Page 11

Wednesday, April 19

I WAKE UP to a text from Niko. Come with me to take Loretta to the doctor today, it reads. We can tell her the good news.

I roll over in my bed and groan. I hate lying, and doing it to Loretta feels downright sacrilegious.

But it’s for a good cause, I argue with myself. A cause that could possibly save the club she loves so much.

Fine , I write back. Deb gets here to run the front desk at nine. What time?

Great , he replies. We can tell Deb too. 9:15 a.m. See you soon, princess.

Niko is punctual down to the second, and he strides into the club with a determined look on his face just as Deb’s setting herself up at the front desk. Even though he’s chauffeuring Loretta around, he’s dressed like he’s about to walk into Wimbledon: crisp white shorts, a white T-shirt, socks yanked midway up his calves, and sneakers blindingly clean.

“Hey,” I say, and suddenly I am unsure about what to do with my hands, my body, my face as he gets closer.

“Hello,” he replies, stopping to stand directly in front of me. He leans in, just a few inches from my face, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear before giving me a soft peck on the cheek. “You look beautiful today.”

Deb watches all of this with the attention of a rapt toddler in front of the TV and practically chokes on her coffee at his words.

His voice has just the touch of a growl to it, like there’s an honest layer of want behind what he says. His assertiveness is unnerving. Normally, I’m the chipper one in the morning, but the reality of our situation has thrown me off my game.

“Hey, you,” I mumble again, heart racing. Am I nervous to see him or nervous to lie about our relationship? Maybe both?

Deb dabs the corner of her mouth with a tissue and looks back and forth between the two of us, shock plastered across her face.

“Bex asked me out,” Niko explains to her with a shrug. “We’re dating.”

“After you asked me to play in a tournament with you!” I say, regaining my footing. “Get this, Deb—he’s crazy about pickleball. Obsessed with it.”

“Aw, not as obsessed as I am with you,” he coos, affectionally tapping my nose with his index finger.

“You’re so sweet.” I am hamming it up now, nuzzling against him as his hand curls against my cheek.

Deb focuses all her attention on me, still looking utterly perplexed. “Didn’t you just tell me that you’d—”

She’s thinking back to our conversation from the other day when I swore to her that I’d never pair up with Niko in any situation. I knew she was too smart to be fooled by this.

“We’re just seeing where it goes,” I say, hoping this sounds plausible. Niko runs a hand down my arm, lacing our fingers together. It’s a comforting gesture, one that I like more than I want to admit to myself. “Maybe it won’t go anywhere.”

“Let’s give it a month or so to see,” he says, giving my hand a squeeze.

“Yes, that sounds good,” I say back, beaming up at him with an absurdly huge smile. “And then if we still want to be together, we’ll have to do long distance once you leave.”

“My goodness” is all Deb says. “Does Loretta know?”

“She’s about to. Bex is going to take her to her doctor’s appointment with me, so we better run,” Niko says. “Come on, love.”

He pulls me toward the entrance of the club, and once we’re outside, I yank my hand away.

“Love?” I say, giving him a look. It’s not that I don’t like it, but it feels odd coming out of his mouth. And maybe, I realize, I’ve come to enjoy him calling me princess.

“Think she bought it?” he asks hopefully.

“I don’t know. Boomers are pretty good at sniffing out bullshit,” I say. “Which means Loretta is going to be on to us immediately.”

I move to open the car door, but Niko’s hand is there before mine, and he blocks me with the length of his arm. “One more thing,” he says, quieter now, as if Loretta might hear. “Starlight’s hosting a cocktail party on Saturday night, and everyone registered for the tournament is invited. Pick you up at seven?”

“Seriously?” I say, and it comes out like a nervous whine. I should have thought harder about what it would mean to pretend to be dating someone. A cocktail party was the perfect place to slip up, revealing our secret plan by accident.

“What, do you have some other hot plans?” he asks. “Bingo night? Walking to Target?”

“Okay, thanks a lot for somehow insulting both my social life and my shitty car in one fell swoop, you ass.” I step closer to the door, and this time he slides his entire body in front of it as he places his hands on my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It was a dumb joke. Let me try this again. Angela will be there to interview me, and it would be a big help if you came. Also I’m driving, and Loretta and Deb are tagging along. It might even be… How do I say this?” He scrunches his face in thought, like he can’t come up with the word he wants to say. “Fun?”

I let out a laugh at his performance. “Fine,” I agree. “Will you just let me in the car please?”

Niko pulls open the door, and I slide into the back seat. The second Loretta twists around to greet me, I feel the bubble of bile lighting up my stomach. I know Loretta; she’s hawkish and observant and doesn’t miss a beat. There is no way we’re going to pull this off.

“This is a nice surprise,” Loretta says when she sees me, eyes flitting across my face, already in detective mode. “I thought he was just stopping by to pick something up.”

“I was,” Niko says as he hops into the driver’s seat. “Picking up my girlfriend.”

For a moment, Loretta looks like she’s about to call our bluff, and then something in her face shifts, and she begins to cry.

“Oh, thank you, Lord,” she says, pressing the fingertips of her working hand to the corners of her eyes.

“Oh, Loretta,” I mumble awkwardly, reaching over the armrest to give her a loving squeeze. “It’s still very new.”

Her excitement is so palpable that it only makes the guilt I already feel for lying that much worse, and I try to push it aside by remembering what I stand to gain if we pull this off.

“Bex is going to teach me pickleball,” he explains as he drapes an arm over her headrest and reverses out of the parking spot. It’s hard not to admire how every movement of his body ripples with muscular strength. Maybe I don’t hate all that conditioning he does after all.

“Goodness.” Loretta’s staring at Niko, mouth agape. “Is hell freezing over? A girlfriend, and pickleball ? Are you sure you’re my nephew?”

Niko chuckles as Loretta reaches over and cups his cheek. “I’m not sure which makes me happier.”

“Hey now,” I gasp with exaggerated offense. I react to her words without thinking, like I really am dating her nephew and what we’re telling her is actually real.

“Oh, don’t worry, dear,” she says. “I’m most happy about the pickleball.”

She lets out a cackle, and I know she’s ribbing me.

When we finally pull into the hospital parking garage, a familiar sinking feeling hits me. When I’d shown up a couple of weeks ago to see Loretta, my adrenaline had numbed the anxiety I get from being here, but today it is overpowering.

We walk toward the front door, and I stall once we’re through the entrance, a moment so brief I assume Niko won’t even pick up on it. But of course he does. He’s eyeing me the way he does the ball machine on the court, like he’s five steps ahead and ready to pounce at any second.

“What is it?” he asks as Loretta shuffles along ahead of us.

“Nothing,” I lie. “I think I’m just going to hang out here for a bit.”

“Okay,” he says, giving me one more concerned look. But he doesn’t push it, and he says goodbye with a shrug of his shoulders and a tilt of his head. I watch him move down the hallway, athleticism evident in his every step. He’s going to grasp pickleball instantly, I think, as I study his stride. Something about this fills me with pride, but I brush the feeling off before I can obsess over it.

I circle the lobby for thirty minutes, staring at social media blankly on my phone until Niko appears, arms crossed in front of his chest.

That chest. That mouth. The things he said to me just a few nights ago. A shudder ripples through me as I relive it all again.

“Hey.” I give him a feeble wave and look back down at my phone.

He stops a few feet in front of me. “The doctor just sent Loretta in for an MRI to see how the scar tissue is doing. They’re trying to bump her to the front of the line.”

“Wow, you really get the royal treatment when you’re over seventy, huh,” I joke awkwardly.

“Well, brittle bones and all that,” he says plainly. “You wanna come sit in the doctor’s office waiting room? It’s going to take a little bit of time.”

I nervously flutter a sigh through my lips and begin twisting the end of my hair into a loose braid.

“I hate this place,” I confess, before I even consider who it is I’m confessing to. “This is where my mom came when she had her first seizure, where they found her cancer, all of it. This hospital is just like a giant trigger for all my trauma from the last couple of years.”

The creases that line his brow soften, and he reaches a hand out as if to comfort me and then pulls back quickly, like he isn’t quite sure what to do when no one else is around. Already the lines of our intimacy are blurred. That kiss sure as hell was real, but our new relationship is anything but.

How exactly do you comfort someone you’re newly pretending to be dating?

Niko is quiet for a moment, his eyes shifting over my shoulder before landing back on me. “You know, every time I’m in a hospital I think about fucking up my knee,” he says gently. “The way my career, my entire life, literally ended in a second.”

There’s a hurt edge to his voice, a prick of sadness mixed with something I suspect is anger. It is the most he’s ever said to me about his injury, and I keep my mouth shut, hoping he’ll continue.

“I know that doesn’t even begin to compare with what you went through, losing your mom,” he adds hastily. “I’m just saying, I hate it here too. It brings up a lot of stuff I don’t like to think about.”

“I really get that,” I say softly, genuinely touched by his words. “Thanks.”

“I think that’s why I was a bit of an asshole when I first met you here, when Loretta broke her wrist,” he says with a hint of sheepishness.

“A bit?” I tease, and he shoots me a chuffed look. “I’m just joking!”

“I know,” he says. “What I’m saying is, hospitals bring up so much stuff for me. And I’m sorry if I took it out on you that day.”

“Wow, Niko. Is this”—I lean closer to him, smiling, feeling a bit lighter—“an apology?”

“Shocking, I know,” he replies, and I can almost feel him unwind and settle into himself, shoulders relaxing, face at ease. “I’m also saying, I’m sorry for bringing you here. I should have thought about what it’s like for you to come back here. I can drive you home if you want and swing back and pick up Loretta.”

It’s such a kind and simple gesture that my heart swells.

“Nah, that’s okay.” I wave him off. “I can handle it for a bit. But thank you. I really appreciate you being nice about it.”

“See, I’m not a total asshole,” he says, smirking at me.

“Eh, that remains to be seen.”

Niko laughs at this. “Well, just don’t tell Angela.”

He says it like a joke, but I sense a hint of something sincere behind it. He wanders over to one of the beat-up purple plastic armchairs and sits down, patting the one next to him with his hand, trying to get me to join him. So I do, perching next to him as we sit in the quiet. Then I finally ask the question that’s been lurking in my mind since the night we concocted this plan.

“I need to know why this interview is so important to you that you lied—without my permission—to that reporter about us playing in this pickleball tournament.” I pick at my cuticle before looking at him. “It seems completely… I don’t know, random? Out of the blue? Unnecessary?”

Arms crossed in front of his chest, he stares into the distance, looking straight ahead without meeting my eyes.

“I think,” he says, slowly, “that when you lose everything that makes you you , it can be really hard to know even who you are anymore. Do you know what I mean?”

“Kind of,” I say softly.

“There’s just nothing else to me without tennis,” he says, and there’s something so sad about this that I physically wince at his words. “If I don’t have tennis, Niko Karras is just… nobody. Maybe I was just trying to sound more interesting. I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

I shrug. “It’s okay. I dragged myself into it, I guess.”

He gives me a half smile. “We’re like two opposite sides of the same coin.”

“Like pickleball and tennis?” I say, raising a brow.

“God, no,” he huffs. “Don’t get confused. Pickleball could never be on a coin with tennis. Ping-Pong, maybe.”

“Right, right,” I say, rolling my eyes at him. “So what I’m hearing then is you’re still a total asshole when it comes to pickleball.”

“Sure, if that’s what you want to think, Princess.” He gives me a sly smile as he kicks those long legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle. “But I’m pretty sure you’re starting to like me.”