7
An Unexpected Truce
Alicia
They say there are mistakes you make only once in a lifetime—the kind you learn your lesson from the hard way and then avoid at all costs.
And then, in a league of her own, there’s Clara Valle.
Not only does she not fall into the category of an avoidable mistake, but she also seems determined to become a daily addiction—complete with a medical license, a dark uniform, and a truly alarming ability to mess with my head just by looking at me.
It’s been barely a few days since those brutal, unforgettable fifteen minutes in the showers, and I still feel the intensity of her fingers inside me at the slightest opportunity, as if the icy water from every shower I’ve taken since then hadn’t quite managed to wash away her touch.
And it’s not just the wild caresses that are seared into my body—though I’d be blatantly lying if I said I don’t think about them more often than any logic would dictate—it’s everything else: the hoarse tone of her voice right after sex, her gaze, and that forced separation we imposed on ourselves, leaving me with the distinct feeling that we’d crossed a line neither of us will quite know how to redraw.
Of course, my natural and mature reaction to such chaos can be nothing other than to stir things up even more.
Because if Dr. Valle is going to keep acting as if absolutely nothing happened between us, I’m going to enjoy every damn second of pushing her headfirst to the edge of her sanity.
It’s a bad idea. A terrible idea, in fact.
But I’ve always had an incorrigible weakness for women like her.
This morning, the first-team locker room is much noisier than usual.
We’ve just finished an intense and exhausting training session on the field—a session that, because of my damn joint, I wasn’t able to complete in full—and the atmosphere is buzzing with physical exhaustion, the lingering euphoria of preseason, and some of the most absurd comments that inevitably pop up when a group of twenty soccer players spends too many hours together.
There are damp towels strewn across the wooden benches, empty sports drink bottles rolling across the floor, reggaeton blaring from a wireless speaker forgotten in some corner, and Alba, our beloved captain, recounting a sensational story about an internal argument among players on another team as if she were reporting live on World War III itself.
I’m sitting next to my locker, wiping the sweat from my neck with a white towel, secretly wishing they’d all get in the showers already so I can be left alone. But the rest of the universe has unanimously decided that its main mission for today is not to leave me alone for even a second.
“I’m telling you, seriously,” Alba insists, gesturing exaggeratedly with a workout T-shirt in her left hand, “if the Northbridge girls keep up that shitty atmosphere in the locker room, they’ll end up imploding before April even rolls around. You can see the cracks coming from across England.”
“Well, hey, that’s exactly what you said last year,” Sonia replies without looking up even a millimeter from the nail file she’s using to buff her nails, “and they finished second in the league standings. Your predictive talent is conspicuous by its absence, Captain. Good thing you’re much better at leading us on the field than you are at predicting the future, because otherwise… ”
“What can you do? Some of us were born with the gift of commanding and leading, not predicting the future.”
I chuckle under my breath, shaking my head.
It’s truly strange how quickly this locker room is starting to feel less like a foreign place to me.
I wouldn’t call it family—because I don’t really believe in that idyllic concept when it comes to elite professional soccer—but it is a pretty livable space.
A place where, for the first time in a long time, my teammates aren’t just watching me, waiting to see when I’m going to cause the next disaster.
Although, well, there are people at this club who do.
And one of them is walking through the door right at this very moment.
Clara walks into the locker room with a plastic folder tucked under her arm, exuding that impeccable, cool composure that I find increasingly dangerous and thrilling.
She doesn’t need to do anything extraordinary to draw attention; her mere presence is enough to suddenly change the atmosphere in the entire room.
She’s wearing the club’s official black uniform, tailored to fit perfectly, her dark hair pulled back today into a low ponytail, and that strictly professional expression that—if I didn’t know her so well on a personal level—I might easily have mistaken for indifference.
But I’ve already learned to read between the lines perfectly.
I know exactly where to look: the slight tension in her jaw, the blatant way she avoids holding my gaze for more than two seconds in front of the others, or that split-second hesitation as she walks past me.
It’s elegantly concealed sexual tension.
And for me—a masochist by nature—it drives me wild.
“Alicia,” she says aloud, stopping right in front of me. “I need to take a close look at how this morning’s physical workload has affected your left knee. I’ll be waiting for you in the physical therapy room first thing this afternoon—don’t be late.”
“Well, Doctor… What an unromantic and unsubtle way to invite me to spend some time alone with you,” I reply instantly, raising an eyebrow and giving her my best crooked, mischievous smile.
Several of my teammates nearby burst out laughing as soon as they hear me. Clara stares at me. That’s all. She fixes me with that dark, steady gaze, laden with a silent threat that, instead of intimidating me in the slightest, has exactly the opposite effect on my body. It turns me on.
“Well, since you’re not saying anything, I’ll take that as a resounding yes,” I add, having a blast, winking at her without a shred of modesty.
Alba, who literally lives and breathes celebrity gossip on this team, immediately crosses her arms, flashing a suspiciously wide and mischievous smile.
“Hey, I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but I’m starting to suspect that Alicia is enjoying her mandatory rehab sessions a little too much.”
Sonia finally looks up from her nails and raises an eyebrow with pure malice at the physical therapist.
“Is Dr. Valle giving you some kind of first-class special treatment that the rest of us don’t know about, Alicia?”
I burst out laughing, throwing my head back and leaning against the cold metal of my locker.
“Of course, girls. Spending time with Clara is an idyllic experience, full of tenderness, pampering, and affection,” I say sarcastically, playing along.
“And medical threats to bench you,” Alba adds, winking at me knowingly.
“Especially medical threats,” I confirm, delighted to play along. “Although I have to tell you, her hands do so much more for my muscles than all her strict orders combined.”
The collective laughter grows louder in the locker room.
Clara stands in the middle of the room, her posture perfectly straight, her shoulders stiff as boards, and her folder clutched tightly to her chest, probably weighing her options between seeking political asylum and fleeing the country right this very moment.
“I’m absolutely delighted to see that my professional authority and my therapeutic massages are generating so much controversy and debate among the team,” she remarks, displaying impeccable composure, though I—who haven’t taken my eyes off her—detect a subtle, lovely crimson blush rising in her cheeks.
“Hey, it’s not your massages that are causing controversy here, Clara,” Alba replies with completely feigned innocence as she ties her hair back. “It’s the insane chemistry between the two of you. I mean, you can feel the tension from across the club’s hallway, for heaven’s sake.”
A brief but incredibly heavy silence falls over the locker room. Sonia lets out a low “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” that does absolutely nothing to calm the waters. I laugh even harder, leaning forward on the bench with that exaggerated nonchalance you always use when you want to hide an open secret.
“Come on, you’re making such a big deal out of nothing,” I say, waving my hand in the air as if to downplay it. “Clara barely tolerates my existence at this club. She puts up with me and touches my knee because she gets paid for it at the end of the month—don’t get so worked up.”
“Yeah, right… That’s exactly what all the proud ones say right before they end up married,” Alba mutters loud enough for even the girls in the back row to hear.
“Shut your mouth once and for all or I swear I’ll kill you right here,” I warn her with a nervous laugh, grabbing my used towel and throwing it straight at her face.
But the truth is, nerves have already settled in my stomach.
And even though I try to keep up my cocky facade, I notice the immediate shift in the atmosphere.
That precise, uncomfortable moment when a silly joke stops being just a joke among teammates.
Because rumors on a soccer team start exactly like this: with knowing glances, with snide comments spoken aloud, and with little remarks that, if repeated often enough in the locker room, end up becoming public and official truths.
Clara knows this all too well. And so do I.
When I look back at her, she’s no longer smiling in the slightest. She’s not even trying to hide it from the group.
There’s something far more serious, sharp, and cold in her expression: a clear, impeccable, purely professional warning.
Before I can open my mouth to smooth things over, she simply nods stiffly.
“Don’t be late,” she says in an icy voice. And immediately afterward, she turns on her heel and strides out of the locker room without looking back even once.