Page 13

Saturday, April 22

“ABSOLUTELY NOT.” NIKO flings the T-shirt over his shoulder, tossing it at me in the back seat of his car like I’ve just handed him a scorpion. Whatever hints of playfulness I’ve seen in him over the last week have been replaced tonight by his usual hardheaded dickishness, and now I’m trapped with him and his handsome face for the entire night.

He parks in front of Deb’s house, and I use this pause to unbuckle my seat belt and slide into the gap between the front seats. I prop my elbows on the center console and lean as close as I can to him. I’m near enough to deduce from one inhale—and a quick glance at his still-damp hair—that he’s freshly showered, and a zing of desire pulses up my spine.

“It’s a prototype of the new T-shirt I designed. I wanted you to have the first one, honey .”

I dangle it in front of his face and then drape it on top of his head. Yes, the shirt is ridiculous. That is the whole damn point: grab attention with the slogan and then draw people in to the more important message directly underneath that reads SAVE SUNSET SPRINGS RACQUET CLUB .

I’m wearing a cropped version of the same shirt, looking like some sort of nineties raver Tweedledee to his uptight Tweedledum. Obviously, I’m no marketing executive, and I get that some people might find the shirt a little, shall we say, lowbrow. But I trust my creative instincts enough to know that it might also be maybe sorta brilliant, the kind of thing I’m confident I could convince both old-timers who love the club and cool Gen Z hipsters who hoard weird vintage stuff to buy. Repairing the courts is a short-term solution to a much longer-term problem: The club needs a ton of work, and even if we win this single tournament, I’ll still need a lot more funds to make it happen. Saving this iconic, aging landmark is something I hope to make universally cool and maybe, if I’m lucky with selling T-shirts, lucrative.

“I don’t think it’s exactly my style,” he grumbles as he yanks it off, ruffling his hair in the process. Loretta grabs it and unfolds it in front of her, letting out an approving “Ooooooh!”

“What do you mean? Lime green is your color.” I muster up the most obnoxious smile and send it beaming in his direction, even though he’s staring directly ahead, probably willing Deb with silent prayers to come out of her house and end this conversation.

“And,” I add, tapping him on the shoulder, “Angela will get to see what a supportive partner you are.”

“I would wear it if my teammate told me to!” Loretta chirps. “Especially if my teammate was also my girlfriend.”

“She’s—” Niko says and then quickly stops himself. He lets out an exasperated sigh and whips his head around to give me a scolding look, and I shoot one right back at him. Clearly, in all his childish irritation, he almost spoiled our ruse over something as minuscule as a freaking T-shirt, and as we discussed last night, we need to come together if we want this ridiculous plan to actually work.

Deb opens the door opposite me and slowly slides into the back, and I scoot out of the middle and into my seat. She’s especially bejeweled today—giant, chunky turquoise necklace and round purple glasses with lenses the size of dinner plates—with her phone attached to a small tripod she holds in her hand, a square light clipped onto the front.

“Good evening, kids!” she says as she scans the scene with her screen. Niko grunts a hello to her and continues his speech about the shirt I’ve made him.

“Theia, it says Big Dink Energy .” His voice is unfailingly patient with Loretta, always, and it makes me melt a little, even when he’s being so prickly with me. “Do you even know what that refers to?”

“I’ve known about it long before some young person coined the term,” she says pointedly, and I let out a chuckle at her spicy defensiveness. “Don’t assume that just because I’m old, I’m clueless.”

“And she knows me,” Deb says, smiling broadly from behind her phone. “So of course she knows what it means.”

I clasp a hand to my heart, letting my mouth drop open as if I’m wildly insulted by her words. “Oh, come on, Deb. We all know who has the BDE in this car. I’m right here.”

“I’m sorry, but there is no way in hell I am putting that on.” Niko lets out an irritated huff of a sigh as he reverses out of Deb and Maureen’s driveway. “Much less in public at a freaking cocktail party with a dress code.”

“But it’s our team name!” I say, and I can’t help but enjoy the fact that this, of all things, is irking him. Also, I’m genuinely curious about what he might look like in some color.

“It is absolutely not our team name,” he snaps back, white-knuckling the steering wheel.

“Hear me out.” I’m not backing down. Even though I knew the shirt would drive him nuts, I’m serious about him wearing it. “We need something that will help get us attention. Something that says, ‘Holy shit, former tennis stud Niko Karras is playing pickleball now! And at the very cool and very old and rundown and in need of financial support Sunset Springs Racquet Club!’”

I assumed this shirt would be a hard sell, but after last night, I thought he might give in more easily. But I am learning that Niko isn’t an especially easy read; he can fluctuate between hot and cold just like Sunset Springs in January.

“I never agreed to be on a team named Big Dink Energy,” he says, his voice back to icy calm.

And I never agreed to be on a team with you! I want to shout, but I bite my tongue. I’m antsy and anxious about making a good impression at tonight’s party and being trailed by Angela. When it’s just Niko and me, it’s easy to fall into a comfortable back-and-forth and not worry about maintaining this facade of coupledom. But we’re about to spend the entire evening with a reporter documenting our every move, and it feels like we’re starting the night off on the wrong foot, sniping at each other.

And then there’s the other realization that’s been plaguing me since I woke up earlier today and felt instantly excited to see Niko. There is a genuine part of me that enjoys spending time with him, whether it’s watching his competitive side flourish when we’re on the court together or bantering about stupid stuff. I delight in earning his discerning, hard-to-get approval, and deep down, I want him to like this shirt.

“Also,” he continues, “since when do doubles partners even have a team name? That’s not a thing .” He twists the fingers of his right hand into quotation marks as he keeps his other hand on the wheel in front of him.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t make it a thing,” I say, and then lean back in my seat, crossing my arms across my chest. “It’s pickleball. We can do whatever we want.”

I am talking about the T-shirt, of course, but I think I’m also talking about everything else that keeps bubbling up between us.

Never mind that he somehow looks extra tan, extra muscular, extra handsome, and extra everything tonight. I’m here to make Niko look good, so he’ll make the club look good, but all I can think about is that there is a six-pack lurking underneath that white polo shirt, and if he changes into the T-shirt I made him, I just might catch a glimpse of it.

I’m determined not to let the memory of his lips against my skin draw me back into more poor decision-making. As much as I crave the distraction, I also know it’s not the time to be focused on anything but digging the club out of this financial hole. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been constantly replaying that one incredibly sexy moment over in my mind every free chance I have.

Imagining the rough gravelliness of his voice when he said “You have no idea what you do to me” has been at the core of every masturbation fantasy I’ve had since I first dragged my fingers across the sharp line of his jaw.

And I’ve had a lot.

Niko shifts up front, like his legs are suddenly too long for the car and he can’t seem to get comfortable. It pleases me on some sinister level to see him squirm.

“Fine.” I take the shirt back from Loretta and scrunch it into the tote bag at my feet. “Wear your stupid white polo shirt tonight. But don’t come crying to me when all the cool pickleball kids on the playground tease you for your outfit.”

“Bex, I could give two shits about what anyone at this pickleball thing thinks about me,” he scoffs.

“Fine, but you should care what I think,” I mutter, and that gets his attention.

He whips his head around for a split second, but it’s long enough for me to catch that his dark eyes are somehow blazing with color.

“When have I ever given you the impression that I don’t?” He keeps his voice low, steady, but there’s a hint of something vulnerable there that I latch on to and turn over in my head.

“Whew, it’s steamy in here!” Deb says as she breaks down her little filming setup and tucks her phone and tools back in her purse. “You two must really be having some fun in the bedroom, bickering like that and then ripping each other’s clothes off.”

“Deb!” I exclaim, and I blush with embarrassment, even though we haven’t ripped anything off each other. Yet.

“Oh, please. What, do you think just because I’m on two different types of cholesterol medication that I don’t know what sex is? Or still have it? Tell them, Retta.”

“You can be sexually active long into old age,” Loretta lectures, and now Niko is downright writhing in his seat with discomfort. “In fact, some might argue that it helps keep you young.”

“Theia, please don’t,” he groans.

“It’s like a crossword puzzle but for your libido,” Deb adds matter-of-factly, and I choke out a laugh.

“Okay, I really don’t know how we got on this topic, but can we please get off of it?” Niko says, and I hide my face in my hands, laughing. I’m both loving this conversation and slightly mortified by it, but not nearly as mortified by it as Niko, who seems to be cringing at every word. It’s fascinating to see him like this, almost shy about sex, when he was so raw and verbal and dominant when we kissed.

“Your uncle was a real devil before he died, you know,” Loretta says, her voice deliberately innocent. She isn’t one to back down, and I now see where Niko gets his relentless determination from. Genetics are a powerful thing. “Insatiable, even.”

Deb lets out a howl of a laugh as if we couldn’t already tell how much she was enjoying this. “Sounds like someone had a bit of that BD—”

“Okay, time for music!” Niko cuts her off loudly as he reaches for the radio, putting on some godawful eighties station. But I can tell from where I sit, angled just off to the side of him, that there is a smile hiding behind the sharp line of his lips, and I smile back, even though he can’t see me.