It's a Secret but, I Love You | Cristiano Ronaldo

Chapter 30

Half an hour of what-to-do-in-your-position drills zoomed by quicker than expected, usually they feel like ten minutes but today it was five along with the disturbing thought Cristiano had about Adrianna and if she had completely wiped their relationship from her mind. Maybe she's messing with me, Cristiano assumes as he pivots around with the football at his feet and heads towards Coach Celeste. She's not flirting with James, that's for sure— he's married to that volleyball player...

He heard someone excessively shouting his name from the stands, louder than the others and more obsessed with his attention. Cristiano slowly turns to see who it is and immediately flicks his head away after her realizes that it's one of his worse nightmares. His heart sinks to his feet when he recalls seeing an extremely familiar face not too far from the lady shouting his name. Knowing that if he were to pretend to not notice her he could potentially dig a hole deep enough to contain all of his trophies, Cristiano turns back and winks at Irina.

Cristiano's sweating bullets and swearing in every language he knows under his breath while Celeste is giving instructions and Adrianna catches him in his little mental meltdown. "Check that out," Anika tilts her head at Cristiano as she stands alongside Adrianna, "looks like he's about to erupt— you better help him out, Anna."

"Shut up, Anika, I'm trying to listen!" —whispers Adrianna out the side of her mouth— "I have nothing to do with him, it's over between us..." All the oxygen locked in her lungs escape as the words slipped away without a second thought. After everything Anna's been through with Cristiano, mall the carefree moments and memories never seemed to overthrow the few deplorable ones that always managed to sneak their ways into Adrianna's head. "...it's over."

"LaMarte, cut your babbling! Do you want to start this week or do you want to sit on the sidelines like a little wannabe bitch?" —Coach Celeste yells once she spots Adrianna's mouth moving— "Talking's not gonna get you anywhere either, Serrina!"

Anika tries to combat her coaches claim a.k.a., lie her way out of conditioning. "I wasn't even—"

"Serrina so you want to go play for Real Madrid?"

"What? They don't even have a women's team!"

"Exactly! You won't be playing at all!" Celeste says, then tosses her chancla at Anika. "Anyways, since we're not doing one-on-one and it's still a tad bit early to start scrimmaging, as an alternative, we're going to switch positions. I see you're all confused, as usual, so I'm going to tell you that you're definitely not gonna to like it."

Carlo joins in to help explain. "Basically, Adrianna's going to go train as a goalie and Cristiano going back to the position he played during his Manchester United days."

"Those are her early Chelsea days!" Celeste mentions. "How was it back then LaMarte?"

"Eh, it was..." Adrianna thinks back to when she was eighteen and in blue with Samsung plastered across her chest and large gloves protecting her hands. "...different. My coach at the time switched me from goalie to defense after about a year, then midfielder and wouldn't let me play as an attacker because I was 'too slow' and 'not aggressive enough'." Adrianna avoided mentioning the difficulties of being Portuguese and living in London, England and having to learn a completely different language.

"Different, huh? What about you, Ronnie?" Carlo asks and causes Adrianna to shift uncomfortably. Cristiano shakes back into reality and tries to ignore his girlfriend and one-nighter in the stands.

"I couldn't understand Sir Alex Ferguson and I needed a translator so you can already guess how it was for me." Cristiano chuckles as he remembers his teammates laughing at his horrible English and thick accent. He cuts his happiness short when Adrianna is in the corner of his eye and he can see the grim expression she bears as he speaks. It was pure coincidence that Cristiano and Adrianna both got signed to English clubs that just happened to have a bit of a rivalry.