Chapter 9 After Hours #2
Dangerous.
A midnight tennis lesson with the boy she was pretending to date, whose hand was over hers and whose secrets had followed her into sleep.
Nothing about this belonged in the campaign plan.
Nothing about this was safe.
She tossed the ball.
Swung.
Missed completely.
The ball dropped to the court and bounced once, pathetically.
Nico was silent.
Lena closed her eyes. “Do not.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking loudly.”
“I’m thinking several things.”
“I hate all of them.”
“I know.”
Then he laughed.
Actually laughed.
Low and rough and surprised, like the sound had been dragged out of him against his will.
Lena opened her eyes.
Nico looked younger when he laughed.
Less like a headline.
More like a boy who had forgotten, for one careless second, that the world expected him to be hard.
The sight did something unbearable to her.
She looked away first.
“Again,” he said, softer now.
She tried again.
This time, the ball made contact with the strings and sailed over the net, landing nowhere near the service box but technically on the other side.
Lena lifted both arms. “That counts.”
“No.”
“It crossed the net.”
“So do birds.”
She turned to him, offended. “Are you comparing my serve to a bird?”
“A confused one.”
She laughed.
The sound floated up into the lights.
Nico watched her.
The laughter faded slowly.
His gaze changed.
Not dramatically.
Not in a way anyone else would have noticed.
But Lena noticed everything.
Especially now.
Especially him.
She lowered the racket. “What?”
He looked away. “Nothing.”
“That’s your liar voice.”
“I don’t have a liar voice.”
“You have a whole collection.”
He glanced back at her.
The echo of their earlier words made the space between them feel intimate in a way that had nothing to do with touching.
For a while, they kept playing.
Badly, on her part.
Nico fed her balls. Corrected her grip. Mocked her footwork with surprising restraint. She accused him of being allergic to positive reinforcement. He told her she was allergic to listening.
It was the easiest ten minutes they had ever spent together.
Which made it the most dangerous.
Eventually, Lena dropped onto the bench, breathless and warm despite the night air. Nico stood beside the basket, bouncing a ball once, then catching it.
“Your mom would be disappointed,” he said.
Lena gasped. “That was cruel.”
“She hated correction. You ignored all of it. I think she’d respect that.”
The smile slipped from Lena’s face before she could stop it.
Not fully.
Just enough.
Nico saw.
Of course.
His voice changed. “Sorry.”
“No.” She looked down at her hands. “It’s okay.”
He came closer but did not sit.
She stared at the racket lying beside her.
“My dad loved watching her play,” she said. “Even when she was awful. Especially then, maybe. She was the only person who could make him less...” She searched for the word.
“Coach Hart?” Nico offered.
Lena laughed softly. “Exactly.”
The court lights hummed overhead.
“He changed after she died,” Lena said. “Or maybe I did. I don’t know. I just remember thinking if I was easy enough, good enough, quiet enough, he wouldn’t have to lose anything else.”
Nico did not say anything.
That was why she kept going.
Because he did not rush to comfort her. Did not tell her she was wrong. Did not try to make the sadness more convenient.
He just stayed.
Lena’s throat tightened.
“I got very good at being fine,” she said.
Nico’s voice was low when he answered.
“I noticed.”
She looked up.
He stood in front of her, racket hanging at his side, face shadowed beneath the lights. His expression was guarded, but his eyes were not.
They were too honest.
Too focused.
Too much.
Lena tried to smile.
It failed halfway.
Nico’s gaze dropped to her mouth, then rose again.
He looked like he hated himself for noticing.
Good.
At least they were both suffering.
“Your turn,” she said quickly.
His brows drew together. “What?”
“I gave you a tragic backstory fragment. That means you owe me one.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Emotionally, yes.”
He shook his head, but there was no real bite in it. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Deflection.”
“Persistent.”
“Also true.”
Nico looked toward the far side of the court.
For a moment, she thought he would shut down.
Then he said, “My mom calls when she’s trying not to ask for help.”
Lena went very still.
He bounced the ball once.
Caught it.
“Yesterday. The phone call you heard.” His jaw tightened. “Rent went up. Sofia has application fees. My mom says it’s fine when it’s not fine.”
Lena’s chest hurt.
“Nico—”
“Don’t.” His eyes cut to hers. “Don’t do that voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one people use right before they pity me.”
“I don’t pity you.”
“You should. It would be efficient.”
“No.” She stood slowly. “It would be lazy.”
That made him look at her.
Really look.
Lena stepped closer, stopping on her side of the net. It still divided them. A thin white barrier. Ridiculous and necessary.
“Is that why the scholarship matters so much?” she asked.
His mouth tightened.
“For my family, yes.”
“And for you?”
He looked away.
There.
The question had found something deeper.
“I don’t know how to separate the two,” he said.
The honesty was quiet.
Devastating.
Lena held on to the top of the net because she needed somewhere to put her hands.
“Nico.”
His name came out too soft.
He heard it.
He stepped back immediately, like softness was a trap.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“No. I shouldn’t have said any of this.” He grabbed another ball from the basket. “You can’t use it.”
Lena flinched.
He saw.
Regret flashed across his face, but the words were already out.
“I wouldn’t,” she said.
The air between them chilled.
Nico dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
He said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Lena picked up her phone from the bench, even though she had not recorded a second of this. Not the midnight court. Not the lesson. Not his confession. Nothing.
Still, she suddenly hated the device in her hand.
“I came here because I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Not because I needed content.”
His throat moved.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
The question stayed there.
Nico looked at her for a long second.
Then his eyes shifted past her, toward the empty stands, the dark campus, the world waiting beyond the fence to name him badly.
“Declan said something after the match,” he said.
Lena stopped breathing.
“What?”
His jaw worked.
For one impossible moment, she thought he would finally tell her.
The court went silent around them.
Even the lights seemed to hum quieter.
Nico’s eyes came back to hers.
There was pain there now.
Real pain.
The kind anger usually covered.
“What did he say?” Lena asked gently.
Nico shook his head once.
The door closed.
Just like that.
“Forget it.”
“Nico—”
“I said forget it.”
The hardness returned, but it did not fit the same way now. She had seen too much beneath it.
He picked up the basket and started gathering balls from the court.
Conversation over.
Lena stood there with the racket in one hand and her heart doing something she had not approved.
She should have left.
Instead, she bent down and picked up a ball near her shoe.
Nico glanced at her.
“You don’t have to help.”
“I know.”
She tossed the ball into the basket.
Another.
Another.
They cleaned the court in silence.
Not comfortable.
Not cold.
Something in between.
When they reached the gate, Nico turned off the lights. The court dropped into darkness around them, moonlight replacing the floodlit honesty they had both probably revealed too much beneath.
At the path, Lena paused.
“Goodnight, Nico.”
He looked at her.
The shadows softened the hard lines of his face.
For once, he did not tell her to go home.
He only said, “Text me when you get back.”
Lena blinked. “That sounds dangerously like concern.”
“It’s logistics.”
“Very romantic.”
His mouth twitched. “Fake relationship, remember?”
She should have laughed.
Instead, the words landed wrong.
Fake.
Right.
She smiled anyway.
Because that was what she did when something hurt and she had no place to put it.
“Goodnight,” she said again.
This time, she walked away.
She made it halfway across campus before her phone buzzed.
Nico.
You back?
Lena stared at the message for too long.
Then she typed:
Almost. Try not to emotionally damage any tennis balls while I’m gone.
His reply came thirty seconds later.
No promises.
Another message followed.
And Lena?
She stopped beneath a lamppost.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
Yeah?
The typing bubbles appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then:
Don’t ask about Declan again.
Lena’s chest tightened.
Before she could answer, another message came through.
Not from Nico.
From the anonymous account.
No greeting.
No warning.
Just one sentence.
He stayed quiet because the truth would hurt more than the lie.