Page 17 of Try Hard

Eve

I was positively incandescent with joy sitting beside Ophelia, in her car, scrolling through her playlists and being absolutely delighted at both how vast her musical tastes were and, often, how much we had in common.

Even with some of the lesser known artists I enjoyed, which felt like winning the lottery.

When we were halfway home, she cleared her throat. “Are we going to your mum’s or your dad’s?”

I looked up from her phone and smiled at the gentleness in her voice. “Dad’s would be great. He lives on Woodgrove Road.”

“Are you ferrying between the two?” Her brow creased but she kept her eyes on the road.

“A little. I’m sleeping at my mum’s, but I like to see him too.

He just doesn’t have as much space as she does.

” I hesitated, wondering how much she wanted to know, but, when she glanced quickly at me, I knew she was open to whatever I wanted to say.

“They get along well and everything’s fine between them, but he sort of…

felt like he’d never find someone else after the divorce, so he moved into a…

studio? It’s big for a studio, but like, kind of open plan. You know, bachelor pad vibes.”

She smiled good naturedly. “That’s fair. It must have been a hard time for both of them.”

I swallowed, nodding. “It was.”

“And for you.”

My eyes traced her profile. So perfect. The slightest little upturn at the tip of her nose. She had one of those noses people paid surgeons good money for, while I was lucky that mine had somehow stayed in place through multiple fractures.

She frowned. “Sorry. You aren’t required to talk about that.”

“No, no. It was… tricky for me too. I just… I was thinking about how sweet it was of you to consider that.”

She visibly relaxed, checking over her shoulder mostly to look away, I imagined. “Well, just because you were an adult when it happened doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard.”

“Yeah, I guess. Not quite as world-changing as when you’re a kid, and all I really want is for them to be happy and, if that wasn’t together, I support that for them.

But, it was a little weird. Getting used to calling two different places, visiting two different homes.

Suddenly worrying about whether either of them is lonely.

It’s an odd thing knowing your parents are human and likely crying over the collapse of their marriage but not being sure how to help or what to do. ”

She was quiet, considering my words. Ophelia had always been like that—thoughtful, considerate. Teachers commented on it repeatedly when we were at school. It felt like they’d never met a student so measured before.

The playlist switched to an upbeat song that absolutely did not fit the tone of the conversation, but I simply smiled at her phone and let it play.

“I’m sure they were simply grateful not to lose you, and to get through it as amicably as possible,” she said softly.

I nodded, leaning my head back against the seat again to watch her.

I liked seeing more of this side of her—who she was when it was just the two of us.

“Yeah. They’ve both stated many times that they’re in such a better place with each other than they were at the end of their marriage, and, whether or not it’s a little unusual, our family works. ”

She smiled. While she drove, concentrating so fully on the road, her expressions seemed to come more freely.

Or maybe it was just being away from a large crowd. Maybe both.

“And now your mum has Terrance?”

I grinned. “Yeah. He’s a good one. He’d like you.”

She laughed. “Are you sure about that?”

“Very. He’s an easy-going guy, likes people. He knows I like you, so he’d like you too.” I paused. “And that Soph likes you.”

“Sophie doesn’t know me.”

My heart leapt at the idea that maybe that meant I did. At least a little. “I don’t know, you two spent a lot of time together.”

“Yeah, twenty years ago. And I was her peer mentor. It’s not like we were just hanging out.”

“Oh?”

She glanced my way again, probably from the oddly strangled tone in my voice that even one, solitary word couldn’t hide.

“Yeah. I mean, I liked her and we got along, but it was, by design, a fairly one-sided dynamic. Those mentoring relationships aren’t really about the mentor, you know?

You’ve done mentoring stuff with kids, you know. ”

I couldn’t stop the massive grin that spread across my face. “You really have been keeping up with me.”

“Oh, my god,” she complained, but she didn’t deny it.

I laughed, playing with her phone even though I was no longer looking at it. “I think that was a little different. I was an adult when that happened. You were Soph’s peer .”

“I’ve been told I can be exacting. Guess it makes sense you can too.”

“How so?” I asked, studying her with narrowed eyes.

“Because I don’t think you get to the level of success you achieved without being a little exacting.”

“Oh.” My heart thumped harder in my chest. Just like it did every time she complimented me.

Some of her compliments were more obvious than others—like when I’d almost exploded at her saying critics were wrong about my body—but every time, the fact that she had anything flattering to say felt like the best thing ever. “Thank you.”

She laughed again. “You’re surprised people think you work hard and pay attention to detail? You think everyone is just winning that many trophies—or Olympic medals ?”

“Ah,” I said, trying to sound rueful as I choked back a laugh, “but it’s not gold, is it? Could be better.”

“Don’t even try that,” she replied, almost stern. “I’ve seen multiple interviews with you where you were very clear on how amazing winning any medal was.”

I couldn’t hold my laughter back. “Yeah, okay, you got me.”

She sent me a knowing, victorious look, and I couldn’t help thinking, again, just how beautiful she was.

The fact that I frequently got hit on clearly bothered her, but it baffled me that she wasn’t dealing with the same thing.

People should have been throwing themselves at her.

It was easy to understand the motivations of someone like Sammy when she wasn’t also throwing herself at Ophelia like she should have been.

“Is the…” She trailed off, faltering. It was unusual from her and it caused my brow to furrow. “Was the divorce the reason you came home?”

“Oh.” That was easy to answer. “No, not really. I mean, it ended up being good timing, at least from that perspective, but no. I’d taken a hit in a game and ended up with a petty rough concussion. The latest in a long line of injuries.”

She winced like she was experiencing them herself and I wondered if she’d seen any of them, if she’d ever seen me play.

“I’m okay,” I promised. “But, with that one, my doctors ended up having some pretty serious conversations with me, with each other, with the team… At the end of the day, I didn’t want to lose everything, you know? Retiring was hard, but it was better than the alternative.”

She looked emotional as she nodded, like she understood what it had taken for me to give professional rugby up. Some people thought it was silly to be so upset about a game, but not her. Not Ophelia.

“Do you regret stopping?” she asked.

I smirked. “Well, I play in a community team now, just for fun. So, while I don’t regret the decision I made, I guess I couldn’t quite give it up entirely.”

“What about injuries?”

“Are you worried about me, Ophelia?”

“I imagine everyone is worried about you after that,” she said, but the pink colour climbing up her neck and over the ear I could see suggested she was a little embarrassed in an adorable way.

I laughed, letting her off the hook. “It’s a lot less aggressive than the professional level, far fewer injuries, you know?

People want to play but they also want to go home to their families and their jobs.

They don’t need it in the same way you do when it’s your job and everything is on the line. ”

She nodded, breathing out slowly in a way that suggested she really had been worried about me. “And you like your new job?”

That was an easy question too. “Yeah. I always did love interior design and my partner is awesome.”

“Partner?” There was something hard in her voice and I couldn’t help feel a surge of hope bursting in my chest.

“Business partner,” I clarified, watching every minute detail on her face, every muscle flex, every little bit of emotion that got away from her.

“Right. Rohanna. From the article.”

“That’s the one,” I told her, amused. “I wonder what you two would be like in the same room.”

I could tell from her expression that she heard my hopeful, speculative tone.

She shrugged. “Maybe we’ll find out one day.”

My breath came far too sharply for a casual conversion and I could only hope it got lost in the syncopated bass from the song now playing over the speakers.

I wanted them to meet. I worried Ophelia would be thrown by Row’s chaotic energy, but I wanted them to meet.

Row was my best friend and business partner.

And Ophelia was… a fucking dream I never wanted to stop living in.

My hands gripped her phone. I wanted to hold her. Wanted to introduce her to every single person I’d ever met as my girlfriend. It was ridiculous, but twenty years did nothing where Ophelia Pendrick was concerned.

The conversation continued to flow easily as she drove me to my dad’s place and, before I knew it, I was directing her into the parking lot for his building.

She pulled in and killed the engine, turning to smile at me, and it was like the sun coming out on a terrible day. The weather wasn’t even bad—it was great so far—but winning her smiles couldn’t effectively be compared to anything else.

She nodded down at my phone. “So, what’s the verdict?”

I grinned. “That I love your music taste.”

“Wow. Not even pretending to play it cool, Archer?”