“How nice,” Jonah teased him. “You missed me.”
“I wanted to buy you a beer to say thank you. Never thought I’d see the day my kidswantedto play tennis!”
His words struck me like a serve to the chest, setting off a cascade of red flags in my mind. Not only red flags – alarms, fireworks, warning sirens. Then, it all flashed before my eyes.Hisface – my ex’s. The Wimbledon whites, the headlines, the lies. I’d trusted him straight into therapy.
Back then, the universe had one sick sense of humour, and it loved watching me squirm.
The room blurred around the edges as Jonah gave the newcomer a quick nod of recognition, and the two exchanged pleasantries as though this wasn’t a monumental disaster. When he looked back to me, I couldn’t stop myself. “You play tennis?” My voice was sharp, accusatory.
“Coach,” he corrected casually, that goofy smile still bright. Instead of feeling that spark from before, it was closer to a stinging reminder of how sharp heartbreak can feel. “It’s part-time. I work with a few of the locals. Helps cover the rent. I used to play, almost went pro.”
Tennis. Of course, it had to be tennis.
I drained the rest of my drink in one long gulp, setting the glass down with more force than I intended. “I need to go.”
“What? Wait—” Jonah reached for me, but I was already halfway out of my seat.
“No.” The word came out too quickly, too harsh. I didn’t care. I wasn’t sticking around.
It wasn’t about him. Not really. However, hearing that one word – the sport, the ambition, the echo of another life – I felt my past tighten its grip like it had never left. London might’ve been over five hundred miles away, but somehow it still knew where to find me.
I had one rule: don’t date tennis players. Even him, standing there with his stupidly perfect smile and that easy swagger, looking exactly like the kind of thing I wasn’t allowed to want. Like the catering at the shoot – off-limits, delicious, and destined to ruin me.
I’d come here looking for an escape, something new, not a rerun. Not another charming athlete with a good backhand and a bad exit strategy. If that was even possible.
The sooner I found my rental and got out of this cold, the better. These boots weren’t made for walking – especially not on black ice – but I’d take frostbite over déjà vu any day.
three
JONAH
Signs - Bloc Party
Istared at the door as it swung shut, one of the only reminders that she’d actually walked into my life. That and the expensive perfume that lingered – peaches, sweet and heady.
I’d had to stop myself from leaning closer, from stealing another second in her proximity. Never in my thirty-three years had I met anyone like her. Everything about Kit was magnetic, from her smile and the sound of her laugh to that giant fur coat she wore, absurdly out of place but somehow suiting her perfectly.
“Where’d your new friend go?” Archie slid along the bar toward me, pint in hand. He’d been a solid friend since I’d arrived, him being a PE teacher at the school. Our friendship had started on the local court before he and his wife invited me over for dinner. The rest was easy.
Another local leaned in from his stool, clearly eager to join the gossip. “Are the tourists multiplying?”
Archie frowned. “Surely not this time of year?”
“She just walked in,” I muttered, still trying to make sense of it myself. I wished for a beer, hoping the alcohol could help me decipher the last twenty minutes. Alas, I had to drive home.
The second she’d walked in, my self-control crumbled. I’d practically hopped, skipped, and jumped across the room to be at her side, and then I’d practically blacked out when I’d done that stupid accent for her.
Damn the Scots and their ‘banter’.
“And then she walked right out again,” the older man said, snapping me back to reality.
“Yeah…” I mumbled, still caught in the moment, her presence clinging to the air like her fruity perfume.Where was she even going? And what had I done to send her away? “That was…strange.”
“She’s English.” Archie shrugged, as if that explained everything.
“Bah,” the older man scoffed, waving his pint and sloshing beer onto the bar. “Better to let that ol’ fish back off the hook.”
I frowned. “I don’t think she was on any hook.” In fact, I didn’t think I had a single chance in hell with a woman like that. And yet, I kept glancing back at the door, half expecting her to walk in again.How was she even planning on getting to the cottage? This time of year, the way was near inaccessible without a car.
