“I don’t want to say yes. But maybe things would’ve been easier between us if it hadn’t happened.”
“Maybe.” I nodded. “But you still would’ve been a bitch on court.”
“And you still would’ve been in my way.” She smiled softly, her gaze lifting from mine, moving around the bedroom, her messy suitcase still shoved in the corner. It didn’t matter to me anymore. I could get used to her mess. “I think we would’ve ended up here no matter what,” she said.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she said, and swallowed. “I do.”
“I think I like that,” I confessed. “Makes this feel inevitable.”
How was I supposed to sleep after this? My heart pounded against my rib cage, my lungs tight as if wrapped in a band, every breath a struggle.
As if on cue, her head leaned into view, her gaze sharp and curious. “You know I’m technically your boss, right?”
“I mean, we shook hands,” I pointed out, nodding towards the hallway. “I could walk out that door tomorrow.”
Something in her gaze flickered, a glint of something under the stormy blue surface. “You wouldn’t, though. Right?”
I was all too aware of how tangled we’d become. Hitting partners, business arrangement, rivals. What else was there to add to that ever-growing list?
“No, Chloe.” Her name fizzed on my tongue like champagne bubbles. “I wouldn’t.”
Her reaction unfolded slowly, like the strings of a racket slackening, her entire body relaxing. “Good.”
“I think that makes it my turn to ask a question.”
“You might be right.” Chloe’s lips twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile, but close enough to soften the tension etched in her posture.
I didn’t look away. “What are you most afraid of?”
She arched a brow, the hint of a challenge sparking in her expression. “Getting deep, are we, Inés?”
“I figured it was time to bring out the big guns.”
Chloe leaned closer, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “Maybe I’m afraid of you.”
The air between us shifted, crackling with something electric. I laughed softly, but it was more with nerves than amusement. “Me? What could I possibly do to scare you?”
“You...” She trailed off, her smirk fading like the last glow of sunlight before dusk. “You disrupt everything about my life.”
I didn’t speak, too afraid that anything I said might shatter the fragile honesty stretching the small distance between us.
“It’s like you’ve strolled in and... every part of it stopped making sense.” Her voice wavered, but she held my gaze. “I’m not used to that. I’ve spent years building this. My routines, my focus, my plan. And then you come along, and suddenly, I’m questioning all of it.”
I blinked, startled by the rawness in her words. “I didn’t mean to—”
“I know.” She cut me off with a soft shake of her head. “That’s the worst part. You’re not even trying, but it’s like you’ve turned everything upside down. Out there, I can win. But when we train together, it’s like I’m chasing you, and Ihateit.”
The vulnerability in her words hit me like a punch to the gut. This was Chloe. The fierce, unshakable, always-in-control Chloe, and here she was, letting me past her facade.
“And it’s not just tennis,” she continued, her voice dropping. “It’s you. The way you look at me, the way you make me...” She hesitated, her teeth catching her bottom lip. “The way you make me feel.”
“And how do I make you feel?” I knew how she made me feel. A fury that burned like red hot lava meeting an ocean of green and blue. At first, it had been a basic chemical reaction. Water turning to steam, lava cooling and solidifying to impenetrable rock.
But now, with rolling waves, she’d smoothed me down. We’d found a way to coexist. A way to support each other, and now I didn’t know how to be without the tides, the coolness in her touch.
“Fuzzy,” she joked.
