Page 17

Thursday, May 4

“ALL I KNOW is that when I went to pick up my blood pressure meds at the pharmacy the other day, he wouldn’t stop flirting with me. He even asked me if I needed him to go over the medication. I’ve been on it for years!”

Maureen gives the rest of us a knowing look. Our book club pick for the month, a meaty thriller with a creepy, blood-dripping cover, sits on the coffee table in front of her, untouched.

“But Thad is well aware that we’re a couple! We always go in there together to pick up prescriptions,” Deb exclaims, before chomping down on a carrot stick. She chews for a second and then gasps. “Maybe he’s interested in both of us. Do we think he’s poly?”

“Oh my god, not this again.” I groan, but it’s followed by a giggle. I love these book club conversations and the way they always seem to veer into Deb wondering about the sexual proclivities of everyone in Sunset Springs.

It only took a few minutes of my first book club meeting with Loretta, Deb, and Maureen for me to realize the truth: This book club isn’t about books. Not one bit.

Oh sure, we talk about all sorts of things, like the latest house to sell for way over asking price despite its lackluster curb appeal or whether or not Costco has put their holiday items out for sale way too early (a unanimous yes). And we trade cross-generational information. I broke down my personal rankings of the Housewives franchises, and Loretta pontificated on the universal sex appeal of Bruce Springsteen.

Sure, I tried to read the books we picked, especially if I got lucky with a library request coming in on time. But I knew each month when I set foot in Loretta’s living room with our selection tucked under my arm that I wouldn’t crack it open to discuss a scene, much less even mention the main character’s name.

But the dating status of the recently widowed pharmacist in town? We could spend an hour on it, easily.

“You need to get hip with the kids, Bex,” Deb jokes. “Everyone’s dating multiple people at once these days, even us boomers.”

“Bruce Springsteen isn’t,” Loretta adds from her perch on the couch. She always found a way to bring the conversation back around to the Boss. “He and Patti have been together for something like thirty years. Did you know when I went to his concert a couple of years ago, it was almost three hours long?”

“You know what that means,” Maureen cracks as she tosses back a handful of marcona almonds. “Stamina.”

“I bet Patti knows all about it,” Loretta says, causing the rest of us to erupt in a fit of cackling laughter.

“Deb, you should make this into a video for your TikTok,” I say as I start clearing plates off the coffee table, carrying them into the kitchen. “I think the teens would love this horny group dissecting the prowess of Bruce Springsteen. You’d go viral.”

She considers it for a moment as she sips her peppermint tea. “It’s not half bad. I’ll add it to my list.”

I bring the dishes to the sink and flip on the water as Maureen pipes up with another idea for her wife’s blooming internet presence. The sound of their banter blends in with the steady stream of the faucet, forming a sort of soothing lullaby of sound. I settle into my task, rinsing one dish after the other as my eyes focus on the giant window in front of me, just over the small pots of succulents that line the inside sill.

Directly in front of me, a few yards away, is Loretta’s small carriage house, where Niko has been living. One square of window shines with light, which I take to mean he’s home, just steps away from me. A million different scenarios flood my mind, snapshots of his life contained inside those walls. Niko puttering around the kitchen in pajamas, chopping vegetables for a salad, or wandering out of the bathroom, still wet from the shower with a towel slung around his waist.

There are so many parts of his life I know nothing about, and I can’t help myself: I’m instantly curious.

How many pillows does he sleep with? Does he use a special face wash, or just whatever bar of soap Loretta has next to the sink?

Get a hold of yourself, Bex , I think, shutting off the water. I reach for the fuchsia towel hanging off a hook on the wall and begin drying the wineglasses resting on the dish rack, taking my time to slowly clean out the hollow of each cup.

Anything to distract myself.

Maybe he’s one of those people who doesn’t sleep with any pillows at all.

Clearly, it isn’t working. Trying not to think about Niko in there is as impossible as ignoring the urge to scratch a fresh mosquito bite. A different plan is needed.

“Hey, Retta, do you think it would be okay if I stopped by and said hi to Niko?”

All three of them pause, mid-conversation, and look up at me. I can tell that they are collectively biting their tongues, holding back whatever witty comments they are surely dying to make about our “relationship.” And frankly, I don’t blame them. It’s been just over two weeks since he and I announced our newfound love affair out of the blue, and they’ve been shockingly restrained.

“Of course, dear,” Loretta replies with a nod. “I’m sure he’d love to see you.”

I wait, dragging the cloth along the lip of the glass as I watch the three of them, anticipating the one-liners I’m sure they’ve been dying to say. Still, nothing.

“Oh, come on,” I say finally. “Not one of you is going to make a joke about the two of us? Did you all sign some pact agreeing not to joke about Niko and me?”

Deb shakes her head. “No jokes here. We’re all happy for you.”

Maureen nods. “I think we all agree that a little romance might be good for you.”

“So you’ve all been talking about us?” I ask, and the three of them straight-up beam.

“We’re excited for you,” Loretta says, and then adds, “both of you.”

A full-body flush sweeps over me, the burn of self-consciousness from knowing we’d been a topic of conversation. Even though our relationship is a facade, the giddy sheepishness I feel anytime Niko’s name comes up is genuine.

“I was just going to bring him some of the cookies I brought,” I say as an excuse, even though the idea popped into my head seconds before the words left my mouth.

“You deserve some love in your life, Bex,” says Deb, and the others nod in agreement. I can’t take the weight of their gaze, their genuine happiness for me. It’s hard enough to recognize how badly they want this for me. But it’s another thing altogether to sit with an even more uncomfortable truth: It’s something I want for myself too.

Not with a pretend boyfriend whose time in Sunset Springs has a very real end date. And not now, when I can barely keep the club afloat, much less anything else. But someday. Soon.

I run the dishrag over the countertop and then grab the half-full plastic container of oatmeal raisin cookies. “I’m just going to say a quick hi,” I explain. “Don’t leave without me.”

“Take your time,” Deb says, shooing me out the door with a wave. “We’ve still got a lot to discuss in here. You know, you’re not the only one with a hot romance to gossip about.”

She shoots Loretta a look, and Loretta raises her brows in response but says nothing.

“Oh my god, you three and that pharmacist,” I joke as I head toward the back door. “Have fun.”

Loretta’s backyard is overflowing with native desert plants, cacti towering like skyscrapers over the small rectangular pool. My footsteps crunch through the gravel as I make my way toward the apartment out back, pausing at the door. The front window is still lit up, but I’m suddenly frozen with uncertainty. Niko’s not expecting me, and it feels oddly intimate to just show up, unannounced. I barely call people on the phone out of the blue anymore, much less stop by their actual homes. I weigh this worry against the urge I have to see him, to say hi, to see how he’s doing, even though we played together just this morning. The desire gnaws at me; it’s more hunger than curiosity. Curiosity can be sated in other ways. This feels like I have no other choice but to bang on his door.

I’m about to knock when self-doubt stops me, and I turn to head back inside Loretta’s house. And that’s when I hear a click behind me, a bright light flashing on overhead.

“Bex?”

I spin on the balls of my feet, an awkward pirouette of sorts. “Hey!” I thrust the box of cookies toward him, and the plastic crackles under my nervous grip. “We’re wrapping up our book club, and we had some extra food left over.”

He grabs the container out of my hands. “Trader Joe’s?”

I shrug. “Only the best for book club.”

He breathes out a laugh and pops the lid open. He tears a giant bite out of a cookie and stares at me as he chews. “Not bad,” he says when he finishes.

“Well, that’s all.” I feel painfully awkward, like I’ve never talked to Niko before in my life, much less another human being.

“Do you wanna come in for a sec?” he asks, waving toward the open door behind him.

“Sure,” I say, and follow him inside.

The kitchen and living room are one room, and it is decorated exactly like Loretta’s house with brown wicker furniture covered in colorful floral prints. It looks more like a vacation rental on Maui than a house in the California desert, and I let out a little laugh at how very un-Niko it all is.

“Where do you even live, when you’re not here?” I ask him, knowing only that he’d been training in Florida with one of his old coaches.

“I’ve been crashing at my parents’ condo in Miami for a few years,” he says as he places the box on the tiny kitchen island. “They live outside Athens full-time now, and so they very kindly let me stay there rent-free as long as I take care of the place. I’m supposed to help them sell it eventually.”

“And go where?” I ask, as he pulls a glass off a shelf. I use this split second to admire the way his shoulder muscles shift under his shirt as his arm lifts overhead.

He turns to face me and gives a casual shrug. “No idea. You want some water?”

I nod, though his answer hasn’t satisfied my curiosity. “Sure.”

Niko shuffles toward the fridge, and it’s only when he’s not facing me that I notice he’s dressed in a white T-shirt and navy-blue sweats, feet bare on the tile floor. I’d wondered how he’d look in a moment like this, and I like what I’ve discovered. He is especially handsome like this, casual and slightly disheveled. He is so rarely caught off guard that this feels like a glimpse into what that looks like.

“Let me guess, you wish there was more color in this house,” I tease, sliding onto a woven rattan stool with a cushion covered in a print with bright-pink hibiscus flowers.

“Oh, yes.” He matches the sarcasm in my voice, doubles it even. “Every day, I wake up and think, ‘The one thing this place needs is more loud, clashing patterns.’”

“I bet you’ll miss it when you leave,” I say as he pivots around, pushing the glass across the counter until it’s in front of me. “Are you excited to go back to Florida?”

“God no,” he replies quickly, and he sounds so offended by the suggestion that I let out a laugh.

“That bad, huh,” I say, and he catches himself.

“I mean, Florida’s fine,” Niko clarifies as he grabs another glass for himself. “I just associate it more with work than home. I was home schooled in high school because of tennis. Then my parents moved when my dad retired as my coach, and I was at UCLA. Now I go to Greece to visit them for the holidays. If I wasn’t still training there, I don’t know if it’s where I’d want to be, necessarily. I just haven’t ever had roots anywhere else, other than LA during college, and…”

He trails off, and I swallow. I can hear the word on his lips, even if he doesn’t say it. Here. My skin bristles, hair raising along my arms. The chill of the air-conditioning probably, but I change the subject anyway, just to be safe.

“What are you up to tonight?” I ask, and then gulp back my entire glass of water in one long, nervous motion.

“Actually, I was just meditating,” he says nonchalantly. My bottom lip drops open just a bit, unable to hide my surprise. Of all the things I expected Niko to be doing in here—one-armed push-ups, or practicing his scowl in the mirror—the last thing I thought I’d hear was that.

“Oh,” I say. “That’s cool.”

“Day four hundred and twenty-four,” he replies.

“Wow.” I’m genuinely impressed. “I can barely make it one day meditating. Where did you learn to do that?”

“My therapist,” he says, and he must sense my surprise. “What, you thought my training was all physical stuff?”

He’s got me there. “Yeah, I guess I did,” I tell him.

“So much of this shit is mental,” he says. “Especially my shit.”

He swallows back a sip of water, and his neck pulses in the most wildly seductive way.

“What is your shit, exactly?” I ask, not able to hold back the question. I am dying to know the cobwebs that linger on the edges of this man’s psyche.

Niko thinks for a moment, pushing his hair off his forehead. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

I shrug in agreement, playing it cool even though I feel anything but right now. “Sure.”

“Okay.” He leans both elbows on the counter, fingers wrapping around the edge of his glass. “Let’s see. Self-absorbed. I can’t express my feelings, and I don’t like that about myself. I want to have a relationship with my dad, but it feels like he only cares about me when I’m excelling at tennis.”

He pauses, eyes on me as I digest this giant chunk of information. “How’s that for shit?”

“Sounds like some hard shit,” I reply.

“Constipation galore,” he snarks, and I let out a laugh. “Your turn.”

“Dead mom who I miss terribly,” I tell him, pointing a finger at my chest. “Dead dad who I didn’t ever really know, which is a whole other thing.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, wincing. “That sounds hard.”

“Mommy and Daddy issues?” I joke. “Oh, it’s great. Just a bounty of stuff to choose from.”

Niko chuckles at this in a way that lets me know he empathizes, and it feels nice to be seen like this.

“Um, what else?” I drum my fingers on the counter as I rack my brain.

“That seems like plenty to me,” he says. “It’s nice knowing I’m in good company.”

“Oh, wait, I thought of one more!” I sit up straighter. “I hate asking for help. I want to do everything myself, but because of that, I can’t get a single thing done, and that drives me bonkers.”

“Well, cheers to both of our shit.” He raises his glass, and I clink it, even though mine’s already empty.

“What does your dad think about you playing pickleball, then?” I ask. He’s mentioned his father a few times in passing, and it seems like their relationship is tense, strained, more coach and student than father and son.

“I haven’t told him,” Niko admits. “Because he’d disown me.”

It’s a joke, I know, but there’s a hardness to his face, his lips pressed together, that tells me there’s a drop of truth to it.

“Though if I told him it involved me kicking Freddie’s ass,” he continues, “he’d probably approve, at least for one match.”

“Oh my god,” I say as realization hits me, scenes from the last few weeks playing back in my mind. The way Niko urgently and abruptly changed his mind about pickleball, needing to enter the tournament. His vague, brush-off answers every time Angela mentions Freddie.

“You didn’t just sign up for this tournament because you thought it would make you look good in some profile,” I say. It’s so obvious, so glaring, that I’m mortified I didn’t put this together from the start. It’s because I was distracted, not just by the club, but by him. I instantly feel like the world’s biggest idiot. “You’ve known this whole time that Freddie’s been playing pickleball and training at Starlight. Did you know he was going to be in the exhibition match at the tournament, too?”

His silence tells me everything, and the fact that he hasn’t been completely honest with me stings sharply, like a needle prick directly to the heart. “So, what, you’re trying to steal his thunder?” I ask.

Niko nods. “That’s part of it, yes.”

“How big of a part?” I ask, body tensing as my hands grip the edge of the counter.

He swallows, avoiding my eyes. “The whole part,” he says finally.

“Jesus Christ, Niko!” My body needs to shake off this furious feeling, and I pop off the stool, pacing by him. “You could have at least mentioned this in passing over the last couple of weeks. Have you not heard me say communication is the most important part of playing pickleball?”

“I thought the most important part was patience.” He attempts a smile, but I shut him down immediately with a frustrated shake of my head.

“Don’t,” I huff, pausing to look at him, hands on my hips. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that’s what this was really about. You made it sound like you agreed to do it to help your image.”

To help me .

Niko stills, his face stony, and it’s a familiar, determined look I’ve seen before. At his core, Niko is a competitor, a gladiator meant for the ring. There’s nothing he hates more than losing.

“I didn’t know Wilson was going to hand me this exhibition match against Freddie on a silver platter,” he says finally. “But yes, I knew he’d be there. He’s the whole reason my career ended. You know I was playing Freddie when I fell.”

“But he didn’t make you trip,” I snap. “He didn’t smash your knee with a crowbar. You’re not Nancy Kerrigan.”

“No, that part was all me,” he says with a cold laugh. “But Freddie shit-talked me for weeks. Behind my back, to my face. He had just done it on the court, and I snapped.”

“And what, you’re now on a mission to outshine him in pickleball because you overreacted to some trash talk?” This all sounds so juvenile that I have to scoff. And he’s the one who thinks pickleball is childish? The nerve of this man.

“I’m trying to show him that I can take him on still, and on his home turf.” Niko is being so matter-of-fact about this that it only irks me more. “The exhibition match just makes it that much easier.”

“So he was an asshole, and now you’re trying to out-asshole him,” I say. “What kind of a plan is that?”

“I’ve never not been an asshole, Bex,” he grumbles as he saunters around the kitchen island and comes to face me again, a bitter scowl creeping across his face. “At least I’ve always been honest about that.”

“You roped me into this tournament because you said you wanted a good story for the profile. You should have been honest with me.” The hurt in my voice is palpable, as is the humiliation. What’s worse, I’m not even sure why I’m so upset. I went into this with my eyes open, with the sole intention of finding a quick way to save the club. And yet somehow, this feels like getting my heart stomped on. “Do you even care about helping me at all?”

“Of course I do,” he says, but it’s hard to believe him now. “But I also care about putting Freddie in his place. Knocking his ego down a peg or two.”

“Well, you were right about being self-absorbed.” I want so bad to hide the hurt I’m feeling, but I’ve never been someone who can mask their true feelings. My cheeks burn, and I know it’s written all over my face. “I’ll let you get back to working on that.”

I walk out of Niko’s place without looking back at him, and I make sure to let the door slam shut as I go.