[Chattanooga]

They came in close to two in the morning, which was late enough that even the city’s nightlife had packed itself away and gone home.

When they stepped out of the chartered plane, twelve black vans sat in a line with windows tinted dark enough that you couldn’t have told what was inside them even if you’d been standing beside them looking.

It had been the federation’s idea to fly in this late, and nobody had argued with it, because nobody wanted the alternative to that when they knew they were going to be tired after the flight.

The bus that would carry them through the tournament was still attaining the necessary permits and would probably be ready, a day or two before their first game, but for now, the vans were fine and were better for a night like this.

Izan, breathing heavily through his mouth, walked towards the van and handed his bags off to Pablo, the kit assistant, before he climbed into the third van and walked to the back the way he always did, because the back meant nobody could sit behind you, and the window meant you had somewhere to look that wasn’t another person’s face.

He’d been in the seat maybe a minute before Fermín arrived.

He didn’t so much sit down as arrange himself into the seat on one heavy motion that Izan even wondered if he was trying to get injured before the tournament.

In the next moment, the Barcelona star leaned his head against the headrest and closed his already groggy eyes.

Lamine came in after him, stepping over someone’s duffel bag in the aisle, and dropped into the seat directly in front of Izan before turning to look behind.

"You want one," he asked as he tucked a packet of gummy bears through the gap in his seat.

Izan sighed, and although he wanted to complain, the gummies enticed him enough to keep quiet.

Still, "Just don’t let De La Fuente catch you!"

Lamine nodded at that before turning to look at Fermin Lopez, who was still lost in his sleep.

The former soon had a grin plastered on his face as he began to pull out his phone.

Izan, seeing this, turned his face toward the window but didn’t let it go on.

"Sleep, Lamine," he said as he tossed a couple of gummies into his mouth.

"It’s for the promotional material."

"No, it’s not."

"It is."

"Even if it is, let’s leave that to the PR team, if we have any."

Izan muttered the last few words since he wasn’t even sure that their team had a PR team due to Luis De La Fuente not allowing cameras near the pitches during training.

Sighing slowly, Lamine accepted Izan’s ruling as the van pulled away from the kerb, and Chattanooga began moving past the windows in the dark.

They hadn’t really gone too far when his phone lit up in his hand.

Olivia: Have you landed yet?

Seeing the messages, he started typing — why are you still up — and got three words in before something stopped him.

He looked at the time, which glowed, 1:43.

Then he looked at it again, properly this time, and did the arithmetic.

Six hours ahead.

So it was coming up on eight in the morning in London.

She hadn’t been waiting up at all.

She’d woken up, probably even eaten, possibly still in the clothes she’d slept in, and the first thing she’d reached for was her phone.

He deleted what he’d written, and then typed away again.

Izan: Yeah. just got in. city’s like a film set, there’s nobody out

The reply came quickly.

Olivia: I’m glad. Miranda sorted everything by the way. flights and all that. just waiting on Hori’s school finishing and then we’re there.

Izan: That’s nice then. I’ll be waiting to put on a show then!

A string of heart emojis followed from Olivia before a picture too came.

Clicking on it revealed an image of her standing in the kitchen in just a shirt with Komi and Miranda beside her.

Izan: Tell her thank you from me

But as if expecting that message, she sent one immediately as Izan’s came through.

Olivia: Tell her yourself, she’s literally right here

Izan laughed at that and typed a short ’I’ll call in the afternoon’ before he put the phone face down on his knee and leaned back.

The shadow of the complex came out of the Tennessee night slowly before the full thing all at once when they got much closer.

The floodlights at the perimeter were throwing clean, pale light across grass that was almost aggressively green, almost making it look artificial, but it wasn’t.

The van slowed a moment later before rolling to a stop.

Around Izan came the collective reanimation of people who had been suspended somewhere between sleep and waking for the last twenty minutes and who were now required to reconstitute themselves into functional human beings.

Lamine leaned between the seats and looked out at the grass where the floodlights, the whole lit-up spread of it, sat in the Tennessee dark.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, which was rare enough because of how chattersome he was.

"Okay," he said eventually, and began to shift out of his seat.

From behind him, Izan looked outside a little longer before he reached down, picked up the small bag he’d kept between his feet, and stepped out of the van into the warm night air of the American South.

"Let me have that Duffel," Izan said after a while and began approaching Pablo, who, with the help of the resident staff, was unloading the bags.

He nodded once and began rummaging.

A second later, he pulled out an Adidas-branded duffel bag.

"Here," he said as he handed over the bag.

Izan took it with a small smile and mouthed a small, ’Thank you’ before joining the others who had already started making their way into the lobby of the accommodation complex.