Page 38 of Game Point (Game, Set, and Match #2)

Oliver

I Think He Knows – Taylor Swift

‘Alright, we can call it there for today,’ I said, Dylan scoring another game point, her short skirt fluttering in the air, revealing a tease of the shorts underneath. We were in a tie break, one more point and she’d take the match.

She grinned wildly from across the court, her hand raised to block the sun from her eyes. ‘Are you ending it because I was kicking your ass in the final set?’

‘No.’ I headed to the sidelines, collecting discarded balls. I motioned my racket across the court. ‘Unless you still have some energy for more drills?’

‘Nope,’ she replied quickly. ‘Absolutely exhausted.’

She was right, I had ended it before she won. But since I was the coach, I made the rules.

‘Are you sure? We still have time for some suicides?’ I added, all those years of my own teasing coaches coming back. I had hated whenever they were hard asses, but now I was in their shoes, I could understand the value – and fun – of it all.

‘Wow, guess we should pick up all these balls.’ She leaned down to clean up, and I had to force my gaze up, avoiding the view down her crop top.

I continued cleaning up my side of the court, silently begging for her to find longer clothing in her wardrobe. We met at the ball cage at the side of the court.

‘You still need to watch out for your sliding,’ I said, as we walked side by side over to the bench. ‘You can hurt yourself if it’s uncontrolled.’

She pushed her long hair back over her shoulder. ‘It is controlled.’

‘But one misstep –’

‘– and it’s bye bye trophy,’ she interrupted.

‘Goodbye tennis career is more likely,’ I corrected.

The court cleaned up, we threw our bags over our shoulders, and headed towards the exit, the sun low in the evening sky.

We’d spent most of the afternoon out here doing various drills before we ended the day with a practice match.

In the morning, she’d seen her physio, gone through her gym routine at a private session with a PT who specialized with professional athletes, and I’d met with Amy, the psychologist, to make sure we were working together to help Dylan manage her anxiety.

‘I’ll be careful, promise,’ she said. ‘Can we order take out?’

‘After your mum dropped off all those premade meals for us?’ Our cooking skills had remained pretty basic, and after her mum learned we’d basically been living off supermarket ready meals, she helped us out, remembering a lot of the high-protein meals Dylan had devoured during her training as a teenager.

She let out a noise of complaint as I closed the gate to the court behind us. ‘There is only so long I can live off chicken, beans and sweet potato.’

‘And we will continue for as long as your mum offers to prepare meals for us.’ We walked back to her house. ‘But I think she dropped off some dessert,’ I offered as a consolation.

She beamed at me. ‘Peach cobbler. They have a tree in their yard.’

Dylan slid the door to her house open, dumping her tennis bag to the side, while I could only shake my head at her messiness. I carried mine through the house, storing it away in the hallway closet as she headed straight up the stairs.

‘I’m going for a shower!’ she shouted, as I continued cleaning up after her, noticing all the things she had abandoned rather than put away.

I heard her bedroom door closing, assuming she was going to her ensuite as usual.

If there was one thing I was figuring out, it was how messy Dylan was to live with.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, seeing a phone call from my mum. I answered it, happy to hear from my parents. With the time difference, it hadn’t been very easy to catch up with them.

They put me on speaker as they sat around the breakfast table, and I listened to the two of them with their friendly squabbles and complaints.

I told them all about Dylan, the progress we’d been making together on court.

As much as I missed them, I found myself feeling more content with my decision to follow Dylan, sure that London wasn’t where I needed to be.

I wasn’t sure where home was for me anymore, maybe after years of travel, and a heartbreak that had left me broken, I was more of a nomad. No one place to call home, but instead people. My family, friends.

When I got off the call thirty minutes later, I headed straight upstairs, going straight to my room to get ready for a shower. I closed the door, stripping my sweaty clothes off and wrapping my towel around my waist.

I headed towards the bathroom, desperate to wash the sweat away. She was getting faster, more challenging. If I’d let that match go any longer, she would’ve won, and the moment she did, I’d never ever have heard the end of it.

I pushed the door open, steam hitting me in the face as I stepped forward, only to be met with a flash of bare skin, my body colliding with something wet, brunette and … naked?

‘What are you doing?’ Dylan shrieked, grabbing a towel as I tried to gain enough control of my body to avert my eyes from looking at anything other than hers.

Endless soft skin stretched as she moved, her hands reaching out to pull the towel over her body.

Memories of running my tongue over her sensitive nipple plagued my mind, remembering how she moaned when I sucked the skin there.

‘Th-th-this is my shower,’ I stammered, the soft cotton material tucked in, concealing her from view. How I wanted to take a step closer, push her up onto the counter, untuck the towel with my thumb, pull it away so she couldn’t hide from me anymore.

‘I think you’ll find they are both my showers.’

‘You normally shower in your ensuite.’ I pointed towards her bedroom as if to help her locate where she normally showered.

She simply raised her shoulders in a shrug. ‘It broke. I told you last night. The shower head won’t stay up.’

My head scrambled, trying to remember her telling me this valuable piece of information, but I was already too distracted by her long legs, by a single bead of water that was running down her throat, meeting the prominent collarbone I’d tracked with my mouth, before rolling further south.

‘How did you break the shower?’

She straightened, my question catching her off guard. ‘I-I …’ She swallowed uncomfortably as a bright tomato redness began to rise to her already flushed cheeks. ‘I moved the head and now it’s not staying up.’

‘That’s weird.’ I studied her further. All the confidence she had when she was telling me off had completely gone, replaced with embarrassment. I’d only seen it a few times with Dylan.

I stepped forward. ‘Do you want me to take a look?’

‘I’d like you to get out,’ she snipped, regaining some of her confident footing.

My eyes narrowed at her. ‘Why were you even touching the shower head to begin with?’ I asked, my brows pushing together with suspicion. She was hiding something, and I wanted to figure it out. Had she fallen down? Slipped and didn’t want to tell me?

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She ground out each word like it caused her irritation to keep discussing it, a clear reluctance across her face. Then she stepped forward to try and leave, but I simply leaned out, my arm finding the doorway as I blocked her exit.

‘I don’t believe you,’ I smirked, still trying to read the answer from her face. The strongest of the blush had faded, but the typical Dylan trademark irritated scowl? That was making a full appearance and I was lapping the experience up. I’d never seen her wound up over something small.

She exhaled heavily, an eyebrow tweaking up. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

Yes. ‘I don’t think you’re telling the truth.’

‘Sometimes I move it so I don’t get my hair wet.’ This time holding my gaze. I was sure there was a pinch of truth to her words. A pinch and nothing more. And then her lips curled into a smirk, any trace of her scowl gone. Instead, this was something twisted.

She stepped closer, her tall height bringing her to my ear. The material of her towel rubbed against my bare chest, reminding me of how little material separated us.

‘Oliver.’ She pulled back to shoot me a strange look, her breath still warm against my neck, despite the hot air. ‘I don’t need to tell you what I do with the shower head. We both know. You already know.’

I stepped back out of the bathroom, looking at her face, the confident, cocky smile on her lips. And then it was my turn for my cheeks to burn hot, my dick hardening at the image she had planted in my brain.

Dylan, propped up in her shower, eyes closed, head back, a palm pressed to the glass to keep her up, the shower head between her legs. I still remember the sounds she makes when she comes.

She leaned forward, planting a kiss on my cheek. ‘Enjoy your shower. Might want to make it a cold one.’

She dipped underneath my arm, leaving the bathroom without any more fuss, before sauntering down the hallway, leaving me standing awestruck. Before I knew what I was doing, I had my own retort locked and loaded.

‘Yeah, well, you might want to keep your volume down during your night-time activities .’ I watched her turn, pausing in the doorway to her bedroom.

I thought of that night when I’d overheard her.

It had been hard to forget, when I’d spent countless nights recalling those very moans as she’d called out my name.

‘These walls are incredibly thin. You never know what your housemate might overhear. Maybe try a cold shower yourself.’

The redness that had subsided across her cheeks burned hotter. But if she felt any embarrassment, she quickly managed to control it again. ‘I’ll keep it down, roomie.’

Catching my reflection in the mirror, it hit me like a ton of bricks. The realization of how utterly and completely fucked I was to be sharing a roof with Dylan Bailey.