Page 34 of Hard to Love

I’m not sure why I say those words, but I realize the minute they’re out of my mouth that I truly mean them. For some reason, I knew she could beat Ian.

Stevie leans back with tears glistening in her eyes and her arms still holding tight around me and smiles softly.

“I—thank you.”

And there’s that look again from her. The one that screams she’s still a lost little girl—that maybe only I can see for some reason.

But this time I can’t shake away how it makes me feel because she’s in my arms and her lips are inches from mine, and Jesus Christ, there are a million people around us but all I can think about is her lips.

In wanting to kiss her.

Fucking hell.

I can’t be thinking about shit like this right now. About how much I want her. About how fucking hard it is to keep her at a distance when I have to deal with her moment by moment.

My cold shoulder was working perfectly to keep her at a distance—to keep this from happening—until right now. Until she was in my arms, her lips close to mine, her body pressed to me, and adrenaline pumping through both of our bodies.

We stand in this extended state of anticipation, staring at each other without speaking for a few long seconds, before the noise of the crowd seeps in and the flash of the cameras break through my focus.

Stevie and I jolt away from each other as if we’ve been electrocuted.

What the fuck just happened?

STEVIE

I’M AMPED, RESTLESS, AND STUCK in that state between utter exhaustion and wanting to ride the high of tonight.

“You only have a few more interviews,” Hayley says when she walks into what we’re using as a green room between media interviews. “Then you’re done.”

“Thank God,” I say, leaning back against the couch and closing my eyes. For a moment, I relive tonight’s match. The grimace on Greshenko’s face when he realized he couldn’t salvage the match. The roar of the crowd when I won. The look in Finn’s eyes as he stared at me.

Hayley stands just inside the door with her back to the wall, eyeing me. I don’t exactly like her—or rather I haven’t exactly been easy on her during her short tenure—so I’m sure she’s waiting for a temper tantrum of some sort from me.

I’m too tired and at the same time too damn relieved to do any of the above.

“I want to prepare you though—”

“I can handle the questions about my dad. I’ll be fine.” I wave a hand at her. It’s not like I haven’t been answering them all night long anyway.

Of course, it affected me stepping onto the court without him sitting in the stands, his red hat the beacon I’d look to when I was struggling.

“That’s not what I was going to say.” Her smile is tight, her hands fidgeting. “ESPN just ran a story.”

“As they should.” I snicker. “I beat the number one men’s seed. It’s a big friggin’ deal.”

“Look it up on your phone,” she states and there’s something about her tone or the pinched expression on her face that grabs my attention.

I groan as I pick up my phone on the couch next to me. What is it now? What are they going to dredge up to try and minimize this accomplishment? Because it’s not as if some of the journalists tonight haven’t already tried to rewrite the fact that I beat Ian—downplay that a woman beat a man—by implying that he went easier on me after the intermission when I turned it around.

The accusation is total bullshit and they know it.

So I wait for the story to load with my hackles already raised and my temper ready to fire.

And then the cover picture loads, and I’m not exactly sure what to think or say or how to even feel at the image looking back at me.

It’s not of me on the court after I won like I would have expected, where I was looking up at the sky with my eyes closed talking silently to my dad. The picture of victory with a cost.

Nope. Not in the least.