Page 66 of The Challenger

All of this going down on her birthday weekend, when it should have been about her.

I believe I made it to up her. I only hope I didn’t scare her away.

With her going off on top of me, I lost my mind, possessed with the need to possess her. It flew out of my mouth. If she heard, she chose not to say anything about it. The long and short of it is I can no longer comprehend a future without her in it.

I turn the shower off and shake like a dog after swimming. Last night, we hopped on Morgan’s jet and flew to Paris. Flynn wandered through the Ritz, wonderstruck to be in the same space Hemingway once inhabited. She couldn’t believe we were staying here, and I have all sorts of things planned, including a sweet-smelling, squeaky-clean wake-up call for my snoozing baby.

I will be gentler than I was in Monaco. Try to be. I’ve been told I’m intense during sex, and I don’t deny it. You are who you are in the most extreme moments, good and bad. Passion and fury are cut from the same cloth, just draped differently. Flynn isn’t bothered by it. If anything, it turns her on. And there’s nothing sexier than a woman who appreciates who you are in the heat of the moment.

All I have to do now is get Mama on board. She thinks our age difference amounts to blasphemy. But years on this earth mean nothing when gauging chemistry between two people. Relationships work with respect and love. And they also require not turning into a crazy woman like Sofia did, snooping on my phone and laptop and generally being a cold bitch when I wanted some action after time on the road. How was I supposed to marry her when she viewed sex as some twisted form of control? In the end, it only bit her in the ass. I stayed loyal until the writing was on the wall and then took advantage of the ladies prowling hard around the tournaments looking for some tennis-stud love. I dabbled where I shouldn’t have dabbled, but I knew it was only temporary.

I know what I want.

Starting my own family is a given, and any woman I kneel in front of with a ring needs to be on board with that game plan. I’m not entirely sure Flynn was telling the truth about wanting kids, but she was hugging my legs like I was her bedrock in a storm when I brought it up in Cherbourg, and that has to amount to something. I know I have to take it slowly. Smythe has been telling me that since day one. But when I see my future, and it’s everything I want it to be, it kills me not to move things into ‘official’ territory.

I’m a bag of nerves because today is the day I will ask. Not the M word, or even the E word, but feel her out about moving in the general direction of commitment and maybe bring up the kid thing again in a roundabout way. I would love a daughter with hair like hers. My two curlicue chicas.

I run a comb through my hair and rinse with mouthwash. Satisfied I look and smell like a guy worthy of devotion, I reach for a condom from my toiletry bag. Flynn is on the pill but will not let me in bare. I suppose I can’t blame her. Eighty-three is a big number to swallow and truth be told, not all of those times did I use a rubber sock. When we get back to LA, I’ll get tested to give her peace of mind.

The muffled sound of incoming messages on a phone rises out from under the face towel I left crumpled on the counter. Flynn charges her phone in the bathroom because she likes to sleep without being bothered. I shouldn’t look, I never have, but lift the towel anyway.

It’s like God wanted me to see the texts, both of them coming in a few seconds apart.

Cori: Dear Flynn. It’s mom. I know you don’t want to hear from us, but I wanted to let you know your dad is in the hospital. He had a stroke and asked me to reach out to you. Please call. Love you. Xo

I blink, not sure I’m reading that right. But in the space of three seconds, the Flynn I know, the Flynn I thought I knew, doesn’t exist. And then the second text lands, and my heart does this funny thing I never want to feel again. It squeezes into an excruciating ball and explodes at the same time.

BD: I hope you enjoyed Monaco. Any yacht photos?

I back away from the counter as if a pile of black mambas are hissing at me.A sick sense of betrayal twists my intestines into a balloon animal.Brandon?No way. She promised me. She looked me straight in the eye and said she had zero interest in him. But this is a buddy message—comfortable, with many exchanges happening before this one. A muscle under my eye starts to twitch uncontrollably. What else has she been lying about? I float like a ghost into the bedroom and stand motionless on her side of the bed. That angelic face. Those sweet curls. Goosebumps cover my entire naked body. The only thing keeping me from smashing her phone into smithereens is a far-flung belief that I am wrong.

Maybe she smells the Confixor in my hair or the splash of cologne. Her nose does this cute little wrinkly thing before those thunderous lashes peel open.

“Morning,” she says. But as her eyes focus on my stony-faced mug, the smile sputters.

No time to dance around. Not when my life is flashing before my eyes. “You got a text from your mom. And Brandon.”

Just like that, her eyes shut down, darkening into a place I recognize. The same murky territory that was on display after the photographer snapped a photo of us in OZ. That’s when I know.

She sits up and sounds flat, like a robot. “I have never looked at your phone. Not once.”

“Don’t accuse me of snooping, because I wasn’t.”

“Give me my phone please.”

“Not yet. I’m going to read you what I just read and then you have some explaining to do.”

I will never be a public speaker, not like her, but I get it all out without breaking down. Nothing changes in her face. She’s dead fucking calm.

“I told you I had adoptive parents.”

“What you told me is that they haven’t spoken to you in years. Call me loco, but that text didn’t read angry and bitter. It sounds like someone on the opposite end of the bitter stick.”

She wraps the sheet tight across the nipples I had planned to decimate. “Is this an interrogation?”

“It’s about being honest with me, which you haven’t been. How long have you and Brandon been phone buddies?”

Her eyes slip off mine. Since Australia, is what I’m guessing.

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