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What’s trying to kill usright noware these stairs. My calves are screaming and I’ve got a cramp in my right shin, which is a pain I’ve never experienced before.

This game is going to go great!61

Especially since we’re all dressed like we’re about to play at Wimbledon.

When Emma had suggested this match—she and I were on the tennis team in high school—I’d made a joke about doing it in our “dress whites” to be on theme for the wedding, and she’d cooed and said this was a great idea and she was going to make it mandatory.

Oliver hadn’t been too pleased when we’d gotten the wedding invitation with the list of clothes we were supposed to bring, like one of those lists you get when you go away to summer camp. He’d hated wearing tennis whites at the snotty New England country club he’d had to attend as a kid, and said he felt like a six-year-old when he put on the shorts and polo shirt I’d found him on Amazon.

“I don’t know what to think, honestly,” Oliver says with a note of strain in his voice. “Seems like a lot is going on here that we don’t have a handle on.”

“That, I agree with.”

He lifts his foot over a rock and grunts.

“You okay back there?”

“Yes, yes.”

“We can’t lose this match.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“El’s super competitive at tennis,” Harper says.

“I’m aware.”

“No, Oli, like I meanseriouslycompetitive. Like I stoppedplaying the entire sport because if I played one more match with her, we probably wouldn’t be speaking today.”

“I’m not that bad, guys.”

“Oh, really? Have you seen the dance, Oli?”

“The dance?”

Harper stops in front of me and spins around on the stairs so she’s facing us. Then she does some version of what I think is now called the backpack kid dance, but back in the day, it was just the dance I did to celebrate a good point on court during a match.

Iwantvery badly to be able to tell you Harper’s version is an exaggeration, but that would be a lie. And though I might be a liar in certain circumstances—have I told you that yet?—I’m choosing the truth in this moment.

I did do that dance.

And Ilovedit.

“I was trying to teach you resilience,” I say to Harper.

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t blame quitting tennis on me. You hated it from the beginning.”

“You say so. All I know is, it’s a shame I quit because I look fabulous in this outfit.” She does a twirl, and the skirt on her white tennis dress flares out. Like everything about us, our matching outfits lookslightlybetter on her.

Plus, wait, is she wearing more makeup than usual?

Is this for Connor?

Harper’s never dated anyone I thought was good enough for her. I wish she had higher standards for herself. But she seems okay with coasting along in her romantic life.

That’s probably my fault.