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Robert was in his newly acquired hotel room—a single one, thank god—while everyone else he had attended the final with were out celebrating as if they’d been born and raised in Spain when his phone began to ring.
He reached over lazily to grab it, the champagne from earlier making his movements slower than normal, and he couldn’t fight the smile that lit up his face if he tried when he saw the caller’s identity if he tried.
It was Gavi, his boy. Gavi, his newly crowned world champion. He immediately slid his thumb across the screen to accept the FaceTime call.
“Robert?” Gavi breathed, voice slightly slurred and eyes impossibly wide. He seemed shocked to see him despite having been the one to make the call.
“Yes, Gavi,” Robert said softly. “It’s me.”
Gavi nodded once before his face lit up. “Were you watching?” he asked excitedly. “Did you see? We won!”
“I watched the whole thing, kochanie,” he said. “I was in the stands, remember?”
If the exaggerated gasp was anything to go by, Gavi did not remember. “Wait—does that mean you’re here in New Jersey?”
At Robert’s nod, Gavi gasped even louder. “Then why aren’t you here with me? Do you hate me?”
Robert huffed a quiet laugh. “Of course I don’t hate you, aniołku,” he said with a small smile. “I’m not there because you have a roommate and your hotel is surrounded by reporters.”
Gavi shook his head rapidly before groaning and placing his free hand on his forehead. “Too drunk for that,” he said. Then: “I don’t.”
Robert hummed. “You don’t what?”
“I don’t have a roommate,” he answered; Robert had never heard such an unconvincing lie. Almost immediately after the words slipped past his boy’s lips did the angle of the phone shift a bit to the left to reveal a new face.
“Hi, Lewy,” Pedri said.
It still scared Robert a little, the fact that other people knew what he and Gavi were to each other. It wasn’t many, of course—the only others being Fermín and Ferran—but he trusted his former teammates to keep their secret, if for no other reason than for Gavi’s sake.
“Thank you for protecting my poor eyes,” Pedri continued, shaking Robert from his thoughts. It was only experience and age that kept Robert from flushing at the implication; but either way, Gavi blushed enough for the both of them.
“I don’t want to hear that from you of all people,” Gavi complained. “Not when Ferran was basically giving you hickeys on live television. In front of billions of people.”
And to that Robert would agree—the images captured of the couple were almost indecent. It was truly a miracle that the two of them hadn’t accidentally kissed each other on camera.
Pedri lightly smacked the back of Gavi’s head, an assault to which his boy gave an overly-exaggerated whine. “Don’t be mean,” Gavi said, rubbing the spot gently. “Get out of here. Go fuck Ferran and let me spend time with Robert.”
Pedri stared at Gavi with an unimpressed look on his face before rolling his eyes. “If anything I’d be saving the general populous from whatever that idiot’s decided to do since we got here,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll be back in a little while. Don’t do anything indecent, Gavi—the staff of the hotel knows exactly who’s occupying these rooms. We leave for the airport in less than two hours, don’t forget.”
Then the door closed.
Though Gavi’s eyelids were beginning to droop, he still managed to shoot Robert a suggestive grin and ask, “Can we do something indecent?”
Robert sighed—if only, he thought. “Now you know the answer to that, little one,” he said.
Gavi pouted; the ever-present desire to be with Gavi, to be able to touch him, only strengthened. It was unbearable just how badly Robert wished he could take Gavi into his arms.
“But I miss you,” he whined. “We haven’t had so much as phone sex in like three months.” They hadn’t had phone sex since the World Cup started, which was decidedly not three months ago, but Robert decided not to push the point. “And you won’t come fuck me even though we’re in the same city. It’s so unfair.”
Robert bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing at the poor boy. “All it sounds like to me is that you miss my cock,” he said instead. “Is that all I am to you, Pablo?”
Gavi’s drunken mind must’ve been unable to register the teasing in his voice, because his eyes widened. “That’s not true,” he stressed. “I miss you because I love you. I mean I definitely miss your cock, but—”
Robert cut Gavi off with a laugh that all but bled fondness. “I know, I know,” he said. “I’m just teasing, little one. I love you too.”
Gavi fell forward onto his stomach as if Robert’s confirmation calmed something within him. As if there was any doubt in the world; as if it wasn’t a simple fact of life.
The sun rose in the east and snow fell in the winter and Robert Lewandowski loved Pablo Gavira.
And somehow, some way, Pablo loved him just as much.
When Robert turned his attention back to Gavi, the boy was lying on his side with the camera sideways and level with his face.
“I really do miss you, Robert,” Gavi said softly, and the hint of pain in his voice made Robert’s heart ache. “Will you come see me soon?” He gasped suddenly. “Visit me tomorrow!”
Robert smiled softly. “Even if I somehow manage to get to Madrid tomorrow, you’ll be too busy with the parade. Hell, you’ll be busy with celebrations for at least a week,” he said gently.
“Just visit me the day after! I was with all of them tonight and I’ll be with all of them tomorrow,” Gavi said. “They’ll definitely be tired of me by then, which means that I can sneak off.”
The idea of someone getting tired of Gavi was insane to Robert; unthinkable, even. He almost couldn’t believe his ears when he heard Gavi speak about it in an interview.
But now wasn’t the time to deal with that—Robert would provide Gavi with more than enough reassurance the next time they saw each other. For now, though, Robert had just one mission.
“You should really get some sleep, kochanie,” he said gently.
“But I don’t want to,” Gavi complained despite his eyes still being only half-open. “I still want to have phone sex. Talk dirty to me, papi.”
Robert let out a surprised laugh. “How about you close your eyes instead,” he said.
Gavi did immediately—it was as if he was on autopilot; he could be so obedient when off the pitch and alone with Robert.
“Dobry chłopak,” he whispered lowly.
Gavi’s phone shook slightly with how hard he shivered, though he still didn’t open his eyes. God, Robert would do anything for this boy. “Don’t say something like that if you don’t plan on following through,” he complained.
“You’re seconds away from falling asleep, Pablo,” Robert pointed out.
Gavi huffed. “What if I’m into that,” he mumbled, voice almost inaudible.
Robert rolled his eyes. “We both know damn well you’re not,” he said. “Now be good for me and go to sleep.”
There was a brief period of silence for a moment before Gavi spoke. “Will you stay on the phone until I do?” He sounded so vulnerable. “I can’t remember the last time I fell asleep with you.”
And if that didn’t make Robert’s heart hurt then nothing would.
“Of course I will,” Robert whispered.
And so Gavi, who still hadn’t opened his eyes since Robert told him to close them, seemed to go lax. Robert took the opportunity to stare at Gavi’s beautiful, youthful face, though it didn’t take very long for the phone to slip out of his hand and land face-first on the bed, effectively shrouding the screen in darkness.
Juvenile as it was, Robert didn’t hang up immediately. Instead, for the next five minutes or so, Robert allowed himself to bask in the sound of his boy’s steady breathing.
“Kocham cię,” Robert whispered before hanging up the phone.
He wasted no time opening safari and searching for Tuesday night flights to Madrid.