Chapter 10 The Girl Behind the Smile
B y morning, Lena had read the anonymous message seventeen times and understood it less with every read.
He stayed quiet because the truth would hurt more than the lie.
That was not a warning.
Warnings were cleaner.
Do not go there.
Leave it alone.
Be careful.
This was something worse.
A hook.
A finger curling through the bars of her curiosity and pulling.
She stared at the message while sitting in the back row of Conference Room B, her laptop open, her coffee untouched, and her father’s voice moving around the room like a gavel.
“We are not chasing anonymous comments,” Coach Hart said.
Lena looked up.
He was not speaking to her.
Technically.
He stood at the front of the room beside Talia, reviewing the weekend media response with the coaching staff and athletic communications team. The screen behind him showed the engagement numbers from Lena’s youth clinic post.
They were good.
Very good.
Good enough that Talia had texted her three fire emojis at midnight, which, from Talia Morgan, was basically a parade.
The post had softened the conversation around Nico. Not fixed it. Nothing online was ever truly fixed. But shifted it. The comments were less vicious now, more curious. People had started calling him misunderstood instead of dangerous.
That should have felt like a win.
Instead, Lena kept thinking about the anonymous message.
And Nico’s face when she had asked about Declan.
And the way his voice had gone flat when he told her not to ask again.
Talia clicked to the next slide. “The youth clinic post outperformed every tennis program post this semester by four hundred percent. Sentiment improved overnight. Mentions of Nico paired with ‘dangerous’ dropped. Mentions paired with ‘soft’ and ‘misunderstood’ increased.”
Assistant Coach Miller made a sound. “Soft?”
Nico, seated near the far wall with his arms crossed, looked like he would rather swallow glass than be analyzed by adjectives.
Lena tried not to look at him.
Failed.
He was in black again. Of course. Black hoodie. Black joggers. Black mood. His hair was damp, like he had come from early training, and there was a faint shadow beneath his eyes that told Lena he had not slept either.
His gaze lifted suddenly.
Caught hers.
Lena looked away first.
Pathetic.
Absolutely pathetic.
She reached for her coffee and took a sip.
Cold.
Perfect.
Her father’s voice cut back in. “We need to keep the focus on discipline and accountability. Not romance speculation.”
Lena almost laughed.
The entire strategy depended on romance speculation.
But sure. Wonderful. Let’s pretend this was all about accountability and not the fact that half of campus had zoomed in on Nico’s hand at her back like they were decoding a national security threat.
Talia folded her arms. “The relationship angle is driving the sentiment shift.”
Coach Hart’s jaw tightened. “The relationship angle is temporary.”
Lena kept her face neutral.
Nico’s eyes moved toward her again.
She felt it without looking.
That was becoming a problem.
Her father continued. “I want less focus on Lena and Nico together and more focus on team culture.”
Lena set her coffee down. “Those are connected right now.”
The room turned toward her.
Again.
She was starting to hate conference rooms.
Her father’s eyes settled on her. “Meaning?”
Lena straightened. “Meaning the public is responding because the team culture message feels personal now. They don’t care about generic accountability posts. They care because there’s a human point of access.”
“Your fake relationship,” Assistant Coach Miller said helpfully.
Lena smiled at him.
The felony smile had arrived early today.
“Our controlled public narrative,” she corrected.
Nico made a low sound that might have been a laugh if he were a healthier person emotionally.
Talia hid a smile behind her tablet.
Coach Hart did not.
“The controlled public narrative,” her father said, “does not give us permission to blur boundaries.”
His gaze stayed on Lena too long.
Heat climbed her neck.
She kept smiling.
“Of course,” she said.
There it was.
The voice.
Bright. Easy. Perfectly pleasant.
The one that said, I understand. I am fine. Please continue making decisions around me while I decorate the room with emotional stability.
Across the table, Nico’s head tilted slightly.
Lena ignored him.
Talia moved to the next point. “We need a follow-up post by this afternoon. Something light. Maybe practice content. Lena, can you draft—”
“No,” Coach Hart said.
The word was calm.
Lena froze.
Talia blinked. “No?”
“I want Talia to review all Nico-related content before anything goes live.”
Lena’s fingers curled beneath the table.
Talia glanced at her, then back at Coach Hart. “I already review her work.”
“I want final approval moved up.”
Silence.
Not dramatic.
Not loud.
Worse.
Lena could feel every person in the room politely pretending not to notice her humiliation.
She had written the youth clinic caption.
She had shifted the sentiment.
She had done exactly what everyone said needed to happen.
And now her father was taking the wheel because the car had started moving without his hands on it.
Lena smiled.
It came so fast it almost hurt.
“Absolutely,” she said. “That makes sense.”
Nico’s eyes sharpened.
Her father nodded once, satisfied or maybe relieved.
Lena hated both possibilities.
The rest of the meeting passed in a blur of strategy points, content approvals, match schedules, and crisis language. Lena took notes because her hands needed something to do besides shake.
When it ended, chairs scraped back. Staff gathered laptops. Talia gave Lena a look that said, We’ll talk later. Assistant Coach Miller clapped Nico on the shoulder and told him not to read comments, which was a little like telling a bleeding person not to notice the knife.
Lena kept her smile on until the room emptied.
She was good at that.
The trick was to hold it just long enough for everyone to leave.
Then she gathered her laptop, closed it carefully, and walked into the hallway before anyone could ask if she was okay.
She made it twelve steps.
“Nobody smiles like that unless something’s bleeding.”
Lena stopped.
Closed her eyes.
Of course.
She turned.
Nico leaned against the wall outside the conference room, one shoulder propped against the painted cinderblock, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
She looked around. “Are you following me now?”
“No.”
“Lurking?”
“Waiting.”
“For?”
“You to stop lying with your face.”
Her chest tightened.
She hated him.
Not really.
But a little.
Enough.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
His mouth flattened. “That’s another one.”
“Another what?”
“Lie.”
Lena’s smile brightened.
His eyes narrowed.
There was the problem with Nico Reyes. He did not understand polite emotional choreography. Most people accepted the smile as a closed door. Nico treated it like a window he had every intention of breaking.
“I have work,” she said.
“You just got benched from your own work.”
The words hit too hard.
She flinched.
Barely.
But Nico saw it.
Something changed in his face. “Lena.”
“Don’t.”
He straightened. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.” Her voice was still pleasant. That was the worst part. She could hear the sweetness in it, polished and poisonous. “And you’re right. Congratulations. You’ve identified the obvious.”
His jaw tightened. “Your dad shouldn’t have done that in front of everyone.”
“No. He shouldn’t have.” She laughed once, too lightly. “But he did, and it’s fine.”
“It’s not.”
“Thank you for the emotional audit.”
“That smile,” he said quietly, “is the one you use when someone hurts you and you don’t want them to know.”
Lena forgot how to breathe.
For one awful second, she had no defense.
No comeback.
No perfectly shaped sentence.
Only the shock of being named.
Nico seemed to realize he had stepped too close to something. His expression shifted, not apologetic exactly, but careful.
Lena hated careful almost as much as pity.
“You don’t know me well enough to say things like that,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I just notice.”
“That is not better.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
She turned and started walking.
He followed.
Of course he followed.
“Nico.”
“You’re going the wrong way.”
She stopped, looked around, and realized she had turned toward the equipment storage hall instead of the media room.
Wonderful.
Perfect.
Exactly the kind of competent, composed behavior one hoped to display after being publicly demoted by her father.
She closed her eyes.
“Don’t say anything.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were.”
“I was thinking something.”
“Think quieter.”
For one second, there was silence.
Then Nico said, “You want coffee?”
Lena opened her eyes and stared at him.
“What?”
“Coffee,” he repeated, like she was the difficult one. “You didn’t drink yours.”
“How do you know that?”
His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, then away. “You make a face when it’s cold.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
“I make no such face.”
“You looked betrayed.”
Despite herself, a laugh escaped her.
Small.
Unsteady.
Real.
Nico watched it happen like he had won a point no one else knew they were playing.
Lena hated that too.
Or wanted to.
The media room was empty when they reached it. Talia was nowhere in sight. The ring lights stood in the corner like silent witnesses to several bad decisions waiting to happen.
Lena dropped her laptop onto the table and pressed both hands flat against the surface.
The smile finally fell.
Her face felt strange without it.
Too exposed.
Too young.
Nico stayed near the door at first, as if giving her a way out of the conversation he had trapped her in.
That almost made her angrier.
“You were right,” she said.
His brows drew together. “About what?”
“My father shouldn’t have done that in front of everyone.”
The words came out flat.
Then they kept coming.