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Mac Allister was exhausted. Playing in Bolivia, traveling straight to England, and playing an entire first-half 48 hours later was not good for his body. Even a cold shower, a glass of orange juice, and a round of team cuddles—uncomfortable due to his sensory issues that day—hadn’t managed to do anything for him.
He trudged into his hotel room, hoping a nap would give him the energy he’d lacked for two days. Instead, he found Darwin Nunez and Luis Diaz sitting on his bed, a game board with multiple wooden tiles situated between them.
“Que están haciendo, chabones?” Mac Allister asked, in Spanish so Nunez would understand. It was kind of obvious, though, considering what else was on the bed.
Nunez, as has been the trend for the past few days, spoke first. “ Scrabble, en dos idiomas. English and Spanish, quieres jugar con nosotros? ”
Mac Allister sighed, leaning against the bed. Oh, how he wanted to sleep right now, in his own bed, alone. No offense to Nunez and Diaz—it had only been three months and he loved them like his own brothers—but today was one of those days he couldn’t bear touches or cuddles. That’s why he’d tried to stay away from Alisson in the locker room. Key word being tried.
“I don't know. We didn't play that well today, and I had to be taken off at half-time.” He turned to Nunez, then Diaz. “ No merezco jugar ahora.”
At those words, Nunez nearly jumped up from the bed. Judging by his expression, he was as offended as if Mac Allister had said that about him. “Nonsense, Ale! You were tired and oxygen-deprived and you still played. If that's not trying your best, I don't know what is.”
“Is that what the other guys said in Argentina, Lexi?” Diaz spoke for the first time. His voice was gentle and warm, like milky coffee with lots of cream. “That you need to play well to have fun after the match? You know that isn’t true, right?”
“Not Argentina. Brighton.” Mac Allister lowered his gaze to the floor, backing up against the wall. For the most part, he avoided talking about his time at Brighton, especially since Milner moved there a few days after he’d left. “A few of them, especially Moises.”
Nunez hissed under his breath and slammed his fists on the side table. “I'm glad we didn't get him then, he's a jerk. Ahora, conseguir otra rejilla, hermano! Let's play!”
Mac Allister knew from experience that when Nunez spoke like that, he meant business. He sighed, internally gave up on his dreams of taking a nap, and sat on the bed between Nunez and Diaz.
*
They started the game from the beginning, so it would be fair. Mac Allister dipped his hand into the bag, praying that he didn’t get any difficult letters. He got a J, Z, K, Q and X all in the beginning—along with two U s.
He’d watched his friends’ faces as they took their letters. Diaz had seemed neutral, so Mac Allister assumed that the Colombian had received some decent letters.
Not even three minutes after that assumption, Diaz had slapped seven O s on the board and demanded they check it as a word.
Nunez, to Mac Allister’s surprise, played an actual word at the start of the game. With Mac Allister passing his turn and Diaz’s “ ooooooo ” not even passing the Urban Dictionary, the Uruguayan was in the lead. But not even two rounds in, Nunez started to complain. He had a complaint for everything.
“Whom the flying fork thought "red card" was a good thing to put on my rack?! Why did somebody think giving me two blanks was a good idea? How did “ cojones ” mark as incorrect?!”
“Who forgot to put Taylor Swift in the dictionary?” Diaz blurted all of a sudden.
“ Que?!” Mac Allister would never understand his friends. Then again, his friends would never understand the rules of Scrabble: no proper nouns.
“Que diabos?! Eso es ofensivo! ¡Eso es una herejía!” Nunez swept the Scrabble board aside with his hand. Letter tiles scattered on the floor, raining upon poor Kun the snail. “Let's play something else that's more inclusive.”
*
The three tried Monopoly, which would have easily been marked as the worst idea known to mankind. Diaz and Mac Allister squabbled over which one was more valuable—houses or hotels—while Nunez was only interested in the play money.
Nunez stuffed more play money into his pockets, snickering as if he was robbing an international bank. “Money, money, money, must be funny, in the rich man's world..."
It was official. Mac Allister was going to kill whoever had let Nunez near an ABBA CD.
“People don't pay a down payment for hotels!” Diaz exclaimed, pointing to the mini houses on the gameboard. “Houses are where investments are at!”
“...in the rich man's world…”
Mac Allister shook his head furiously. “Give me hotels, or give me death! Compare the equity of your average homeowner, to the equity of Paris Hilton!”
Diaz gaped at Mac Allister as if he’d just put on a Spurs shirt. “Her father opened the Hilton. Do your research!”
“...to Las Vegas or Monaco…”
Mac Allister threw down his dice and covered his ears, glaring at Nunez. “Please stop, you're hurting my ears! Can't we play something quieter?”
Nunez stops singing. He pulled open the side table drawer and gave Mac Allister his Argentina-blue ear blockers.
Mac Allister sighed in relief at the muffled sound. “Thanks, Darwizzy.”
Nunez winked before he continued singing, louder than before. “MONEY MONEY MONEY, MUST BE FUNNY, IN THE RICH MAN'S WORLD—”
Diaz sighed, piling the houses and hotels into their box. “And it's time to play something else.”
*
After a long, heated discussion that almost drove Mac Allister under his bed, the three decided on playing chess. Unfortunately, playing chess is hard with three instead of two, even when the players in question were footballers.
“Why didn't we just buy a three-person chessboard?” Mac Allister groaned in exasperation. He moved one of his black pieces, not caring if he walked into a trap. He just wanted to sleep.
Diaz slid his white bishop across the board, capturing Mac Allister’s rook. “Do you remember who this club is owned by? FSG's so tight with their wallets, they barely scraped together enough money for you.”
“What are my pieces?” Nunez asked for the fourth time, glaring at his amalgamation of stuff that were supposed to be pieces. He moved his Monopoly cat onto the same square Mac Allister’s knight was on. “Can my cat ride your pony thing?”
“No, no, no, that's supposed to be in the middle!” Mac Allister moved Nunez’s Monopoly shoe off the top of his king, throwing it down to the floor. “And that silver boot was supposed to be out. You get a Monopoly shoe, a domino, a crumb from a club sandwich—”
“Why do you treat me like a bad citizen?”
Diaz rolled his eyes, gathering his captured pieces. From the looks of things, Mac Allister wasn’t the only tired one on the bed. “Look on the bright side, at least you get to shake the maraca when you make a move. I even gave you 1/3 of my pawns.”
Nunez glanced at the two-thirds of a pawn on his side of the board. “Explains a lot.”
Mac Allister held up a bingo card in front of Nunez’s face. “Why does my card say 'do the hustle on the boss's desk’?!”
Nunez smirked, while Diaz slammed his head into the table. “Remind me to never play a game with you guys again. Three-person chess isn't working.”
Nunez glanced at Diaz and Mac Allister, before running out of the room. “Pasta la vista, baby!”
Diaz and Mac Allister shrugged and continued playing normal chess. “At least it’ll be quiet now.”
Maybe now I can take a nap, Mac Allister added in his mind.
But fate was out to torture Mac Allister that day. Because before Diaz could glue the pawn back together, Nunez ran back into the room, dragging Kostas Tsimikas behind him.
“But Thiago was just about to let me taste his pastry cream!” Tsimikas whined as Nunez taped him to the bedpost. “It’s so different from his cannoli cream.”
“Whatever, Romeo! Hold still!” Nunez grabbed another roll of duct tape, patterned with actual rubber duckies. “Now you can be the referee.”
Tsimikas launched into a lengthy monologue about why he never wanted to be a referee, while Nunez took a long sip of Diaz’s yerba mate.
“KOSTAS?! Oh god, he's going to drive me crazy.” Mac Allister was done with his friends, even if they were nice. He grabbed his backpack and ran out of the room. Maybe he could find an unoccupied bed somewhere in the hotel.
“Too bad…” he heard Tsimikas say. Apparently, Nunez had finally untaped him from the bedpost. “I was going to suggest Scrabble.”
Mac Allister stuck his head back into the room, clinging to the doorframe like a nervous child. Maybe Scrabble wouldn’t be so bad now that there were four people. “In Spanish alone?”
Tsimikas laughed, too loudly for Mac Allister’s liking. Thank goodness he had on his ear blockers. “English. Despite Thiago speaking it around me all this time, I'm not fluent in Spanish. Even Stefan—”
A loud crash interrupted Tsimikas’ dialogue. Everybody turned to Darwin, who had turned over the snail cage while running around and screaming “I'm forked”.