Fever Dream ~ Neymar Jr

Chapter 2

2014

A pool of sweat had started to form on the base of my neck and the shadows behind my eyelids had long turned from black, to grey, to yellowy, to bright orange, when I decided to finally open my eyes. Summer in Ibiza isn't for the faint of heart, I thought, reaching to grab my phone from the bedside table. It was earlier than I thought, but the temperature was already almost 30ºC.

The other side of the bed was empty and the sheets were rumbled towards the edge of the bed, unused in the hot night. Just watching the empty bed made me miss him. I got up and walked to the living room/kitchen of the yacht which was also empty and finally up to the main deck. He had his back to me, looking towards the shore and speaking on his phone in Portuguese. He was still wearing his back brace, which, from what the doctors told us, he would wear for at least a month. I knew it must be bothersome in the heat, but he never complained.

"Bom Dia." I said in his ear as I wrapped my hands around him. I felt him smile and he planted a light kiss on my cheek as I heard a woman's voice speaking on the other end of the line.

"Carolina." He mouthed and I nodded. It must be after midnight now in Brazil, so I hoped this was just a case of simply catching up and nothing more serious.

Neymar removed the phone from his ear as Carol kept speaking and looked at it with annoyance, I realized he was getting yet another call. "Coffee?" I mouthed but he pointed to his almost untouched glass of freddo cappuccino. It was a recipe for cold coffee I had learned from my Greek friend Demis and made for Neymar too. He liked it as well as I did and it's what we drank in the mornings of the heatwave. I went back down to make myself a glass but realized he had already made mine too and it was waiting in the kitchen for me. That boy, I thought, smiling to myself.

When I went back up he was just putting the phone down. He got up quickly when he saw me and came to hug me. I put my coffee on the table sloppily, almost knocking it down, since my attention was suddenly focused on only him. My hands flew up to his hair and his drew me closer as we kissed. You'd think we hadn't seen each other in years. We broke the kiss when his phone started ringing again. "I swear I'll throw it in the sea." He mumbled, his mouth still tracing my jawline but he reached to pick it up. I glanced at the screen and saw the word "mom" on the Caller ID.

When he finished talking to her he looked annoyed. "What's going on?" I asked him, a little worried myself.

He sighed and came to join me in the couch. "Davi." He said. "He was supposed to spend a week with my parents after he leaves Barcelona and before the school year starts but Carolina changed the dates. I'm trying to get everyone to work it out."

I nodded. I knew he and Davi's mom had a pretty good relationship, but it's not always easy to communicate and find common ground. "Davi will still come to Barcelona though, right?" I asked. Neymar was to return to training at the end of August and Davi was going to spend that last week of August in Barcelona with him. I was looking forward to having him with us for a week.

"Yes, that is non-negotiable." He said matter-of-factly. "I don't see him as often as I'd like to anyway... It seems I don't see anyone that matters to me as often as I want." He said looking at me.

"Technically you have not been apart from me since we met." I told him. The World Cup ended almost a week ago and we were in vacations together ever since. It had been a whirlwind two months, since I arrived in Brazil in June as part of a university team tasked to work and help the Brazilian football team.

Four of us, me, Marina, Alex and Peter along with our professor Mr. Jones came to Granja Comary, the Brazilian team's training center to study and work with Felipe Scolari and his coaching stuff a month before the World Cup started and throughout it. So many things happened in those two months, from cases of mistaken identities, to scavenger hunts, from being fired and brought back to the team, coaching Neymar, being offered a job to stay on as a coach – and having that offer rescinded almost right away, to Neymar's accident where he fractured his vertebrae and Brazil's tragic end to their WC campaign with that devastating loss to Germany.