Page 58 of The Challenger

"I’ve been a dick all week, and I know it. No excuses. I'm just..." He pauses, and I can tell he’s searching for the right words. “It's been hard trying to find my groove after Oz,” he continues. “You’ve been super helpful—”

“But?” I interrupt because it is there, on the tip of his tongue.

“It’s not abut. I’m confused.How I interacted with Papa does not work with you, and you’re not just my coach. It’s been messing me up all week. And I’ve been getting this vibe from you like maybe you’re not happy and I want to ask you how I—we—can make it better. Or easier. Or … I don’t know.” His attention rivets onto me. “The bottom line is, I don’t want to lose you.”

The adult thing to do is come clean and tell him about my obsessive spiral with Vanya, but I don’t want to see his face when I say her name. And if I mention the real reason why I watched Nathan play it will blow up this heartfelt moment. Best not to bring it up at all.

“In fairness, I have been a little off this week,” I admit.

“I know,” he says. “You’ve been lost in your phone, or earlier in the tournament I saw you watching some other guy play, and you seemed so invested, and I thought, fuck, maybe she wants to coach someone else.”

I have zero interest in coaching smart-mouthed Nathan, although I did sneak off to watch that idiot get creamed in a 6-1, 6-1 double breadstick. The sucker kept his head hanging as he walked past me on the way to the locker room and so he should. But I had no idea Chavez was watching me.

“I don’t want to coach anyone else. Let me be clear on that.”

“Okay. Cool. I just want to bring it up because that’s part of what I’ve been struggling with.” His gaze cuts to the floor, and he takes a heavy breath. It rings mournfully in the quiet room, and I brace myself as his eyes lift shyly to meet mine. “Being jealous.”

He holds steady on my eyes but swallows hard. His vulnerability lances like an arrow into my heart.

"What would help me is not being relegated to the sidelines one week a month," I confess.

He traces a finger along my upper thigh oblivious to the shudder coursing through me. “Anything more than a quick kiss would kill me,” he says. “Once I get into with you … I’m not a halfway kind of guy.”

“There are other options,” I remind him.

“You need to get off, too. Only me feels unfair.”

Says no man ever.

What planet did he come from?

“Flynn baby,” he continues, his voice tender. “You are always front and center. If my shit behaviour gave you reasons to think otherwise, I promise to make it up to you.”

He smothers my mouth with a blistering kiss, and I close my eyes, drifting in his spicy scent, the heat of his body. Need springs like hope eternal between my thighs because the red flag is over, and as much as I love tennis and seeing him win, I have missed the game of us. I dig my nails into his back, but he responds to my desperate clawing by pulling away.

"Not that again," I say, flustered, my libido raging.

He tucks a curl behind my ear and laughs. “Here’s what I was thinking. If you’re cool, I’d like to stay in Europe until the end of February. I’ve been looking at some house rentals in Cherbourg. Legit houses, with an office for you. You always seem happier after you’ve been writing. Take all the time you need. We can stay there for the next two weeks and during the tournament. Fuck the tour hotel,” he says. “That shit is done.”

I was one step away from bringing our adventure to a close and he throws a wrench in the plans by offering up a near-perfect compromise.

“That sounds … really nice.”

“And after Cherbourg,” he adds. “I thought we could go to Paris for your birthday.”

My breath catches.

Number one, I forgot he knew when my birthday was. I’m a Pisces, obviously, and he brought it up one night in Australia that he’s a Cancer, a July-first birthday boy. He told me sheepishly that he looked online at some astrology site that said our signs were a good fit for one another.

And number two, Paris?

“Paris?” I ask, just to be sure.

“Yeah. The Ritz Hotel. I booked us the Ernest Hemingway Suite. I thought it might inspire you.”

Oh my God. Not even Vandana has stayed at the Ritz! And more importantly, “You’re an Ernest fan?” I ask. Chavez enjoys reading—the to-be-read list on his iPad is longer than mine—but he never mentioned he likes classics.

“It’s way better to read about history in a story instead of a textbook and I just finishedFor Whom the Bell Tolls.Mymom’s grandfather fought in the Spanish Civil War. That side of my family is Catalan, from Barcelona," he explains. “And your writing reminds me of Hemingway. Simple and clean.”

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