*Pop*

The cork that had been on the champagne a second ago went off, hitting the ceiling before coming back down.

And then the birthday song started immediately after, coming from all sides and in at least two different keys depending on who you were standing near.

Leo sat in the middle of it with the paper crown Mia had put on his head, sitting slightly crooked because it was clearly made for someone with a smaller head.

It looked ridiculous, but he could tell Mia had done so intentionally, given all the photos she was taking of him, so he just let it sit and didn’t acknowledge it.

The eighteen-figure candle burned in the centre of the cake, and as the song came to a close, he blew it out.

"What’d you wish for?" Mia asked, even though she knew her brother wasn’t going to answer.

"Wait. Before you cut it—" Jake suddenly interrupted as Leo set the knife on the cake.

"Hold it," he said, sticking his tongue out slightly before the flash from his camera came.

"Okay, now you can cut it."

A while after the cake cutting, Leo found himself in the kitchen with Jake, Carlo and Ezra.

The food Sofia was making wasn’t ready yet, and so they had resorted to making small talk to pass the time, but really, all of them were on their phones.

Leo, with his phone in hand, went to Instagram and immediately saw that the Wigan account had already posted a picture of him from the playoff final with the caption wishing him happy birthday and tagging his account.

He liked it and kept scrolling before moving to WhatsApp, which was no better with the wishing.

The team chat had been going on since the night before.

Texts, voice notes, and three separate video messages filled the chat as his mates wished him.

After replying to their messages, he opened Dawson’s chat where a video was too, and pressed play on the video the manager had sent.

The video was pre-recorded, like most of the ones he’d gotten, with the background seemingly being a hotel room, as Dawson congratulated Leo and wished him many things.

"You are growing now, and I hope your footballing career grows as well," he said, but then, from somewhere off camera, a woman’s voice, heavily Spanish accented, called out something warm and celebratory toward the lens.

Dawson’s expression shifted slightly before ending the video abruptly, like he’d been caught off guard.

Leo ended the video, shook his head slowly, and slid his phone into his pocket and just as he did, the doorbell went, though one wouldn’t really hear over the music in the apartment unless they were close.

"Coming," Sofia muttered as she began walking towards the door, only for Mia’s hand to grab her arm.

"I’ll get it," Mia said, already turning away, and then turned back. "Leo. The door."

Leo looked at her from the kitchen, wondering why they wanted him at the door when she was relatively closer to it.

"It’s my birthday," he said, but Mia didn’t care.

"Door," she said again as Leo finally gave in, set his cup down and went.

He put his cup down and went.

When he pulled the door open, Vittoria was standing there with a bag over one shoulder and her hair down.

She raised her hand in a small, uncertain wave the moment she saw him staring keenly.

"Hi," she said while Leo still stood there for a second.

Then he smiled, catching himself.

"Hi," he replied before giving way for her to enter.

She came through, and as she did, the room’s attention moved to her, the new face that had just entered.

Leo closed the door and turned to face the room.

"This is Vittoria," he said, pointing towards the former.

"A friend."

The moment he finished, he looked at Jake.

"Hand down. This isn’t a Q and A."

Jake looked at his own hand, which seemed like it was really about to go up.

"What?" he said as the room laughed.

Vittoria smiled and looked at everyone.

"Hi," she said, this time to all of them.

Various versions of hi came back from around the room.

Noah had been looking at her for about four seconds with the expression of someone trying to place a face when a hand appeared at his jaw and turned it firmly in the other direction.

"What are you staring at?" the woman, whom Jake, Leo and Ezra had recognised earlier as the barista from the cafe a while back, muttered.

"She looks familiar," Noah said. "That’s all."

Lila glanced back at Vittoria, then at Noah.

"Mmhmmm," she grunted as she brought her glass to her mouth but kept her eyes on Noah’s face.

Noah smirked because in the week he’d known her, she had been this exact kind of trouble, and he was starting to enjoy it more than he’d expected to.

Leo came back with a plate Sofia had handed him and passed it to Vittoria, who took it and looked up at him.

"I was going to tell you," she said. "Mia wanted to keep it."

Leo turned toward his sister, who was already back in the monopoly game she’d somehow started with Jake, Carlo and Ezra and mouthed ’you’re welcome’ at him without looking up from the board.

"When did you get here?" he asked.

"This morning."

She said as she took a small bite and then looked up to find him still looking at her.

"What?"

She tilted her phone up to check her face in the camera, which made Leo shake his head.

"Ah, it was nothing. Just good that you’re here."

The duo began talking after that as the party began to wind down the way small gatherings do.

Noah and Lila left first, but not without Noah pulling Leo aside briefly to say the meeting with Xavier had been scheduled and he’d be in touch.

Ezra and Jake followed, with Jake taking the monopoly board despite Mia confronting him.

It was one of the few times that Mia had felt frustrated because arguing with Jake was like talking to a wall, which was something Leo had enjoyed because it wasn’t every day that Mia couldn’t win an argument.

Carlo left not long after telling Leo he had some things to sort out with his agent, which was something Leo understood without the latter saying too much.

"Say hi to Gianna for me," Vittoria teased, causing Carlo to turn back and look at her with Leo.

"You just came from Italy. You know what, I will," Carlo replied, still eyeing her with Leo before leaving.

Then it was just Mia on the sofa with her phone, Sofia in the armchair with a wine glass still in hand and Leo and Vittoria on the other side of the room.

Everything looked peaceful and fine until Leo looked at her, and she looked back, meeting his gaze for a while until Leo looked away.

"Look at the time," he said, to nobody in particular, which made Vittoria laugh under her breath.

"Wuss," she said with a tilt of her head as Leo turned back.

"What?"

"Nothing."

She glanced out the window after that before turning back to Leo.

"We should get going unless you plan on giving me your room to sleep in."

"Where would I sleep if I did that?" Leo questioned genuinely.

Vittoria looked at him for a second, her mouth slightly opened before breaking out into a laugh while Leo frowned slightly at whatever he’d missed, which made it worse.

After that, he stood up and held his hand out.

Vittoria looked at it, grabbed it and then let herself be pulled to her feet.

"Mia," Leo said toward the sofa. "I am walking Vittoria to her hotel."

One hand came up from behind the phone without Mia looking at the duo at all.

And with that, they stepped out, and it clicked shut behind them.

----

"That is really not anything," Leo said in the confines of the night as they approached Vittoria’s hotel.

They had intended to walk, but halfway, Leo had "chickened out", as Vittoria called it, and so the duo had taken a late-night cab.

"No, it really is something. I can’t help picturing you like a baby in my head," Vittoria retorted, which left Leo feeling more and more aggrieved.

"3 years isn’t really a lot. Plus, you haven’t turned 21 yet, which means at least one year doesn’t count since it isn’t a full year," Leo tried to explain, which got Vittoria chuckling more and more at his attempts to level whatever field he was trying to.

"Don’t worry," she said as they came to a stop in front of the hotel.

"It doesn’t really mean anything," Vittoria continued before suddenly stepping closer to Leo and then planting a kiss on his cheek.

"Goodnight and happy birthday, Leo. See you tomorrow," she muttered, staring at Leo with those blue eyes of hers that almost glittered before walking away, leaving Leo dazed.

------

Okay guys, so a lot of you might be feeling that the interactions are a bit too childlike, mainly with how Leo acts around Vittoria, but you have to understand that it really is the first time for Leo. Some might ask in school, but for how low on confidence Leo was, as well as the schedule of studying footballers. If you don’t know, they are mostly at their academies, where they mostly don’t even complete a full day of learning and are mostly called to train halfway through the day. His love life, I could call it, even that has been bland (he’s just like us fr, right? Or am I alone on this one?) So I think his behaviour is justified. For those of you romance fanatics, I will be speeding things up soon so hold on. And have fun!