Jack stayed with me until the end of April because he had to go back to Baltimore and pack up for the second half of tour. I missed him a lot and, I did three videos with Jack, all of them were requested challenges.
Surpresingly, Stella missed him too. I think she missed her half-black-half-blonde-haired friend. In the last two and a half weeks they've been getting closer, and Stella didn't pin back her ears anymore. Also, Oriol managed to sign me up in some kind of competition-tour for the next two months, all over Europe, so now I had to train harder, which also meant having a good diet, controlling sugar intake to prevent low sugar blood or heatstrokes, etc. I didn't mind, I already had my guidelines, which allowed me to take in 300kcal if I had horseriding after.
Two hours ago, I uploaded a requested video about how people who criticize tattooed people should shut the fuck up, and I took the opportunity to announce my tour thing. Oriol had to send me the dates and competitions in the next hours, but he told me that the first competition took place in London.
I was packing my stuff when my phone rang from the other side of my appartment. I rushed to the phone, expecting it to be Oriol with news about the other competitions, but no. Jack. I smiled and picked up the phone.
"Please tell me you were not kidding when you said you were going on a some kind of tour" he said as soon as I picked it up.
"Hello, there!" I chuckled "And, no. Actually, I'm going to London in three days. Isn't that amazing?" the line was silent for a second.
"Yeah, that's amazing" I felt him smile against the phone. "Do you know the other about the dates and places?" he asked, curious.
"No, I was waiting for Oriol to say something or send me an e-mail, why?" I asked, with a teasing tone which made him chuckle a bit.
"Nothing, just curious..."
"Yeah, just curious. Well, anyways I have to go, Jacky, it's about 2am and trying to pack up"
"Ok, I'll phone you later, sweet dreams, Mary" he emphasized the word Mary as much as he could, making me giggle.
"Good night, Jacky" I hung up. As soon as I did, I recieved a mail of Oriol with an image with all the tour dates. London, Cardiff, Dublin, Geneva, Montpellier, Glasgow, Venice, Munich, Copenhagen and Vienna in the european tour. The UK dates weren't going to be easy, but they wouldn't be too difficult. Fuck, Geneva, where the best riders are trained. Montpellier was fine, they were more focused on horseball, anyway. Glasgow, no idea. Venice, depending on the level of the riders, ok. The rest of them, besides Vienna, which I heard there were pretty good riders there, I had no idea.
María, easy or not easy, you are training, you're not making your country look like a piece of shit, so focus. One day, I'll win a golden medal for my country with Stella, no matter what, I promised myself, I'll work hard and I'll try to sing up in the next Olympic Games, you'll see... Yeah, right. And I'll be the Queen of The Easter Island. I rolled my eyes at brain's sarcasm and continued packing up.

---

We got to London at 11:30am. Ruben and his friend Mangel (Miguel Angel, but we call him like that), Olga, Adriana, Montse and other riders came with us. After all the mess in the airport and the check up, and picking up Stella and sending her to a vet check up next to an equestrian center, Oriol presented us to Steve, our bus driver.
"Wait a second, you are telling me we weren't staying in a hotel, but in a bus?" I asked lifting my eyebrows.
"Yes! Got it! But we're splitting into three buses; you, your friends, Adri and Montse are staying in one bus; another group of riders in another bus and me and some of our staff members in another one." Oriol smirked.
"That's awesome!" Montse and I cheered. "We're gonna live like rock stars!" that was Adri, also excited. Olga joined us and Ruben acted like he was too, but he was just copying us, being hilarious. Mangel was already filming.
The bus had a big horse trailer with a little wardrobe included to put the equipment. The bus was huge and black on the outside and the trailer was also black but had a horse with a flame painted on it on the left side, and a spanish flag on the right side
At 2pm, we went to an equestrian center, which provided Stella with a big paddock to herself and offered us training space. We left Stella there so she could relax after the flight whilst we went for a walk.
Around 5pm Ruben, Mangel, Olga and I were by the river Thames, walking on the promenade. I was stopped lots of times by fans wanting a picture, which I happily agreed to. We kept walking until we sat down on a bench and started to take selfies and making lame jokes, Mangel filming it all for, I guess, a vlog, when I was shamelessly tapped on the shoulder. I turned around and couldn't believe my eyes. Jack!
"Boo!" he said loudly, with a smile on his lips. I grinned and stood up, hugging him.
"Jacky!" everyone turned to me. Olga waved Jack with a smile, he waved at her, hugging me back.
"Oh, Mari, Mari... You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend!" Ruben teased. I turned to him, not completely letting go of Jack.
"First of all, why should I? Secondly, he's not my boyfriend" I stuck my tongue out in his direction and smiled. "By the way, guys, this is Jack Barakat, Jacky, these are-"
"I know, let me guess. You're Ruben and you're Miguel? Or M-Mangel?" Mangel nodded with his bitch-i-am-famous smirk. "And you're Olga, I met you almost three months ago in San Diego" Olga smiled and nodded.
"W-wait, how do you know my name?" Ruben asked.
"I've seen you in some of María's videos and I've watched some of your videos with María" Jack explained.
"Oh, cool!" Ruben smirked. Olga, Mangel and him started to have their own conversation going on, whilst Jack and I stared at each other.
"So, what are you doing here?" I asked.
"I have a show, actually. And since you were here as well, I thought "Why not go out and see my girl?"" he chuckled, "I missed you, you know? By the way, when's the competition?"
"Tomorrow before noon" I answered, blushing when he said my girl and when he mentioned he missed me. "I missed you too" I hugged him again, burying my face in his chest.
"Can I come to see you? We have a day off" he grinned.
"Yes, of course! I'm sure Stella'd be glad to see you again; she kind of missed you too" I giggled.
"Really?" he asked, not believing be.
"Yeah, she looked kind of absent" I chuckled, Jack smiled again.
"I guess she missed me and my awesome hair" he laughed softly, looking me in the eyes.
We were a minute like this, staring at each other and not breaking eye contact, until Jack's eyes went to my eyelashes, eyebrows, nose and stopped at my lips. He looked up again into my eyes and tried not to bit his lip. I smiled and he slowly leaned closer. Our lips were about to touch when some douchebag called my name.
"Hey, María, Oriol told us to go back to the bus at 6, we should get going" Ruben shouted, walking away. The urge of following him I usually had, disappeared and I didn't follow him. I looked at Jack, who was staring at Ruben, this time bitting his lip, a bit pissed, and looked back at me.
"Do you want to come with us? I think we're gonna meet with Stella. We could drive you back on time for sound check" I offered. He stopped bitting his lip a bit and smiled at me.
"We already had sound check" he smirked, "You honestly think Oriol would let me stay for a bit?" he asked a bit too seductively.
"Yes, of course! Come on" I urged. He followed me, holding my hand with a big smile on his face.

Notes

Ugh, today I had a low sugar blood and heatstroke in horseback riding and had to stop the last ten minutes of class. It was horrible, thank goodness my instructor held me, if not, I would've fainted! :s
I hope you've liked this chapter! I didn't know what to put in here at first, so I think it's ok. Sorry for the equestrian overload at the beggining, I was quite bored :D And I know horses can't be transported so easily around, but this is a fanfiction, let me fantasize for a bit :)
And tomorrow I'm going to see my family in a village I don't have much Internet, but I'll keep writing and eventually post the new chapters when I come back, so don't worry!

Title credit: If These Sheets Were The States by All Time Low.