He didn’t want their apologies. He didn’t want their explanations. He wanted his life back. He wanted the man he had loved, the man he had trusted, the man who had looked at him across a crowded room and made him feel like he was the only person in the world.
But that man didn’t exist anymore.
Blake threw the phone onto the bed, walked into the bathroom, and turned the shower on as hot as it would go. He stood under the spray until his skin was red and raw, trying to wash away the feeling of contamination, the lingering, phantom touch of a betrayal he hadn’t even been present for.
In London, the flat in South Kensington was a tomb.
Andre sat on the floor of the living room, his back against the sofa, staring at the blank screen of his phone. The battery was at twelve percent. He hadn’t plugged it in. He hadn’t moved in hours.
The flat was empty in a way that went beyond sound. There was no sound of Blake moving around in the kitchen, no sound of tennis matches playing softly on the television, no sound of the deep, familiar voice that had been the soundtrack to Andre’s life for four years.
There was only the ticking of the clock on the wall, a steady, relentless reminder of the time passing, of the distance growing between them.
Downstairs, the bakery was closed for the day. Pierre and Claire had come up earlier, knocking softly on the door. Andre hadn’t answered. He couldn’t face them. He couldn’t look at his mother’s kind, worried eyes and tell her that he had destroyed the best thing that had ever happened to him.
He had tried to paint.
He had walked to the studio on The Cut the day after Blake left, longing for the familiar, grounding routine of the canvas. He had mixed his colors, prepared his brushes, and stood in front of the easel.
But when he raised his hand, he saw Talia’s skin. He saw Liam’s face. He saw the cold, dead look in Blake’s eyes as he walked out the door.
He had dropped the brush, the paint splattering across the floorboards, and had sunk to his knees, weeping until he couldn’t breathe.
Now, he was just waiting.
He didn’t know what he was waiting for. A text. A call. A sign that Blake was still alive, still out there in the world, still connected to him by some invisible, fraying thread.
His phone buzzed in his hand.
Andre gasped, his heart leaping into his throat. He fumbled with the device, his fingers slipping on the screen, frantic to open the message.
It was from Liam.
Liam (20:15): Have you heard from him? He’s not answering us.
Andre let out a broken, wrenching sob, dropping the phone onto the floor. He pulled his knees to his chest, burying his face in his arms, and let the darkness swallow him whole.
The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships was played in the punishing heat of the Arabian desert. The hard courts absorbed the sun all day, radiating it back up in shimmering waves that distorted the air and made the lines on the court dance.
The days blurred together. First round. Second round. Third round. Blake moved through the draw like a man possessed, each match shorter and more brutal than the last.
He didn’t speak to anyone outside of the practice court. He ate alone in his hotel room.
He slept three hours a night, waking in the dark with Andre’s face burned into the backs of his eyelids.
Doug watched him from the player box, his expression growing more concerned with each passing day. But he didn’t push. Not yet.
Blake didn’t feel the heat. He didn’t feel anything.
He was playing the quarterfinal against a towering Russian player known for a massive serve and a volatile temper. The Russian was currently screaming at the chair umpire over a line call, his face red, his racket raised in a threatening gesture.
Blake stood at the baseline, bouncing the ball. He didn’t look at the Russian. He didn’t look at the umpire. He stared at the yellow fuzz of the tennis ball, his mind a cold, empty void.
The anger that had consumed him in the flat in South Kensington had crystallized into something far more dangerous. It was a dark fury, a relentless, driving force that stripped away all emotion, all hesitation, all humanity.
He was playing the best tennis of his life.
He had torn through the first two rounds without dropping a set, dismantling his opponents with a ruthless, surgical precision that had left the commentators stunned.
