Elise groaned and dropped her forehead against Sienna's chest. "That's ages."
"It's forty-eight hours."
"Like I said. Ages." Elise kissed her collarbone. "Drive safe. It's a long way."
"I'm flying to Denver. Early flight out of Phoenix Ridge. It's only twenty minutes to the airport but I need to be there by six."
"Text me when you land. And when you get to the hotel. And before you go to sleep. And when you wake up."
Sienna laughed, her breath warm against Elise's hair. "That's a lot of texting."
Elise's grin was unrepentant. "I'm high maintenance."
"You're the lowest maintenance person I've ever met." Sienna kissed her forehead. "But I'll text you for all of those."
They got up. Sienna dressed in the dark, finding her clothes scattered across the bedroom floor, and Elise watched her from the bed with the sheet pulled to her waist and her hair loose and her eyes heavy-lidded and warm.
At the front door, Sienna kissed her. A long, slow kiss that tasted of wine and sex and I love you. Elise's hand came up to Sienna's face and held her there.
"I love you," Elise said.
Sienna kissed her again instead of answering. Soft and unhurried, her hand against Elise's jaw. Elise leaned into it. She would know.
Sienna walked down the stairs and out into the cool night. The stars were visible above the streetlights. She got into her car and sat for a moment with her hands on the wheel and her heart full and the taste of Elise on her lips.
Two days. She could manage two days.
She started the engine and pulled away from the kerb and drove the short distance home to pack. The apartment was dark and quiet and still held the faint scent of the coffee she'd made that morning, before Mara's office, before the game, before the three words at the window table in Lavender's that had changed the shape of her life. She pulled her suitcase from the wardrobe and packed efficiently: conference lanyard, notebooks, two changes of clothes, toothbrush, her reading glasses case. Her hands moved on autopilot while her mind stayed in the warm glow of Elise's apartment, in the taste of wine on Elise's tongue, in those three words spoken across a table.I love you.She'd said them and the world hadn't ended. She'd said them and Elise had said them back. She'd said them and tomorrow she'd be in another city learning about rotator cuff advances and the words would still be true.
She zipped the suitcase and set the alarm and got into her own bed, which was cold and empty and too big without Elise init, and fell asleep with her phone on the pillow and Elise's last text glowing on the screen:
Come back to me.
18
ELISE
The pool was warm and chlorine-blue and the morning light came through the high glass windows of the aquatic centre in wide, angled bands that turned the water to liquid silver. Elise floated on her back, her arms spread, her hair drifting in a dark halo around her head, and let the water hold her weight while her muscles unwound from yesterday's game.
Around her, the team was in various states of recovery. Lou was doing slow laps in the far lane, her broad shoulders breaking the surface with the mechanical efficiency she brought to everything. Camille sat on the pool edge with her legs dangling, her blonde hair piled on top of her head, scrolling through her phone. Frankie was in the shallow end doing stretches, her crooked nose and scarred chin giving her the look of a retired boxer at a spa day. Dani floated nearby with her dark braids coiled on top of her head and her grey eyes closed, looking like someone who could fall asleep anywhere. Rowan was practising underwater handstands, her light hair streaming behind her like seaweed.
"She lives," Frankie called from across the pool when Elise surfaced and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "The returning hero graces us with her glorious presence."
"I wasn't gone that long."
"Eight weeks. We had to learn to function without you. It was devastating." Frankie grinned. "Actually, we were fine. Lex scored a lot."
Elise splashed water in Frankie's direction. "Thanks for that."
Frankie dodged and her grin softened. "Welcome back, though. Seriously. You looked good out there yesterday."
"She looked great," Lou said from her lane, not pausing her stroke. Lou's compliments came in the same dry, efficient packets as everything else she did. Two words and a nod. If Lou said you looked great, you looked great.
"Thank you," Elise said, and she meant it more than the words carried.
She swam over to the shallow end and stood, the water at her waist, and stretched her left shoulder through its range of motion. The joint was loose and warm from the pool and the movement was clean and painless. Eight weeks of Sienna's hands and Kylie's gym programmes and her own stubborn determination, and the shoulder was back. Better than back.
Sienna. The name moved through her chest with a heat that had nothing to do with the pool temperature. She'd texted Sienna at six this morning, before the alarm, and Sienna had replied with: