Her eyes grew wet again, and he knew why. They had so few hours left, too few to spend them on anything unnecessary.
But thiswasnecessary, and they both understood as much.
“Okay.” She was hoarse but calm again. “We’ll talk tomorrow night?”
Her last night on the island. Maybe their last night together.
Minutes ago, she’d said even a casual long-distance relationship might not make sense, which terrified the fuck out of him.
“Yes. Definitely.” This wasn’t goodbye, he reminded himself. Not even close, if he had anything to say about it. “I’ll text you tomorrow about when and where.”
With her first step backward, he forced himself to let her go. To trust her, trust them, and have faith she wouldn’t hide herself away until her departure. Or, worse, follow her friend’s example and flee immediately.
She gathered her belongings awkwardly and tried to smile as she offered him one last hug, fierce but brief. Then she left without another word, the door clicking quietly shut behind her.
He looked up at the blank white ceiling, blinking hard.
Foolishly, he’d forgotten one key detail. While his willingness to end a point, to be aggressive and take a risk on the court, had earned him a major, it had also cost him countless other matches, ones he should have won.
Commentators had bemoaned his joints of glass, of course, but they’d also repeatedly pointed to one other flaw in his game, one more area for growth: rally tolerance. The willingness to wait until therightmoment to strike, not just the moment his patience ran out. The ability to stay collected, keep working a point, and put himself in the best possible position for victorybeforehe hit that drop shot or sent a scorching backhand down the line.
It would come with more experience, they’d said. With time.
But he’d run out of time. Just as he was running out of time now.
He had work to do before he saw Tess again, and that was fine by him.
Those commentators might have lamented his fragile joints and his lackluster rally tolerance, but they’d never criticized his capacity for hard work or his will to battle.
He still had both.
Tess had helped him see that. Helped him seehimselfagain.
No, he wasn’t letting her go. Not without the fight of his life.
Twenty-Six
For a while,Tess simply sat and stared into darkness, hugging a pillow to her chest.
The hotel room’s armchair looked more comfortable than it was. The seat hardly gave an inch beneath her, and the fabric was stiff. Good for durability, no doubt, but not comfort.
Right now, she needed comfort. God, did she need it.
One way or another, she was leaving this island, leaving Lucas, in a day and a half, which was distressing enough on its own. Even worse: When she considered the future beyond that, she drew a complete, terrifying blank. At least when it came to her relationship with him.
After his jaw-dropping offer, after their subsequent argument, she had no idea what to think anymore, no idea what to believe. About him, herself, or what they both wanted and needed. What they both feared.
Or maybe that was wrong, because she did know two things: He wanted her in his life, and he hadn’t feared a future with her in it. Not the way she feared a future with him.
Then again, he’d never had a long-term romantic relationship. He wasn’t dragging his intimate history behind him like a set of chains, ghosts rattling unseen in the darkness.
Usually, when those ghosts clanked and moaned, she ignored them. Pretended not to hear them until they disappeared, and she could claim they didn’t exist at all, or if they did, they didn’t matter, didn’t affect her in any meaningful way, certainly didn’t circumscribe how she lived and loved.
Lucas had forced her to acknowledge them tonight.
Maybe it was time to look those wraiths in the eye, so she could understand why they’d arrived and what they demanded from her. She’d learned to live with them, even while denying their presence, but maybe—
Maybe it was time for an exorcism.
