Page 14 of Anatomy of Us

Zoe Méndez. Midfielder. The one who used to see the field as geometry. As endless options. As art.

I complete the drill again and again, and on the last run I add a feint my body remembers even if my brain blinks, shocked I can still do it that fast. I finish with a nutmeg between my coach’s legs—thank God Hades takes it as a joke.

And I laugh too.

A real laugh. No filter. The kind of joy I only feel with my son Wes. Something I haven’t felt inside a stadium in so long I'd forgotten how good it feels. Like air after being underwater.

When I stop, I’m breathing hard, but I’m happy.

“Please tell me I can do preseason with the team,” I beg, and my face does the thing on its own—those abandoned puppy eyes Tessa used to love years ago.

Next to us, Hades waits like she’s ready to stamp a form.

“You can do preseason with the team,” Tessa confirms. “But I need you to tell me about any pain, and we keep the strength work going.”

“You’re coming to Florida too?” I ask, surprised.

Tessa only nods slow. Hades flashes a thumbs-up and winks at me before she heads off.

When we’re alone, I move toward Tessa before I think, before I remember professional lines, before I remember I still hate her a little for what she did seven years ago. Before I list every reason why keeping distance from Tessa is the safest thing I can do for my emotional stability.

I hug her.

It’s fast. It’s impulsive. I’m so happy I don’t even stop to ask what I’m doing.

She wraps her arms around me and it feels exactly like it used to. I feel her heart thudding against my chest. I smell her perfume. Clean and familiar. I hear her breathing. I feel it on the skin of my neck.

The hug should last two or three seconds. Five, max.

It lasts ten. Maybe more.

When I start to pull away, her hands pause on my hips, and my fingers still clutch the lapels of the white coat she wears.

And something shifts.

It’s in the silence. In the way our breaths line up, like my body goes on high alert for every single point where we touch.

I should step back.

I don’t move.

“Zoe…” she whispers my name, and I don’t know if it’s a warning, a plea, or a question. I only know I close my eyes and part my lips.

And then she kisses me.

It’s soft, like she’s asking permission to keep going, but my body decides before my brain can argue. If my brain gets a vote, I stop her. Instead, I wrap my arms around her neck and deepen the kiss, shaking every time I hear the small sounds she smothers against my mouth.

Seven years since the last time we kissed, and my body knows her anyway. Her taste. The shape of her mouth. The way her tongue finds mine like it never forgot.

There’s no caution left. There’s hunger. Seven years of distance collapses in one breath. It’s everything we don’t say during four weeks of too-professional sessions where every brush of skin is a torture dressed up as medical care.

I push her back against the stadium’s concrete wall. Her hands find skin under my sports bra. My fingers find the zipper on her pants. And the second I feel the heat between her legs, she lets out a sound that makes my whole body stutter.

“Shit,” I whisper against her lips. “Tessa… no. Stop. Please.”

I pull myself together, and to say reality hits me like a bucket of ice water doesn’t even cover it. It’s like someone dumps the whole Arctic on me, ice chunks included.

“Goddamn it,” I grind out.