The heavy, oak front door of the Cheshire mansion clicked shut, echoing loudly through the stark, cavernous foyer.
Natán Comas let out a long, ragged sigh, dropping his sleek travel duffel onto the polished marble floor.
He was entirely, profoundly exhausted.
The grueling flight back from Bucharest, the adrenaline crash from his Champions League hat-trick, and the relentless physical toll of Pep Guardiola’s high-intensity pressing system had left his muscles feeling like they were filled with wet cement.
He didn’t bother turning on the main lights.
He simply kicked his dark designer sneakers off by the door, padding barefoot through the quiet, empty house toward the kitchen.
He opened the massive stainless steel refrigerator, bypassing the highly nutritious, club-approved recovery meals, and grabbed a cold bottle of still water.
He walked into the sprawling living room and collapsed heavily onto the massive grey sectional sofa, groaning as his sore back hit the plush cushions.
He took a long gulp of the water, resting the cold plastic bottle against his forehead.
He reached into the pocket of his dark track pants and pulled out his phone.
The screen illuminated the dim room, showing a missed call from Kylie just ten minutes prior.
Natán’s exhaustion instantly receded, replaced by a warm, eager flutter in his chest.
He tapped the notification, immediately initiating a FaceTime video call.
The line rang twice before the screen connected.
Kylie’s face appeared on his phone.
She was lying in bed, the bright Californian sunlight filtering softly through the sheer curtains behind her.
She looked incredibly comfortable, wearing a simple white tank top, her dark hair pulled back into a messy, effortless bun, her face completely free of the immaculate, heavy makeup she usually wore.
She looked stunning.
“Hey,” Kylie smiled, her voice thick with genuine warmth.
“You made it home.”
“I am home,” Natán confirmed, letting his head fall back against the sofa cushions, angling the phone so she could see his tired but deeply satisfied face.
“It was a very long flight. Very turbulent over Germany. I thought the plane was going to fall out of the sky.”
Kylie laughed softly, shaking her head.
“You’re so dramatic. How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” Natán admitted freely.
“My legs feel like lead. But I am happy. Very happy.”
“You should be,” Kylie beamed, her dark eyes sparkling through the screen.
“A hat-trick! That’s amazing, Natán. I watched the highlights on Twitter. You were incredible.”
Natán grinned widely, the boyish arrogance returning instantly.
“Wait,” he said, suddenly sitting up straight.
“Hold on. I have to show you.”
He set the phone down on the coffee table, the camera pointing at the stark white ceiling, and scrambled off the sofa.
He jogged quickly out to the foyer, rummaging through his heavy travel duffel.
A few seconds later, he returned to the frame, holding two incredibly important items.
In his left hand was the sleek, heavy silver UEFA Man of the Match trophy.
In his right hand, cradled protectively against his chest, was the official UEFA Champions League match ball.
It was heavily scuffed, stained with dark streaks of Romanian mud, and covered entirely in messy, overlapping black Sharpie signatures.
He held them both up to the camera, a massive, undeniably proud smile splitting his face.
“Look,” Natán beamed.
Kylie leaned closer to her screen, genuinely impressed by the haul.
“Wow. That trophy looks heavy. And the ball… so you just get to keep the ball?”
“Yeah,” Natán nodded vigorously, turning the ball over in his hands to show her the mud and grass stains.
“If you score three goals, it is tradition. You get to keep the match ball forever. I even got all the signatures from my teammates who played,” Natán added proudly, pointing to the messy scribbles covering the white leather panels.
“They all sign it for me in the locker room after the game.”
“That was nice of them,” Kylie smiled warmly.
“Yeah,” Natán agreed, his brow furrowing slightly in genuine confusion as he squinted at one of the specific signatures.
“One of them said… ‘Shit guy finally scored a hat-trick.’ What does it mean?”
Kylie blinked, a sudden, sharp laugh escaping her lips before she quickly covered her mouth with her hand.
“It means you scored a hat-trick,” Kylie supplied smoothly, trying incredibly hard to maintain a straight face.
Natán looked at the camera, his dark eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“I think it means something else. ‘Shit guy’ doesn’t sound very nice. But I will take your word for it.”
Kylie giggled, unable to hold it in any longer.
Natán set the heavy silver trophy down on the coffee table, holding the ball in his lap.
“It’s when you score three goals in one game.”
“Three?” Kylie asked, her curiosity piqued.
“What about if you score two?”
“Double,” Natán answered simply.
“A brace. They normally just call it two, though.”
“Okay,” Kylie nodded slowly, tracking the logic.
“So, I’m guessing for one goal they just say you scored. What about four?”
Natán thought about it for a second, rubbing his chin.
“It’s just four. They don’t call it anything else, I think. A haul? I don’t know, I’ve never scored that many in a professional game.”
“Is that hard?” Kylie asked, her head tilted.
“Yeah,” Natán nodded solemnly.
“I no that good.”
Kylie smiled softly, completely charmed by his sudden burst of profound humility.
“Maybe one day.”
Natán grinned, placing the match ball carefully on the coffee table next to the trophy.
“We will see. Have you gotten your flight ready for Sunday?”
“Natán,” Kylie chuckled, shifting slightly on her bed.
“I have a jet.”
Natán blinked, entirely confused by the casual delivery of the statement.
“A jet?”
“Yeah,” Kylie nodded.
“It’s a private airplane.”
Natán’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.
He knew she was wealthy, she had a massive cosmetics empire and a reality TV show, but the concept of privately owning an actual airplane was staggering even to him.
“One of those big ones?”
“I’ve seen bigger,” Kylie replied modestly, though the subtle smirk on her lips suggested it was far from a small aircraft.
“How many people does it fit?” Natán asked, his curiosity burning.
“Like ten,” Kylie answered.
Natán immediately relaxed, waving his hand dismissively.
“Oh. Small plane. Reactor.”
Kylie paused, her brow furrowing slightly.
“What did you think I was saying?”
“The big planes that a lot of people fly on,” Natán explained earnestly, his hands gesturing widely to emphasize the sheer size.
“Like the Etihad Airways A380. The massive ones with two floors.”
Kylie burst out laughing, a loud, ringing sound that echoed pleasantly through his phone speakers.
“Oh no. No, I don’t own a commercial Boeing 747, Natán. Just a private jet. I got the flight already sorted, don’t worry. I’ll be in Manchester by Sunday morning.”
Natán smiled, incredibly relieved that the logistics were handled.
A sudden, bold idea popped into his head.
“If you want,” Natán started, his voice dropping slightly, laced with a nervous but eager energy, “you can come watch me on Wednesday. After our date.”
Kylie paused, clearly surprised by the invitation.
“Watch you play? Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Natán nodded vigorously.
“It could be fun. We play Steaua București again. The second leg of the Champions League. It is at the Etihad Stadium. I got one of those boxes.”
“Boxes?” Kylie asked, entirely confused by the terminology.
“Yeah, like at the games,” Natán tried to explain, his hands moving expressively.
“Private rooms up high in the stadium. With glass windows. You have food, drinks, nobody bothers you. No cameras.”
“Oh,” Kylie realized, a smile breaking across her face.
“A private suite. They have those in soccer?”
“But yeah. They have them. You can sit there. It is very nice.”
Kylie bit her lower lip, contemplating the offer.
It sounded incredibly intimate, a massive step forward in whatever this relationship was rapidly becoming.
But there was a glaring, undeniable flaw in the plan.
“I don’t even understand the game, Natán,” Kylie admitted freely, leaning closer to the camera.
“I don’t know the rules. I’ll just be sitting in a glass box for two hours watching men run around a field.”
“I could teach you,” Natán offered immediately, his dark eyes lighting up with genuine excitement.
“Okay,” Kylie challenged softly, settling back into her pillows.
“Explain it to me.”
That was all the invitation Natán Comas needed.
Much like he had done in the Romanian hotel room with his Civilization V campaign, Natán completely, helplessly fell into an intense, hyper-fixated flow state.
When asked to explain the beautiful game, he didn’t just rattle off basic rules; he delivered a passionate, sweeping oratorical masterpiece.
“Okay,” Natán began, his voice dropping an octave, his Catalan accent rolling thickly over the English words.
“The field is a massive rectangle. We call it a pitch. There are two goals, one at each end. The objective is simple: put the ball in the net without using your hands. But that is just the surface. That is just what you see on television.”
He leaned closer to the phone, his hands moving rapidly, slicing through the air to illustrate complex tactical movements.
“Football is about geometry, Kylie,” Natán explained, his eyes burning with intense, unapologetic passion.
“It is about creating numerical superiorities in specific zones of the pitch. You have eleven men. One goalkeeper, ten outfield players. You organize them into shapes. 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, 3-5-2. These are not just numbers; they are structural philosophies.”
He rambled on, completely lost in the intricate, fluid mechanics of the sport he had dedicated his entire life to mastering.
He explained the fundamental difference between a full-back and a wing-back.
He passionately detailed the crucial, unseen labor of the defensive midfielder—the ‘number six’—who acts as the unglamorous anchor of the entire team.
He broke down the offside rule using his water bottle and the TV remote on the coffee table as visual aids, demonstrating how a defensive line steps up aggressively to trap an attacking striker.
“And then you have my position,” Natán continued, his voice thick with pride.
“The winger. In the past, the winger just ran fast down the outside line and crossed the ball. But now, the game has evolved. Now, we are inverted. I am left-footed, but I play on the right side. This means when I get the ball, I do not want to go outside. I want to cut inside, into the center of the pitch, where the goal is. This forces the defender to make a terrible choice: does he follow me inside and leave the flank open for my overlapping full-back, or does he stay outside and give me the space to shoot?”
On the other end of the line, Kylie listened in absolute, mesmerized silence.
She still barely understood the tactical nuances he was enthusiastically throwing at her.
The specific differences between a false-nine and a traditional center-forward completely went over her head.
But she loved it.
She loved watching him speak like this.
When he talked about football, the boyish, slightly awkward teenager completely vanished, replaced by an incredibly confident, highly intelligent man who deeply, profoundly understood his craft.
His dark eyes flashed with an intense, captivating light.
And his voice, the deep, raspy, rolling cadence of his Catalan accent, drove her absolutely crazy.
It was incredibly attractive to watch someone so entirely consumed by their passion.
He kept talking for what felt like hours, detailing the exact, meticulous pressing triggers Pep Guardiola demanded, explaining how a synchronized team defensive movement could suffocate an opponent in their own half.
Finally, after an incredibly long tangent about the importance of half-spaces, Kylie happened to glance up at the digital clock glowing softly on her bedside table.
It was mid-afternoon in Los Angeles, which meant…
“Natán,” Kylie interrupted softly, her voice laced with sudden, genuine concern.
“What’s the time over there?”
Natán stopped mid-sentence.
He blinked, pulled the phone slightly away from his face, and looked at the digital clock in the top corner of the screen.
“1 AM,” Natán stated, his eyes widening in absolute horror.
“Oh no!” Natán gasped, scrambling frantically off the sofa, the phone jerking wildly in his hand.
“What’s wrong?” Kylie asked, laughing at his sudden, intense panic.
“Sorry, I got to bed,” Natán said breathlessly, practically sprinting toward the massive marble staircase.
“I have training in the morning. If I am tired, Pep will know. He’s going to be so annoyed. Bona nit. Bona nit.” (Good night. Good night).
Before she could even respond, the call abruptly disconnected, the screen going black.
Kylie lay in her bed, staring at her phone, a slow, incredibly fond smile spreading across her lips.
She was so confused by him, yet so utterly, helplessly enthralled.
He was such a bizarre, beautiful contradiction.
He was incredibly awkward in normal social situations, yet possessed a supreme, terrifying arrogance on a football pitch.
He was terrified of his manager, yet spoke about complex tactical systems with the confident authority of a seasoned veteran.
He was a multi-millionaire global superstar who panicked over his bedtime.