20
Maeve
THE SECOND MATCH SERIES ended without either of us setting fire to the other.
I considered that a considerable achievement.
Somewhere between the first Test and the final training session, the sharp edges between us had worn down.
Not disappeared entirely. Rihaan was still Rihaan, which meant he could be spectacularly irritating before breakfast and somehow manage to make a perfectly reasonable instruction sound like a personal attack.
But I had learned him.
I knew the particular crease between his eyebrows that meant his shoulder was bothering him, even when he insisted otherwise. I knew when his sarcasm meant he was genuinely annoyed and when he was simply trying to make me laugh. He’d learned me too, annoyingly well.
He’d started handing me his arm without being asked.
Started telling me when something hurt.
Started making jokes while I worked instead of sitting there in stubborn silence.
And I’d started waiting for those jokes.
That was the part I hadn't quite figured out what to do with.
It had happened quietly.
There hadn’t been a moment where we’d decided we liked each other. No grand truce announcement. No sudden transformation.
Just hundreds of tiny things.
A coffee left beside my laptop because he’d remembered how I took it.
A muttered joke when I was trying not to laugh during a team meeting.
His shoulder brushing mine in a corridor, followed by that brief glance between us that somehow lasted longer than it should have.
I had stopped bracing myself whenever he walked into a room.
Somehow, I’d started looking forward to the would.
Which was precisely why, when Samyra called me after a particularly long day the field, I had debated on skipping our call.
Because if there was someone I couldn’t hide the truth from, it was her.
The evening air had cooled enough to raise goosebumps along my arms as I sat in the chair on my balcony. Somewhere below, traffic moved through the streets in a distant, constant hush.
Her face appeared on my screen.
She took one look at me and narrowed her eyes. “You look different.”
I frowned. “I look exactly the same.”
“Not your face.”
I leaned against the railing. “Then what?”
“You.”
I laughed softly. “That is possibly the least useful answer you've ever given me.”
“You're smiling.”
“I smile.”
“Not like that.”
My smile faltered. I looked away, pretending to be interested in the lights below. “I've had a good couple of weeks.”
“Mm.” She made the sound of someone who had just been handed evidence and was waiting for me to incriminate myself.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing.” She shrugged. “Where are you, by the way?”
“My hotel room?”
“And you’ve got your own private balcony?”
I sighed. “Not by choice. The hotel messed up my booking, and I had to go all ‘You wouldn’t want me telling my team about your fuck up and ask the hotel to pay a fine for a mandatory rule, etc.’ on the receptionist after they told me their new system had made a mistake.
So they gave me a different—the only—room they had, than what the team had picked for me, considering I had to share the room until they checked out. ”
“Proud of you.”
“You would be,” I agreed. “I did learn all my skills from you.”
“Well, not all of us have a trust to help when hotels try mistreating you.”
“You had me, ergo, you had mine. Plus, it’s not like I use my trust. It’s basically like an emergency savings account I need for the day I decide that I’ve had enough and go live somewhere in the mountains.”
She sighed, shaking her head like I didn’t get it. “I didn’t want it. I had already paid my money on it.”
“I think that’s why maybe so many college choose to go backpacking. If a hostel tries to scam them out of their way to a cheap room for the price they pay, they don’t care because often it’s not a lot.”
Samyra rolled her eyes. “I respect those who can share a room with a dozen strangers—”
“More like twenty,” I offered, sharing from the time I had gone backpacking and stayed in a hostel.
Samyra’s eyes widened. “Yeah, even more respect for those. But if I was going to spend my money travelling across France, I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it that way.”
“Fair enough.”
“On that. Where in the world did you sleep last night then?” She paused. “Or yet, a better question, Who did you stay with?”
I pressed my lips together, and Samyra blinked.
“No.”
When I didn’t reply, her eyes got so big, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You did not.”
Pressing me lips together, I just gave her a nod. “Oh yeah. I did.”
“How many nights was it?”
“Just the one—which was more than enough.”
“Oh reaaaally.”
“Yes, reaaaally.”
“How was it more than enough, and not one nights too many?”
My mouth hung open. “Uhh.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t make me say it, Sammy.”
“I feel like you owe that to me.”
“I really really don’t.”
“Sure you do. Remember the time when you were gloating about finding how I looked up Axel enough for his profile to say ‘You visit often’?”
I sighed. “Fine. We may have shared a bed—his bed, and despite his sweet attempt to build a pillow barrier between us, it did not work.”
“And?”
I groaned. “How the hell do you always know there’s an and?”
“You have a very obvious guilty look,” She replied honestly.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. We may have also almost kissed. I will not be saying more than, thank you very much.”
“Huh,” She started. “You must really like him.”
“Why in the world would you say that?” I squeaked.
“For someone who’s never had problem oversharing, you’re sure as hell being cryptic.”
“Because we barely did anything—and oh, because I don’t like him.”
“Maeve, when you don’t like someone: you pick apart details as if they personally offend you.
I promise you, if you didn’t like him, you would’ve said ‘Despite his poor attempt to build a pillow barrier.’ Or ‘He’s such a pig that he didn’t wake and ask me if I was okay sharing a bed.
’ Both are paraphrases of statements you have said about the guy you didn’t like. ”
“Well, he did say he tried waking me up but I was out like the dead. Plus, if he’d slept on the floor—I probably would’ve gone off on him more. His shoulder was too fragile to mess it up.”
“So considerable of you,” She hummed, a grin settled on her face. “Especially for a guy you hate. Is that why you put out that statement?”
I dropped back into the chair, my eyes flicking towards the sky now. “I don’t hate him. Well, not anymore. A lot has happened in the last couple weeks.”
“You two have made up.”
“Sort of.” I dragged a hand over my face. “At least, my hope is that now the hot and cold stops.”
“I think it might,” She replied softly.
“What does that mean?”
“Just watch this first,” She said just as ping popped up from her, a video link she’d shared on social media.
“Okay. Give me a minute.”
I clicked it.
The video opened.
At first, I didn't understand what I was looking at.
It was a compilation from one of Rihaan’s gaming streams. The first text overlay being: ‘Rihaan streaming on a normal day.’
The first few clips were exactly what I’d expected.
Rihaan arguing with his chat.
Rihaan laughing with his friends.
Rihaan complaining about losing.
Rihaan insisting that something had been the game’s fault when it very clearly hadn’t been.
I smiled despite myself.
It wasn’t until the music changed, and the text changed to: ‘Rihaan in his most recent stream.’
There were dozens of clips, all different moments as his posture and hand positioning changed, but all with him glancing over to the side, his eyes hazed in a way I’d seen before.
My smile disappeared as I leaned closer to the screen.
I hadn’t realised how often he streamed in hotel rooms to notice that it hadn’t just been other clips. It had been from the day I spent the afternoon in his room.
Samyra said nothing.
She didn't need to, as I continued watching as the next video automatically rolled in.
The first clip showed him when he’d been talking to me, a lip reader trying to understand what his words meant. The second clip was as he watched me when I’d been moving around the room before I settled on the bed.
His eyes dropped.
He smiled.
Then he shook his head, looking back towards his monitor as though he was trying to drag himself back into the game.
Another clip.
Another glance.
Another moment I’d never known existed.
My thumb stopped moving.
The caption beneath the video read:
bro is NOT beating the allegations ??
I stared at it.
Then at him.
Then back at the caption.
“Samyra.”
“I know.”
“People noticed?”
“Apparently.”
“They made a whole video?”
“Several.” I swallowed.
The warmth had spread from my cheeks down my neck.
I watched the second video again.
There was something about seeing it from the outside that unsettled me.
I’d experienced those moments as nothing.
A glance across a room.
A smile during a conversation.
His attention wandering towards me.
I’d dismissed each one because there had always been a reason.
We were working together. We’d become…friends?
We were comfortable, because we’d been around him for weeks.
But the video stripped away all the excuses.
There was no context to hide behind.
Just him looking at me.
Softly.
Like I was something he liked looking at.
My chest tightened. I touched the screen without thinking, my fingertip hovering over his face before I pulled it away. “This doesn’t mean anything.”
Samyra snorted. “You’re terrible at lying.”
“I’m being rational.”
“There’s literally proof of him staring at your face in a fan edit.”
“Maybe he’s checking if I’m bothered by him yelling or something? I fell asleep while reading, so maybe he was worried he was going to wake me up.”
“Is that why you're blushing?”
I covered my cheek.
It was hot.
“I'm not.”
“You absolutely are.”
I ignored her.
The video looped again.
His gaze found me.
That same softness settled over his features.
And this time, something inside me answered it. Not loudly. Not enough to name. Just a quiet, treacherous little ache beneath my ribs.
Because I’d seen that look before.
I’d felt it across treatment tables and crowded rooms.
I’d just never allowed myself to wonder what it meant.
Until now.
I closed the app. Samyra’s phone taking over my screen once again.
“He’s a cricketer,” I replied softly. “And even if that wasn’t the issue—my father gave me strict rules about no fraternising remember?”
“Aren’t you still planning on transferring once you come back? The PR nightmare has begun to descend ever since you’ve put out your statement. Plus, the win helps their case too.”
“Still a cricketer.” I reminded her.
“Yeah, but isn’t it different this time? He’s not going to date you to get closer to your father.”
“I think he maybe be closer to him than I am.”
She shook her head at my tone. “What was the second reason for that rule?”
“Cricketers tend to retire in their late 30s to early 40s. I don’t want to be a one-stop, for most of our lives. I also don’t want to ask someone to pick me and make them give up something. He’ll just resent me for life.”
Samyra’s eyes softened, reading between the words easily.
Nothing about that rule was about some stranger, or a kid in grammar school trying to date me because he was a fan of my father. It was about my father himself.
“Plus,” I added. “He’s already broken rule number one, as well. I leave when they lie.”
“Yeah, but I would say you’ve put him through a ringer enough to make up for it.”
“I guess.” I shake my head. “Anyway. How’s your prep going? I want to hear all about that!”
“Okay. I also visited Mochi this week. Gave him some extra cuddles for you, so you know, he doesn’t think you’ve totally abandoned him.”
“You’re the best.”
She nodded, a grin settling on her lips as she reached over somewhere behind her phone screen. “The masks for the invitations have started to arrive…”
And for the rest of the evening, I spent my time listening to my best friend talk about her event, making sure I give her my full attention, like she had given me.
But once we hung up, and I watched the stars light up the clear night sky, I couldn’t help but replay the moments in my head, over and over again.