The Echo of the Tabloids
Alicia
Waking up in this room is, literally, like suddenly returning to a place I didn’t even know I’d been searching for all these years.
For a few seconds, I lie motionless under the sheets, holding my breath as I listen to the faint, rhythmic sound of Clara’s breathing as she sleeps beside me and the distant murmur of rain pounding hard against the windowpanes.
The bedroom still smells like us—that fruity perfume imprinted on her skin that, for weeks now, has become my greatest obsession.
I inhale slowly, letting that scent fill my lungs, and feel my body relax against the mattress despite the annoying stiffness in my left knee.
I turn my head a fraction on the pillow.
Clara is sleeping on her side, with her back to me.
I find myself mesmerized, watching the gentle curve of her bare shoulder, the incredibly elegant line of her spine beneath the sheet, and a familiar warmth—thick and overwhelming—begins to spread throughout my chest. I remember perfectly every one of the crazy things we did down by the pool, and everything we eagerly repeated in her bed as soon as we went upstairs.
Dr. Clara Valle has lost her composure and her strict self-control around me, and the mere thought of it brings a truly silly smile to my face.
A genuine smile—the kind that just slips out on its own, that spreads across your face and makes you feel ridiculous because you’re unable to stop it no matter how hard you try.
I close my eyes for a moment, savoring the memory of the pool, the water reflecting the blue spotlights on the ceiling, and that unbearable sexual tension that finally exploded between us after so many days of pretending.
Her lips desperately seeking mine, the echo of our rapid breaths mingling in the air, the wild way we wrung the most exaggerated moans from each other…
What we have has stopped being a game of glances, and we both know it all too well.
The worst part—or the best, depending on how you look at it—is that, despite the tremendous risk we’re taking, I don’t regret a single thing.
We had sex so wild, intense, and fun that it left me floating in a strange kind of calm, a feeling of happiness so silly that it makes me feel like I’m walking on the moon.
I sit up carefully so as not to wake her and look for my underwear and the club sweatshirt.
My knee protests with a sharp twinge as soon as I set my left foot on the hardwood floor, reminding me that my body is still a problem even when my mind decides to forget it.
I get dressed in silence, casting furtive glances toward the bed every two seconds.
Before opening the door to slip back to my own room, I turn to look at her one last time.
It takes a superhuman mental effort not to throw caution to the wind, crawl back under the sheets, wrap my arms around her waist, and lose myself in her warmth once more.
Hours later, the hotel’s fitness center is much livelier than it has been in recent days.
The entire team seems to have woken up with a tremendous burst of energy after the toughest days of training camp, and the hubbub of overlapping conversations, mixed with the pop music blaring from the speakers, fills the gym from first thing in the morning.
I try with all my might to put on a completely normal front.
I say “try” because my face has decided to betray me outright and without mercy.
“Okay, Alicia, just confess already. Can you tell me what the heck is wrong with you today?” Irene blurts out as soon as I plop down on a mat to start my hamstring stretches. She watches me with her arms crossed and that mix of curiosity and mischievous amusement that’s so typical of her.
I let out a brief laugh—almost a snort—as I lean forward to touch the tips of my soccer cleats with my hands.
“Nothing’s wrong with me, you pain in the neck. I just woke up feeling really energetic, just like the rest of the team.”
“That’s exactly why it’s so suspicious,” Alba chimes in from the stationary bike next to me, pedaling effortlessly and glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “Usually at this time of the morning, you look like you’re about to tell the whole coaching staff to go to hell.”
“Look, I still feel like telling them to go to hell,” I reply with a wink, though my tone comes out much lighter, softer, and more singsong than usual.
“Yeah, sure, but not with that shit-eating grin plastered on your face,” Irene insists, pointing an accusing finger at me.
I jerk my head up, trying to keep a straight face.
“What smile? I’m not smiling at all.”
The two of them burst out laughing with a shared complicity that drives me crazy, and I feel a treacherous, burning heat rise up my neck.
“Oh my God!” Irene exclaims dramatically, clutching her chest. “Stop the presses! Our star forward is in love!”
“Don’t talk nonsense, seriously,” I protest, stretching out my other leg, though I say it without any conviction and under my breath.
“Look at that—she’s not even denying it with her usual aggression! It’s totally confirmed, girls—Alicia got properly laid,” Alba adds, laughing her head off and slowing her pedaling so she doesn’t miss the show.
I shake my head and try to focus on the floor so I can keep stretching while they keep teasing me amid their laughter.
But, unfortunately for me, they’re absolutely right: I’m completely hopeless at hiding how crazy I am about Clara.
And the real problem with this whole thing is that Clara can’t hide it either.
I try to convince myself that the girls’ comments are just nonsense, that they’re only saying it because of the tension Clara and I have shared since day one, that it’s all just my paranoia—but as soon as Alba plops down next to me on the mat, I realize that my intuition never fails me.
Alba is the team captain, a thirty-year-old center back with incredible experience and a terrifying ability to read people just by looking at them.
She’s been watching me a little too closely for several weeks now, and in this locker room, that’s never a good sign.
“How’s your knee?” she asks casually as she begins to stretch her quadriceps.
“It’s holding up—which, considering yesterday’s drills, is already saying a lot,” I reply, giving her a half smile.
“I’m really glad to hear that.” Alba pauses briefly, the silence so charged with meaning it makes my hair stand on end. Then she narrows her eyes and smiles faintly. “Although I’d say last night you found a much more interesting and effective way to relax your muscles.”
My breath catches in my throat. My whole body tenses like a guitar string about to snap. I look at her very slowly, turning my head, searching her expression for any hint of teasing or mockery.
“I don’t know exactly what you’re referring to.”
Alba holds my gaze steadily, without losing that calm, mature half smile of hers.
“The indoor pool area echoes a lot at night, Alicia. And people’s voices… well, to put it elegantly, they can be heard with astonishing clarity at that hour.”
I feel a sharp, cold, direct blow right in the middle of my chest. As if a gust of icy wind had swept through me.
Because suddenly I understand perfectly, without any need for further explanation, what she’s trying to tell me.
She heard us. Or she saw us. Well, maybe she wasn’t physically there watching, but she knows enough to bring us down.
I make a titanic effort to keep a neutral expression and continue fiddling with my sneakers.
“I still don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do,” she replies with astonishing gentleness, turning her full attention back to her own exercises. “But relax. Take a breath. I couldn’t care less who you sleep with, as long as it doesn’t affect the team’s performance in the slightest.”
I clench my jaw so hard my teeth hurt.
“Well, if you really don’t care that much, I don’t think you should be bringing it up in the middle of the gym.”
Alba lets out a soft sigh and stops stretching to rest on her palms, gazing at the gym ceiling for a moment before fixing her eyes on me again.
“I’ve been in this locker room for many years, Alicia.
I know how to recognize a certain kind of look between two people when I see it right in front of me.
And I also know all too well how fast gossip and rumors spread in here as soon as someone opens their mouth.
” She leans a little closer to my mat and lowers her voice to a whisper.
“I’m only telling you this for your own good: be very, very careful.
The walls are paper-thin, and jealousy in soccer is far worse than a torn ligament. ”
I lower my gaze to the rubber floor, unable to meet her eyes. To be honest, knowing that my teammates’ jokes and teasing aren’t innocent anymore—and that the team captain knows Clara and I are together in defiance of the board’s rules—makes my hair stand on end.
I feel an uncomfortable, heavy, suffocating knot settling in my stomach.
And it’s not because of me—after all, I couldn’t care less what people say about my private life.
It’s because of Clara. She’s the vulnerable one in this situation because I know full well that none of this would affect me the way it would affect her.
After all, I’ve spent my whole life dealing with rumors about myself, but Clara has an impeccable career.
“Be careful,” Alba murmurs again, giving me a friendly pat on the shoulder before standing up. “Because when something starts to become that obvious to the outside world, it stops belonging solely to the two of you.”
I don’t have time to answer her. The glass doors of the gym slide open, and Clara’s figure appears in my field of vision. My breath catches automatically, as if someone had cut off my oxygen supply.