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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Figo/Mutu, David Villa/David Silva.
Feedback: Good lines, typos, etc.
Disclaimer: This is absolutely fiction and not real and I don’t know these people at all. Any resemblance to any real-life record company is completely accidental.
Notes: Directly follows Health and Happiness (part one of two). Thanks to all my flist for the Eurovision info! Titled after the song by Kelly Clarkson.
Summary: Figo’s workplace motto: Angry Spaniards are a sign you’re doing something right.
***
“He asked for it,” Villa mumbled.
Luís resisted the urge to bang his head against the jamb and instead walked into his office. “What’s wrong with our finances?”
“Um, well.” Silva scratched nervously above his left ear. “Our head accountant quit?”
Why. Did Luís. Work here. He was constantly asking himself—he stopped, then stepped back so Adrian wasn’t squished between him, the wall and Villa. A little wide-eyed, Adrian hastily scooted himself out and behind Luís; Villa just slouched himself into the entire bottom two-thirds of the doorway.
“All I said was that if he thought that that was rhythm, he should have someone bang a four-beat into his head with a tire iron,” Villa said.
Just behind and to the left, Silva dropped his face into his palm before remembering there were other people around and stifling an embarrassed eep. Adrian looked like he wished he’d scooted out the other direction, glancing about in a muted frenzy until he found a big stack of books in the corner. He wandered over that way and poked at the top one, then sneezed off the cloud of dust that rose from it. Shoulders still jerked up, he peeked around till he realized everybody was still staring at Villa’s jutting chin and hadn’t noticed him at all.
“Our accountant?” Luís asked, rubbing the side of his head.
Villa frowned, his eyes going narrow in irritated confusion. “What about him?”
“He the one you threatened with a tire iron?”
“No,” Villa said witheringly. He shook his head for good measure, then added a gratuitous eye-roll. “Why the hell would I be talking to him about rhythm? I meant Vieri.”
Silva’s face was back in his hand, and hard enough for his forefinger and thumb to be pushing back wrinkles of skin from his temples. Adrian had flipped open the top book and was squinting at whatever was inside. Luís was really, really wishing he’d bothered to grab that bottle of Sambuca on the way out of his apartment. “You. Told Bobo Vieri. That he didn’t have a sense of rhythm.”
“Well, he said I didn’t know shit about yé-yé. What was I supposed to do, punch him? You suspended me the last time I did that.” Then Villa let out the most exasperated sigh, as if he was the only man who’d ever been misunderstood.
“And amazingly, you’re not in the hospital. Even more amazingly, the only emotion I can work up at this point is pure resignation,” Luís mumbled, shoving his own face into his hand.
“Then he stared at me for a couple seconds, and then he laughed. I think he wasn’t all…sober. Maybe he’s on one of his streaks again.” Villa briefly cracked his too-cool-for-this-shit demeanor to add the quotation marks around ‘streaks’ with his fingers. Then he glanced to the side, puzzled by why Silva might be making little pained grunts. “What?”
Indeed. Probably only God knew why Bobo had apparently been in a good mood at that moment, but He had the luxury of having the time to do that. Luís was just going to take the gift and run. “Villa, just where the hell were you two when…oh, never mind. For the sake of the Virgin, get out of my office and write something. I want to know about my goddamn finances.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Luís said, and then stared pugnaciously till Villa sulked out the door. The man had a genius for sarcasm, all right, but there was a wide gulf between that and well-aged curmudgeon, and he could figure that one out on his own sweet time. “Silva?”
Who gingerly heeled the door shut after Villa, then edged forward, clutching his manila folders and looking anxiously up. “Luís? Please take it easy on him. He kind of had a rough morning, and he did do that really great—”
“Accountant?” Luís arched an eyebrow as he flicked the top of one folder. When Silva looked down, Luís stole the folder and flipped it open: just some half-done edits. He gave the folder back to Silva with an apology that the other man didn’t notice because he was looking so concerned. “David, look. I do understand that Villa’s a special…character, and that he needs his space. But that said—he’s also a bastard. And he’s a bastard with enough anger issues to not need you to protect him.”
“I wasn’t trying to—” Except these days even Silva couldn’t keep up that starry-eyed instant-defense posture for very long. His shoulders were slumping even before he’d started talking, and by the end he was more or less clawing the words out of himself. Once that ran out, he made a hopeless little cough and fiddled with his folders, looking down at the floor. “I just…you know, want to make things easier…”
Head down, defeated from the untended spikes that straggled onto the back of his neck all the way to the sneakers that were so ratty even the homeless would toss them back into the trash. Compared to the bright young kid straight out of school Silva had been when he’d joined Duende, the comparison couldn’t be more depressing.
“I know,” Luís said gently. He drew breath to go on, but then had second thoughts. And reviewed those thoughts, and for a sudden flash right after twelve hours of sleep right after a soul-melting last-minute rewrite, they were good thoughts. Which was why he was the damn head editor, and why he worked here, God help him. “So you’re going to Eurovision, David.”
Silva didn’t seem to hear at first. He eventually lifted his head, but because Adrian had accidentally toppled a pile of heavy books. He looked over that way, a distracted expression on his face, one hand mussing his hair. “Huh?”
“You’re covering Eurovision. Your own assignment, all expenses paid, and if I catch even a text between you and Villa, I’m booting him to America to cover whatever awards show is handy. You’ve been here long enough and you’ve certainly been doing his work long enough. Now I want to see something from just you.” Ignoring Silva’s frantic protesting, Luís flipped out his phone and called it into…well, at least that part of Accounting was still functioning, and very liberal with the swears at finally having a name to put on all the paperwork. Possibly Luís should go down there in the next few days, make sure they hadn’t gone…moldy or whatever number-crunchers did when they didn’t get out of their cubicles enough. “Fait accompli, David. Pack up and go wait for the taxi.”
“But—but the accountant! He quit!” Silva said, waving around his folders, eyes bugging out. “Don’t I have to—”
“David, you’re a…well, you’ve been a copy editor because that’s where we had a space at the time and we thought you were talented enough to have in any capacity till a reporting slot opened up. We never meant for you to stay an editor, and I thought you didn’t want to be that either. At least, that’s what you told me,” Luís said. He folded his arms over his chest. “Anyway, reporter or editor, neither of those need to worry about the accountant. Just give me whatever he left and go pack.”
Silva stiffened up and his eyes sparked, and for a moment…but then he slumped back. He nodded and limply stuck one folder out at Luís. “Okay. I…okay. Here you go, and…and…”
“If Villa ends up in the hospital, I’ll call you before the story hits the wire. But otherwise I’m not authorizing reimbursements for any other long-distance calls. Are we clear?” After Silva had nodded again, Luís tucked the folder under his arm and reached for the knob.
But Silva got there ahead of him, and with a polite but downcast mutter, saw himself out. Luís stood there for a moment. Mostly looking outside at whatever the hell Bojan was doing with the empty water cooler tank, but he did feel a slight twinge when he finally shut the door. Then he turned around, and that twinge became an annoying prickle.
“It’s for his own good. Believe me, that kid needs the break and this is the only way he’ll get it,” Luís said. He started to pull the folder out from under his arm, then took another look at Adrian. “And also, what the hell are you doing?”
“Well, if you say s—oh, I’m just. Looking. I’m—sorry, I shouldn’t, these are…” Adrian did a little here-you-go-no-wait routine with one of the books jumbled around him before just dropping it on his lap. He sneezed again, then grimaced and pinched his nose shut as he waved away the dust. “I think these are your accountant’s ah, account books? They’re…in a bit of a…mess…”
Luís looked at the man, the books and the gritty gray streaks on the brand-new set of clothes Adrian was wearing.
“I mean, besides this,” Adrian said, flapping at the floor. His gaze had drifted downwards and as he’d become absorbed in the book, his tone had taken on a disgusted flavor. “He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, does he? The debits are impossible, and I don’t know if this is code or chicken-scratch, but either way, the math is all wrong…you can’t do that with marginal percentages…”
After a long moment, Luís took out the folder Silva had given him and opened it. Inside was a short note, which he read while stifling his curses. He glanced at Adrian, who was grumbling and poking at the pages with an offended finger, then at the note. Then at Adrian. “You can make sense of that?”
Adrian started so hard he nearly threw the book into his face. He slapped that back down, then looked up, his spiked hair echoing his spiked nerves. “What? Oh. Ah, yeah. I, um, I can…” cue unreasonably adorable side-burn scratching “…I did an accounting course in law school.”
Luís opened his mouth to ask about the law school, but by then Adrian had gotten his hand into his shirt-collar and was tugging absentmindedly at his leather neck-band, and Luís really needed to get some work done. Which clearly was going to require leaving the room before he ruined Adrian’s clothes beyond repair. “Well, have a read and then sum it up for me when I get back. I need to go call Vieri and make sure he’s not going to walk up to Villa in two weeks and bash him with a drumhead, all right? I’ll be back in half an hour, and if you need anything before then, yell for Bojan.”
* * *
When Figo really wanted something done, the universe just kind of whimpered and got to it. At least, that was how it was as far as David could tell. All he really knew was that one moment he was trying to stuff his laptop into his bag and tell Bojan that he was going to be gone, so please check in the morning to make sure Guaje hadn’t fallen asleep with his face mashed in the keyboard again, and then suddenly David was at the airport.
He looked down at his left hand and found his one carryon—well, his one bag, period. He didn’t even remember going home, and he knew he didn’t keep that many changes of clothes around the office. Well, not clean ones.
David finally gave up on figuring that one out and looked down at his right hand, which…had a mobile that wasn’t his. He started to freak out, thinking he’d gotten into some weird sting operation, but then he flipped the phone over and found Duende’s address and logo engraved on the back. So company phone because Figo really, really didn’t want David talking to—of course, David had Guaje’s last five numbers memorized—and okay, at this point David didn’t know who sounded weirder, his boss or himself. So he got on the plane.
The inflight movie sucked, and David’s seatmate kept tossing his arm over so David didn’t have the room to get out his laptop. So he’d have to wait till they landed to do…to do…
And that was when it really hit David that he couldn’t get in touch with Guaje now.
* * *
Luís signed the paper and handed it back to his lawyer’s underling. “Call me again when it’s all finalized, and I mean finalized. I want to see the—shit.”
Villa had just thrown open his office door and was scanning the busy workroom for targets. Thankfully, he’d started at the opposite side of the room so Luís had time to duck behind a desk; the underling didn’t miss a beat and ducked as well. “Will do, sir. You should expect a call within the next two days, but feel free to call sooner if you want an update.”
“Shut up for a second,” Luís hissed. He listened to Villa stomp across the room, bang on his office door and then demand to know where he was. Then he asked again, since Silva wasn’t here and everyone else had their own work to worry about without paying attention to Villa.
“Why doesn’t anybody know?” Villa snapped.
Another door banged. “For fuck’s sake, Villa,” Victor snarled. “We all know, we’re just puzzled why you’re asking such a stupid question. Figo sent round an email two hours ago that he was locked up in legal shit and wasn’t to be bothered.”
“Then…well, is he in there?” Villa sounded unusually muted. Maybe even confused. Normally when he came stomping out, Silva either was already following him or near enough to hear the whining and come running.
Something got shoved in front of Luís’ face. He blinked, then rolled his eyes and took the paper from the very apologetic underling. “What is this?” he hissed.
“List of things to usefully leak to the press, sir.” The underling handed over a second sheet printed in red ink. “List of things you really, really shouldn’t let get out. Or else—”
“What? I just asked you a question!” Back to hair-pulling frustration from Villa, and given the door that slammed a second later, Luís guessed that Victor had just walked off. “For fuck’s sake.”
“—I know, I know,” Luís whispered to the underling. “Tell your boss I’m not feeling that ornery today, so I’ll just let him do his job. Anything else?”
The underling started to shake his head, but then frowned. He glanced over his shoulder, then twisted around and up like a snake, snatching down the head of whoever’d been coming up to their desk in an impressively airtight liplock. Andrés flailed and frantically mmmph’ed, but then quieted down to a simple bug-eyed look when he saw Luís, who’d been flinching at the loud racket.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Villa said a last time. Then he stalked back across the room—Luís could track him by the trail of clatters and indignant curses he left in his wake—and whammed back into his office.
After another moment, Luís peeked above the desk. Then he got up, ignoring the incredulous eye-rolls, and tapped the underling’s shoulder. “Okay, off my copy editor.”
The two of them separated with a wet pop. Andrés fell on his ass, staring, while the underling simply adjusted his shirt-collar and picked up his briefcase. “Sorry about that. I just thought that you didn’t want to be noticed.”
“Well, no, I didn’t and good thinking. Which one are you? Tell Pep I like you. You’re quick,” Luís said. He walked around and gave Andrés a hand up, then gazed about the place. When nobody came running with a panicked expression or a fire extinguisher in hand, Luís started off towards his office.
“Xavi,” the underling called after him. “Thank you for the compliment, sir!”
On the other hand, maybe a little too professional. There hadn’t been a hint of irony in the man’s voice, and if there was one reason why Luís hadn’t managed to drive Pep insane over the years, it was that Pep knew a tragicomedy when he saw one. Which was definitely a necessity for his profession, and Luís could not, for the life of him, remember why Adrian would be laying spreadsheets over the floor, with sleeves neatly rolled up to the elbows and a pen tucked behind his ear, but it couldn’t have been because he was trying to avoid jumping the man at work. Talk about unprofessional. Delicious, but unprofessional.
“Oh, hi,” Adrian said, looking up. He rocked back on his haunches and grinned in welcome. “You’re back. So I think I’ve got this all sorted out, at least with what’s going on. I couldn’t find a calculator and your computer is…it’s not adding right. So the math needs to be double-checked, but—”
“What are you doing?” Luís asked. He shut the door, then was getting down on his knees when his back twinged. He grimaced and put back a hand, then used the door to ease himself the rest of the way down. “Sorry. I don’t remember.”
Adrian went from terrified to confused to suppressed amusement in one eyeblink. Literally. “Oh! Oh, so this over here is your liquid capital, and this charts expenditures for the art…” he tilted his head “…simpler?”
Luís nodded.
For a moment Adrian looked a little at a loss. He chewed on his lip and glanced around himself, then reached towards one of the ledgers. Then he pulled back his hand and instead picked up a few sheets from the floor. “Ah. Okay. Right. So this…this is basically all the money that’s been going in—what you’ve been earning. This over there is what you’ve been spending. This is investments…Luís? It’s…all right that I’m seeing all this, right?”
“What? Yeah, why—oh. Well, if you decide to run off and max out Duende’s bank accounts, I’ll know who to go after first,” Luís said, shrugging. Right about then his thighs informed him that they didn’t want to squat, so he sat down. “What? That not it?”
“No, it…it was, though I wouldn’t do that. I owe you way too much,” Adrian hastily said. He stared at Luís in a combination of waiting for the blow and looking for reassurance. “But there’s also…well, I’m not…really qualified…”
Luís blinked a couple times, then tugged the nearest spreadsheet towards him. While he didn’t understand all the calculations that went into keeping the books, he could interpret the end results by himself. If he really, really had to, because that definitely wasn’t why he worked here. “Meaning what, you don’t have a degree? Doesn’t seem to be a problem so far.”
“Well, that, and also I have a…Luís, listen, you’re going to have to hire somebody professional to file anything because I…I’ve…fucked up a lot.” Adrian wasn’t looking at Luís anymore, and probably he wasn’t looking at the hands he was nervously twisting together, either. “I mean, I have a…you maybe want to talk to a lawyer, too, because…”
“Oh, right. That criminal record of yours,” Luís said, giving himself a mental kick for forgetting. Then he checked Adrian’s face and gave himself another kick for sheer stupidity. “Oh, damn it. Adi, don’t—all right, stop freaking out. Stop. Now. Just stop.”
Adrian went through a sort of physical stutter, then grimaced and grabbed his arms. He squeezed himself before hesitantly looking up. “L—”
“I know. This is not my first time on the rehab merry-go-round, and anyway I check that kind of thing like other people blow their noses. Hang on, I meant to bring this up when what’s his name, Xavi was around…” Luís dug out his phone and dialed for Pep, but only got a busy signal—wait, what time was it? He sighed and left a voicemail telling Pep to check his email, then got out his PDA to start that email. “…but I was going to have my lawyer look into that for you. To get things settled, not to kick you out. You know, if you’re fine with that.”
The email took a while. When Luís was done, he looked up, then sighed and grabbed at the nearest spreadsheet. Then realized it was upside-down, turned it right-side up and flapped it at Adrian.
“Because I’m not going to kick you out, but I really don’t like cops showing up in my lobby. Especially when it’s not something I did. So I might as well. What the hell is this one?” he asked.
Adrian needed another moment to get to stirring. He rubbed his eyes a few times, then glanced at the paper and got a look on his face like Luís probably wore ninety percent of the day as a result of trying to understand humanity. Then he shook his head, hard enough to make him put down a hand for balance, and looked at Luís again. His eyes were uncomfortably bright and his fingers were working over his elbows like he wanted to grab something else. “Is there any actual way I can piss you off?”
“Tons. You think I keep Pep around because I’m so even-tempered—wait. That’s a thought.” Luís let it sit for a second, then reviewed it and found it was still good. With one swoop of the arm, he gathered up all the spreadsheets, and then he hooked Adrian’s wrist into the bargain as he stood up.
About twenty minutes later, Luís was grinning at a very irritated Spaniard, who looked like he was debating whether he really needed both hands to hold up his jeans when Luís was in smacking distance. Somewhere inside Pep’s apartment, a female voice trilled about olive oil.
“This is my siesta, you infernal Portuguese menace,” Pep finally mumbled, smushing his face against the jamb. His eyes closed. “For God’s sake. Who’s that?”
“Adi. He knows how to add numbers and you’re suing your former bookkeeper for embezzlement. You can’t get him all the time, because my accountant just walked out to start an anarchist band, but I think the three of us can work something out. And he charges very reasonably,” Luís said brightly. He grinned even more hugely when Pep’s eye cracked open, then reached back for Adrian.
Who felt a little stiff, but when Luís glanced over, seemed more stunned than repelled. He seemed to sense Luís’ eyes and peeked up, then tentatively extended his hand to Pep. “Hi…? I’m…I’m Adrian. I don’t really have any formal…”
Pep looked at Adrian, then back at Luís. He propped his forearm up against the jamb and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Thinks he actually has to pay you back for something? Did you explain that you torment so many others you’re really doing this to even out your cosmic wrongdoings?”
“Yeah, but then he dragged me back to bed,” Luís deadpanned. “So I do try. The sex just keeps interfering.”
Pep froze. Then he abruptly shoved himself off the jamb and took a second look at Adrian. “Oh…Oh, damn it, Luís. You could’ve called first…never mind, hello, Adrian, Luís already filled me in a little. Er, give me a second and then you can come in, and we can talk…”
Still muttering to himself, Pep stumbled around and wandered off. He needed to clutch his jeans about three centimeters higher for decency’s sake, but that got Adrian politely ducking his head and thus moving into convenient grabbing range, so Luís wasn’t totally unhappy about that. Not to mention Pep had a very nice pair of buttocks for a lawyer.
But right, gorgeous nervous Romanian staring at him. Luís took a deep breath and held onto Adrian’s shoulders so they couldn’t disappear in on themselves. “Adi? Are you really all right with this? Because if you aren’t, you can turn me down. And don’t lie about it. I can tell.”
“I noticed that,” Adrian said. He was smiling but he sounded shaky, and he nearly collapsed in relief when Luís didn’t bat off the hand he sneaked onto Luís’ left wrist. “I—no, I don’t mind. Not at all. I mean, I told you I’ve been feeling guilty about not doing anything in return for everything you’ve been doing for me, so I’d be really happy to help out.”
“Take the job,” Luís corrected. “No, don’t get all guilty again. You’re getting paid and you’re going to say okay. Not because I’m being generous, but because if you really want to straighten up, you have to start taking responsibility for your own shit and you might as well start with money. So turning this down isn’t being noble. It’s just another copout. All right?”
Adrian opened and closed his mouth several times. His grip went almost to crushing around Luís’ wrist, but then he abruptly moved his hand back to his shirt, which he pulled down till he was rubbing his knuckles over his collar. He dipped his head, then did it again and that was a nod, Luís belatedly realized.
“But I still owe you. So much, and—and that’s not a copout.” Then Adrian put his hand on Luís’ forearm as he ducked his head again, that expression apparently hurting him as much as it did Luís to look at it. His fingers slid back and forth on Luís’ arm before eventually settling on the elbow as Adrian took a slow, deep breath. Then he edged up his head. “Also, I really want to make out now. But this is your friend’s, I mean lawyer’s—”
“Pep’s used to it,” Luís shrugged, pulling Adrian forward.
A moment later: “—oois? Is he—was he an ex?”
“God, no. Pep still talks to me—get your knee up, would you? Oh, nice.”
“Good. Not that—that it’s a big—but I was starting to—God—I mean, Helen’s beautiful, and—”
“No, you’re definitely up there with his exes. Luís always has had great taste, even if he’s a jackass about it. Now stop having sex in my doorway and get in here before I get thrown out of another building for public indecency.”
* * *
David somehow got himself and his luggage off the plane and into a taxi even though he was still pretty dazed from…well, from not knowing what to do. Then again, he’d gone with Guaje on a couple of junkets, so he was used to doing the traveling thing when not really thinking about it, because of course there was always so much to check for Guaje and so many messages…which was what really got him, he thought. He was surrounded by people and in a big city, but without his phone and PDA constantly beeping, it just seemed too quiet.
He checked into his hotel, then got his press passes and his information packet, which he just brought back to his room. In the elevator his stomach started to growl, so after he’d tossed the packet onto his laptop bag, he desultorily flipped through the room service menu. Then he rolled his eyes and tossed that aside, because maybe he was out of it but he wasn’t that desperate. He just—just didn’t know what to do right now.
The room was okay, David thought, and then he realized he hadn’t really looked around. So he did that, and found it was pretty standard: single bed, shower bathroom, antique trouser-press in the closet. Also clean enough for him to not get distracted by worrying over catching something, and when he found himself wringing the hem of his shirt and thinking that, he decided he’d better just sit down on the bed and get himself straightened out. This was ridiculous. He didn’t even know what he was doing here. He didn’t think he’d fucked up lately, and okay, Guaje kind of had, but then why wasn’t he here? Why would Figo send David instead? Figo could be…out there, but he wasn’t pointlessly cruel.
Not to mention that Figo had insisted it wasn’t a punishment but an opportunity, and at that David couldn’t help but glance at his laptop bag. Then he looked at it again, and then he pulled his bag over and picked the press packet off of it. Well, whatever the reason, he was supposed to turn in an article at the end of it. He probably should get started on that instead of sitting around waiting for his phone to go off. Which it wasn’t going to do.
The envelope slivered David’s thumb as he opened it and he got blood all over. He grimaced and stuck his thumb in his mouth, then ducked into the bathroom. After wrapping up the cut with a tissue, he gingerly shook out the papers and began to leaf through them. Bios of the acts who’d made it to Eurovision, party schedules, coverage pointers…all just like any other junket. And yet David found himself staring at the stuff like it was written in hieroglyphics, without a clue as to what to do with it. If Guaje had come too, David just would’ve—
David frowned. Then he put his hand to his growling stomach, making what had to be a pained expression. And it wasn’t just because of the hunger, either: he’d nearly had hold of something there, something he just knew was crucial to understanding the whole surreal mess, and then he’d lost it. Because of his appetite’s bad timing.
His stomach snarled again, like it had decided to imitate Figo or something. “Okay, okay, I’ll go out,” David told it.
He was all the way out on the street when he realized that one, he hadn’t exchanged any currency and two, he still had no idea where he was going. Such an idiot, David swore at himself. And then he dithered around, trying to come up with something better than going all the way back to his room and getting a map or even just asking the concierge—“Oof!”
“Ah, shit,” somebody said in Spanish. Then they grabbed David’s shoulder and yanked him back up from where he’d been teetering on the edge of the curb, spinning him around so, already dizzy, he was way too busy trying not to get sick to keep them from patting at him. “You all right? I didn’t…er.” They switched to heavily-accented English. “Are you…okay?”
“I’m good, I’m good.” David finally got himself steady, though he had to grab the stranger’s arm to do it. He jerked his hand off as soon as he could, then looked up. “No, it’s fine, I probably…oh.”
Fernando Morientes hovered over him, one hand still nearly touching David’s head, a terribly concerned expression on his face. He went back to Spanish. “You sure? I almost knocked you into a car there. I’m so sorry about that, and it’s completely my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
David just sort of stared. You’d think he’d be used to seeing random famous people by now, especially with Figo as his boss, but…no. He stared.
Morientes cocked his head, then lightly poked David’s forehead. When David took forever to flinch, Morientes nodded decisively. “Maybe you want to sit? You look a little…”
“What? No, no, I’m fine. Really, I’m totally cool,” David belatedly stuttered, throwing up his hands. “I’m—ah!”
“Sorry,” Morientes said again. Though this time he kept his hands on David’s shoulders, just angling them to accommodate as David hastily straightened up. “You okay?”
“I. Um.” David wanted to say yes, but he’d just nearly thrown himself in front of that taxi out of sheer awkwardness. And then his goddamn stomach went off again. “Oh, fuck.”
“A delayed reaction?” Morientes suggested, suddenly grinning. He half-turned and his right hand dropped down David’s front to lie casually against David’s ribs. “You know, I don’t believe you. I think you need a coffee, and maybe a good dinner. Near-death experiences can make you hungry.”
He looked and sounded casual about the whole thing—really casual, even though people were definitely looking at them. And those people kept changing, and at that point David realized he was being dragged along. He grabbed at Morientes’ wrist and twisted out from under the other man’s arm. “I—no, seriously, I’m okay. That’s just me not eating on the plane.”
“Not eating on the plane? Then I really have to buy you dinner.” Morientes recoiled in mock-horror, then nudged them into a doorway while David was wondering what was going on.
The door behind David wouldn’t give way and so he ended up pressed against Morientes for a couple seconds, stuck with his chin up because he’d been about to explain that he really was okay and he didn’t need a Spanish legend to buy him dinner. Some of the air got knocked out of him, making him widen his eyes and blurt out, “But you’re El Moro!”
And then the earth finally got round to eating David. No, it didn’t, but David sure as hell wished that that’d happened. Instead the door suddenly opened and he fell backward, and for the third time in about ten minutes, Morientes had to save him from getting knocked to the ground.
“Okay, you know, usually I do know which way’s up and which way’s down,” David muttered, brushing himself off. Then he winced at how pissy he sounded. “Damn it. I’m sorry, I mean thanks. Again. And for the other times, too.”
“You’re welcome,” Morientes said, laughing. “Oh, we’ll take a booth.”
David looked up, but by then the press of people behind him had already forced him well inside the café. Somebody’s elbow actually caught him in the shoulder and he stumbled, then ended up dropping in behind Morientes and the waiter when he tried to regain his balance. Then he glanced back, but he couldn’t even see the door for all the people and really, he couldn’t go anywhere but forward.
Not that that stopped him from slapping his arms over his plate once they were seated. “Look. I’m okay, it wasn’t all you because I was just standing there like an idiot and you don’t need to buy me dinner to make up for—oh, for the love of…”
He dropped one hand to grab at his traitorous stomach while Morientes sprawled back and laughed, long and light and easy. The other man caught David’s eye at one point and waved his hand, but couldn’t stop chuckling long enough to get the words out, and David sort of smiled at that. Tense as he was, he couldn’t help but feel an infectious tingle; there’d been a reason Morientes had been the star of his generation, and it still showed.
“Sorry. I’m not making fun of you, but that was just perfect…perfect timing.” Morientes eventually pulled himself up, then put an elbow up on the table and coughed into his hand. Then he slid his fingers down and rested his chin on them. “Anyway. I think I need to buy you dinner just to get that—” he flicked his fingers downwards “—to shut up long enough for us to finish talking. I didn’t get your name.”
“David,” David said automatically. Then he scruffed at the side of his head. “David Silva. I’m um, with Duende.”
It wasn’t that Morientes did anything in particular. His eyebrow moved up a little and his eyes might’ve darkened. But the set of his shoulders was still easy and confident, and his hands didn’t knot up from their careless pile on the table. “Oh. Intern?”
“No, copy edit—well, usually. Staff writer right now, I guess.”
“Oh,” Morientes said, wincing. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to assume—”
“No, it’s okay. I get that a lot.” David paused with his mouth open, thinking something was supposed to come after that. Except well, he’d answered the implied question and been polite, so what else was there? “So…”
Morientes rolled his shoulders in a quick, fluid motion. His eyes sharpened a little, though he dropped his head. “So people do call me El Moro. Fernando’s good, too.”
“Um, okay.” After a moment, David picked up the menu for lack of anything better to hide how completely out of his depth he was. Then he snorted, since it was that ridiculous, and looked up at the waitress who’d just popped up beside them. “See, I really am a copy editor. I’m just going to call you Fernando and get this one here, okay? But I’m paying for it, so back home they’ll think I am doing something.”
The waitress told him that was a great choice since it was a house specialty, then got Morientes’ order with a minimum of flirting. She squeezed off through the crowd, leaving Morientes’ dazzlingly broad grin. “Sounds good, but I already told the maître’d to bill my tab.” He shrugged helplessly. “I’ve been here for a week already and have adopted this place as my neighborhood café.”
“Oh.”
David must’ve looked as disappointed as he felt—he’d just been getting the hang of things—since Morientes…Fernando stopped smiling. He started to speak, but the waitress suddenly appeared with their drinks and he took those instead. Then signed an autograph for her, and then was pulling the paper off his straw when he finally got round to talking again. “How about we make a deal? I pay for your dinner and you don’t look guilty because you’re not going to write about me.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to anyway,” David said. Then he stuffed his face into his hand. “No, I meant—not that it wouldn’t make a killer anecdote, but I’m not…I have an assignment.”
Fernando stuck his straw into the corner of his mouth and sucked at his soda, hunched over the glass but with his eyes thoughtfully resting on David. “You’re going to do some puff piece on Eurovision over a chance to talk about your shocking encounter with ex-teen idol—”
“For God’s sake, I work for Duende, not some tabloid.” Somebody said something and David looked irritably up, then felt terribly guilty when their waitress took a step back. But she recovered before he could apologize and he was left staring at…Fernando’s appetizer, he guessed. “Sorry. But seriously. I’m a copy editor. I don’t normally do this anyway—I don’t even know how I’m going to write what I was sent to write, let alone write…some bunch of crap.”
The laugh made quite a few people start with its suddenness and Fernando apologetically dropped his voice, though except for David, everybody else just grinned as they went back to doing what they’d been doing. Fernando pulled the plate over to him and picked off a bit of cheese, then poked the plate back towards David. “Okay, I think I see now. I’m still paying for this, though.”
David opened his mouth. Then closed it, and then just plopped his chin onto the backs of his hands, sighing. “This is what they call a diva moment, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, I always thought I was too damn tall to be a diva,” Fernando said, chuckling. He pushed the cheese at David. “Have some. You look like you need it.”
“Hey, I look young, not underfed,” David started to say. Then he stopped and glared down at his stomach.
Fernando tried very hard to hide his amusement, but ended up just snickering into his wrist. He flicked his eyes up at David, who made an annoyed face and then just took the cheese. Some things were just inevitable, apparently. And okay, it was good cheese.
* * *
Luís would’ve just gone straight home, except he remembered he’d left his jacket in his office. Though in retrospect, he really should’ve just gotten that in the morning. “Yes, Villa?”
“They said you sent Silva to Eurovision. Why?” Villa smoldered in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, hair spikier than usual.
“And how long did it take for you to get somebody to tell you that?” Luís sighed. He took his jacket off the hook, then threw it on. Then his cell went off and he unhooked that from his belt as he leaned his hip against his desk.
Pep’s number, but it had to be Adrian, given that the text was talking about where to find dinner in the fridge and how long to heat it. It was normal for Pep to be working so late, since he insisted on his “siestas,” but Luís probably should swing around and drag out Adrian before the man worked himself to death, and right, needed to do something about that.
“I heard you said he can’t have any contact with me,” Villa said accusingly. He took a step inside, still with the arms crossed over his chest. Someday somebody needed to tell him that just made him look smaller. “No wonder he hasn’t—”
“—answered your messages? Well, you’ll just have to do your own work for once, won’t you? And if I have to put any more effort into legally covering your ass this month, I’m sending you to America.” Luís texted Adrian back that he’d come back in about a half-hour, then was hitting ‘send’ when somebody else knocked at the door. “Come in and die!”
Villa closed his mouth and appeared to nearly choke on the protest he was swallowing. Iker just looked terribly reluctant as he poked in his head. “Luís? So…you don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
“Oh, nothing, I just…forgot what day of the week it is. Silly me. I’ll leave you—”
“He lost the draw for who gets to host you for Eurovision-watching this year,” Villa said, and then looked totally unconcerned about Iker’s attempt to will his skin to boil off. “Where are you going? What about Silva?”
Luís paused, thought, then silently swore to himself. Normally he used Eurovision as a great chance to one-on-one with his staff, and he’d been looking forward to figuring out Iker’s threesome. Particularly whether Raúl was as harried in person as he looked when fending off reporters, and…and wait. “Iker, wait.”
Iker’s face said he had briefly contemplated running for it, but his professionalism wouldn’t let him. He took a deep breath, then firmed up his jaw and braced for it.
“What good is Silva in Serbia? He’s not even a staff writer and fine, you don’t care that much about Eurovision coverage, but—”
“Villa, in case you don’t remember, David initially applied for a reporting position. Now he’s getting his chance and he doesn’t need you to distract him, which is why I banned contact between you,” Luís said. He shut down his computer and locked his desk. “Incidentally, he got there, checked in and picked up his passes, so it seems he’s doing fine in spite of that.”
Villa tilted back, incredulous. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m asking where he is, not asking for help.”
“Have you done any work today? Or have you been so busy trying to figure out why nobody’s getting you coffee and running down your leads to get around to that?” Luís glanced up just long enough to get a confirmation in Villa’s expression, then bumped his chair aside with his hip. He went around his desk. “But if you really care about work, then you can go with Iker and do the home-audience portion of the article, since I’m too busy with your legal issues to do it this year. You can get together with Silva on it when he gets back, and then it’ll be back to normal. It’s a couple days, Villa. You can live without him.”
“Figo, what the fuck—”
“Luís!” Iker actually got in ahead of Villa, who had just a moment to look shocked before Iker slammed the door in his face. Then Iker glanced back, a little surprised himself, before leaping after Luís. “What did I do? I have—there are other people over, and—and—”
Luís stopped, then put his hand on Iker’s shoulder. “You didn’t do anything except be convenient, Iker. And I’m sorry, but you can go to that Romero retrospective, all right?”
For a moment, it looked like it worked. But then Villa whacked open Luís’ office door and Iker started waving his arms around. “That’s not even close to making up for it! I can’t—”
Well, if Iker was waving his arms, he wasn’t holding onto Luís. Time to go.
* * *
They stayed away from work topics, which should’ve been awkward, given what David did and who Fernando was, but actually, it wasn’t. There was a lot of non-music stuff that they had in common, surprisingly enough: missing their hometown cuisine, liking Valencia FC, loving the same bad telenovela. It also helped that Fernando was a really easy person to talk to—not in that he pretended he didn’t notice David’s stupid moments, which David had always found kind of condescending, but in that he did notice and laughed them off, but not in a mean way. And then he just got on with the conversation.
David really enjoyed himself, to be honest. In fact, when some loudspeaker blared a warning that the performances were beginning soon, the first thing he felt was disappointment.
The second thing was a sudden return of his earlier panic, because he hadn’t gone to any of the pre-parties or even the dress rehearsals, and did he need to go to those to write a good article? What was he doing here? He still didn’t know.
“You all right?” Fernando finished wiping his mouth, then put down his napkin. “You look a little sick all of a sudden.”
“No! I mean, no, I’m fine. I just—I have to go. To the—you know, the semifinal,” David babbled. He started to get up, then sat back down. Then swore and got up again. “Except I have to go to my hotel room first, because I forgot my passes and the map and—”
The elbow took him completely by surprise. Luckily, he hadn’t been standing all the way up so it just cracked into his eyebrow instead of breaking his nose or something like that. Of course, David didn’t think about all that till a lot later.
Right then he was blacking out. And then awake and lying across the booth bench, hearing Fernando talk to somebody, and then really awake because he didn’t know how long he’d been out, but surely he had to get moving.
“Whoa! Wait, hey, they’re going to get somebody to look at you.” Fernando lunged across and got David by the waist, then basically sat back, forcing David onto his lap. “Just sit down for a second. That was a pretty nasty—”
“But—”
“You’re not going to miss anything, okay? I promise. I give you my word, now would you please sit? I—honestly, I’m worried now. I’m not sure if I let you out there, you’re going to make it in one piece,” Fernando said, firmly dragging David back. It was a tight fit, but somehow he twisted around and got David onto the part of the bench behind him. Then he got out into the aisle and turned around to lean over David, staring hard into David’s face. “But you’ll get in for whatever you need. I’ve got an extra pass that you can use, so just…just sit. Okay? Sit.”
David gulped like a fish a few times, but then had to breathe. In, and then out, and with the exhale seemed to go all his energy. He slumped back, pressing his hand against his throbbing head, and thought that at this point, he couldn’t blame the earth for not wanting to eat him. It probably had targets that weren’t so, oh, pathetic. Seriously.
A first-aid type person did show up shortly afterward, and after some prodding, declared that David was not concussed but that his bloody shirt—David looked down at that point, realizing what all that icky warm stuff coming from just above his eyebrow was—needed a wash. The doctor swabbed David’s cut with something that stung, stretched butterfly bandages over it and then told Fernando to keep it iced.
“Well, not so bad. Should heal all right,” Fernando said. He glanced at David, then sighed and held out his hand. “And yes, I remember. This way.”
He was kind of curt about it, which gave David a moment’s pause, but Fernando didn’t look anything but concerned for David, so maybe it was just the head-blow. David took the other man’s hand and got up, and then Fernando set off at a blistering pace.
Well, probably not for him since his hip ended nearly at David’s stomach, but it was all David could do to hold onto Fernando’s wrist as they plunged in and out of random groups of people. He didn’t even have time to look around, though he knew they had gone inside some building when it went all dark. The auditorium, he realized when he heard a soundcheck going on somewhere. But then they were stumbling up a bunch of stairs, and then they finally stopped. Gasping, David flopped back. Then he blinked, since he hadn’t fallen on his ass—well, he had, but into a chair, thank God. If he’d crashed into something one more time, he probably would’ve just dissolved out of sheer humiliation.
“Here we go,” Fernando announced. Heads turned and then turned back with absent nods or waves: they were in a soundroom high above the arena, with an amazing view through the huge glass windows. He grinned out at it, then turned around. Then stopped grinning and stooped over David, one hand going to the cut over David’s eyebrow. “Damn, you’re still bleeding a bit. Wait a second and I’ll get some ice.”
David started to say thanks and how’d you get in here and oh-my-god all at once, and by the time he’d wrestled his tongue into sensibility, Fernando had disappeared through the door. After giving the nearest techie a nervous smile, David sunk back in his chair and tried to tell himself he wasn’t going to be silly any more tonight. He did some breathing exercises from that anger-management talk he’d gone to in Guaje’s place.
When he started feeling lightheaded, he stopped and that was about when Fernando came back with a baggie of ice wrapped in paper towels. The other man put it to David’s forehead, then let David take the baggie. “Better?”
“Uh, yeah. Thank you,” David mumbled. He looked around again. “And thanks—wow. What are you doing, hosting?”
“Sort of. I’m a guest commentator for the Spanish feed. I’m supposed to just do part of the final, but I figured I should see how it’s done before I do it. That and I just like bothering these poor people.” Fernando gestured at the rest of the room, who collectively made an affectionate eye-roll. “I’ve worked with a lot of them at some point or the other, so we’re all friends here. Make yourself at home.”
David glanced at Fernando, then sort of hid behind the icepack. He jiggled his foot, realized what he was doing and made himself stop. Then he took a couple deep breaths, and then he was about to get up when Fernando started talking to him again. He sat back down and Fernando immediately stopped, making David wince. “Sorry, what?” he asked.
“Ah, nothing much. I’m just getting in the way now, aren’t I? You said you had work to do.” Then Fernando started to walk away, but David made the most ridiculous noise and the other man came back. “You all right?”
“I—” David stared straight out in front of him, then down “—no, not really. But it’s not…never mind.”
After a moment, Fernando slouched up against the wall by David. “What? I’m not doing anything here—you want to talk? I’m not about to go telling all either, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No. Actually, I hadn’t even thought about that till you brought it up. No, no, it’s okay. It’s just…see, this is totally a sign of why I’m a copy editor and I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m going to fuck this up when I don’t even know what I did to fuck up to get here in the first place.” Then David ran out of breath. He gasped a couple times, then irritably put up his hand to wipe away the water dripping down his chin. “Crap. Sorry I dumped like that.”
“Well, I did just ask you to, so don’t apologize,” Fernando said. He shrugged. “So why are you going to fuck up?”
David looked at him, then remembered Fernando had no idea what Duende was like. “Because this isn’t what I do! I—I fix typos, and make sure Guaje’s not abusing semicolons, and keep him from saying stuff that’ll get us sued. I check Guaje’s sources, okay? I don’t—don’t fly places. I mean, I do, but not to write stuff. He does that.”
Frowning, Fernando rubbed the bridge of his nose, then rubbed his jaw. “Guaje?”
“Oh, sorry. David Villa, the—okay, you’ve heard of him.” A slight glow briefly penetrated the mad buzz in David’s head. “I do his copy.”
“Ah, I see.” Fernando loosely crossed his arms and looked up as the lights flickered. Then the first act came on and he grimaced at something. He muttered about the awful bass and a woman two seats down totally agreed with him. “Well, he’s considered top-notch, isn’t he? So if you work with him, you must have a lot of experience in seeing what reporters do.”
“Kind of. Guaje is um, well, not weird because he usually has a reason for doing what he does, but sometimes it can seem weird to other people and…and sorry, am I not making sense?”
That wasn’t quite the look on Fernando’s face, but Fernando pressed his hand over it before David could make a better guess. “No, no, I think you are, but…so who else do you work with?”
“Oh, just Guaje. I…see, I wasn’t supposed to be an editor. They didn’t have any spots available when I applied, but Figo really liked me, so he asked if I’d help out Guaje till something did. I ended up getting along really well with Guaje, so…” David shrugged.
“So what’d you apply for to begin with?” Fernando idly asked.
“Staff writer,” David said.
The first act wrapped up in a blizzard of pyrotechnics so loud they even made it to the soundroom. Once the racket had lessened, Fernando coughed and turned to look at David. “Okay. So…you’re here to do what a staff repor—writer, whatever, would do, which is what you wanted to do when you joined Duende and what I’m guessing you’ve got a degree in, but…you don’t think you can do it? Because you’ve been a copy editor to one guy for…”
“Three years,” David replied automatically. Then he winced, finally hearing the rest of what Fernando had said. Which was what Figo had said too, but frankly, David was used to tuning out about half what Figo said because it didn’t have anything to do with…he winced again. Then he pushed himself back in his chair, hard. “I—look. I’ve been liking what I do. I get to work with Guaje, who’s really amazing despite what everybody says, and they’re always talking when they don’t know anyway. I could’ve asked to change positions but I didn’t because then I wouldn’t have time to help out Guaje, who does need it because he—”
“Hey, whatever works for you. It’s just…it does sound like you know how to do this, so I don’t think you should be too nervous. I mean, if you jumped into a job you didn’t even mean to go, and ended up doing it fine, then it sounds like you know how to improvise,” Fernando said. He shrugged again, talking like they were back in the café, trading anecdotes about shitty part-time jobs. “C’mon, you did know how to do this before, didn’t you?”
David had to take a few breaths again. Then he exhaled instead of replying, because he was kind of thinking about it. “I…yeah, I do. I’ve actually done it a lot, too. It’s…just…not when Guaje’s not been around.”
“Well, you know, then you know. Maybe this is your first time on your own, but just take a deep breath and remember you know how to do it. Which sounds cheesy, but just trust in what you learned, all right? If Guaje taught you right, then—what? Am I totally off here?”
“Oh…no, no. Actually, you’ve been a ton of help. Thanks.” Then David rolled his eyes and scrunched the ice tighter to his head: could he sound more lame? “Really. I mean that. You’ve just—I’ve been running around like I have no head, and you’ve really helped with that.”
Fernando smiled. “You’re welcome. Though after ramming into you like that, I figure the least I could do is stand in for your mentor…and you’re looking weird again. What is it?”
“Nothing. No, really.” After another moment, David just broke down. He was tired and he wasn’t that great a liar anyway. “It’s no big deal. Just…um, Guaje’s not my mentor.”
“But didn’t you say—”
“I do work with him, but he…I’ve kind of learned on my own. He’s so busy, and he kind of has this…temper…though I think that gets exaggerated,” David said, voice trailing off. “And okay, I know I sound defensive—”
“No, you are being defensive,” Fernando told him, low and quiet but firm. Then the other man looked away. He hitched up his shoulder, then exhaled slowly. “Look, it’s not really any of my business, so you’ve got every right to just not listen, but—every time you bring him up, it’s not without trying to defend him against something. And I’ve never met him myself, and usually don’t pay attention to rumors because like you said, they can exaggerate. But I’ve been listening to you, and I’ve just been wondering if you ever listen to yourself. Because you seem like a bright, funny, sweet person, right up till his name comes out.”
David…really wanted to say something to that. And he almost did, but then he thought about it and he…couldn’t.
“So this is horrible timing, but…while I’m at it, I probably should mention I’m a little biased here. Because I’ve really enjoyed being around you, but I’ve also been wondering just how it’s like between you and Villa. I…” Fernando smiled rather sadly “…don’t want to get in the middle of anything, but I’d also like to see you again. I’m going to leave now, so you don’t think I just took you up here hoping for that, but if you’re not completely offended…”
And Fernando leaned over and pushed a piece of paper into David’s slack hand just as his lips touched David’s mouth.
* * *
“He’s an asshole and he’s been mean to Iker all night. I say we make him into chorizo,” Cesc muttered. He whacked the knife through the lime, then put it down and scooped up the lime slices.
Wide-eyed, José nicely stood there with the plate frozen at the ready. He blinked a few times, then sighed. “Cesc, I don’t think that that’s a good idea.”
“And now it looks like he’s picking a fight with Ruud,” Cesc added, wandering over to look out the doorway. He suppressed a smug grin at José’s yelp, and when his cousin hurried over, pointed at the corner. “You know, if this was supposed to be a friendly Eurovision party, I think it’s royally failing.”
José looked irritably at Cesc. Then he frowned, tipping his head to look past Cesc, and then he gasped and shoved out his hand. “Oh, my God! ”
Cesc turned, got over his moment of shock and began to look around for the remote.
“It’s Mori! Mori’s on TV and he’s mak—mmmph!”
So they got on better now, but God, sometimes José was fucking stupid. Like Raúl wasn’t around somewhere and really didn’t need to know that his ex was at Eurovision and had gotten caught on the behind-the-scenes cam sticking his tongue down—
“Silva!” Crash.
That…that had been Villa. And a moment later, while José and Cesc were still staring at each other, Sergio came tearing in. “Cesc! Your boyfriend just dragged off that Villa jerk in a headlock! Uncle was in the bathroom and ‘Nando’s blocking the TV now, but if somebody gets killed, then he’s definitely going to ask what hap—”
“On it!” Cesc yelped, running out.
***