The match against Tuto FC was in a fortnight. This meant we didn't have much time to get used to Elliott's playstyle or get over the bitter defeat against Italia FC before we were off for our first major away match in a long time.

"There are going to be a lot of scouts over there," Coach Vance had told me after practice one day. "Put on your A game, Moretti. This can be huge."

And so, I was sitting at the back of the bus with the rest of the team, who had launched into a loud, off-key Italian song that was completely out of sync with the Bluetooth speaker blasting it. I joined in from time to time, but mostly kept my focus on my phone, where my dad had sent me multiple pictures of him with his new girlfriend. It left a bitter taste at the base of my throat.

We pulled up at a small hotel after about two hours. It was called, cheekily enough, The Basil, and was about fifteen minutes' walking distance from Tuto's stadium.

We finished our drills by evening, trudging back slowly to our hotel after a light supper at a roadside diner. Well, all of us except Elliott, who had simply sat in the corner staring at his untouched bowl of what could only be described as grass.

"The Prince isn't used to poor people's food," Rossi scoffed, nudging me as Elliott quietly reached for a bottle of water, completely ignoring his food. "Look at him."

It was true that he seemed to be having a hard time. He kept glancing around the diner, his eyes narrowed, his nose scrunching up whenever the waitress walked past us carrying food that smelled strongly of stale oil.

"You have to eat," I said to him once the rest of the boys had left the table. "You need the energy."

He didn't respond, his gaze fixed on the bowl, which was then cleared promptly by a disgruntled waitress.

Back at the hotel, most of us were lounging in Pippo and my shared room, watching a cheesy, old-timey movie on the television when there was a knock on the door.

"I'll get it," I grunted, getting to my feet and making my way over.

I opened the door to reveal a young hotel staff member holding a large bucket of water and cleaning supplies. Standing beside him was Elliott.

"Wh—?"

"Over here—" Elliott shoved past me into the room, pointing to the floor behind the bed. "Over here, and the tiles. The bathroom—"

He continued instructing the worker, who immediately got to his knees and began wiping the floor thoroughly.

"What the fuck?" Rossi murmured, glancing at me and then at Elliot. "Hayes, what are you doing?"

"The hygiene in this hotel is abysmal," Elliott said, his voice rising shrilly with each word. "I have taken a look at their cleaning supplies and found them inefficient. Hence—" He pointed to what I now realized were brand-new, high-grade cleaning products—soaps, specialized floor cleaners, and disinfectant wipes he had clearly sourced himself.

Teo groaned. "Who cares? It's fine. We are here for barely two days."

Elliott's eyes rounded comically. "That is forty-eight hours of being exposed to pathogens, Fernandez! You have already called in sick with the flu in the last couple of months, from what the team nurse told me. You of all people should insist on the highest degree of cleanliness."

He got to his knees, narrowing his eyes and squinting at some stains on the carpet.

"Man, we are tired. Just want to relax," Pippo groaned. He poked Elliot with the edge of his sneakers and repeated himself when he finally looked up.

"How can you possibly relax in this... this—" Elliott grimaced, his eyes darting frantically around the room, his nose scrunching up further as if he couldn't find a word strong enough to express his disgust, "—hovel?"

The team exchanged looks. Teo beside me shuffled his feet uneasily. The word landed somewhere under my ribs and sat there, hot. He didn't mean my apartment. He didn't know about my apartment—the damp patch spreading across my bedroom ceiling, the bucket under it in July. But he'd said hovel like it was a fact of the world, and my place was worse than this.

Elliott continued, his brow furrowed in genuine distress. "This is beneath the standard any professional athlete should accept. I have already contacted the concierge about relocating to the top-floor suites—I am staying there and can arrange rooms for all of you. The mattresses here have a firmness coefficient that will actively degrade your recovery."

"So grateful for your poor teammates' outreach program, Hayes," Rossi muttered, his fists clenched at his sides.

"I do not have such a program," Elliott blinked. "However—"

"Let's just get out of here," I muttered, sharper than I meant to. "I'm beat."

The rest of the team nodded in agreement, except for Rossi, who stood and looked Elliott up and down for a few long seconds.

"Hey, Elliott—" Rossi said finally, a grin spreading slow across his face. "Can we crash at your place till bedtime? Ours are gonna reek of bleach now, thanks to you."

"Oh." Elliott chewed his bottom lip before nodding curtly. "That does seem fair."

I watched as he reached into the pocket of his branded trousers, pulling out the keycard to his room. "You may use my facilities until yours are—"

"Thanks, man," Rossi said, cutting him off and grabbing my hand to quickly lead me out of the room.

"You seeing this?" Rossi shoved the keycard into my palm the second we hit the corridor, practically vibrating.

I opened my hand to see the heavy, frosted-black card resting against my skin. Unlike the standard plastic room keys the rest of us got, this one was made of sleek, brushed aluminum, cold to the touch and double the thickness. Embossed across the top in thin silver lettering was the hotel's emblem, followed by the words PRESIDENTIAL SUITE — TOP FLOOR ACCESS ONLY. It even had a subtle gold foil chip embedded in the corner.

"A five-star suite with a private balcony and a king-sized bed," Rossi breathed, turning the card over in the light like it was a holy relic. "And we get to sit in it. You know what a room like that costs a night, Moré? More than my dad makes in a month."

I decided against reminding him that Elliott had offered to get rooms on the top floor for the rest of us, too. Not that it would've made the uneasy knot in my stomach any looser.

"What are we gonna do up there?" I asked as we joined the team in the lobby, the rest of the guys immediately huddling around to gawk at the keycard.

"Enjoy it," Rossi said, like it was obvious, tossing a bottle cap up and catching it. "When's the next time you sleep in a bed that costs more than you? Come on."

Pippo's eyes were already huge. "Wait, we're actually going up?"

"He handed us the card, didn't he?" Rossi was already moving toward the executive elevators. "Come on, before he changes his mind."

I looked back once toward the third-floor stairwell, where Elliott was still meticulously supervising the hotel staff wiping down tile grout, oblivious. Something told me to stay. But Pippo slung an arm around my neck—"It's fine, fra, worst case his millionaire mum bails him out"—and I let myself be pulled into the elevator, the card cold in my fist.

The elevator doors slid open directly into a private entryway, revealing a suite so absurdly massive it felt like stepping onto another planet.

A collective gasp echoed through the group as we spilled out onto plush, floor-to-ceiling carpeting that practically swallowed our sneakers. The room was bathed in soft, automated ambient lighting. A wall made entirely of glass overlooked the glowing city lights of Genoa, opening onto a private terrace with lounge furniture.

"Holy shit..." Pippo breathed, his jaw practically hitting the floor.

In the center of the living area sat a massive sectional couch that looked softer than anything I'd ever laid eyes on, positioned in front of a flat-screen television so huge it covered nearly an entire wall. Teo immediately sprinted past me, kicking off his shoes mid-stride, and threw himself onto the king-sized bed in the adjacent master bedroom. He bounded up and down on the mattress like a kid on a trampoline, letting out a loud, echoey cheer.

"Look at this!" Teo yelled, bouncing higher. "The mattress actually molds to your back!"

Rossi marched straight into the en-suite bathroom, whistling through his teeth. "Guys, get in here. There's a shower with like... six different jet nozzles and a digital temperature touch-screen. What does a fourteen-year-old even need multiple shower heads for?"

"Probably the same one lecturing his seniors about the terrible state of their lives," Teo muttered under his breath. 

Before anyone could answer, a quiet chime sounded near the foyer, and an impeccably dressed butler stepped out from a side service area, white gloves tucked behind his back. He bowed politely, his face an unreadable mask of professional courtesy despite being confronted by a crowd of sweaty teenagers in tracksuits.

"Good evening, gentlemen," the butler said in smooth, refined Italian. "I am Signor Hayes's private floor concierge for the duration of his stay. Is there anything I can assist you with?"

Rossi smirked, taking a step forward and puffing out his chest. "Yeah. Elliott sent us up. Told us to make ourselves at home for the night."

The butler's eyes flicked over our matching club windbreakers, taking in Rossi's posture before offering a subtle, practiced nod. "Understood. The room amenities and room service charges are fully authorized under Signor Hayes's account. I shall be stationed right outside the main doors should you require any personal attention. Please enjoy your evening." He bowed once more and retreated through the heavy oak doors, closing them soundlessly behind him.

The second the door clicked shut, the entire room erupted.

"It's an open tab, boys!" Rossi roared, grabbing the sleek metal tablet resting on the coffee table. "It's all authorized! Anything we want!"

"Order the steak!" Pippo shouted, diving onto the sectional and grabbing one of three velvet throw pillows. "Get the caviar! Get whatever costs the most, I wanna know what it tastes like!"

Teo snatched the room service tablet from Rossi, his thumbs flying across the touchscreen as he scrolled through the luxury room service menu. "Truffle fries, wagyu burgers, fresh berry tarts, four plates of cured prosciutto—and ten bottles of the sparkling stuff!"

"None of us are ever gonna eat this shit again in our lives," Ricci yelled from the bedroom, delighted. "Order all of it!"

"Check the TV!" someone shouted.

The digital menu popped up, displaying a long list of premium pay-per-view options. Rossi grabbed the remote, and a wicked, giddy grin spread across his face as he scrolled straight past the blockbusters and stopped on the restricted adult section.

"No way," Pippo laughed, throwing his hands over his mouth as the purchase screen flashed bright blue. "Rossi, you can't order those!"

"It's the funniest thing I've ever done in my life," Rossi cackled, jamming Confirm. "Look, it just says CONFIRMED, oh my god—"

The screen flickered to life, loud, obscene audio suddenly filling the luxurious suite, and the whole room dissolved—Teo screaming into a pillow, Pippo doubled over, Ricci sprinting out of the bedroom to see what the noise was. It was so stupid, so loud, so completely deranged that a laugh punched out of me too before I could stop it.

Then Elliott's face flashed behind my eyes—him kneeling on the floor of a hotel he'd tried to get scrubbed clean for us—and the laugh died in my throat.

"Guys," I said. "Come on. Turn it off."

"It's harmless, fra." Teo flopped down beside me, breathless. "We're not hurting anyone. It's a bit of fun."

"He trusted us with his room." But it came out weak, and I knew it, and nobody moved, and I didn't get up to turn it off myself. I just sat there on the arm of a chair that cost more than my family's rent and let the knot in my stomach pull tighter, because getting up and unplugging it meant standing on Elliott's side, out loud, in front of all of them—and I'd spent the word 'hovel' sitting under my ribs for the last hour, and some ugly, small part of me thought: let the prince pay for it. He won't even notice.

"Nobody gives a shit, Moré," Rossi said, not unkindly, dropping onto the sofa. "It's not gonna touch him. He's not us. He doesn't count coins at the gelato counter. Relax. Sit down."

So I sat down.

Eventually the adult movie got switched out for an action film, which was somehow no less cheesy- and the room settled. The food came up on silver trays and got demolished. The adrenaline faded into the heavy exhaustion of a full training day, and one by one the guys began to doze off—Pippo sprawled sideways across the sectional with half a truffle fry sticking out of his mouth, Teo snoring softly in the master bedroom, Rossi out cold with his boots propped up on the polished glass coffee table. Ricci drooling into the silk pillowcases on the mattress.

I didn't sleep. I sat in the armchair by the balcony, the city glowing cold and enormous through the glass, and turned the metal keycard over and over in my fingers. I dozed off somewhere between thinking about my leaking roof back home and the gilded throne outside. 

Around 1:00 AM, the heavy oak double doors suddenly swung open with a sharp click.

I snapped awake, rubbing my eyes just in time to see the hotel manager, looking pale and sweating profusely, holding open the door for Elliott.

Elliott stood in the doorway, his pale eyes wide, holding a spare keycard he had evidently just requested from the front desk. "I was concerned," Elliott began in his precise, clinical tone, stepping into the foyer. "You had not returned my keycard after three hours, and my calculations suggested—"

He stopped dead in his tracks.

The hotel manager gasped loudly behind him. The room was an absolute disaster area: empty silver platters, greasy prosciutto wrappers, half-eaten wagyu burgers left on velvet cushions, spilled soda sticky on the hardwood, and the TV still softly playing credit reels from the pay-per-view orders.

The sudden light and voices startled the guys awake. Pippo sat up bleary-eyed, rubbing his face, while Rossi grunted in annoyance, shielding his eyes from the ceiling lights.

"What the fuck, Hayes?" Rossi growled, getting up and stumbling toward his shoes, visibly pissed at being dragged out of deep sleep. "You had to bring the manager up? We were sleeping." He yawned. "Just ring the bell or knock or something." 

"I tried," Elliot said, his wide eyes scanning the room. 

"Yeah, man, it's late," Ricci muttered, stretching his neck and refusing to look at Elliott as he quickly headed for the exit. 

Without another word, the squad brushed past Elliott quickly and quietly, as if somehow hoping he wouldn't see them. I gulped and ran after them, lingering behind in the hallway as the rest of the boys filed down toward the third floor. I looked back at Elliott. He was standing completely frozen in the middle of the wrecked suite, his pale eyes scanning the mess with a look of quiet, unreadable shock—left entirely alone to face the manager and clean up the aftermath of the room he'd offered to share.

With anyone else, it was easy to brush off. A harmless prank. We hadn't really broken anything or ruined anything. 

I could have stayed. I could have said it wasn't him, that he'd done nothing wrong, that I was sorry. But somehow, the opulence of the room, my own single-digit bank balance and the way Elliot's nose had turned at the 'hovel' we were living in, made the words die in my throat. 

I pulled the door shut behind me and went downstairs with the others.