Keep Cool, Stay Tough

I always hated the pressure of a first leg away game. You simply could not afford to fuck up during the first leg. It was imperative to walk off of your adversary’s pitch with an away goal. You don’t accomplish that, you pretty much destroy your chances of advancing.

It was half time on Tuesday evening at the Juventus Stadium and both teams had a goal apiece. Fortune seemed to be favoring Los Blancos since they had the all-too-important away goal to their name, and of course it was scored beautifully by none other than Cristiano himself.

I sat in Martha’s living room trying to avoid Zoe’s intrusive gaze as I took a drink from my glass of wine. I had invited her and Chloe over to watch the game, have dinner, and also finally come clean about all of those little peculiars I had neglected to mention for so long. Mina made it impossible for me to hold out any information, insisting that this was a cleansing experience and needed to be done. I was still irritated from the way I had left things with Cristiano the day before, and I was slightly tipsy from the wine the girls had brought with them, and so with or without Mina’s advice I had become an open book for the first time in my life. It was disconcerting to say the least.

“You told him you didn’t want to talk about what he was doing with his ex-girlfriend. You let him get away with it?”

I couldn’t stand the look on Zoe’s face. It was the most awful mix of pity and disappointment. I didn’t take my eyes off the TV as I nodded my head once forcing my expression to remain blank. Chloe and Mina were in the kitchen replenishing the tray of snacks and drinks while the commentators replayed highlights and briefly touched upon Barcelona’s match up against the lethal Bayern Munich tomorrow night at the Camp Nou.

“Why would you do that?”

I jutted my chin out, pointing towards the screen, “Because his team has lost out on every other opportunity to land a trophy this season, and I wanted him to have a decent chance to win something.”

“Don’t you support Barcelona? What difference does it make to you whether or not his team wins or loses?” Zoe demanded.

I smiled in spite of myself; touched that someone as indifferent as Zoe was to football would remember that little detail about me.

“Yeah of course, but he still deserves to have a clear mind to play his best game. I want him to do well, to reach as far as he can…until of course he hits the Barcelona roadblock in which case I will root for Real Madrid to go down and hope there are no hard feelings,” I explained with a slow smile. I hated the idea of a Champions league final turning into another clasico solely because I would be rooting against Cristiano and all the guys I was lucky enough to call on as friends.

Zoe still looked skeptical.

“And then once the season has properly winded down, I will rip into him and demand details of details about him and her until I am blue in the face or completely satisfied,” I tacked on and sipped at my wine pensively. “You know whichever comes first.”

“So you’re just biding your time,” Zoe’s expression opened, the look of pity and disappointment slipped off, but there still a pensive arch to her brow.

“Yes, but for the record he more or less tried to assure me that nothing was going on,” I reminded.

“But do you believe him?”

“I want to, and that should count for something, no?”

“Then just give him the benefit of a doubt until you can’t, I guess,” Zoe surmised.

“Are you guys still talking about Cristiano?” Chloe questioned upon her return, laden with a tray of pretzel sticks, chips, and dip, “I’m telling you, Senna, Irina is full of shit, there’s nothing going on with them!”

“Why the fuck was she calling him three times before 9AM on a fucking Monday morning?” Zoe demanded on my behalf.

Mina and I exchanged glances over the bottles of water, soda, and freshly opened bottle of wine on her tray. Chloe waved off Zoe’s question and took her seat between me and Zoe on the couch.

“Doesn’t matter what she does if he doesn’t give her the time of day,” Chloe insisted.

“That’s just it, dimwit, we don’t know for sure whether he’s consistently ignoring her or not, and you know Irina just as well as I do. If she has something to tell you, she will find a way to tell you,” Zoe retorted.

“I still think there’s something he’s not telling me, and I am going to play the ‘nice guy’ card for as long as I can, but if he pushes his luck, I will snap,” I assured my group of friends, “Regardless of whether or not he’s prepping for a champions league match.”

Chloe turned towards me placing her hand on my leg, “Cristiano Ronaldo does not strike me as the type of guy to give a girl the best night of her life, make her breakfast in boxers the next morning, and be reuniting with his ex-girlfriend in the afternoon.”

I rolled my eyes, “We were great as friends, and I just need a little more assurance from him that we’ll be great as more than friends too. That’s all this is about for me honestly.”

“And the second half is starting,” Mina announced and thankfully Chloe and Zoe shelved the conversation without another word spoken on the matter.

Real Madrid gave it their all in the second half, and yet somehow at the end of the ninety plus minutes of allotted game time, Juventus was the team that walked off the pitch as winners – the score stood 2-1.

Mina and I tried to convince Chloe and Zoe to stay the night, but they had a work meeting set up early in the morning that they couldn’t reschedule. Mina and I went straight to bed, Mina feeling disconsolate and subsequently not too talkative. I sent Cristiano a text just to check in, and I wasn’t really expecting an instant response so I forgot about the text almost immediately after sending it. I grabbed my notebook for my sociology class and settled against my pillows for a late night study session. I nearly jumped out of my skin at a quarter to three in the morning when my phone’s shrill ringtone broke the silence in the pool house.

“Hey, you still up?” I asked, surprised.

“You don’t sound like you were sleeping either,” Cristiano noted.

“I wasn’t, I was looking over some notes, I have a test on Wednesday,” I explained, suppressing a yawn, “Although why you would give a test a week before giving a final is beyond me.”

“You mean tomorrow or actually in a couple of hours?”

“Oh crap, that’s right, yeah I guess,” I pouted at the realization, the stack of notes seemed to have doubled as the realization dawned on me.

“What are you doing still up?”

“We flew back to Madrid,” He answered, his voice dull and tired.

“Really, that’s different.”

“We took a vote as a team and decided against staying in Turin for the night,” Cristiano explained, “We caught a flight back an hour after the game. Do you want to meet up?”

“Yeah of course, Cris, are you okay?” I readily answered, pulling the duvet cover off and jumping out of bed to pull together a cute but comfortable outfit. I settled for black yoga pants and a white sweater that hung off my shoulders.

He ignored me, “I’m outside the house.”

“Where’s Martha?” I asked, already out the pool house and reaching to unlatch the gate.

“She’s at the hospital with Bale.”

I winced, “That tackle did look pretty awful.”

Cristiano was leaning against his car, his foot pressed delicately against the tire, his phone pressed to his ear. Butterflies raged in my stomach when I noticed his eyes light up when he saw me approach. I knew my own expression must have been mirroring his.

“You guys played amazingly well, you especially…that goal was-”

He cut me off with a deep kiss, “I missed you.”

“Yeah, me too,” I murmured and wound my arms tightly around him, taking in the way his body melded against mine and feeling a reassurance in our reunion that I hadn’t felt since Sunday night.

“And I don’t want you and me to have the relationship you had with Fàbregas. I realized why you were so annoyed about Irina calling on Monday morning, and I need you to understand that I won’t do what he did.”

I couldn’t read his expression when he made the sudden proclamation. But I felt his warmth pressing into my exposed skin, I breathed in his scent, and I listened to his breathing. I kept my eyes shut tight, and hugged him harder. I didn’t want to discuss Cesc, or Irina, or even Juventus. I only wanted to get my fill of him.

“Senna, I’m serious, do you understand what I’m telling you?” Cristiano loosened his hold, pulling back to gauge my reaction when I kept silent. An obvious look of worry creased his features, and all I could think was worrying didn’t suit him.

“I can’t go through that again,” I admitted, my voice slow, and just the thought of it made my heart squeeze painfully in my chest, “I wouldn’t be able to handle a crash that hard the second time.”

He took my face in his hands, his eyes holding onto mine, “You matter to me, you are important to me, and I will take the time to prove that to you again and again. We won’t crash.”

“But you need to focus on that second leg,” I reminded him, hating that I had to be the realistic one.
“I can do both,” Cristiano amended, “I will do both.”

I bit on my lower lip watching the worry continue to crease his features, and I could not fathom what that worry was for. Why were we having this conversation in the middle of the night? Why did Cristiano seem guilty? Why was he so insistent on proving to me everything was going to be great?

I batted away all of the crazy questions almost as soon as I’d thought them.

“Serious commitment hasn’t been my best category,” He blurted, an uncomfortable laugh following his words, “But I am giving you my word that I am going to fix that.”

“I know, I remember the conversation we had, I’m not sure –“

“I know, I just, you aren’t…”

“I know,” I cut him off, smiling at the fact that we were answering unspoken thoughts as opposed to questions asked aloud, “I’m not your usual type, but you are my usual type and that makes me just as nervous.”

“I don’t want you to be nervous.”

“I don’t want to be nervous either, but it’s there, Cris, that feeling that I’m making a mistake, and it’s going to take time to get rid of that nervousness.”

“And the first thing we’re going to do is go public about our relationship.”

I laughed, rolling my eyes, “Before we go public how about we jump to the same page together because I kind of feel like I’m a step behind right now.”

“Right, I’m rushing, I feel that I’m rushing, but okay, here it goes, Senna,” He paused for dramatic effect, I held back a snigger, “Will you be my girlfriend?”

This was our defining moment, I realized with a smile. It was nearing four in the morning. Cristiano was leaning against his Lamborghini, and I was leaning against him, and he had his hands insistently planted on my ass as he asked me to officially be his girlfriend. I couldn’t help feeling that this was as romantic as it was going to get for us, and honestly I loved it and wholeheartedly preferred it.

“Girlfriend?” I repeated and took an immediate liking to the sound of it, and the images it presented, but still there were those pesky thoughts that I felt stupid to think and even stupider to give voice to, it would drive me insane if things weren’t clarified tonight, “You understand what that means?”

“I think so, I mean you’re not my first girlfriend,” He laughed, his eyebrow arching appreciatively as his hand traveled up my bareback and he noticed I wasn’t wearing a bra.

“It means exclusivity, Cris, as much as you don’t like commitment, it means you and me, and no one else,” I elaborated, gauging his reaction.

“I don’t want to ever have Mina, Zoe, or Chloe, or even my sister or anyone from Barcelona to pick up a tabloid and see you having a fling and depicting me as a deluded bimbo that should have seen it coming,” I continued as he contemplated ways to convince me that I wasn’t making a mistake.

“You are really into the whole ‘footballers are assholes cliché’, aren’t you?” He eventually asked with a small chuckle.

“Don’t make me regret this,” I warned, and already I was tugging at his shirt inching him closer and closer to me until he landed his lips on mine.

“You will not regret this, no matter how much I drive you crazy, you will never regret being my girlfriend,” Cristiano reassured.