2. Serena #2
The tension between us was an invisible thread stretched taut like a bowstring.
Always on the edge of snapping.
“Serena . . .”
It was just my name. So why, when he said it, did my heart skip a funny little beat?
Right . . . because this is the very first time we’d both been single at the same time since we started high school. Something my cousins reminded me of all weekend long.
I looked back up, and there he was, standing barefoot in the sand.
His beautiful arms loosely folded over his chest. Sunlight catching the lines of the muscle carved along his shoulders.
His thick quads testing the restraint of his board shorts.
Muscles earned through years of freezing rinks, early morning skate times, endless bruises, and relentless discipline.
His baby-blue eyes found mine. Steady and impossible to hide from.
“What?” I asked, forcing my voice to sound lighter than my racing heart felt.
His mouth curved into a soft grin, so different from the cocky one everyone else saw. Somehow quieter . . . warmer . . . Mine.
This is all we’d ever given in to.
Years spent dancing around each other.
Spent as friends.
How could we ever be more?
Neither of us was willing to put anything before our goals, and those goals came at a cost.
So we settled for this . . . for the moments that looked like they didn’t matter, when in reality, those were the moments that stayed seared on my soul.
It’s funny, looking back now because I’m not sure how I didn’t see it then.
How I missed just what this man would come to mean to me . . .
“You stayed,” he mused. Two words that held so much meaning, they stole the air from my lungs. Because he knew I would, even if he thought I wouldn’t.
“I always do,” I finally answered, loving the way his smile lingered.
“Me too.”
The waves crashed, and the winds shifted. Somewhere behind us, a screen door slammed shut, probably behind one of my cousins.
Neither of us moved.
Life kept going.
It always did.
Even if just for a few minutes, I wished we could freeze time. That for one suspended heartbeat, the world could disappear, and it would just be the two of us in the fading sunlight, pretending we weren’t both about to start the next step in achieving our dreams on opposite ends of the coast.
“Golden hour?” he asked, knowing my answer after years of being in each other’s orbit.
“Someone has to appreciate the best part of the day.”
He looked out over the ocean. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”
Of course he did.
Because we’ve known each other for a lifetime.
Since before soccer consumed my life or hockey his.
Before all our friends started looking at us, expecting something to happen that never did.
Hendrix rested his forearms across the top of his surfboard, watching the waves instead of me. Probably a good thing because the idea of leaving in a few days was tempting me to be bold in a way I knew I shouldn’t.
“So . . .” He turned back to me after a minute. “UNC.”
And there it was.
The final nail in the coffin.
I always thought maybe something could happen between us after we graduated.
Maybe we could balance it.
Maybe I’d stay home and go to Kroydon University with him, and we’d be the It couple.
We’d start the rest of our lives together.
We’re taught, as young women, that being part of a power couple is the ultimate accomplishment. The peak to reach for. But back then, being one-half of an It couple wasn’t my goal. It still isn’t. The national team, the Olympics, and the National Women’s Soccer League were.
I chose myself and hoped like hell I wasn’t choosing wrong.
With a heavy heart, I nodded. “Two more days.”
“And Team USA,” he added, pride shining back at me.
“You’ve been paying attention,” I teased softly.
“It’s hard not to when it’s you, Serena.” The words were spoken so easily, like they didn’t form the kind of sentence that made my heart forget how to beat.
A breeze lifted the strands of my hair, and without waiting for permission, Hendrix reached for me. His fingers stopping inches from my cheek. Electricity coursed between us. And for one single second, I thought he might do it.
Brush the hair from my face.
Touch me.
Instead, he let his hand drop down.
Coward . . .
Him and me.
“You’re going to be incredible, Serena.”
“Thanks.” My cheeks flushed, and my chest rose. “You’re going to be . . . okay, I guess,” I teased him, desperate to lighten the tension.
Hendrix could have gone right into the draft that year, but his dad wouldn’t let him. They’d been arguing about it for months. “Who knows? You might even make a semi-pro team one day.” I shrugged a shoulder, going for nonchalant. “I mean, maybe I could put in a word.”
“Ouch,” he laughed, pressing a hand dramatically over his heart. “You’re great for a guy’s ego.”
“I’m sure I did real damage.”
The reality was we were going in two separate directions with the same ultimate goal.
To chase elite dreams.
To be professional athletes.
Goals that require complete dedication.
And no distractions.
Goals that came with a cost.
Thunder boomed, and clouds moved in slowly behind us, and for just a moment I decided to be reckless.
“Are you ever going to ask me out, Hendrix Sinclair?” I asked him quietly, surprised by the words as they fell from my lips.
His gorgeous blue eyes softened, and my heart pounded and sunk as he took his time mulling over my question. “One day.”
Two words that made my heart sink and swim.
“Oh . . .” He held his hands out for me, then bent his knees once I was standing, narrowing the full foot height difference between us, and my God, the way he was looking at me made me brave in a way I’d never been. “What are you waiting for?”
His callused fingers skimmed my cheek and wrapped around my hair. “I’m waiting for us to both be in the right place, Serena.”
It could have been an excuse. But coming from him, I knew it wasn’t.
It was a promise.
I remember nodding, knowing he was right, and yet it still hurt. The disappointment was real, even though it was what we needed.
“Serena . . . I need us to be in the right place because when I ask, that’s going to be it for me.
You’re going to be it for me. The only woman I ever love.
The only person who will ever matter. You’re going to be my whole life.
And fuck if I don’t want to be yours too.
” He tucked my hair behind my ear and held my face like I was precious.
“I’m waiting because when we do this, and we are going to do this one day, we’re only going to get one chance. And it’s going to be epic.”
I had no way of knowing he’d ask just a few months later . . . or what kind of trajectory that would set us on.
I couldn’t know what we would mean to each other.
All the ways we would hurt each other.
I didn’t know the way this man would break me.
Or the way I would hurt him.
But sometimes, not knowing isn’t a good enough excuse.
The alarm beeps, and I drop my pen as the door coming in from the garage opens, and Liv walks into the kitchen. “Journaling?” She eyes the lavender notebook. “Things that bad with your dad?”
“Among other things.” I run my hand over the soft leather cover, desperate for a change of topic. “Hungry?”
Her eyes stay for a beat too long on the notebook before sliding over to the bag of food. “Fucking famished. You almost ready to leave?”
Understatement of the century.
“Hell. Yes.”