Chapter 16 Elise
ELISE
The alarm went at five-fifteen and Elise was already awake.
She'd been lying in the dark watching the ceiling lighten from black to deep blue to the first pale wash of pre-dawn grey, her body humming with the alertness that came from anticipation.
Not game-day alertness, which was sharper, edged with adrenaline and the metallic taste of competition.
This was warmer. Softer. An alertness that came from knowing she was about to see Sienna.
She silenced the alarm and swung her legs out of bed.
The apartment was cool, the windows still holding the night's chill, and the floorboards were cold under her bare feet.
She dressed quickly in the dark. Leggings, a long-sleeved top, trainers.
She pulled her hair into a ponytail with practised ease and paused.
Her left shoulder lifted without protest. The range was almost full now, the stiffness reduced to a faint ache that only appeared at the extremes of motion.
Eight weeks since the injury. Eight weeks of Sienna's hands on her shoulder, of resistance bands and ice packs and the slow, grinding patience of rehabilitation.
She was due back on the ice this week. Two days from now.
Thursday's game. Mara had confirmed it yesterday with a clipped nod and a "Don't do anything stupid. "
Two days. The thought sent a current through her chest, part excitement, part terror.
Eight weeks away from the game. Eight weeks of watching Lex fill her position with an explosive brilliance that made the highlight reels.
Elise had watched every game from the bench, sitting next to Sienna with their thighs touching and her heart in two pieces, one half aching to be out there and the other half aching to stay right where she was.
But the last couple of weeks had changed everything.
She moved through the apartment in the grey light, filling a bag with the things she'd prepared last night.
A thermos of coffee. Two cups. A container of pastries from the bakery on Third Street, almond croissants and a lemon danish that Sienna favoured.
Strawberries. A blanket she'd washed and folded with more care than she'd ever folded a blanket in her life.
The last two weeks had been the happiest of her adult life.
She turned the thought over as she packed, testing it for exaggeration, and it held up.
Happy in a way she'd never expected and didn't entirely trust, because happiness this complete was new to her and her experience said things that were this good didn't stay that good for long.
But she was trying not to think that way.
She was trying to be present, as Sienna was learning to be present, as they were both learning to let themselves have this.
The sex had been extraordinary. That word wasn't big enough.
Since the first night on the sofa, they'd been together five more times, and each time was different, and each time Elise watched Sienna open further, unfold further, trust further.
The woman who'd been so controlled she could barely make a sound during sex was now vocal and responsive and unguarded in a way that made Elise's chest ache with tenderness.
But it wasn't just the sex. It was the mornings after.
It was Sienna making tea in Elise's kitchen with her glasses pushed up into her hair and her feet bare on the tiles.
It was falling asleep together on the sofa watching a documentary about marine biology that Sienna was fascinated by and Elise couldn't follow.
It was texting throughout the day, small stupid messages about nothing, a photo of the ocean from Sienna's morning swim, a complaint about the vending machine coffee from Elise, a series of increasingly elaborate excuses for why Sienna needed to examine Elise's shoulder again that evening.
It was a relationship. An actual, real, functioning relationship between two adults who cared about each other, and Elise had never had one that felt like this.
She shouldered the bag and slipped out of the apartment.
The stairwell was quiet, the building asleep.
Outside, the air was cool and salt-sharp, the sky a deep indigo above the rooflines.
She could hear the ocean before she saw it, the low, steady rush of waves against the shore two blocks away.
The streetlights were still on, casting amber pools on the pavement, and the eucalyptus trees along the road were motionless in the still air.
Sienna was waiting at the corner of the waterfront path.
She was a dark shape against the grey, wearing a lightweight jacket over running gear, her dark hair loose around her shoulders.
She was looking out at the water, and the sight of her standing there in the pre-dawn quiet, her posture straight but her shoulders relaxed, her hands in her jacket pockets, made Elise's chest compress with a tenderness that still surprised her every time.
"Morning," Elise said.
Sienna turned. Her face was pale in the half-light, her dark hair loose around her face, and when she saw Elise she smiled. Not the controlled, professional smile she wore in the medical room. The real one. The one that crinkled her eyes and softened her jaw and made her look ten years younger.
"You brought a bag," Sienna said, eyeing the pack on Elise's good shoulder.
"I brought breakfast. You'll have to trust me."
"I trust you."
The words were simple and Sienna said them without inflection and they went straight through Elise like warm water.
She leaned in and kissed Sienna's mouth, soft and brief, tasting coffee and toothpaste.
Sienna's hand came up and touched Elise's hip, a small, automatic gesture of contact, and her fingers pressed through the fabric of Elise's leggings, grounding and intimate at once.
They walked.
Sienna's hand found hers after the first few steps, her slim fingers threading through Elise's.
The contact was natural now, an automatic reflex whenever they were close enough to touch and far enough from the stadium to be unobserved.
At work they were careful. Not dishonest, but discreet.
Sienna's hand on Elise's shoulder during treatment was professional.
The glances across the medical room were brief.
The texts were deleted from the team Wi-Fi.
But out here, in the pre-dawn dark, they could just be two women holding hands.
The beach path curved south along the waterfront, past the closed cafes and the dark restaurant terraces and the empty benches where, weeks ago, they'd had their first kiss.
The sky was lightening ahead of them, the deep indigo dissolving into bands of violet and rose at the horizon.
The ocean was dark and flat, barely distinguishable from the sky except for the faint white lines of breaking waves at the shore.
A runner passed them going the other direction, headlamp bobbing, and then they were alone.
"How's your shoulder this morning?" Sienna asked. The physician in her never fully switched off.
"Good. Better than good. I've got almost full rotation. The overhead reach is still a bit tight but it's nothing that'll stop me Thursday."
"Nothing that'll stop you Thursday isn't the same as fully healed."
Elise bumped Sienna's shoulder with her own. "If you're about to tell me I'm not cleared, I'll remind you that you cleared me yourself three days ago."
"I cleared you for gradual return to contact sport. Not for launching yourself into full-speed drills on day one."
Elise squeezed her hand. "I'll be careful."
Sienna's grip tightened back. "You'll follow the protocol."
Elise grinned. The familiar push and pull of Sienna's professional caution against Elise's competitive impatience was a rhythm they'd developed early and never lost, even now that they were sleeping together.
Sienna still told her what she could and couldn't do with her shoulder, and Elise still pushed back, and they both enjoyed the argument more than they'd admit.
"Where are we going?" Sienna asked as the path curved away from the main beach and wound between low dunes covered in coastal scrub.
"There's a cove. Past the headland. You can only get to it at low tide or from the path above. I used to run here when I first moved to Phoenix Ridge. Before the team, before Lex, when I was trying to figure out if I'd made the right decision."
The scrub rustled in the breeze, releasing a sharp, herbal smell. "Did you?"
"The best decision of my life. This place gave me everything." She glanced at Sienna. "Including you."
Sienna's cheeks coloured, visible even in the low light. "Thank you," she said.
The two words sat between them with an odd weight.
As if they'd cost Sienna effort to say. As if she was practising them.
Elise didn't push on it. She reached for Sienna's hand and their fingers laced together and they walked the rest of the path in comfortable silence, the only sounds the crunch of gravel under their feet and the growing rush of the ocean below.
The cove opened up below them as the path crested the low headland.
A crescent of pale sand sheltered by dark rock on three sides, with the open ocean on the fourth.
The tide was low and the sand was wide and empty.
In the east, the horizon was on fire, bands of gold and copper spreading upward through the rose and violet, the sun's edge just beginning to clear the water.
The light caught the wet sand and turned it to copper.
The rock walls of the cove held the heat of the fading night and blocked the breeze, and the air was still and salt-warm.
"Oh," Sienna breathed.
"I know." Elise led her down the sandy track to the cove floor. She spread the blanket on the dry sand above the tide line, in the shelter of the southern rock wall, and sat down. Sienna sat beside her, close enough that their hips touched.