safe in the wrong arms

The Smile That Gets Her In Trouble

Isabella's pov

The alarm went off at exactly five, and I let it ring for a full minute before I made myself move, my body staging its usual quiet mutiny against the idea of getting up.

I made it to the kitchen with my eyes still half shut, navigating the apartment on memory alone, and somehow didn't walk into a single wall. Small victories.

The routine was the same as always, except today it didn't quite hold together the way it usually did. The mirror gave me the truth I didn't want — dark circles settling in under my eyes, dark enough that no amount of blinking made them disappear. I never learned how to do makeup properly, so I did the only thing I knew: pressed a pair of ice cubes under each eye until the puffiness eased and the shadows dulled just enough to pass.

Good enough. It would have to be.

I locked the door behind me and swung a leg over the scooter, and it took its usual second try to catch.

"See?" I said, snapping my helmet closed. "I knew you still liked me."

The engine answered with an unimpressed sputter.

"That wasn't very convincing," I told it, and rode off anyway.

Barcelona was only half-awake at that hour — bakery windows glowing amber against the grey morning, a florist already arranging buckets of fresh stems outside her shop, delivery vans double-parked and blocking half the street, cyclists cutting through the gaps like it was a game they always won. For almost forty minutes I just rode, and it was the only part of my day that belonged entirely to me. No patients. No bills stacking up on the counter. No performing energy I didn't have.

Just the hum of the engine and the wind doing its best to wake me up properly.

By the time the skyline started to change — apartment blocks giving way to boutique cafés, glass-fronted gyms, storefronts that didn't post their prices — I knew I was close. I took my usual turn and slid into the same narrow gap beside the little grocery shop whose owner had long since stopped asking why I left my scooter there every morning.

I caught my reflection in the shop window before I moved. Flattened a loose strand of hair. Brushed invisible dust off my pants. Straightened my collar.

*No one will know,* I told the reflection, and hoped it was true.

The cab ride took the last twenty minutes, and I spent most of it looking out the window, thinking about the fact that the rest of the first team — captain included — would be in today. Yesterday, being in the same room as half of them had rattled me enough that I'd almost said yes to going out with one of them. I laughed under my breath at the memory. *Imagine. Another Enric.* Today, I promised myself, I'd be better than that.

---

I got there before Dr. King again, which felt like it should count for something. I laid out the schedule, got my tools in order, and once everything was ready, slipped off to the cafeteria alone — Priya and Sidney both had the day off, and for one selfish second I wished I did too. But nothing beat shadowing the senior physiotherapist, not even a day of rest.

When I got back to the testing room, Dr. King was already there, and my stomach dropped a little at the sight of him waiting.

"I'm sorry, I'm back a bit late — I just went to grab something from the cafeteria first."

He didn't even look up from the charts. "It's fine, Miss Russo."

I exhaled like I'd been holding my breath the whole walk back. It didn't matter that I hadn't technically done anything wrong. I still needed him to say it was fine before I could actually believe it.

"Take the schedule. Our players are about to start."

One after another, they came through — warm-up observation, joint mobility, strength and balance testing, rehab clearance, baseline documentation. I moved beside Dr. King the whole morning, watching his hands, copying the angle of his grip, memorizing the way he talked players through each test like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Then it was the captain's turn.

I was so locked into watching Dr. King work that I didn't register Luca had walked in until he was already sitting on the table.

Dr. King's phone buzzed, and whatever was on the screen made his whole posture change.

"Sorry, Luca, I have to step out — I need to get some baseline profiles to the coach."

"Okay, cool, bro."

"Miss Russo will continue for me." He pointed at me without missing a beat. "Take the strength and balance test."

"Me? Can't I run the paperwork over instead?" The words came out faster than I meant them to.

"No. I need to talk to the coach about something." And then he was gone, and the door was closing, and it was just me and the captain of Barcelona FC in a room that suddenly felt much smaller than it had two minutes ago.

I picked up the resistance band like it might shatter if I gripped it wrong.

---

"Are you always this quiet," Luca asked, breaking the silence while I looped the band around his ankle, careful, so careful, like his skin might bruise if I pulled too hard, "or are you just quiet with me?"

"No — I'm normally quiet." My hands didn't stop moving. If I kept them busy, maybe he wouldn't notice how badly I wanted Dr. King to walk back through that door.

"I don't know. I doubt that."

"Why would you doubt that?"

"I don't know," he drew the words out, teasing. "Maybe because you'd rather be doing errands than be alone in a room with me."

"That's not — it's not like that." I gave him the smile, the closed-lip one that came out on reflex whenever I panicked. "It's just my first time doing this without supervision, that's all."

"You have a very beautiful smile."

There it was. I knew this exact sentence. I'd heard some version of it a dozen times before, always right before a man asked me to dinner, always the compliment that meant something else was coming. I wanted my face to stay perfectly still, to give him absolutely nothing to work with.

Instead, heat crawled straight up my neck and into my cheeks.

"Thank you," I said, hating myself a little for meaning it.

"Are you sure you don't hate me?"

"No — never. Why would I?"

"I don't know." He shrugged, easy, unbothered, like the question cost him nothing at all.

"I don't hate you. Tell me what I need to do to prove that."

"Let me buy you dinner tonight."

And there it was the dreaded sentence, I feared.

I knew the outcome to this conversation the moment those words come out of his mouth, "You have a very beautiful smile." Yet I still indulged him.

Dr King, when are you coming back.

Oh Lord give me strength to reject him or change the topic to something else.

I prayed as I stared at the door hoping for any thing Dr King's footsteps, voice or figure, anything to remove me from this situation.

But nothing