Chapter 27

Pina

I didn’t sleep. Not really. How could I? My best friend—my soulmate in midfield, the person I share every secret with—had been dating The Queen of Barcelona right under my nose. I kept replaying every training session in my head. Every time Alexia “scolded” her, every time Aurora “accidentally” looked away. It was a masterpiece of acting. They deserve an Oscar. Or a Ballon d’Or for drama.

The next morning at the Ciutat Esportiva, the air was still buzzing. The “official” news hadn’t left the team circle, but inside the locker room, the vibe was a 10/10 on the chaos scale.

“I’m just saying,” Mapi said, leaning against her locker while she pulled on her socks, “if I don’t see a coordinated celebration today, I’m going to be very disappointed.”

“Mapi, shut up,” Alexia’s voice came from the corner. She sounded like the Captain again, but she was smiling. A real, relaxed smile.

“Don’t ‘shut up’ me!” Mapi grinned, pointing a finger at her. “I’m the one who didn’t tell everyone you were a robot. I’m an ally.”

I was sitting next to Aurora, watching her tie her laces. She looked… different. Lighter. Like she had finally put down a heavy backpack she’d been carrying since she arrived from Italy.

“You’re still a traitor,” I whispered, nudging her shoulder with mine.

Aurora laughed, her eyes bright. “I know, Pini. I’m sorry. But you saw how she was. I didn’t want to get her in trouble.”

“Please,” I rolled my eyes. “Next time, just send me a GIF of a crown and a pizza. I would have understood.”

We headed out to the pitch for the morning warm-up, but as we stepped onto the grass, the session was immediately interrupted. Two figures were standing near the sidelines with the coaching staff.

One was a tall, athletic woman with hair that looked like it had been bleached by the Pacific sun and eyes that could probably see through a brick wall. She looked like she belonged on a surfboard, not a football pitch. And the other…

” Zia! Zia Aurora!”

A tiny, dark-haired blur came sprinting across the grass, completely ignoring the “No unauthorized persons on the pitch” rule. She was wearing a tiny Barça shirt with ‘De Luca’ on the back, and she was dribbling a ball with surprisingly good form for someone whose legs were only twenty centimeters long.

“Lessi!” Aurora cried out, her face lighting up as she caught her niece in a huge hug.

The whole team stopped. Mapi practically teleported to the sidelines. “There is my mini-me!”

Elena walked over, looking completely unfazed by the thirty professional athletes staring at her. She gave a cool, nodding greeting to the group, her gaze eventually finding Alexia. Elena’s smirk was lethal.

“She wouldn’t stop screaming until I brought her here,” Elena said, her dry wit echoing across the quiet pitch. “Apparently, she has to make sure the Capitana is actually practicing and not just staring at her aunt.”

The team erupted.

“Oh, she’s definitely staring, Elena!” Mapi shouted, throwing an arm around Alexia’s shoulders, who was turning a very interesting shade of pink.

I watched as Lessi escaped Aurora’s arms and walked straight up to Alexia. She looked at our Captain, then at the ball at her feet, and then back at Alexia.

“Capitana,” Lessi said, her little voice serious. “Guarda.”

She kicked the ball—hard. It rolled right between Alexia’s feet. A perfect nutmeg.

The scream that went up from the team was probably heard in Madrid. Mapi fell to the ground clutching her stomach, and I was laughing so hard I had to lean on Patri for support.

“She just nutmegged the Queen!” I yelled. “Sign her! Give her a contract right now!”

Alexia stood there, stunned for a second, before she burst out laughing. She knelt down, high-fiving the tiny girl. “Nice move, Lessi. You’re already better than your Zia.”

“Hey!” Aurora protested, but she was smiling so hard it looked like her face might hurt.

I looked at my best friend, then at the Captain, and then at the little girl currently trying to teach Mapi how to do a “cool” celebration. 

This was it. This was the family we didn’t know we needed.

Alexia

I was still standing there, staring at the ball that had just rolled through my legs, while the echoes of the team’s laughter bounced off the walls of the stands. I’m the two-time Ballon d’Or winner. I’m the Captain. And I had just been dismantled by a four-year-old in pigtails.

“Don’t worry, Ale,” Mapi wheezed, leaning her hands on her knees as she gasped for air. “I’ll make sure the highlights get sent to the club’s archives. Legend vs. Legend.”

I shook my head, a grin tugging at my lips as I looked at Lessi. She was looking up at me, completely unimpressed by my status, waiting for me to pass the ball back. I gave it a soft tap toward her.

“Focus, everyone!” I called out, though my voice lacked its usual bite. “Rondo in two minutes. And Mapi? If you say the word ‘nutmeg’ once during this session, you’re doing extra laps.”

“I would never,” Mapi lied, immediately turning to Ingrid to whisper something that made them both crack up.

As the team started to organize, Jonathan Giráldez signaled for the start of the session. Elena took Lessi by the hand and moved toward the bleachers. Before she left the pitch, she caught my eye and gave me a single, slow nod. It wasn’t a “welcome to the family” nod yet—it was a “don’t mess this up” nod. I understood it perfectly.

The training was intense, but for the first time, it didn’t feel like I was walking on eggshells.

During the tactical drill, I found Aurora in the half-space. Usually, I would have hesitated, worried that my pass would look like favoritism, or I would have barked an instruction just to prove I wasn’t being soft. Today, I just played the ball. It was a crisp, diagonal pass that sliced through the defense.

Aurora took it on the turn, her movement fluid and confident. She didn’t look back at me to see if I was watching. She knew I was. She threaded a needle-perfect ball through to Salma on the wing.

“Nice, Ora!” Pina shouted, high-fiving her.

I felt a surge of pride that had nothing to do with the scoreboard. This was the ‘New Standard.’ We weren’t hiding behind anger anymore; we were fueling each other with the truth.

During a water break, I found myself walking toward the sidelines where Elena was leaning against the railing, watching the drill with the eyes of a professional scout. Lessi was busy trying to kick a stray ball into an empty net a few meters away.

“She’s got a decent engine,” Elena remarked, not taking her eyes off the pitch as I approached. She was talking about Aurora. “I’ve seen her play since she was five, but she looks different today. Faster.”

“She’s not carrying the world on her shoulders anymore,” I said, taking a sip of my electrolytes.

Elena finally looked at me. Up close, her gaze was even more piercing than at the apartment. She had that calm, salt-water energy of someone who spent her life facing twenty-foot waves. “I was hard on her last night. And on you. But seeing you out there… you’re not the robot she described.”

“She told you I was a robot?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“A ‘rigid, tactical robot with no soul’,” Elena quoted with a dry smirk. “But I see how you look at her when the ball isn’t near you. You’re watching her like she’s the horizon and you’re waiting for the perfect set to come in.”

I looked over at Aurora, who was laughing with Jenni and Mapi near the center circle. “She is the horizon, Elena.”

Elena’s expression softened, just for a fraction of a second. She reached out and gripped my forearm—a firm, athlete-to-athlete gesture. “Just keep her safe, Alexia. The ocean is beautiful, but the currents can pull you under if you aren’t careful. Barcelona is a big ocean.”

“I’ve been swimming in it for a long time,” I promised. “I won’t let her drown.”

“Good.” Elena looked back at her daughter. “Lessi! Vieni qui! Stop trying to break the Capitana’s equipment!”

Lessi ignored her mother, successfully punting the ball into the net and shouting “Goal!” at the top of her lungs.

I looked at the little girl, then at the fierce woman beside me, and then at the girl waiting for me on the pitch. I had spent so long building a fortress to protect my heart. I hadn’t realized that all I had to do was open the gate and let the right people in.

“Back to it,” I murmured, more to myself than anyone else.

I jogged back onto the grass, my heart light. For the first time in years, the ‘Standard’ wasn’t a weight. It was a foundation.