Love Game

The padel ball ricocheted off the glass wall, that satisfying *thwack* that had become the soundtrack to Marcus's Tuesday evenings. At forty-three, he'd finally found something that made him feel alive again—until tonight.

Across the net, Elena wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She was beautiful in that terrifying way people are when you're falling in love with them and you shouldn't be. Her dress was the color of a ripe orange, vivid against the artificial blue of the court lights.

"Your serve," she called, and her voice carried something else beneath it. Something final.

Marcus's iPhone vibrated on the bench. He'd stopped checking it during matches—Elena's rule—but the screen lit up with the notification he'd been waiting three days for. His wife's name glowing like accusation in the dimness of the club.

"Marcus?" Elena's paddle dropped to her side. "You're going to miss it. The moment."

"What moment?" His mouth was dry.

She walked to the net, that orange dress swaying. "The one where you choose. Any of them. All of them. You've been standing on the sidelines of your own life since I met you."

A cat appeared from somewhere—a stray that lived at the club, winding around Elena's legs like it owned her, like it knew something Marcus didn't. She bent to scratch behind its ears, and Marcus watched her hands, the same hands that had touched him just once, two weeks ago, after too much wine and not enough consequences.

"My wife," he started, then stopped. The words felt like stones in his throat.

"Your wife texted you," Elena said, straightening up. The cat abandoned her for a discarded sandwich wrapper near the fence. "I saw the screen. She's leaving, isn't she?"

"She knows."

"About us?"

"About everything. About how I haven't been present in years. About the padel lessons I started just to get out of the house. About—" His voice broke. "About how I met someone who made me feel something again."

Elena's expression softened, then hardened. "You didn't meet me, Marcus. I was just the mirror. The trick now is deciding whether what you see is worth breaking everything."

The orange sun was setting beyond the glass walls, painting everything in that fleeting, impossible color that exists between day and night. Between staying and leaving.

Marcus looked at his phone, at Elena, at the cat now watching them with ancient, indifferent eyes.

"Match point," he said, and picked up his paddle.