Page 5

“WHAT’S WRONG, BEX?”

I’ve been so engrossed in plotting how to come up with a pile of money that I don’t hear Niko prowl into the office until he’s hovering above me, elbows on the counter, his giant dark eyes glowering.

“Huh?” I say, disoriented by the stress of number-crunching.

“You look like you just found out there are only seven colors in the rainbow,” he replies with a flat smirk, his lips forming a plateau on the horizon of that perfectly angled face.

“Very funny,” I deadpan, watching the way his neck muscles ripple as he gulps from a massive water bottle the size of his head. He is drenched in sweat, black hair tousled under that stupid white sweatband, and even though he’s no longer on the court, his chest is panting slightly like he’s still recovering from an intense practice.

He looks like a wild animal caught on someone’s doorbell camera in the middle of the night, and his eyes linger a second too long on my face. “Seriously, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine, Niko. Thank you for asking.” I try not to ever let on with him, or anyone, really, that I’m struggling, but I can hear the exasperation evident in my voice. Tonight everything just feels like too much, and I can’t hide it. “Have a good night.”

He glances down at his watch and scrubs a small white towel against the back of his neck in thought, before eyeing the flyer Wilson left, still on the reception desk.

“Paddle Battle,” he reads off the paper. “God, even the names for pickleball tournaments are ridiculous.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re leaving us soon.” I tuck my hand under my chin, giving him a giant, fake smile. “You’ll never have to think about pickleball again.”

“The thought devastates me.”

He matches my absurd, toothy grin with his own, his teeth as shockingly white as his head-to-toe outfit. It’s obvious he’s as full of shit as I am.

We stay like that for a quiet moment, the two of us locked in yet another staring standoff, and it’s enough time to register just how golden his skin has gotten playing outside these last two weeks. Every part of him not covered by clothing glistens, like he’s purposefully trying to highlight all the deliciously strong parts of himself. It’s not just his muscles; his cheekbones are so cut they look like they could bench press two hundred pounds. It would be so much easier to loathe him if he wasn’t so shockingly attractive.

And I’d never admit it, but our little moments of bickering have become the most fun part of my day. I love to act like I hate Niko, but it is becoming harder and harder to convince myself that I actually do.

“How are you getting to Loretta’s for your mah-jongg game?” he asks, breaking our connection and effectively ending our latest duel.

“I’m walking,” I say haughtily. I spent a ridiculous chunk of money getting my car towed to the mechanic, where it is sitting, pathetically waiting for me to be able to afford repairs.

“Come on. I’ll give you a ride,” he says, nodding toward the front door. “It is literally on my way home.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” I wave him off. “I need to move my body. I’ve been behind this desk for too long anyway.”

“It’s nine o’clock at night, Bex.” More glowering.

“I know how to tell time, Tennis Prince.”

“Right.” He gives me a look of pure exasperation. “So let me give you a ride, Pickleball Princess .”

“Fine!” I growl, as I hop up and grab the flyer. I press it up to the bulletin board and stab it with a push pin. “ Fine. I will accept your incredibly generous offer.”

And that is how I end up in the passenger seat of Niko’s car.

The inside of his rented Audi two-door is immaculate. Of course it is. Clean black leather, spotless vacuumed floors. Meanwhile, even when it’s functioning, my ancient Prius looks like a family of raccoons threw a three-day-long rave inside it. It is a museum devoted to wrappers and crumpled tissues, and every coffee cup I’ve ever used can be found wedged somewhere under its passenger seat.

But his car is serene, like it could double as a meditation studio. It smells faintly of pine and cleaning solution, and there’s even a tiny little trash can in the cup holder.

“How fancy,” I cluck and tap the lid with my fingertip as he pulls out of the parking lot. “I love your devotion to cleanliness. And in a rental, of all things.”

His eyes stay locked on the road because he’s incapable of anything but linear, relentless focus, but he lets out a little laugh, a soft rasp that sounds sexier than it should. What is it with this man and the noises that come out of his mouth? I grew up hanging around the racquet club, listening to players groan and grunt for years without the faintest hint of attraction. But for the past two weeks, the sounds he makes have lodged under my skin like a painful, sexy splinter. Something is seriously wrong with me.

“You know what they say about people with clean cars, right?” He asks this with a hint of a smile, and if it were anyone other than Niko, I’d assume he’s attempting to flirt. But I cancel that thought immediately because I’m confident his feelings toward me hover somewhere around barely tolerable on a good day.

“That they’re serial killers?” I taunt, and I study his profile as it flashes in and out of darkness thanks to the streetlights along the road.

“That they’re perfectionists,” he corrects me. “Your car is a reflection of the rest of your life. The theory is that if your small space is disorganized, so is every other aspect of your world.”

“How predictable,” I huff. It sounds like something he learned on some stupid bro wellness podcast. “I thought for sure it would be something like ‘people with clean cars have dirty mouths.’”

My attempt to get a rise out of him fails, so I change course.

“I’ve always thought disorganization was a sign of creativity and imagination,” I tell him. “My apartment is covered in scraps of cloth, but I made this skirt last night, so I must be doing something right.”

“You made that skirt?” he asks, and this revelation is enough for him to flick his eyes toward me for a brief second.

I wait for a beat before replying, expecting some other dig to roll off his tongue. But the silence just stretches, and his face looks expectant and patient, all lit up by the constellation of tiny lights on his dashboard panel.

“I did,” I say, considering how much information to offer. “I make a lot of my pickleball clothes. It’s relaxing.”

I trail off, not wanting to give him too much ammo to work with. We spend hours together every day at the club, but our conversations are either filled with polite chitchat or mindless bickering, and this admission makes me feel oddly vulnerable. Concocting designs and sewing up pieces has been my main form of self-care since Mom died, the best escape at the end of a long day. I love the feeling of my brain zoning out, my hands working as if in a trance. It is creative and soothing and has come to mean more to me than I first realized.

In the last six months, I’ve become especially invested in scouring the desert’s overflowing thrift stores and making new garments out of people’s discarded clothes. There’s something magical about breathing new life into an old skirt or ratty pair of pants, finding a piece of clothing someone deemed useless, ready to be tossed, and discovering an entirely new identity for it. The process strikes me as beautiful and hopeful, an antidote to my stress and sorrow. I do it solely for myself, to keep my mind off the harder things.

“That’s cool” is all he says, and I take that as an opening for more conversation.

“You know, I like that about pickleball,” I add. “That it’s a sport that embraces its weirdness. No one cares what you wear on the court.”

This is what had finally convinced me to start playing in eighth grade, when Mom started offering lessons at the club. She’d let me play in my Vans and torn skinny jeans, and I’d fallen in love with pickleball instantly, wholeheartedly, with my entire being.

Tennis had never quite clicked for me as a kid, and my mom’s disappointment had been evident, even though she’d never said a word. She’d always encouraged me to follow my own interests, but that didn’t mean that I still couldn’t sense her persistent hope that I’d one day become even a fraction as obsessed with tennis as she and my dad had been. But everything about the sport had bored me out of my mind. It felt stuffy and pretentious, and I could barely focus on one match, much less play a whole set.

But god, how pickleball had worked with my excitement-seeking brain. Quick matches, constant movement, and rules that just made sense to me. Chitchat wasn’t just allowed on the court—it was encouraged! Picking up that paddle was the first time I felt truly at home in a sport, like it was my second skin.

Niko snorts a kind of half laugh, half objection, and whatever softness I felt for him moments ago is shoved aside by familiar irritation.

“What?” My shoulders tighten, the defensiveness an old friend. “You can’t handle the weirdness of pickleball?”

“It’s not that,” he says, with a shake of his head. “What I can’t handle is when people call something a sport even though it’s clearly not. I’d say pickleball is maybe a hobby, and that’s on a good day.”

“Excuse me.” I turn in my seat to stare him down. “Playing mah-jongg with a bunch of seventy-year-olds is a hobby . Pickleball is literally the fastest-growing sport in the United States.”

Sure, this is a stat thrown around by every pickleball fanatic at least forty-five times a day. But it is also true. Pickleball’s popularity is undeniable. We get twice as many requests for pickleball lessons and court rentals at the club as we do for tennis, a fact that I could easily rub in his face right now if I wanted.

“I know,” he says, “but it’s also literally a game a couple of old drunk guys made up to play with their kids when they couldn’t find the right racquets for a round of badminton.”

“Paddles,” I correct him, grasping for any easy way to annoy him.

He shoots a peeved look in my direction—mission accomplished—and then stares forward without saying a word. With a flick of his wrist, he yanks off his sweatband and tosses it in the back seat behind him, dragging one of those giant, calloused hands through his hair.

The air in the car suddenly feels hot despite the AC blasting.

“Do you know how self-righteous you sound?” I mutter, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “You’re like every other tennis snob who thinks they’re too good for pickleball.”

“I don’t think I’m too good for it.” His voice is a low grumble, and I hate how much I like it. “I just don’t want to play a game that requires you to stand in something called the kitchen. It’s immature.”

“It’s fun is what it is, Niko. I know you’re not familiar with the concept, but fun is this thing people experience with other people, where they socialize and have a good time.”

Maybe it’s the surprise appearance from Wilson or the stress of the club’s dwindling finances, but I’m extra raw tonight, and his insults about pickleball stab at something deeply personal. “And you don’t stand in the kitchen,” I add. “That’s a penalty. Unless the ball bounces in it first.”

“See?” He waves a hand up, arguing his point. “That doesn’t even make sense. Tennis is a logical game. And it requires actual athletic skill.”

His tone is straight-up high school debate captain, all smug and knowing.

“Wow. Do you have any more compliments you wanna throw my way?” I snap. I know, somewhere in the rational part of my brain, that this anger isn’t really about Niko at all or my undying devotion to the game of pickleball. It is about the longing I feel for my mother’s presence, the way my fingers still itch to dial her number. It’s about how much I love the racquet club and how much I fear losing it. How life feels fraught and terrifying and completely out of my control.

But it’s way easier to funnel it here, to dump it all on this person next to me.

And so that’s exactly what I do.

“I’m just saying, it’s not a real sport.” He lets out a chuckle, and the sound is both sexy and cocky. I’m not sure which makes me more annoyed. Or turned on.

“Yeah, it is ,” I protest, and I feel impassioned, galvanized, like I’m arguing on behalf of every person who’s ever so much as glanced at a pickleball. “There are professionals, rankings, tournaments. People are beating down the doors of tennis clubs, but it’s not to play tennis. One day, you might even want to play, but no one will want to be your partner with that attitude. Though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that someone who’s known for being an ass on the tennis court would be the same about pickleball.”

He slows the car as we near Loretta’s angular, sixties-style house, pulling into the curved driveway that cuts like a U through the cactus-covered front yard. I’m fuming and silent as he shifts into park, before turning to look at me as I unbuckle my seat belt.

“Well, luckily, I don’t plan on ever playing pickleball,” he says in a monotone voice. His entire gaze is on me, but it’s equally unreadable.

“That’s too bad,” I say, gripping the handle of the door. “Because I bet you’d be really, really good. Maybe even better than at tennis.”

I don’t mean it as a dig, but a flicker crosses his face, almost like it’s hurt him unintentionally. He’s been mostly quiet about his training, not talking much about whatever this mysterious qualifier is in Miami. But I know enough about his past career to know that Niko was once an incredible tennis player. He’d been good, good enough to be labeled a “rising star” by news outlets, to rack up tens of thousands of Instagram followers, and to land an endorsement deal with an energy drink, before disaster struck his knee and put a stop to all of it.

I know all of this, but I feel an inkling of guilt for poking a painful part of him without meaning to, and so I say nothing except “Thanks for the ride.”

I reach down to pick up my bag off the floor just as Niko leans over and grabs something from the console between us. It takes me a second to realize it’s a pack of gum. My gum. Trident Wintergreen, as I live and breathe, there pinched between his fingers. But Niko hates my gum. He constantly complains about the sound of me popping bubbles and has shooed me off more than once when I’ve offered him some.

“Want a piece?” he asks, and I don’t know how we got here, from us arguing about the merits of pickleball and tennis to Niko offering me my favorite gum that he most definitely despises. And yet, this is happening.

I watch as he creases open the pack slowly, precisely, like he does everything else. He slides his finger along the tidy row of perfectly packaged pieces and pulls one out, offering it to me. Suddenly, the space between us seems incredibly close, too close, and I squint in nervous thought, my mind racing as I hold out my palm. This should not be a big deal. So what if Niko has a pack of Trident Wintergreen gum in his car, something that can be purchased at literally any gas station in the United States and probably—though I don’t know this for a fact—the entire world? This is a normal thing, a typical thing, not something to fixate on.

But it feels odd, not quite right, like a clue to a mystery I haven’t even come close to solving.

My brain is stuck on this as our hands touch for a split second before he pulls back and tosses the pack on the dashboard. I unwrap the shiny silver paper and roll it into a tiny ball between my fingertips before pressing it into his stupid little trash can cup. We lock eyes as I slowly bring the gum to my mouth, placing the rectangle on my tongue.

I am charged at one hundred percent, lit up, a nuclear power plant of energy.

And then Niko does the most Niko thing he could possibly do at this moment: He lets out a small, low sigh, almost a hum really, from the depths of his chest. And despite all of his stupid, blathering opinions about sports, his arrogant gloating about the merits of tennis, and all the other things that make me utterly, completely despise him, I feel the vibration of his voice run down my body like a caress. My nipples harden ever so slightly, and I squeeze my thighs together without thinking, like clenching my body will somehow convince my brain to stop playing this game with me.

“I should go inside,” I say quickly, and my voice is breathy and wanton. I’m horrified, certain that he can tell that I’m lit up, on fire. That there’s something about this entire maddening interaction that makes me want to grab his hands and press his palms against my breasts, to grind myself against the hardness of his body. To whisper, “Do you see what you do to me?” in his ear, and hear the sounds I could make come out of his mouth.

Before he can reply, I shove the door open and leap out of the car, dashing up the short walkway to Loretta’s front door.

I do not look back at Niko until I’m face-to-face with Loretta, who stands in the doorway and greets me gingerly with a one-armed hug. She lets me go and peers over my shoulder and then looks back at me, brows hitched upward, asking me a silent question.

“He gave me a ride,” I explain as I turn and catch a glimpse of Niko still there in his Audi sedan, a moody silhouette in the front seat. “And now he’s brooding.”

“Jeez, I wonder why,” she says with a chuckle, as if she knows exactly why her nephew is in perma-scowl mode all the time. I want to ask, but instead I crack a forced smile and turn my attention toward the night ahead.

I’ve wasted too much time on Niko already.