14. Max
MAX
Iswing, and the ball clips the top of the net before dying on my side. Again.
“Focus, Max!” Grace chirps from across the court. She looks like a tennis pro in her white skirt, her ponytail swinging with every move. She’s playing for the cameras; I’m just waiting for the clock to run out.
“Sorry,” I call back, flashing the smile. “Must be the heat.”
It’s not the heat. It’s the woman standing thirty feet away behind the camera.
I sent Molly home last night. She cried until her mascara ran in black streaks, clutching my arm and sobbing about our soul-deep connection. Then in her exit interview, she claimed Grace is fake and doesn’t give a damn about me.
She wasn’t wrong.
Grace lobs a serve. It’s a soft, easy shot, practically begging to be smashed. I let it fly past me.
“Point!” the cameraman whispers.
“You’re terrible at this,” Grace laughs, walking up to the net. She reaches out and wipes a bead of sweat from my temple. It’s a gesture for the lenses. I smile but inside I’m recoiling.
I don’t even know why Grace is here. She hasn’t made a single attempt to actually get to know me; it’s like she’s already checked the “Max” box on her list of achievements and moved on.
I look at Heidi. She’s wearing an oversized linen shirt, her hair pulled back in a knot.
She isn’t looking at me—she’s staring at a screen—but I can feel her presence.
Every time I move, I’m doing it for her.
Heidi is the opposite of Grace. She’s all sharp edges and high-functioning anxiety, and she’s the only person here who sees me as a human being instead of a career move.
Heidi is the only thing in this place that feels real, even if she’s the one forcing me to be a lie.
I’m hitting a wall. I told her I’d play along to save her career, but my skin crawls every time I have to touch Grace.
Every whispered line, every fake smile—it feels like I’m erasing a piece of myself to keep Heidi’s world from collapsing.
She’s terrified of losing what she’s built, and if she needs me to do this, I’ll do it.
But it’s costing me more than she realizes.
The director calls a wrap on the court shots. Grace is already striding toward the PAs, barking an order for a drink. She treats the crew like servants. I grab a towel and head straight for Heidi.
“How’s it looking?” I ask, nodding at the monitor.
“Grace looks great,” she says, her tone clipped. “You look like someone who’s never held a racket before.”
“I find other ways to keep fit,” I say, raising my eyebrows just enough to let the implication hang there.
She ignores it.
Her foot is tapping. She has these tells—chewing on a pen, the constant drumming of her fingers against her thigh. She’s wound tight again. I see it every night. She works herself into a fever pitch of stress until I finally get her to settle.
I get ten minutes of a relaxed Heidi afterward. Ten minutes where she actually breathes before the gears shift and the producer takes over once more.
She needs a reset.
This ‘marry someone else’ crap pisses me off. I should be angry, but I can’t sustain it. One look from her and I’m done. I’m hers. I’d do almost anything for her, even this.
“You reckon we can ride back together?” I ask, projecting my voice so the PAs can’t miss it. I make it sound like the most tedious production meeting in history. “I’ve got some ideas for the morning block I want to run by you.”
She starts rattling off excuses but I’m getting her in that car.
She knows it, and I know it.
It’s easy enough to manipulate the seating.
A few charming smiles and the crew is laughing as they cram into the lead car—lighting techs squeezed against Grace, PAs wedged between gear crates.
No one complains. They’re sun-tired and giddy, and I’ve played my part well enough that they don’t suspect a thing.
Finally, Heidi and I have the SUV to ourselves.
She slides into the driver’s seat, her movements stiff. I climb in beside her and stretch out.
“Want me to drive?” I ask.
“There’s no insurance for you,” she says. Her hand reaches for the gear shift and brushes mine. Despite us being alone, she pulls back like she’s been burned.
We hit the road.
“So,” she says. “What exactly did you need to talk about?”
“I want to take a detour.”
She shoots me a look. “We don’t have time for a detour.”
“Trust me,” I say. “We do. Five minutes, tops.”
I watch the battle play out in her head, but I already know the winner. She hits the blinker. A few turns later, the pavement cracks and the brush thickens. I direct her toward an old public pool, a relic of concrete and sagging chain-link. It’s silent. Isolated.
I unbuckle.
“Why are we here?” she asks.
“We’re going to fuck in the back of the car,” I tell her, as casual as if I’m suggesting a coffee break. “Didn’t want an audience.”
“We are not,” she snaps.
“Come on,” I say, dropping my voice to that low register I know gets to her. “You’re all wound up. You’re putting us at risk. Someone is going to notice the way you look at me on set. I’m trying to give you an outlet for all that tension before you blow our cover.”
She tries to argue, but the exhaustion in her eyes gives her away.
“We’ll be quick,” I add, leaning toward her. “I’ll get you there in three minutes.”
She kills the engine.
“If it’s longer than three, we stop,” she warns.
I don’t bother answering. I move to the back seat, and she follows. The second she’s on my lap, Heidi the Producer vanishes and my Heidi returns.
“God, you’re hot,” she whispers against my mouth, and then she’s kissing me like she’s starving.
I grip her thighs, my fingers digging into her skin as I pull her into me.
I’m covered in sweat from the court and she’s covered in the day’s stress.
She moves to pull her trousers off and I reach into my pocket for a condom.
The one I’ve been carrying for days, just in case.
I roll it on, then grab her hips and lift her.
She’s light in my hands as I center her over me, the seat creaking under the weight of us.
She sinks down and I feel every inch of her. Her eyes widen. Her nails dig into my shoulders. She moans against my ear and the windows are already fogging.
I see her bite her cheek—trying to stay sensible, even now.
“Don’t.” I curl my fingers around her jaw, turn her face to mine. “You don’t have to be quiet here.”
My hand slips between her legs, finds her already slick and desperate, and she breaks—a sound punched out of her that she’d never allow on any soundstage.
“That’s it.”
I grip her hips, help her move when her legs start trembling. I’ve spent weeks mapping her. I know the exact angle that makes her gasp, the rhythm that undoes her. I watch her fight it. Watch her lose.
She comes apart on top of me, and I don’t look away. Not for a second.
I follow her over the edge seconds later. I hold her there until the world finally stops spinning.
Eventually, I tie off the condom and toss it out the window.
“Don’t litter,” she snaps.
“You want me to carry it back with us?”
She sighs, defeated, and looks at the clock on the dash. Her eyes widen. “Max, that was...that was definitely more than three minutes. We were supposed to stop.”
“Felt efficient to me.”
We hop back into the front and get back on the road.
I watch her from the passenger seat, taking in the way her grip on the wheel has loosened.
The sharp, frantic energy that usually radiates off her has dulled into something softer.
These are the precious few minutes where she actually relaxes.
She’s perfect like this. And when this is over, it’s going to be my life mission to keep her this way.
She wants me to marry Grace, but all I can picture is Heidi in a white dress. Probably not a thought I should be having yet. Doesn’t stop me. Before the thought can take hold, I’m jolted forward as she hits the brakes a little too hard.
“I didn’t realize you were such a sketchy driver,” I laugh as she swerves into the next lane, nearly clipping a truck. “You’re losing points here, Freckles.”
A smile finally breaks through. “I’m not that bad.”
“You just cut that guy off. I’m pretty sure he just flipped you off.”
“Good,” she says. “He was tailgating.”
“And what do you think you’re doing right now?” I nod toward the sedan in front of us.
“I’m keeping pace,” she says, backing off just a fraction.
She lets out a half-laugh, and the last of the tension leaves her shoulders.
I reach over, my hand covering hers on the gear shift.
“We’re almost back,” she says, glancing at my hand.
“I know.” I squeeze her hand once before letting go.
“What do I tell people you wanted, if they ask?”
“Tell them I had an existential crisis and I needed you to personally tell me how great my backhand looks. For my mental health.”
“They’d believe that,” she says.
We smile at each other, before I gesture to the road where she’s getting dangerously close to that sedan again.