Chapter Text
“Was that Enzo?” Julián’s mother asked from the other end of the line. Julián sighed as he stood up from the couch.
“Yeah. I’ll call you back later, okay? I should go see what’s up.”
“That’s fine, I need to start on dinner anyway.”
“Okay, Mama, call soon. Love you.”
“Love you too, mijo,” she said, then hung up.
Julián pocketed his phone and went to see what Enzo had shouted about. If it was something stupid, he was going to be annoyed.
It was not, in fact, something stupid.
“Alexis?” he repeated to Enzo, looking at his phone screen in shock.
“Yes, do you remember anything?” Enzo was looking at him hopefully, but Julián just shook his head. They had been sitting together at some point, right? He had a blurred memory of Alexis in some stupid hat, and had they been flying? In a helicopter? Or had that still been on the bus…
Julián handed Enzo his phone back and got his own phone out just to double check. Sure enough, the same group chat was there, and the same text message.
He sat down next to Enzo on the bed with a thump.
Alexis…
The first time he’d seen Alexis, it was across the pitch. For a few seasons, he was just another player, around his age. Julián had been too busy playing to be making friends with rivals. He hadn’t properly met Alexis until they were both called up the the U23s together, and even then they hadn’t been good friends, just, teammates. He hadn’t known anything about him except that he played good football. Then, he’d seen him in England.
It was like a breath of fresh air to see a familiar face after so long. Julián had caught a glimpse of him warming up, and he’d immediately felt so homesick he’d gone to sit by himself for a while. Erling had come to find him after a bit, and he’d mustered up enough English to tell him that he knew one of the players on the other team.
“You should go say hello to him! What are you doing sitting here?” Erling had looked personally affronted, and Julián had had to laugh at him.
“We…are not friends,” he had said. “Just…I play—played—against him in Argentina.”
“Go say hi,” Erling had said, pulling him up by the arm. “You want to! If he doesn’t want to talk, well, maybe he is a bastard.”
“No! He’s not,” Julián had said, pulling himself away from Erling.
“So, talk to him.” Erling crossed his arms, and Julián rolled his eyes but went down to the tunnel to see if he could catch Alexis before the walk out.
Alexis came out not very long before kick off, Julián pacing around nervously as he waited.
“Hey, Colo!” he’d said, getting the words out fast before his tongue turned to stone in his mouth.
Alexis’ eyes had snapped to him, and he’d scowled. “Don’t call me that,” he’d said, and despite being only a few centimeters taller, he’d made Julián feel small.
“Sorry, I didn’t…” he didn’t have a good excuse. Honesty would have to do. “I recognize you, but I don’t remember your name. I just wanted to say hi.”
There must have been something in his voice or his face when he said it, because Alexis had softened immediately.
“My name is Alexis, Alexis Mac Allister. You’re,” he’d squinted at him briefly, then smiled when it came to him. “Álvarez. Julián Álvarez.”
“That’s right,” Julián had agreed.
Someone called down the tunnel, “All set, lads?” They would be walking out soon.
Alexis had shaken his hand and pulled him in for a quick side hug, said, “We can trade shirts after, if you want,” and Julián had nodded like an idiot, and then had to bite his tongue to stop from calling out after Alexis as he walked to his place in the starting line that he might not even play.
He slipped out to the bench not long after, and he did play in that game, for a few minutes. Came on right at the end, which seemed to be how Pep preferred to play him, and he had a few nostalgic moments facing off against Alexis again before the other was subbed off.
They’d traded shirts and phone numbers after the game, and Julián had smiled the entire trip back to Manchester.
Julián looked up at Enzo. “What do we do?”
Enzo sighed and sat beside him. “I don’t know.”
Julián leaned his head onto Enzo’s shoulder, nosed at a hickey he didn’t remember leaving. Could it have been…?
“We have to text him back.” Enzo said, pushing Julián away. He let gravity carry him all the way to the bed.
“Can we just say we forgot? That feels…” He didn’t want this to slip through his—their—fingers. He couldn’t let it.
“It’s worse if we make plans for a hookup and he’s planning, like, an asada or something.”
Julián sat up so he could give Enzo the full force of his incredulous look. “No one would invite anyone to an asada with a text like that.”
Enzo threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “I don’t know! It just—”
“But you’ve been invited to asadas before, no one would ever say it like that!”
“Maybe they do it differently in La Pampa! Besides, that’s not the point!” Enzo pushed Julián back down on the bed. Julián kicked him.
“Ow! Will you—”
“Boys? Everything all right in there?”
Julián and Enzo froze. Enzo glared at Julián as if to say it was his fault. Julián stuck his tongue out at him and then immediately retracted it. Okay, maybe they were being childish and it was kind of his fault.
“Everything’s fine, Ma!” Enzo called back. He hesitated and opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, then closed it again and shook his head at himself. Julián arched an eyebrow at him.
“I was going to,” he started and then stopped. He took a shaky breath and started again, not looking at Julián. “I know she was okay with the gay thing, but…,” Enzo paused and looked at the wall, as if trying to see his mother through it. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth. “I don’t know if she’d feel the same about…polyamory.”
He whispered it like it was a dirty word. Julián sat up and slid his arms around his waist, lay his head on his neck so his mouth was right next to his ear.
“You’ll always have me,” he said. What else was there to say?
“I know,” Enzo said, wrapping one of his arms around Julián in return and leaning his head on Julián’s head. “I know.”
Julián pretended he didn’t feel the tears that slipped into his hair, but he couldn’t help but hold on a little tighter.
They sat like that, as afternoon bled into evening, until Enzo’s mom called everyone to come help with dinner.