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The day was still young, and there was plenty more to do — calls to return, texts to answer, contracts to consider.But for now, he decided, he would allow himself to just be.
Ten days later, the world looked very different.
Francesco Lee had barely had a chance to breathe.
What began as a quiet morning in sweatpants and a mug of tea had turned into a relentless blur of flights, fittings, flashing cameras, handshakes, meetings in glass-walled offices, high-end restaurants, and perfectly staged Instagram posts. Jorge Mendes had said they would be "selective," and they had been — in theory. But even being selective meant a jam-packed schedule when the entire world wanted a piece of you.
The Sunday after Wembley had been a moment of stillness. Since then, it had been motion.
Endless motion.
Somewhere between London and Los Angeles, it stopped feeling like the off-season.
It started with a flight to Paris.
He and Jorge had flown out for a closed-door meeting with executives from Cartier and Hugo Boss. Francesco still remembered the way Jorge leaned back in the limousine afterward, sunglasses on, grinning like a kid who knew they'd won the raffle before their number had even been called.
"You see their faces in there?" Jorge said, nudging him with an elbow. "They're not looking at some flash-in-the-pan wonderkid. They see the real thing. You. The man who destroyed Villa. The one who lifted that cup. They're planning autumn launches around your face."
Francesco laughed, leaning back against the plush leather seat. "They should try putting me in midfield for a month and see if they still want my face."
"Doesn't matter," Jorge replied. "You're not just a footballer now. You're a brand. That's bigger than positions, kid."
The next day they were in Milan. Then Berlin. Then New York.
Each city felt like a dream — surreal in its own way. He did photoshoots in luxury hotels, sat on talk shows with international hosts who kept calling him "the boy wonder," and shook hands with CEOs who knew his goal stats better than some Premier League pundits. He wasn't sure how he felt about any of it. Flattered, sure. Grateful. But also quietly, constantly overwhelmed.
Leah helped with that.
She had flown out to meet him after the Paris leg, slipping into the whirlwind with the kind of calm confidence that made everyone — stylists, photographers, handlers — fall just a little in love with her, too.
They made a good pair, everyone kept saying. Football's golden couple. England's finest.
She made the chaos bearable.
Sometimes they'd sneak away from the bustle — after a fitting or before a gala dinner — and find some quiet little park or rooftop lounge where the noise felt a bit further away. Leah would lean her head on his shoulder and he'd forget, for a while, that there were a thousand emails in Jorge's inbox and that someone was probably negotiating his image rights in three countries.
Their Instagram stories told their own tale: stolen kisses in Paris at sunset, Leah in oversized sunglasses beside him on the plane, blurry selfies from green rooms and backseats and makeup chairs. The world ate it up. Every post hit a million likes. Every new caption — even the ones he barely thought about — got picked apart by blogs and fan pages.
One photo, taken in a quiet café in Brooklyn, ended up on the front page of a London tabloid with the headline: THE KING AND QUEEN OF LONDON.
He showed it to Leah over coffee the next morning.
"You're the queen, huh?" he teased.
She smirked. "Always have been."
Amid the photoshoots and contract signings, Francesco found himself in rooms that didn't look anything like the football world he'd grown up in — boardrooms, branding agencies, charity foundations, and, eventually, the place that felt the most surreal of all: Nike World Headquarters in Oregon.
He'd dreamed of it as a kid — not even visiting, just the idea that one day, maybe, someone at Nike would know his name.
Now, they were designing boots with it printed on the heel.
The campus itself was massive — more like a university than a company. Glass buildings spread out over manicured lawns, sports facilities that felt like mini-stadiums, and a level of polish that made Francesco's head spin. He and Leah were given a private tour, led by a soft-spoken design director named Callum who looked like he belonged on a surfboard.
The room where they finalized his signature boots was all white — sleek, modern, with mood boards and prototypes laid out like pieces of art. Francesco got to tweak the materials, the colorways, the placement of his number. They even let Leah sketch an initial for the inner tongue — "LW," in delicate script, hidden where only he would see it.
"Something for luck," she said with a wink.
When they presented the final prototype — a deep red and black design with gold trim and a carbon-fiber finish — Francesco just stared at them for a moment, speechless.
"You okay, mate?" Callum asked.
"Yeah," Francesco said softly. "Just… didn't think I'd ever see this."
Jorge clapped him on the back. "Believe it. These'll sell out in five minutes once we drop the ad campaign. Hell, Leah could sell a million of them herself."
"I'm not the athlete here," she said.
"Doesn't matter," Jorge said. "You're part of the story."
And then, amid all the chaos, Francesco did something that had nothing to do with business.
He called his parents.
Mike and Sarah had been back in London ever since the final — keeping a low profile, trying to give Francesco space as the media storm swirled. But Francesco hadn't forgotten them. Not for a second.
They'd missed his entire rise, in a way. They'd seen it, of course — every goal, every headline, every interview — but always from the outside.
He wanted to give them something of their own.
So he called them from the Nike campus, still buzzing from the prototype meeting, and said:
"I booked you both a trip to Hawaii. First class. Five-star hotel. Two weeks. Everything's paid for. You leave Friday."
There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds.
Then his mum's voice, barely above a whisper.
"…Francesco."
"You deserve it," he said. "You both do."
His dad took the phone after a minute, trying to sound composed. "We're proud of you, son."
"I know," Francesco said. "I just wanted you to… I don't know. Have something. A break. A real one."
"Will we still get Wi-Fi to watch your games?"
He laughed. "There are no games, Dad. It's the off-season."
"Well," Mike said, "we'll pretend there are. Make you a little tiki bar trophy if we have to."
Francesco smiled so wide his face hurt.
The days blurred together after that — a mixture of sunshine, press obligations, and precious downtime with Leah in their West Coast suite. She'd wake up early to jog through the trees, and Francesco would follow her an hour later with two coffees in hand. They'd talk about everything and nothing — childhoods, music, what they wanted their house to look like one day.
It felt like they were building something. Not just a moment in time, not just a social media fairytale — but something real.
One night, while sitting on the balcony of their hotel room with the Pacific glittering in the distance, Leah turned to him and said, "Does it ever scare you? How fast it's all going?"
He thought about that for a while.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Sometimes I feel like I'm running downhill, and I just have to keep going or I'll trip."
She reached over and took his hand.
"I'll run with you," she said.
Eventually, the ten days wound to a close. The final endorsement deal was signed in Beverly Hills — a limited collaboration with a fashion brand Francesco had once seen in magazines and assumed was out of reach. Jorge was ecstatic. The press was raving.
Francesco, for his part, was just tired.
Good tired, though. The kind that comes after something meaningful. The kind that means you've earned a rest.
Their last night in Oregon, Francesco and Leah ordered room service and curled up under a too-large duvet, watching bad TV and laughing too loud.
In the morning, he'd fly back to London.
The next day, the jet hummed beneath them as it cruised above the Atlantic. Francesco sat in a wide leather seat by the window, a mug of black coffee warming his palms, though he wasn't drinking it. Leah was asleep across from him, curled under a cashmere blanket, her head tilted gently against the window. Outside, clouds stretched in every direction, endless and soft.
Jorge Mendes sat across the aisle, flipping through something on his tablet with the casual air of a man reviewing empires. His sunglasses were perched on top of his head, his blazer neatly folded on the empty seat beside him. He was smiling — that slow, knowing smile he always wore after a deal closed or a headline dropped just right.
"You know," Jorge said, glancing up from the screen, "you've earned thirty-five million pounds in the past ten days."
Francesco blinked. He turned from the window, eyebrows raised, unsure if he'd heard right.
"Thirty-five?" he repeated, voice low, not to wake Leah.
Jorge nodded and turned the screen toward him — a neat summary from one of his team's accountants. Endorsements, licensing rights, early equity stakes in two startups, campaign bonuses. Even conservative estimates stacked higher than anything Francesco had imagined just a few months ago.
"You ran around for ten days," Jorge continued, "and now you can buy half of Kensington."
Francesco let out a breath, shaking his head slowly. "That's mental."
"It's smart," Jorge corrected. "And well-deserved. You earned this. Every handshake, every photo, every minute you stayed sharp instead of sleeping — that's what builds legacy. You're not just the golden boy on the pitch anymore. You're the face of a generation."
Francesco ran a hand through his hair. He was still getting used to all of this — the numbers, the names, the sheer weight of it all. Thirty-five million wasn't just a figure. It was a before and after. It was proof that his life was no longer on the same plane as the one he'd grown up in.
"Well," he said after a pause, trying to sound lighter than he felt, "maybe it's time to start looking for a mansion then. You know — let the world know Arsenal's golden boy's arrived."
Jorge's eyes lit up behind his glasses. "That's what I'm talking about. Big gate, long driveway, media room, indoor pool — we'll call some agents tomorrow. Hell, I've already got three viewings lined up."
Francesco chuckled, then looked back out the window. The clouds seemed lower now, the horizon closer. It didn't feel real. He thought about his parents sipping cocktails on a beach in Hawaii. About Leah snuggled under the blanket beside him. About all the nights he'd spent juggling training and homework in a shared bedroom, wondering if he'd ever even make the bench for Arsenal.
Now here he was. Thirty-five million richer. The face of brands he'd idolized as a teenager. A Nike boot with his number on it. A girl beside him who believed in him more than he believed in himself some days.
The plane dipped gently. Jorge tapped the tablet screen off and leaned back with a sigh.
"You know," he said after a long pause, "I've worked with a lot of stars. Big names. But you — you're different. Not just because of your talent. Because of your story. Your timing. Your voice. You're young enough to grow, smart enough to listen, and bold enough to lead. People can feel that. That's why they're throwing cheques your way."
Francesco didn't reply for a moment. He thought about that — bold enough to lead. It sounded good. Too good, almost.
"I just want to keep playing," he said quietly. "All this is great, but… I don't want to lose the football. That's where it started. That's where it's real."
Jorge nodded slowly. "Then don't lose it. Just remember — this world will try to turn you into a product. Your job is to stay a person."
They landed at Heathrow a few hours later, greeted by handlers and car services and a blur of familiar accents. The London air smelled different — cooler, busier, tinged with spring rain. Francesco blinked against the soft drizzle as he stepped out of the terminal, Leah stretching beside him, a soft yawn escaping her lips.
"Back to reality," she murmured.
Francesco grinned. "Yeah. Kind of missed it."
They drove through the city in a tinted black car, past streets Francesco had known since his academy days. Places where he used to run drills. Cafés where he and Leah had slipped in unnoticed just a year ago. Now, even the drivers at red lights craned their necks to look.
His phone buzzed. A text from his mum.
"Drinks on the beach tonight. Dad says hi. We miss you already. Also — saw your café pic on a magazine at the airport. You looked very tired. Rest, okay?"
He smiled and sent back a quick reply.
"Enjoy the sun. Love you both. And yeah — I'll sleep. Eventually."
By the time they reached the apartment, the sun had dipped low behind the London skyline. Leah headed inside first, tugging her suitcase along, kicking off her shoes with a contented sigh.
Francesco lingered at the threshold, eyes sweeping over the space that had once felt so new. Now, it felt small. Not in a bad way. Just… not quite big enough for the version of life he was living now.
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Name : Francesco Lee
Age : 16 (2014)
Birthplace : London, England
Football Club : Arsenal First Team
Championship History : 2014/2015 Premier League and 2014/2015 FA Cup
Match Played: 35
Goal: 45
Assist: 12
MOTM: 9