Chapter Five #2
Tyler leaned one elbow on the bar, closer now. He smelled faintly like ocean air, clean soap, and something warm that belonged only to his skin.
“Her boyfriend is sitting next to Jack,” he added.
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were about to.”
“I was not.”
“You were building a case.”
“That’s what I do.”
His expression softened, the teasing easing into something more sincere. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
Hailey looked at him then.
Really looked.
There was no smugness in his eyes now. No joke at her expense. Just the faintest trace of hope, and that was far more dangerous than his grin had ever been.
“Good,” she said before she could stop herself.
Tyler’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth.
The air seemed to thin.
“Good?” he asked.
Hailey swallowed.
The second Long Island arrived, saving her from immediate self-destruction.
The bartender set it down, looked between them, and wisely vanished.
Hailey touched the cool glass. “I mean, good for Bethany.”
Tyler laughed under his breath. “That was a terrible save.”
“I’m on vacation. My saves are also on vacation.”
“I noticed.”
She reached for the book again. This time, he let her take it.
Their fingers brushed.
The contact was brief. Barely anything.
It still sent a spark straight up her arm.
Hailey pulled the book into her lap and looked down at the cover, pretending the heroine’s dramatic expression required her full attention. “Thank you for returning it.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And for not reading it.”
Silence.
Her eyes snapped back to his. “Tyler.”
“I didn’t read it.”
Her stare sharpened.
“I opened it,” he admitted.
“That is reading-adjacent.”
“I found your bookmark.”
Her stomach dropped.
The receipt.
The note.
Do not check email. Do not fix anyone’s crisis. Stay present.
Heat crept up her neck.
“That was private.”
“I know.” His voice went quieter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Something in his tone stopped her from snapping back.
Tyler looked toward the bar, jaw shifting slightly. “For what it’s worth, I liked it.”
“My private reminder to myself?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not the part where you’re supposed to admit you liked invading my privacy.”
“I liked what it said.” He looked at her again. “Stay present.”
The words felt different in his mouth.
Less like a command. More like an invitation.
Hailey looked down at her drink, at the ring of condensation forming beneath the glass.
“I’m not very good at that,” she said.
“I noticed that too.”
Her eyes cut to his. “You notice a lot.”
“Only things that interest me.”
There it was again.
That directness.
It should have been easy to dismiss him.
She dismissed men all the time. Charming men.
Handsome men. Famous men with egos large enough to require their own management teams. She knew how to sidestep flirtation, how to smile without inviting more, how to build a wall so elegantly most people thanked her for it.
But Tyler did not feel like the men she managed.
He felt like sunburn waiting to happen.
Warm.
Careless.
A little painful.
Impossible to ignore once he touched her.
He nodded toward the empty barstool beside her. “May I?”
Hailey’s pulse kicked.
She should say no.
She had already said no once today, and that had been the right answer. The responsible answer. The self-protective answer.
But she had spent the last hour watching him with another woman and hating how much it bothered her.
She had spent all afternoon pretending not to watch him practice.
She had spent the past two days colliding with him in increasingly ridiculous ways, and somewhere between the volleyball and the coffee and the forgotten book, her body had started anticipating him before he appeared.
She was tired of being responsible.
Just for tonight.
Just for this vacation.
Just for one drink.
Hailey lifted her glass and took a sip. Then she set it down and looked at him.
“You can sit,” she said. “But if you say one smug word about me changing my mind, I will deny everything and make you regret it.”
Tyler sat before she finished the sentence.
“I would never.”
“You absolutely would.”
“I’m growing as a person.”
“That remains to be seen.”
His grin came back, bright and devastating.
The bartender appeared. “Can I get you something?”
“Club Soda,” Tyler said.
Hailey blinked. “That’s it?”
He glanced at her. “That’s it.”
“No alcohol?”
“Not during training.”
“Very disciplined.”
“I have my moments.”
The bartender nodded and moved away.
Hailey shifted toward him. “So the championship thing is serious.”
Tyler’s expression changed.
Not drastically. But enough.
The easy amusement dimmed around the edges, revealing something heavier beneath.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s serious.”
“Jack mentioned practicing.”
“Jack mentions a lot.”
“Occupational hazard of having a teammate?”
“Occupational hazard of having that teammate.”
Hailey smiled, but she did not let him deflect completely. “What championship?”
“The Santa Monica Beach Volleyball Championship.”
“Local?”
“Started that way. Now it draws players from everywhere. Sponsors, scouts, media, former pros, guys trying to break into bigger circuits.” He accepted the club soda when the bartender placed it in front of him. “It’s the one I’ve been trying to win for five years.”
Five years.
Something about that number carried weight.
“And you haven’t?”
“No.”
He said it simply, but the word cost him. Hailey could hear it.
She knew that tone. She had heard it in clients after lost contracts, failed campaigns, bad seasons, public humiliations. The sound of someone trying to make disappointment seem smaller by stating it plainly.
“How close?” she asked.
His mouth curved without humor. “Too close.”
“That sounds worse than not close at all.”
“It is.” He turned the glass slowly between his hands. “Second place twice. Semifinals twice. Last year, Jack and I had match point in the final.”
Hailey winced. “And?”
“And I choked.”
The word was flat.
Brutal.
“You made a mistake,” she said.
He glanced at her. “You didn’t see it.”
“I don’t need to.”
“That’s generous.”
“No, it’s accurate. One bad play doesn’t make a person a failure.”
He studied her for a moment. “Is that PR talking?”
“That’s human being talking. PR would have phrased it better.”
His laugh was quiet.
Hailey took another fry from her plate, mostly to give her hands something to do. “So why does this year matter so much?”
Tyler looked toward the windows, where the dark ocean moved beyond the glass.
“Because I’m tired,” he said.
The honesty surprised her.
Not because he looked tired. He did not. He looked strong and golden and unfairly alive beneath the restaurant lighting.
But his eyes were different now.
Less beach flirtation.
More man standing at the edge of something.
“I’ve been chasing this since I was a kid,” he continued. “I grew up on that beach. Played with whoever would let me in the game. Spent summers watching the older guys, telling myself that would be me someday. The best. The one everyone came to watch.”
Hailey listened.
Really listened.
“And now?” she asked softly.
“Now I’m twenty-seven, and I’m still almost.” His jaw tightened. “Almost good enough. Almost there. Almost the guy everyone said I could be.”
The word settled between them.
Almost.
Hailey understood that too well.
Not in sports, maybe. But in ambition. In pressure. In the constant chase of some future version of herself that would finally be enough.
Vice President, but not founder.
Successful, but not free.
Polished, but exhausted.
Almost.
“What happens if you don’t win?” she asked.
Tyler looked down at his glass. “I think I’m done.”
Her chest tightened. “Done?”
“Done chasing it. Done rearranging my whole life around training and tournaments and the same dream that keeps proving it doesn’t want me back.”
“That sounds like burnout.”
He looked at her, and something like recognition passed between them.
“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe it is.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The restaurant moved around them—laughter, silverware, music, ice shaking in cocktail tins—but Hailey felt oddly separated from it. Tucked inside the small circle of candlelight and bar noise with Tyler, where the air had gone unexpectedly honest.
He nodded toward her. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What are you burned out from?”
Her first instinct was to make a joke.
Her second was to lie.
Her third, which surprised her most, was to tell him the truth.
Hailey traced her finger along the rim of her glass. “Cleaning up everyone else’s disasters.”
“PR?”
“Sports PR, specifically. Which means I spend most of my days trying to make reckless men seem misunderstood.”
Tyler huffed a laugh. “Sounds familiar.”
“You are not my client.”
“Good.”
“Very good,” she said, more sharply than intended.
His eyes warmed.
She looked away before the warmth did something foolish to her.
“I’m Vice President at Gentry PR in New York,” she said. “It’s a good job. A great job, technically. The kind of job people tell you to be grateful for until gratitude starts to feel like a trap.”
Tyler’s expression shifted. “You don’t want it?”
“I wanted it desperately.” She took a breath. “I still do. Maybe. I don’t know anymore. I worked for years to get there, and now that I have it, I’m so tired I can barely feel proud.”
“That’s a hard place to be.”
The simple kindness in his voice pressed against something tender in her.
Hailey looked down at her hands. “I want my own firm someday. Greenwood PR Professionals. That was always the plan. Build enough experience, enough contacts, enough credibility, then step out on my own.”
“What’s stopping you?”
She laughed once, without humor. “Fear. Money. Timing. Exhaustion. The fact that I’m very good at convincing other people to take risks and terrible at taking my own.”
Tyler leaned slightly closer. “For what it’s worth, Greenwood PR Professionals sounds like the kind of company that would make people nervous.”