She holds my gaze. Three seconds. Four. I watch a microexpression cross her face — the tiniest contraction around her eyes, not quite a flinch, more like the muscular equivalent of a sentence begun and then abandoned.
"Yes," she says. "That's why."
She gets in her car. Closes the door. The window is down, and she looks at me through it.
"Six forty-five tomorrow. Don't be late."
"I wasn't late today."
"You were four minutes late. I simply chose not to mention it."
She drives away. The dust settles. I stand in the practice facility parking lot with my bag over my shoulder and the Arizona sun making my scalp prickle and the wordsoftertattooed on the inside of my skull.
•
The hotel room is dark. I've closed the curtains because the Scottsdale sunset is beautiful and I don't deserve beautiful things right now. I deserve to lie on this bed and stare at the ceiling and reckon with the reality that I am developing a catastrophic fixation on the woman hired to save my career.
I shower. The water is too hot. I stand under it and press my palms against the tile and try to think about golf.
I think about golf for approximately eight seconds.
Then I think about Nerys's hands over mine, and the way the scar on her thumb felt against my knuckle, and the sound of the wordsofterarriving against the skin of my neck like something placed there with intention.
I think about the height difference. Six inches. Her chin above the crown of my head. Her forearms bracketing mine. The architecture of being enclosed by a taller body without being restrained.
I think about what would have happened if I'd leaned back more than a quarter inch. If I'd pressed fully against her. If I'd turned my head and found her jaw — her mouth — right there, inches away, angled down toward me.
The water runs over my shoulders. My breathing is the problem again. Too fast. Too high. I press my forehead against the cool tile and let the shower beat against the back of my neck and I do not touch myself.
I want to.
Specifically, precisely, with an urgency that feels medical, I want to slide my hand between my thighs and replay the moment her fingers settled over mine and find out what happens when I let the memory finish without interruption.
I don't.
Not because I'm virtuous. Because I'm furious. I'm furious that this woman — this controlled, silver-streaked, infuriatingly calm woman who reads courses like they've personally offended her and saysgoodlike she's handing down a verdict — has occupied my body this completely after two days.
I am Tala Sarmiento. I have slept with beautiful people on four continents. I have been desired by athletes and influencers and one very determined sports-marketing executive who sent me flowers for six weeks straight. I do not develop fixations. I generate them.
Nerys Quillan has reversed the polarity in forty-eight hours, and she did it with a grip adjustment and a single syllable.
I turn off the water. Wrap myself in a towel. Sit on the edge of the bed with my hair dripping onto my shoulders.
I pick up my phone and text Bisi.
She's insane.
The response takes fourteen seconds.
She's exactly what you need.
I stare at the screen. Type three different replies. Delete each one.
That's what I'm afraid of.
Bisi doesn't respond to that. She doesn't need to. We've known each other long enough that silence is its own commentary.
I set the phone on the nightstand. Lie back. The ceiling is the same featureless white as last night, and it offers the same absence of guidance.
