Page 35 of Try Hard

Eve

I smiled, leaning on the bar as Tanika chatted animatedly at Ophelia.

She was discussing some gossip from her office, but I’d long since lost track of the conversation, too wrapped up in watching Ophelia’s expressions.

In fairness, it was late, the evening was winding down, and Tanika wasn’t talking to me.

She’d grabbed Ophelia's elbow and towed her a few feet from me—and I’d decided to make my peace with the fact that, when Ophelia was in my life, jealousy was an emotion I experienced.

It wasn’t that I thought Tanika was hitting on her—the woman was resolutely straight—it was just that I couldn’t get enough time around Ophelia.

I wanted her to enjoy her friends and reconnect, and I wanted, desperately, to be hers.

Always had. She’d been through so much, though.

We needed to go slow—even with our limited time together in Eddlesworth.

I was beginning to wonder how much Row would murder me if I told her I wanted to work remotely more often after my break—like, from wherever in the world that allowed me to see Ophelia.

“Hey,” Sammy said, sidling up far too close behind me. She drew the word out like she was drunk, but I’d barely seen her with a drink all night. And the last one had been over an hour ago.

“Hey,” I said, very purposefully friendly, not flirty, as I tried to step back from her. She followed me, of course. Trapping me between the bar and a couple I didn’t know.

“So…” She moved her finger to my shoulder, running over the edge of my suspenders again. If Ophelia hadn’t done such an incredible double take when she’d first seen me in them, I’d regret wearing them.

“Yes?”

“I’m just wondering if outfits like this are why people call you Daddy rather than Mother?”

“No, actually. That’s from an interview I did on a podcast where they asked which I… preferred.” That hadn’t quite been how the conversation went, and, unfortunately, a lot of the fans had somewhat missed the point of the conversation, but I’d gotten used to it.

Sammy’s eyes lit up and I knew she definitely wasn’t drunk. “So, you have a daddy kink?”

“No.” I usually tried to be nice with fans, even when they asked inappropriate or intrusive questions, but there was a line and she was crossing it. “And I prefer not to discuss topics like that with people I don’t know.”

She laughed and stroked my arm. “I’m hardly a stranger. We’re getting to know each other.”

I cleared my throat and apologised to the couple beside me as I jostled them to get some distance from Sammy. “Look, we both want this wedding to go well and we care about Kieran and Kim, but I think I need to put some boundaries in place.”

“Oh, yeah? You want to take things slow?” She approached me again and I felt my muscles locking down, fighting against the uncomfortable twisting in my gut. “I like things fast and har—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” I said, hands raised like a barrier. “I’m perfectly happy to be friendly and chat while we’re at these events, but that’s as far as it goes. I’m sorry if you were hoping for something else, but I’m not interested.”

Her eyes flashed to something over my shoulder and I had a sick feeling that it was Ophelia she was glaring at. “Because of her? You’re picking her over me?”

Picking Ophelia over her would imply there had been some kind of choice between them, that I’d been torn, that anyone but Ophelia had ever been in the running. I wasn’t going to point that out, though, even if the moment was making me want to do everything in my power to protect Ophelia.

The realisation that, if she chose to be with me, this probably wouldn’t be the only time she faced such ire caused my chest to ache. She didn’t deserve that. And a lot of it wouldn’t be said directly to me. There was little I could do to control it.

I didn’t regret how I’d lived my life, but I wasn’t thrilled that parts of it might hurt Ophelia.

I cleared my throat. “This isn’t anyone else’s doing. This is me, and me alone, saying no and asking you to respect that.”

Her eyes flicked back to mine. “She can’t handle your life, can’t handle the celebrity.”

“You don’t know her.” The jab hurt more than I wanted it to with that very question hanging over us. “And, like I just said, this isn’t Ophelia’s doing.”

Sammy stepped closer again. “I can give you what you want, what you need. I know you. I’ve been paying attention.”

“No. You know a version of me that exists in public. That isn’t the same as knowing someone. That’s a mere snapshot of one part of me. And the real, full me is asking you to stop this. I would appreciate it if you’d abide by that.”

She laughed like this was a flirty game, and fear prickled at the edges of my mind.

People generally gave up once firm boundaries were established, once they saw my usual relaxed demeanour stiffen into something far more distant.

Being in the public eye sometimes made people feel entitled to you.

Plenty of fans were perfectly lovely and reasonable, but Sammy wasn’t my first encounter with ones who blew past boundaries. I didn’t want it to get any worse.

“I think it’s best,” I said in my most serious tone, “if you and I keep our distance from one another moving forward.” There was only the wedding left to go, so it shouldn’t be too hard, even if that would be a whole day in the same location.

“But, Eve…” She looked genuinely hurt, and, through my fear and irritation, the look flooded me with confusion. Was it real? Just an attempt to have me walk my words back? Could she really not see how she’d been inappropriate?

I held up a hand. “Have a good night.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have headed straight for Ophelia given that Sammy was already, ridiculously, blaming her, but I wanted to protect her. I wanted the comfort of being with her.

She took one look at me and her whole expression shifted. It was subtle enough I doubted the others would fully register it. They’d probably assume she was just back to her standoffish, scowling self, but I knew it wasn’t that. She was scanning me for clues, scanning the room to see what was wrong.

She wrapped an arm around my back, pulling me into her side as Tanika wrapped up a story I still wasn’t following.

I wasn’t really afraid that Sammy would do something dangerous here, even if my body prepared for some of the things I’d seen over the years, but I still appreciated the way Ophelia’s touch steadied me.

“Do you want to go?” she asked as Tanika’s attention focused on someone else.

I nodded. “Are you ready?”

Ophelia laughed and leaned closer so only I would hear her. “It’s a room full of people, Archer. What do you think?”

“Right. Not your favourite thing in the world.”

“Maybe not. It has been fun, though.”

I smiled and couldn’t help but wonder what her favourite thing in the world was. I also couldn’t help enjoying the way our friends said good night to us like we were a couple, or the way we walked out of the club still wrapped around each other.

“So. Home?” I asked as we approached the car.

Ophelia twisted into me as we walked, her cheek pressing to my chest. “Home.”

◆◆◆

Ophelia was waiting at the bottom of the bed when I reentered the bedroom.

I couldn’t stop a smile spreading across my face at how adorable she was.

She’d used the bathroom to get ready for bed before I had.

While I hadn’t taken too long, had she just been standing there, waiting for permission to lie down the whole time I was gone?

I tossed my dirty clothes into the hamper before standing in front of her, smiling. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” She pursed her lips and looked quickly away.

“You didn’t want to lie down?”

“I did. I just thought it was polite to wait.”

“For?”

She pulled a face, frustrated with herself. “Permission.”

I laughed and moved quickly to gather her into my arms. She gasped and let out a little squeak as I threw us both onto the mattress, keeping her safe in my embrace.

“Eve, oh, my god,” she gasped after we’d landed, and my heart took off racing at her use of my first name again.

The fact that she used it when caught by surprise suggested it was her mental default.

Sure, she called me Archer out loud, but, when she thought about me, she called me Eve.

It was ridiculous because so many people called me Eve—it was literally my name—but there was something oddly intimate about her using it, about her thinking of me as Eve .

“Yes, Ophelia?” I asked, noting how her tense muscles relaxed into me when I made no move to let her go.

“Some warning next time, maybe?”

Her snarky tone wasn’t off-putting. I was both used to it and in love with it—well, in love ? I wanted to convince myself that was too strong a term, but fighting myself on it felt wrong.

You could be in love with an aspect of someone’s personality, right?

She wasn’t helping my suddenly racing heart and overly active emotions as she rested her head on my shoulder and laid her arm across my waist. Her fingers slipped just under my back, pressed into me by the mattress beneath us.

I loved her touch too. It was clearly something you had to work to earn, and I loved being able to earn it. I loved the way she trusted me.

“Sure,” I whispered, far more breathless than I should have been. The twitch of Ophelia’s head against me suggested she’d noticed the tone.

My hands skated over the sweatshirt she was wearing, holding her close.

I’d long since lost count of the number of times I’d lay in bed imagining exactly this—her beside me, holding each other, talking until the early hours, luxuriating in being around her.

And it was still somehow infinitely more incredible than I’d imagined.

We were quiet for several long moments, simply breathing together, and, the more time that passed, the more I felt her relaxing.

She never came across as stressed or anxious in public, but I was realising just how much tension she carried with her around other people.

Maybe that was what happened to introverts.

I wasn’t going to ruin it by pointing it out and asking.

After what must have been fifteen minutes of silence, she slowly pulled her hand down the bed beside my body and stopped, hovering over the hem of my shorts—we looked like we were dressed for opposing seasons. Her sweatshirt and pyjama pants at odds with my shorts and a tank top.

“What’s your tattoo?” she asked, her voice little more than a murmur.

I breathed a laugh. The shorts I was wearing were too long to see it. She must have been holding onto that question since the rugby match, which was impossibly relatable. I couldn’t count the number of questions I was holding onto for her.

Holding her tighter with one hand so she wouldn’t think I wanted her to move, I reached down to pull the fabric higher, revealing the black ink.

Ophelia lifted her head to get a better look before she looked at me questioningly. Her fingers traced over the tattoo at my nod of consent. “Coordinates?”

I hummed, barely even able to breathe with her touching me. They were high on my outer thigh. Sure, people on the pitch touched me there sometimes, but that was a million miles from what Ophelia was doing.

“Soph’s idea, actually,” I said, looking down at my thigh instead of her perfect, inquisitive face. “The top one is for the Olympics. The second is the World Cup, and the third is the location of my first official team. My big break. It felt right.”

She nodded, looking at the tattoo reverently. “Did Sophie do it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m assuming it was not a stick and poke.”

I laughed, leaning back into the bed, wrapping both of my arms tightly around her again. “It was not. I love Soph, but if she’s going to tattoo me—if anyone is—it’ll be with a proper gun.”

“That’s very fair.” She hesitated, her fingers still tracing over the numbers on my thigh, her head settled back onto my chest. I didn’t feel the urge to stop her, to cover myself up from her. “Do you have others?”

“Just one.” That one wouldn’t be hard to show her either, even though few others had ever seen it.

Her fingers paused on my thigh. “Can I ask what it is?”

“Of course.” I reluctantly sat up to point at the spot on my ribs. “Olympic rings. Do you want to see it?”

Something flickered across her face as her eyes dropped to the spot in question, usually hidden by the band of my bra and currently tucked away under my tank top. She nodded. “Yes, please.”

Slowly, I pulled the hem of my shirt up, careful not to completely flash her.

Her gaze was hypnotic as she followed the trail of my shirt, taking in the exposed skin.

She’d seen most of it before—I’d stood in front of her in just my sports bra after the game—but there was a distinctly different feel to it when we were lying in my bed together.

Ophelia moved to her knees, leaning over me to get a better look at the small, colourful Olympic rings inked forever into my skin. Her hand moved instinctively, but she froze when she realised, her gaze darting to my eyes. “Can I?”

“Of course,” I whispered. She could do anything she wanted to.

Her fingertips were soft and warm and electric as they traced over my ribs.

I wasn’t sure anyone had ever touched me as reverently as she did.

Sure, people sometimes looked at me like I was some weird goddess of celebrity or sport, but it wasn’t the same as the way Ophelia treated me.

I wasn’t infallible to her. I was real and precious and ephemeral. And that was so much better.