She'd been shutting things down since she was seventeen and first kissed a girl behind the practice courts at a tennis tournament in San Diego. She could still remember the taste of sunscreen on the girl's lips, and the terror that had followed, and the four years of pretending it hadn't happened while she dated boys she didn't want and smiled at parties she didn't enjoy and wondered why everyone else found this so easy.
Her parents never knew about the kiss. They never knew about any of it. When Sienna had finally told them she was gay, at twenty-five, sitting at their dining table with her hands trembling in her lap, they'd nodded and said "we understand"and never brought it up again. No questions. No celebration. No anger. Just silence, folded neatly and put away, the Park family speciality.
Sienna turned the water to cold. The shock of it hit her chest and she gasped, every muscle in her body seizing, and for a few merciful seconds there was nothing in her head except the temperature and the white noise of the spray.
Then the cold dulled and the thoughts came back. They always came back. Because Elise Moreno was not a feeling she could file away, not a drawer she could lock and forget. She was a woman who texted at midnight and made Sienna laugh and looked at her as though she mattered, and no amount of cold water or discipline or her parents' quiet, folded silence was going to change that.
She turned off the shower and stood dripping on the bath mat. The mirror was fogged. The apartment was silent except for the drip of water from the showerhead.
She wrapped herself in a towel and leaned against the bathroom door. The tiles were cold beneath her bare feet. Water dripped from her hair onto her shoulders and ran in thin lines down her arms. She pressed her palm flat over her sternum, where her own heartbeat was still running too fast.
She'd spent her entire adult life being careful. Being controlled. Keeping everyone at a safe distance where feelings couldn't compromise her judgment and attraction couldn't derail her career. She'd done it with every woman who'd caught her eye, every fleeting connection that might have become more if she'd let it. She hadn't let it. Not once. Not ever.
And now there was Elise Moreno, who was her patient, who was injured, who trusted her. Who had saidgoodnight, Siennain a text message and looked at her with eyes that were direct and warm and completely devastating. Who made dry jokes about pizza and asked about rehab timelines at midnightbecause she wanted to keep talking, and Sienna had wanted to keep talking too.
This was going to be a problem.
6
ELISE
The morning light was too bright and the coffee wasn't strong enough and Elise was reading her own text messages like a detective examining evidence.
She sat cross-legged on her bed with her phone propped against the pillow, scrolling back through last night's conversation with Sienna. The sling pressed awkwardly against her chest. Her shoulder ached with the deep, constant throb that had become her new companion, worse in the mornings before the anti-inflammatories kicked in. Outside her bedroom window, the trees were still in the early sun, and the distant sound of a garbage truck rumbled through the quiet street.
Thanks for the eggs btw. Best meal I've had in weeks. Don't tell anyone.
That was fine. Friendly. Normal.
Still awake. Can't sleep. Shoulder keeps waking me up when I roll over.
Also fine. A patient updating her doctor on symptoms. Completely reasonable.
Goodnight, Sienna.
Elise stared at the message. She'd used her first name. Not Doc, not Dr. Park. Sienna. After midnight, lying in bed with one good arm and a shoulder full of torn cartilage, she'd typed Sienna's name as if it belonged in her mouth. As if they were friends, or adjacent to friends, or whatever this was that she didn't have a word for yet.
Had that been flirty? She wasn't sure. It hadn't felt flirty at the time. It had felt right, like the only honest thing she could have said after an hour of texting back and forth in the dark. But now, in the grey clarity of morning, with coffee going cold on the nightstand and her shoulder throbbing through the painkillers, it was obvious. How the casualness of a first name at midnight might carry more than she'd intended.
Or had intended. She wasn't sure about that either.
She scrolled further back.Best meal I've had in weeks. Don't tell anyone.That was fine. That was gratitude. But thedon't tell anyonepart had a conspiratorial edge to it, as if the scrambled eggs were a secret they shared, and Elise's stomach tightened at the memory of Sienna in her kitchen, sleeves rolled up, cracking eggs into a pan with the focus she brought to everything.
She closed the messages and set the phone face-down on the duvet. The apartment was quiet around her. Lex's old room was still empty, the door ajar, and through the gap the bare mattress was visible, curtains she'd never bothered to close. The kitchen smelled faintly of the scrambled eggs Sienna had made last night, or maybe Elise was imagining that. Maybe she just wanted the apartment to still smell like someone had been in it.
She got up, showered one-handed, dressed in training kit she couldn't train in and her sling, and took a taxi to the stadium, the windows down. The air smelled of salt and car exhaust and the heat of a Phoenix Ridge morning in late autumn.
The Valkyries' training complex was a modern facility on the north side of the stadium, all glass and steel and bright corridors lined with team photos and sponsor logos. The building smelled of floor polish and protein shakes and the rubbery tang of fresh equipment. Elise badged through the staff entrance and walked down the main corridor toward Medical, her bag slung over her right shoulder, trainers squeaking against the polished floor. She felt conspicuous in a way she never had before. She was used to arriving here in full gear, heading to the locker room with purpose. Now she was heading to the medical suite in leggings and a zip-up, and the difference sat heavy in her stomach.
She passed the gym first, where the sounds of weights clanking and music thumping leaked through the glass doors. Then the team lounge, where voices carried. Then the corridor turned toward the medical wing and she heard footsteps behind her.
"Moreno! Wait up."
Frankie jogged to catch her, still in her practice gear, hair slicked back. Her face was flushed from the morning skate and she was grinning as she always did, like the world was a joke she was in on and everyone else was catching up.
"How's the shoulder?"
"Sore. But getting there."
