one simple rule | alexia putellas
Summary: The daughter of a legendary football manager has one simple dating rule: no footballers - a rule that becomes increasingly difficult to follow after meeting Alexia Putellas
Word Count: 8.5k
You hate football.
You hate the sound of a ball striking a boot, that sharp crack that seems to follow you everywhere no matter how many years you spend trying to distance yourself from it. You hate the smell of freshly cut grass because it instantly transports you back to training grounds and stadium tunnels and endless afternoons spent waiting around while other people obsessed over a game you never cared about. You hate the sight of floodlights illuminating a pitch at dusk, hate the television commentators who speak about football as though it is the most important thing in the world, hate the way complete strangers seem to believe they know your family simply because they know your surname.
Most of all, you hate the way football consumed your childhood.
Your papa’s playing career had already ended when you were still young enough to think adults knew everything, but by then his managerial career was ascending so quickly that it felt as though football had just found a new way to claim him. Success turned into reputation, reputation turned into influence, and influence eventually became something larger than any individual person. It became legacy.
People spoke about him with a reverence that sometimes bordered on worship. Journalists dissected every decision he made as though it were a matter of national importance. Fans crossed streets just for the chance to shake his hand. Other managers studied his teams, copied his tactics, and spent entire press conferences discussing his ideas. Everywhere you went, there were reminders that your father was not simply a man anymore.
He was a symbol.
Maybe, at twenty-eight, you should appreciate that more than you do.
Maybe you should be grateful for the opportunities his career created for your family, for the doors that opened before you ever had to knock, for the experiences that most people only dream about. Maybe you should feel proud every time somebody recognizes your surname and their eyes widen in admiration.
You try. You really do. But it is difficult to feel grateful for a legacy that demanded so much from the people who loved him.
It is difficult to celebrate football when football stole countless evenings that should have belonged to your family. Difficult to romanticize success when it meant birthdays spent waiting for him to return from away matches, school performances where an empty seat sat beside your mother, and holidays interrupted by phone calls that inevitably dragged his attention back to training sessions, injuries, transfers, and tactics.
Football never stopped asking for more.
And because football never stopped asking, neither did life.
One day you were running barefoot across the warm sand of Barcelona’s beaches, speaking Catalan with your friends, convinced that the Mediterranean sun would shine forever. The next, your entire life had been packed into boxes because your father had accepted a new challenge in Munich.
You still remember how cold it felt.
The language sounded harsh and unfamiliar, all sharp consonants and impossible grammar, and no matter how hard you studied, you never felt as though you truly belonged there. The city was beautiful, people always insisted that when you complained, but beauty means very little when you are eleven and homesick. What you remember is the grey sky, the endless winter, and the feeling that everyone around you understood a world that remained stubbornly closed to you.
Before you could fully settle, football moved your family again.
Manchester was somehow worse.
The rain seemed endless. The sky existed in varying shades of grey. Entire weeks passed without seeing proper sunlight, and you became convinced that British food was an elaborate punishment disguised as a national cuisine. Every conversation somehow circled back to football. Every newspaper featured football. Every radio station discussed football.
You could never escape it. Not even in your own home.
And yet, despite everything, despite your resentment and frustration and the years spent insisting that you wanted absolutely nothing to do with the sport that had dictated so much of your life, you never stopped loving your father.
Because your papa never brought football through the front door with him.
The moment he stepped inside, he became simply Papa.
The father who woke you up early on weekends for bike rides along the coast whenever the family was back in Spain. The father who spent hours researching restaurants because he wanted to surprise you with somewhere new. The father who never missed an opportunity to take you to the cinema, even if it meant staying out far later than he probably should have before training the next morning.
When you graduated from law school, he celebrated with more enthusiasm than he had ever shown after winning a trophy. When you secured your first prestigious internship, he called every member of the family before you even had the chance to tell them yourself. When you received the offer for your dream position back in Catalonia, he looked prouder than any photograph you had ever seen of him lifting silverware.
Football trophies decorated museums and boardrooms. Your achievements decorated conversations. And there was never any doubt which mattered more to him.
You were the apple of his eye and everyone knew it.
Your brothers teased him about it relentlessly, your mother rolled her eyes whenever he tried to deny it, and even he occasionally admitted it with a sheepish smile when he thought nobody important was listening.
You were his little girl - always.
So when you finally came home, part of you wondered if something in him had quietly settled too.
After nearly two decades of living abroad, after years spent building a life around airports and moving trucks and temporary addresses, you returned to Barcelona for good. You found an apartment overlooking streets you actually recognized. You reconnected with old friends. You started the career you had worked so hard to build.
For the first time in years, home felt like home again.
And not long after you settled back in Catalonia, he announced he would be leaving Manchester. Maybe it was coincidence or maybe he was simply ready to rest and enjoy everything he had spent decades building instead of always chasing the next challenge. But regardless, the football world reacted with the kind of dramatic disbelief usually reserved for royal abdications.
Television channels dedicated entire evenings to discussing his decision. Former players gave emotional interviews. Journalists wrote lengthy retrospectives examining every trophy, every tactical innovation, every rivalry, and every triumph. Fans treated it like the end of an era.
Your father just seemed relieved.
While the rest of the world searched for hidden meanings and secret plans, he spent his days taking long walks with your mother, drinking coffee on terraces overlooking the sea, and rediscovering hobbies that football had stolen from him years ago. For the first time in your life, he looked like a man who wasn’t carrying the weight of an entire club on his shoulders.
He was sometimes a little too relaxed though, in your opinion.
You arrive at your parents’ new house on a warm afternoon, letting yourself in through the front door without bothering to knock. The house sits along the coast, tucked away from the attention that had followed your family for most of your life, and it already feels more like home than any of the temporary houses you had occupied in Munich or Manchester. Sunlight pours through enormous windows overlooking the water, filling every room with a warm golden glow. The distant sound of waves drifts through the open terrace doors and mixes with the faint commentary coming from a television somewhere deeper inside the house.
Following the noise into the living room, you find your parents exactly where you expected them to be.
Curled together on the sofa, practically intertwined, your mother’s legs stretched across your father’s lap while his arm rests comfortably around her shoulders. Some football match plays quietly in the background. The local women’s side, you think after sparing the screen barely a second of attention before immediately losing interest.
The sight would probably make most people smile. It mostly makes you roll your eyes.
Thirty years of marriage and somehow they are still disgustingly in love.
The moment they notice you, their faces brighten in perfect unison. They exchange identical smiles before rising from the couch together, both already reaching for you before you’ve even crossed the room. Your father gets there first, wrapping his arms around you with enough enthusiasm to make it clear that retirement has done absolutely nothing to reduce his affection. You lean into the embrace for a brief moment before your mother steals you away for one of her own.
They have become unbearable since you moved home.
Years of complaining that you lived too far away have apparently convinced them that physical affection must now compensate for every lunch, celebratory dinner, and ordinary afternoon they missed while you were building your career elsewhere.
You allow it because, despite your complaints, you’ve missed them too.
The three of you settle into the living room and fall easily into conversation. Your mother disappears briefly to bring coffee and pastries while your father asks about work, genuinely interested in the answer despite understanding almost nothing about corporate law. He listens anyway, nodding thoughtfully while you complain about difficult clients and impossible deadlines, asking questions with the same focus he once reserved for post-match tactical analysis.
The conversation drifts naturally between subjects until you notice a look pass between your parents.
The tiny exchange lasts less than a second, but after twenty-eight years of being their daughter, you recognize it as something immediately.
Your father suddenly becomes very interested in his coffee while your mother struggles to hide an amused smile behind her hands.
You narrow your eyes. “What?”
Your mother’s smile widens. Your father sighs. And suddenly you know with complete certainty that whatever is about to happen is going to inconvenience you.
“Carinyo…” your father begins, setting his drink down on the table with a level of caution that makes you suspicious. “I have a favor to ask you.”
You narrow your eyes at him.
Across the sofa, your mother seems very interested in stirring her coffee despite the fact that she hasn’t added anything to it.
That alone tells you everything you need to know.
“What kind of favor?”
Your father shifts slightly in his seat.
“Your mother has that baby shower tomorrow. You know, for your cousin.”
A very distant cousin, but yes, you know exactly which baby shower he means. Your mother has been talking about it for weeks despite the fact that neither of you could confidently identify the woman in a lineup.
You wait patiently for him to continue.
“Well,” he says, drawing the word out slightly, “Barça is hosting a gala tomorrow night for the foundation. They’ve asked me to speak because apparently they think seeing your old man back in blaugrana colours will encourage people to donate more money.”
He rolls his eyes as though the idea is completely ridiculous, which is particularly rich coming from a man who could probably convince half of Catalonia to buy bottled tap water if he attached his name to it.
You continue staring at him. The favor still hasn’t arrived. Your father notices your blank look and suddenly looks far less confident.
The sheepish expression that crosses his face is answer enough.
“Oh no.”
His shoulders sag, “Listen-”
“No!”
“I haven’t even asked yet.”
“You don’t need to.”
A laugh escapes your mother before she quickly hides it behind her coffee cup. Your father points at her accusingly before turning back toward you.
“I was wondering…” He hesitates for a moment, clearly aware that this conversation is not heading in his favor. “Well, since your mother can’t come…”
You already know where this is going. You know it before he even finishes the sentence. You know it so certainly that your eyes close in defeat.
“Maybe you could come with me?”
There it is. The disaster. A football gala.
An entire evening surrounded by former players, club executives, sponsors, journalists, donors, and every other category of person you have spent your entire adult life trying to avoid.
“Be my date?"
“Papa,” you groan, dropping your head back against the couch cushions and staring up at the ceiling as though divine intervention might still save you.
“It won’t be that bad.”
It will undoubtedly be that bad.
Your father, unfortunately, mistakes your silence for uncertainty and quickly launches into his defense.
“You can pretend it’s some lawyer event! There’ll be loads of lawyers from the club there.”
Wonderful, your favorite.
An entire room filled with wealthy old men who would spend the first few minutes of every conversation staring at your chest and the remainder trying to impress you with stories about their glory days. At least until they realized who your father was, at which point they would inevitably begin treating you like some extension of him rather than an accomplished lawyer in your own right.
The more you think about it, the worse it becomes.
Unfortunately, Papa is looking at you with the same hopeful expression he has worn your entire life whenever he wants something from you, and that expression has always been your weakness.
He rarely asks for anything at all so when he does you’re basically a goner.
The sigh that leaves your mouth is long and dramatic enough to make your mother smile.
“Okay. Fine… I’ll go.”
The relief that floods your father’s face is so genuine that it almost makes the sacrifice feel worthwhile. Almost.
You hold up a finger before he can thank you.
“But I expect to buy a beautiful new dress on your dime.”
His grin arrives instantly. He doesn’t seem remotely surprised or concerned about the expense.
“Done.”
You narrow your eyes suspiciously. That agreement had come far too quickly.
Your father only looks more pleased with himself, leaning back into the sofa with the satisfied expression of a man who had anticipated every step of the negotiation before it even began.
And perhaps he had.
After all, his daughter might be a lawyer and a professional negotiator, but he had spent twenty-eight years studying her habits, weaknesses, and bargaining tactics.
In many ways, he was the only person in the world who negotiated with you better than you negotiated with everyone else.
------
The following evening, a sleek black town car waits outside your apartment building, its polished exterior reflecting the golden glow of the streetlights as the driver stands patiently beside it. The entire scene feels unnecessarily dramatic, which is exactly what you would expect from an event connected to football. Somewhere along the way, the sport had apparently decided that everything needed to feel larger than life.
The chauffeur moves toward the rear door the moment you emerge from the building, but he barely has time to reach for the handle before the opposite door swings open.
Your father steps out. You can’t help smiling.
For all the wealth and status and prestige that surround him, he has never quite mastered the art of letting other people do things for him.
His face brightens when he sees you and for a moment, he just stares.
The expression is familiar. It’s the same expression he wore at your university graduation. The same expression he wore when you passed the bar exam. The same expression he wore whenever you accomplished something that made him proud.
Only tonight you’re fairly certain he’s just admiring his beautiful daughter.
The black gown hugs your frame perfectly before flowing elegantly toward the floor, simple enough to be sophisticated and expensive enough to make your father wince slightly when the credit card bill eventually arrives.
“You look stunning, darling.”
A warmth spreads through your chest despite yourself.
“Gràcies, Papa.”
You step closer, reaching up automatically to straighten his bow tie. It has shifted slightly to the left, something no one else in the world would probably notice. Your father remains perfectly still while you adjust it, smiling softly the entire time.
“There,” you murmur. “Now you look presentable.”
He laughs. “Thank you for coming.”
The words are simple, but there is a sincerity behind them that softens whatever complaints you had prepared.
“I really am happy you’ll be by my side tonight.”
"Me too." You squeeze his arm affectionately. “And when you inevitably get kidnapped by hundreds of middle-aged fanboys who want to tell you where they were when Barça won some trophy fifteen years ago, you can find me at the open bar.”
His laughter echoes across the quiet street. The look he gives you says he knows you’re absolutely right.
Unfortunately, you are.
The moment the two of you arrive at the gala and step into the ballroom arm in arm, it feels as though half the room suddenly remembers your father exists.
People begin approaching from every direction almost immediately.
Former players, executives, sponsors, club officials. Men who have apparently spent the last decade waiting for an opportunity to tell your father the exact same stories he has heard three dozen times before.
Hands are shaken. Introductions are made.
Your father proudly introduces you at every opportunity, his arm occasionally settling around your shoulders as though he cannot resist reminding people that you are his golden child. For a few brief moments the conversations remain balanced, the guests politely asking about your work and your life before inevitably gravitating back toward football.
They always gravitate back toward football. Every single time.
You stand there smiling politely while listening to conversations about matches, transfers, tactical systems, club politics, and moments from seasons that happened so long ago they should probably be considered historical events.
The muscles in your face practically ache from resisting the urge to roll your eyes.
Eventually your father catches your expression.
His mouth twitches and a small apologetic grimace flashes across his features as another group begins steering him toward a gathering of board members and club leadership waiting across the room.
You simply gesture toward the bar. He nods in understanding.
You have performed this dance together your entire life. He gets absorbed into football. You escape. Everyone wins.
The bar occupies one corner of the ballroom beneath a cascade of crystal chandeliers, and you settle onto one of the empty stools before ordering a glass of wine. The bartender delivers it moments later and you take a long sip, grateful for both the drink and the temporary solitude.
From your seat, you can observe the entire room.
The gala is fully alive now. Clusters of elegantly dressed guests fill every corner of the space. Women in designer gowns drift between conversations while men in tailored tuxedos cradle glasses of expensive liquor. Laughter rises above the soft music playing in the background. Waiters weave effortlessly through the crowd carrying silver trays piled high with champagne flutes.
The amount of wealth concentrated inside the ballroom is honestly staggering.
You suspect there are enough questionable offshore accounts in attendance tonight to single-handedly support several Mediterranean economies. The thought makes you smirk into your wine.
Unfortunately, your solitude doesn’t last long. It never does.
You notice the older man approaching several seconds before he reaches you.
Expensive watch, expensive suit, and the particular confidence of someone who has spent decades assuming that women will be delighted by his attention.
You suppress a sigh. What exactly about sitting alone at the end of a bar while staring into a glass of wine suggests that you are hoping to be interrupted?
You brace yourself for whatever painfully rehearsed line he is about to deliver.
Thankfully, he never gets the chance.
Another figure appears seemingly out of nowhere, slipping smoothly into the space between the two of you before the man can even open his mouth. The movement is so natural and effortless that it takes you a moment to realize what has happened.
The woman leans casually against the bar beside you, one arm resting lightly on the polished countertop as she lifts a hand to catch the bartender’s attention.
“Sparkling water, please.” Her voice is warm and confident.
Then she glances toward you. “And another…”
The sentence trails off as she gestures politely for you to finish the order yourself.
“White wine,” you tell the bartender. “Please.”
Only then do you risk looking past her shoulder.
The older man has stopped several feet away, apparently receiving the message loud and clear. After a brief moment of hesitation, he turns and heads toward another bar on the opposite side of the ballroom.
Your shoulders relax immediately.
The stranger notices, a faint smile touches her lips.
Moments later, the bartender returns with both drinks. She thanks him before carefully taking your wine glass and handing it to you.
For the first time, you properly look at the woman who has just rescued you. And for the first time all evening, something about the gala becomes interesting.
“Thanks,” you say as your fingers wrap around the stem of the glass.
The woman offers a small shrug, as though stepping in to save complete strangers from uncomfortable conversations is something she does every day.
“No problem. I saw him making a beeline toward you and you didn’t seem particularly interested.”
You let out a quiet laugh at that.
“Yeah,” you admit. “Definitely not.”
Her smile widens slightly, seemingly pleased that her assessment had been accurate. For a moment neither of you says anything, the comfortable silence settling naturally between you as the noise of the gala swells around the bar. Conversations overlap across the ballroom, punctuated by bursts of laughter and the occasional clink of crystal, while somewhere near the stage a photographer calls for attention from a cluster of former players posing together.
The woman lifts her sparkling water in a small gesture of farewell and begins to turn away.
For reasons you can’t entirely explain, you find yourself stopping her.
“I didn’t catch your name.”
She pauses and glances back over her shoulder.
“Alexia.”
Just Alexia. No surname or explanation or attempt whatsoever to clarify who she is.
You find yourself studying her more openly now that you have an excuse to do so.
She is undeniably beautiful, though not in the polished, manufactured way so many people at events like this seem determined to be. Her beauty feels effortless.
Her dark hair falls loosely over one shoulder, framing striking hazel eyes that seem to miss absolutely nothing, while the understated elegance of her dress somehow draws more attention than the far more extravagant gowns scattered throughout the ballroom.
There is a quiet confidence about her, the sort that cannot be purchased or practiced in front of a mirror. She carries herself like someone completely comfortable being noticed, yet entirely uninterested in demanding attention.
Perhaps she notices your prolonged inspection or perhaps you’re just less subtle than you think. Because when your eyes meet hers again, there is unmistakable amusement dancing there.
“Alexia no last name?” you ask lightly, attempting to recover some dignity by shifting the attention back onto her.
The knowing smile that follows is immediate. The sort of smile that suggests she understands exactly what game you’re trying to play.
She merely nods.
You can’t stop your own smile from appearing.
“Fair enough.”
Extending your hand, you introduce yourself exactly the same way she had, offering only your first name and nothing else. If she wanted to play mysterious, you were more than capable of meeting her on equal footing.
The look in her eyes brightens instantly. The challenge has been accepted.
When she takes your hand, you’re struck by how confident the gesture feels. Her grip is firm without being aggressive, practiced without feeling rehearsed, and accompanied by steady eye contact that somehow manages to feel both professional and deeply personal at the same time. It reminds you vaguely of networking seminars during law school, where entire lectures had been dedicated to first impressions and the psychology of handshakes.
Yet nothing else about her suggests lawyer.
She carries herself differently, more comfortably and naturally. She is far too sun-kissed to spend every day trapped inside offices, conference rooms, and court buildings. And there is none of the carefully managed tension that seems to plague everyone in your profession.
Instead, she appears completely at ease within herself, as though she has long since stopped worrying about how others perceive her.
Your curiosity grows.
“So what brings you to the gala?” you ask, hoping to fill in at least some of the increasingly obvious gaps in her story.
Alexia takes a slow sip of her water before answering.
“I’m affiliated with the club.”
The response is so vague that it borders on parody. The smile she gives you is suspiciously innocent.
You stare at her. She stares right back, completely serious. Your head tilts slightly and her smile widens.
Before you can press for clarification, she smoothly redirects the conversation back toward you.
“And you?”
The challenge is obvious.
You laugh softly despite yourself. “My father is affiliated with the club.”
For the first time, genuine amusement flashes across her face. The corners of her eyes crinkle slightly. Touché.
The conversation continues from there with surprising ease.
What begins as polite small talk somehow stretches into something far more engaging, neither of you appearing particularly interested in discussing the things that should logically dominate a conversation between two strangers at a gala. Instead of careers or accomplishments or the carefully curated biographies that people usually exchange at events like this, the discussion drifts effortlessly toward entirely different subjects, as though both of you have silently agreed that those details can wait.
You compare childhood neighborhoods and debate which corners of Catalonia are still worth visiting before tourists inevitably discover them. You argue over the best cafés in Barcelona, exchange stories about terrible landlords and nightmare neighbors, laugh about absurd encounters with overly entitled strangers, and commiserate over the strange experience of returning to a city that once felt like home only to discover that it has somehow changed while remaining exactly the same.
One topic melts into the next so naturally that you eventually lose track of how the conversation keeps evolving. There are no awkward pauses, no desperate searches for something new to discuss, no moments where either of you scans the room for an escape route. Every answer seems to create three new questions, every story sparks another memory, and before long the noise of the gala has faded into little more than background static.
At some point you find yourself telling her about growing up in Barcelona before moving away, about how strange it felt watching your childhood disappear through the rear window of a moving car while every adult around you insisted that the next city would be an exciting adventure. You tell her about Germany and the endless struggle of learning a language that always seemed to have twice as many rules as necessary, about England and its relentless grey skies that somehow managed to make even summer feel overcast, and about the peculiar loneliness that comes from constantly arriving somewhere new only to know that eventually you’ll be expected to leave again.
Most people hear stories like that and immediately begin searching for opportunities to tell stories of their own. They wait just long enough for you to finish speaking before redirecting the conversation back toward themselves, eager to compare experiences or share an anecdote that proves they understand exactly how you feel.
Alexia doesn’t. Instead, she listens. Actually listens.
Her attention never seems to wander despite the chaos unfolding around you. She doesn’t glance over your shoulder searching for someone more important. She doesn’t check her phone. She doesn’t interrupt with stories designed to redirect the spotlight back onto herself. She just watches you with genuine interest, occasionally asking a question that reveals she has been paying far closer attention than most people ever do.
It is unexpectedly disarming.
You have always been a gifted storyteller. Long before law school taught you how to construct arguments and command a room, you possessed an instinctive understanding of narrative, timing, and audience. You know how to hold someone’s attention. You know how to make people laugh at exactly the right moment. You know how to guide a conversation wherever you want it to go and leave people feeling as though they arrived there naturally.
Yet with Alexia, you find yourself becoming unusually aware of that instinct.
You’re not even consciously trying to impress her, if anything, the realization sneaks up on you slowly. Somewhere between discussing childhood memories and trading stories about cities that never quite felt like home, you discover that you care whether she finds your stories interesting. You care whether she laughs. You care whether that attentive look remains in her eyes.
Every time her expression softens with interest, you find yourself elaborating slightly more than necessary. Every time she laughs, warmth spreads through your chest with surprising ease. Every thoughtful question encourages another story, another memory, another piece of yourself that you wouldn’t normally volunteer to someone you’ve known for less than an hour.
Gradually the rest of the gala begins to fade into the background.
The donors and executives become little more than moving shapes beyond the bar. Conversations that had once seemed annoyingly loud blur into an indistinct hum. Bursts of laughter rise and fall somewhere across the ballroom without ever fully registering. Even Papa, who had been the entire reason for your attendance tonight, slips from your thoughts entirely as the world narrows down to the space occupied by two bar stools and a woman with hazel eyes.
For nearly an hour, the woman who introduced herself only as Alexia somehow becomes the most interesting person in a room filled with football legends, celebrities, politicians, and people wealthy enough to purchase entire islands if the mood ever struck them.
And judging by the way she continues looking at you, as though every story is worth hearing and every answer only creates a dozen new questions, you begin to suspect she is finding you equally difficult to walk away from.
The announcement comes far too soon.
A man’s voice echoes through the ballroom speakers, warm and polished in the way that only people who spend their lives hosting charity galas seem capable of sounding, thanking everyone for their generosity before informing the room that dinner would be served shortly and asking guests to begin finding their assigned tables.
Around you, conversations begin dissolving. Clusters of people separate with reluctant smiles and promises to continue discussions later, while waiters appear as if summoned from nowhere and begin directing guests toward the dining area.
Beside you, Alexia huffs softly in irritation. The sound pulls a smile from you because it mirrors your own disappointment almost perfectly.
You hadn’t realized how much time had passed until now. Somewhere between discussing childhood friends and comparing favorite vacation destinations, an hour had disappeared without either of you seeming to notice.
Apparently neither of you had wanted the conversation to end.
Alexia rises from her stool with obvious reluctance, smoothing a hand along her dress as she glances toward the dining area where guests are already beginning to find their seats. For a moment she just stands there, as though considering whether there might be some socially acceptable way to ignore the announcement altogether and remain exactly where she is.
Then her eyes find yours again and without a word, she extends her hand.
The gesture is simple and effortless. Yet something about it makes your stomach do an embarrassing little flip.
You are perfectly capable of standing on your own. In fact, you have spent most of your life being fiercely independent, stubbornly refusing help even when you probably should have accepted it. Yet the offered hand feels less like assistance and more like an invitation, and you find yourself taking it before you’ve fully thought through why.
Her fingers close around yours warmly.
The contact is brief, lasting only long enough for her to help you from the stool despite the fact that neither of you actually needed the assistance, yet you become acutely aware of it anyway. The softness of her hand. The quiet confidence in the gesture. The way her thumb brushes lightly against your knuckles as she releases you.
By the time your feet are firmly beneath you, the moment has already passed. Still, the sensation lingers.
You hesitate for a second, caught between caution and curiosity, between the instinct to protect yourself and the increasingly powerful desire to see where this might lead. Normally you would overthink it and spend ten minutes analyzing every possible outcome before saying anything at all.
Instead, before your better judgment can intervene, you decide that being brave for once might actually be worth it.
“Come find me after the auction?”
The question leaves your mouth before you have the opportunity to reconsider it.
For the briefest moment, uncertainty flickers through you. Maybe she was simply being polite. Maybe she had enjoyed the conversation in the pleasant, fleeting way people often enjoy conversations at events like this, with no expectation of ever continuing them. Maybe you had mistaken friendliness for interest, curiosity for chemistry. Maybe the easy rhythm that had developed between the two of you existed only in your imagination.
The doubts barely have time to form before Alexia’s face brightens. The reaction is so immediate and so genuine that it erases every one of them at once.
“Yes,” she says, the answer arriving almost before you’ve finished speaking, as though there was never any possibility of a different response. “I’d like that.”
Something warm unfurls inside your chest.
It is an embarrassingly satisfying reaction, made worse by the fact that you cannot seem to stop the smile spreading across your face. For someone who prides herself on being composed, on remaining rational and measured and entirely unaffected by attractive strangers, you are suddenly doing a remarkably poor job.
Alexia notices. The amused softness that settles into her expression suggests she is having far too much fun watching you try and fail to appear unaffected.
Still smiling, you give her hand one final squeeze before finally letting go.
For a few lingering seconds, the two of you remain exactly where you are, standing beside the bar as though neither is particularly eager to be the first one to leave.
Eventually reality reasserts itself. Dinner, tables, responsibilities. The endless procession of speeches and fundraising and networking that accompanies every event of this kind. The evening begins pulling you in opposite directions, demanding your attention whether you are ready to give it or not.
Reluctantly, the two of you separate.
You take several steps toward the dining area before glancing back over your shoulder.
Alexia is already looking. The discovery sends an entirely unreasonable amount of satisfaction rushing through you.
For a brief moment your eyes meet across the growing crowd, both of you caught in the act, and neither bothering to pretend otherwise. Then she laughs softly and shakes her head before turning toward her own table.
You continue walking with a smile that refuses to leave your face.
The ballroom has transformed while you were distracted. The lights have been dimmed slightly, softening the vast room into something warmer and more intimate, while the enormous chandeliers overhead cast everything in a golden glow that reflects off crystal glasses and polished silverware. Elaborate floral arrangements sit at the center of every table, their carefully arranged blooms competing for attention with the designer gowns, tailored tuxedos, and enough expensive jewelry to fund a small nation. Around you, VIPs, politicians, former players, sponsors, and donors settle into their seats, conversations gradually quieting as the evening shifts from cocktails and mingling into the more formal portion of the program.
Your own table appears to contain precisely the sort of people you had spent the first half of the evening trying to avoid.
The executives are already deep into discussions about sponsorship agreements and broadcasting rights. A politician whose face you vaguely recognize from television is attempting to charm everyone within earshot. Two former directors are comparing stories from decades ago as though they personally built the club brick by brick.
You slide into the empty seat beside your father, offering the polite smile expected of you before settling comfortably into your chair.
As soon as you settle in, your father leans slightly in your direction.
“Having a nice time?”
The question itself is perfectly innocent, his expression, unfortunately, is not.
You know that look. The faint curve threatening at the corner of his mouth. The glimmer of amusement dancing behind his eyes. The unmistakable expression of a man who has noticed something and is enjoying the fact that you haven’t caught up yet.
Your own eyes narrow instantly.
“Yes,” you answer honestly, because there is little point pretending otherwise. “It’s actually been better than I expected.”
The smile grows enough to send alarm bells ringing somewhere deep inside your head.
“I thought you always said no footballers.”
You blink. “What?”
The single word leaves your mouth before you can stop it.
For a moment your father appears as though he might elaborate. His smile widens further, clearly delighted by your confusion, and you can practically see the response forming behind his eyes.
Unfortunately, before he can say another word, the foundation president steps onto the stage.
The ballroom gradually falls silent - conversations fade and heads turn. Attention shifts toward the podium as the evening’s official program begins. Your father is forced to abandon whatever explanation he had been preparing and straighten in his chair, his focus returning to the stage.
The moment passes, at least for him. For you, however, the damage has already been done.
You barely hear a single word of the speech. The president could be announcing the discovery of extraterrestrial life and you aren’t entirely sure you would notice, your brain is too busy replaying that sentence.
For as long as you can remember, those two words had been one of the few constants in your life.
No footballers.
The rule had first emerged when you were a teenager, born out of years spent watching football dictate nearly every aspect of your family’s existence. You remembered crying to your mother after another school performance where your father’s seat remained empty despite his best intentions. You remembered holidays interrupted by transfer negotiations and urgent phone calls. You remembered constantly packing boxes and saying goodbye to friends because football had decided your family belonged in a different country. You remembered loving your father fiercely while simultaneously resenting the profession that always seemed to claim the largest share of him, no matter how desperately he tried to shield you from that reality.
Football had given him everything. Football had taken a great deal too. And somewhere amidst all those years of airports, moving vans, and missed moments, a rule had quietly taken shape.
No footballers.
The rule had only strengthened with age.
When friends attempted to set you up with players, the answer had been no. When athletes approached you in bars and restaurants, the answer had been no. When people insisted you were being unfair, that you might be surprised if you actually gave one a chance, the answer had remained exactly what it had always been: no.
The specifics had never mattered - tall or short, blonde or brunette, funny or serious. None of it had ever been relevant.
The only requirement had always been painfully simple.
No footballers.
Which was precisely why your father’s comment now felt so suspicious. Because it hadn’t been random. Your father never said things randomly.
Not after decades spent navigating dressing rooms filled with enormous personalities, boardrooms filled with competing agendas, and press conferences where every word was analyzed from a dozen different angles. He observed everything. He noticed everything. Entire careers had been built on underestimating how much information he absorbed simply by paying attention.
If he had said it, there was a reason.
Slowly, your eyes drift across the ballroom. Toward the tables positioned near the stage. Toward the section where Alexia had disappeared after leaving the bar.
The realization begins forming before you consciously reach it.
Too tan to be a lawyer. Too young to be an executive. Far too comfortable in this environment to just be some donor or guest.
You had spent the better part of an hour trying to place her without ever quite succeeding. At various points you had convinced yourself she might be a doctor, something about her attentiveness and the way she listened fitting neatly into that image. Other times you had wondered if she was an entrepreneur, a foundation director, or perhaps someone involved with one of the club’s charitable projects. Her calm confidence, thoughtful questions, and complete lack of pretension had pointed your imagination in a hundred different directions.
Just not the correct one.
Because of course the answer had been staring you directly in the face the entire time. This was a Barça gala. A Barça foundation event. A room filled almost exclusively with people connected to football in one way or another.
Your stomach drops. The feeling is immediate and absolute.
Oh. Oh, shit.
Across the room, Alexia laughs at something someone says beside her, her head tilting back slightly as the warm light catches the features you had spent the last hour trying not to admire too openly.
And suddenly everything clicks into place.
The woman who had rescued you at the bar. The woman who had somehow made this entire evening enjoyable. The woman you had been looking forward to seeing again after dinner. Had to be a footballer.
The realization makes you close your eyes briefly and resist the urge to bang your forehead against the table.
Because after twenty-eight years of maintaining exactly one dating rule, after a lifetime spent insisting that footballers were categorically off limits, the first person to genuinely capture your attention in over a year had turned out to be the one thing you had always sworn you would never touch.
And the truly infuriating part was that the knowledge changed absolutely nothing about how excited you still were to see her again after the auction.
The eruption of applause around the ballroom drags your attention back to the present before you can disappear completely into your own thoughts.
You blink and straighten slightly in your chair as your father rises beside you, earning another standing ovation simply for existing.
The reaction is almost comical at this point. Years have passed since he last stood on the touchline at Camp Nou, decades since he wore the club’s colors professionally, yet the affection people feel toward him remains almost untouched by time. Executives applaud enthusiastically. Former players beam at him from neighboring tables. Wealthy donors who probably couldn’t explain a single tactical system clap like devoted disciples greeting a prophet.
Your father, meanwhile, looks mildly embarrassed by all of it.
The sight makes you smile despite yourself as he buttons his jacket and begins making his way toward the stage. For all the attention football has forced upon him throughout his life, he has never quite become comfortable being the center of it. The trophies and documentaries and statues and endless praise have somehow failed to cure him of the instinctive discomfort that always appears whenever people celebrate him too loudly.
As he climbs the steps toward the podium, your attention begins drifting around the room again. Toward the hundreds of guests seated beneath glittering chandeliers. Toward a woman whose charming smile has managed to completely derail your evening.
Your father reaches the microphone and immediately attempts to begin speaking over the applause.
“Thank you. Thank you.”
Eventually the room settles enough for him to continue.
“I’m so honored to be invited to speak tonight and to be welcomed back with such open arms. This truly is the club of my life, and I know I strayed away for a little while.”
Laughter ripples throughout the ballroom at the understatement. Even your father smiles.
“But Barça always has been and always will be my home. No matter where football took me, no matter what challenges came next, this club and the people connected to it remained part of who I am. I owe so much to everyone in this room, and I owe even more to the supporters who believed in me long before I deserved it.”
The applause returns briefly before fading once more.
You have heard variations of this speech your entire life. Different clubs, different trophies, different cities. Yet the sincerity always remains the same.
Your father was never particularly good at pretending to care about things he didn’t actually care about, which is probably why people trusted him so much. When he spoke about football, about family, about loyalty, there was never any doubt that he meant every word.
His gaze sweeps across the ballroom before eventually landing on your table.
Instantly, a familiar feeling of dread settles into your stomach. You’ve known that look since childhood. The look that always appears right before he embarrasses you in public.
“And I cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me and for my family. My beautiful wife unfortunately couldn’t be here tonight because of a prior commitment.”
A chorus of sympathetic murmurs rises from the crowd.
“But thankfully my wonderful daughter agreed to accompany me.”
There it is. You close your eyes briefly. The smile in his voice is practically audible now.
“You all know I’d be completely lost without her.”
The spotlight finds you immediately and the entire ballroom seems to turn as one. Hundreds of faces. Hundreds of eyes. Hundreds of people looking directly at you.
Years of practice save you and the panic never reaches your expression.
Instead, you straighten your shoulders, lift your chin slightly, and produce the polished smile that has been perfected through decades of public appearances, family photographs, charity events, and championship celebrations.
The crowd reacts exactly as expected. Applause breaks out throughout the room. Several people whistle. A few call your name.
The beloved daughter of their beloved manager.
You smile graciously while internally considering whether it is possible to legally disown a parent at twenty-eight.
Eventually the spotlight drifts away.
The sudden darkness leaves dancing spots across your vision and you blink repeatedly, waiting for your eyes to adjust while your father continues speaking somewhere above you. The words barely register. Something about community. Something about the foundation. Something about giving back.
Your attention is elsewhere.
As the dark spots finally begin fading, your gaze drifts instinctively across the room and immediately collides with Alexia’s. For a moment neither of you looks away.
The expression on her face is almost enough to make you laugh.
It's shock - pure, unmistakable shock.
The easy confidence that had defined every second of your conversation disappears completely as her gaze flickers from you to the man standing at the podium and then back again, her brows drawing together as she tries to process what she’s seeing. You can practically watch the pieces falling into place in real time.
The woman she’d spent the last hour talking to wasn’t simply attending with someone connected to the club. She was attending with the greatest manager to ever live. Who just so happened to be her father.
The realization unfolds across her features one detail at a time. First recognition, then disbelief, then understanding.
Suddenly every vague answer you’d given her begins snapping into focus. Every time you’d referred to your father as merely “affiliated with the club.” Every carefully sidestepped question. Every missing detail and intentionally incomplete explanation that had seemed amusing at the time.
You can almost hear the conversation replaying in her head as she reconstructs it with this new information.
And then, rather uncomfortably, you realize you’re doing exactly the same thing.
Because if she hadn’t recognized you, it means she hadn’t known who your father was when you were sitting together at the bar. Which means she hadn’t approached you because of him or stayed because of him or spent nearly an hour laughing at your stories because of him.
The realization sends unexpected butterflies through your gut.
Unfortunately, it also forces another realization to the surface. One that is significantly less comforting.
Because now that Alexia knows exactly who your father is, there is no longer any plausible explanation for how comfortably she had navigated this room, how effortlessly she had moved through a gala filled with football royalty, or why your father had immediately known who she was without needing an introduction.
Slowly, painfully, the final pieces click into place.
The confidence. The athletic build hidden beneath the elegant dress. The non-answers to your probing questions. The fact that she had introduced herself as simply Alexia and somehow expected that to be enough.
At the time, you had assumed it was part of the game the two of you were playing. A harmless attempt at mystery. A way of teasing each other while carefully avoiding the details that usually dominate conversations between strangers.
Now you realize it was something else entirely. Because even in a room like this, she didn’t need a surname. Everyone already knew it.
Your stomach drops.
The woman who had spent the last hour completely captivating you isn’t some reserve player or academy coach or random club employee.
She is important.
The kind of important that transcends introductions. The kind of important that allows a person to identify themselves with a single name and expect recognition. The kind of footballer whose face appears on billboards, whose jersey hangs in children’s bedrooms, whose name is spoken with familiarity by people who have never met her.
And judging by the slow, increasingly amused smile beginning to spread across her face from across the ballroom, she has reached exactly the same conclusion about you.
The two of you had spent an entire hour carefully concealing your identities from one another while unknowingly discussing everything except the one thing that connected you both.
Now, across a crowded ballroom filled with some of the most influential people in European football, you watch recognition fully settle into her beautiful hazel eyes.
And the worst part is that, instead of making her any less interesting, it somehow makes her even more so.
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Author's Note: New story idea even though I should be writing under her wing iii 🫣. I don't have an established storyline for this fic yet so if you have any ideas please share. I love and appreciate you all as always ❤️
