Page 33

EPILOGUE

Tuesday, May 30

IT’S WELL PAST seven o’clock, but this means nothing in the desert. The sky is every shade of orange imaginable, the sun resisting setting for just a few minutes longer. I’ve told myself to stop checking my phone, but I can’t help it. I give it one more glance before shoving it into the cup holder that dangles from the camping chair armrest.

Niko’s shared his location with me, and I can see he’s about to turn off the main drag of Sunset Springs. In a minute, maybe less, he’ll be pulling up in front of the club.

I chomp my gum nervously and shift in the chair. It’s still close to ninety degrees out, and my skirt—a mix of old Lilly Pulitzer patterns I found in Loretta’s storage closet—sticks to the back of my thighs. Niko’s qualifier in Miami wasn’t televised, and I purposefully avoided searching for the results online and told him not to tell me anything. I wanted to hear it all from him directly. We’d agreed to take these nine days apart as a break, no communication, so we could each simply focus on our own lives, figure our own stuff out.

With the money we won in the Paddle Battle, plus the T-shirt orders and donations still coming in, I’ve gotten my wish—the club isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I. I spent the last several days drowning in tedious paperwork, hammering out payments and financing and budgets. I am grateful for every second of it.

But I didn’t need nine days or even nine minutes to figure out how I feel about Niko. I want him. And I am growing impatient.

His flight landed in Los Angeles earlier this morning, and the text he sent was our first communication since he’d left. But all he’d said was that he had “something to take care of” and he’d see me later tonight.

I hear the familiar creak and thud of the door, and it’s a sound I know better than my own breath.

“I’m on court eight!” I holler, knees bouncing with childlike excitement. He left for Miami the day after we won the tournament and beat Freddie and Loretta in the exhibition match—“a walloping” is how Angela described it in the follow-up piece she wrote—and I am downright giddy to see his face. Nine days have felt like, well, nine very long days, and I hop up and run across the court, desperate for a glimpse of him.

Niko turns the corner and appears just when I hit the kitchen line, and I freeze. He’s in his usual white—a crisp polo and shorts—but in his hands is a bouquet of flowers, a rainbow of colors, in a strange container.

“What is that?” I ask as he takes those last few steps toward me. He holds it up so I can get a better look, and that’s when it hits me. He’s brought me a bouquet nested in a vase made entirely of crayons.

“It’s a very hard craft project from Pinterest that I had a lot of help with,” he says, looking down at the creation in his hands. “I had no idea what a glue gun was until two days ago.”

“You glued.” I tilt my head to marvel at the arrangement in his hands. “All these crayons onto the va— Holy shit .”

He chuckles because he knows exactly what I’m gasping at.

Every single crayon that makes up the outside of the vase—all perfectly symmetrical, I might add—is burnt sienna.

“Maureen coached me over FaceTime,” he adds, placing the flowers in my hands. “She’s extremely crafty, it turns out. And I’m a perfectionist. So you can imagine how that conversation went. She and I had to do some touch-ups before I came over.”

I grin at the thought of the two of them going back and forth over an art project.

“Niko, I love this. No one’s ever made anything like this for me in my entire life.” I lean down to inhale a rose, lost in the magic of the moment before remembering the whole reason I’d been missing him in the first place. “Wait, how was the qualifier? Did you win? What happened?”

My eyes dash across his face, looking for any sort of hint as to how he did, but his smile gives nothing away.

“I won my first match,” he says finally, running a hand through my hair. “I beat this twenty-year-old kid from New Zealand with a wicked backhand. You would have loved it.”

“I’m very proud,” I say, heart bursting. He did it. Not that I ever thought otherwise. This is Niko, after all.

“And then I did what I should have done two years ago,” he says, his hands finding my hips, fingers twisting in the soft pleats of my skirt. “I retired. Officially.”

He’s quiet, and I use this moment to take in the sight of him. His hair is still damp from the shower, the smell of Dove soap lingering on his skin. I balance the flowers under the crook of one arm and use my free hand to stroke the soft expanse of his cheek.

“But you love playing tennis,” I tell him, and he chuckles.

“I do,” he agrees. “But I’ve also learned how nice it is to love other things, too.”

L’oeuf.

“Also, Bex,” he says solemnly, “you might not believe this, but I can play tennis here in Sunset Springs.”

“I know that,” I say. He leans into my hand, and I notice for the first time how utterly relaxed he seems.

Niko shifts so that his lips kiss my palm, and then he grabs the flowers from under my arm, placing them gently onto the chair next to us.

“I remember what you said, that you’d bring me a crayon bouquet on our first date,” I tell him, admiring his handiwork. “So is this it?”

“No, this is not our first date, Princess.” His lips curl into a smile, and his hand finds my cheek, his thumb rubbing gently along my bottom lip. “This is just me trying to butter you up before I ask you if you’d be okay if I stick around.”

“Here,” I say as I wrap both arms around his neck, and he nods slowly.

“Here, in Sunset Springs. But also here, as your boyfriend. Here, in your life. Here, with you.”

I can see the slightest crease of concern on his forehead, and I know him well enough to know now that he’s unsure, taking a risk in being this forward. I love this about him, that he’s most likely scared, but he’s doing it anyway.

“Well, you’re going to fit right in here in Sunset Springs,” I tease, as I reach up and run my thumb gently across his brow, as if I could simply wipe the worry away. I brush my fingertips along his temple, until they find a tendril of wet hair. “I can already see your grays coming in.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” he says, his head dropping to the crook of my shoulder. “Maybe I can fool the intake staff at one of these retirement homes and get an apartment. I don’t think Loretta’s going to let me squat at her place forever.”

My hands move through the waves of his hair down to the nape of his neck, savoring every bit of him, the hard and soft, the beautiful contrasting parts that make up this man that I love.

“And all that wicker is a lot for one person to handle,” I say solemnly.

He chuckles, and the vibration of his laugh sends the smallest of shock waves down my back. “That’s true.”

“So you stay here, and…” I trail off, still trying to figure out his plan.

“Well, I’ve loved the clinics I’ve taught recently,” he says, lifting his gaze to mine. “Maybe I do more coaching.”

“Tennis or pickleball?” I ask, raising both brows skeptically.

“Ideally, both,” he says. “But it’s really up to my future boss, Princess. Hopefully, the Sunset Springs Racquet Club will be hiring. If not, I guess I can hit up Starlight. I hear that place makes a mean protein shake.”

“Hey!” I thwack him playfully across the shoulder.

“What?” he asks, feigning innocence.

“As long as you agree to keep playing pickleball with me, I’ll think about it,” I agree, and he grins at my answer. “Because I love playing pickleball with you, like I love doing everything with you.”

“I told you I’d win you over eventually, Princess.” His voice is a purr, as he leans down and plants a kiss on the top of my head. I hold him tighter, relishing the feeling of having him back, having him here, for good.

“I’ve spent so much time worrying about how to keep my mom’s legacy alive with the club that I never let myself think what other ways she might want me to honor her.” My voice cracks slightly. There’s a weight to my words, but it’s not the sadness I’ve been carrying with me for so long. It’s something new. Hopeful. “But I think loving you, and letting myself be loved, is a good start.”

He tugs me closer, so close I can almost feel the tender ache of love in his chest as it rises and falls. The longer he’s wrapped around me, the more I feel both of our bodies relax. “You’re stuck with me. I hope that’s okay.”

I scratch my nails gently along his neck, right at the hairline, and he lets out a satisfied moan.

“When you do that, there’s no way I can say no,” I say with a laugh.

“Do what?” he asks, in between slow kisses along my neck, just under my ear.

“Make those sexy noises!” I say, and my voice becomes more breathless with each syllable. “You know what that does to me.”

“I do,” he says, his voice a rough growl. “But I think you need to tell me again.”

But I don’t say a word. Instead I bring my lips to his and let him know exactly how I feel.

It’s our second first kiss.

After a few minutes, I pause and rest my forehead against his. “Of course I want you to stay.”

He glances down and then gives me the most devious pout. “Then can I take you out of this very sexy little skirt?”

His fingers curl into my waistband, teasing me. “Yes,” I say, my voice on the precipice of a moan. “But if you take off my clothes, you’re going to have to play with me out on this cracked court, and I think you once told me they were dangerous.”

His laugh is warm against my skin. “Dangerous because every time I’m around you, I want to throw you to the ground and have you a hundred different ways.”

“So what you’re saying is, you love playing pickleball,” I say, finding the hem of his crisp white shirt and giving it a tug upward, signaling to him that I want it gone, immediately.

“I love it more than anything in the whole world,” he says as he obliges, yanking it over his head and tossing it behind us. “But only when I’m playing with you.”