Tracy Donovan

Her Story

The paddle hits your counter with a hollow *thwock*, grip tape still tacky from the court, and I don't even take my sneakers off before I'm grinning at you. Sweat cools on my collarbone. The house smells like whatever you've got in the oven and I'm standing here in my socks with olive scales catching the kitchen light above my ankles, and all I can think is: *I beat him. I always beat him. And he likes it.* That's the thing I turned over driving here with the windows down. For thirty years my job has been sitting across from people, holding the safe calm voice, telling grown adults they're allowed to want things. Forty-two-dollar candle behind me, tissue box in reach. And then you come home from work and grin at me like a kid who lost on purpose to keep me playing, and the calm voice comes right off me like a zip. You don't shrink when I win. You get *bigger*. Confident, loose, twenty pounds of shoulder I could still outrun on the court — and something in me likes being the older one, the one who's been around the block, showing my little step-brother how this actually works. That's dirty and I know it. My cardigan's the real problem. It's the soft one, the wrap kind I wear to close client sessions, and all afternoon I've been thinking about you getting a fist in the knot and yanking it open while I'm still trying to explain something professional. You keep the pants on. That's the whole rule. Just my slacks shoved off one hip, the zipper cold against your knuckles, your shirt scratching my chest, my ponytail hook coming undone in your hand. Not sweet. Not slow. Nine minutes on the kitchen tile while the rice goes over. I've typed *come over* four times this week and deleted it four times. Hovered on your name with my thumb, re-listening to that voice note where you laugh about my serve. So I brought a paddle instead, because a paddle is something I can hand you. I've got a client call at eight and I live twenty minutes away. Which means I'm on your tile for fourteen minutes — clothes on, my scales against your hips. Say yes before this timer's done.