𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗔𝗚𝗘
𝗀𝖺𝖻𝗋𝗂☀️ ─── 𝟤 𝗇𝖾𝗐 𝗇𝗈𝗍𝗂𝖿𝗂𝖼𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝗌

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
victoria malena castro
can i ask why the hell
one of my friends just
asked me how i feel
about my sister dating
jude bellingham?

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
huh
i know the same as u do

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
so you're not?

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
yes gab in fact i'm gonna
marry him next week
ofc i'm not dating him
you dumbass

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
chill we never know
when it comes to u
u barely even tell me
anything about your
life anymore

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
anyways
he did follow me on insta
and liked my post
and people went a little
crazy over that

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
istg these football players
i'll talk to him today at
training
i have to be there to
record some video for
youtube with them

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
don't scare the poor guy

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
i'm not
i'm just gonna tell him
you don't want him to
bother u more

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
GABRIEL WTF
leave him alone
he isn't bothering

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
why do u care what
i say to him

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
bc he seems nice so
don't lie to him

𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
c'mon
you think he is good looking
don't you?

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
he might or might not
be kinda cute ngl

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
i know u like the palm
of my hand

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
ñeñeñeñeñe
no one asked

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
listen
yk i told u no footballers
but you're not gonna
listen to me anyway so
and jude is not the worst tbf
seems like a gentle dude
with manners and all of that
plus his accent is kinda nice

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
do YOU like him or sth

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
i'm not gay
but if i was 🤭

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
anyway listen
you can come with me
today to training

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
no
i'm shy

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
then i'll lie to him

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
i'll go
i hate you so much

𝗴𝗮𝗯𝗿𝗶 ☀️
YAY
but careful with
the other players
they are nice
but you know

𝘃𝗶𝗰 🌑
right
see ya later brother

▎𝖢𝖨𝖴𝖣𝖠𝖣 𝖣𝖤𝖯𝖮𝖱𝖳𝖨𝖵𝖠 𝖱𝖤𝖠𝖫 𝖬𝖠𝖣𝖱𝖨𝖣
𝗦𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗔𝗬, 𝟮𝟵𝗧𝗛 𝗢𝗖𝗧𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗥

VICTORIA HAD CONVINCED GABRI of coming alone, in her own car, so he wouldn't have to pick her up. She had already parked at the Ciudad Deportiva del Real Madrid, and was waiting in the main hall for her brother.

Gabri had the bad habit of running late whenever the meeting wasn't too important, and the fact that he hadn't replied to her message telling him she was there let her know that he was still in the car.

"Who are you? Never seen you before," asked the receptionist when he saw her.

"Victoria Castro," she replied. "I'm just waiting for Gabriel to arrive. He's my brother."

"Do you have any form of identification to confirm what you're saying is true? You know, it's not that I don't believe you or anything, it's just protocol because we just have some people trying to sneak in every day."

Damn. She had left her ID in the car. During moments like this she wished Gabri wasn't always late.

"I can confirm you the girl is telling the truth, Rafa." A female voice behind her spoke in English. "She is Alfonso and Ana's daughter."

When she turned around, a woman who she thought she had seen the day before at the game was looking at the receptionist with an amiable smile. The man seemed to listen to her immediately and nodded, informing Victoria that she was good to go see the training session. Right after, he left the room to answer a phone call.

"I believe you don't know me," the woman said. "I'm Denise Bellingham, I recently got acquainted with your parents."

Hold on a second. She had guessed the day before that the woman would probably be a relative of one of the players, but she didn't know that she probably was Jude Bellingham's mother. What if she was aware of any of the gossips that had been going around social media for the past 24 hours?

"Victoria," she shook the woman's hand. "It's a pleasure, Mrs. Bellingham."

"Just Denise is fine, darling," she clarified with a small laugh. "The Mrs. title makes me feel old."

"Alright. Denise, then." She stood there for a couple of seconds, not knowing what else to say. "Thank you for helping me. I left my ID in the car and my brother is running late."

"This Gabri... Always the same with him." She rolled her eyes and laughed again. "Anyway, you don't need to thank me. How come you came to training?"

"Gabri asked me to," Victoria replied as she saw her brother outside, coming out of his car. "Oh, there he is."

"I should get going now, but see you around here, young lady."

Victoria bid her goodbye and Denise went past the reception, towards one of the fields of the Ciudad Deportiva.

Gabri walked through the door a moment after, arching his brows towards his sister as he pointed at the corridor Denise had gone through.

"Vic? Meeting the mother-in-law?"

"Shut up", she slapped his arm, telling him to lower his voice. "I haven't met her son in my life and you're already talking bullshit."

"But you will," he clarified, giggling like a teenager.

"For fuck's sake, Gabriel." Victoria rolled her eyes. "Why are you acting like you want to set me up with him or something?"

"It's only so you don't go back to your ex," he explained, with a goofy smile on his face. "I know you too well."

"I haven't talked to Fernando in like eight months and you still think that I will go back to him."

Victoria knew how much her brother hated Fernando. At the end of the day, he had hurt his sister, and he felt angry for allowing that to happen. The day of the break-up, Gabri had gone to her house to comfort her right away after she told him. Since it happened, the oldest Castro had never stopped expressing how much he wanted to beat Fernando up every time his name came up in a conversation.

"It's not that I think you will," he clarified. "But it's better to prevent."

The training session would have been boring to watch if Gabri wasn't that talkative. Thankfully for Victoria, her brother seemed to not know when to shut up, so at least there was some conversation going on during the two hours of training.

"Vic! How come you're here?" asked Alba when she saw her.

Alba was also a journalist for Real Madrid, and her parents were close friends of the Castro family. Eventually, after attending many dinners and both their families spending time together, the girls had started to get along.

Victoria found the way Alba and Gabri treated each other quite funny; they had become close friends ever since they started working together, but also spent all their time fighting with each other. She was almost sure everyone was aware they liked each other except the both of them.

"I'm trying to get her a boyfriend that doesn't suck," Gabri answered. "You know, I expected her to stay single until she's forty but when your sister has terrible taste in men you have to make sacrifices."

Victoria hit her brother on the arm pretty hard. After some complaints on his part, she looked at Alba and clarified:

"That's not true. You know how delusional Gabri is," she said, glaring at his brother. "And I don't have terrible taste on men."

Gabri arched his brows. "Be for real."

"Gabriel, leave your sister alone," Alba interfered. "But I'm curious now, who's this future boyfriend we're talking about?"

"Alba!" Victoria complained. "There's no future boyfriend. Gabri likes to make up stuff."

"Yeah, tell that to him," added Gabri, pointing to Jude Bellingham, who, thankfully, had his back to them and was focused on his training.

"Don't point! Are you stupid?"

Alba's eyes followed the direction Gabri was pointing at, and when she saw Jude, she turned her head back to her friends and her eyes widened.

"Jude?" Gabri nodded while Victoria energetically denied. "Didn't know Victoria was into British guys."

"I'm not. I don't even know the guy."

"So you're telling me you're not even a little bit interested?" Alba asked. Gabriel was going to answer for his sister but she shushed him. Victoria just shrugged. "That's what I thought."

"You know what? I'm going to the cafeteria. I've been here for two hours, I'm tired." Victoria stood up. "Good luck recording the video by the way."

"Whatever. It will only take like fifteen minutes." Gabri let her know.

"Alright, see you in fifteen minutes, then."

Liar. Her brother was a liar. It had been almost an hour, and he was nowhere to be seen. She had texted him, but had got no reply. She ended up leaving the cafeteria and walking through random corridors to see if she could find him. While doing that, she kept bombarding Gabri's phone with messages.

That and the speed she was walking at were exactly the reasons why she hadn't noticed a tall body turning around the same corner as her. Because of a lack of time to react, she ended up colliding with the stranger. She quickly took a step back as a pair of large hands captured her shoulders, making sure she didn't fall.

Victoria was already apologising in Spanish right before she looked up and abruptly cut her phrase off. Her eyes widened at the sight of Jude Bellingham, and noticed he'd had the same reaction, immediately taking his hands off of her shoulders.

"Sorry, Jude," she said. "Didn't see where I was going."

Wait. Why had she called him by his name? The embarrassment was quick to show on her face. It's not like it was weird to know his name around there; everyone knew who he was. But still, it felt awkward to do it.

Jude, on the other hand, was still surprised by the fact that she was there. He had seen her watching the training session, but thought she had already left around an hour ago. Her voice came up soft, with a slight Spanish accent when speaking in English, and she was even prettier up close. He realised it was weird to keep staring at her face, and decided to speak:

"No need to worry." That's where a normal conversation would have ended, but he didn't want to end it there. "You're Gabri's sister, right?"

She nodded. "Have you seen him, by any chance?"

"He's still there." He pointed at the entrance to the field. "Arguing with Alba, I think."

"They never stop, don't they?" she asked. "Thanks, I'll go talk to him."

He made a hand gesture, letting her know there was no problem at all. Again, he wanted to ask her one more thing before parting ways.

"Wait, are you gonna come to training? This week, I mean."

The question took her off-guard. Why exactly was he asking her that? Was it because it was his way to make small talk, or because he actually wanted her to go?

"Maybe," she answered. Before that conversation, she had no intention of going. But now... "Why?"

"I'd like you to come, if you have time, of course," he said, trying to seem confident. "We only train for one hour tomorrow, so we could have a coffee after, if you want."

Victoria felt how his words weren't completely settling in her head. She needed to think of a response quickly. But before she could even finish her thinking, a "sure" was already coming out of her mouth.

▬▬ 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒅𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 ▬▬
𝖴𝖯𝖣𝖠𝖳𝖤: 31/12/23
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