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Looking around the bar, Kelley takes a deep breath and tries to process the whirlwind of a day she just had. She’s just won her second World Cup, but the only thing she can focus on is her. Alex is standing on the bar with Christen, wearing their new “World Champions” shirt and holding a drink while screaming about how they now have four stars on their shirt. Kelley couldn’t care less about the rest of the bar as she laughed at her best friend.
Alex locks eyes with Kelley and attempts to jump down from the bar with Christen’s assistance. Tobin quickly takes her place with Christen and the two get lost in each other as Alex makes her way over to Kelley.
“Hey there superstar,” Kelley greets the forward. Alex grabs Kelley’s hand and guides her outside. “You know, if you wanted to take me home you only had to ask,” Kelley teases once they get outside. Alex scoffs before replying, “easy there tiger. I just wanted to get away and figured you did too.”
“Hey, Lex?”
“Yeah Kelley?”
“I kind of left my phone...and you kind of left your husband without saying anything.”
Alex flinches slightly at the mention of her soon to be ex-husband and pulls away slightly as they sit on the curb. She had forgotten to tell Kelley. Sure, they’d seen each other every single day for over a month at this point, but in between press, training, and playing, it had slipped her mind to tell Kelley that her marriage was over. It had been for a while.
Kelley didn’t miss the flinch and looks at Alex, waiting for her to speak.
“I meant to tell you months ago. But with Christen’s mom and the friendlies and the SheBelieves Cup and the start of the season and the send-off series and now being here-”
“Alex, breathe. It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can tell me,” Kelley interrupts. So Alex listens. She breathes and looks anywhere but in Kelley’s eyes, afraid her own will give her feelings away. She fiddles with her fingers until Kelley grabs one of her hands in her own and gently lifts her chin with her other.
“Al,” Kelley whispers softly, “what is it?” At that, Alex’s eyes start watering. She thinks of how caring Kelley is. How unselfish she is, whether it’s checking on her when she appears to be a little down or when she’s taken a hard hit on the pitch and Kelley is the last to leave her side. This isn’t fair to Kelley, she decides. She can’t just blurt out how much she loves her while they’re sitting outside a random bar in France. But she can’t lie to her either, not when she’s looking at her like that completely focused on her as if nothing else in the world matters but the two of them.
So she takes a deep breath and looks into Kelley’s eyes. “It’s over. Servando and I are done. The divorce is finalizing and soon we’ll both be free to be who we want, be with who we want.” Kelley only looks a little surprised. She’d had her suspicions about the two’s relationship, but had waited for Alex to come to her, knowing it wasn’t her place. Her head tilts slightly to the side as she registers the last part.
“Be with who you want?” she echoes back in question. Alex nods, taking another deep breath. “Run away with me Kel?” Kelley lets out a short, surprised laugh. She definitely wasn’t expecting that.
“Run away with you? Lex, we’re in the middle of a foreign country and neither of us are exactly sober right now.” Kelley’s smiling with her, what their teammates call, ‘Alex smile’. The smile that seems to only appear when the younger striker is around. The one laced with a fondness for the taller woman, reserved only for her when she says something like this.
“I mean it, Kelley. Let’s go. We leave tomorrow and I want to spend my last night here running through the streets with the one I love.” Kelley’s smile falters a little, unsure she heard Alex correctly. But Alex isn’t backing down now. She’s come this far and she may be a little drunk, but she means every single word.
Kelley searches her eyes for a brief moment before standing and holding her hand out to Alex. “Okay, Al. Let’s go,” she pulls the latter to her feet. “Go?” Alex questions. Kelley nods and gives her the ‘Alex smile’. “Let’s run away together. Even if it’s only for the night.”
Alex breaks into a wide grin and begins tugging Kelley down the street. After a few moments, Alex stops suddenly underneath an old, flickering streetlight. Kelley looks at her, slightly confused and opens her mouth to speak, but when Alex turns and looks at her, her mind goes blank. The way Alex is looking at her, with a kind of love she’d only heard of in books or seen in movies, it’s enough to make Kelley freeze and her brain just stops working. Alex takes a step closer to the defender before speaking.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now,” she says before closing the gap between them and kissing Kelley. There are no fireworks, but instead, it’s as if the whole world has disappeared around them. Kelley’s hands are wrapped around her waist as she holds the other woman’s face gently. As she pulls away slightly, she opens her eyes to find Kelley standing there with her eyes still closed and a small smile ghosting her lips.
Kelley’s eyes flutter open after a minute and she looks at Alex adoringly. “Come on, superstar,” she says as she starts pulling Alex down the street again. “We’ve got a whole lot of streets to explore before they find out we’re missing.” Lacing their hands together, the two walk side by side for a few moments before Kelley’s stopping them this time to kiss Alex underneath another streetlight.
“It’s easier to find your lips under the streetlights, babe.” Kelley reasons with Alex when the latter asks why Kelley waited until they were illuminated again. Alex blushes slightly at the name. Kelley had always been one to use terms of endearment, especially with Alex, but now they held a different meaning. One that made Alex’s heart flutter and beat faster.
The next time they stop, it’s outside the hotel, before they head in. Alex knows they shouldn’t, not here where their teammates could see them, but she can’t resist when Kelley looks at her like she hung the stars in the sky. So she kisses Kelley again. It’s a bit harder this time, less cautionary. Kelley stumbles back a step but returns the kiss all the same. As they pull away, Kelley bites her lip before speaking.
“Stay with me tonight?”
Alex doesn’t respond verbally, but the smirk on her face and the way her grip on Kelley’s hand tightens as they head inside is answer enough.
-
They’re somewhere over the Atlantic when Kelley finally moves across the seats to be next to Alex. Nearly everyone else is asleep, save Christen and Tobin who are playing on Tobin’s switch and giggling as they try to distract each other. Kelley slides into Alex’s space and wraps her arms around the younger woman’s waist, cuddling into her side.
“Hey, superstar,” Kelley greets Alex softly with a shy smile as if the two hadn’t spent the night together, exploring each other’s bodies and getting next to no sleep. Alex returns the smile, putting an arm around Kelley to pull her closer. “Tired?” she questions Kelley who nods but doesn’t make a move to go to sleep.
“I’d rather stay up and spend all the time we have left together actually together. I’ll sleep when I get back to Utah.” Kelley attempts to argue when Alex suggests a nap. At that, Alex lets out a laugh.
“Kel, we’re flying to New York. We have the ticker-tape parade, remember? You won’t be back in Utah for a bit.” Kelley shakes her head, mumbling something about not caring as long as she gets to spend more time with Alex. Eventually, Kelley detangles herself from Alex to grab more champagne despite Alex’s insistence that she definitely should not be drinking with her probable concussion. Kelley waves her off though, claiming that she’ll only have a couple.
After four drinks and a lot of singing from the rest of the team who’d woken up in waves, Kelley crawls back to Alex and lays her head on her shoulder. “You know, there are no streetlights up here, but I think the cabin lights will do,” Kelley says before turning to kiss Alex. Alex knows she’s drunk because there’s absolutely no way Kelley would have kissed her sober. Not in front of all of their teammates and the staff. But Alex doesn’t stop her either. Instead, she pulls Kelley onto her lap and continues the kiss when Kelley attempts to pull away.
The wolf whistles from the rest of the team cause them to break apart and Kelley buries her face in Alex’s neck while Alex’s face turns red and she laughs nervously. From somewhere there’s a shout of “I knew it!” and money is exchanged between several pairs of hands. Alex doesn’t even question it because she remembers doing the same thing with Christen and Tobin. As the plane begins its descent into New York, Alex and Kelley sit side by side, holding hands and smiling wider than their teammates had ever seen.
Kelley squeezes Alex’s hand as they land and looks at her, a shy smile once again playing across her features. “Thanks for asking me to run away with you.”
Alex smiles back fondly and kisses Kelley’s knuckles. “Thanks for running away with me. Come to Orlando after the season wraps and stay with me?”
Kelley kisses her before responding.
“Only if you promise to make out with me under the streetlights.”