Emily came back into the bedroom carrying two plates, eggs and toast and sliced tomatoes arranged the way she always did—Hannah's eggs scrambled, Emily's fried, the toast buttered on the diagonal. She set them on the nightstand, then perched on the edge of the mattress, one hand landing on Hannah's shin through the duvet.
"Eat first," Emily said. "Then we decide."
Hannah didn't ask what they were deciding. She picked up the fork and took a bite, the salt and olive oil filling her mouth, and watched Emily eat with her fingers, tearing off a piece of toast and dipping it into the yolk. A small smear of butter caught at the corner of her mouth.
"You've got—" Hannah pointed with her fork.
Emily grinned and wiped it with the back of her hand, not quite getting it. Hannah reached over and thumbed the corner of her lip, gentle, and Emily's eyes went soft.
"I love you," Emily said, around a mouthful of toast.
"I know." Hannah felt the smile pull at her own mouth. "I love you too."
They ate in comfortable silence for a bit, the morning light shifting across the duvet, the sounds of the city filtering through the window—a car horn, distant voices, a dog barking. Hannah's phone buzzed again, face-down on the nightstand, but she didn't reach for it.
"That's probably Aitana again," Emily said. "Or Mapi. Or Patri. Or Alexia."
"Probably." Hannah set down her fork. "They're going to keep texting until I show up at training with you on my arm."
"Is that what you want?" Emily's voice went quieter. "To show up with me on your arm?"
Hannah looked at her. The freckles across her nose, the sea-glass eyes that held no judgment, just curiosity and something tender and waiting.
"Yes," Hannah said. "I want that."
Emily's breath caught, almost invisible. "Your ankle—"
"I know what we agreed. Wait until it's healed." Hannah shifted on the bed, wincing slightly as her ankle moved under the pillow. "But I don't want to wait. Not anymore. Ryan already knows you're here. The team knows we're together. The only people who don't know are the fans. And they're going to find out sooner or later."
"Sooner," Emily said, and it wasn't a question.
"I want it to be on my terms. Our terms." Hannah reached for her phone, picked it up, unlocked it. "I've been looking at a photo. For days."
She opened her camera roll and scrolled to the image she'd taken two weeks ago, before the match, before the ankle, before everything. Emily's head resting on her shoulder, both of them laughing at something Aitana had yelled from across the room. The Barcelona training shirt visible at the collar of Hannah's hoodie. Emily's hair a mess of ginger curls against her neck. She looked happy. They both did.
Emily leaned over, her shoulder pressing against Hannah's arm, and looked at the screen. She was quiet for a moment, then said, "I remember that night."
"You cried when Aitana told the story about the goat."
"It was a funny story." Emily's nose wrinkled. "And I'd had two glasses of wine."
Hannah smiled. She held the phone between them, the photo glowing on the screen. "I want to post this. I want to tell everyone. But I'm scared." She said it plainly, no armor. "Once I do, I can't undo it. And Ryan—he'll see it. He'll know where you are. What you're doing. Who you're with."
Emily's hand found hers, warm and solid, fingers threading together over the phone. "He already knows I'm in Barcelona. And he knows I'm not coming back. He doesn't know where I live, exactly, and even if he did—" She squeezed. "I have you. I have your team. I have a whole new life. I'm not afraid of him anymore."
Hannah turned to look at her, really look. The set of Emily's jaw, the steadiness in her eyes. She meant it.
"Are you sure?" Hannah asked.
"I'm sure." Emily lifted their joined hands and pressed her lips to Hannah's knuckles. "Post it. Together."
Hannah took a breath. Then another. She pulled up Instagram, selected the photo, and typed a caption: Found my person. 💙❤️
Her thumb hovered over the post button.
Emily leaned over and pressed it for her.
For a second, nothing. The screen flickered. Then the notifications started—a buzz, then another, then a cascade of vibrations that shook the phone in Hannah's hand. She watched the likes climb: 1,000, then 2,000, then 5,000 in under a minute. Comments flooded in, a blur of hearts and fire emojis and questions and congratulations in Spanish, Catalan, English, Norwegian.
Hannah's breath went shallow. Her thumb froze over the screen.
Emily's hand covered hers, warm and steady. "It's done," she said.
Hannah looked up. Sea-glass eyes watching her, not the notifications. No phone in Emily's hand. She was fully present, wholly here, and the noise on the screen felt suddenly distant, like a radio playing in another room.
"It's done," Emily repeated. "We're out. Everyone knows. And I'm still here."
Hannah let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. The phone buzzed again—a call this time, Aitana's name flashing on the screen. Hannah declined it, set the phone face-down on the nightstand, and turned to Emily.
"I love you," she said, because it was the only thing that mattered.
"I know." Emily smiled, soft and crooked. "Now get off that ankle and let me make us more tea."
Hannah pulled her into a kiss instead, deep and slow, her hand sliding into Emily's curls, and Emily made a small sound against her mouth and kissed her back until the phone's buzzing faded into the background and all that was left was the warmth of the bed and the smell of Emily's skin and the weight of a secret finally set down.
They stayed like that until the sun climbed higher, the notifications piling up on the silenced phone, the world outside discovering what the two of them already knew. At some point Hannah's ankle started to throb again, a dull ache that reminded her she still had work to do—rehab, recovery, a Champions League semi-final waiting—but when she shifted to adjust the pillow, Emily's hand was already there, reaching for it, lifting the ankle gently and repositioning it with the care of someone who had learned the shape of her body's limits.
"Better?" Emily asked.
"Yeah." Hannah watched her. "How did you know?"
"You winced. A tiny one. I saw it." Emily shrugged. "I pay attention."
Hannah felt something crack open in her chest, not painfully, just wider. She reached out and traced the line of Emily's jaw, the curve of her cheek, the constellation of freckles that mapped her skin. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."
"You spilled coffee on yourself," Emily said, straight-faced. "That was the moment."
They both laughed, and it broke the weight of the moment, and Emily stood up and took the plates to the kitchen. Hannah leaned back against the pillows, the phone face-down, the world waiting, and let herself feel the shape of this new reality.
She was out. They were out. And nothing had collapsed.
---
She woke to a different world.
The room was dimmer—curtains still drawn, but the light had shifted to the gray of early morning. Her phone was lit up on the nightstand, a stack of notifications that seemed to have multiplied overnight. She grabbed it and blinked at the screen.
News alerts. Dozens of them.
FC Barcelona's Hannah Voss goes public with girlfriend.
Quién es Emily Shaw? La desconocida que conquistó a la capitana.
Voss: 'Found my person'—fans react.
Her face and Emily's splashed across every sports site, the photo she'd posted now zoomed and cropped and analyzed. Comments sections were a mixture of joy and jealousy, love and hostility, but the numbers were staggering—millions of impressions, trending on every platform in Spain.
She scrolled past the headlines, past the speculation, past the people who said Emily wasn't good enough or that Hannah deserved someone famous. They didn't matter. What mattered was the text from Alexia, sitting in her notifications, sent at 6:47 AM:
Good. Now get back to rehab.
Hannah laughed out loud, the sound startling in the quiet room. Emily stirred beside her, a ginger curl escaping the cocoon of the duvet, and mumbled something unintelligible.
"Alexia texted," Hannah said.
Emily cracked an eye. "Is she mad?"
"She said 'Good. Now get back to rehab.'"
A grin spread across Emily's face, soft and sleepy. "I like her."
"She likes you too. She just won't say it."
Hannah set the phone down and lay back, staring at the ceiling. Her ankle throbbed, a reminder of the work ahead. The world was watching now, every step she took photographed, every match she played scrutinized. But Emily's hand found hers under the duvet, fingers lacing together, and the weight of it all felt bearable.
"What's next?" Emily asked, her voice still rough with sleep.
"Rehab. Training. Getting ready for the semi-final." Hannah turned her head to look at her. "And figuring out how to be public without losing what we have."
"We won't lose it." Emily's grip tightened. "I won't let that happen."
Hannah believed her. She pulled Emily closer, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and let the morning settle around them—the phone buzzing with the world's attention, the ankle aching with the price of the game, and the woman in her arms, warm and real and hers.
Home.
Hannah's phone buzzed again. She reached for it, expecting another news alert or a teammate's reaction, but the name on the screen made her stomach tighten: Desconocido. Unknown number. She stared at it, the buzz vibrating against her palm, and didn't answer.
Emily propped herself up on one elbow, her hair a wild mess of ginger curls. "Who is it?"
"Don't know." Hannah's voice came out flat. "Unknown number."
She let it ring until it stopped. Then a voicemail notification appeared. Then another call, same number. She declined it again, and this time the phone went quiet.
"Hannah." Emily's hand found her wrist, gentle. "You're shaking."
She looked down at her own hand, the phone still clutched in her fingers, and saw the fine tremor running through it. She hadn't noticed. "I'm fine."
"You're not." Emily sat up fully, the duvet pooling around her waist. "That's him, isn't it?"
Hannah didn't answer. She didn't need to. The silence was enough.
"Give me the phone." Emily held out her hand. "Let me see the number."
Hannah hesitated, then handed it over. Emily studied the screen, her jaw tightening, and then she did something Hannah didn't expect: she blocked the number and handed the phone back.
"There," Emily said. "He doesn't get to do this. Not today. Not ever."
Hannah stared at her. "You blocked him."
"I know his patterns. He called once, then again. That's how he starts. A call, then a text, then a voicemail, then a dozen more calls from different numbers until you pick up just to make it stop." Emily's voice was steady, but her hands were gripping the duvet now, knuckles white. "I've been through this before. I know how it ends if you let it start."
"Emily—"
"I'm not going back to that." Emily's eyes met hers, sea-glass bright and unflinching. "I left Ireland because I chose myself. I chose this life. I chose you. And I'm not letting him take any of that away with a phone call."
Hannah set the phone down, face-up this time, and reached for Emily's hands. She unfolded them from the duvet and held them, thumbs pressing into the palms, feeling the tension there, the fine tremble that matched her own.
"You're right," Hannah said. "I'm sorry. I froze."
"You don't have to apologize. You're not the one who did anything wrong." Emily let out a long breath, her shoulders dropping. "He's going to try. He's going to find ways to reach me. But I have you. I have your team. I have a life here. And he's just a man with a badge and a grudge, sitting in a country he can't leave because his parole won't let him."
Hannah's head snapped up. "His parole?"
Emily's eyes flickered, like she'd said something she hadn't meant to. She looked down at their joined hands. "There's more I haven't told you. About how I left. About what happened after."
"Tell me." Hannah's voice came out steady, but her chest was tight. "Whatever it is, tell me."
Emily was quiet for a long moment. The city hummed outside, a siren in the distance, the normal sounds of a world that didn't know it was balanced on the edge of a confession.
"The last time he locked me in the bathroom," Emily said slowly, "I didn't pick the lock. I broke the door down." She looked up. "He was passed out on the couch. I took his keys, his wallet, his phone, and I drove to the Garda station. I filed a report. I showed them the bruises on my wrists, the marks on my ribs, the places he'd put his hands when he was angry."
Hannah's grip tightened. She didn't speak.
"They arrested him that night. He was suspended from the force, then charged. Assault, false imprisonment, a list of things I'd been too scared to say out loud for two years." Emily's voice cracked, just slightly. "He got parole six months ago. I was already here by then. I'd sold my car, packed my bags, and bought a one-way ticket to Barcelona the day after his first court hearing."
"Emily." Hannah's voice was barely a whisper.
"I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to see me as a victim." Emily's eyes were wet now, but she didn't blink. "I wanted you to see me as someone who got out. Someone who survived."
Hannah pulled her close, wrapping her arms around Emily's small frame, pressing her face into the ginger curls. She felt Emily's breath hitch, then steady, then hitch again. She held on, one hand cradling the back of Emily's head, the other pressed flat against her back, feeling the heartbeat through the thin fabric of the training shirt Emily was wearing—her shirt.
"You're not a victim," Hannah said into her hair. "You're the bravest person I've ever met."
Emily let out a sound, half-laugh, half-sob. "That's a low bar. You've met footballers."
Hannah laughed despite herself, the sound rough and warm. "Shut up. I'm being serious."
"I know." Emily pulled back just enough to look at her, eyes red-rimmed but clear. "I just—I needed you to know. All of it. If we're going to be public, if he's going to see us together, I needed you to know what he's capable of. What I survived."
Hannah cupped her face, thumbs brushing the freckles on her cheekbones. "I know what you survived. And I know what you are now. You're the woman who broke down a door and drove herself to safety. You're the woman who moved to a new country and built a new life. You're the woman who makes me toast on a diagonal and hums Irish songs while she cooks eggs."
Emily's lips curved, just a little. "You noticed the diagonal thing."
"I notice everything about you." Hannah pressed her forehead to Emily's. "And I'm not going anywhere. He can call a hundred times. He can send a thousand messages. It doesn't change what we have."
Emily closed her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek. Hannah caught it with her thumb, wiped it away, and kissed the spot where it had been.
"I love you," Emily whispered.
"I know." Hannah kissed her again, soft and slow. "I love you too. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life making sure you never have to break down another door."
Emily laughed, watery but real, and leaned into her. They stayed like that, tangled together in the morning light, the phone silent now, the world outside still spinning, the weight of a shared history settling between them like something solid and unbreakable.
Hannah's ankle throbbed, a dull reminder of the work ahead. But she didn't move. She held Emily, and let herself be held, and let the new day arrive on its own terms.