Second Serve

Forty-two years old and Marcus was sweating through his third **padel** match of the week, chasing a small yellow ball across an enclosed court while his lower back screamed in protest. The corporate networking event had been Sarah's idea—something about "expanding his professional footprint"—but Marcus mostly felt like he was expanding his midsection.

His partner, a fresh-faced analyst named Kevin who couldn't be older than twenty-five, smashed the ball into the glass wall behind them. Marcus's knees popped as he turned.

"Sorry, boss," Kevin called out, already adjusting his designer **hat** with practiced nonchalance. The hat was new, pristine. Marcus remembered when he used to care about things like that.

"Your serve," Marcus said, wiping sweat from his forehead with his wristband. The wristband was also new. Everything was new since the divorce—the apartment, the routine, the desperate attempt to become someone who played padel and networked and ordered smoothies with **spinach** instead of sleeping until noon on Sundays.

Across the net, their opponents were consulting in whispers. The woman—Elena, the mergers and acquisitions lawyer who'd been eyeing him since the first game—caught his gaze and smiled. Not the predatory smile he'd grown accustomed to at these things, but something softer. Something that acknowledged the absurdity of two middle-aged professionals pretending this mattered.

"What's your story, Marcus?" she asked during the changeover, sitting beside him on the bench. Close enough that he could smell her perfume—jasmine and something expensive. "You play like someone who's got somewhere else he'd rather be."

Marcus laughed, surprised by the honesty that escaped him. "Is it that obvious? My ex-wife says I always look like I'm waiting for something to end."

"Ex-wife," Elena repeated, thoughtful. She opened her protein shake bottle—Marcus could see the green flecks of spinach floating in it. "Mine too. Well, ex-husband."

"You're kidding."

"Six months." She took a sip. "I started drinking these things because he said I was letting myself go. Now I can't stop drinking them. I think it's spite at this point."

Marcus looked at her—really looked at her. The fine lines around her eyes when she smiled. The way her expensive suit was just slightly wrinkled, like she'd been wearing it since dawn. The spinach mustache she'd failed to notice in the court's mirror-like walls.

"You've got—" Marcus gestured to his own upper lip.

Elena wiped her mouth, laughing. "God. This is humiliating."

"No," Marcus said. "It's the most real thing that's happened all night."

"Do you want to get out of here?" Elena asked. "There's a place around the corner that serves actual food. Things with bacon. Things that don't require a straw."

Marcus looked at the court, at Kevin adjusting his hat, at the corporate sponsors' banners lining the walls. Then he looked back at Elena, with her spinach-stained smile and her loneliness that matched his own so perfectly it almost hurt.

"I'd like that," he said. "But I'm not coming back. To the game. I'm never coming back to this game."

"Good," Elena said, standing up and offering him her hand. "Then neither am I."

They left before the next serve, leaving Kevin and his hat behind them on the court, neither of them looking back.