Keep Cool, Stay Tough

I had nothing but a delicate string of hope tugging at my heart urging me to listen to him and to stop pretending. Cristiano had certainly reacted the way I had hoped that he would when I finally dropped all pretences, and our first kiss became an extension to the dance from earlier.

“You beat me to it,” He murmured as he pressed his forehead against mine, “I can’t believe you beat me to it.”

Relief, surprise, and unabashed joy all washed over me as his words rung in my ears, “I got tired of waiting on you to make your move, unless shouting at me was your move in which case, spot on Cris. You got quite the reaction out of me.”

He laughed, “I was trying to be respectful.”

I scoffed, pulling my head back to read the look in his eyes, and somehow I was still unable to keep the smile off my face. I placed my arms on his shoulders, lacing my fingers behind his neck as I asked, “Respectful to what?”

I couldn’t get myself to say the glamazon’s name aloud, or even in my head, but my mind immediately went to the reunion I had interrupted upon my return to Madrid.

But Cristiano surprised me by keeping the conversation focused on me, “Your rule.”

I shrugged off his reasoning, “I told you before that that rule only has one name attached to it now.”

“Good, then that’s all I needed to hear.”

Cristiano crashed his lips against mine, and I still hadn’t quite gotten my breathing back on track from before, but it didn’t matter. I wrapped my leg around his, pressing him as close to me as I could, and even that didn’t feel close enough.

“The car,” I gasped out between kisses, “Where’s the car?”

The G63 had ample room, and I assumed we had ample time until the others decided that they wanted to get back to the hotel. You know what they say, desperate times and desperate measures and such.

“Sergio left with it and some girl,” Cristiano explained between kisses against my collar bone. And we truly were left in desperate times.

“No!” I whined, pushing him up by the chin to land my lips back on his.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” He suggested.

“How?” I questioned, feverish from all the kisses and all the potential still left to the evening.

He pulled away from my half-open mouth, a stupid smile stuck to his lips, “Well I don’t have a magic carpet handy, but a taxi should suffice, no?”

I rolled my eyes, giggling; I placed my hands on either side of his face, attempting to keep a straight face and failing miserably, “As long as you show me a whole new world. Call then. Stop wasting our valuable time.”

I sent Mina a text with one hand barely concentrating as Cristiano nuzzled at the nook of my neck to warn her of the potential sight awaiting her if she were to stumble into our hotel room later at night. I only caught sight of the first emoji from her reply which was a thumbs up before Cristiano pulled the phone from my hand and shoved it into his pocket, “Whatever it is can wait just like I waited.”

“You shouldn’t have waited so long,” I giggled, lightly smacking his shoulder.

“You had a rule, Senna!” Cristiano exclaimed, as he pulled back to measure my reaction and emphasize his reminder.

“Ugh, stop holding that against me and hold me against you,” I gripped his arms with my hands and pulled him towards me until he wrapped himself around me resting his chin on the top of my head.

The music from inside floated over to where we stood, and we swayed together; hypnotized by the soft melody. It was nice, and it was calm, but I didn’t want nice, calm swaying.

“Where the fuck is that taxi?” He grumbled as if he could read my thoughts.

And that’s when we heard the voices echoing and growing louder and more raucous as the majority of Real Madrid’s squad marched out of the nightclub to greet the cold night air. Cristiano spun us around instantly so that we were blocked by the wide marble pillar I had him pressed against moments earlier.

We heard the sound of a car driving up to the front of the club and we peeked around the pillar to see the taxi we had ordered had finally arrived.

“That’s our taxi,” I stated excitedly, “I say we make a break for it.”

A minute didn’t even pass and a visibly heavily inebriated couple staggered off of a bench and into the car without a moment’s hesitation.

“And that’s the couple going off in our taxi,” He finished complacently.

I cursed under my breath and I could hear Cristiano chuckle at my irritation.

“What do you want to do?” He whispered.

“Run away together,” I suggested.

“Realistically…what do you want to do?” He trailed off; his eyebrows furrowed as he took in a breath and seemed to be in a search for his own magical solution.

“Let’s give it one more night then, let’s see what this feels like for the both of us in the morning or at the very least what it feels like back in Madrid,” I hazarded.

“Why does other people finding out about us worrying you so much?”

“I don’t know, but it does, and I don’t need Martha to know about this just yet, especially because frankly I don’t know what this is,” I pointedly glanced towards what little space there was left between us.

“Of course you know what this is,” Cristiano started as he gripped at my lower hips and somehow brought me closer to him.

I nodded towards him, my chin nudged up defiantly, “What is it then?”

He opened and closed his mouth twice before finally conceding defeat and loosening his tight grip on me. Immediately I felt the frigid night air seize onto my legs.

“So we are calling it a night?” He asked.

“I don’t see what other realistic choice we have,” I pouted and tugged down the hem of my dress which had considerably ridden up thanks to Cristiano.

He sighed; the gesture was thick with regret and longing as he watched me adjust myself in my dress. I was sure his expression must have mirrored my own.

“Take a cold shower, we’ll pick this back up in Madrid,” I barely held down a laugh. Who was I kidding? I needed this, I wanted this way more than he did; I’ve been the one leading the life of a nun for more years than I care to count, and I probably needed a cold shower more than he did.

“You’re awful.”

“Your teammates, that taxi, and that couple are all awful with their awful timing,” I corrected, pointing in their general direction, “We should have been the ones getting hot and heavy in that taxi.”

***

“Is that seriously Irina’s name on your phone right now?”

“Why are you looking at my phone?”

I rolled my eyes and sat up straight, “Um maybe it has something to do with the fact that we both switched our iPhones to vibrate, and I thought it might be my phone since they tend to sound similar.”

“In my pants pocket?” Cristiano grumbled.

I could feel my expression flatten from disbelief, “Do you really not remember taking my phone and keeping it because I was texting Mina instead of making out with you the other night? It was just two nights ago!”

After our adventure was unceremoniously cut short, Cristiano went to his hotel room with Karim, and I went to mine with Mina who I could have sworn somehow managed to be more disappointed than I was about the turn of events. She had already made plans to bunk with Iker since Sergio had disappeared into the night.

I never got the chance to get my phone back because I didn’t want people asking me why my phone was in Cristiano’s pocket in the first place. And of course Cristiano had completely forgotten that he had snatched it out of my hand so it never occurred to him to try to return it. Honestly I don’t know how I survived all of Sunday without my phone.

Sunday morning we got back to Madrid, and by Sunday night Cristiano and I were in the privacy of his home with no distractions and no visitors, and we had no problems with picking up right where we left in Seville.

“It’s too early to have this conversation. We should have switched those bastards to silent,” Cristiano moved his head under a pillow and reached out his hand for me to take, “Come back to bed.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, feeling no inclination to reach for his hand, “We should have, and it’s also a little too early for your ex-girlfriend to be calling you, don’t you think?”

Cristiano didn’t reply. His hand had dropped down to the bed with an audible thump, and I assumed he was trying to fall back asleep.

“I need coffee,” I muttered and got to my feet, pulling Cristiano’s blue cotton shirt over my head as I left his room in search of the kitchen. If I had my running clothes instead of a pair of jeans, a loose chiffon top, and a bra that had gone missing somewhere between the second and third round last night I would have gone running to clear my head.

But I didn’t, so instead I attempted to make breakfast. This was the first time I had ever been inside his house, and it was just as intimidating as I had pictured it to be. The kitchen was filled with what I assumed to be top of the line appliances. I went directly to the coffee machine finding immediate comfort with the familiar buttons and settings.

“What are you doing?” I heard him ask.

I turned and found Cristiano rubbing at his eye in a pair of boxers and nothing else.

“I wanted to make breakfast,” I explained, forcing along an offhand tone, “I was kind of hoping it would soften you up enough to talk about certain things you’d rather sleep on.”

He sniffed the air and made a face, “You didn’t put butter on the skillet before you turned the stove on, did you?”

“Crap!” I exclaimed as I reached over to turn off the stove, “No, I didn’t, you’re supposed to?”

“Didn’t that burning smell bother you?” I couldn’t tell whether he was horrified or amused by my atrocious culinary skills.

“I thought it was supposed to smell like that in the beginning,” I defended.

He laughed and came to a steady stop in front of the fridge and began to pull out an array of vegetables and herbs.

“Can I trust you to cut the peppers without cutting yourself?”

“Can I trust you to talk to me properly about what I need you to talk to me about?” I retorted.

“Yes,” Cristiano promised his expression sincere enough for me to accept the red pepper he was offering me.

“Then yes, I’ll cut up the peppers, and they will be the best, most evenly cut pepper slices you have ever seen,” I assured.

I usually didn’t have much of an appetite in the mornings, but the scent of butter and herbs clung in the air and had my stomach growling. After I chopped the peppers, Cristiano put me on toast duty while he finished up with the omelets. The toast I somehow managed to burn.

“I blame your stupid toaster, it has a mind of its own,” I grumbled after we pulled out the charred slices of bread.

“At least you can make a decent cup of coffee,” Cristiano offered and took a polite gulp from his coffee mug as if to prove his point.
I was on my third cup of coffee, and Cristiano was on his last bite of eggs when he broached the subject I had assumed had been dropped.

“We didn’t get back together, that’s not what you walked in on last week,” Cristiano spoke up after neatly placing his fork and knife on his emptied plate.

“That’s not the song she’s singing according to some mutual friends, and honestly I really don’t want to have this argument and taint our incredibly great night because of it. I changed my mind; we really don’t need to do this today.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that he was going to be flying out to Turin with the team later today to play against Juventus on Tuesday night, and now that it had, I didn’t want him losing focus on the upcoming semifinal. I could deal with another day of discomfort.

And anyway I was ridiculously late for my morning class, and I needed to get going so that I could at least make the rest of my classes.

“It’s not an argument. When did it become an argument? I’m promising you right now there’s no reason to argue over this because there is absolutely nothing going on with me and her.”

“But is she aware of that? I don’t think she is. Otherwise why would she be calling you three times before 9AM on a Monday morning,” I pointed out feeling beyond exasperated at this point. As much as I wanted the subject put on hold for his sake, I needed certain questions answered for my sake just a little more.

“To congratulate me on Saturday’s match?”

Cristiano was fully aware of how much bullshit there was to his explanation, and that only managed to frustrate me more. I could read the realization in his eyes seconds before it occurred to me that I had heard my full on the matter.

“I need to get to class, and you need to get to the training complex,” I announced. I didn’t have the time or the inclination to push the matter further, but I will later, and he knew that I will.

He shook his head, “Nope, I have a media day lined up, so I will drop you off.”

I raised my mug of coffee into the air, the way you would raise a glass of champagne, “Cheers to the moment, Cristiano, I sincerely wish that it lasted longer than it did.”