Chapter 6 Softer Edges
T he problem with pretending Nico Reyes had a soft side was that Lena started finding evidence.
At first, she blamed the coffee.
Not the drink itself, obviously. The coffee had done nothing wrong except sit between them while every phone in Bright Bean tried to turn one hand touch into a campus-wide emotional event.
No, Lena blamed the caffeine.
And the lack of sleep.
And the fact that Nico had shifted his chair to block people from filming her like it had been instinct instead of strategy.
That was the part she could not stop thinking about.
Not his hand under hers.
Not the warmth of his skin.
Not the way his thumb had moved once, barely there, and somehow made every sensible thought in her head lose its balance.
She was not thinking about that.
She was thinking about the campaign.
Obviously.
Which was why she stood near Court Three the next afternoon with her phone, a stabilizer, three caption drafts, and a very firm commitment to professionalism.
Nico was practicing serves under the white-hot spring sun, and professionalism had never felt so personally attacked.
There was something unfair about the way he moved on a tennis court.
Off court, Nico looked like he was built out of bad moods and warning signs. Sharp jaw. Dark eyes. Shoulders that made every hoodie look like it had been designed with emotional damage in mind.
But on court?
On court, he became something else.
Focused.
Fluid.
Brutal.
Beautiful in a way Lena refused to put into campaign language because it would sound unhinged and she still had some dignity left.
The ball snapped off his strings with a clean, violent pop.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each serve hit the box like he was trying to punish a place, not win a point.
Lena lifted her phone and recorded a ten-second clip.
Good form. Strong lighting. Clean background. No visible scowling.
A miracle, really.
From the sideline, Jace Donovan leaned against the fence and watched Nico with a water bottle in one hand and far too much amusement on his face.
“You filming his redemption arc or his villain origin story?” Jace asked.
Lena did not look away from her screen. “Depends on whether he smiles before the end of practice.”
Jace laughed. “So villain origin story.”
Nico caught the ball after one bounce and turned his head. “I can hear you.”
“Good,” Jace called. “Then smile.”
Nico served again.
Harder.
The ball slammed into the corner.
Jace winced. “That was a no.”
Lena lowered her phone. “Does he always practice like the ball owes him money?”
“Only on days ending in y.”
“Helpful.”
“I try.”
On the court, a freshman player named Tyler stood near the far baseline, nervously adjusting his grip.
He was small compared to the upperclassmen, all elbows and anxious energy, with the terrified expression of someone who had not yet learned that confidence in college athletics was mostly just fear wearing better shoes.
He tried a serve.
The ball flew long.
Very long.
Jace made a sympathetic sound. “Oof.”
Tyler’s face went red.
He tried again.
Net.
Again.
Worse.
Lena watched him look toward the cluster of older players near Court Two. Two of them laughed under their breath. Not cruelly, maybe. But enough.
Tyler heard.
His shoulders folded inward.
Lena’s thumb hovered over her phone screen, already thinking of something nice to say later if she passed him near the locker hall.
But Nico moved first.
He crossed the court without a word.
Tyler looked up and went pale, which was fair. Nico Reyes approaching with a racket in hand and no explanation looked less like mentorship and more like sentencing.
“Your grip is wrong,” Nico said.
Tyler swallowed. “Uh. Coach said—”
“Coach said continental. You’re sliding too far eastern.”
Tyler blinked.
Nico held out his hand. “Racket.”
Tyler gave it to him immediately, possibly because survival instincts were powerful.
Nico adjusted the grip, then handed it back. His voice stayed low enough that the other players could not hear. Lena had to step closer to catch the words.
“Don’t rush the toss. You panic before you even hit it.”
Tyler gave a nervous laugh. “That obvious?”
“Yes.”
Lena pressed her lips together.
Nico glanced at him. “But fixable.”
Tyler straightened a little.
Nico took a ball from the basket and placed it in his palm. “Again.”
Tyler served.
The ball cleared the net and landed in the box.
Not perfect.
But in.
Tyler’s face lit up.
Nico nodded once. “Better.”
That was all.
No smile. No speech. No inspirational music.
He just turned and walked back to his side of the court like he had not casually handed a terrified freshman his confidence back.
Lena stared at him.
Jace leaned toward her. “Did you get that?”
She looked down at her phone.
She had.
Every second.
Nico noticed.
Of course he did.
His eyes narrowed from across the court.
“No,” he called.
Lena lifted her brows. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
She smiled despite herself. “You stole that from me.”
“It was useful.”
“So was that clip.”
“No.”
“Nico—”
“No.”
Tyler looked between them like he had stumbled into a domestic dispute without enough protective gear.
Jace took a slow sip of water, delighted.
Lena walked to the fence. Nico approached from the other side, stopping close enough that the chain-link squares cut his face into pieces of shadow and sun.
It should have made him look less attractive.
It did not.
Annoying.
“That was a good moment,” she said.
“That was practice.”
“That was you helping a freshman.”
“That was me wanting him to stop serving into the parking lot.”
“Right. Pure selfishness.”
“Exactly.”
“You realize this is the kind of thing people need to see.”
His face hardened immediately. “People don’t need to see everything.”
There it was again.
That line.
That wall.
Lena softened her voice without meaning to. “I wouldn’t make it cheesy.”
“I know what you’d make it.”
“What?”
“Useful.”
The word landed too sharply.
Lena lowered the phone.
For a second, all she heard was the rhythmic pop of balls on nearby courts and the faint buzz of someone mowing grass beyond the complex.
“Nico,” she said, “the point of this campaign is to show people more than the clip.”
“No. The point is to make them like me enough not to take my scholarship.”
He said it bluntly.
Too bluntly.
Like he had cut away all the polite language and left the bone underneath.
Lena’s chest tightened.
“That matters,” she said.
His eyes held hers through the fence. “I know.”
Something in his voice made her stop pushing.
Not because he had won.
Because she suddenly understood that to Nico, being seen was not flattering. It was dangerous.
Every soft thing could be used.
Every private decent thing could become content.
Every human moment could be packaged until it no longer belonged to him.
And she was the one holding the camera.
The realization sat uncomfortably in her hand.
“Okay,” she said.
He blinked. “Okay?”
“I won’t post it.”
Suspicion moved over his face first. Then something quieter. Something he did not seem to know what to do with.
“Why?”
“Because you said no.”
He stared at her as if that answer made no sense.
Lena tried not to let that break her heart a little.
Before he could respond, one of the older players came up behind him holding a broken string with a frustrated groan.
“Anybody got extra strings?” the player asked. “Mine snapped and the shop order’s delayed.”
Nico did not even turn fully.
He walked to his bag, unzipped the side pocket, and pulled out a fresh pack.
He tossed it over.
The player caught it. “Seriously?”
Nico shrugged. “Pay me back later.”
“Yeah. For sure.”
The player jogged off.
Jace snorted from Lena’s side of the fence. “He will absolutely not pay him back.”
Nico ignored him.
Lena looked at the pack of strings.
Then at Nico.
Those were not cheap.
Not for an athlete who ignored calls from home and got text previews about overdue payments.
“You just gave those away,” she said.
Nico lifted his towel and wiped the back of his neck. “Excellent observation.”
“You needed them.”
“I have more.”
Jace coughed.
Lena looked at him.
Jace suddenly found the clouds fascinating.
Nico’s expression went flat. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Jace said.
“You were about to.”
“I was about to compliment your generosity.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“No,” Jace admitted. “I was not.”
Lena said nothing.
But the evidence was gathering itself without her permission.
Nico helping Tyler.
Nico giving away strings he probably needed.
Nico blocking cameras at Bright Bean.
Nico pretending every decent thing he did was irritation in disguise.
Softer edges.
Hidden under barbed wire.
Nico pointed at her phone. “Delete the clip.”
“I said I wouldn’t post it.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed. “Lena.”
She should have deleted it.
She knew she should have.
Instead, she held the phone against her chest. “I’m keeping it for research.”
“Research.”
“Yes.”
“On what?”
“Whether you’re secretly nice.”
His mouth flattened. “I’m not.”
“The evidence disagrees.”
“The evidence is circumstantial.”
She smiled. “That sounds like something a guilty man would say.”
For one second, he almost smiled back.
Almost.
Then his phone rang from inside his bag.
The sound cut through the moment.
Nico went still.
Not annoyed still.
Not privacy still.
Something else.
He crossed to his bag quickly and pulled out the phone. Lena caught the name on the screen before he turned it away.
Mamá.
His entire face changed.
Not softer exactly.
Younger.
Worried.
He declined the call.
Lena pretended not to see.
He shoved the phone back into the bag and reached for his racket.
Two seconds later, it rang again.
Nico closed his eyes.
Jace’s joking expression faded.
“Nico,” he said quietly.
“I’ll call her later.”
Lena looked down at the court.
This was not her business.
She knew that.
She absolutely knew that.
Unfortunately, knowing something had never stopped her from caring when she should not.
The phone stopped ringing.
Then started again.
Nico muttered something under his breath in Spanish and grabbed it. He walked toward the far end of the court, away from everyone, but the wind carried pieces of his voice back.
“Hola, Mamá.”
A pause.
His shoulders tightened.
“No. I said I’ll handle it.”
Lena looked up.
Nico had turned partly away, one hand on his hip, the other holding the phone to his ear. His voice was low, controlled, but she heard the strain beneath it.
“No, don’t tell Sofia. She doesn’t need to worry about that.”
Another pause.
He dragged a hand over his face.
“Mamá, please. I’m not asking Coach for an advance.”
Lena’s stomach sank.
Jace looked away like he had heard too much.
Lena should have done the same.
She did not.
Nico glanced back suddenly.
His eyes found hers.
For one terrible second, they both knew she had heard.
His face shut down.
Completely.
He ended the call and walked back toward his bag with the careful calm of a man carrying something fragile and refusing to let anyone see his hands shake.
Lena stepped toward the fence.
“Nico—”
“Don’t.”
The word was quiet.
That made it worse.
She stopped.
He shoved his phone into his bag, picked up his racket, and walked back to the baseline.
Practice resumed.
Serve.
Pop.
Serve.
Pop.
Harder this time.
Angrier.
Like the ball had become a bill, a phone call, a mother’s worry, a sister’s future, and every person who had ever told him talent was a gift without asking what it cost.
Lena stood by the fence with her phone in her hand and the unposted video saved on her screen.
For the first time, she wondered if fixing Nico’s image would be the easy part.
Understanding what he was trying so desperately to hide might ruin them both.