omgorgasm

‘Where the Devil Hangs His Coat’
(at a crossroads;)


Xabi is pleased. For the next few years, he is to be accompanied by Fernando Torres, El Niño himself, coming to the Kop to experience the intenseness and the fans and the Premiership as a whole.

Rafa is practically glowing with happiness and exertion; – for the race to snap up ‘The Kid’ was a fierce and fast-moving game, and Rafa had won. Torres had chosen here. The Kop.

Xabi is pleased. He will be reunited with a friend and fellow Spaniard – they can converse about the happenings of the Reds and he is another friend Xabi can invite to have dinner with him and his girlfriend (because no one besides Pepe and Rafa can talk with Nagore and he won’t invite over teammates who can’t speak her language).

Xabi is beyond excited. Xabi is elated. Xabi is thrilled. Xabi is overjoyed. Xabi is ohmigod-I-almost-pissed-myself-excited. Xabi is this-is-so-bloody-ridiculous-excited.

‘Are you excited, Xabi?’ Daniel asks him as they are eating lunch together with Harry and Dirk.

Xabi pauses, his eyes on the forkful of golden rice that is halfway to his mouth. Raising his eyes to Daniel’s, he quirks his lips upwards in a smile.

‘How did you guess?’ he teases. Harry chuckles and Dirk looks confused, but pleasant, and keeps eating.

‘I hear you and Torres are good friends,’ Harry says lightly, arching a brow and taking a bite of his sandwich. Daniel is staring into Xabi’s eyes, smirking, and Xabi licks his dry lips and grins over to Harry.

‘Yes, you have heard correct,’ he answers, then shoves another forkful of rice into his mouth.

‘What kind of friends?’ taunts Daniel. He is smirking, but Xabi knows that the Dane is just toying with him.

‘Very good friends?’ Xabi offers with a sneer. Daniel laughs, and Harry merely shakes his head.

‘No, for real this time, Alonso,’ he says after Daniel’s laughter dies down. ‘How is your relationship with Torres?’

Xabi shrugs, brushing it off.

‘We are friends – often we speak on the mobile and we exchange-ed the kit? The kit when we play together in e-Spain,’ he says. Daniel’s eyebrows go up, and Harry frowns.

‘What do you mean, when you played together in Spain?’ he asks.

‘What I say,’ Xabi replies, his brows furrowing. ‘I not say correct?’

Daniel is shaking his head.

‘No, Xabi,’ he says, ‘do you mean when you played for Real Sociedad?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Xabi says, smiling. ‘Nando play-ed for Atlético de Madrid, we play together and all the time we exchange captain band and kit. I save them all in drawer at home; when he come, I show them to him, for time.’

Harry, Daniel and Dirk are silent, observing Xabi as he shovels more forkfuls of rice into his mouth. He puts down the fork after a few bites and grabs his wine glass, draining half of the crimson liquid in one swig.

Xabi looks up and sees the other three men staring at him.

‘What?’ he asks, his eyes wide. Dirk leans over and pats Xabi on the arm, smiling.

‘Your English is very amusing,’ he says simply. Xabi gives a small laugh.

‘Thank you, I think?’

‘Well,’ Daniel intercedes, his eyes on his plate, ‘I suppose Xabi’s English is better than Torres’, no?’

‘Does Torres even speak English?’ Harry asks, laughing. ‘Hey, Xabi, I guess you’ll be his personal translator until he can understand Jamie’s scouse garble, right?’

Xabi’s eyes are flickering over the three men in seated with him, then rest on Harry.

‘I could be … translator, if he me needs, but, ah, I think, ah, I think Rafa would be better to do that,’ Xabi says.

‘Rafa would be better to do what?’

Spinning around in his chair, Xabi looks up at Steven, who is standing right behind him. Daniel arches one brow and his eyes flicker between the two midfielders, then he turns to smile at Harry. Harry has his hands around the plate in front of him and is hedging glances at Steven and Xabi; – he raises eyes to sneak a grin at Daniel. Dirk is merely sitting quietly, sipping his water, his eyes fixed on Steven’s face.

‘Well,’ Xabi is saying, ‘I say Rafa better to translate for Nando than me, because I… not so good? English…’

But Steven isn’t listening.

‘Nando?’ he says. ‘You mean Fernando Torres, our new signing?’

His voice is clipped, and Xabi blinks, then licks his lips.

‘So?’ Daniel asks Harry in a whisper, ‘What do you think of Alonso and Torres? Friends?’

‘I think so,’ Harry answers, ‘good friends. Xabi is a bit older than Torres though, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, by a few years difference,’ says Daniel, ‘to be sure. But that means nothing – how do you think they will be here? With Stevie?’

And to this, Harry shrugs. ‘I have no idea. Stevie will have to be amiable, for sure, but if Xabi and Torres spend all of their time together, Stevie is going to be more than a little irked, ya know?’

‘No,’ Dirk interjects, his eyes still fixed on Stevie. ‘If Stevie wants to be jealous, he can do it with his wife.’

And thus ends that conversation.

Xabi is the first person Fernando sees when he steps off the plane. They shake hands and grin at each other like old friends and they talk animatedly to each other in Spanish, with the hands and the facial expressions and the grins. And Steven watches, his face closed, because he knows that Dirk is right; – he watches Xabi and Fernando, together.

It is later, after Fernando has gone back to Madrid, that Xabi and Daniel are walking out to their cars together, chatting and laughing over everything new in football. Steven watches them, and he is waiting at Xabi’s car.

Xabi sees the skipper there, leaning against the driver’s side of his car, but he doesn’t rush his time with Daniel. He says a Spanish goodbye, then meets Steven.

‘Xabi,’ he says, ‘listen – about Torres, I…’

Xabi shakes his head.

‘Nando and I are very good friend. I respect him as a player, Stevie. I respect you also as a player. It is no difference.’

‘Yes,’ Steven says heatedly, ‘yes there is a difference, Xabi. You respect me, I respect you, and we fuck. You respect Torres, Torres respects you…? Do I need to even finish the question?’

Xabi backs away from Steven until he is against another car. His expression is cool, his eyes hot.

‘Are you implying that every player I respect is one that I have fucked?’ Xabi says quietly.

‘No,’ Steven hurries to say, ‘no, I’m just … I’m just asking if, maybe… Torres isn’t just one of your friends and someone you respect.’

‘If he is a former lover.’

‘…Well now that you put it that way, er…’

‘And if I say he was? What can you do about it? Stone him to death for fucking your teammate?’

‘No, Xabi, you know you’re more than that to me –‘

‘Don’t.’

‘Xabi, you are –‘

‘Don’t.’

‘…Why.’

‘Alex is waiting.’

‘…Xabi.’

‘What? What do you want from me? You think that I shall be only for you even when you leave every night to go to your wife? You think I wait forever? That I stay true only to you?’

‘Xabi – no, no, Xabi, I didn’t say that –‘

‘Because it is not as if you have been faithful to me, neither – unless that thing with John Terry after every Chelsea match is just a “friendly drink”. And that thing with Kakà, and with –‘

‘I get it.’ Steven’s voice is hard now, and he is past being defensive. Xabi turns his anger-widened eyes towards him. There is a silence between them for a minute.

‘If Nando wants to fuck me, I will not say no,’ Xabi says softly.

‘Okay,’ Steven answers, his voice quiet, so quiet Xabi almost does not hear him in the noise of the parking lot.

And then Steven walks away, his chin tilted upwards so that the tears will be less likely to fall down his cheeks. His shoulders are pushed back, and his eyes are flitting everywhere so as to push back the depression that is setting in. And as he approaches his car door, he realizes he doesn’t want to go home to Alex just yet. He sits in the leather bucket seat of his car and flips open his mobile. He presses six on speed dial and finds himself strangely satisfied to hear the voice on the other end.

‘What’s happenin’, Stevie?’

‘N-nothin’ much, John,’ Steven answers. ‘Can… can I see you tonight?’

‘…Sure. Come to my place, it’s empty tonight.’

‘…Thanks. Thanks much, John.’

‘It’s all right, Stevie. We can talk about whatever it is that’s bothering you when you arrive.’

They disconnect, and Steven beats Xabi’s car out of the parking lot.

And as Xabi sits behind the wheel, watching the left signal of the car in front of him blink for all its worth, he does not hold back the tears.

‘And maybe Nando will help me get over you,’ he says to the car. ‘That will be his mission. Because, Stevie, you stole my heart – and then you ripped it apart.’ Sniffing with a rueful smile, Xabi laughs at his poetry. ‘Maybe Nando will be the one to put the pieces back together.’

Stevie turns left.

Xabi turns right.

Neither look back.




Fin.