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I would have known.

Right?

Yet here I was, punch drunk, schoolgirl stupid, worrying she might be able to feel the pounding pulse in my wrist each time she offered me her hand to step over a cluster of roots or down a slick boulder.

And I didn’t know what to do about it.

I didn’t even know if she was into me. I felt like one of those plastic idiots from the Valley who assumed every gay girl within their proximity had a crush on them. It was possible Dillon was just flirtatious by nature.

But even keeping that knowledge close at hand, it certainly didn’t cease my own captivation. More than once, I knew she’d caught my sidelong glances, and each time she did, I could feel the color rise to my cheeks—thank you, overactive autonomic nervous system—but it didn’t stop me from stealing another look. Her chapped lips, the wryness of her smile, the unusual color behind her intelligent green eyes—viridian in the sunlight, the irises tinged with blue, but jade in shadow, completely evergreen. I was taken by the ambiguity of her beauty—her high cheekbones and strong jaw, made only more attractive by the fluidity of her movement, the athletic command she held over her body.

But there was more to it than me simply finding her physically appealing. It was the way she made me feel, the way her unpretentious disposition put me at ease. She pulled me out of the Hollywood edginess which had grown over me like a defensive, rampant weed.

For the first time in what felt like forever, when her eyes caught mine, I felt like she was really seeingme. Not whoever La La Land was designing me to be. Not even whoeverIwanted me to be. Just me.

It was revitalizing.

Whatever game we were playing at, I liked it. Even if it was nothing. Even if, in little more than a day, I’d be home in Los Angeles and the name Dillon Sinclair would become a distant memory. For now, she was all that was on my mind.

The nightlife in Hana on a Monday evening was about what you’d expect of a sleepy island town. By the time we’d slippedand laughed and stumbled our way back to the main road, it had grown dark and the few local restaurants had closed.

I considered suggesting the resort steakhouse. The food was decent and the bartender made a mean mai tai—according to Dani—but we were drenched, covered head-to-toe in red mud, and I didn’t want to risk going to shower and having Dillon decide to call it a night.

Instead, walking along the beachfront, we found a food truck that still had a light shining behind the pull-down door.

Dillon tapped on the shuttered back window while I waited on the curb. I listened to the rolling inflections of her charming accent, followed by a man’s laughter. Ten minutes later, we were sitting cross-legged on top of a picnic table in Hana Bay Beach Park, eating Pineapple Kalua pork out of a takeout container.

“I googled you last night,” I said out of the blue, and immediately wanted to stick my wooden chopstick through my eye. What the hell possessed me to admit that? “I mean, not like—I’m not a weirdo, I promise. I just—”Jesus, Kam. Get a grip. “I just didn’t know much about triathlons, so...”

“Still double checking I don’t make enough money to call a solicitor, huh?” The full Hunter’s moon revealed her smile—which meant it also betrayed how embarrassed I’d become. Even though I knew she was teasing, I didn’t want her to think I’d been snooping. Which, obviously, I had.

“I hardly needed Wikipedia to tell me you could afford that,” I scoffed, trying to save myself, “the way you splurged on dinner tonight told me everything I needed to know.” I stabbed a pineapple from the shared plastic container, attempting to play it cool. “What I didn’t know, however, was that I was dining with sports royalty.”

“Ha,” the single syllable was self-deprecating, the wave of her hand brushing me off. “Triathletes are the black sheep of the sports world. Jacks of all trades, masters of none. Swimmershate us, cyclists laugh at us, and runners just ignore us. Ask a dozen random people what a triathlon is and only one is bound to properly guess the answer. And even then, they’ve only heard aboutIronman.”

She was selling herself short. A quick Google search brought up a wealth of information on Dillon Sinclair.

Twenty-eight years old—a short-course competitor—which meant she swam 1.5k, biked 40k, and ran 10k.

It exhausted me just thinking about it.

She turned pro at seventeen, competed in her first Olympics in London at nineteen—setting a record as the youngest triathlete to represent Great Britain—and placed just off the podium. Four years later, she won bronze in Rio, and last year, brought home a silver from the Melbourne Olympic Games. Every article I’d scanned hailed her as one of the most decorated athletes in the history of the sport. It was clear she was an icon in her industry.

Do you know who the fuck she ismade a little more sense now.

“You know,” I shrugged, hoping for casual, “modesty doesn’t really suit you.”

I didn’t even bother lying to myself that it was her career I’d been interested in. My intrigue had been focused on the “personal” tab of Wikipedia. Or more precisely, one specific topic.

She’d been linked to dating an English soccer player—Kelsey Evans.

Soccer was a sport with which I was well-versed. Having played through high school, I was an avid fan and loved to follow the success of our Women’s National Team. I wasn’t familiar with many of the players in Europe, but remembered Evans as a starter for England. A tall, blonde, gorgeous midfielder who’d been a key player for the Lionesses’ silver medal finish inMelbourne, it was putting it mildly to say she was something of a big name.

According to Wikipedia, along with a cursory search of fan mentions, Dillon and Kelsey had called it quits two years ago in the middle of the last World Cup. The timing of the breakup had been heavily criticized by the English football fans, who’d been stunned by the couple’s unexpected split after three years together—but I hadn’t allowed myself to sneak down that rabbit hole. It felt too invasive. Instead, I’d browsed through Kelsey Evans’ Instagram, where she’d amassed a few million followers, and taken note via her TikTok cult that she was now dating a USWNT legend, Abby Sawyer.

But on Dillon, there was nothing. Since her breakup with Evans, her online presence had entirely disappeared. There were no dish-all podcasts. No social media accounts. No juicy mentions of her personal life or who she was now seeing. The only thing a search generated outside her relationship with Kelsey was related to triathlon.

“Alright, enough about me. What about you, Kam-Kameryn? Are you going to tell me about your life in Hollywood?”