don't give the ghost up, just clench your fist
Five things meme, only three this time because they're quite long ones - one requested, two self-prompted.
For callings: Five kisses that happened during the World Cup.
1. So after Canna polishes off one bottle of champagne and sprays a second all over Pirlo's hair, he takes a third bottle and finds Gigi leaning lazily against the wall, grinning wide and easy and happy. He pops the cork, proposes a mock toast, and takes a swig before handing the bottle over to Gigi, who obligingly draws a long drink from it. Canna's not sure why he leans over and kisses him, then, their mouths sticky, warm, expensive, eyes half closed. Maybe it's the way Gigi still has tape all over his knuckles and wrists, how unyielding and steady his hands are. Maybe it's the fact that he knows he'll be leaving, how he also knows that Gigi won't be, how strange it will be to play in front of someone else. Maybe it has nothing to do with any of that, but as it is, he kisses Gigi full on the mouth, says Grazie low and quiet, wraps his hand around Gigi's fingers, the neck of the bottle, like some kind of promise. A reassurance, not that Gigi needs it now or has ever needed it.
2. The night Spain loses to France, Joaquín walks into Cesc's room to find him sitting on his bed, surrounded by messy clothes and trainers and hair products, staring blankly at an empty suitcase with a pair of socks in his hands.
This is when he knows he has to do something. Something, but the problem is that Joaquín is only really good at getting people drunk; he often wishes he could be one of those people who can comfort or please through laughter, words, small gestures, but that's just not who he is. So what he does is drag Cesc to the nearest bar and order him a few Very Strong drinks. They're sitting there surrounded by tourists, the music loud and almost unbearably awful, staring down into their glasses and not talking. Cesc makes a low noise in his throat and Joaquín almost panics, because it sounds like Cesc is fucking crying and that shit is bad enough on the pitch in front of the cameras already -- but, no, Cesc is laughing; it's quiet at first and he tries to cover his mouth with his hand, but soon it's an all out, hysterical sort of laughter that leaves Cesc with his face pressed into Joaquín's arm, breathless, shoulders shaking. This is just so unbelievably ridiculous, he says; Joaquín blearily counts up the number of empty glasses by Cesc's arm. Huh. That might explain it.
He doesn't feel guilty, exactly, but he does feel obligated to make sure Cesc ends up in his hotel room, whole and unmolested by creepy middle-aged women, so he drags the kid step by step back to the hotel. In the elevator, Cesc leans sloppily into him, the bags under his eyes still a little puffy, and kisses him on the cheek, chaste and a little sweet but his breath smelling like gin and rum. It's unexpected enough that Joaquín freezes for a second.
Digs his nails into his palms.
3. They're in the middle of a practice match in training one day when Phillipp curls a 35-yarder into the top right corner of the goal, which, yeah, is pretty fucking awesome, he thinks. But Timo, being the obnoxious jackass that he obviously is, falls to his knees, grabs Phillipp's hand, and gazes rapturously upwards. He even bats his eyes. By now, the rest of the squad has gathered around. Phillipp wants to disappear.
"My prince," he says, kissing Phillipp's knuckles, "we are not worthy." Everyone else finds this the most hilarious thing ever, it seems. The tips of Phillipp's ears turn bright red and he swears he's going to get his revenge any fucking way he can. There's already a plan involving shampoo bottles and pink hair dye forming in his mind.
4. Andriy visits Kaká the night before Brazil plays France. There's a new awkwardness there, the realization that years of friendship can't be recovered and reused, not after you've known the curve of someone's shoulder or how well your hands fit against the line of their hip, not after that. And when you don't have that anymore, well -- Still. Andriy stands in Kaká's hotel room, puts his hands on the sides of Kaká's face, kisses him on the forehead like a blessing, a man giving benediction. He says, "I am proud of you," and "You don't need me," and "Good luck."
Brazil lose the next day. Kaká, on the plane home, thinks: You were wrong when you said I didn't need you anymore.
5. So, because they have an average mental age of, oh, seven, Pepe makes a bet with David in training one day. If he saves the penalty, David has to accept a dare, and vice versa. What David learns that day is to never, ever make a bet with him again, because he fucks up a penalty for one of the only times ever, and Pepe dares him to kiss Michel fucking Salgado. David is pretty much horrified but he's got his pride and he'll fucking well do it no matter the inevitable humiliation. A few minutes later, David sidles up to Salgado, gets him as a stretching partner, kisses him right on the mouth, and runs. Fast.
Really, really fast.
Five ways England has changed Xabi.
1. Xabi actually drinks more coffee. You think it would be the other way around, but a country where tea is everywhere only reaffirms his intense dislike of it. Coffee is one of the few addictions he allows himself.
2. He cuts his hair more often.
(It's a funny thing to consciously notice, but the longer Xabi stays in Liverpool, the more frequent his visits become, and now he goes every two or three weeks. Short back and sides, an easy blowdry; there's something about England that does this to him, that makes him want to pare himself down to the bare minimums, to take away all the excess and leave nothing but simplicity: emotion, football, ambition. It's the pressure, maybe - there's no fucking time, space, place to breathe or indulge, because people expect things from him, big things, and while it doesn't make him nervous, it makes him cautious. Tolosa was cold, but not this cold, its skies were a different tone of grey during winter, its streets humming at a different pitch.
But, here, here. He gets his hair cut short, short as he can without looking ridiculous, every few weeks. It's his way of getting rid of as many personal indulgences as possible, ones that have nothing to do with money or fame, because he just doesn't have any room for error or distraction and who knew hair could imply so goddamned much? Still. Discipline, Xabi thinks, and each time his hair begins to get long enough to tug at again, he makes an appointment.)
3. The value of sheer, exhausting hard work makes itself known. In Spain, you needed those workers to win just like in any other league, but the people with skill were the ones who were rewarded, known, celebrated. In England, skill means fuck all if you can't clog with the best of them. It's more than just football, too, it's the city, the people, the docks and streets and building fronts; the drunk kids on the streets and rowdy bars, the distastefully proud way the nouveaux riche display their affluence through fur coats and black cars and jewelry, the red cracked cheeks in winter, all of it.
4. Here's the thing: he's happy in Liverpool, honestly so. But maybe it was too much, expecting to be able to switch back and forth between two countries, two homes, two peoples - Xabi thought that it would be easy, going back to Spain or returning to England, a simple flick of a switch in his brain and, there, it would be as if he never left. It's not, though. So here's the problem. He visits Spain a lot, during the summer, over holidays; sees his parents and old friends, does a few interviews, that sort of thing. But it feels different now, and he never thought he would say that; he's comfortable in England, despite the Scouse accent and sometimes ridiculous food, and he's comfortable in Spain, but he doesn't quite know to which he belongs anymore.
You can't belong to two places, he knows this. Because being part of la Real was more than being part of a team, no matter how trite that sounded, and living in San Sebastian meant that he seemed to know everyone, and half of them felt like family, friends of some sort. And now, going back, he's behind on the politics, behind on who's gotten married and who's had kids, behind on the new renovations the football academy got, behind on every single stupid thing. He can't catch up, not in England where everything seems so hectic, where the right words still elude him sometimes, where you can't stop fighting for a single moment, not if you want to win.
So. It's not like he's alone. It's not like there aren't other Spanish lads, but he used to go home to his parents, his brothers, and his father has come to England three times in two years and what can he do? It's not so much a constant sense of missing people or places, because he doesn't necessarily, it's more a weird feeling of displacement on the bad days, the awful sensation of floating, aimless and untethered, frighteningly separate.
(Once, on one of those bad days after a loss, Steven had been talking to him. Emphatically stating something about diving and foreigners and having pride in the shirt, how different it was for English lads. Saying all this as if he'd forgotten that Xabi himself was a foreigner; Xabi tried to stop himself from saying anything but he couldn't, he couldn't, and he had cut Steven off, said, This is not my country either, you know and tasted something bitter like absence at the back of his throat. Steven had stopped dead, looked embarrassed and annoyed, said Hey, what -- look, I didn't mean it like that, you're practically one of us. Xabi had just stared at him, thought: us and them and oh god, you just can't understand, how could you possibly understand.)
5. England is where he relearns what it is to hope, no matter how foolishly, and be rewarded for it.
Three hotel room stories that never happened.
1. David hates France. He truly, truly does. The food's good and Vic loves the shopping, but everyone seems so cultured and disapproving - David is a simple guy at heart, some British lad with working class parents who still loves that chippy two blocks away from his childhood home. Anyway, it's France and he feels stupid and ignorant and tired, and he would call up Gary, Dave, anyone, but they're busy with their own lives and he doesn't want to project all this shit that's going on in his onto them. He doesn't even know why he bothered traveling, it's not as if he's going to play anymore than those token five minutes of added time or what-the-fuck-ever. David hasn't bothered unpacking and he's lying on the couch re-alphabetizing the stack of magazines on the coffee table when Iker sticks his head into the room.
"Dinner's in ten minutes." He shrugs. "You go ahead. I'm not hungry." Iker walks in at that and hovers by the arm of the sofa - his face is suddenly there, looming curious and upside down in David's line of vision.
"What," he asks, "are you doing?"
"I'm really not very sure."
They end up watching crappy French dramas and ordering room service for the next few hours, and David is absurdly, absurdly grateful. Sometime during that time period, Iker asks him, "Are you going to sign that contract?" David doesn't say anything, looks at his hands. A silence as Iker considers something before he offers, "Everything will turn out okay, you know." They won't, they already haven't, but David is glad for once that someone is lying to him.
2. Rooming with Cesc on European aways seems like nothing more than an extension of their normal habits, which is both weird and good. What Philippe finds remarkable is how quickly Cesc's stuff manages to spread - he shouldn't be surprised, but still. In the space of two days, Philippe somehow finds books and shirts and hair gel in the strangest of places, under a pillow, wedged between a nightstand and the wall, in the furthest away, darkest corner of a closet. It's incredible, really.
They're in Moscow, and despite how many languages they know between them, neither knows Russian; it's cold and blue outside so they spend the majority of the trip inside the hotel room, watching television, sleeping, counting down the hours. Philippe wakes up in the middle of the night once to find Cesc kneeling by the edge of his bed, fingers plucking at the blanket - I'm fucking freezing and go back to sleep, I won't bother you. He half-heartedly mutters, it's not that difficult for someone who reads Foucault to figure out heating controls, but edges to the other side of the bed (fuck, it is cold), lets Cesc crawl in. The next morning, Philippe carefully extricates himself and watches Cesc sleep for a few minutes. It's strange to think they've known each other for three years, that Cesc is nineteen now; it's strange but obvious, and Philippe knows that the future is never a reliable thing. They'll get older and find their own apartments and lives. Who knows what team they'll be playing for two, five years later. For now, though, things are as they are and Philippe doesn't mind.
3. When Stevie wakes up, it takes him a moment to realize that he's in a hotel room, and another moment to see that Xabi's sitting on a chair by the bed; it's more than a little disconcerting and reminds Stevie of that time he stumbled home drunk and stupid at sixteen, only to wake up with his old man by his bedside, watching him ominously. Yeah. But, so. Xabi's in his hotel room, looking a little worn, and Stevie wants to know why he's there, how long he's been watching him, how the fuck he got in, what he wants, who --
"Jamie sent me."
Oh. Well.
"What is this, are you bloody babysitting me? Does the team have rotations and shifts set up?"
"No. Just me." Stevie ignores this, continues.
"Look, it's nice and all, but I'm fine."
"She loves you. You have to believe that." Xabi's never been one for dancing around the point, which is something Stevie usually appreciates, but not necessarily when it applies to him personally.
"Yeah, okay, I don't really give a fuck. Actions speak louder than words, isn't that what everyone says?"
"People do stupid things, love has nothing to do with that. You have fucked up before, we both know this."
What Stevie is right now is tired. He's tired of having to deal with everything, sick of Xabi always being right, bloody pissed off that he's a twenty-six year old man reduced to living in a hotel room because he can't face his fiancé without wanting to find that fucker and break a few ribs. He's tired, and he misses his daughters and his room and those times when things seemed easy and simple and obvious. Xabi talks again.
"I'm not here to try to convince you to do anything. Just, think about it." He pauses, speaks again quietly, not exactly looking at Stevie. "People are worried. You do not always have to be the captain, to be up there by yourself. You should know that." He gets up, zips his jacket, runs a hand through his hair absently, is ready to leave.
"Wait. You, well, you don't have to leave." (What this means is: please don't.) He doesn't. They sit in their respective seats in silence for a while, Stevie leaning against the headboard, the tag of his t-shirt itchy against his neck and arms cold, Xabi with his chin propped in his hand.
Stevie wants to say, stop being so goddamned reasonable and I don't know what to do and thank you for giving a fuck about me but what he finally settles on is, "How do you take your coffee again?"
For callings: Five kisses that happened during the World Cup.
1. So after Canna polishes off one bottle of champagne and sprays a second all over Pirlo's hair, he takes a third bottle and finds Gigi leaning lazily against the wall, grinning wide and easy and happy. He pops the cork, proposes a mock toast, and takes a swig before handing the bottle over to Gigi, who obligingly draws a long drink from it. Canna's not sure why he leans over and kisses him, then, their mouths sticky, warm, expensive, eyes half closed. Maybe it's the way Gigi still has tape all over his knuckles and wrists, how unyielding and steady his hands are. Maybe it's the fact that he knows he'll be leaving, how he also knows that Gigi won't be, how strange it will be to play in front of someone else. Maybe it has nothing to do with any of that, but as it is, he kisses Gigi full on the mouth, says Grazie low and quiet, wraps his hand around Gigi's fingers, the neck of the bottle, like some kind of promise. A reassurance, not that Gigi needs it now or has ever needed it.
2. The night Spain loses to France, Joaquín walks into Cesc's room to find him sitting on his bed, surrounded by messy clothes and trainers and hair products, staring blankly at an empty suitcase with a pair of socks in his hands.
This is when he knows he has to do something. Something, but the problem is that Joaquín is only really good at getting people drunk; he often wishes he could be one of those people who can comfort or please through laughter, words, small gestures, but that's just not who he is. So what he does is drag Cesc to the nearest bar and order him a few Very Strong drinks. They're sitting there surrounded by tourists, the music loud and almost unbearably awful, staring down into their glasses and not talking. Cesc makes a low noise in his throat and Joaquín almost panics, because it sounds like Cesc is fucking crying and that shit is bad enough on the pitch in front of the cameras already -- but, no, Cesc is laughing; it's quiet at first and he tries to cover his mouth with his hand, but soon it's an all out, hysterical sort of laughter that leaves Cesc with his face pressed into Joaquín's arm, breathless, shoulders shaking. This is just so unbelievably ridiculous, he says; Joaquín blearily counts up the number of empty glasses by Cesc's arm. Huh. That might explain it.
He doesn't feel guilty, exactly, but he does feel obligated to make sure Cesc ends up in his hotel room, whole and unmolested by creepy middle-aged women, so he drags the kid step by step back to the hotel. In the elevator, Cesc leans sloppily into him, the bags under his eyes still a little puffy, and kisses him on the cheek, chaste and a little sweet but his breath smelling like gin and rum. It's unexpected enough that Joaquín freezes for a second.
Digs his nails into his palms.
3. They're in the middle of a practice match in training one day when Phillipp curls a 35-yarder into the top right corner of the goal, which, yeah, is pretty fucking awesome, he thinks. But Timo, being the obnoxious jackass that he obviously is, falls to his knees, grabs Phillipp's hand, and gazes rapturously upwards. He even bats his eyes. By now, the rest of the squad has gathered around. Phillipp wants to disappear.
"My prince," he says, kissing Phillipp's knuckles, "we are not worthy." Everyone else finds this the most hilarious thing ever, it seems. The tips of Phillipp's ears turn bright red and he swears he's going to get his revenge any fucking way he can. There's already a plan involving shampoo bottles and pink hair dye forming in his mind.
4. Andriy visits Kaká the night before Brazil plays France. There's a new awkwardness there, the realization that years of friendship can't be recovered and reused, not after you've known the curve of someone's shoulder or how well your hands fit against the line of their hip, not after that. And when you don't have that anymore, well -- Still. Andriy stands in Kaká's hotel room, puts his hands on the sides of Kaká's face, kisses him on the forehead like a blessing, a man giving benediction. He says, "I am proud of you," and "You don't need me," and "Good luck."
Brazil lose the next day. Kaká, on the plane home, thinks: You were wrong when you said I didn't need you anymore.
5. So, because they have an average mental age of, oh, seven, Pepe makes a bet with David in training one day. If he saves the penalty, David has to accept a dare, and vice versa. What David learns that day is to never, ever make a bet with him again, because he fucks up a penalty for one of the only times ever, and Pepe dares him to kiss Michel fucking Salgado. David is pretty much horrified but he's got his pride and he'll fucking well do it no matter the inevitable humiliation. A few minutes later, David sidles up to Salgado, gets him as a stretching partner, kisses him right on the mouth, and runs. Fast.
Really, really fast.
Five ways England has changed Xabi.
1. Xabi actually drinks more coffee. You think it would be the other way around, but a country where tea is everywhere only reaffirms his intense dislike of it. Coffee is one of the few addictions he allows himself.
2. He cuts his hair more often.
(It's a funny thing to consciously notice, but the longer Xabi stays in Liverpool, the more frequent his visits become, and now he goes every two or three weeks. Short back and sides, an easy blowdry; there's something about England that does this to him, that makes him want to pare himself down to the bare minimums, to take away all the excess and leave nothing but simplicity: emotion, football, ambition. It's the pressure, maybe - there's no fucking time, space, place to breathe or indulge, because people expect things from him, big things, and while it doesn't make him nervous, it makes him cautious. Tolosa was cold, but not this cold, its skies were a different tone of grey during winter, its streets humming at a different pitch.
But, here, here. He gets his hair cut short, short as he can without looking ridiculous, every few weeks. It's his way of getting rid of as many personal indulgences as possible, ones that have nothing to do with money or fame, because he just doesn't have any room for error or distraction and who knew hair could imply so goddamned much? Still. Discipline, Xabi thinks, and each time his hair begins to get long enough to tug at again, he makes an appointment.)
3. The value of sheer, exhausting hard work makes itself known. In Spain, you needed those workers to win just like in any other league, but the people with skill were the ones who were rewarded, known, celebrated. In England, skill means fuck all if you can't clog with the best of them. It's more than just football, too, it's the city, the people, the docks and streets and building fronts; the drunk kids on the streets and rowdy bars, the distastefully proud way the nouveaux riche display their affluence through fur coats and black cars and jewelry, the red cracked cheeks in winter, all of it.
4. Here's the thing: he's happy in Liverpool, honestly so. But maybe it was too much, expecting to be able to switch back and forth between two countries, two homes, two peoples - Xabi thought that it would be easy, going back to Spain or returning to England, a simple flick of a switch in his brain and, there, it would be as if he never left. It's not, though. So here's the problem. He visits Spain a lot, during the summer, over holidays; sees his parents and old friends, does a few interviews, that sort of thing. But it feels different now, and he never thought he would say that; he's comfortable in England, despite the Scouse accent and sometimes ridiculous food, and he's comfortable in Spain, but he doesn't quite know to which he belongs anymore.
You can't belong to two places, he knows this. Because being part of la Real was more than being part of a team, no matter how trite that sounded, and living in San Sebastian meant that he seemed to know everyone, and half of them felt like family, friends of some sort. And now, going back, he's behind on the politics, behind on who's gotten married and who's had kids, behind on the new renovations the football academy got, behind on every single stupid thing. He can't catch up, not in England where everything seems so hectic, where the right words still elude him sometimes, where you can't stop fighting for a single moment, not if you want to win.
So. It's not like he's alone. It's not like there aren't other Spanish lads, but he used to go home to his parents, his brothers, and his father has come to England three times in two years and what can he do? It's not so much a constant sense of missing people or places, because he doesn't necessarily, it's more a weird feeling of displacement on the bad days, the awful sensation of floating, aimless and untethered, frighteningly separate.
(Once, on one of those bad days after a loss, Steven had been talking to him. Emphatically stating something about diving and foreigners and having pride in the shirt, how different it was for English lads. Saying all this as if he'd forgotten that Xabi himself was a foreigner; Xabi tried to stop himself from saying anything but he couldn't, he couldn't, and he had cut Steven off, said, This is not my country either, you know and tasted something bitter like absence at the back of his throat. Steven had stopped dead, looked embarrassed and annoyed, said Hey, what -- look, I didn't mean it like that, you're practically one of us. Xabi had just stared at him, thought: us and them and oh god, you just can't understand, how could you possibly understand.)
5. England is where he relearns what it is to hope, no matter how foolishly, and be rewarded for it.
Three hotel room stories that never happened.
1. David hates France. He truly, truly does. The food's good and Vic loves the shopping, but everyone seems so cultured and disapproving - David is a simple guy at heart, some British lad with working class parents who still loves that chippy two blocks away from his childhood home. Anyway, it's France and he feels stupid and ignorant and tired, and he would call up Gary, Dave, anyone, but they're busy with their own lives and he doesn't want to project all this shit that's going on in his onto them. He doesn't even know why he bothered traveling, it's not as if he's going to play anymore than those token five minutes of added time or what-the-fuck-ever. David hasn't bothered unpacking and he's lying on the couch re-alphabetizing the stack of magazines on the coffee table when Iker sticks his head into the room.
"Dinner's in ten minutes." He shrugs. "You go ahead. I'm not hungry." Iker walks in at that and hovers by the arm of the sofa - his face is suddenly there, looming curious and upside down in David's line of vision.
"What," he asks, "are you doing?"
"I'm really not very sure."
They end up watching crappy French dramas and ordering room service for the next few hours, and David is absurdly, absurdly grateful. Sometime during that time period, Iker asks him, "Are you going to sign that contract?" David doesn't say anything, looks at his hands. A silence as Iker considers something before he offers, "Everything will turn out okay, you know." They won't, they already haven't, but David is glad for once that someone is lying to him.
2. Rooming with Cesc on European aways seems like nothing more than an extension of their normal habits, which is both weird and good. What Philippe finds remarkable is how quickly Cesc's stuff manages to spread - he shouldn't be surprised, but still. In the space of two days, Philippe somehow finds books and shirts and hair gel in the strangest of places, under a pillow, wedged between a nightstand and the wall, in the furthest away, darkest corner of a closet. It's incredible, really.
They're in Moscow, and despite how many languages they know between them, neither knows Russian; it's cold and blue outside so they spend the majority of the trip inside the hotel room, watching television, sleeping, counting down the hours. Philippe wakes up in the middle of the night once to find Cesc kneeling by the edge of his bed, fingers plucking at the blanket - I'm fucking freezing and go back to sleep, I won't bother you. He half-heartedly mutters, it's not that difficult for someone who reads Foucault to figure out heating controls, but edges to the other side of the bed (fuck, it is cold), lets Cesc crawl in. The next morning, Philippe carefully extricates himself and watches Cesc sleep for a few minutes. It's strange to think they've known each other for three years, that Cesc is nineteen now; it's strange but obvious, and Philippe knows that the future is never a reliable thing. They'll get older and find their own apartments and lives. Who knows what team they'll be playing for two, five years later. For now, though, things are as they are and Philippe doesn't mind.
3. When Stevie wakes up, it takes him a moment to realize that he's in a hotel room, and another moment to see that Xabi's sitting on a chair by the bed; it's more than a little disconcerting and reminds Stevie of that time he stumbled home drunk and stupid at sixteen, only to wake up with his old man by his bedside, watching him ominously. Yeah. But, so. Xabi's in his hotel room, looking a little worn, and Stevie wants to know why he's there, how long he's been watching him, how the fuck he got in, what he wants, who --
"Jamie sent me."
Oh. Well.
"What is this, are you bloody babysitting me? Does the team have rotations and shifts set up?"
"No. Just me." Stevie ignores this, continues.
"Look, it's nice and all, but I'm fine."
"She loves you. You have to believe that." Xabi's never been one for dancing around the point, which is something Stevie usually appreciates, but not necessarily when it applies to him personally.
"Yeah, okay, I don't really give a fuck. Actions speak louder than words, isn't that what everyone says?"
"People do stupid things, love has nothing to do with that. You have fucked up before, we both know this."
What Stevie is right now is tired. He's tired of having to deal with everything, sick of Xabi always being right, bloody pissed off that he's a twenty-six year old man reduced to living in a hotel room because he can't face his fiancé without wanting to find that fucker and break a few ribs. He's tired, and he misses his daughters and his room and those times when things seemed easy and simple and obvious. Xabi talks again.
"I'm not here to try to convince you to do anything. Just, think about it." He pauses, speaks again quietly, not exactly looking at Stevie. "People are worried. You do not always have to be the captain, to be up there by yourself. You should know that." He gets up, zips his jacket, runs a hand through his hair absently, is ready to leave.
"Wait. You, well, you don't have to leave." (What this means is: please don't.) He doesn't. They sit in their respective seats in silence for a while, Stevie leaning against the headboard, the tag of his t-shirt itchy against his neck and arms cold, Xabi with his chin propped in his hand.
Stevie wants to say, stop being so goddamned reasonable and I don't know what to do and thank you for giving a fuck about me but what he finally settles on is, "How do you take your coffee again?"