Page 10 of Making It Burn

“Sweetheart, you’re white-knuckling your armrest like it spit on you.”

She was right.I forced my fingers to relax.

“Mason.”Her voice softened, losing some of its teasing edge.“You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Liar.”

“Lisa—”

“Okay, okay.I’m going.”She headed for the door, then paused with her hand on the handle.“But for the record?Whatever history you two have, it’s obvious there’s some serious unfinished business there.Maybe you should actually deal with it instead of white-knuckling it with him.”

Then she was gone, leaving me alone with a stack of discovery materials and the uncomfortable realization that Lisa Morales was far too perceptive for her own good.

Or mine.

I tried to work, opening the first folder, scanning the first page, reading the same paragraph three times without absorbing a single word.My mind kept drifting back to Beau’s office, to the way he’d stood so close I could see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes, to the challenge in his voice when he’d asked if I could handle working together.

Can I?

I slammed the folder shut and stood.I needed to move.Needed to do something, anything, that wasn’t sitting in this office thinking about Beau Thatcher’s stupid face.

I grabbed my phone and wallet, shrugged into my coat, and walked out without a word to anyone.

* * *

The locker room at Westwood Racquet Club smelled like expensive soap and old money—a combination that no amount of industrial cleaning could fully erase.I sat on the bench, lacing up my tennis shoes with mechanical precision, each pull of the strings a tiny act of control in a day that had spun wildly out of my grasp.

Tennis had always been my refuge.The court was a place where everything made sense: clear lines, definable rules, a single opponent and a single objective.Win.It was pure, uncomplicated, and entirely within my control.

Unlike, say, being forced to work with the one person who’d ever gotten under my skin and stayed there.

I yanked the last lace tight and stood, grabbing my racquet out of the locker.I took a few practice swings, letting muscle memory take over, feeling my shoulders loosen incrementally.

“Mason!”

I turned to see Aaron Taylor emerging from the showers, toweling his hair.He was a regular at the club—a financial advisor or something equally boring that I’d never bothered to fully register.We’d played a handful of times, always when one of us needed a last-minute partner.He was good enough to make it interesting, but never good enough to beat me.

Perfect.

“Hey,” I said.“Are you playing today?”

“Was supposed to, but my partner just cancelled.You got a match?”

“Not yet.Want to go a set?”

His face lit up.“Hell yes.Give me five minutes?”

“Take your time.”

While Aaron got ready, I headed out to the courts.Westwood was old Richmond money—all dark wood panelling and portraits of dead white men who’d probably owned slaves.But the tennis facilities were state-of-the-art: pristine indoor hard courts with perfect lighting and not a speck of dust on the Plexiglas barriers.

Court three was open.I pushed through the door and was immediately enveloped in the peculiar quiet of an indoor court.I began warming up, and by the time Aaron joined me, I’d worked up a light sweat.

“Ready to get destroyed?”Aaron grinned, spinning his racquet.

“Confident today, are we?”