In the spotlight

4

Matteo Rodriguez

Once we settled into our reasonable-sized room with Marco, I put my suitcase on my bed. Since we were limited on space due to the booking error, we had to share a room with each other to save up space. Not that I was mad about it; this situation was better than coming back to an empty room.

I unzipped the huge case on my bed, revealing different kinds of clothes and other stuff. I picked out a white oversized shirt with the Real Madrid logo on the upper left side around my shoulder and some blue shorts. I fished out my training shoes and paired them with some white Nike socks, and that's it.

I brushed my brown hair back with my hands as I ran through it, spraying some deodorant on me since we were about to get sweaty in the gym. This phrase sounded better in my head.

"Ready?" Marco looked up at me after he straightened up, dressed similarly to me. I nodded in agreement and was the first to open the door to step out when I found myself facing Vini. He was standing in front of the wall on the other side of the corridor, leaning against the concrete with his hands crossed.

"Finally done with your makeup, ladies?" he asked cheerfully, referring to us needing more time to get ready since we wanted to look around in our room. I rolled my eyes in annoyance as Marco walked past us, stopping the elevator from going down before we could enter.

"We looked around before getting ready." I explained to him as we walked to the elevator side by side. It was all empty when we got in, and we wondered how we hadn't met anyone else since we got here. As if nobody has ever made a mistake in the booking.

"Which floor do we even need to go to?" Marco looked around cluelessly inside the cabin, knowing damn well that if he didn't know the destination, how could we help him out? I shrugged my shoulders, and Vini shook his head. Marco was about to press the ground floor button when the doors suddenly closed, and we started going up to the 6th floor. Great.

The doors opened again after a few seconds, and we found ourselves in front of a tall guy who entered the cabin without saying a single word. He had brown hair and a sharp jawline; just by his standing, I instantly knew that he was one of the models. Both of my friends realized the same as I looked at them, not daring to say a word in front of him. Coach's little speech did wonders for what it looks like.

"Which floor?" He looked back at us, all three of us looking back at him with pursed lips, looking back, walking on eggshells. He can end our career with a single word, after all. To our surprise, he rolled his eyes with a small smile on his face.

"I ain't gonna say shit to my boss, don't worry. I heard about your instructions." He mumbled and leaned against the cold metal wall of the cabin. We sighed out of relief after hearing this, and the tension in the air surrounding us disappeared at once.

"We are going to the gym just don't know where it is." I explained to him as he carelessly pressed the ground floor button where we wanted to go originally. The door slowly closed in front of us, and we felt it as the elevator started descending.

The little trip downstairs passed quickly; nobody said a single word after our small conversation. I thought about introducing myself to him, but I didn't want to appear as a desparate individual, and I especially didn't want him to think that I wanted to harass him in any way. So I stayed quiet instead.

"Follow me." The unknown guy beckoned with his right hand and exited the elevator first. I looked at Marco, and he looked back at me in confusion, but we did as we were told and followed him in silence.

We passed the receptionist desk and the main lobby, then took a sharp right turn, which led us into a smaller corridor. There was a door at the end of the corridor, and as we approached, we heard soft music escaping from behind the door with two small windows on each side.