Hold up. YOU? Pickleball?
IKR? I suck tho
I’ve been playing. Love it.
What’s with the fish?
Fancy team dinner. Gotta go. Bye xo
“Brooke, oh my god, now I can’t teach you how to play!” Meredith wailed, interrupting my moment of sibling bonding. “If I’m injured, how am I going to be your wingwoman?”
There was no way I wanted to pile on while she was in pain. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Maybe Colton can help you instead?” she offered.
I shook my head and tried to hide my disappointment from her. “No, the vibe is different with him, plus Kai might think we’re together. Anyway, you’re going to be fine. I feel it in my bones. A couple of days of rest and you’ll be good as new.”
She leaned over to move the ice pack. Her swollen ankle now resembled a water balloon.
“Or not,” I said, watching my dreams of us playing adorably but powerfully in flippy skirts go up in flames. “Does it hurt as bad as it looks?”
She squinted and nodded at me. “Yeah. I’m sort of in agony, but I’m trying to mind over matter it.”
I leaned and looked out the window again. “We’re almost there. I’m sure they’ll give you some good meds.”
Thanks to the traffic stacking up in front of us, weweren’talmost there. Normally, we’d get out and walk the rest of the way, but it clearly wasn’t an option in our scenario.
“You know, that cute instructor guy could teach you,” Meredith offered softly.
I snorted at the thought.
“No, it’s actuallyperfect,” she said as she warmed to the idea. “He has direct access to your man. You could totally feel him out to get the intel on Kai and then get him to set up a match with him.” She paused. “Once you learn to really play, of course.”
“Mere, I’m sure lessons are way beyond my budget. But we’ll figure it out; don’t worry about me right now. Let’s get you healed up.”
Taking lessons with Owen wasn’t the worst idea. If I reallywanted to figure out the game and, by association, gain access to my inspo, then I probably needed to learn from an expert and not just goof around with Meredith. And the instructor formerly known as Bucket Hat obviously knew his stuff if he was a trainer at such a fancy club.
He didn’t look like the rest of the polished people at CPA, but Meredith was right, he was cute in a “big brother home from college” kind of way. He probably gave excellent hugs and made up silly nicknames for his friends.
The Escalade rolled to a stop again and I sighed. I needed to embrace the wait, because there was no doubt we’d be doing quite a bit of it for the next couple of hours. Meredith had her eyes squeezed shut, so I pulled out my notebook and started dreaming up all the ways a charming cowboy could delight his fake fiancée.
Writing happily ever afters required me to go into a flow state that was only possible when my head was in the right place. The breakup with Leo had all but guaranteed that I’d never find my way back to that cotton-candy, dreamy, true-love-wins way of looking at the world in time to finish this book. I’d tried channeling my pain into the third act breakup scene, a space where it was okay to let bleakness take the wheel for a couple thousand words. When I’d reread what I’d written the following day, the level of bitterness and venom in the scene felt all wrong. Yeah, things were supposed to go upside down during the breakup, but what I’d written was downright cruel. I could already see Piper’s “yikes” edits in the margins.
Now, though, I had a new direction, plus a little spark of inspiration. Was it ridiculous to pin my output on a silly crush?Of course, and probably dangerous as well, since for all I knew the guy could be a gaslighting asshole.
But in this moment Kai was a delicious unknown who’d given me something I’d been missing since Leo crushed my heart.
Hope.
Chapter Six
“Ihatebeing still.” Meredith smacked the futon in frustration. “This is torture.”
I glanced up at her from my workspace at the tiny kitchen table, where I was camped out just in case she needed help during day one post-injury. “You’re being forced to rest today for a very good reason. Lean into it. Maybe this is the time to try a new hobby, like crochet?”
“The day I start a sit-down hobby is the day when—”
“I take up a sport,” I finished for her, wearing a prim smile. “Stranger things have happened.”
