I didn’t want to think about Miles kissing anyone but me but wasn’t going to say so, the possessive, jealous creature unfurling claws in my chest both uncomfortable and deeply unattractive.
hey, not one iota, remember?he added when again I didn’t answer, and I realised he was reassuring me because here I was having another crisis and I was as transparent as a pane of fucking glass.
I remember, I wrote back because I had to say something.
good. although to be honest, that’s the same amount of interest i have in kissing anyone who isn’t matteo russo right now
I closed my eyes a moment as the hotel doors opened, spilling an Australian accent into the cloudy afternoon. “There he is,” Macca said. “Mat! Car’s over here.”
“Coming,” I called back, and though my heart thumped at even so small an admission, I tapped back,Same, as I went to join them.
you want to kiss yourself? kinky
Fuck off, arsehole
no chance, idiot
I laughed, the tension in my chest easing, but before Tomas or Macca could ask what was funny, I shoved my phone away and slid into the car.
I WON MY match the next day, but because I would never learn my lesson, I also spent every spare moment scrolling through Miles’s social media accounts. Tina had clearly brought Emily along to straighten up his image, taking advantage of his day off to go sightseeing around Cincinnati. His feed had always made for painful viewing, but as I froze my arse off in the ice bath following my match, I also scrolled through the far more masochistically-engrossing rabbit hole that was Emily’s.
Not curated to within an inch of its life by Tina, Emily’s feed was full of photo drops: snaps of the meals they ate, the cars they drove around in, and selfies where she leaned her head on his shoulder. And then dozens and dozens of candid pictures she’d taken of him just going about his day. Miles leaning on the rail of a paddle steamer, the wind catching his hair. Miles stretching in front the meerkat enclosure at Cincinnati Zoo, his shirt riding up a touch to reveal a wedge of skin. Miles grinning at something off camera with a hippo plush nestled in his hair. A close up of his hands as he tried on a new bracelet. A profile shot as he leaned,eyes closed, against the window of a car. Another of his ankles crossed beneath a café table, the line of an old scar visible on his shin.
It was like softcore Miles Callahan porn, the urge to save them all to my camera roll stayed only by the knowledge of who had taken them. Her followers certainly appreciated the pictures as much as I did, yet as someone whose gaze had often lingered on him in just the same way, I felt a deepening disquiet. Either she was deliberately using her relationship with him to grow her following with intimate photos he probably didn’t know she was taking, or she was in love with him.
I wasn’t sure which was worse.
BETWEEN MY MATCH, Tina’s social media frenzy, and an evening sponsorship event, I didn’t see Miles all day. And that was probably for the best given what I might have said about Emily, and that we still hadn’t talked about our chance of meeting in the third round. Although, when I’d told Tomas we hadn’t, he’d rolled his eyes and shifted our booking at the practice court the next day to a slot right after Miles.
“I am not going to talk to him about it during a practice change over,” I had pointed out.
Tomas had shrugged and said, “Well, since it seems you’re not going to talk about it any other time either, it’s worth a try.”
We arrived fifteen minutes early to start warming-up and found Miles on court with his coach and his trainer. Other players were going through their paces on other courts and still more were standing around waiting and talking, yet having been granted an opportunity to watch Miles with his team, I had eyes for no one else.
Miles was working on his serve, and as we stopped on the otherside of the fence, Leo Mannering snapped, “You’re not hitting your spots.”
“I noticed,” Miles grumbled back.
“Go again.”
Scowling like he could set the court on fire, Miles launched into his motion, only for the ball to clip the tape on the way through. A second serve sailed just long, while a third slammed into the net. They’d taken the court farthest from the spectator stands and I couldn’t decide if this was for the best given Miles was struggling, or it had merely emboldened Leo Mannering to keep snapping at him.
Another ball missed the service box by a mile.
Tomas leaned toward me. “He’s too tense,” he said. “His shoulders are practically rigid.”
“I’d be tense too with that sour old fart bitching at me,” Macca muttered.
“Careful.” Tomas shot him a warning look. “That old fart is Leo Mannering. He was a top-ten player in the seventies, and coached Olivier Penders, Grigor Vasilyev and Ismael Gil, among others.”
Macca let out a low whistle, lifting a hand to shade his eyes so he could better see the impressive old fart. “Three number-one players? That’s some record.”
“Yeah, he retired when I was on tour, but I guess he saw something in Callahan to make him come back.”
“Or in Callahan’s wallet.”
“Again,” Leo Mannering barked as Miles smashed yet another serve into the net.
