Chapter Text
“Do you think I’ll win Player of the Year this time?”
It’s quiet and unassuming the way she asks it, but Kelley’s felt the subtle build of anxiousness in Alex since they landed in Switzerland. It’s there in the quiet moments alone in their room after press conferences and interviews, or in the way Alex’s mind wanders during dinner with her parents, periodically needing Kelley’s hand on her leg to draw her thoughts back towards her dad while he goes on about all the places around the city they need to take Kelley.
The Morgans have spent four consecutive Januarys in the cold winter air of Switzerland, sitting patiently at a gala that is the only place in Alex’s career where a win has eluded her, but hours before they slip off to their rooms on the night before, Pam puts a hand on Kelley’s arm in the hotel bar and tells her she feels like good luck.
“On a scale of one to ten, I’d give you at least a fourteen.”
“I’m being serious.”
“Me too.”
It’s dark in their hotel room and Kelley’s cheeks are still warm from drinks at the bar and Alex pressing her against the door of their room after they’d stumbled happily off of the elevator at their floor.
Alex shifts beside her, her limbs tangling in the heavy layer of extra winter blankets until she’s draped across Kelley, her face buried in the soft skin of the defender’s neck.
“Kell, if I win-”
“When you win.”
“If I win, I’m probably going to mention you by name.”
It’s said softly and asked like a question she already knows the answer to.
Alex can feel the response vibrate in Kelley’s throat and it feels like morse code only she can understand, two words that say everything.
“You better.”
* *
The limo doors open onto the red carpet and it’s organized chaos in Zurich.
Heif is there to direct them through the traffic, and Kelley finds reassurance in his familiar face among the sea of strangers behind guardrails and flashing cameras who shove microphones their way and shout directions at them in foreign languages.
Gareth Bale is on the carpet in front of them, and the cameras that had flashed for him double with intensity when Alex and Kelley start their long journey towards the gala. They turn and smile in all the directions they’re supposed to, arms around each other’s waists in a way that doesn’t really betray anything. Kelley can feel Alex's nerves across her back. Heif trails behind them, and Alex turns to him for clarification when the press line’s shouts intensify.
He looks at them like he has a secret he doesn’t want to share and then, “They want pictures of just Alex.”
Kelley smiles at his discomfort, “It’s cool, Heif. It’s Alex’s night, plus she looks ridiculous in that dress. It needs its own picture.”
She starts to step away but there are fingers on her wrist that tug her back.
“Tell them no solo pictures, if that’s ok with Kell.”
Kelley knows what it might mean to walk the length of this red carpet the way that she suddenly wants to with Alex, that what was always so fiercely theirs will be talked about by people they don’t know, that the way she loves Alex will be judged or applauded, and very much public. She knows how quickly their lives might change in front of the sea of camera flashes and news that travels across the ocean at the speed of light.
When she laces her fingers with Alex’s, it’s to say, “I’m glad to be in love with you in front of all these people.”
The cameras catch Alex’s smile, big and wide, but it’s not meant for them.
There’s a yell from behind the barricade, an English accent still wailing about getting a picture of Alex alone, not realizing what’s just happened in front of him, and Alex turns towards the noise, both of her hands wrapped around Kelley’s, and shouts a defiant, ecstatic refusal.
* *
When Alex wins the Ballon d’Or there’s a shake in her voice when she thanks her team, and her family, and Kelley, for wearing her belief in Alex across her boots.
* * *
The morning is quiet on their last day together.
Alex is up first, and Kelley watches her from their bed as she re-checks her suitcases and dresses without urgency, as if time will slow to match her pace. It takes an extra nudge from Alex to pull Kelley from bed, and there’s something that feels like an apology in Alex’s touch when she sits next to Kelley, a press of lips to her temple that lingers until Kelley nods her head and starts to move.
While she brushes her teeth, Kelley can’t stop staring at the tube of toothpaste that Alex is leaving behind in the medicine cabinet, tucked between Kelley’s mouthwash and the bottle of perfume Alex had brought her home from her last trip to New York. It’s a weird reminder of the time they’ll spend apart, that Alex will be back, but not soon enough to salvage her toothpaste. Kelley can’t stand the citrus flavor Alex likes, but it’s what she tastes like in the early mornings and late at night, and she pushes the tube farther back into the medicine cabinet because she doesn’t want to think about it.
Instead she thinks about Alex’s half-eaten box of sugary cereal in the cupboard, and the newly opened gallon of skim milk in the fridge that she won’t be able to finish on her own before it spoils. She’s rinsing when she remembers that Alex’s car tags expire next month and Kelley wonders if Alex remembered to pay for them or if she’ll need to take care of it. Alex is suddenly in the doorway, hands shoved into the pockets of her sweats, silently hovering like she doesn’t want to ask Kelley if she’s ready to go. Kelley starts to ask about the tags, and it almost feels casual when she steps towards Alex, like this is just another day, but when Kelley opens her mouth the words stick in her throat, and there is something like a sob that threatens to escape and she has to clench her jaw shut to keep it from weighing Alex down.
They’ve been awake for an hour, but neither of them have said a word.
* *
Her parents take their time saying goodbye. Pam twists her fingers around the ends of Alex’s ponytail while Mike hugs her tight, not afraid of who might see him cry in the middle of a crowded airport.
Kelley gives them space, finding limited distraction in the twist of a ring, and adding Munich to the weather app on her phone while she tries not to hear Pam cry.
Alex hugs her parents one last time and then Kelley can no longer ignore the knot in the pit of her stomach, because when Alex turns towards her, it’s for the last time in a span that will be measured in months instead of days or hours.
It’s a fleeting moment, one that comes when Alex’s shaking hands cup her cheeks, but there’s a want deep in Kelley’s bones to make Alex stay because suddenly two and a half years next to this person doesn’t seem like enough. Kelley doesn’t want to forget the lines of Alex’s face, the slope of her nose, or what her laugh sounds like in the morning when it’s muffled against Kelley’s skin.
It’s tight in her chest, the weight of her decision to encourage Alex towards Germany while she stays behind, but she feels guilty for questioning it, for the fleeting selfishness in wanting Alex to stay even if she never said the words out loud.
She kisses Alex hard, to say goodbye and that she’s silently sorry for wanting her to stay, and she pulls them together tightly, her hands knotted around the collar of Alex’s coat, and tries to memorize the pattern of the heartbeat against her ribs.
“Alex, I love you,” she says softly, and they’re the first words she’s spoken all morning, and once they start they don't stop. “You’re the love of my life and you have been for a long time, since before you told me in the tunnel or kissed me in the kitchen. Maybe I’ve loved you since London. And sometimes I wish I’d told you sooner, but you knew when we were both ready, and you know now.”
The security line doubles behind them, and Alex really needed to go five minutes ago, but she leans down to kiss a trail across the bridge of Kelley’s nose, patient and gentle, moving wide enough to catch the quiet tears that have started to slip down her cheeks.
“I don’t want to go,” Alex whispers, the weight of Kelley’s words curling Alex around her until her face is buried in Kelley’s neck so tightly the rest of her words are muffled by skin and the collar of a coat. “I love you and I don’t want to go.”
“You have to go,” Kelley says, forcing away the shake in her voice because Alex needs it. “Go score some goals, and make me proud. I’ll see you in the Algarve. I love you.”
Alex kisses her again, and there are words whispered in Kelley’s ear that force a smile and one last kiss, then she is gone.
Kelley cries a little in the middle of the airport, but no one can see because there’s a Morgan on either side of her.
* * *
In the beginning, Germany feels farther away than Alex could have ever imagined.
She’s separated from home by an ocean and nine time zones, but the distance always feels bigger at night when she struggles to fall asleep next to a cold pillow and with the hollow quiet of a bedroom that will always feel temporary. She’s spent a lifetime on the road, learning to adjust to different mattresses and the stiff discomfort of hotel bedding, but there had always been a teammate across the room or Kelley across the gap in the bed, and the nights feel lonely and long without either one.
The mix comes two weeks after sleepless nights that Alex doesn’t have to mention to Kelley, the link in the email titled “go to sleep you big baby (i miss you the most at night, too)”. It’s twelve tracks of soft indie love songs that are maddeningly Kelley, and for three straight weeks she falls asleep with her in a different way, and it’s almost close enough.
* *
She shares a house with her two other American teammates, and they tutor her in the necessities of German life on the long drive to practices. It’s a slow adjustment, and the language comes even slower, but there’s no need for shaky translations when there’s a ball at her feet.
She comes off the bench in her first game of the season, and the German crowd is loud at the chance to see their expensive new American. There’s a knot in her stomach when she steps onto the pitch, and she’s nervous for a beat, but it’s quickly swallowed away by the thrill that comes from having to prove herself all over again in a place that isn’t hers.
Alex hits the post twice on breakaways that leave defenders scrambling after her, and the anticipation from the crowd to see what she can do buzzes loudly around her until she hits a laser into the upper corner minutes into stoppage time. It’s an insurance goal, but when the stadium roars it sounds something like home, and the crush of her new teammates feels almost familiar.
There’s a rambling speech from her coach in the locker room after and Alex doesn’t understand a word of it, but the enthusiastic thumbs up doesn’t need interpretation.
Germany starts to feel warmer.
* * *
In the first three weeks Alex is gone, Kelley spends every cold winter morning dragging herself out of bed and across town to morning training sessions with the scattered group of teammates who stayed in Los Angeles.
In the parking lot afterwards, they knock mud from their boots and talk about Syd’s latest boyfriend or upcoming camps, and sometimes the talk turns to rumors about a league. Tobin tries not to sound too excited when they share the bits and pieces of what they’ve heard, but Kelley won’t put stock in rumors again.
On the afternoons that Syd and Tobin don’t try and drag her out to lunch and a movie, she naps on the couch, still dirty and damp from training, and misses the weight of Alex stretched out alongside her. Some of those afternoons she sleeps too late and wakes in a cold sweat to a quiet house, the time zones counted on her fingers telling her it’s too late to try and catch Alex on skype. She cooks dinner for one with an episode of Alex’s saved tv shows playing in the background, and almost feels bad about finding the life of an out of contract pro soccer player to be mostly boring and lonely.
* *
The offer to coach comes out of nowhere, a random email from a friend of a friend from college, but the high school one city over is in desperate need of a coach after theirs accepts an offer to play in Europe.
Kelley is tired of Europe.
She gets sixteen players, a forest green windbreaker, and something to fill the achingly quiet afternoons. There’s an office that’s just hers tucked into the farthest corner of the gym, and Kelley’s proud of the dusty desk and the office chair that squeaks when she leans back to prop her feet up on her first day. Alex is on the phone telling her how excited she is for her while Kelley fiddles with the zipper on her new windbreaker, and it all feels a little surreal.
The players call her ‘Coach’ and they spend most of the first practice alternating between staring at her with mouths held open by disbelief, or stumbling over nerves and clumsy feet when she runs them through drills.
The second practice she steps in to scrimmage with the uneven numbered team. She’s nutmegged within five minutes, it’s a calculated and ruthless move that leaves Kelley rooted to the ground and staring wide-eyed at her feet. When she looks up she sees that the game has stopped and the sophomore who did it looks legitimately concerned about having just shown up her coach until Kelley laughs big and tracks her down for a high five.
It’s during the post-practice cool down session that a freshman works up the nerve to ask her where she keeps her gold medals, and the questions they’ve all stored up for days suddenly come out like a flood.
They ask about Boss and Syd and the countries she’s played in. There are questions about how she trains and what she eats before games, and who is the best roommate on the road. And then there are questions about Alex.
Their coming out in Zurich had stayed mostly under the radar back in the states. Alex had fumed for days at Kelley being listed as her teammate in the captions of their red carpet pictures until Kelley had kissed the words away and told her she didn’t need to call Sports Illustrated on Kelley’s behalf, that that moment was for them and for everyone else to figure out on their own.
When the shyest girl on the team asks Kelley if Alex is her roommate in a tone that suggests she’s figured it out on her own, the rest of the team falls silent and Kelley knows they’ve figured it out too.
“Alex and I live together, yes” she says in a way that answers their question enough for a person in her position. There’s an incidental touch to the ring on her finger, a nervous habit and a subconscious reminder of the life she’ll get after Germany, and the players that catch it feel like they’ve been let in on something important to their coach.
There aren’t any nerves at the next practice.
* * *
Alex goes on a tear in Germany.
She scores in four straight and Kelley catches most of the games on a shaky stream in the Morgan’s living room, sandwiched between Mike and Jen on the couch, the three of them a loud wave of red jerseys at eight in the morning.
Alex feels slightly ridiculous tucking the German newspaper under her arm in the mornings after a match, and it only gets worse when she has to carefully trim the small mentions of her games from the newspapers at her mom’s request. Sometimes there’s a picture and a bigger headline, but they all get slipped into an envelope and sent to Los Angeles. Her mom tucks them into a book or sticks them to the fridge in between pictures of Kelley and Alex and Jeri and Jen, and that small section of newspaper cut from the local section about the gold medalist coaching St. Anthony High School’s soccer team.
While Alex’s team slowly climbs the table, Kelley’s team goes the opposite direction. For awhile.
They lose the first three games of the season and the team doesn’t find a lot of comfort in the narrow margins of their defeats. Their heads hang low in the locker room and on the team bus after, and Kelley is afraid to ask if the team thinks she’s disappointed in them.
They celebrate their first tie like it’s a championship. Kelley makes the bus driver pull over for ice cream even though it’s cold enough to see their breath as they shuffle off the bus. She makes an impromptu speech from the top of a bench, her half-eaten ice cream cone waved around while she stresses how proud she is of all of them, win or lose, but Kelley sees the way her girls look at her, the way they hang onto every word, and she knows they won’t lose again.
Kelley tells Alex about the game the next morning while she picks at her breakfast and Alex devours post-practice dinner. Alex calls her ‘coach’ around a mouthful of potato and Kelley likes the teasing tone of the nickname, but she doesn’t tell her that their teammates, mostly HAO, have started referring to Alex as ‘Mrs. Coach’. Kelley figures she can find out on her own in Portugal.
“Hey, guess what?” Alex asks, and she looks around the kitchen for any sign of her teammates before she leans closer. “Fifteen more days until I’m drawing patterns in those freckles across your knees.”
* *
The team’s flight to Portugal is delayed twice and Alex doesn’t even get released to the squad for another five days but Kelley paces the airport anxiously, as if someone is waiting on her. She checks flight statuses that never change and buys coffees that she forgets about until they’ve long since cooled. It’s Syd who eventually takes pity on everyone else and drags Kelley away from a very patient Rachel by the wrist and towards the news stand.
“Pick out something nerdy,” Syd says, positioning Kelley in front of a rack Popular Science magazines. “I’m going to find some ear plugs.”
Syd finds her later, skimming an article on urban development, her own purchases held securely to her chest.
“I bought you some crossword puzzles,” Syd says casually off Kelley’s look.
“Are they top secret or something?”
Syd looks down at the bag against her chest and grins, “I bought you a surprise, but you can only have it if you stop pacing and take a nap or something.”
Kelley agrees, and when they finally take off hours later she’s rewarded for her good behavior when Syd pulls her surprise out of her bag.
She holds it delicately, and the weight of the wedding magazine is significant in her hands. It feels real in that moment, that she gets to marry her best friend, and she leans across her seat to kiss Syd on the cheek before turning open the cover carefully. Syd pulls a notepad from the shopping bag and clicks open a pen.
“Now, let’s take some notes.”
* *
Three days into the tournament Kelley and Syd have flipped through the wedding magazine so many times that the pages are worn and curling at the edges. It’s their little secret for awhile until Megan walks in on them stretched across Syd’s bed, circling things with a marker. Megan doesn’t miss a beat, flopping onto Kelley’s unoccupied bed and kicking her shoes off.
“Kell, how many mason jars are you going to have at your hipster wedding?”
Kelley doesn’t look away from the dress Syd is pointing out when she answers.
“A whole fucking lot, dude.”
* *
What had always seemed like a permanent California tan fades away in the two months of gray German skies and heavy winter coats. It’s the first thing Kelley notices when she walks into her hotel room to find Alex sitting on the edge of her bed, two hours earlier than expected.
Alex is across the room in two steps.
Kelley presses fingertips to the lighter skin along Alex’s forearm, her boot bag still tossed over her shoulder, and Alex seems taller when Kelley grabs her wrist and eases up onto the tips of her toes to kiss her the way she’s wanted to for two months.
Sydney clears her throat loudly behind them.
“So do you guys want to go down to team dinner now, or should we all catch up for a few minutes first?”
“Bye Syd,” Alex smarts without looking away from Kelley, who smiles big and happy before leaning up to kiss her again before the door can even click shut behind a cackling Syd.
“I missed you,” Alex breathes into the curve of neck, even though Kelley already knew.
They’re twenty minutes late to the team dinner, Tobin still chewing firsts while she’s in line for seconds, and neither of them think to slow down the heavy conference room door that slams shut loudly behind them. The entire team turns to look their way, Kelley’s hair a telltale mess, and Alex catches sight of Megan just as she grins wickedly and wolf whistles so loudly it echoes through the room twice.
* *
Alex looks different on the ball and Kelley seems to notice it before anyone else.
It’s as if the few rough edges that had stubbornly remained after years of practice have been polished smooth by a trip across the ocean, and when Alex takes a deft touch around Kelley in morning training the defender stays rooted to the ground with the slightest bit of awe. Alex pays for it later with a clean tackle from Kelley that leaves her brushing dirt from her shorts, and listening to Tobin laugh from the other half of the field.
Kelley finds a new scar after an easy win over China. It’s a nick just below her elbow that her fingers find when they’re tracing across Alex’s arm in bed. It’s pink and raised, a permanent reminder that their lives have carried on without each other, and Kelley presses her thumb to it and asks Alex for the story behind it. She tells Kelley about a misstep in training and a teammate’s studs clipping her just right, the way the blood had dripped down her fingers and stained her favorite pair of boots. She laughs when she talks and Kelley can tell Alex already loves Germany. Kelley ignores the twist of her stomach and kisses at the smile that still lingers long after Alex has stopped talking. There’s a shirt on the ground and hands in her hair, and Alex whispers stupid German words across Kelley’s collarbone until there’s a laugh loud enough to let them forget about the distance.
* *
Algarve Cup ends with a new trophy and gates at opposite ends of the airport. It’s Alex who has the hardest time letting go of Kelley’s hand, and she waits until the last possible minute again to leave, and then she’s gone after one last kiss to the crown of Kelley’s head. Kelley doesn’t cry, but it feels harder than the first time until Lauren is next to her, slipping her hand into the one still warm from Alex. Kelley drops her head onto Lauren’s shoulder, and feels grateful for her team.
There’s a text when she lands, hours old because Alex’s flight was half a day shorter than hers, and it has her digging through her carry on and tracking down Syd with a smile.
“I might have found that wedding magazine, and now I can’t stop picturing you in that dress on page 43.”
* * *
Kelley finds steadiness in her other team, too. For awhile.
They win three while she’s in Portugal, and another two when she comes back. Their final game of the regular season ends in a draw but it’s enough to get them into the playoffs for the first time in two years.
Kelley catches sight of Tobin and Sydney in the stands after the game, the two of them tucked in the bottom corner near the railing in an attempt to stay low key. They take her to dinner after endless pictures in the locker room with her team, and Kelley swatting Syd away when she finds the picture of Alex on her office desk. Tobin tells her about the contract in Sweden halfway through Kelley’s second beer. Syd looks sad and Tobin can only shrug her shoulders.
“I need to play.”
* *
They lose in the first round of the playoffs on penalty kicks after a scoreless draw.
It’s the worst way to lose and Kelley has to console her captain in the middle of the field, the sound of the ball clipping the outside of the post still ringing in both their ears. She’s proud of these girls with their tear-stained faces, and she tells them in the locker room and as they pile onto the bus, and she tells them again the next morning when they turn in their jerseys.
The struggling freshman forward she’d convinced to transition to outside back at the beginning of the season to fill a roster gap, and because she’d seen a spark of something familiar, makes the all-district second team, and when she turns in her jersey she promises Kelley they’ll go even further next year.
Kelley doesn’t know where she’ll be next year, she never really knows, but it doesn’t feel like a lie when she smiles back at her protege and says, “Yeah we will.”
* * *
Tobin leaves for Sweden, Whitney goes to England, and Kelley turns in the keys to her little office in the farthest corner of the gym.
There’s a new ache in her chest when she watches Alex’s streamed games from her living room, still in the training clothes she’d worn to an uninspired morning practice with Syd and their shrinking group of teammates. Alex dances around the ball, and the defender bites too hard, and Kelley swears Alex smiles when she flies past her effortlessly.
Tobin’s words echo in her ear. She wants to play. She needs to play.
* *
Alex doesn’t get released for the friendly in May, and no one has talked about the league in weeks. Kelley buys a plane ticket to Munich for the day after the game, and it feels like the start of a decision.
* * *
It’s a thirteen hour flight from Los Angeles to Munich and Kelley spends half of it over thinking the friendly and the way her touches on the ball felt too heavy, or how her speed was half a step too slow against the English forwards. The rest of the flight she just thinks about Alex.
The airport is an unfamiliar mess of people and she’s trying to remember where she was supposed to meet Alex when someone yells her name. Kelley’s suddenly overwhelmed at the sound of Alex’s voice, husky and clear instead of muddled through laptop speakers, and she turns to see her standing in the perfect split of the crowd, fresh from practice and still in her warm ups. Luggage is forgotten at her feet, and Kelley kisses Alex hard.
Alex laces their fingers together and leads the way towards baggage claim, and they watch the bags circle the carousel, Kelley’s nose pressed into Alex’s shoulder so she can memorize the way she smells in her new city, Munich air mixed with Alex’s shampoo.
Kelley breathes deep.
* *
The stadium is only half full, but they’re loud for their team and their high-scoring American. The city loves her, the boy sitting next to Kelley wears ‘Morgan’ on the back of his full kit, and she knows Alex loves the city back by the way she plays, passionate like she’s always been but with an easy freedom that Kelley’s never seen her play with. Kelley watches Alex smile on the jog back from a shot that goes just over the crossbar, and she knows this place has changed her.
Alex scores just before the half and she finds Kelley’s face in the crowd and pats the space over her heart. Save for that brief moment in the airport, she’s never really questioned her decision to push Alex towards Germany, but in the stands surrounded by chanting Germans she questions why she didn’t encourage herself to go too.
The security guard looks nervous when Alex starts to climb the railing after the final whistle but she makes it up in one piece and tugs at the end of Kelley’s Bayern scarf until her flushed cheeks are in Kelley’s hand and she’s kissing her quick in the noisy stadium.
“How’d I do?” Alex sort of half-yells, out of breath but completely sincere, and Kelley kisses her again.
“You looked damn good, buddy,” Kelley yells before leaning in to whisper something in Alex’s ear. There’s a nod, and Kelley’s lip dragging across Alex’s retreating cheek, then Alex leans over to tug on the sleeve of the boy wearing her name.
* *
On her third night in Munich Alex’s teammates drag them to a club with house music so loud Kelley’s sure the bassline is changing the rhythm of her heartbeat. Alex’s fingers are pressed into her hips, and while the rest of the club bounces around them, she kisses Kelley like it’s her last night on Earth. Someone taps them on the shoulder eventually, an American teammate with a round of shots, and they break apart long enough to let the shot of jager coat the back of their tongues before the American teammate is motioning for them to carry on as she retreats back into the crowd. Alex’s laugh is the only thing Kelley can hear above the music.
If she hadn’t made her decision two days ago Kelley would be sure of it by now.
* *
“Are you gonna stay in Germany?”
It’s almost the same conversation they’ve had before, but this time in a different city, and at a different breakfast table. It’s Alex’s feet that are tucked up onto the rungs of Kelley’s chair, and she chews her toast carefully while she considers her answer.
“I think so,” Alex says softly, the tone in her voice surer than the words she uses.
“Good,” Kelley says as she reaches for Alex’s toast. She bites off the corner and slips a hand into the one Alex has clenched under the table. “Because I just sent my agent an email asking him to find me a team over here.”
Alex is quiet for a stretch, but the joy is painted across her voice, and then it’s in the crack of her voice when she smiles at Kelley and asks, “Really?”
“I see the way you play now, and how free you look while you do it. I want that again. And I want you. Plus, you know, there’s all that beer.”
Alex smashes her lips against Kelley’s, and the stolen toast with the missing corner is knocked to the floor and Kelley leaves buttery fingerprints across Alex’s neck.
* * *
They take a long vacation in the middle of June, Alex halfway through her month long break from the German team that will officially be hers again for another six months. They spend a week in a rented house down in San Diego, surfing in the morning and curling around each other at night, Alex sitting on the counter while Kelley tries to remember how to cook with distractions tracing across her skin.
There’s a warm morning at the beach, Kelley on the water before anyone else until tourists start to drop in on her waves and the rumble in her stomach is too loud to ignore. Alex is stretched out across the sand near Kelley’s pile of things, letting the California sun paint her skin golden again, and she hands Kelley her phone and a cup of coffee.
“Your agent called twice, left a couple voicemails. You should check them, and then I’m taking you to breakfast.”
Kelley checks her phone and there’s an email more recent than the voicemails, one from her agent that’s marked urgent. When she opens the email it’s like she can feel everything click into place. Her hand reaches for Alex’s wrist, and everything is covered in sand.
“Essen wants me for six months.”
* * *
At SGS Essen they give her the captain’s armband and a squad that seems impossibly young. The average age of her backline is nineteen until Kelley ruins the curve, and it’s almost impossible not to feel her age a little after two-a-day practices and scrimmages that have her defending speedy forwards ten years younger than her.
The armband feels foreign against her skin in their first game of the season. Kelley tries to remember the way HAO leads and Alex directs traffic, but it becomes her own way when there’s an early goal in the back of their net and she huddles them together on the pitch, calm and reassuring when she tells them to “just keep playing” in rapidly improving German. There’s a sprint across the field to talk down the ref who’s eager to pull a card on their youngest midfielder, and she’s patient but firm when her rookie center back gets caught ball-watching on a play that leaves their keeper scrambling.
When the final whistle blows it’s in her bones and the steadiness of her voice, like she was always meant for it.
They lose the game, but only by a goal, and she wakes the next morning to muscle aches that feel familiar and wanted. There’s a shadow of bruises across her arms from fingertips that grabbed and the sharp jut of an elbow, and the skin across her thigh is scraped to hell from tackles at high speed, but she finds a strange joy in the pain that comes from a game well played.
“I like it here,” Kelley tells Alex later over skype in the same time zone, and it doesn’t feel like a surprise to either of them.
* *
They’re three months into the season and firmly holding onto a spot halfway down the table when Bayern Munich and Alex come to play them at home.
Kelley spends most of the pre-game warmups talking the nerves out of her youngest starters, and the locker room speech is loud and high energy and almost enough to quell the butterflies in her own stomach. She doesn’t look at Alex when they line up in the tunnel, nerves and competitiveness battling it out in her chest, but when they march out onto the pitch, the stadium fuller than usual, she finds distraction in searching the stands for her family. She finds their four blue jerseys easily, seated next to the only four bright red jerseys in the stands, Alex’s mom next to hers. Kelley looks down the row of players all facing the flag and catches Alex smiling across the field at the sight of them.
Essen starts shaky, intimidated by the league leaders in a way they haven’t been by any other team, and it’s as if they know what their captain is playing against. There’s a bad back pass on the far side and Alex pounces but the shot goes just wide and Kelley watches her defender take a breath so deep her shoulders nearly touch her ears before she’s motioning across the field for her to calm down, smiling because it’s only a game.
The second time she gets a shot off Kelley is less patient, and she tells the center back to force Alex to shoot on her right because her shot is weaker off that side. Alex scoffs on her run back past them, and Kelley knows it isn’t true, not anymore, but she just needs it in her defender’s head, and in Alex’s.
Kelley almost feels bad about how well it works.
They tie without a goal and Kelley knows it’ll be their biggest victory for the rest of the season, and her team celebrates like they know it too. Afterwards their families are loud in the bar near Kelley’s apartment, Erin and Jeri buying rounds of shots and attempting to flirt with their American bartender. Kelley sits near her mom, tucked into a table in a quiet corner, and it feels strangely normal to be sitting in a bar and drinking beer while her mom runs her fingers through her hair the way she’s always done when Kelley’s been gone for too long.
Across the room she spots Alex and Jerry sitting together at the bar, her little brother animated while Alex sulks and she’s across the room to rescue one of them before thinking twice.
“Jerry, go away,” she grins, pulling at the collar of her brother’s shirt until he’s up and off the bar stool. She’s three beers in and too light on her feet, and Jerry’s hand is on her elbow to steady her as she slides onto the stool next to Alex.
“Jerry is drunk and teasing me about that tackle you got on me,” Alex rubs at her hip. “There’s already a bruise.”
“I’ll kiss it and make it better,” Kelley says in a voice so low it’s practically a growl, and when she leans across the gap between them to put hands on either side of Alex’s bar stool she’s met with stubborn resistance.
“You got in my head out there. On purpose.”
“I was trying to win, just like you. Now stop sulking and kiss me.”
“I don’t like playing against you,” Alex mumbles as she leans in to kiss her, the hint of a wicked smile curling at her lips.
It’s the opposite of gentle and Kelley doesn’t mind the frustration in Alex’s fingers or that they both taste like beer and sweat. There’s just relief in knowing their families have their own hotel rooms and that Kelley’s apartment is just around the corner.
* * *
November feels different.
Alex has a long stretch without a game and she takes the five hour train ride up to Essen to spend her nights next to Kelley and watch her play from up in the stands. She’s quiet behind the bench, ignoring the play of the ball to watch the way Kelley moves on the field, focused and sure. Alex thinks, years from now, when she remembers the way soccer made her feel in Germany, she’ll remember this version of Kelley.
After the game, Alex hopes she’ll climb the railing to kiss her, and Kelley does.
Kelley takes her to dinner, and it’s close enough to the stadium that they pull their coats tighter around their shoulders and walk, Alex’s arm looped through Kelley’s. They’re halfway through dinner, Kelley already picking at Alex’s plate and blaming it on post-game hunger, when their phones buzz with a new email.
The league is official, a firm list of cities with MLS-backed teams for them to pick from, and Alex finds herself scanning the list for anything in LA. Kelley finds it at the same time.
There’s a yearlong contract for Bayern Munich on her kitchen counter, and Alex likes the player she is here, likes how much she loves the game again, but she’s spent the last year in Germany with home always on her mind. She loves the city, but leaving it means getting to marry her best friend and playing the game she loves beside her again.
“What do you think?” Alex asks carefully, because as much as she wants to go home, she’ll re-sign with Bayern if Kelley wants to stay.
“I’m thinking LA would obviously be our first choice, but I like Portland as a backup. I’d like to stay on the west coast.”
“You want to go back?”
“Al, I came here because I couldn’t play at home, and because I missed seeing your face. If I can get both of those things back in the states, I’m not hesitating at taking that chance.” Kelley’s hand is in hers across the table, and it feels like the start of a new chapter. “What are you thinking?”
“I like Portland as a backup too,” and there’s a hitch in her voice that she doesn’t try to swallow away.
* * *
They’re home for good a week before Christmas.
Their small apartment by the beach is cold and dusty, but it still smells faintly like them, coffee and training gear mixed with the ocean. Suitcases are forgotten in the living room, and they leave a trail of coats and sneakers down the hallway that leads to their bedroom. They don’t bother to turn on a light, stumbling through the dark to slip under the cold sheets of their bed, Kelley moving and adjusting until she finds her favorite spot in the dip of the mattress next to Alex.
There’s a long release of breath, one that she feels like she’s been holding since Alex left for the first time, and she rolls in tighter, one hand slipping under Alex’s shirt, and the warmth beneath her palm is real and permanent and hers. Sleep won’t come for hours thanks to jet lag and a long adjustment to the right time zones, but they close their eyes anyway and the space around them is quiet and comfortable until Kelley breaks the silence.
“Al, what’s your greatest adventure so far?”
It’s not meant to be profound, an innocent question with so many answers, it’s typical Kelley at two in the morning, still curious to know everything she can about her partner even after so many years. There’s a montage already playing in Kelley’s head of their first world cup medal and how her heartbeat on the podium had made it bounce against her ribs, or their second gold in Rio and Alex’s eyes wide at Kelley’s question in the locker room after. Kelley pictures trophies in the Algarve and Alex’s first goal in Germany, or their allocation to the team in Los Angeles that still isn’t public yet.
There’s a shift beside her and Alex’s breath is on her skin and Kelley thinks about how she traveled the world twice over to find that Alex had been beside her the whole time.
Alex’s hand slips into hers beneath the mountain of blankets, and Kelley presses the pad of her finger to the diamond on Alex’s ring until her skin has memorized the cut of the stone, and Alex’s answer is simple and ready, like she’d always been waiting for someone to ask her.
“You.”