Pickle Perfect

Prologue

Fifteen years ago…

There it was again, a thunderous bonk against Lulu Gardner’s window frame. She raced to the window, threw it open, and stared incredulously at the scene out in the night. “What are you doing?” Lulu whispered. “Did you just throw a tennis ball at my window?”

“Nope,” said the familiar, playful voice. “I hit the siding. I would never throw a ball at your window. If I even looked at that glass with my tennis arm, it would break.” Although she couldn’t see Tyler Demming’s face in the darkness, she imagined his cheeky grin. The corners of her lips lifted.

Surely her parents had heard that. If they caught Tyler out here, they would lose it. Her mom and dad were convinced that Tyler, who at twenty had just made the pro tennis circuit, was influencing Lulu to follow his lead the instant she finished her senior year.

And they weren’t entirely wrong to worry. Tennis was in her blood. And Tyler was in her heart. She couldn’t imagine a future without either. Throwing on her jeans and sneakers, Lulu tumbled inelegantly out of the window and into his embrace.

“A little midnight tennis?” he asked, producing a pair of rackets. “I thought we could hit it.” His lip quirked with mischief. “The ball…” he explained and his eyes darted, skimming her T-shirt sans bra, “and then…”

“You are so bad!” She teased and thumped her palms against his chest. “Yes,” she said, decisive as ever. The sudden thrill on his face made her laugh. “To the tennis!”

Although the June day had been unseasonably warm, now the nighttime breeze nipped at her cheeks.

By her second try, Lulu managed to wriggle over the chain link fence at Strawberry Hill Park.

Her adrenaline pumped up with the exquisite illicitness of sneaking out of her house, breaking into the courts, and mostly, Tyler’s nearness.

He tossed the rackets over, and one clattered within her reach.

“Shh! You’re going to get us caught!” She hiccupped with giddiness.

Tyler hopped the fence like his feet were made of springs.

“Not around here. It’s empty,” he said. Quick-stepping in place, she warmed up while Tyler jogged over to hit the lights.

The slow brightening spotlighted the courts, but on a Sunday at midnight in the boondocks of Bainbridge Island, Washington, Tyler was right.

No one was likely to spot them at the deserted park. Even with it lit up like a beacon.

Lulu let her body relax as she and Tyler began to play.

She felt a shift in the air, like a spell had been cast that pulled them out of time and space.

While their usual play was peppered with good-natured goading and deep-rooted competition, tonight was different.

As they hit, Lulu listened to the soft thud of the ball on the pavement as it created a musical beat.

Instead of going for a win, they hit cooperatively for rhythm, for style, for unity.

The ball flew between them, and as it soared, she imagined it pulling an invisible thread, like the shuttle on a loom, lacing them together.

This is freedom, Lulu thought, as the hours stretched.

This is happiness. Here on the courts, her limbs behaved exactly as she wanted.

She shifted with easy grace, her body a fluid and changing companion to the ball’s movement.

Usually when they practiced together, Tyler was her toughest opponent.

But tonight, although they leapt and spun on opposite sides of the court, this was a pas de deux.

They played until their arms ached, but they did not stop until at last the ball hit the edge of Tyler’s racket and it popped up like a wild rocket.

They watched their one ball sail over the fence and disappear into the dark border of trees.

Smiling at each other with their rackets hanging loose against their legs, neither of them moved.

“Tired?” he asked. Above the spotlight of the courts, the velvet universe swirled around them in a vast and silent canopy.

“Not even a little.” Her skin bristled with energy.

“Me, neither.”

They turned off the overhead court lights and sat down right where they were—both of them recognizing that this year, something stronger than a tennis rivalry and deeper than friendship had blossomed between them.

Something rare, and maybe something they weren’t ready for.

Only the white moonlight lit their faces.

Cross-legged, they faced each other, and with both hands, Lulu curled her fingers over his. “Are you excited?”

“Nervous. But yeah, excited,” and when he said it, twin sensations ballooned in her chest. Joy for his success; he would join the pro tennis tour in two weeks’ time. Balanced against the heaviness; she missed him already.

They lay down on the cool pavement, their heads upside down to each other’s.

Her gaze took in the reflection of the moon glinting in his eyes.

They talked and talked. About her last weeks of school.

About his move from his apartment. About how to combat her parents’ unreasonable attitude toward Lulu devoting herself to tennis after high school, and how one day they would support their own kids no matter what they wanted to do.

And about how there was this girl they knew who got one of those new phones that had a selfie camera.

They talked about a scrawny dog that had been found wandering the 7-Eleven parking lot and had been adopted by the economics teacher.

The topics ebbed and flowed, like the natural cadence of the tides surrounding their northwest island.

Lulu rolled over so she faced Tyler. For a moment, she just took him in. His dark wavy hair. His skin, pale and flawless in the moonlight. Leaning forward, her nose brushed his chin, and she kissed him, sighing when he returned the kiss, deepening it as his tongue teased her lower lip.

“You’re gonna be big. I can feel it.”

“That’s what she said,” Tyler quipped.

Giggling, she rolled her eyes. “A tennis superstar.”

He laughed, low in his throat. “I hope so.”

A flush of emotion caught her off guard, and she was surprised to find tears pricking her eyes. She had been harboring a fear for weeks now. “You’ll forget about me.”

He hitched himself up on his elbow, his eyes searching hers. “Lu.” In his soft voice, her nickname soothed and aroused her all at once. “Forget about you? I could never. Even when I’m bigger than Federer.” He smirked at his own bravado.

Then his features stilled, and he studied her face with rare solemnity.

His gaze traced her dark curls, the shock of her lashes, and her strong, straight nose.

With a feathery touch, he ran a finger down her jawline, then slowly, slowly, over her throat, and down between her breasts.

She shivered, goose bumps rising on the olive skin of her arms.

“I’m here,” he said, his finger poised over her heart. Gently, he touched his palm down onto the center of her breastbone. “I’m always here for you, Lu. I promise.” Lulu absorbed the raw realness of his words as he pressed them into her heart.

She pushed him onto his back and straddled him, her lips covering his words with her absolute trust. How easy it was to give herself to Tyler Demming, the boy who promised to protect her heart. Always.