Chapter 12

Aurora

The sun was beginning its slow descent, bleeding fiery oranges and deep purples across the Catalan sky. Despite the cooling air, the Mediterranean remained warm and inviting, a vast expanse of liquid gold. Pina, Mapi and I were still waist-deep, locked in a chaotic game of frisbee with Luna, who seemed convinced the plastic disc was a sentient enemy that needed to be neutralized.

“Come on, Ale!” Pina shouted, splashing a wall of water toward the shore. “The water is perfect! Even the stoic Mapi Leon has already surrendered a long time ago!”

From her fortress on the sand, Alexia merely adjusted her sunglasses, her posture as rigid as a general overseeing a particularly disorganized battlefield. She looked untouchable, framed by the expensive fabric of her towel and the invisible walls she carried everywhere.

I looked at Pina, then at Mapi, catching the mischievous glint in their eyes. A sudden surge of adrenaline-part salt air, part pure defiance-bubbled up in my chest. I remembered her sharp words from the tactical room: “Don’t look for me. Know where I am.”

I waded out of the water, keeping my steps light and my expression neutral. Luna, ever the professional instigator, trotted excitedly at my heels, shaking a heavy spray of saltwater everywhere. As I approached Alexia, I caught the way her jaw tightened.

“Getting chilly out here, Capitana,” I chirped, stopping just at the edge of her towel. “You should really come in before the sun disappears.”

“I’m perfectly fine, De Luca,” she said, her voice clipped and professional. Behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses, I could feel her analyzing me, sensing the shift in my energy. Her guard was up, but she didn’t move. She didn’t think I’d dare.

I knelt down, pretending to scoop up a handful of sand, letting Luna nudge my hand with her wet nose. I leaned in closer, dropping my voice to a conspiratorial whisper that barely carried over the rhythm of the waves.

“Just… stop thinking so much,” I murmured, my eyes locking onto the reflection of the sunset in her lenses.

Before she could calculate the trajectory of my movement, I acted.

I lunged forward and grabbed her right arm-the one she used to point out my defensive lapses and command the pitch-and pulled with everything I had. She was solid, heavier than she looked, but the sheer shock of the contact gave me the edge. She let out a sharp, startled gasp as her sunglasses flew into the sand and she pitched forward.

“Ora! What the-“

With a final, desperate tug, I dragged her off the towel. Her bare feet scrambled for purchase in the wet sand before I gave one last yank, sending us both tumbling into the shallow surf.

SPLASH.

A perfectly timed wave broke over us, soaking Alexia from head to toe. Her meticulously tied hair was instantly ruined, plastered against her face in dark, wet strands. She sat there in the froth, her mouth open in a perfect ‘O’ of genuine, unrefined shock.

Pina let out a piercing whoop of laughter, doubling over in the water, while Mapi began to clap with a triumphant grin. Even Luna joined the celebration, barking and dancing around us.

I stood up, soaked and breathless, a wide, unrepentant grin splitting my face. Alexia was sputtering, wiping saltwater from her eyes, looking more undone than I had ever seen her.

“You are going to regret that, De Luca,” she seethed, though her voice lacked its usual bite. She shook her head like a dog, water droplets flying in every direction.

“Maybe,” I countered, my heart hammering against my ribs. “But at least you’re not over-analyzing the clouds anymore.”

She stared up at me, her eyes narrowed and dark with something I couldn’t quite name. For a heartbeat, I thought she was going to lecture me about professionalism. Instead, her hand shot out, catching my ankle and yanking me back down into the water.

Before I could recover, she was splashing me-not the delicate splashes of a teammate, but a playful, relentless barrage of water that had us both gasping for air between fits of laughter. Mapi and Pina dived in, and for several minutes, the greatest footballers in the world were nothing more than kids at the beach.

As the chaos finally settled, the four of us drifted back toward the shallower water. The adrenaline was fading into a warm, comfortable glow. Alexia reached out, her hand settling firmly but gently on the small of my back to steady me against a stronger swell. She didn’t pull away. For a moment, she stood there with her arm draped loosely over my shoulders, pulling me slightly into her side as we watched the sun dip below the horizon.

It wasn’t a formal gesture of captaincy. It was something else-something softer, something that made the salt air feel like it was glowing and something that gave methe feeling of butterflies in my stomach.

“Fine,” she whispered, a tiny, genuine smile finally breaking through her mask as she looked at me. “The water is… acceptable.”

I beamed, leaning into the unexpected warmth of her side. “Told you, Capitana.”

Alexia

I could feel the cold water soaking through my clothes, but the irritation I expected to feel never came. Instead, as I stood there in the surf with my arm draped over Aurora’s shoulders, the only thing I could truly focus on was the heat radiating from her skin.

It was a strange, grounding contrast-the biting chill of the Mediterranean against the warmth of the girl beside me.

Subconsciously, I tightened my grip just a fraction, my fingers brushing against the damp fabric of her shirt. I told myself I was just steadying her against the tide, playing the role of the responsible captain making sure her teammate didn’t trip over a submerged rock. But deep down, in a place I wasn’t ready to examine, I knew it was a lie. I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want to let her go.

For the first time in weeks, the constant mental noise-the tactics, the press, the relentless pressure of being La Reina-had fallen silent. There was no room for over-analyzing the clouds when I could feel the rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing against my side.

I looked down at her, seeing the way the last remnants of the sun caught the droplets of water on her eyelashes. She looked radiant, her usual hesitant energy replaced by a bold, shimmering joy. She had done the one thing no one else dared to do: she had reached past the title and the trophies and dragged the real me out into the light.

“You’re surprisingly strong, De Luca,” I murmured, my voice losing its edge, replaced by a softness that felt foreign in my own throat. “I’ll have to remember that for the next time we’re defending a corner.”

She laughed, a bright, clear sound that seemed to hum right through my chest. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Capitana.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” I teased, though the way I lingered, my hand still resting firmly on her shoulder as we began to walk back toward the towels, suggested the exact opposite.

I was playing with fire, and I knew it. But as Mapi and Pina ran ahead, their shadows long and dancing on the sand, I found I didn’t mind the heat. For tonight, the crown could wait. For tonight, it was just the salt, the sea, and the girl who wasn’t afraid of the storm.