The Late Bloomer 🌺
Pairing: Riccardo Calafiori x reader (y/n)
Summary: You spent your twenties surviving instead of living, only to find love and yourself at Arsenal when you met Riccardo Calafiori. But when ambition, distance, and timing pulled you apart, would you ever find your way back to each other?
Genre: smut, fluffy, fluff fic, romance
Warnings: nsfw, smut, minor dni
They liked to say beauty had an expiration date. By the time you turned 32, you'd heard it all. Soft warnings disguised as jokes, sympathetic looks that lingered too long.
If you wanted to be stylish, you should've started earlier. People figure themselves out in their twenties. It gets harder after thirty.
You smiled politely every time, because no one ever asked what it had taken for you just to survive your twenties.
In your early thirties, you lived in a small but sunlit flat in North London, close enough to hear matchday noise ripple through the streets like distant thunder. Your wardrobe was no longer a collection of oversized jumpers and faded jeans. Now it held clean silhouettes, tailored coats, colours you once thought were "too much" for you. Your reflection still surprised you some mornings, not because you were suddenly beautiful, but because you finally looked like someone who belonged to her own life.
That hadn't always been the case.
In your twenties, beauty was a luxury you couldn't afford.
You grew up in Sheffield, in a narrow brick house that always smelled faintly of antiseptic and overcooked tea. Your mother had been sick for as long as you could remember, longer than anyone ever admitted out loud. Hospital visits blurred into one another. Medications stacked up on the kitchen counter like unpaid debts. Your father worked two jobs, his hands always rough, his eyes permanently tired. Your younger brother still had homework to finish and dreams he was allowed to have.
So you became practical.
You dropped out of film college without telling anyone how much it broke you. You picked up freelance photography jobs: weddings, portraits, anything that paid. You learned how to stretch meals, how to smile when exhausted, how to put everyone else first. Clothes were functional. Make-up was a forgotten language. Mirrors were things you passed by without stopping.
When your mother died, quietly and suddenly, the house in Sheffield felt uninhabitable. Grief pressed into the walls. At 25, you packed your life into two suitcases and moved to London, not because you were brave, but because staying felt impossible.
London didn't care about your grief.
It demanded rent, resilience, and reinvention.
You found work at a photography agency, long hours and short praise, but it was a foot in the door. You learned quickly. You worked harder. You failed silently. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, you started choosing yourself in small ways. A haircut that framed your face instead of hiding it. A lipstick you wore just because you liked the colour. A coat that made you feel taller.
At 27, you landed a role at Arsenal Football Club.
It still felt unreal sometimes, walking through the corridors at London Colney with a camera slung over your shoulder, credentials clipped neatly to your jacket. You weren't just a photographer anymore; you were learning videography, branding, storytelling. Football was spectacle, and spectacle required intention. Image mattered.
So you learned.
You watched tutorials late at night. Asked questions. Let your more fashionable friends drag you into shops you'd once been too intimidated to enter. Your female best friend, Emma, who’s loud, loving, relentlessly supportive, nearly cried the first time she saw you properly styled.
“Do you SEE yourself?” she'd said, gripping your shoulders. “You were always there. You just needed time.”
By 30, people stopped seeing you as the tired girl in the background. They noticed your confidence. Your eye for detail. The way players relaxed around your lens. You were good at your job and you carried yourself like someone who finally knew it.
That's when Riccardo Calafiori arrived.
New signing. Italian. Young, composed, with an intensity that felt coiled beneath the surface. On his first day, the training ground buzzed differently. New energy, new expectations. Somewhere between filming interviews and coordinating media shots, someone tapped your shoulder.
“Hey,” a colleague said, lowering their voice. “Could you help him settle in a bit? Language, little things. You're half Italian, right?”
You nodded before you had time to overthink it.
Your mother had been Italian. Naples-born, warm-voiced, gone too soon. Speaking the language always felt like opening a door you kept carefully closed.
When you introduced yourself to Richy (his nickname), you did it in Italian without thinking.
His eyes lit up instantly. “Oh! Thank God,” he laughed, tension easing from his shoulders. “I was worried I'd sound stupid all week.”
“You won't,” you said, smiling. “And even if you do, we all do at first.”
Something shifted then. Small, almost invisible.
You worked together more often after that. Media days. Training sessions. Quick explanations whispered off-camera. He asked you about London; you asked him about Rome. You joked about food. About accents. About how strange it felt to belong somewhere new.
You noticed how he listened, not just politely, but properly. He noticed how sure you were behind the camera, how different that was from the way you spoke about yourself.
Neither of you said it out loud, but something was unfolding in the quiet spaces between work and laughter.
For the first time in your life, you didn't feel behind.
You felt right on time.
•••
Helping Richy settle into London became part of your routine without ever being officially named as such.
It started small, sending him voice notes translating emails, explaining unspoken rules around training schedules, warning him which cafés were overrated and which ones were worth the wait. You taught him how to navigate the Underground without looking like a lost tourist, how to order a decent coffee without offending the barista, how to pretend not to hear when fans shouted his name in places he least expected.
He repaid you with enthusiasm and honesty.
“London is beautiful,” he told you one afternoon as you walked back toward the media offices, “but it doesn’t hug you. It doesn’t feel warm.”
You understood exactly what he meant.
So when an international break finally gave you both a proper day off, you surprised yourself by saying, “You should come to Sheffield.”
He blinked. “Sheffield?”
“My family’s there,” you added quickly, as if you needed to justify it. “My Italian side is visiting. They’ll cook. Properly.”
That was all it took.
“Dio mio,” Richy said, eyes widening. “Real Italian food? Because I swear…” He stopped himself, glanced around theatrically, then lowered his voice. “Italian food in London is shit.”
You laughed so hard you nearly dropped your phone.
The train ride north was filled with his excitement. He asked too many questions, talked with his hands even while seated, and listed dishes he missed like a prayer. Ragù. Parmigiana. Pasta that didn’t taste like compromise. You watched him with fond amusement, something warm settling in your chest.
Your father greeted you both at the door like he'd known Richy for years.
Strong hug. Firm handshake. A careful, curious look that softened immediately. The house smelled like garlic and tomatoes and something slow-cooked with love. Your aunts filled the kitchen with noise, Italian spilling over English, laughter bouncing off the walls. Your brother Daniel hovered awkwardly, starstruck but trying not to show it.
Richy fit in instantly.
At the dinner table, your father raised a glass and, after a few sips of wine, began telling the story he always told when family gathered: the story of your mother.
“How I met her in Naples,” he said, smiling to himself.
Everyone burst out laughing, including Richy, who nearly choked.
“I kept saying it wrong,” your father continued proudly. “Naples, nipples. I didn’t mean to say it like that but I keep doing wrong. But she laughed. God, she laughed. She was beautiful. Still is, in my mind.”
The warmth in the room was overwhelming. Richy listened like it mattered, eyes soft, posture relaxed. He wasn’t just a guest, he was included. When one of your aunts leaned across the table and said, half-joking, “You know, Riccardo suits you very well. Very beautiful couple,” the room erupted again.
Richy grinned, unashamed, clearly pleased.
You smiled too but your stomach tightened.
“Oh no,” you said lightly. “We’re just coworkers. And he’s basically the same age as Daniel.”
Daniel groaned in protest. Riccardo laughed, but his eyes lingered on you a fraction longer than necessary.
Later, when the noise grew too much, you slipped out the back door.
The garden was quiet, cool air brushing against your skin. You leaned against the brick wall and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply, letting the smoke steady your thoughts. Old habits clung harder when emotions ran high.
“Hey.”
You startled slightly as Richy stepped outside.
“You shouldn’t be here,” you said quickly. “Go back in. And don’t come closer, this isn’t good for you. Athlete lungs.”
“I’ll survive,” he said, walking closer anyway.
You frowned. “I’m serious. I’m quitting soon.”
“Soon,” he echoed, smiling.
“Riccardo Calafiori.”
He stopped only when he was standing right in front of you, close enough that you could smell soap and clean laundry and something unmistakably him.
“I like this,” he said quietly. “Your family. This place. You.”
You scoffed, exhaling smoke to the side. “You’re just emotional because of the food.”
“No,” he said simply.
You waved him off. “You say that to everyone.”
“I don’t,” he replied. “I barely talk to anyone.”
You avoided his eyes and stubbed out the cigarette with unnecessary force. “You’re young. New city. New club. You’ll forget this in a week.”
He tilted his head. “Why are you pretending not to hear me?”
Because hearing him felt dangerous.
Because you'd learned too late in life that wanting something didn’t mean it was allowed.
You stepped past him, brushing his arm. “Go inside before my aunt starts planning our wedding.”
Richy watched you walk away, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips.
You thought you were pushing him away.
He already knew you weren’t.
•••
Everyone knows Riccardo Calafiori is leng.
It isn’t subtle. It follows him everywhere, on social media, in comment sections, whispered between people who pretended not to stare. At Arsenal events, the admiration was louder, shinier, dressed in designer heels and perfect smiles.
The sponsor party was no different.
The venue glowed with money and intention. Soft lights, curated playlists, champagne flutes that never emptied. Influencers clustered like constellations, orbiting players with practiced ease. Richy stood among them effortlessly, tailored suit sharp against his broad shoulders, his long hair falling just imperfectly enough to look intentional.
You arrived already in work mode.
Camera ready. Schedule memorised. Focus locked in.
You wore a long, dark green silk dress, simple and elegant eventhough you had options to wear your work uniform (t-shirt and long jeans).
Then you noticed the girls immediately.
Hands brushing his arm. Laughter pitched a little too high. Lingering looks that asked questions without words. You felt something twist in your chest: sharp and unwelcome.
“Don’t be stupid,” you told yourself.
So you stayed busy.
Filmed reels. Captured candid moments. Adjusted angles. Smiled politely when spoken to. You became invisible on purpose, a familiar habit from years ago when wanting wasn’t an option.
But Richy saw you.
From across the room, through bodies and noise, his gaze found you again and again. He barely heard what the women around him were saying. All he could see was the way the silk clung to you when you moved, the quiet confidence in your posture, the concentration in your eyes when you framed a shot.
“You're beautiful,” he thought not in the loud way people usually meant it, but in the way that made his chest feel tight.
He tried to catch your attention. A glance. A half-smile. But you were always turning away, always mid-task, always just out of reach.
The party blurred into its end, music softening, people drifting, lights dimming. You packed your equipment carefully, fingers slower now, fatigue settling in. When you finally looked up, the room was nearly empty.
Richy stood there.
Just him.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
Your breath caught before you could stop it. “Hey. Sorry… I was just finishing up.”
You stood too close without acknowledging it. The air between you felt charged, heavy with everything you hadn’t said. You could hear your own heartbeat, loud and disobedient.
“I wanted to tell you,” he began, then stopped, searching your face. “You look….”
You interrupted, too fast. “You had a lot of admirers tonight.”
A flicker of amusement crossed his eyes. “Did I?”
“Yes,” you said, forcing a light tone. “Very… popular.”
“I didn’t notice,” he replied.
You laughed softly, disbelieving. “Of course you did.”
“I noticed you,” he said instead.
Silence fell, thick and dangerous.
His hand lifted hesitantly, not touching you yet, giving you time to move away. You didn’t. The space between you shrank until your back brushed the wall, until his presence felt unavoidable.
“You always push,” he murmured. “Why?”
You swallowed. “Because I’m not… this. I’m not part of your world.”
“You are,” he said, voice low. “You’ve been in it since the first day.”
Your resolve cracked.
His fingers weave through your hair, tightening just enough to draw you closer. The moment his lips find yours, the rest of the world seems to fade away. He kisses you slowly at first, savoring every second, and the soft sound that escapes you only encourages him. His mouth moves against yours with effortless confidence, leaving your pulse racing.
You’ve never been kissed like this before, so intense, so consuming. Heat rushes through you as he pulls you closer, the dimly lit room shrinking until it feels like there’s nothing left but the two of you. Every brush of his lips leaves you wanting more, and he gives it to you, deepening the kiss until it steals the breath from your lungs.
Your eyes flutter shut as you melt into him, completely lost in the moment. One of his hands remains tangled in your hair while the other slowly drifts lower, his touch lingering as anticipation coils tighter inside you. When his fingers finally brush against you, a soft moan slips from your lips before you can stop it.
“hnggggh noo Richy”, The sound surprises you as much as it does him, and your cheeks grow warm. A faint smile tugs at his lips against yours before he pulls you closer again, as though he never intends to let you go.
The kiss happened like a confession neither of you had planned, slow at first, horny but uncertain, then deeper, fuller, charged with weeks of restraint. His hand found your waist. Yours curled into his suit, grounding yourself in the moment before it vanished.
And then reality rushed back in.
You pulled away abruptly, breath uneven, eyes wide with panic.
“I’m sorry,” you said, already stepping back. “I shouldn’t have, this is wrong.”
Richy reached for you, confused. “Why?”
“I can’t,” you whispered. “I just can’t.”
Before he could stop you, you grabbed your bag and hurried past him, heels echoing too loudly as you disappeared into the night.
Richy stood alone in the empty room, lips still warm, heart racing.
And you walked away telling yourself it was a mistake, even as every part of you ached like you'd just left something real behind.
to be continued….