Page 15 of Rivals and Liars

"I hate that you have to leave like this, baby…"

The smile Kate let out sounded so bitter that Leire's heart clenched.

"I can handle this—getting up and slipping out of your room gives me some control over whatever it is we have." Her voice was flat and cold, something she rarely sounded like. "If we flip it, if I'm the one waking up to find you already gone, it'll feel like all of this matters even less than it apparently does. Let's leave it like this. Take care of yourself, okay? I'll see you next week."

Kate walked out without waiting for an answer, and Leire stayed on her knees until her legs had gone stiff. She couldn't shake Kate's words from her head, and her throat was so tight from the urge to cry that her muscles had tensed up. It wasn't until that moment that she truly understood how humiliating it was for Kate to have to slip away every night they spent together, as if loving someone were forbidden for her. Since then she's woken up many times when Kate's alarm goes off, but she never moves—she pretends to be asleep and holds her breath until she's gone, turning perfect nights into bitter moments.

And now she's lying here, palm flat against Kate's side of the bed, the sheets long since gone cold, hating herself.

They've been like this for almost the whole week since the Australian arrived in London. Training and playing during the day, then fucking and fleeing at night. Every time they get together, Leire tells herself she'll come clean about Costel, that she'll find the courage to tell her she's signed a preliminary deal with that brand—a deal with a clause that goes against everything she is—but she never finds the right moment, because every time Kate walks into her room, Leire catches that odd flicker in her eyes, a few seconds where she looks at her like she's on the verge of saying something she then swallows back down. And Leire does the same.

She gets up, showers, and makes herself a coffee in the room while she checks her phone. There's a message from Salva with the training schedule and one from Isaac reminding her about the two o'clock interview. Nothing from Kate, who she can already picture sitting down with Diane to go over her opponent for the next match. She opens their conversation and thinks about writing something—something to ease the unspoken tension that's been hanging between them all week, something that might make their nights together more than just two women meeting up to fuck and sleep. She wants to talk to her, to have those conversations they sometimes have where they tell each other ridiculous things and laugh and forget who they are. But she knows they're at a point where there's only one thing she can say to make that happen, and she still hasn't found the courage to say it.

Leire takes the court at ten to face a twenty-three-year-old Slovakian player who's been inside the top forty for two seasons. She has a pretty solid flat serve, but from the match footage, Leire knows that on grass she makes too many errors if you push her on the diagonal. She plays a solid match and wins it with effort in seventy-two minutes without dropping a single service game—because clay is her surface, Roland Garros is where she shines, just like Kate does on hard courts. Grass is something they both simply survive by doing what they do best.

The first thing she does is look up at the stands, toward the players' box where she knows the other players are sitting, searching for that red ponytail that bewitches her and draws her in like a lighthouse. Her stomach tightens when she finds Kate's green eyes on her. Her first impulse is always the same—smile at her, raise her racket and point to her, to say that this win is for her alone, that she's the only person she wants to celebrate with. But she always holds that impulse back and smiles at the crowd in general, nothing more. Then she turns toward another section of the stands where her father, who arrived at the start of the tournament, is watching her with a satisfied look and the ghost of a proud smile.

Leire heads to the locker room to shower quickly, then make her way to the media area, answer a few questions, and get back to the hotel to rest a little before the two o'clock interview.

She pushes open the door and her chest bursts with a thousand butterflies when she sees her there. Kate is leaning against her locker with her arms crossed and her lips curved more to the left—that line that always throws the Spanish woman off balance.

"Third round done, congratulations," Kate says when Leire lets the door swing shut behind her.

Leire's pulse is still racing as she walks over. They're alone and she just won another match—she feels electric—and Kate being there, looking at her with that brightness she hasn't seen all week, as if the tension has dissolved, makes her forget everything for a moment and go straight for her mouth.

"I love finding you here when I win," she whispers against Kate's laugh. "You're the real trophy."

She puts her hands on Kate's neck and deepens the kiss, swallowing the eager gasp against her lips and weathering the heat her hands send burning through her back.

"You played great out there, you ate her alive on the serve," Kate murmurs when Leire finally pulls back, unable to stop herself from glancing at the door.

"You did the same thing yesterday. I can't wait to face you in the final."

"You seem pretty sure we're both going to make it." The light has faded from Kate's eyes, and Leire is about to ask if something's wrong—but Kate seems to sense it and doesn't want to hear the question, so she takes a step toward her and kisses her again instead.

"I'll let you shower. See you tonight."

Kate leaves the locker room like she's running away—because if she stays and Leire asks, she knows she'll shut down. Yesterday, during the match she barely won, she felt the pain in her back again. She had an intense physical therapy session in the afternoon and a phone call with Dr. Faruk, who adjusted her medication dosage and then asked if she'd made a decision.

The Australian glanced sideways at Diane. The woman was sitting next to her, hand on Kate's knee in a show of support, eyes fixed on her with that warm, understanding expression of hers—not pushing.

Kate said no, she was still thinking it over, but when she hung up she realized she'd lied, because the truth was she did know what she was going to do. She just couldn't say it out loud, because some part of her—a part whose reasons she can't quite understand—won't let her until she's talked it through with the person who matters most to her.

Leire comes out of the locker room twenty minutes later, hair down, wearing a Costel tracksuit she despises with every fiber of her being. She heads to the media area and, before going in, takes a moment to clear her head of every intrusive thought, then steps through the door with a dazzling smile.

She has ten minutes in there, and she's already spent more than eight answering questions about the match. She's about to get up when a voice from the side of the room makes her turn.

"Leire, one more thing."

It's a middle-aged woman with curly hair and glasses pushed up on her head. Leire recognizes her from having seen her before, but can't remember the name.

"Candela Valle, El Continental," she introduces herself, and Leire nods and gives her a friendly smile—because even though she doesn't know her personally and journalists in general aren't her favorite people despite being part of the industry that made her a millionaire, this woman has something clean about her gaze that she likes. "How are you handling the surface change?"

Leire makes a comical face that gets a laugh out of the room.

"That I prefer clay is no secret, but grass tends to give matches a different kind of excitement. It's always a bigger challenge for me, and I love a challenge."

More laughter from the room.