"Between friends, unspoken feelings can feel like a fragile thread pulled taut; one denies its existence while the other hides behind its delicate weave, both yearning for the courage to unravel what lies beneath."
Ian and Julian, long-time best fri...
"Nobody move there's blood on the floor. And I can't find my heart." ~Julian
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The ball whizzes past me—again. I don't even bother turning around to watch it bounce off the fence. I already know. It's gone. Like every other shot before it.
I bend over, hands on my knees, breath coming out in uneven gasps. The sun is beating down on me, hot and smug, like it's in on the joke. My shirt is sticking to my back. Sweat drips down my temple. I'm dying.
Across the net, my grandfather stands like some ancient Roman statue, barely winded. The only proof that he's even moved in the five hour is the slight, almost imperceptible shift in his stance—his tennis racket resting at his side, his expression as unimpressed as ever.
"Be honest," I pant, wiping my face with the back of my arm. "Are you on drugs? Some kind of secret billionaire serum? HGH? Whatever Tom Brady is on?"
He snorts. "I'm on something better."
"What?"
"Discipline."
I make a face.
"You sound like a motivational poster in a corporate break room."
"And you sound like a skinny, weak boy who would've been left behind on the battlefield in my day."
"Yeah, well, in your day, people still thought smoking was good for you and put cocaine in soda, so I don't know if that's the flex you think it is."
He serves. I barely react in time, managing to lunge forward and return it—badly. The ball bounces high, too high, and he absolutely demolishes it with a sharp, clean stroke, sending it flying past me so fast I swear I hear the wind cry out in pain.
Game. Again.
I groan, flinging my racket up and catching it by the frame before it smacks the ground.
"I swear to God, you were built in a lab."
"I was built in a country that didn't tolerate mediocrity," he replies smoothly, strolling up to the net like he isn't a seventy-something-year-old man who just ran my ass into the ground. His crisp white polo is pristine—not a single drop of sweat on him.
Meanwhile, I look like a busted fire hydrant.
"You're a bitter—bitter old man," I say, squinting at him as I wipe my damp hands on my shorts.
"And you're a fragile little brat who couldn't survive one week without air conditioning."
"Oh, come on," I gesture wildly to the empty court. "Why are you even this good? Shouldn't you be playing chess somewhere? Watching the stock market? Harassing a butler?"
"I do all those things." He tilts his head. "I just also happen to be a man of superior athletic ability."
I laugh at that, despite myself. "Superior athletic ability? You sound like an AI trying to sound human."
