Chapter 5: 2020
The world shrank to the dimensions of the penthouse. News of the virus was a low, anxious buzz in the background of their lives, but for Manuel and Vanja, the sudden cessation of all routine felt less like a crisis and more like a surreal, stolen interval. Training was conducted via grueling, solitary workouts in the home gym. Vanja’s sessions with players became video calls, pixelated faces on a screen discussing anxiety in a time of collective dread. The city outside fell into an eerie, respectful silence.
Their coexistence, once punctuated by separations and reunions, became a continuous, unbroken thread. They learned each other’s rhythms in granular detail: his pre-coffee grumpiness, her need for absolute quiet when writing, the way she hummed Serbian folk songs while cooking, the precise cadence of his breathing when he fell asleep.
It was during the third week, amidst a debate over grocery delivery, that Vanja scrolled onto the website of a local shelter. “Look,” she said, her voice soft. On the screen was a tiny, skeletal creature with enormous, frightened eyes. A stray, found shivering in a engine block. They named her Sreća.Luck.
Mr. Mercury treated the new arrival with regal disdain for approximately thirty-six hours before allowing the scrawny gray kitten to nestle against his luxurious fur. Vanja cried when she saw it. Manuel watched her, this woman who could dissect the psyche of champions weeping over a cat’s small mercy, and felt a tectonic shift within himself. He was done waiting for some arbitrary calendar date. The resolve crystallized, hard and clear.
He began his preparations in secret. The league’s return in empty, echoing stadiums was a blessing. The discipline of football consumed his days, a bubble within a bubble. It gave him space to plan. Hansi Flick’s relentless, energetic football was a perfect distraction—a high-pressing system that demanded total focus. The team was a machine, grinding out wins. Every victory was a step toward something tangible, a trophy in a hollow room, but it was also a step toward his own private goal.
He enlisted Thomas. Not for ring advice—he’d already chosen a simple, flawless emerald-cut diamond set in platinum, a stone the color of her eyes on a rare, perfect day—but for logistics.
“You want to do it where?” Thomas hissed, standing in Manuel’s garage, keeping his voice down even though Vanja was on a Zoom conference upstairs.
“You heard me.”
“It’s a fucking stadium, Manuel. An empty stadium.”
“It’s not just a stadium,” Manuel said, his tone leaving no room for debate. “And it won’t be empty. It’ll have her.”
Thomas stared at him, then a slow, unprecedented smile spread across his face. “You romantic bastard. I’ll handle security. But if you fuck up the knee-slide on the pitch, I’m telling the Bild.”
The season accelerated into a blur of triumphs. The Bundesliga title was secured. The DFB-Pokal followed. The heartbeat of their year became the UEFA Champions League knockout stages, a tense, breathless march through empty, cavernous arenas across Europe. Through it all, the little gray shadow, Sreća, grew into a sleek, mischievous hunter of shoelaces, while Mr. Mercury presided over the household like a corpulent, benevolent duke.
The night before the Champions League final in Lisbon, the team was sequestered in a sterile hotel on the outskirts of the city. Vanja was alone in their Munich home. She paced. The silence was oppressive. She found herself in his walk-in closet, surrounded by the clean scent of his laundry and the faint, lingering note of his cologne. Her fingers brushed the sleeves of his jackets. She missed him with a physical ache that was deeper than lust, a hollowing out of her center.
Her phone buzzed on the bed. A video call. His face filled the screen, tired but sharp, the game-face already settling in.
“Can’t sleep,” she said, without preamble.
“Me neither.” He was in a hotel room that looked identical to hers. “Talk to me. Distract me.”
They talked for an hour. Not about football. About the strange algae bloom they’d seen in a documentary. About whether Sreća was plotting with Mr. Mercury for world domination. About a paper she was writing on the cognitive load of high-pressure decision-making. His attention was absolute, a tether across the continent.
Finally, his voice dropped, intimate and rough through the tinny speaker. “Touch yourself.”
Her breath hitched. “What?”
“You heard me. You’re in our bed. You’re wearing those black shorts, the ones with the lace. I know you are. Touch yourself for me. Let me watch.”
A thrill, hot and dark, shot through her. The hollowness transformed into a pulsing need. She propped the phone against the headboard, the camera framing her. She kept her eyes locked on his pixelated ones as she slowly pulled her tank top over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra. His gaze hardened, tracking her every movement.
She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and panties, sliding them down her legs and off. She lay back against the pillows, letting him see all of her. The cool air pebbled her nipples. She could see the tight focus on his face, the way his jaw clenched.
“Show me,” he commanded, his voice a low rasp.
She let her hand drift down her stomach, through the dark blond curls, until her fingers found her slit. She was already wet. She gave a soft gasp as she touched herself, circling her clit slowly. She let her knees fall apart, giving him the full, explicit view. She watched him watch her, his breathing becoming heavier on his end of the line.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she murmured, her own fingers working a little faster.
“I’m thinking about how fucking tight you are. How you clench around me when you come. I’m thinking about my tongue on that perfect little clit right now. I’m thinking about fucking you on that bench in the treatment room at Säbener, bending you over it and taking you from behind until you scream.”
His filthy, specific words sent jolts of electricity through her. She slid two fingers inside herself, fucking herself with them, her thumb pressing on her clit. “I wish it was you,” she moaned.
“It will be.Tomorrow night. After we win. I’m going to come back to that hotel, and I’m going to walk in, and I’m going to fuck you right against the door. I won’t even take my shoes off. I’ll just unzip my fly, pull your pretty little panties to the side, and shove my cock into that wet, waiting cunt. And you’re going to take every inch, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she whimpered, her hips arching off the bed, her movements becoming frantic. The tension was coiling unbearably tight. “Manuel, I’m going to—”
“Come,” he ordered, his face fierce on the screen. “Come for me right now. Let me see it.”
His voice was the trigger. Her orgasm ripped through her, silent but violent, her back bowing, her free hand fisting in the sheets. She cried out, her thighs trembling, her fingers soaked. She rode the waves, her eyes squeezed shut.
When she opened them, panting, he was staring at her with a look of raw, hungry possession. He had his own phone angled down. She could see his hand, his fist moving slowly, deliberately, around his thick, hard cock.
“My turn,” he gritted out. “Watch.”
And she did. She watched him stroke himself, his grip tight, his thumb swiping over the head. She listened to his ragged breaths, the soft, wet sounds. She told him what she wanted to do to him, her voice husky and low, describing in explicit detail how she would take him in her mouth, how she would ride him. It didn’t take long. With a choked groan, he came, jets of white striping his abdomen, his body tensing and then slumping back against his hotel headboard.
They were both quiet for a long moment, the shared intimacy stretching across the digital divide.
“Win tomorrow,” she whispered finally.
“I have to,” he said, his eyes holding hers through the screen. “I have everything to play for.”
Bayern Munich destroyed Paris Saint-Germain with a single, ruthless goal. The world saw Manuel Neuer, a colossus in goal, making impossible saves, his shouts echoing in the vacant Estádio da Luz. Vanja saw only the man she loved, performing his art at the very pinnacle, a study in focused fury. When the final whistle blew, she wept alone on their sofa, the cats startled by her sobs.
He called her from the chaos of the locker room, champagne spraying in the background. “I’m bringing it home,” he yelled over the din. His voice was exultant, free. She could hear Thomas whooping like a madman.
Two days later, they were back in Munich. The quarantine was still in effect, but the club arranged for a private, distanced celebration at the stadium itself. A skeleton crew of essential staff. Vanja was included as “family.” She dressed carefully, a simple silk dress the color of champagne.
A club official met her at the empty player’s entrance. “This way, Miss Vran.”
He led her not to the VIP lounge, but down the concrete tunnel, towards the pitch. Her heels clicked in the vast, silent hollow of the stadium bowl. It was immense, a cathedral of sport, utterly empty. The grass was pristine, glowing under the setting sun that streamed through the open roof.
And there, on the center circle, stood Manuel.
He was alone. He wore dark jeans and a simple white shirt, the Champions League trophy gleaming on the bench beside him. In the monstrous, vacant arena, he looked both dwarfed and monumental.
Her heart stopped, then hammered against her ribs. She walked towards him, the sound of her footsteps swallowed by the scale of the place.
He didn’t smile as she approached. His face was solemn, etched with a tension she’d only ever seen before a penalty shootout. When she was a few feet away, he dropped to one knee.
The world narrowed to the vivid green of the pitch, the cool evening air, and the man on his knee before her.
He didn’t give a speech. He simply looked up at her, his blue eyes fierce and clear. “A year was too long,” he said, his voice carrying in the silence. “This is my pitch. This is my home. You are my heart. Marry me.”
He opened a small, black velvet box. The diamond caught the last of the sun, exploding in a cascade of green and white fire.
The promise she’d extracted in a moment of pragmatic caution vaporized. The timeline was irrelevant. The logic was dust. All that remained was the truth of him, here, in this temple of his life’s work, offering her its center.
“Yes,” she breathed. The word was a whisper, but it echoed in the vast space. “God, yes.”
He slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly. He stood, pulling her into him, and kissed her with a tenderness that belied the arena’s brutal grandeur. When they broke apart, she was laughing and crying.
“Thomas is watching from the security booth, isn’t he?” she sniffled, wiping her eyes.
“Of course he is,” Manuel grinned, finally smiling, the tension dissolving into pure joy. He gestured to the trophy. “And I brought you a souvenir.”
Later, after the private champagne with a handful of masked, distant teammates, after Thomas had hugged her with tears in his own eyes and Joshua had nodded his solemn approval, they returned home. The cats wove around their legs. The ring was a new, stunning weight on Vanja’s hand.
He didn’t fuck her against the door. He made love to her in their bed, with a slow, devastating thoroughness that felt like a vow. He kissed the ring on her finger as he moved inside her, his thrusts deep and claiming. “Mine,” he whispered into her skin, over and over, a prayer and a promise. “My wife.”
She came with his name on her lips, her body accepting his completely, the future a wide, open pitch waiting for them to play. Outside, Munich began to tentatively stir back to life. Inside, with the scent of cut grass and victory still on his skin and a new, precious weight on her hand, their own season had just begun.
The wedding was a small, sun-drenched affair in a meadow at the edge of the Tegernsee. Vanja wore simple linen, her emerald-cut diamond catching the light. Manuel’s hand never left the small of her back, as if anchoring himself to this new reality.
Their first son, Luka, arrived in the tumultuous spring of 2021. Vanja’s labor was a long, grinding storm of pain that Manuel weathered with her, his hand crushed in hers. When their boy was placed on her chest, slick and squalling, Manuel wept unashamedly, his forehead pressed to hers.
Finn came next, then Jens, and by 2026 their Munich home was a riot of stacked toys, scattered footballs, and the patient, resigned presence of two ancient cats. Vanja’s body transformed with each pregnancy, her curves softening but her body fit and strong, beautiful, a serene light in her golden-green eyes. Manuel found her more breathtaking with each passing year, her beauty deepened by motherhood, her intelligence now laced with a formidable, unshakeable calm.
He retired from the national team quietly, a legendary sentinel stepping away from one frontier. He poured that focus into captaining Bayern, his performances in goal defying physics and time. At forty, his reflexes were a sharpened blade, his command of the box a chess master’s grim calculation.
She was pregnant again, her fifth, a sweet, heavy rounding of her belly beneath her sweaters. He would come home after training to chaos—Luka practicing letters, Finn building a fortress, Jens and Tobias toddling after a cat—and find her amidst it all, reading a research paper. He’d kiss the top of her head, his heart too full to speak.
The night of the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Real Madrid was a nerve-shredding masterpiece. The Allianz Arena was a screaming, red volcano. Manuel was a wall, a phantom, a god. He made saves that belonged in mythology, palming a certain goal over the bar with a roar that silenced the Spanish supporters’ section.
The final whistle brought a cacophony of pure relief.Bayern advanced. In the family box, surrounded by sleeping children draped over chairs, Vanja cried silent, proud tears. She waited for him in the muted calm of the players’ lounge, the distant echoes of celebration vibrating through the concrete.
He found her there, still in his kit, the smell of grass and sweat and effort emanating from him. He saw her tears and pulled her to him, his gloves discarded, his hands cradling her face. “Hey,” he murmured, his thumb wiping a tear. “It’s okay.”
“I’m glad they got to see you play like that,” she whispered, her voice thick, nodding toward where their eldest sons slept in the car. “At least the oldest ones will remember.”
He kissed her then, a soft, lingering press of his salt-crusted lips against hers. It was a promise, an anchor. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the familiar scent of her shampoo beneath the sterile stadium air. “I might not retire this year,” he whispered into the dark strands, the words a secret for her alone. “But I want to win it again. Champions League.”
She kissed him again, her answer in the gentle pressure of her mouth, in the way her hands fisted in his damp jersey. They drove home through the sleeping city, the black Audi a silent capsule. The boys were carried, limp-limbed and dreaming, to their beds.
The penthouse was still, a monument to their life. Football trophies shared space with crayon drawings. He peeled off his kit, letting it fall to the bedroom floor. She stood by the window, backlit by the city’s glow, one hand resting on the swell of her stomach. He walked up behind her, naked, his body humming with residual adrenaline.
His hands slid around her, cupping the heavy weight of her breasts through her dress. He nuzzled her neck, his teeth grazing her earlobe. “I need you,” he growled, the post-match fire seeking a different outlet. “Right now.”
He turned her, his mouth claiming hers with a possessive hunger. His fingers found the zpper of her dress and yanked it down. The fabric pooled at her feet. She stood in just her maternity leggings. He knelt before her, hooking his thumbs into the waistband and pulling them down, panties and all, his hands smoothing over the curve of her belly.
He didn’t treat her like glass. He worshipped her with a savage reverence. He spread her legs and buried his face between them, his tongue finding her clit with unerring accuracy. She gasped, her hands flying to his sweat-damp hair. He ate her with a relentless, starving intensity, his tongue fucking deep into her, lapping at her juices. “Taste so fucking good,” he mumbled against her, the vibration making her knees buckle. “Always. Even now.”
He stood, his cock thick and rigid. He backed her against the cool window, the city sprawling behind her. He lifted one of her legs, hooking it over his hip, and guided himself to her entrance. “Watch me,” he commanded, his eyes locked on hers. He pushed inside, a slow, stretching invasion that made her cry out. She was incredibly wet, tight, her body accommodating him perfectly. He set a brutal, driving pace, his hips slamming against hers, the window shuddering softly.
“This is mine,” he gritted out, each thrust punching a soft gasp from her lips. “This perfect, fucking beautiful body. My sons. My wife.” His words were a litany of possession. He plunged a hand between their bodies, his fingers finding her clit, rubbing hard, fast circles. The dual sensation was overwhelming. She came with a choked scream, her inner muscles clenching around his pounding cock in rhythmic pulses.
It tipped him over the edge. With a final, deep thrust, he shuddered, spilling into her with a guttural groan, his face buried in her neck. They stayed like that, pinned against the glass, his weight supporting her, their breathing slowing. He softened inside her but didn’t pull away.
He carried her to bed, arranged her among the pillows, and slid in beside her. His hand settled on her stomach. A small, firm kick answered his palm. He smiled in the dark. Outside, Munich held its breath. Inside, their future, vast and crowded and bright, stretched before them, another season waiting to be won.
Inside, their future, vast and crowded and bright, stretched before them, another season waiting to be won. The final weeks of the campaign were a clenched fist of pressure. Every training session crackled. Vanja’s due date hovered on the calendar, a tangible finish line that made Manuel’s focus doubly ferocious. He compartmentalized with the skill of a lifetime: changing diapers, reading bedtime stories, then shutting the world out to visualize angles, trajectories, the psychology of penalty takers.
The Champions League final in Istanbul was against Manchester City. A tactical monstrosity. The match was a brutal, grinding stalemate, a war of attrition fought in the midfield mud. Vanja watched from the VIP box with the other families, her hand unconsciously circling the massive curve of her stomach. Each tackle, each whipped cross, sent a jolt through her. Jens, now four, buried his face in her thigh during the extra time penalty shout that Manuel smothered with an impossible, sprawling lunge. The roar of the crowd was a physical wall.
The whistle for penalties hit her like a blow. She couldn’t watch. She looked down at her sons’ terrified faces instead, her own breathing shallow. A staff member offered water. She shook her head, mute. On the pitch, Manuel put on his cap, walked to the goal, and became a monument.
He saved the first. The third. The fifth. When Kingsley Coman’s shot hit the net to win it, the world dissolved into a red-and-white vortex. Vanja’s vision blurred. She felt a deep, internal pull, a sudden, warm rush between her legs. Her water broke, a silent event amidst the screaming chaos. She grabbed Thomas’s wife Lisa’s arm, her voice calm despite the tectonic shifts inside her. “My waters just broke. I need to get to the hospital.”
The celebration in Istanbul was legendary. Manuel, hoisting the trophy, streams of confetti catching in his sweat, felt a vibration in his pocket. He knew. He saw the message from Lisa. “Vanja’s in labor. We’re going to the clinic. She says win first.” The sheer, terrifying joy of it lifted him off his feet. He screamed into the night, a raw, primal sound of triumph that had nothing to do with football.
He commandeered a private jet, still in his kit, the trophy rolling in a case beside him. He landed as dawn smudged the Munich skyline grey. He smelled of champagne, grass, and sweat. He ran into the clinic, his boots echoing in the sterile hall.
She was in the delivery suite, propped up, exhausted, her face pale but her eyes blazing. The night had been long. “You’re late,” she managed, a weak smile touching her cracked lips.
“Traffic was hell,” he said, his voice rough. He went to her, cradled her face, kissed her forehead, her eyelids. “Is he—”
“Waiting for you,” the midwife said softly. “He’s been stubborn.”
The final phase was swift. Vanja’s strength was gone, but Manuel’s presence acted as a catalyst. He held her, his arms around her from behind, his mouth at her ear. “Push, Liebling. You are the strongest person I have ever known. Push our son into the world.” His words were a low, steady chant against her pain.
With a final, guttural cry that tore from the depths of her, she did. And then there was a new, furious wail in the room. A slick, red, perfect little body was placed on her chest. Five fingers. Five toes. A thatch of dark, wet hair. He rooted against her skin instinctively.
Manuel looked from the face of his fifth son to the face of his wife. He was shaking. The trophies, the saves, the roaring adulation—it was static. This was the signal. This was the only thing that had ever been permanently, undeniably real.
“Luka, Finn, Jens, Tobias,” Vanja whispered, her voice shot, naming his brothers for the new one. “And this is Leon.”
They stayed in that cocoon for an hour, just the three of them. He finally peeled off his stiff, filthy jersey. He washed at the small sink, the water turning grey. He climbed onto the narrow bed beside her, in his pants, his skin against her hip. The baby slept between Vanja’s breasts.
The silence was profound. The dawn light warmed the room.
“You won,” she murmured, her fingers tracing the baby’s wrinkled cheek.
“We won,” he corrected, his hand covering hers on their son’s back. The weight of the season, the decade, the entire exhausting, glorious climb, settled on him then. It wasn’t a burden. It was ballast. He was anchored. Complete. He looked at Vanja, at the sweat-dried hair at her temples, the dark circles like badges under her eyes, the serene curve of her mouth as she looked at their child.
“I need you,” he said, the words stripped bare. It wasn’t about sex. It was about verification, about sealing this new reality into his skin.
She understood. She passed the sleeping Leon to the waiting nurse with a soft nod. When the door clicked shut, he turned to her. He was gentle, so gentle, mindful of her battered body. He kissed the stretch marks on her belly, a whisper of devotion. He moved up her body, tasting the salt on her skin. When he entered her, it was with a slow, exquisite care that was more intimate than any frantic coupling. She was soft, open, vulnerable. He moved within her, a deep, rolling rhythm of reclamation. There was no filthy language, only ragged breaths and the press of foreheads.
“Mine,” he breathed, the word a sacrament.
“Yours,” she sighed back, her legs tightening weakly around his hips. “Always.”
Their release was quiet, a shared tremble, a slow dissolve into the sheets. He stayed inside her, softening, his weight partially on her, partially braced on his arms. The sun climbed higher. Down the hall, a cart rattled. Life, mundane and relentless, was already moving forward.
He pulled the thin hospital blanket over them. Their fifth son slept in the nursery. Four more waited at home with the cats. The European Cup sat in a case on his kitchen floor. Vanja’s championship ring, her emerald-cut diamond, glinted in the new light on the bedside table where she’d placed it for safekeeping.
He watched her fall asleep, her breathing evening out. He did not sleep. He watched. He mapped the future in the lines of her face, in the tiny, snuffling sounds from the speaker connected to the nursery. It was not vast or crowded. It was precisely this. This room. This light. This woman. This endless, winning season of their making.