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“You will stay now, yes?” teeth flashing and the corners of his eyes wrinkling, tightening, his stomach the size of a fist. Riise runs by singing out of tune, a blur of red and beer, a buzz.
“After this- how could I leave?” he throws back, a stronger question. Xabi looks to the sky and doesn’t have an answer, thinks he never will.
.
He says it’s not about trophies and he means it, even if it took him winning this one to understand that. He smooths his hand over the clean metal and hears people shouting, feels his heart hammering against his ribcage with a ball in front of him and a ball behind him and a ball in the back of the net- three balls, three more, 6 minutes.
Liverpool, Champions of Europe, and that has a ring to it, doesn’t it? When Xabi walks in their room 4 minutes later with a breath stinking of expensive wine and two glasses of whisky, he collapses on the bed, giggles, says- “How much I love us, I never can say. There are no words.”
There are no words for this. (Walk on, walk on.)
.
When Benitez is done pacing they have 3 minutes to face the scoreboard again.
“Alright.” He claims, dabbing at the sweat on his forehead. “We may not win the final, but we will play football.” One half of the locker room looks down, the other looks up. Steven is looking straight ahead.
Straight ahead into the back of a net. (Hello, hello! Here we go.)
.
Jamie grabs the ball in a hurry, lost in the haze of almost, almost, and a pang of panic hits Xabi 2.3 inches under his heart. “You take this and you fookin’ hit it, a’ight Alonso?”
Xabi sets the ball down like he’s aligning his future. He is, really. When his foot meets the white- twice-
“I did it!” a war, no less, commotion from all around, and peace when he slides in, a feeling so strong it overwhelms any single train of thought. “Istanbul-“ is all he can say.
No mission is impossible.
.
It’s later, much later, when Jamie passes out on top of the table and Jerzy is still kissing his gloves and Rafa is yelling spanish at the bartender that Steven finds him, a lazy smile on his face, the alcohol settling in his bloodstream.
“Quick, before you can stop it,” he sits next to him, puts an arm around his back, nothing casual about it. “How would you describe it?”
Xabi strokes the label of his beer, the smile never leaving his lips. His eyes are amber when he looks at him. “Love. Nothing less I can, ah, offer. Say.”
.
Only one third of what he remembers of that night is in the headlines. The rest died along with laughter and closed hotel doors.
(I loved, I love, I will always- promise- always. It will never end.
Liverpool is immense.)