternoon, being as he is currently doing his utmost either to annoy or to turn him on, either way, yes, David is annoying.
“Yes,” he says. “You annoy me.” It sounds like an endearment, and Xavi is afraid that he half meant it as such. David kisses him, sweetly and against a smile. “Yes,” he says. “I do annoy you.”
He kisses Xavi again, kisses him with intent. “And I intend to annoy you for the rest of the afternoon.”
“Okay,” Xavi says. “But when my guests arrive and their food is cold and their wine corked and their host in bed, I will blame you.”
David grins. “Yes,” he agrees. “Blame me. They’ll say I’m a terrible influence.”
“Terrible,” Xavi says, and puts his arms around David.
“David,” Carles says, hand at Malena’s back as she leans forward for her glass. David looks up, and Xavi offers Malena more wine.
“Where’s Patricia tonight? Couldn’t she make it?”
“David’s ashamed of us,” Victor says, and they laugh. David grins. “No,” he says, “Zaida is poorly, she didn’t want to be left alone.”
“Children,” Carles says, and shakes his head, “The life of a parent.”
“Don’t bitch,” Gerard says, “That could be you soon,” and he winks at Malena. She rolls her eyes, as Carles shoots back, “Or you.”
Gerard only smiles in response, a smile so cloyingly serene that Carles throws a screwed up napkin at him.
“God help us,” says Victor from across the room and Andrés shakes his head at him. Victor grins and Andrés says, to David, “Is Zaida okay?”
David waves it away. “Yes,” he says, “No, she’s fine, it’s just a bug.”
He turns, and catches Xavi staring at him. He looks back at Xavi, who doesn’t know what to do. Under the pretense of disposing of the near empty bottle in his hand, he leaves the room.
The kitchen is a welcome relief. The food is ready, laid out on the counter by David earlier, when Xavi was busy somewhere else. He straightens a few of the trays, and hangs a dish towel properly on the oven door. His hands shake slightly when he isn’t holding anything. He closes his eyes, briefly, and when he opens them again the light seems harsh. He thinks that there is a way to change that.
Andrés comes in, while he is standing by the light switch. It is all hooked up to a central control system, the kind that is at least ten years ahead of Xavi’s technological development, and he frowns at Andrés.
“Okay?” says Andrés.
“No. Can you - what is this thing?”
They look it at together. Andrés succeeds in lowering the temperature, at least, and Xavi finds the controls for automatic time controlled setting of lights, but neither can work out the dimmer control.
“Hang on,” says Andrés, and he goes to get Victor.
Xavi sort of wants to laugh at him, but he figures he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on right now.
They stand back and watch Victor. Andrés says, quietly, “How are you otherwise?”
Xavi waits a while before responding. He isn’t sure what Andrés needs to hear.
“I’m good,” he says, in the end. “Just, trying to settle in to a new place. I’m not used to it.”
“Of course,” Andrés says, somewhat absent-mindedly, and then, as Victor straightens up and the lights go down a little, he says, “Bravo,” and smiles at Victor.
“Now show me,” says Xavi, and the conversation is put on hold.
“You liar,” David is saying, “You utter, utter liar, that is not what you said to me.”
Victor is laughing and laughing and everyone around them looks amused. Xavi lost track of the conversation, moving between people, going back and forth to the kitchen. They are arguing, furiously and amusedly, about a drunken comment Victor may or may not have made.
“I’ll show you,” David says, “I’ll show you, you liar.” He is digging in his pockets, and looking around him.
“God damnit,” he says, “Where is my phone.”
“I’ll show you,” he confides to Yolanda, who laughs back at him. “You can see what you married.”
“Oh,” she says, and smiles wickedly at her husband. “I do.”
There are jeers and catcalls all around, and David stands up, searching around the room. “Xavi,” he says, “Where is my phone?”
Xavi catches his eye and David backtracks. “What?”
“I’ll get it,” Xavi says, with an eye on the rest, and he goes into the hall. David follows him. “What,” he says, “Where is it?”
“My room,” Xavi says, quiet under the noise.
David looks surprised and then glances involuntarily towards the living room. He looks back at Xavi and laughs, almost embarrassed. “Sorry,” he says, although it’s not clear what for.
Xavi shrugs.
“I’ll get it,” David says, and then he doubles back. “I might need help,” he says, “You know. Finding it.”
He smiles, and Xavi has the childish urge to hit him. He walks away, into the kitchen, and David doesn’t follow.
When he goes back to the living room, Andrés finds him again. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Xavi says, and it takes all his willpower not to snap at Andrés. “I’m fine.”
Everyone has gone home, everyone but David. Xavi turns around and there he is, lying across the length of the couch. He crosses his arms behind his head and smiles. Xavi just stands there, uselessly.
“Good night?” says David.
Xavi snorts. “Yeah,” he says, “Except there was this one guy who just wouldn’t leave.”
David laughs. “He sounds annoying.”
There’s irritation rising in Xavi, the same irritation he’s felt all evening, every time he looks at David. He could say something, but he is trying so hard to end the evening well. He just stares at David and he counts to ten. He gets there and then he can say, “I’m tired. I’m going to clear up and then get to bed.”
David blinks. “Okay,” he says, after a pause, and sits up. “I’ll help.”
Xavi only manages counting to three this time.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
David gives him a disbelieving look. “No,” he says, patiently. “I can stay for a while, help you clean up.”
Xavi kicks back: suddenly, inexplicably, furious. “If I had a sick daughter,” he says, and it comes out so snide and he hates it. He looks up and David looks back at him, incredulous.
“Fuck you,” says David. “Don’t-“
He cuts himself off and turns away. Xavi is shaking. David turns back, points at Xavi.
“Fuck you for suddenly being the moral standard here.”
And just like that, Xavi deflates. He doesn’t know who he thinks he’s kidding. David must see him visibly slump because he steps right into Xavi’s space and puts his arms around him. Xavi is so tired.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Sorry - “
David presses his lips to Xavi’s head. “No - me too,” he says, and holds Xavi tighter.
Xavi is so tired, so fucking tired, and he’s keyed up from the night, from holding himself back all evening. He’s been holding himself away from David, stopping himself from leaning into David or sitting by him, putting a hand on him and smiling at him like they smile at each other when it’s just them, in the flat, in bed, underneath the covers.
He has spent all evening facing the reality of what they are doing, confronting it, and he’s too tired.
“Don’t worry about the dishes,” David says. “We’ll do them in the morning.”
He stays, Xavi doesn’t even think to tell him not to, and for the first time since the beginning they just go to sleep, together.
After that, things change. David is more affectionate. Out of the house and out of their private sphere. At training he is more attentive; he will hang around Xavi more often than not, touching his hair and kissing his cheek, and slinging an arm around his shoulder as he pulls close to Xavi and says things low and intimate to make Xavi laugh or roll his eyes and push David away.
It’s nothing of note, nothing to raise suspicions, but enough to set them apart. It is enough that people start to notice and start to assume things, little things, like that not only will David sit next to him on the bus, but at meals too. If David is waiting in the corridor someone will tell him where Xavi is. When Xavi’s car breaks down, Leo pats David on the back and says, “I hope you always wanted to be a chauffeur.”
As for Xavi, he finds himself looking for David automatically, even when they’re walking the short distance across the tarmac from the plane to the terminal, the terminal to the bus, the bus to the hotel, he checks for David, slows down to let him catch up and turns into him when they stand waiting.
They are standing as such, one day in a foreign country outside another hotel, squinting behind sunglasses with kit bags at their feet. David is standing astride his, and leaning slightly into Xavi. They are laughing at something incongruous, something stupid and born of the exhaustion of travel.
David puts a hand on his cheek, soft and affectionate, apropos of nothing at all, and Xavi does not flinch but just smiles back at him.
And then Xavi knows - not then, not at that moment, but it is a slow build within him, a slow strengthening of resolve. Then Xavi knows, that this is enough.
He has no one to confide in, but he confides in himself, at night on his own, to his reflection.
This is enough now.
He tries, once. “I can’t do this anymore.”
But it is so clichéd, and it is so faint hearted, that he can’t follow it up. David looks at him for a long time, and in the end Xavi kisses him, because it is the easiest thing to do.
He tries again, another day: “This is it.”
“This is over,” he says, needless clarification to David who looks at him like he’s ashamed.
“Just like that,” says David, and it’s only half a question. “That was easy.”
And Xavi kisses him that time too, but not because it’s the easiest thing, only because he wants to. David looks tired, and ashamed, and Xavi caused that. So he kisses him, and David still stays the night.
But he means it, inside himself, if not always outwardly. He knows he means it when he tells Andrés that no, he can’t make lunch that day, he’s having lunch with his family, and then he goes home and David meets him there, and they eat in front of the golf highlights because there’s nothing else on.
Xavi knows something about golf, anyway. David doesn’t, and after he has finished his meal he sets the plate on the coffee table, hooks his legs over Xavi’s and tucks his head into Xavi’s neck.
“Comfy?” Xavi moves his shoulder down a little to accommodate David.
David hums appreciatively and scoots even closer. He sleeps for a while, long enough that Xavi gets bored of the golf and wants to switch channels, except the remote is on the other side of David and he doesn’t want to disturb him.
He spends not a lot of time thinking about the golf, and far too much time thinking about Andrés, and Carles, and everyone else on their team to whom they have stretched the truth, and how easily he justifies this to himself.
David’s head is heavy on his shoulder and his hair when Xavi presses a cheek to the top of his head is stiff. He smells familiar, and at the brief thought of not having that anymore, Xavi is terrified. He touches the back of his hand to David’s arms, folded over his chest, and David stirs.
He mutters into Xavi’s collar, and grabs, half asleep, at his hand where it still rests against David’s hoodie. Xavi links their fingers together and together they watch him do it.
“Take it back,” David says, soft and quiet.
Xavi loses track of how long they sit there.
It takes a couple of weeks. Then, they are at training. Xavi makes an effort to behave as normal, to laugh and joke with David, to not stiffen up at his touch.
David collars him, quite literally, as they walk in, a hand curved around the back of his neck. “I haven’t seen you in a few days,” he says. “I miss you.”
“Not today,” Xavi says. “Not-“
He doesn’t look at David.
“I can’t,” he says, and he hates it, hates losing his centred state of mind like this. On the pitch too, where he has never known a lack of control.
“Okay,” David says, unexpectedly, and he walks away.
Xavi makes it as far as the door then turns around. He heads back to the pitch and just stands there, stands in the center circle, hands on his hips, closes his eyes and breathes. After a few minutes he drops to a crouch and just prays that no one is watching.
David stays away for two days, and then he is back. When Xavi leaves the gym, David is coming in, and he stops Xavi with a hand on his waist.
“Hey,” he says. “Are you okay?”
Xavi looks at him and wishes he hadn’t.
“Yes,” he says.
David is quiet for a moment.
“Is this - ,” he starts. Xavi looks down, at his bag.
“Xavi,” David says, even more quietly.
“David,” Xavi says, “I can’t.”
One of their trainers walks by, excuses himself as the two of them press closer to the wall. David barely looks up but Xavi watches him walk away. David’s hand is still on his waist.
“Are you really - ,” David stops. “Can we talk about this,” he says, “Xavi, please?”
Xavi is too tired to argue. “Yes,” he says. “Okay. Not now, just - .”
David touches his hand briefly to Xavi’s cheek. Xavi is afraid that David is going to kiss him, but then he looks at David and knows that a kiss, in that moment, would be trivial.
“Okay,” David says, and leaves.
Xavi doesn’t know where to go.
They drive out up into the mountains and park in a layby. They only pass two cars on the way up. They don’t talk, at first; they haven’t talked about it so far and why, Xavi thinks, start now?
But David kisses him, up against his car with his back to the view, and Xavi feels himself relax into the embrace.
“You make -“, he starts, and then he breaks off because David looks at him and Xavi hears himself finish the sentence and he doesn’t want that, to be cruel just to make this easier.
“I’m not happy,” he says. “This - I’m not happy, how this is, I can’t -“
David looks at him for a long time and Xavi can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“I love you,” David says, and it’s unexpected but it doesn’t surprise Xavi, just rests on top of everything else there is that he can’t face. He looks over David’s shoulder, out to the horizon, and doesn’t answer.
“I don’t think I can give this up,” David says, soft and quiet and tender, and Xavi pushes away from him.
He wants to tell David that that isn’t fair, but he can’t because he supposes he is as culpable as anyone. That it is all very well wanting David to be the one to give it all up, because David has other people - another person - to fall back on and who does Xavi have? It’s all very well, but he supposes that David does love him, probably, that he does feel the same awful tugging in his stomach when he thinks about Xavi leaving.
And after all, who does David have to fall back on really? He doesn’t know who David is going to tell when he gets home that evening, bewildered and lost and wanting more than anything to call Xavi and tell him he’s wrong.
And in that moment, Xavi feels compassion and he wants to take David in his arms and tell him how sorry he is for ever letting David catch him like he did.
He looks at David. David looks at him and looks away almost as quickly. His eyes are wet and he looks embarrassed. He shakes his head at the ground.
They stand there for a long time.
“I will say anything for you to change your mind,” David says. “What do I need to say?”
But Xavi has no answer for him.
They drive down the mountain eventually, because they have to, because dusk comes and turns into night and they have only gone in ever-decreasing circles of unhappy truths. Xavi drops off David outside his house, and wants to laugh because he has never done this before.
He switches off the engine and they sit there in the dark.
“What am I going to say to you,” David says. “What are we going to do, tomorrow?”
“I don’t know,” Xavi says truthfully. “I guess we’ll figure it out.”
The next few weeks are long and drawn out, but he does nothing. He sees his family once or twice but it is too hard to lift himself to talk to them. He walks, and trains, and sleeps a lot. It is strange. They both knew it would be, but knowing isn’t the same as living it out. The first few weeks he comes home from training exhausted. He wakes up every morning with a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach and he drives to training with an increasing sense of dread.
The stupid thing, Xavi thinks, is that nothing, ostensibly, has changed. They still train together. They still stand together. They share a water bottle and they let their stuff spread across each other’s section of the bench in the locker room. Then they leave, almost furtively. Their heads down, they leave, separately, overly casual about it because the last thing they need is for others to notice the change. The irony doesn’t escape Xavi.
They get in their cars and they drive in opposite directions and sometimes, just sometimes, Xavi pulls over, halfway home, and he puts his head in his hands because he doesn’t know if he can do it anymore, if he can keep going. But as time goes on the moments become fewer. As the season draws to a close, he almost comes to forget, some days, how it had ever been.
His apartment becomes a retreat. At first, he says to himself that he’ll sell the place. It won’t be hard, the business can take care of it.
Then he wakes up one morning and everything is a little lighter, and he opens the blinds and sees the view again and feels suddenly, fiercely, possessive of it.
He goes through his morning routine, and he knows where everything is, and how to work the lights, and it occurs to him that oddly, but unquestionably, he feels at home. It is his own space in the way that Terrassa, too, belongs to him.
And he doesn’t want to leave it.
It’s easier, too, when summer comes. Xavi opens the sliding doors in every room, opens them wide and leaves them like that. He lets the warm air in, and it sinks into everything, the smell of summer.
He drives with the window down and when the wind is rushing into his car and the sun is scorching his face he doesn’t think, at all, not of David, not of anything.
It’s easier, but it’s not without its moments. On their last day of training before the summer break, they lie on the training pitch and they feel like kings. Xavi’s head is pillowed on Andrés’ thigh and Carles is using Gerard as a sunshade. They are happy and carefree.
Someone laughs and turns to David, to where they think he might be, somewhere up there in the light above them.
“A year,” they say. “Sick of us yet?”
And for one lurching moment, as David moves his head and it is framed against the sun, Xavi looks up at him and their eyes meet and Xavi is briefly reminded, and he wishes beyond everything that it was just the two of them - then David looks away, and laughs lightly; the feeling goes and the sun flashes into Xavi’s eyes again.
Andrés puts out a hand to shield his eyes, and Xavi smiles.
“Another year,” Andrés says quietly, just to him, and Xavi looks up.
“Feels like it,” Xavi says.
“It was something else.”
And Xavi doesn’t laugh, but inside he feels like he does. “Time for a new one,” he says, and closing his eyes he lets the conversation wash over him, lets the sun warms him from the inside out.
---
Epilogue
Xavi offers Andrés a lift home after training one day, some weeks into the new season. They don't talk much in the car; Xavi is waiting for the right moment and Andrés lets him wait, once or twice offering small talk. Then,
"You and David don’t seem as close these days.”
Xavi watches the road and lets a long minute go by, distracting the conversation with traffic lights and turning right.
"No," he says nonchalantly. "Not really."
Andrés nods and leaves it there for Xavi to pick up if he wants, but he doesn't. He drives: he speeds up and slows down as traffic allows, he taps his fingers on the steering wheel once or twice and glances in the rear-view mirror. Andrés leans back into his seat and watches out the side window.
"So," Xavi says, indicating left into Andrés' road. "I was wondering if you're free sometime next week, in the evening. We can have dinner."
"Yeah," Andrés says, "For sure. Just us?"
"Puyi, and - a friend of mine," Xavi says, and when he remembers to breathe out he is surprised by how easy this is to say. "I'd like you guys to meet him."
There's a pause while Xavi pulls up in Andrés' driveway, parks and puts the brake on. He looks over at Andrés and then away again.
"Yeah?"
Xavi looks back at Andrés. He gathers himself. "Yeah," he says, and then, more definitely: "Yes."