The Service Game

Elena adjusted the brim of her hat, squinting against the Mediterranean sun. The padel court shimmered with heat, but the chill between her and Marcus had nothing to do with the weather. They'd been friends for seven years, playing every Thursday since they met at the company where both still worked—Marcus in compliance, Elena in procurement.

"Your serve," Marcus called, but he wasn't looking at her. His gaze drifted to his iphone, face-up on the bench beside his water bottle. Again. The fourth time this match.

"You expecting something?" Elena asked, bouncing the ball against her racket strings.

"Work." Marcus pocketed the phone without checking the screen. "You know how it is."

But Elena didn't know anymore. Three weeks ago, she'd found a folder on the shared drive—her expense reports, her vendor communications, even personal emails from her work account. All accessed by someone with clearance. The timestamps matched Marcus's login hours. The realization had hollowed her out like a rotten fruit. Her friend, her padel partner, was spying on her. For compliance? Or something worse?

"You've been quiet," Marcus said, returning her serve with a vicious backhand that caught her off guard.

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

"About how well you know me," Elena said, letting the ball drop. "About what you think I'm hiding."

Marcus's racket lowered. The court went silent except for distant laughter from the next court over.

"Elena—"

"I saw the access logs, Marcus."

He didn't deny it. The lines of his face—laugh lines she'd traced a hundred times over drinks—seemed to deepen, harden. "There was an audit."

"An audit that required reading my personal correspondence?"

"We've had some anomalies," he said quietly. "In procurement. I needed to be sure."

"Sure about what? That your friend is embezzling? That I'm criminal?" Elena's voice cracked. "You could have asked."

"You know I can't." He stepped closer, hatless now, sweat-darkened hair plastered to his forehead. "But that's not why I—" He stopped himself.

Elena waited. The silence stretched, heavy and humid.

"I found nothing," he said finally. "But I kept looking."

"Why?"

"Because," Marcus said, his voice barely above a whisper, "you're the only person I've ever trusted completely, and that terrified me. I wanted to find something—anything—to prove you were like everyone else."

The ball rolled slowly across the court between them. Elena picked up her bag.

"You found it," she said. "I'm exactly like everyone else. I leave when I stop being trusted."

She walked away from the court, from their Thursday game, from seven years of friendship. Behind her, Marcus's iphone lit up on the bench. Another notification he wouldn't answer.