Delaney Ricciardo was never meant to be loved.
Fierce, ruthless, and unapologetically driven, her determination to win at any cost made her the villain of the tennis world. But when she walked away from the sport, the numbers spoke louder than the c...
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Matilda's outfit ^
The noise hits first.
It always does.
Not just loud, alive. It wraps around me the second I step out, a living thing made of voices and flashes and heat rising off the court.
Head high. Shoulders loose. Like I've done this a thousand times before.
Because I have.
Because if I stop for even a second, if I let it all in, the weight of it, the meaning of it, the why of it, I might not move at all.
So I walk. Out onto the court. Into the light.
The air is thick, heavy with late-summer heat, the kind that sticks to your skin and settles in your lungs. The kind that makes everything feel just a little more intense, a little more final.
Fitting.
I reach the baseline, rolling my shoulders once, loosening my grip on the racket. Routine. Muscle memory. Control.
On habit as I set my bag down, I glance up at my player box. Hundreds of times I've done this exact movement, and my eyes always met Marcos. He would be hovering at the back of the box, standing up, and pacing around.
I know his eyes won't be the ones to greet me as I glance at the box.
And for a second, I forget how to breathe.
He's there.
Daniel.
Sitting back in the chair like he owns it, sunglasses on despite the fading light. Like he doesn't want to be seen.
