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There is a ghost shape in the crook of his right shoulder that he sometimes touches when he’s alone. His fingers twist around, trailing over it as if trying to massage out a knot.
Pedri feels the early summer sun on his skin, can hear the flip flop of Gavi’s languid footsteps following his own. It had been a joke at first, to come to his hometown together during their summer holidays. Pedri had smiled his placid smile, eyes warm and sparkling, and it had only taken him one story about the pranks he and his brother used to play on each other in the natural pools on the coast to wipe any ideas of Los Angeles or Abu Dhabi from Gavi’s mind.
He has taken Gavi to one of the natural pools a little farther from the one he used to go with his brother, a quieter one lined with rocks. The water is a clear turquoise on the warm morning, dappled with sunlight broken into shimmers and gleams. The constant hum of his mind slows down; he breathes in the air and let the rhythmic jostle of the waves drown out the churn of city life that he has had to force himself to get used to.
Is this it, Gavi asks behind him, and when Pedri nods but doesn’t respond, Gavi runs up to him and slings an arm around him, shaking him lightly. This is the natural pool you were telling me about?
Something like that, Pedri says. This one’s quieter. Fewer people, so fewer chances for you to get into a fight with someone.
Gavi pulls his arm away, slows his step. Pedri doesn’t need to turn to know exactly how the scowl animates Gavi’s face from handsome to heartbreaking. There’s always been something about Gavi’s fire. When he does turn, his gaze catches first on Gavi’s hair, still bearing the mess of sleep and tossed again by the sea breeze. Gavi runs his hand through his hair as if he could hear Pedri’s thoughts.
You’re such an asshole sometime, he says. I came all the way here with you for my holiday, I feel like that should count for something.
Pedri can’t hold back the teasing edge in his response. It does, Gavi, I’m sorry.
You can stop making fun of me for a start, Gavi is still grumbling.
**
For the first few months that he felt this way, a sense of guilt followed Pedri. Gavi was new in the team, wide eyed and mildly trembling at all times, hurtling himself with energy through trainings and games, and what he needed was Pedri’s guidance and protection, his calmness and his driver’s license. Not his feelings. Frankly, nobody needed Pedri’s feelings.
It’s not like anything changed, not exactly, but somewhere along the line they went from standing across from each other, one showing, one learning, to standing beside each other, facing the same onslaught, whether squaring up to another team or staring down the flashes of cameras. The highs felt higher when Gavi leaps onto his shoulders, the lows more bearable when he was on the bench and Gavi scored and pointed at him.
Still, a kind of restlessness bloomed between them, an anxiety he didn’t know how to describe. He saw it in the way Gavi tapped his fingers impatiently on his phone when they were in the car together, and he felt it as an itch under his skin where Gavi had pressed his lips in the wild celebrations after a game-winning goal. He called it the ghost shape.
**
He smiles at Gavi before jumping into the pool, letting himself sink into the comfort that only being underwater brings, before propelling himself back up with a strong kick of his legs. When he surfaces, shaking the water from his hair and rubbing his eyes, he is surprised to see Gavi still standing on the ledge, looking at him.
Come on, the water’s not cold.
Ok. Gavi is doing the thing with his mouth when he’s aiming for bravado but missing slightly, his lips pressed into a crooked line. How deep is it?
Not too deep, come on. Pedri wants to laugh. Here. He opens his arms. I’ll catch you.
Gavi nods and shakes his head simultaneously, a trick he’s able to do with time like he can on the pitch, gliding and charging and occupying two places all in the same moment. He stretches out his arms and aims for Pedri, but there is no spring in his jump.
The splash he makes takes them both out, and sharp peals of laughter cut through the air.
I’m not a great swimmer, Gavi says when he’s found his way to Pedri. His legs are kicking awkwardly beneath the surface, and his arms encircle Pedri’s neck tightly, his hands clutching opposite elbows. On his wet face, a rush of red rises on his cheeks. He blinks several times in quick succession, water droplets fluttering off his lashes, and puts his head down on Pedri’s shoulder.
Pedri is about to ask why Gavi said ok to coming with him if he weren’t a good swimmer, but he catches himself. It is enough to just feel lucky.
Come, he says, untangling Gavi’s grip around him and slipping one hand into Gavi’s. You just try to swim with your left arm, and I’ll swim with my right, ok? I’m a strong swimmer, I’ll hold on to you.
**
Pedri’s head is always clear and focused when he’s playing; it feels like he goes to a different space in his mind whenever he gets near a pitch. This space is bright and sparse, and in it, Pedri feels calm and sure.
The thrum of adrenaline usually keeps him in that space for hours after a game, so it surprised him when one day, after a game in which he played well but not spectacularly, something pulled him from it. He was sitting in the locker room, muscles aching but in that good way of having worked, when Gavi walked in after his shower and sat down next to him in a cloud of woodsy steam.
He suddenly thought of a story a girl at school once told him about how love was invented.
People were created with their soulmates sewn on their backs, and then some Greek god lasered them apart! He had laughed hysterically when she told him, and it was only months later that he realized that maybe she had meant something by telling him. By then he was already playing for Las Palmas, and he had shrugged off the missed opportunity without a second thought.
But now, he couldn’t stop thinking about what she said.
Packing up his things, walking with Gavi to his car to give him a lift home as usual, the slow and frequently interrupted drive out of the Camp Nou, he turned the story over and over in his head, so absorbed that Gavi snapped his fingers in front of his face at an intersection, when Pedri seemed to have entirely missed the light changing from red to green.
Lasered off his back, though. Bet that hurt. And more importantly, how was he going to find them again? He snuck a glance at Gavi, who was already looking at him and gave him a sideways grin, before looking back at his phone. Pay attention to the road, dummy, Gavi said.
**
They’re lying on their backs in the water, pinkies gently curled together, like the sleeping otters Pedri once saw in a meme. Gavi has relaxed, knowing that he is floating and Pedri is watching out for him, and he is chattering away with his usual energy.
There was a wave is what Pedri will say when he tells this story later, which he will with some relish and not a small amount of embarrassment. The waves are gentler here in these alcoves, but a surprisingly strong one comes and he is powerless against it.
It sets him off-balance, and without thinking, he is tugging Gavi under with him. In the scramble, manic on Gavi’s part and casual on Pedri’s, their limbs tangle and their bodies press together.
Pedri is startled by the way the elegance that he has always associated with Gavi suddenly abandons him, and he has to hold back a laugh. His heart picks up speed at the thought that even though he knows Gavi so well, knows his schedules and moods and the bright fiery look that adorns his face as he runs onto every pass, steels himself for every tackle, there are still so many things to know, an infinite number.
He thinks this is what love is: always wanting to know more.
When they finally surface and cough out the water, gasps interspersed with laughter, Pedri finds Gavi looking at him with wide, wet eyes. Bravado again, and something else too. Their noses are centimeters apart. He feels the ghost shape on his shoulder and he is powerless against it.
The sound of the water lapping at the rocks and doubling back on itself seems to recede as his mind clears. He leans forward and presses his lips against Gavi’s, salty and soft. Gavi makes a small sound, heavy with something that sounds like relief, and Pedri is startled when Gavi pulls himself against him, his hands trailing down his shoulders, back, torso.
The gesture is permission, invitation, and Pedri is glad. Overwhelmed with it, really.
His skin tingles and he feels like he’s spinning, his mind racing but his weightless body held in place by some centripetal force he can’t explain. Another thing he can’t explain: the sureness of Gavi’s movements, insisting his body against Pedri even as he struggles to find purchase in the water, hooking a foot around his calf, wanting Pedri to feel every part of him.
All this time, the only thing Pedri thought he knew for certain was that he was the only one silently longing for his best friend.
The sun warms his face and spills a kaleidoscope of colors on the insides of his eyelids, squeezed tight. His body feels electric as Gavi strokes his lips with his own, still holding fast to his pout, pressing his mouth against Pedri over and over. He brings a hand up to frame Pedri’s face and Pedri almost moans. He feels the pressure against his calf zip up his leg and settle in his groin. Gavi pulls back for a second before leaning back in, licking Pedri’s lips and parting them with the tip of his tongue.
Fuck, I didn’t think, Gavi whispers when he pulls away after a second, arms still around Pedri’s waist, foot still around his calf.
Pedri, blinking his eyes open in confusion, fumbles a half-hearted feint. That wave there.
You couldn’t have stopped it. I couldn’t either, Gavi says, airy and rushed, before leaning back into Pedri again.
Pedri gently sways his body in the water, the same way their tongues are gently swiping against each other. The clean citrus of Gavi’s aftershave fills his mind with memories of the lush orange groves he used to run through as a child. The stark brackishness of his lips mixes with the bright mint of Gavi’s gum, and Pedri thinks that is how he wants every breath to taste from now on.
Everything he doesn’t know about Gavi already feels so familiar, tinged with a bone deep ache that Pedri only knows to call homesickness.