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The house was filled with low music, the smell of waffles still lingering in the air, and the glittery chaos of a quiet afternoon with no plans.
The living room looked like a craft store had exploded.
Mateo was on his stomach in the middle of it, legs swinging behind him, elbows buried in a pile of feathers, stickers, and pipe cleaners. A pink plastic tiara sat slightly askew in his curls. He was humming something tuneless under his breath, absolutely focused.
Señor Flamingo, his beloved stuffed animal companion, was lying beside him, halfway through what looked like a full royal makeover. The flamingo now wore a paper crown, two ribbon armbands, and had rhinestones glued to one side of his face.
“Mateo,” Alora said from her spot on the couch, “he’s going to suffocate under all that hot glue.”
“He can breathe,” Mateo replied with complete conviction. “He’s not weak.”
Alora groaned. “You’ve made five tiaras now.”
“He needs options!”
“You need help.”
Mateo ignored her, dramatically tying a piece of sparkly mesh into a bow. “He’s a royal. Royals don’t wear the same thing twice.”
Ferran passed through the doorway with two mugs in hand. “Is he talking about himself or the flamingo?”
Pedri reached for the offered mug and took a sip. “Honestly? I don’t think even he knows anymore.”
Mateo stood up suddenly, tiara clutched to his chest. “Does anyone know where the sequins went? I need them for his royal cape.”
“In the bowl by the window,” Pedri said without looking. “Next to the pom-poms.”
Mateo gasped. “You hid them from me?”
Ferran raised a brow. “You were gluing them to the walls, mijo.”
“Art has no rules,” Mateo declared, spinning dramatically as he marched toward the sequins.
“God, he’s a menace,” Alora muttered, but she was grinning. Her feet were propped up on the armrest, her notebook open in her lap, filled with little tactical drawings, arrows, positions, notes in her neat handwriting. “At least when I was four, I kicked balls instead of bedazzling flamingos.”
“You also launched a football into my soup once,” Pedri reminded her.
“I stand by that,” she said. “The soup was ugly.”
Ferran flopped onto the couch next to her, stretching his legs out with a dramatic groan. “You gonna play with your brother?”
“He gets mad when I don’t follow the storyline.”
“I do not,” Mateo called from the floor.
“You cried when I made the flamingo go to jail.”
“He’s innocent!”
Ferran laughed. “Sounds like you’ve both got pretty vivid imaginations.”
Alora didn’t respond right away. She scribbled something in the margin of her notebook, then looked up. “Actually, I was gonna go out back and do drills after snack.”
“Drills?” Pedri asked. “On your own?”
She shrugged. “I’m trying to work on my left foot.”
Ferran raised a brow. “Pretty serious for a Sunday.”
“I wanna be better,” she said. “I wanna play real games. I wanna play like you.”
That hit Ferran square in the chest. He tried to keep his face neutral, but Pedri could see it, the quiet pride, the flash of surprise.
“You think I’m good?” he asked softly.
Alora blinked. “You literally played in the World Cup.”
Ferran swallowed around the knot in his throat. “Right. Yeah.”
Pedri leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching his daughter - so self-assured, so driven - and felt something shift. She was only eight, but she was already chasing it. Already looking at Ferran like a benchmark. Already internalizing what ambition felt like. It was the beginning of something.
He glanced at Ferran, who glanced right back.
They didn’t say anything, but the look was everything: we see it too.
Meanwhile, Mateo had settled back on the floor, now placing sequins along Señor Flamingo’s royal robe with the same intensity Pedri used when analyzing match footage.
“Look,” he said proudly, holding the flamingo up toward the light. “He’s ready for his coronation.”
“You think he’d survive a football pitch?” Ferran teased.
Mateo made a face. “He doesn’t like football.”
“Traitor,” Alora muttered.
“He likes ballet.”
There was a beat.
“You like ballet?” Pedri asked.
Mateo shrugged. “Yeah. The music’s pretty. And they jump really high.”
Alora sat up a little straighter. “You mean like that video you made me watch with the guy in white pants spinning?”
Mateo nodded. “He looked like a superhero.”
Pedri smiled. “You wanna try it sometime?”
Mateo shrugged again. “Maybe.”
Ferran grinned and leaned over to whisper in Pedri’s ear, “You owe me five euros.”
Pedri nudged him with his elbow.
They watched their son dance Señor Flamingo across the room and their daughter draw little arrows in a pitch formation. So different. So certain, even now.
Pedri leaned back and whispered, “You think they know who they are already?”
Ferran’s smile softened. “Yeah. I think they’ve always known.”
And for the first time all day, the house was quiet, full, soft, and absolutely bursting with possibility.
- sofía ✎ᝰ.