Orla
The flat was quiet when I walked in; Danny obviously wasn’t back from training yet.
I dropped my gym bag by the door, kicked his out of the way, and let the silence wrap around me.
It was kind of nice, actually. After I’d moved out of Josh’s house, the quiet used to feel unbearable.
I’d lie awake at night, counting the cracks in the ceiling, wondering what came next.
But lately, I’d grown to like my own company.
There was nobody asking where I’d been, nobody half-watching telly while scrolling through their phone.
It was just me and my life, graced occasionally by the presence of Danny Sheehan.
Danny, the younger of my two brothers, was only a year older than me—we were proper Irish twins, so to speak.
He’d signed with a big London rugby club and moved in with me, “Until he found his feet.” Truth was, rugby contracts were fickle and there was no point in him getting his own place when he’d probably be shipped to France or Japan in a year.
We hadn’t lived together since I left for uni at eighteen, so it took some adjusting. Mostly for me. He was still the same smelly big brother who left kit bags everywhere that stank of wet pitch and ate like food was going extinct.
The flat was small and slightly creaky but mine.
It was on the first floor of an old Edwardian conversion with a bay window that caught just enough evening light with a balcony I still hadn’t bothered to furnish.
A yoga mat was curled in the corner, a pile of towels I hadn’t managed to put away on the radiator, and a framed Munster jersey Danny had signed for me as a joke after his debut hung on the wall.
For the sister who kept my hamstrings alive, he’d written, the idiot.
It had been gathering dust in my spare room until he decided to hang it up above the fireplace one day without asking.
The kitchen was open plan, the kind where you could cook and watch telly at the same time. Not that I did much of either these days. Most days it was protein bars, coffee, and toast.
Balham wasn’t glamorous, but it was perfect: Easy Northern Line access, decent running paths, coffee shops that didn’t charge eight quid for oat milk and close enough to Wimbledon without being swallowed by it.
But best of all, there were no memories of him.
Just clean, quiet space—when Danny wasn’t around, at least.
I shrugged off my work hoodie and draped it on the back of my armchair, then checked my phone for tomorrow’s appointments.
9:15 a.m. — T. Reed.
Of course.
I sank onto the edge of the bed, rubbing the back of my neck. A twinge fired through my shoulder from hauling my physio bag, from not practicing what I preached and from clenching every time a certain American opened his mouth.
Tyler bloody Reed.
Cocky, far too charming for his own good and so good looking in a way that was deeply unfair.
I’d treated dozens of athletes. From rugby players in New Zealand, cyclists in France, to a gymnast who cried every time I taped his ankle. There’d been Olympic hopefuls and juniors with more ambition than sense. Men held together by tape and ego.
I’d earnt my spot at the LTA the hard way. When the post at the National Tennis Center opened, I went after it as though my life depended on it. Which, in a way, it had.
Josh had just called off the engagement, said he didn’t want kids after all, that he’d only gone along with it because he thought it was what I wanted.
At the time, I’d believed him—or half-believed him, at least—but then he’d started dating someone new within weeks. It had all happened far too quickly and conveniently, like maybe she’d been waiting in the wings the whole time. I never bothered asking; I didn’t want to know the answer.
Either way, I was left with a ring I’d never wear again, a mortgage with his name half scratched out of it, and the kind of silence that clawed the walls at night. Truthfully, having Danny around probably wasn’t the worst thing, even if he was the grumpiest bastard alive.
So I’d needed something big to throw myself into. Something I could control when everything else had stopped making sense. This job was that thing.
Now, I was thirty-one, single, stubborn, and absolutely not interested in players with reputations for smashing rackets and breaking hearts.
Except…
I exhaled and flopped back onto the bed.
Except he was hot. Annoyingly hot. And worse, he could be so charming when he wasn’t trying so hard. Today he’d flashed that grin, and for a split second I caught myself feeling…giddy.
You’re not seventeen, I reminded myself. You have a career, a home, responsibilities. Stop being blinded by the shiny sports guy. Maybe Gwen was right, it seemed I was no longer immune to his type.
The city glimmered through the bay window, fading into nothing as I shut my eyes. I was a professional. I’d rehabbed pros through big tournaments, pressure and performance were my day job. I could handle Tyler Reed.
Even if he had a smile that screamed trouble and made my pulse determined to betray me every time he walked into my treatment room.
I’d just have to stay professional.
And if he flirted again tomorrow?
I’d crush him.
Nicely. Probably.