Warnings: workplace harassment
The oxblood heels lasted until nine forty-three.
Nina had expected better from them.
They had looked excellent when she left the apartment that morning, which had temporarily seemed more important than whether they were designed to support a human foot through an entire working day. The leather was dark enough to appear black until the light caught it properly, the heel narrow without being unreasonable, and the pointed toe made her wide-leg trousers fall exactly the way she had imagined when she bought them.
They were also beginning to feel vindictive.
Nina sat beneath her desk with one foot slipped halfway out of its shoe, flexing her toes while pretending to review an email. The accounting floor had settled into its midmorning rhythm around her. Phones rang without urgency. Keyboards clicked. Someone near the windows was explaining the same variance for the third time to a person who seemed determined to misunderstand it differently on each attempt.
James had not yet appeared.
That alone made the shoes feel worth it.
She had arrived early, completed two reconciliations before most of the department appeared, and listened to forty minutes of a podcast about a woman who had poisoned three husbands before anyone interrupted her. It had been a productive morning by any reasonable standard.
Then, at nine forty-four, Elena appeared beside her desk holding a document and wearing the expression of someone who had come to transfer a problem.
Nina looked at the paper.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re carrying a form.”
“You’re holding it towards me.”
Elena glanced down as though surprised to discover her own hand.
“That could mean anything.”
“It means you want me to do something.”
“It means I think you’re exceptionally capable.”
Elena laughed and placed the document on Nina’s desk.
“Operations needs this signed before they can release the final travel payment.”
Nina pulled her foot fully back into the heel and looked at the page.
It was a player appearance and travel authorisation connected to a commercial event scheduled for the following month. Most of the form had already been completed. Dates, destination, departmental codes, projected costs. One signature box remained empty at the bottom.
“Because the vendor payment is sitting in our queue.”
“Why isn’t operations getting the signature?”
Elena leaned one hip against the edge of her desk.
“Apparently the player was in treatment yesterday, left early the day before that, and is travelling this afternoon. If it doesn’t get signed before training ends, the payment rolls into next week.”
“Then it rolls into next week.”
“And the vendor complains.”
“The vendor always complains.”
“And then James asks why we didn’t prevent the complaint.”
Nina looked towards his office.
The door remained closed.
“That makes this feel less like my problem.”
“Elisa asked if someone from our team could take it down.”
Nina glanced back at her.
That changed the equation slightly.
Elisa Moreno was one of the senior finance managers and one of the few people above James who spoke to Nina as though she had been hired for reasons beyond her ability to make other people’s work presentable. She did not ask for unnecessary favours. She also remembered which analyst had completed which project, a quality so unusual within the department that Nina occasionally regarded it as leadership.
“Because I have a call in six minutes and Diego is offsite.”
“And because I’m exceptionally capable.”
Elena tapped the printed name.
Nina recognised it immediately, which was less impressive than it might have sounded. She worked at Real Madrid. The players’ names appeared across internal documentation often enough that not recognising them would have required active resistance.
She looked down at her shoes.
“I’m not walking to the training pitches in these.”
“I didn’t anticipate a field trip.”
Nina kept a pair of white trainers beneath her desk for emergencies, a category broad enough to include fire drills, transport strikes, unexpected rain, and shoes purchased primarily because they made her legs look excellent.
“That sentence has ruined more women’s lives than war.”
Nina reached beneath her desk and retrieved the trainers.
As she changed, Elena glanced towards James’s office again.
“You know he would’ve sent you anyway.”
Nina tied one lace more tightly than necessary.
“You’ve never been down there during training.”
“I’ve walked near a football pitch before.”
“Not that football pitch.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
“You are saying nothing, which is worse.”
Elena laughed and stepped away from the desk.
“Get the signature, Nina.”
“That was already the plan.”
“And try not to professionally observe anyone’s thighs.”
Elena had not been at the café with Mariam. She had no possible reason to phrase it that way.
“Why did you say thighs?”
“Because footballers have muscular legs?”
Nina had become paranoid.
“Why? What did you think I meant?”
Elena walked away slowly, looking over her shoulder once before disappearing between the desks.
Nina put the signed supporting documents into a slim folder, collected her access badge, and stood.
The trainers ruined the trousers slightly.
The walk from the corporate building to the first-team training area took less than ten minutes, though the club’s internal geography had always made distance feel partly dependent on permission.
Nina knew the route in theory.
Down through the main atrium, past operations, through the restricted staff corridor connecting the administrative and sporting sections of the complex. Her access badge opened the first two doors without issue and rejected her at the third.
Nina looked through the glass.
Beyond it, a long corridor led towards the training facilities. Framed photographs covered one wall. A member of staff passed at the far end without looking in her direction.
She scanned her badge a third time, in case persistence had recently become a recognised form of authorisation.
A security officer seated at a nearby desk looked over.
“Where are you trying to go?”
He glanced at the folder in her hand, then at her badge.
“You don’t have access beyond this point.”
“Yes, the door has communicated that very clearly.”
“I need a player’s signature for finance. Brahim Díaz.”
The officer made a call. Nina waited beside the door, resisting the urge to explain that this had not been her idea.
Less than two minutes later, a member of the operations staff appeared from the other side. He was wearing training gear and carrying a radio clipped to his waistband.
He opened the door and glanced at the folder.
“They sent you down personally?”
The question was not rude.
“Apparently I’ve been selected for fieldwork.”
“Come through. They’re still training.”
Nina followed him along the corridor.
The atmosphere changed gradually as they moved deeper into the football side of the building. The corporate offices had been designed to look immaculate while concealing the fact that most people spent their lives fighting email. Here, the space felt more functional. Doors opened towards treatment rooms, equipment areas, analysis suites, and offices with magnetic tactical boards visible through the glass.
People moved with a different kind of urgency.
A kit assistant carried a stack of folded training tops. A physio crossed the corridor with a tablet in one hand and a roll of tape tucked beneath his arm. Someone called to the man guiding Nina, and he answered without breaking stride.
The football department had always existed in Nina’s work as cost centres, allocation codes, travel schedules, and large numbers attached to ordinary nouns.
Here, the nouns had bodies.
The operations staff member pushed open a door leading outside.
The hard, clean strike of a ball travelling at speed.
Nina stepped into the sunlight.
The training pitches stretched ahead of her in perfect bands of green, surrounded by low fencing, technical areas, and buildings whose glass reflected the pale blue sky. From the corporate side of the complex, the pitches looked almost decorative.
At ground level, they felt enormous.
A group of players moved through a small-sided drill near the centre of the nearest pitch. Coaches stood around its perimeter, stopping play occasionally before restarting it with brief instructions.
She had watched football before.
She lived in Madrid, worked for Real Madrid, and had access to staff tickets whenever the administrative lottery favoured her department. She had attended matches with family, stood when everyone around her stood, complained when the referee appeared committed to ruining the evening, and felt city pride swell through the stadium in ways she would never have admitted to anyone who treated sport too seriously.
There was no crowd to absorb the detail. No camera choosing where she looked. No distance converting the players into figures arranged across a pitch.
From the touchline, the speed was mildly absurd.
The ball travelled between them with almost no visible negotiation. One player received it already turning away from pressure. Another moved into space before the pass had been struck. Every action seemed to contain advance knowledge of the next one.
Nina had spent years reducing football into financial consequences.
Standing there, she understood briefly why people became unreasonable about it.
The man beside her gestured towards a marked area near the technical staff.
“Wait here. They’ll break in a few minutes.”
He walked towards one of the coaches.
Nina remained beside the barrier, folder held against her stomach, trying to look as though she regularly stood at elite football training sessions in wide-leg trousers and white trainers waiting for signatures.
Nobody paid much attention to her.
Most of the players were too absorbed in the drill to look beyond it. The coaching staff acknowledged her only insofar as she was a person standing where people were occasionally required to stand.
It was impossible not to.
The first-team players had looked large around a conference table because conference rooms were designed for people who spent more time seated. On the pitch, size mattered less than movement. Whatever heaviness their bodies suggested disappeared the moment the ball arrived.
Not simply fast across distance. Quick in thought, balance, reaction. Their bodies changed direction before Nina had fully understood why the direction needed changing.
The recognition happened too easily.
He wore the same training kit as everyone else. Same colours. Same crest. No reason for her attention to locate him before she had consciously searched.
He was positioned near the centre of the drill, receiving the ball with a defender tight behind him. One touch brought it across his body. Another released it towards a teammate before the pressure could close.
He moved immediately after the pass.
No indication he considered the decision impressive.
The dark training top fitted close across his shoulders and chest. His legs were, regrettably, every bit as substantial as she remembered from the meeting.
A coach placed another ball into play.
She worked for the organisation. Understanding its principal activity could only improve her contribution.
Jude drove forward with the ball, held off another player with his shoulder, and slipped a pass through a space Nina had not noticed existed until the ball was already travelling through it.
The change was not dramatic enough for Nina to be certain it happened.
His eyes found the touchline, passed over the staff nearby, then stopped on her.
For one second, neither of them looked away.
Recognition moved across his face.
Then another player closed him down, and Jude returned to the drill.
Nina adjusted the folder against her body.
Obviously he remembered her.
They had been in the same meeting three days ago. She had spoken. Most functioning adults retained faces for longer than seventy-two hours.
There was no reason for the knowledge to create a small, sudden movement beneath her ribs.
Jude began playing differently.
Nina could not have explained exactly how she knew because she had not been watching long enough to establish a baseline. The intensity increased, though perhaps the exercise itself had changed. His movements seemed sharper. He chased a loose ball that had looked destined to roll out, kept it in play, and turned past a teammate with enough force that several players shouted.
The assistant coach near Nina laughed beneath his breath.
The man had appeared beside her without introduction. He was older, grey beginning around his temples, with a stopwatch looped around one hand and the calm expression of someone accustomed to managing highly competitive men before lunchtime.
He nodded towards the pitch.
The whistle sounded again.
Players slowed, some walking towards water placed near the edge of the field.
The assistant coach finally turned his attention fully towards Nina.
“What have they done now?”
His tone was dry enough that Nina smiled.
“Nothing yet. I only need a signature.”
He looked down at the folder.
“Couldn’t someone from operations handle it?”
“They attempted to. Apparently he’s been difficult to locate.”
The coach glanced towards the players approaching the touchline.
“He’s been here every day.”
“I’ll let finance know your tracking system is superior.”
That earned the smallest curve at the edge of his mouth.
“Wait there. I’ll send him over.”
The players reached the technical area in loose groups, collecting bottles and speaking over one another. Up close, they became less like a single unit and more like individuals who happened to share excellent cardiovascular health.
One player removed his training bib and used it to wipe his face. Another was arguing with a coach about whether a ball had gone out during the previous sequence. Someone squeezed water directly over the back of his neck and immediately regretted the temperature.
Nina searched for Brahim without making it obvious she did not know which one he was.
Her eyes found Jude first.
He stood several metres away drinking from a bottle, listening to a teammate while looking directly at Nina over the rim.
She looked towards the pitch.
Then at a completely unremarkable equipment trolley.
Her peripheral vision remained embarrassingly loyal.
Jude handed the bottle to someone else and moved nearer.
There was a difference, though it did very little to improve Nina’s heart rate.
The assistant coach called out.
A player with dark hair looked over.
Brahim followed the gesture and saw Nina waiting near the barrier.
His expression shifted immediately into easy friendliness. He jogged the remaining distance and stopped in front of her, still breathing harder than normal from the drill.
“You’ve come to arrest me?”
Nina looked down at the form.
“So I’ve heard. You’ve apparently been impossible to find for three days.”
Brahim placed one hand against his chest.
“Those were the official words.”
“It’s finance. We don’t use dramatic language lightly.”
“Your signature here.” She opened the folder and indicated the marked box. “It authorises the final travel and appearance costs for next month. The payment can’t be released without it.”
Brahim took the pen she offered and glanced over the document.
“That you will attend the event you already agreed to attend.”
“Then several people will write emails.”
“Professionally disappointed emails. Much worse.”
It was not a polite laugh.
It arrived fully enough that two nearby players looked over.
Nina had not intended the comment to be particularly funny. She often discovered jokes only after other people reacted to them, by which time denying responsibility felt dishonest.
Brahim leaned over the folder.
“You should know I have an important signature.”
“I can tell. There have been meetings about obtaining it.”
“I’m trying to process a payment.”
“Both things can be true.”
He signed with more flourish than the document deserved.
His signature looked less like a name than evidence of sudden hand movement.
He signed with more flourish than the document deserved.
His signature looked less like a name than evidence of sudden hand movement.
“This is legally binding?”
Behind him, the whistle sounded.
“Brahim,” one of the coaches called. “Finish flirting with finance.”
Several players reacted immediately.
Brahim turned and lifted both hands.
“That’s what they all say.”
Nina felt heat rise beneath her skin despite having done absolutely nothing.
Brahim looked back at her, amused.
“I’ll note the hostile working environment.”
“That’s everything. Thank you.”
Her gaze moved past his shoulder before she could stop it.
Jude stood near the edge of the group.
He was no longer smiling.
The expression was too controlled for that.
But something in his face had tightened while he watched Brahim laugh with her, and the look landed with enough directness that Nina became suddenly conscious of every part of herself.
The ponytail she had redone too quickly after changing shoes.
The fact that Brahim still stood within conversational distance.
Jude’s eyes moved from Brahim to her.
This time, Nina knew she had not imagined it.
A whistle cut through the moment.
Brahim jogged back towards the drill.
Nina stepped away from the barrier, intending to thank the assistant coach and leave before her body developed further opinions.
The coach was speaking into his radio.
On the pitch, play resumed.
Brahim received the ball near the right side and turned into space.
Jude reached him almost immediately.
That was obvious even to Nina.
Shoulder against shoulder, foot through the ball, enough force to send Brahim several steps off balance without taking him to the ground.
Jude won possession and drove forward.
Brahim laughed behind him.
The ball moved through two more players before the sequence reset.
Nina told herself she was waiting to say goodbye.
Brahim got the ball again.
Jude closed him down again.
This time he gave him no space to turn, pressing tight enough that Brahim was forced to play backwards. The moment the pass left, Jude followed him for another step, shoulder brushing his with unnecessary emphasis.
Jude had already moved away.
Nina watched despite knowing she should not.
There was something compelling about witnessing a disagreement conducted entirely through physical competence.
Brahim made a run through the middle. Jude tracked him. When the ball arrived, they met with a heavy collision that remained within the accepted boundaries of training but caused several teammates to make appreciative noises.
The coach allowed play to continue.
When the ball went out several seconds later, Brahim turned towards Jude.
Jude looked genuinely confused.
“You’ve been on me since we restarted.”
“You’re defending like I owe you money.”
A few players nearby laughed.
“I was having a peaceful morning.”
“You were losing the ball.”
“Because you’ve decided this is a final.”
The coach threw another ball onto the pitch.
Brahim started to turn away, then looked back at Jude.
The way he said it meant the opposite.
Jude gave him a light shove between the shoulder blades.
Brahim laughed and jogged back into position.
The assistant coach beside Nina lowered his radio.
He looked towards the pitch.
“I’ve worked in an office for six years. That barely qualified.”
He nodded, accepting the point.
“You got what you needed?”
The assistant coach started to turn away, then paused.
“Right. Nina from accounting.”
Something about the phrasing made her wonder whether the distinction would survive the afternoon.
She nodded goodbye and began walking towards the door.
She did not look back immediately.
That would have been obvious.
She reached the shade beside the building, adjusted the strap of her bag, and allowed herself one glance over her shoulder.
Jude was already looking.
The pitch stretched between them, bright and open, players moving through the next drill around him. He stood still for only a fraction too long before turning back towards the ball.
That was probably the sun.
Training ended twenty minutes later.
Brahim dropped onto the bench near the touchline and began removing the tape around one wrist. Sweat had dried along the edge of his hairline, and his training top clung damply to his back.
Jude collected a bottle from the cooler.
The strange aggression had left his body almost as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind the less convenient awareness that everyone else had noticed it.
Possibly the coaching staff.
Maybe half the country, depending on how obvious he had been.
He drank, then walked towards the bench.
“Coming to tackle me while I’m sitting down now?”
Jude stopped in front of him.
“Good. My guard is lowered.”
Jude glanced towards the building Nina had entered.
The door remained closed.
Brahim followed the movement of his eyes.
Jude looked back immediately.
Brahim’s expression changed.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Brahim continued peeling away the tape.
Jude twisted the cap onto his bottle.
He had expected the apology to be accepted without requiring precision.
He searched for a word that did not explain more than he understood.
“I don’t know what that was.”
Brahim pulled the last strip of tape free and rolled it into a small ball between his fingers.
“You nearly followed me into the changing room on the second press.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t clean.”
Jude leaned forward, resting his forearms against his thighs.
“And I’m trying to understand the apology.”
“There’s nothing to understand.”
Jude could feel it without looking.
“You sure you’re alright?”
“Did I do something before training?”
Brahim was still smiling, but not enough to make the conversation a joke.
He genuinely wanted to know.
That made the answer more irritating.
Brahim stood and tossed the tape into a nearby bin.
“You said nothing happened.”
“Then you became possessed by the spirit of defending.”
Jude laughed once despite himself.
“I’m serious. I don’t know what came over me.”
The response was too easy.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like you know something.”
“I know you were normal, then I signed a form, then you tried to fold me into the grass.”
Jude looked towards the building again before stopping himself halfway.
His smile changed by one degree.
Brahim placed one hand over his heart.
“Now you’re hurting me emotionally too.”
Jude shook his head and started walking towards the changing facilities.
Brahim fell into step beside him.
Jude kept his expression neutral.
“The woman from finance.”
It was a lie delivered too quickly.
Jude corrected without being asked.
“She was in the meeting.”
“I didn’t ask how you knew.”
Jude exhaled through his nose.
“Relax. I’m not saying anything.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
They walked several more steps.
Then Brahim added, “She was funny.”
Brahim’s face remained innocent.
That was the wrong response.
The corridor doors opened automatically as they approached.
Cool air met the heat still clinging to his skin.
“Because now it’s funny.”
Jude gave him a warning look.
Brahim lifted both hands.
They entered the corridor.
For approximately four seconds, Brahim remained quiet.
Then he said, “Nina from accounting.”
Jude shoved him lightly into the wall.
Brahim’s laugh followed them all the way towards the changing room.
Jude tried to remain annoyed.
It would have been easier if he had understood what he was denying.
He had seen Nina arrive at the edge of the pitch and felt something inside him sharpen before he had time to question it. He had played harder because she was watching. That much, at least, he could admit privately.
Then she had laughed with Brahim.
Nothing remotely meaningful.
A signed form. A conversation. Ninety seconds of ordinary friendliness.
Jude had responded as though Brahim had stepped into space that belonged to him.
That was the part he could not explain.
Nina did not belong to him.
He had never spoken to her.
He knew her name, her department, and that she had an unexpectedly dry sense of humour. He knew she wore headphones around the building and seemed to make herself smaller near James. He knew she looked at him when she thought he was occupied.
That was not enough information to feel possessive.
Apparently, it was enough for his body.
Jude pushed open the changing-room door.
Noise met him immediately.
Someone calling for a towel.
Brahim moved ahead and joined a conversation near the centre of the room as though nothing unusual had happened.
Jude went to his place and sat.
For a moment, he stared at the floor between his shoes.
Not because the situation was funny.
Because it was, apparently, already too late to pretend he had not noticed her.
