Chapter 17

Aurora

The training ground was slowly emptying, the hum of the sprinklers the only sound left to fill the heavy air. I hadn’t showered with the others. I couldn’t face the noise, the easy banter, or Mapi’s knowing glances. My body felt like lead, but my chest… my chest felt like it had been hollowed out.

I went to the weight room to “stretch,” but really, I just wanted to be invisible. I sat on a bench in the corner, staring at the floor. It wasn’t anger—I didn’t have it in me to be mad at her. It was a dull, aching throb, a longing so sharp it felt like a physical bruise. I felt like I was grieving for something I’d only just found.

The door creaked open. I didn’t look up. I knew the rhythm of those footsteps; I knew the weight of that presence.

“You missed the last two drills, De Luca,” Alexia said. Her voice was low, stripped of the “Captain” bite she’d used on the pitch, but it was still guarded.

I looked up slowly. She was standing by the squat rack, her training kit damp with sweat, her hair still pulled back in that tight, unforgiving bun. She looked like the icon the world knew. But her eyes—they were restless.

“I know,” I whispered. I didn’t get up. I didn’t have the energy to play the game of ranks. “I was… thinking.”

Alexia took a step closer, then stopped, as if there was an invisible line drawn on the floor she was afraid to cross. “You were distracted. You were dangerous out there today. If you lose focus like that in a match, someone gets hurt.”

“I know,” I repeated, my voice trembling slightly. I looked back at my hands. “Is that all I am now? A risk to be managed? A teammate who needs a lecture?”

“Aurora—”

“I’m not angry, Ale,” I cut her off softly, finally meeting her gaze. My eyes were burning, but I refused to let a tear fall. “I’m just… I’ve never felt like this before. It hurts. It hurts to be in the same room as you and feel like you’re miles away. Last night, you held me like I was the only thing that mattered. Today, you looked at me like I was a stranger who couldn’t kick a ball straight.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. I saw the muscles in Alexia’s jaw ripple. She looked pained, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.

“I have to protect this,” she gestured vaguely to the building, the crest on her shirt. “I have to protect you. Do you have any idea what they would do to you if they found out? The press, the fans… they would tear you apart to get to me. They’d say you’re only here because of me. They’d ruin the career you haven’t even fully started yet.”

“So you decide for me?” I asked, my voice barely audible. I stood up, feeling small but steady. “You decide that the only way to protect me is to freeze me out? I didn’t move across the world because I wanted to be safe, Alexia. I moved because I wanted to play. And I let you stay last night because I wanted you.”

I took a tentative step toward her. I didn’t shout. I didn’t demand. I just stood in her space, the scent of her sweat and salt filling my senses again.

“I’m not a tactical error,” I whispered, reaching out but stopping my hand just before it touched her arm. “I’m a person. And I’m scared, too. But the silence… the silence is worse than anything the press could say.”

Alexia closed her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering breath. The “Queen” seemed to deflate, her shoulders dropping as the walls she’d spent all morning rebuilding started to crumble once more.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she confessed, her voice breaking. “I don’t know how to be your Captain and… whatever this is… at the same time.”

“Then don’t be my Captain right now,” I said, finally closing the distance and resting my forehead against her shoulder. “Just be Ale. Just for a minute.”

For a long heartbeat, she didn’t move. Then, I felt her hands come up, gripping my waist so tightly it almost hurt, pulling me into her like she was drowning and I was the only thing keeping her afloat. She buried her face in the crook of my neck, and I felt her let out a breath she seemed to have been holding since the sun came up.

Alexia

The weight of her head against my shoulder felt like the only real thing in a world made of shadows and expectations. I held her so tightly that I could feel the frantic, rhythmic thrum of her heart through her training gear—or maybe it was mine. I couldn’t tell where I ended and she began anymore.

The cold, logical part of my brain was still there, a distant voice warning me about the cameras in the hallways, the cleaning staff, the teammates who might still be lingering in the sauna. But for the first time in my life, I silenced it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into her hair, the words feeling heavy and thick. “I thought if I was hard on you, I could keep the distance. I thought I could trick my own brain into remembering you’re just a teammate.”

I pulled back just enough to look at her. Her eyes were still glassy, reflecting the dull light of the gym, but she didn’t look broken. She looked resilient. It was that Italian steel again, the kind that didn’t need to shout to be felt.

“But I can’t,” I admitted, my voice dropping to a jagged rasp. “I saw you miss those passes today, and every single time, it felt like a knife in my gut because I knew it was my fault. I’m supposed to make you better, Ora. Not worse.”

I reached up, my thumb tracing the faint dark circles under her eyes—the mark of our shared night.

“We have to be careful,” I said, the ‘Captain’ in me making one last, desperate stand. “Outside this room, when the cameras are on, I have to be the one who leads. I have to be the one who demands perfection. But…” I hesitated, my heart doing a slow, painful roll. “I won’t leave you in the dark again. I won’t make you feel like a stranger.”

Aurora looked at me, a small, tentative hope flickering in her gaze. “Promise?”

“Promise,” I breathed.

I leaned in, intending to just press my forehead against hers, but the pull was too strong. I kissed her—briefly, desperately—a seal on a contract I knew was dangerous.

Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the gym groaned.

We sprang apart instantly. My hands flew to my hips, my posture snapping back into a rigid, authoritative stance before I could even think. Aurora turned toward the weight rack, grabbing a random foam roller.

Mapi walked in, swinging her kit bag, her eyes darting between the two of us. The silence in the room was deafening, charged with a tension that was almost visible. She looked at me, then at Aurora, then back at me. One of her eyebrows arched so high it almost disappeared into her hairline, but she smiled.

“Still ‘stretching,’ are we?” Mapi asked, her voice dripping with a casualness that was entirely fake.

“We talked about the next match,” I said, my voice professional, though my lungs felt like they were burning.

Mapi didn’t say a word. She just walked over to the water station, took a long, slow sip, and then looked at me over the rim of her bottle. She just knows me to well.

“Right,” Mapi murmured, a small, dangerous smirk playing on her lips. “The next match, Capitana… Anyway, just make sure you don’t overstretch. You wouldn’t want anything to… snap.”

She turned and walked out, the doors swinging shut behind her.

I looked at Aurora. She was pale, her grip tightening on the foam roller. The reality of the “goldfish bowl” had just tapped on the glass.

“Go,” I whispered, not looking at her. “Go home, Aurora. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As she slipped out the back exit, I stayed in the empty gym, the silence returning like a heavy fog. I had made a promise. I had decided to keep her close. But as I stared at my reflection in the mirrored wall, I realized that not only Mapi will notice it. But at least I can have her. And that is all I want at the moment.