The Secret of You and Me - Melissa Lenhardt Page 0,37

mind and delivered two aces to go up 30-love in the next. When she dropped into her ready stance, the good humor had left her face. The set lasted thirty minutes and when it finally ended, with Sophie beating me 4-3, I put my hands on my knees and wondered if I was going to die.

I walked to the bench with legs that felt like jelly. I licked my lips, salty with sweat. “I thought I was in shape.”

Sophie collapsed on the bench. The chain link fence creaked when she leaned back against it. “You’re a competitive son of a bitch.”

I plopped down next to her and settled my head against the uneven metal. Sweat glistened on our exposed skin. Sophie stretched her long legs out in front of her and crossed them at the ankles. I watched a bead of sweat arch away from its path down the edge of her toned calf, arc across the muscle, hang precariously for a second before dropping down onto the court. Something stirred deep within me, and I looked away.

We drank our water in silence. I was relieved to hear Sophie breathing almost as hard as I was. I lifted the hem of my T-shirt and wiped away the sweat dripping in my eyes. “I don’t remember it being this hot growing up.”

I caught Sophie staring at my exposed stomach. She took a sudden, and not too subtle, interest in peeling the label off her water bottle. “I can’t believe you haven’t played in eighteen years and still almost beat me.”

“The more things change...”

Sophie pushed her sweaty shoulder against mine. “Shut up.” She finished her water and reached into the cooler for two more. She kicked off one shoe, then the other, and toed off her socks. She stretched her red painted toes out and flexed her feet.

“Your toes match your nails?”

“Don’t yours?”

My nails were natural, as were my toes. I laughed. “I guess so.”

Sophie studied me as if trying to gauge my mood. “I didn’t invite you to play so you could almost kick my ass. I wanted you to lose quickly so we could talk. Now I’m not sure I have the energy to talk.”

I rested my elbows on my knees, holding the sweating bottle of water loosely between them. “What do you want to talk about?”

“The last letter I sent you.”

“Sophie...”

“Did you not read it, or did you say that to hurt me?”

I stared across the court at the windscreen on the opposite fence. It was loose and peppered with gashes and slits from age and wear. Weeds grew up on the edge of the court, in the tension creases of the concrete. The high school courts were always just this side of dilapidated, which is why we’d played at the club. Playing here, though, guaranteed a degree of privacy we wouldn’t have at the club. Now I understood why she wanted it.

“I didn’t read your letters, but I didn’t toss them until I read Mary’s.” I met Sophie’s gaze. “She told me about you and Charlie.”

To Sophie’s credit, she didn’t look away. “My letters explained everything. Some of them I’m glad you didn’t read. I was so angry...”

“You were angry?”

Sophie sat up. “Tell you what, why don’t you let me tell my story, then you can pick it apart, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Everyone asked me where you went, what happened, when you were coming back. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t very well tell the truth, could I? My mom and your dad cooked up a lie, I think. Something about you getting an earlier basic training slot last minute, which all the adults believed because they didn’t give a shit one way or another. Our friends? That was another story. Jamie Luke would not let it go. She gave me the idea. About Charlie. Said she’d always thought I’d had a thing for him.”

“She always was a moron.”

“She’s gossipy enough that by the time Charlie came back from vacation it was pretty well accepted you and I’d had a falling out over him. He showed me your Dear John letter.”

She cleared her throat. “I figured one time with Charlie would be enough to sell the story. It wouldn’t be a total lie, would it? People would move on. Stop asking me about you every goddamn day.” She rolled her eyes and leaned back. “Obviously, it didn’t happen just once. I um...” She turned her head away so I could barely see her profile. “I thought, maybe...” She cleared