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The padel court was steamy at 6 AM, the glass walls fogged with the breath of men who should know better than to compete before sunrise. David's backhand slammed into the corner, decisive and sharp, much like the way he'd told me yesterday that my position was being eliminated.

"You're not sleeping," he said between serves, the ball ricocheting off my racket frame. I watched it sail into the net, a perfect metaphor for the past three months.

"Neither are you."

He hesitated, just for a second. "Sarah left. Took the dog."

The dog. Buster, who'd greeted me at every office party with muddy paws and unconditional enthusiasm. Who'd somehow known to rest his head on my knee the day after my miscarriage, even though I'd never told David about the baby.

I thought about the swimming pool in my building, how I'd been going there at 2 AM, floating weightless in the chlorinated dark. The water didn't ask why I couldn't sleep. Didn't ask about the child I'd never held, the marriage that had quietly dissolved around me like sugar in warm water.

"I'm sorry," I said, and meant it.

David served again, but his heart wasn't in it. "The swimming pool," he said suddenly. "At the hotel where we had the retreat. You were there that night, weren't you?"

The night we'd both disappeared from the mandatory networking event. The night I'd swum until my muscles burned, until I couldn't feel the ghost weight of a baby that wasn't there. I hadn't known he was watching.

"Yes."

"I was on the deck." His voice cracked. "I wanted to ask you to swim. But I was your boss, and you were married, and I'm a coward."

The padel ball rolled to a stop between us. The morning light was cutting through the fog now, sharp and unforgiving.

"I'm not married anymore," I said. "And you're not my boss."

"No," he said. "I'm just a man who misses his dog and wishes he'd gotten in the pool."

The dog. The swimming. The game we'd been playing without knowing the rules.

"There's a 24-hour pool near my place," I heard myself say. "No glass walls."

David smiled for the first time in months. "Showtime?"

"Now works."

We left our gear on the court. Some games are worth losing.