Page 9

“UPSTAIRS,” I HISS to Niko the second Angela’s car pulls out of the club parking lot. “Now.”

We’re the only two people here in the lobby, but this feels like a conversation we need to have in private, especially after we both rambled into Angela’s phone for twenty minutes. “Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter under my breath. What had we just told her?

I lock the door to the club and frantically march up the stairs to my apartment as Niko follows behind me. We don’t say a word to each other, and I watch as he blinks, taking in the chaos of my teeny living room. He’s eyeing the stacks of secondhand T-shirts on the dining room table, Mom’s ancient sewing machine taking up the rest of the cluttered space. I turn away from my little shoe-strewn entryway and face him, seething. It’s as if someone has heated me up in the microwave, and I’m about to explode.

“What the hell was that?” I squeak, throwing my hands up in the air. “Why did you tell that reporter we’re playing in the tournament together? I don’t get the sudden one-eighty when all you’ve done is tell me how stupid you think pickleball is!”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He storms toward me and then stops abruptly when he’s barely a foot away, like he doesn’t want to get too close to me despite the fact that he was practically ravaging me not half an hour earlier. “I was too busy pretending to be in love with you to think straight.”

I push past him, weaving around the table and pacing toward the kitchenette. Once I reach the counter I circle back. I don’t stop moving. I might be engulfed in a full-on panic attack at any second.

“You need to call her tomorrow and tell her we broke up, and that we’re not playing in any tournament together, ever.”

“Bex.” He exhales audibly, eyes blazing. There’s that desperate look again, though now I see it more clearly for what it really is: fear.

“I told you I needed your help. She’s doing this whole profile on me and my time at UCLA, their tennis program and my career. And I have nothing to show for myself other than being an injured, washed-up tennis pro living with his seventy-year-old aunt.”

“So you told them you were entering a pickleball tournament?” I spin around and yank open the fridge, grabbing a can of sparkling water from the bottom shelf. I make a point of not offering one to my new boyfriend. He’ll quickly learn that I don’t wait on anyone, especially fake lovers.

“I just…” His eyes search the ceiling like he isn’t sure how to explain himself. “I just wanted to seem interesting. An injured tennis player known for a shitty temper, now taking the pickleball world by storm before trying to break back into the pros seemed… better.”

“Better for you!” I say, pointing my finger at him. “But what about me? I can’t believe you roped me into this without even asking me first! I guess this tracks for a guy who used to plant anonymous stories about himself.”

“What?” he asks with a flustered wave of his hand. “I tried to ask you, this morning! And it’s not like you helped the situation by telling her we’re a couple.”

“She walked in on us kissing!” I sputter, circling the room as I take giant gulps of the fizzy water. “It’s kind of hard to talk ourselves out of that.”

This shuts him up for a moment, and the pause allows me to observe him again. I see he’s still sweaty, glistening with nerves and adrenaline, his hair slicked back to reveal those devilishly dark eyelashes, capped by thick, severe brows. Every hair on his body is jet-black, and I have no idea why this realization sends a shiver through me, but it does, sharp and direct.

“Well, you were the one who initiated that,” he says finally.

I throw my hands up in frustration. “With your consent, I believe?”

He gives me an exasperated look but doesn’t argue otherwise.

“I’m sorry that I was desperate to kiss someone and you just happened to be the person standing in front of me.” I survey him with a wave of my hand, trying to gain my composure. “And you were all… you know.”

“I was all what?” he asks slowly, his eyes never leaving my face.

“Saying all those things.” A flush creeps up the back of my neck, threatening to turn my entire face bright red.

“What about it?” he replies, cocking one luscious brow at me.

He’s calling my bluff. He knows I’m flustered by his words, that it makes me blush to repeat them out loud. It’s almost like he’s holding something over me, something I cannot for the life of me remember until he opens his mouth again.

“ I think about it, too? ” He taps the tip of his index finger to his chin in feigned thought, the corners of those rose-colored lips crooking up into a smile that’s as dark as the hair on his head. “Oh no, wait. Those were your words, not mine.”

He knows he’s won, and he’s gloating.

“I’m sorry you’re the only other person under sixty years old for miles around,” I scoff. “My options for people to make out with are fairly limited here. And you’re leaving in six weeks, so it seemed like a practical decision.”

“Well, same,” he says with a quick shrug of his shoulder. “And I have thought about it. Though I mostly like to imagine Deb.”

He pauses, almost like he’s setting up a punchline. “Me, behind her…”

“Can you stop?” I groan, pacing again. I don’t know what to do with my limbs, with this pent-up tension inside me. I truly cannot believe that the one time I let my hormones take over control of my body, this is what happens. “And please don’t get all cocky just because I kissed you. You’re basically like a yogurt sitting in my fridge that I needed to eat before it expired.”

“Wow, Bex. What a compliment.” He gives me a disgruntled, irritated look and then collapses onto my couch. “If this is what dating you is like, I can’t wait until we break up.”

“We are not dating,” I insist, racking my brain for some sort of solution. “We need to figure out a plan to get out of this mess.”

I spend most of my days problem solving—coordinating a bus route to the senior living facility so that residents can come to class, figuring out when the toilet paper goes on sale at Costco Business Center and finding new places to store it (under my bed)—so surely I can figure this out.

But seconds tick into minutes, and when no brilliant idea comes to me, I give up and slump against the counter.

“I think we’re already in the mess,” he says, like it’s a lost cause.

“We’re so fucked,” I grumble. I don’t have the time to untangle myself from this disaster, and certainly not for Niko’s sake. I have money to raise, a club to save. “You’re going to have to learn how to play.”

“What, like it’s hard?” he cracks with a curl of his lips. He looks entirely too comfortable leaning against my ancient corduroy loveseat, hands clasped behind his head. It is almost as if he belongs there, like he’s been missing this whole time, and I don’t like the strange, sad feeling this gives me.

“Yeah, actually, it is,” I say, righting my shoulders as I push myself forward to stand in front of him. “You’re going to have to spend the next month practicing.”

“I’m preparing for the qualifier,” he says, like any of that is my concern.

“Too bad.” I brush him off with a shrug. “Now you’re also preparing for the Paddle Battle.”

“Fine, Bex.” He lets out an irritated sigh like I’m a mosquito that he keeps swatting at but can’t quite kill.

“Are you seriously Fine, Bex -ing me like I’m annoying you?” I sit down next to him and grab his elbow with a shake. “You’re the one who got us into this mess.”

“Well, you really helped by making it worse,” he hisses back.

“Worse?” I say. “Or better? Don’t you think your partner also being your girlfriend makes you look even better?”

He shrugs. “I guess you have a point.”

“If I do this for you, you have to help me with something, too. Something big.”

“Name it,” he says.

“We don’t split the prize money,” I tell him matter-of-factly. “I get it all.”

“No way.” He shuts me down immediately with a firm shake of his head.

“Okay,” I tell him. “Then no tournament, or comments for the profile, or—”

“Goddamnit, Bex.” He groans, dropping his head in his hands as he hunches over his knees. “Fine.”

“Perfect!” I cheer with a clap of my hands. “That should be a fair deal for me making you look good in this profile. We commit to really becoming teammates, just until the tournament, and win.”

“Oh, we’re going to win,” he says confidently. “Because I don’t lose.”

“You know there will be some seriously good pickleball players in the tournament, right? Some of these people play every single day. They’ll be vicious. It’s not going to be easy.”

His eyes do this thing I’ve seen before, they widen, almost like they’re taking me in, and then they narrow, as if they’re fixated on a target of some kind. “Who said I like easy?”

I press my lips together, trying to contain the swell of giddy nerves his words set off.

“Fine,” he agrees begrudgingly. “We will practice hard, and when we win, you get all the prize money.”

“And you’ll also pay me back by promoting the racquet club in this profile,” I add, and suddenly I feel deviously, wonderfully brilliant. If I can’t get out of this situation, I’m going to have to make it work to my advantage.

He stares at me, dumbfounded. “It’s supposed to be about me .”

“I’m not asking for you to make it about me. Just mention your doting girlfriend and her family’s beloved but struggling racquet club, which is your favorite place on earth.”

He thinks for a moment, running a hand through his hair.

“Come on,” I push, before he can get a word in. “I’ll help you rehab your image; you help me by winning this tournament. We’ll send you off to that qualifier with lots of buzz and a brand-new break-up for all your doting fangirls and boys to gossip about.”

“You are deeply infuriating,” he grumbles. “You know that, right?”

“And how about when we made out, like, thirty minutes ago?” I ask, glaring at him. This man is testing my patience, and so far, I’m failing. “Was that also infuriating?”

“That seemed very mutually not infuriating to me.”

“You should thank me for that kiss,” I tease, as he rises to stand. “It just saved your ass.”

“Oh yes, you have my infinite gratitude, Pickleball Princess,” he says with a sigh, and then looks down at his watch. “I should go. Loretta says she doesn’t care when I come home, but I know she’s tracking my every move.”

“Oh fuck,” I whisper, as panicked realization hits. “Loretta.”

Lying to a reporter I’d just met was one thing. But lying to the people I love, who know me so well? That feels harder than winning this goddamn tournament.

“She’ll be thrilled that we’re a couple,” he says with a shrug. “It’s literally her dream come true.”

I chuckle at this because he’s not wrong. I’ve picked up on the comments she makes about Niko being single and can see how much she wants him to find someone. I’d just always chalked that up to her being an attentive aunt and not her necessarily wanting Niko to be with me .

I make a mental note of this but try not to dwell on it or the warm, fuzzy way it makes me feel.

“I just told Deb this morning that I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole, much less a paddle,” I say, giving him a salty look. “She’s going to think I’ve lost my mind.”

“What makes you think she doesn’t already?” he asks.

I leap up and walk over to the calendar hanging from my fridge, which, I’m not proud to say, I haven’t flipped in a few months. It’s still stuck in January, and it’s now the middle of April.

“The tournament is in exactly five weeks.” I unhook the calendar from its magnet holder and spread it across the kitchen counter, hoping Niko doesn’t notice the dishes in the sink that I keep putting off washing. “We’ll need to practice as much as possible and do it around my work schedule.”

“I can do that.” Niko nods. “And does practicing count as going on dates?”

“I said I was sorry about telling her that.” I groan. “We can just tell people we’re together. We don’t need to go on actual, real dates .”

“Oh, come on,” he says, pressing his palm into the counter as he hovers just a little too close. “We need to at least get a coffee sometime.”

“The most important thing is practicing and winning this tournament,” I remind him, scratching a giant X through May 20. “If we’re going to do this, we take it seriously.”

“I take everything seriously,” he replies, crossing his arms against his chest defensively.

“Oh really?” I counter. “Does that apply to pickleball?”

He dips his chin slightly but doesn’t say a word, which I’ve learned is his way of admitting I’m right. “We practice daily,” I demand.

“Deal,” he says, but the aloof look on his face tells me he’s not convinced that he’s going to actually have to learn how to play pickleball.

“I mean it, Niko. If we’re going to do this, we need to do it. Because I’m not just doing this to get publicity.” My voice scrapes with desperation, and I can feel the fear of failing and letting everyone down press against my heart like a brick. “I need that prize money.”

“And I am doing this because I need some good publicity,” he says. His words, like his stony gaze, are cool, aloof. “If I’m ever going to have any sort of career, I need to do something to change people’s opinions about me. So we’ll do it. We’ll win—get you the money, get me a nice headline, and walk away from this whole thing unscathed.”

He reaches out his hand, and I press my lips together, considering all my options one more time before begrudgingly grabbing a hold of it. “Five weeks.”

Niko nods, giving my hand a firm squeeze. His hand is warm and solid in mine, like a stone warmed on a beach, and the sensation turns my insides to goo. I curse the way his touch—even something formal and forced like a handshake—threatens to knock my knees out from under me. I tug my hand away quickly, not wanting to tempt myself further.

“I need to lock up and go lie down before my head explodes,” I say, shooing him toward the door.

“I’ll sign us up when I get home,” he says. “And don’t worry, I can cover the registration fee.”

“Wow, how generous of you,” I coo sarcastically.

“Good night, Princess,” he says, as he teeters on the top step, his lips curling into a satisfied smile. “See you bright and early tomorrow for practice.”