Don’t judge a book by the cover.

WHEN LOVE MEANT NOTHING
Upmarket Fiction | 95,000 words

Dear Agent,
In 1999, Fitzhollow High opened its doors for the first time.

So did its varsity tennis program.

For four years, the tennis courts became the only place in Fitzhollow where it no longer mattered which side of the lake you came from. Behind the same baseline stood a team from lakefront estates, country clubs, ranches, family businesses, and trailer parks, convinced they were chasing nothing bigger than a state championship together.

They measured those years in bus rides to tournaments, sunburned afternoons on cracked pavement, cliff-diving into Lake Fitzpatrick, beer around bonfires, blaring CDs from pickup trucks, and first loves they were certain would outlast high school.

Coach Tim Nichols thought he was building a championship tennis program. He had no idea the freshmen who walked onto his courts would rewrite the rest of his life. By the time the brand-new school found its identity, the team thought they had found theirs, too.

They all left Fitzhollow with the same letterman jackets and memories.

Just not the same story.

Twenty years later, a wedding reunites six former tennis teammates and Coach Nichols at Singer Estate, where many of their best memories and worst mistakes were made. They return believing their glory years have become nothing more than stories worth retelling.

Coach Tim Nichols has spent everything protecting the aftermath of what they left behind.

At the center of it all were Allison Nash and Kasey Hayes: electric mixed doubles partners from opposite sides of the lake whose chemistry made them unstoppable on the court and each other's undoing everywhere else. Their teammates became collateral damage in a relationship that quietly reshaped them all—especially their best friend, Miles Singer, whose devastating loss marked the beginning of the end for the team that once believed nothing could break them.

When Allison returns to Fitzhollow after fifteen years, she believes the carefully constructed life she built on the other side of Texas has finally put enough distance between herself, the past and Kasey. She arrives with the life everyone expected her to have in her thirties: married, a career, a faithful husband—they didn’t expect to find out the one part of her past no one ever knew existed.

Hours before the rehearsal dinner, a message appears on her phone from someone she never thought would find her. His profile picture shows him standing beside Coach Nichols on the Fitzhollow tennis courts.

I think we need to talk.

Over the next twenty-four hours, the wedding weekend unravels into a reckoning. Long-buried choices resurface, loyalties fracture, and the version of the past this group has spent twenty years believing collides with everything Coach Nichols carried alone. By the time the celebration spills onto the Singer Estate boat dock, the story they thought ended with graduation has finally caught up with all of them.

The young man who sent the message is the spitting image of fifteen-year-old Kasey Hayes.

WHEN LOVE MEANT NOTHING is a 95,000-word upmarket novel told through multiple perspectives and dual timelines. Blending the nostalgic camaraderie of Friday Night Lights with the emotional complexity of Tell Me Lies, it explores how the stories we tell about our past can shape—and distort—the rest of our lives.

With a background in creative development, I originally conceived WHEN LOVE MEANT NOTHING as a television drama titled THIRTY LOVE before realizing the story belonged in a novel. Inspired by coed sports culture, teen dramas, and the relationships that continue to shape us long after they end, this is my debut novel.

On the court, love means nothing. Off it, it costs a team everything.

I would be honored to share the full manuscript.

Gratefully,
Kallie Meister

COACH TIM NICHOLS

15 years ago

My breath reeks of Blue Label.

I test it against my palm, catch the sour bite of whiskey tangled with stale tobacco, and immediately regret reaching for the bottle last night. Not with this morning pressing down on me like the migraine I can feel in my teeth. Alcohol never solves the problem. It only postpones the hour I have to face it.

I shove the last stick of gum from my desk drawer into my mouth and glance around my office. A basket of bright yellow tennis balls fresh for tomorrow's tryouts. A drooping Over the Hill balloon my colleagues found hilarious for my thirty-fifth birthday. My philosophy degree hangs crooked above a handful of trophies collecting dust beneath it.

I unlocked the chain across the front gates myself this morning. I'd come in to prepare for another school year. I expected an empty campus.

I wasn't expecting the conversation about to walk through my office door.

Nobody comes to Fitzhollow High on a Sunday. Most of the town is dressed for church, and by afternoon they’ll be blaming Bill Parcells for whatever went wrong with the Cowboys. Football never became my religion.

Hell, I’m not a Texan at all. Not born here. Not raised on Friday night lights or holy Sundays. When Evelyn and I moved here five years ago, 1999, I wanted to stay sober and build something that mattered. The first goal had already gone to hell. By the end of this morning, I would be less certain about the second.

The landline rang just after dinner last night. Evelyn and I were clearing the dishes from our first home-cooked meal since returning from Europe. She rinsed while I loaded the dishwasher, already debating where our summer travels would take us next year.

Then she glanced at the clock. Late calls rarely brought good news. Evelyn answered on the third ring. She listened for only a second before looking across the kitchen at me.

“It’s Allison.”

I hadn’t heard Allison Nash’s voice since she graduated last year. Four years as her tennis coach. One final hug beneath her cap and gown. A whispered thank you for everything.

Then she was gone.

I should have been used to it. Players move through your life like family until graduation sends them somewhere else. Their lockers fill with someone else’s things. Their names disappear from the roster. Eventually, another player takes their place.

I should've been used to losing players to graduation. New names replaced old ones on the roster every August. Allison had been harder to replace. I expected an email from her dorm. A call around districts. Maybe she'd show up beside the courts one weekend and yell louder than the parents.

Instead, fourteen months passed.

“Evelyn, it’s Allison.” You could hear the exhaustion in her voice through the speaker “Is Coach there?”

Evelyn handed me the cordless phone. 

Allison was crying, but not the way kids cried after a loss or an injury. No panic. No gasping. Just broken. The kind that comes after holding something too long.

“Allison...”

“I didn’t know who else to call.”

“What happened, Allison? Are you okay?”

She went quiet. Then it struck me.

“Is it your mom?”

Her mother had watched every varsity match beneath an oversized hat long before anyone realized it wasn’t meant to shield her from the Texas sun. She was diagnosed with breast cancer during Allison’s freshman year. Through chemotherapy, radiation, and every setback that followed, she never missed her daughter on the court.

They had arrived in Fitzhollow with no one but each other.

“Can I come see you tomorrow?” Allison sniffled.

“Should I meet you at the hospital?” 

“Could it be somewhere else?” A long silence followed. “I need to show you something.”

I set a time and place. She hung up before I could ask anything else. Then I reached for the bottle and spent the next twelve hours imagining every possible reason Allison Nash might need her old tennis coach. None came close.

At 8:11 a.m., someone knocks softly on my office door.

“Come in.”

The doorknob turns. At first, all I notice is how tired she looks. Not tired from missing sleep or sitting beside a hospital bed. Tired the way grief makes people look, whether they are sixty-three or nineteen. Her auburn hair is twisted into a messy knot, loose strands framing her face. Her eyes are swollen. The joy I remember has been pulled out of her.

My eyes drop when she walks in. She wears black leggings and an oversized burnt orange sweatshirt, the longhorn emblem stretched over her belly, one hand gripping the doorframe, the other curved beneath a stomach so full and low I cannot understand how she drove herself here.

She’s pregnant.

Not a little. 

Very.

It takes my brain a full second to understand what my eyes already know. I look back at her face. She grips the doorframe. She folds her arms around herself.

Tears.

“I should’ve come sooner.” Her voice barely reaches me. “I’m sorry to show up like this Coach.”

She folds both arms around herself, as though she can somehow become smaller.

“I kept thinking I’d figure it out.”

A tear slips free.

“I kept thinking if Mom got better...”

Her voice breaks.

“But she isn’t. I’m going to lose her.”

She steps into me and presses her face against my chest. Her tears soak through my shirt before I think to put my arms around her.

“What have the doctors said?”

“They moved her into palliative care yesterday.” 

She pulls away and wipes at her face. 

“The hospice nurse said we aren’t talking about weeks anymore.”

The empty athletics wing grows even quieter.

“I’m about to have a baby, and my mom is dying.”

“I’m so sorry, Allison.”

She nods, but I can tell she isn’t hearing me. 

“I’ve never said either of those things out loud.” A small, disbelieving laugh escapes her.

“You don’t have to carry this alone.”

She picks at the skin beside her thumbnail until it turns raw.

I pull out the chair across from my desk. She doesn’t sit. Instead, she walks toward the team photograph hanging on the wall. Six teenagers stood shoulder to shoulder in the photograph—the first varsity tennis team Fitzhollow High had ever fielded. Kids from opposite sides of the lake who spent four years convincing themselves they had become family.

I don’t know how to ask this gently, but I do—Who’s the father? Allison lifts the photograph from the wall. Her grip tightens around the frame. For several seconds, she says nothing.

“Allison?”

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Why can’t you answer that?”

My eyes move from her to the six faces behind the glass. She shakes her head, but even that answer seems to cost her emotionally.

“I messed up really bad, Coach.”

She carefully returns the photograph to the wall. Then she reaches into her shoulder bag and places a red three-ring binder on my desk. A white label is centered across the cover:

PROSPECTIVE ADOPTIVE PARENTS

I open it. The first plastic sleeve holds a photograph of a smiling couple standing on the edge of Lake Fitzpatrick. Behind it is a typed letter addressed to a woman they’ve never met. I turn the page. Another couple. Then another. Forty-four custom profiles. Doctors in white coats. Golden retrievers on brick doorsteps. Grinning nieces and nephews gathered around backyard swimming pools. Every profile is a carefully assembled promise. Happy marriages. Spare bedrooms waiting to become nurseries. Lives made to look complete except for the child missing from the photographs.

“Tell me what I'm supposed to do.”

I look down at the binder between us. Then at her trembling hands. The life moving beneath her sweatshirt. I have spent my adult life believing the hardest decisions can be reasoned through. Separate what you know from what you fear. Consider the consequences. Decide what causes the least harm. It is what I teach my students. What I tell my players. What I have always expected of myself. Then I look at Allison. And for the first time, I have no idea what right looks like.

2019 (NOW)

ALLISON NASH DALTON

I barely survived the rehearsal dinner. Three hours and thirteen minutes trapped on a gold chiavari chair, surrounded by tiki torches, pineapple napkins, coconut cups, and enough tropical hibiscus to convince the out-of-town guests they'd been transported to Maui instead of the Texas Hill Country. The only thing ruining the illusion was the view. Beyond the hotel terrace wasn't the Pacific Ocean but Lake Fitzpatrick, splitting the town of Fitzhollow neatly in two. Million-dollar estates glowed along the west bank in the last streaks of a Texas sunset. Everything I'd spent fifteen years avoiding waited on the other.

Annoyingly, this place was still beautiful. 

And hot.

By the time I'd crossed the Fitzhollow city limits, my shoulders had migrated toward my ears, I had sweat pooling in places I couldn't reach with antiperspirant, and somewhere on I-35 I'd developed a tingling sensation in my left hand that Google assured me was either anxiety or the beginning of a stroke.

I chose anxiety. 

Mostly because a stroke felt inconvenient on my best friend’s wedding weekend. Even though it would have excused me from hugging people I hadn't seen since graduation, laughing a beat too late at stories I'd already heard a hundred times, smiling through toasts about a bride I hadn't known nearly as long as the groom and avoiding eye contact with the best man I hadn't seen in a fifteen years.

Even if my nervous system was trying to fail me, I had to show up for the only person who managed to get me back to Fitzhollow.

Miles Singer.

The groom.

_____

7:06 PM

Tomorrow night's red dress swayed from the hook in my backseat as I pulled beneath the valet entrance. I slowed to a crawl, grateful for tinted windows while I scanned the parking lot for anyone I might want to avoid. I could feel my heart racing; my last twelve seconds of anonymity. 

That's when I saw Miles. Guayabera shirt. Khakis one size too big. Mai tai in one hand, Hawaiian lei draped over the other. And the same crooked smile he'd been wearing since freshman year.

My shoulders dropped an inch. I rolled down my window. 

"Mason owes me fifty bucks." 

"Let me guess. You bet I'd be earlier?"

"Because my brother thought you'd bail in Waco with a flat tire."

"My tire pressure did look low about fifty miles ago…."

Miles tilted his head.

"I knew you'd make it."

His brother should've won the fifty bucks. I'd been inventing reasons not to come for three weeks. Food poisoning seemed too easily cured. A work emergency lacked imagination. I briefly considered claiming Sammy had hand, foot, and mouth disease. Then I found a nail in our junk drawer. I put it in my purse, just in case I needed to have a flat tire.

I knew I had no more excuses after I surrendered my keys to the valet. Miles slipped the lei over my head. The flowers tickled the back of my neck.

“Seriously? I worked hard not to support the cliché theme.”

“Bride's orders.”

“And so it begins.”

“What?”

“Nothing. You look very happy.”

He laughed. “Welcome home, Red.”

Home. Not the word I would've chosen for my arrival back here. The last time I'd driven out of Fitzhollow, my mother's ashes were buckled into the passenger seat and everything I owned was packed into my Toyota 4Runner.                                                                                                                                      

I looked up at eight stories of glass and stone.

“There wasn't even a hotel here when we graduated.”

Fitzhollow used to be the kind of place people accidentally drove through on their way to Austin. Apparently it was now a Texas Monthly “hidden gem,” complete with a five-star resort and a lazy river overlooking the lake. Nothing says undiscovered small town like a porte cochère.

“There wasn't much here back then.” Miles continued. “That's how I liked it.”

“That's why I left.”

The tingling returned to my fingertips.

“When were you here last?”

“College, maybe?”

It came out too quickly. He squinted, perplexed. 

“How is that possible?” Like he was deciding whether to call bullshit.

“Thank god you like visiting…and vacations…we’ve had some awesome trips.” 

And for the first time since pulling in, I really looked at him. He looked so happy.

“It's unfair.”

“What is?”

“Thirty-five-year-old men and bodies of water.”

Miles waited.

“Somehow you both get better with age.” I straightened his collar. “You're going to be a handsome groom tomorrow.”

He blinked.

“Was that a compliment?”

“Don't make it weird.”

“How's my future tennis prodigy?”

“He's four.”

“I bought him a racket.”

“Of course you did.”

He slung an arm around my shoulders.

“Couldn't do this without you, Nash.”

“I take back the handsome part.”

He laughed.

I looked toward the terrace.

“Now get me a drink with an umbrella in it.”

Through the lobby windows, the last light stretched across Lake Fitzpatrick and turned the hills gold. Dallas had sunsets, obviously, but not like this. I hated that I'd missed them.

Miles steered me toward the giant ALOHA! sign at the entrance to the terrace. My palms started sweating again. By the time we reached it, my lips had gone numb and I'd apparently stopped breathing and started praying:

Please God, don't let Coach ask how I'm doing.

Please don't let Julian have a guitar.

Please let me find Hannah first.

Please don't let anyone mention my mother.

And, God, please let Kasey Hayes look exactly the way I remember him.

We stepped into the rotunda. Through the open doors to the terrace came music, laughter, and the unmistakable sound of seventy-five people already having a better time than me. Then someone called Miles's name. SINGER! He disappeared toward a college friend, and I lasted approximately six seconds, alone, before slipping into the bathroom. Tic Tac. Travel perfume. Shimmery gloss. One hit from the vape I'd panic-bought at an ice house thirty minutes outside town.

I felt my phone ping.

HANNAH:
Where are you?

…typing

Do I need to come pull you out of a bathroom stall?

ALLISON:
I need a cocktail.

HANNAH:
I have one waiting for you…

I stepped onto the terrace into the lake breeze, grabbed my first stick of grilled pineapple from a cocktail waiter, and caught the last streaks of orange disappearing behind the hills. I'd dress-rehearsed this moment so many times in my head. Being here. Seeing these faces. Finding out whether fifteen years was long enough to make any of it feel different.

Then I heard the guitar.

So much for fifteen years.

Julian Sanchez sat on a barstool with a guitar across his lap, playing Bittersweet Symphony. Our tennis team's unofficial anthem and, according to Julian, the greatest song of the nineties he wished he'd written. Then I heard Hannah’s laugh, somehow louder than the guitar. Thank God I found her first. Nobody laughed quite like Hannah Langley. I could've found her cackle blindfolded in a crowd of ten thousand people. The knot between my shoulder blades loosened, especially when I spotted the cocktail in her hand. Hannah was thirty-seven weeks pregnant and wouldn't even eat deli meat, so I knew it was mine.

Then my eyes drifted six inches past her third-trimester belly.

And stopped. Not on all of him. 

Just enough.

Kasey.

A shoulder first. Broader than I remembered, filling out a bright floral Hawaiian shirt. A Corona hanging loose between two fingers. A pale line circling his ring finger. Then ink along his forearm. That was new. His gold watch. That wasn’t. A sliver of dimple. Still deep. And suddenly my brain started playing little movie clips: his grin after match point, his hand wrapped around mine before I jumped off the cliff. His fingers fumbling with my boutonniere before prom. That same goddamn smile in the passenger seat beside me. 

Thirty-five tonight. Seventeen everywhere else in my mind.

Heat climbed my neck. My heartbeat moved into my throat. Kasey laughed at something Hannah's husband said and reached for the back of his neck. My stomach dropped. Same spot. Same two fingers. Same tell. His laugh wasn't real. Then Kasey turned his head in my direction. For one suspended second, I forgot how eyes worked. Look away? Smile? Pretend I am looking inside my purse?

Well. Shit.

Then someone grabbed my hand. Apparently some prayers were answered. 

“Don’t let seeing him ruin this weekend.” 

She handed me my Mai Tai. I gave her the tightest hug, I took a breath.

"I saw half of him."

"Half?"

"Shoulder. Dimple. Wedding-ring tan line." Hannah's eyebrow lifted.

“Isn’t he divorced…?” She hooked her arm on mine, “I need to sit down and you need to pull yourself together.”

She glanced over my shoulder, a quick look at Kasey, I wouldn’t dare risk looking back.

“Bruno Mars wore the shirt better.”

Debatable.

I tugged at the nude slip creeping beneath the hem. Hannah caught me by the shoulders. “Stop fidgeting AL.”

“It's riding up.”

“You look beautiful.”

She smoothed the silk at my waist.

“Your mom would've loved this dress.”

It was cream silk scattered with oversized hibiscus flowers. Mom believed flowers belonged on everything. Dresses. Wallpaper. Stationery. Front porches. She would've hated how many decorated our living room after her funeral.

_____

8:03 PM

God bless assigned seating. Three long tables stretched across the terrace beneath strings of market lights, more than twenty people at each. Bridal party closest to the lake. Relatives in the middle. The rest of us at Table Three—basically a human timeline of Miles Singer: fraternity brothers, JCC friends, old tennis teammates, spouses, and a few people I recognized only from his Facebook page. Kasey was at the bridal-party table, two tables over and conveniently hidden behind four feet of tropical hibiscus arrangements.

For once, the theme was working in my favor. Avoiding Kasey turned out to be the easy part. Avoiding the other seventy-four was impossible.

Hannah sat on my left, her tolerance for small talk somehow even lower than mine. Unfortunately, her husband had gotten us trapped in a conversation with three of Miles's fraternity brothers and Sarah Benson-Whitmore, a former teammate who had annoyed me since the first day of tennis tryouts. And conveniently here because her husband grew up at the club with Miles in this small town.

“Allison, how's motherhood?” Sarah asked in the same monotone she'd had at fourteen.

“Great. Thanks for asking.”

“You want another?”

Jesus, Sarah. We weren't even through dinner yet.

“Maybe.”

I smiled. The real answer didn't belong beside my plate of almond-crusted fish. 

“Still loving Dallas?”

“Best decision I ever made.”

"I heard you missed the ten-year reunion." 

I hated how nosy she always was, and why she always was in the business of teammates younger than her. 

“Life got busy.” 

My thumbnail found the center of my palm. I pressed until it stung. Every question came with two answers. The one I said and the one I swallowed.

“Remember when...”

“Can you believe...”

“It's so good to have you back.”

By my third Mai Tai, I leaned toward Hannah and mouthed, SAVE ME. 

“Where's Coach?” I asked.

Hannah smirked.

“Districts.”
“Tonight?”
“First match.”
“Of course.”
“You know Coach.”

It’s been a long time.

That’s when Hannah felt a kick, bringing my hand on top of her belly.

“Can you feel your goddaughter now.”

I looked at her, cheeks flushed.

“Goddaughter?”

"Obviously you're the godmother. Someone has to teach her about clothes and music..."

“I can handle pop culture, but let’s pray she gets that valedictorian brain of yours.”

Two little kicks pressed against my palm. Maybe it was the rum. Maybe it was Hannah. Maybe fifteen years of therapy had finally decided to clock in. Whatever it was, I stopped cataloguing exits. By dessert, I was a fork deep into red velvet cake and almost convinced it felt good to be back. As a visitor! I'd survived three Mai Tais, seventy-four guests, Bittersweet Symphony, and nearly three hours without making eye contact with Kasey Hayes.

I was safe in my little gold chiavari chair.

_____

9:47 PM

Scott Adler stood at the microphone looking exactly like the suburban dad version of Scott Adler I'd expect: khakis, tucked-in Brooks Brothers, leather belt, and still too much confidence. 

"You learn a lot about someone at tennis tryouts. Grip. Stamina. Unnecessary grunting. Who performs under pressure."

Scott paused.

"And, most importantly, who belongs on top."

A few people laughed, including his sweet wife.

"Of the lineup, you filthy animals.”

Fifteen years and Scottie could still make someone else's wedding toast about himself. Across the room, Mason Singer tapped his champagne glass. 

"Before we wrap up, we've got one more surprise. Our mom recruited Allison—the unofficial keeper of everyone's embarrassing photos—to put together a little slideshow."

Seventy-four heads turned toward me.

I smiled.

Teeth only. Please don't let there be spinach. 

The lights dimmed. Yael as a baby filled the screen. Photographs by Ed Sheeran queued up. Miles and Mason on Hanukkah then dissolve into Yael and her sisters in matching blue starred pajamas. Then the transitions of birthday cakes. Little League. Ballet recitals. Baths, bicycles and Barbies. The lake. Family vacations. Bar & Bart Mitzvahs. By high school, the pace quickened. The music changed. Disposable-camera photographs I'd spent weeks pulling from dusty storage boxes. The years before phones remembered everything for us. 

Smirnoff Ice bottles hidden behind the Singer hot tub.

A blunt abandoned beside the fire pit.

The boys shirtless on top of a ranch Jeep.

Cliff diving beneath a weathered NO TRESPASSING sign.

Pictures our parents would have grounded us for.

Then came the last photograph. Our team before the biggest match of junior year. Coach Nichols in the middle of the huddle. Sarah. Miles. Hannah. Scott. Julian. Me. All of us younger, sunburned, stupidly certain we'd figured out who we were. Everyone's hands stacked in the center.

Except Kasey's.

His was hidden, holding mine.

The video wrapped with Miles and Yael; their love story. They were in tears by the end. The room broke into applause. I finally let myself look toward the groomsmen's table.

Some stupid part of me expected Kasey to be looking back.

His chair was empty.

_____

11:19 pm.

Julian was back on his guitar. The rehearsal dinner had spilled into the hotel lobby bar, where shirts were unbuttoned, heels were coming off, and Miles's fraternity brothers were apparently testing the noise ordinance of this five-star property. Maybe I'd made Fitzhollow bigger in my head than it deserved to be. Fifteen years of dread for one uncomfortable dinner, three Mai Tais, and a man I hadn't even spoken to.

I hadn't seen Kasey's bright Hawaiian shirt anywhere in the crowd.

Apparently he'd slipped out.

Thank God.

I'd said goodnight to Hannah and Miles almost an hour ago. 

“Don't try keeping up with these animals.” Miles slapped one of his fraternity brothers on the back. “You'll die.”

“Okay, Dad. Go to bed.”

Hannah had already kicked off her shoes. “My cankles need sleep too.”

We made plans for the morning. Hair and makeup for us. Golf for them. One more hug, and they disappeared upstairs like the responsible adults. I should've learned to follow my two best friends by now.  But I was amused by the crowd forming around Julian. Song requests flew at him between chords. Single women fixed their cleavage and glossed their lips.

“Come on, front man. Play something we know!”

“Someone get his autograph!”

“Fitzhollow's famous rock star!” 

Julian smiled and flipped them off without missing a chord. Julian caught my eye over the microphone and announced:

“This one's for the redhead who used to request it every damn time.”

A few heads turned my way. He winked. It had been years since I'd heard him play it live. That's when the opening chords stop me cold. For a second, I'm sixteen again. Windows down. Burned CDs skipping over potholes on Cherry Lane. Shouting every lyric of a Ryan Adams song, like I knew what heartbreak really felt like.

So I had to stay.

One nursed glass of cabernet became a nightcap I didn't need. I tapped my heel against the brass foot rail while Julian worked his way through another request. Someone behind me ordered six lemon drops. A groomsman shouted something obscene. I took another sip of cabernet and spun my wedding band around my finger. This was the first night I'd spent away from Sammy since he was born four years ago. Colby had taken him to a Dalton wedding in West Texas, which meant my husband was currently doing his own version of this night.

My phone vibrated inside my purse. I assumed it was Colby. Probably another picture of Sammy passed out in his dress clothes with something like: 

HUSBAND: Our son lasted until 10:42. New record. We miss you.

I reached into my purse. Clenching my glass of red wine. Not Colby. 

Instagram.

@MNTennisGuy requested to follow you.

One mutual friend. I tapped the profile picture. Dark hair. Racket tucked beneath one arm. A smile I knew before I understood why I knew it. A teenage boy standing on the Fitzhollow tennis courts.  My thumb froze against the screen. Julian's guitar disappeared. Then the laughter.

Then everything except the six inches of screen in my hand.

Recognition wasn't the problem. 

Acceptance was. 

My hand went cold. The tingling took over, I could barely hold my glass. I suddenly can't swallow. I enlarged the photo. 

He found me.

The barstool shifted beneath me. I nearly dropped everything in my hands. I flattened one palm against the bar. Julian blurred across the room. Two guitars. Double the lights. Breathe Allison. Nothing. I tried again.

Still nothing. 

Where is the nearest exit? 

My car was in valet. Dallas was 196 miles away. Unfortunately, I'd consumed enough rum to make fleeing a felony. And then I remembered. The rings.

Oh, shit.

I shoved my hand into my purse until my fingers found the little velvet box. Still there. Still safe. Of all seventy-four people downstairs, Miles had trusted me with his wedding bands.

Me.

I wouldn't even trust me right now.

_____

11:27 PM

Julian was finishing Come Pick Me Up, the song he'd dedicated to me ten minutes earlier, when I waved down the bartender. I reached into my purse for the orange bottle prescribed for emergencies. Valium. Before I could decide whether swallowing one after three Mai Tais and a cabernet qualified as an emergency or a terrible idea, the bartender slid the receipt toward me.

“Just need a signature, sweetie.”

I uncapped the pen and quickly signed. 

Allison Nash

My hand froze. I struck a line through it.

Allison Nash Dalton

I need to get upstairs. I gathered my purse.

Phone.

Room key.

Wedding rings.

Orange bottle.

Wine.

I turn toward the elevators. Toward my exit. I jab the UP button with my elbow again and again. Come on. The glowing number stays frozen at eight. Seriously. My phone lit up in my hand. One unopened message. 

@MNTennisGuy 

1 Unread Message.

The elevator starts down.

How did he find me?

My thumb opened the message.

I THINK WE NEED TO TALK.

Six words.

My lungs forgot what came next.

I can’t feel my hands.

The shaft stopped, along with my heart. 

The elevator chimed. 

The doors opened. I stepped forward without looking up from the screen. Someone stepped out. We collided. Cold cabernet splashed across my chest, blooming crimson through the cream silk. 

"Oh—fuck…”

“Allison—"

I slowly lifted my eyes. Bright shirt. Broad shoulders. Both dimples.

All of Kasey Hayes.

Fuck.

"Kase."

For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. Something shifted in his face. Then he looked down. My phone was still glowing in my hand.

I THINK WE NEED TO TALK.

I lock my phone and toss it with the pills quickly in my purse.

“I'm so sorry,” he says, “You always did have a talent for spilling things on yourself.”

“And you always did have a talent for shitty timing.”

One corner of his mouth lifts as his eyes dropped to the stain spreading across my chest, then immediately returned to my face.

This is definitely going to stain.

"It'll be fine," he says.

"It's not my dress."

"Ah."

"I borrowed it from my sister-in-law."

His face changes instantly.

I sigh.

"Trust me. She's a bitch."

He glances back at the stain.

“Then we better fix it.”

Before I can answer, he reaches around me and presses the button for his floor.

“I've got a Tide pen upstairs.”

“You?”

“Miles gave it in a welcome kit for the groomsmen.”

“That makes sense.”

He pressed TWO. I reached for FIVE. Our fingers touched, less than a second. Still too long. I pulled mine away and touched the bleeding stain.

“I'll buy her another dress.”

“Ally. Two minutes.”

Damn it.

Nobody called me that anymore. 

I should've pressed five. Let the doors close. Gone upstairs. Washed my face. Called my husband. Figured out what the hell I was supposed to say to the fifteen-year-old boy waiting inside my phone.

Instead, I stepped off the elevator.

“Come on. Half the mess is mine. Let me help.”

1999 (THEN)

The Tennis Team

Twenty years ago…

Kasey Hayes leaned into the bathroom mirror and scrubbed at the dried blood beneath his nose. But it didn't come off clean. He pressed a cold rag against the bruise creeping up his neck, looked at his mother’s stockpile of drugstore makeup and reached for his mother's CoverGirl compact. The hinge creaked when he flipped it open. He dabbed the foundation over the purple with two fingers.

“You can't let them see you like this,” Kasey muttered to his own reflection. 

He knew the coverup looked like shit but anything was better than a mark. At least until the Texas summer heat melted it off. Today was supposed to be different. New school. New people. Nobody knew where he lived.

Kasey checked his mother's scratched-up Casio.

8:43 a.m.

“Fuck, I can’t be late.” 

Tennis tryouts started promptly at 9AM. He shoved his feet into worn sneakers, tied his frayed laces, grabbed his only racket and moved fast. Attempting to go out the window. Not the front door. Never the front. Kasey wouldn’t dare test that exit. His stepdad passed out on a pile of crushed beer cans and a broken mirror.  Don’t awake the beast. 

The bathroom window was jammed. Without making too much noise, Kasey used all his strength to push it to the top. Finally slipping through it and dropping on the gravel below, surrounded by cracked siding, dead grass and Craig’s Buick resting on cinder blocks. Caliche dust kicked up beneath his feet as he ran, white gravel crunching with every step. 

He had to sprint, exactly the view he didn't want the Singers to see. Miles told him two days ago at the public courts. We can get you. 8:45. Don’t be late. A quarter mile of mesquite trees and thick brush was Kasey’s exit out the old rusty gate, on to Cherry Lane.

The main street through the West side of town. On one side, limestone entrances announced new neighborhoods with fountains, golf courses and million dollar estates on the lake. On Kasey's side, roads still kicked up dust. Trailers sat between mesquite trees. Rusted cars stayed parked long enough for weeds to grow through them.

The Singers lived on the lake.

Kasey ran down his rocky road. Fast. One frayed lace on his pair of converse, undone, the other broken as it slapped against the gravel. All this over a pair of fucking shoes. Last night flashed back in pieces. Craig shoving Kasey into the wall after he asked his mom for a new pair of tennis shoes. You are a spoiled brat. Wood paneling cracking against Kasey’s spine. His mother's voice behind them, Por favor. Ya, carajo.

Kasey blinked the abuse away and kept running past neighbors he barely knew before he reached the last trailer on the dirt road. Wayne was already on his porch when Kasey came tearing down the road, Marlboro burning between two fingers and black coffee in a chipped KEEP FITZHOLLOW NORMAL mug. Same place he was every morning. Kasey was usually on the public courts by this time. He took his life out on that backboard. 

“Kid, slow down before you fall.”

“Late for tennis tryouts!” He waved with his racket. 

“Won’t make the team with another broken bone.”

“Come on, Sonny.” Wayne whistled at his German Shepard. “Get your ass back here.”

Kasey would've kept sprinting if one of Wayne's dogs hadn't squeezed beneath the fence and gone straight for his shoelaces. The dog retreated. Wayne's eyes didn't. They landed on Kasey's neck.

“Heard all that ruckus last night.”

Kasey tied his shoes, not looking at Wayne.

 “You know, just a normal Sunday at the Hayes house.”

“That mark don't look normal, son.”

“You should see the other guy.”

The CoverGirl was already melting as Kasey wiped the sweat pooling at his neck. Wayne pulled the bandana from his back pocket and held it through the fence.

“Here.”

“I'm not wearing that.”

“Then enjoy explaining the ring on your neck to half of Fitzhollow High.”

Kasey took the red bandana.

“Red's not the school color.”

“Neither is purple.”

Kasey twisted it into a single layer then tied it around his neck. A horn sounded from Cherry Lane. Beep. Beep.

“Shit.”

Mrs. Singer gave two cheerful taps of the horn. Kasey took off, when he reached the rusty gate, the Singers' silver Volvo rounded the bend. Kasey bent over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath before they got close enough to notice why he was sweating.

The Volvo stopped. Miles shoved open the back door.

“Dude. What the hell are you wearing?”

Kasey touched the red bandana around his neck.

“Starting a trend.”

“You look like a gay cowboy.” Mason chirped from the front seat. 

“It is a fashion statement.” Mrs. Singer smiled.

“See, your mom gets it.”

Kasey slid into the backseat. Air-conditioning hit his face. Cold. Clean. New leather.

Mrs. Singer looked at him through the rearview mirror.

“Sorry we're late, Kasey. I hope you boys don't make a bad first impression.”

“Us. Nah. Look at this dream team.”

Their volvo pulled onto Cherry Lane.

—

8:55 A.M.

Allison and her mother were five minutes early, as they turned beneath the limestone archway at the school entrance, iron letters stretched across the top. Both of them leaned forward as the campus opened in front of them.

FITZHOLLOW HIGH SCHOOL
EST. 1999

Everything was brand new. Limestone buildings rose from lawns so freshly sodded the seams were still visible. Young oak trees stood staked upright along the sidewalks, too small to offer any shade. An enormous football stadium anchored the far end of campus, its silver bleachers flashing beneath the August sun. Even the blacktop looked untouched, bright yellow arrows directing them past signs for GYMNASIUM, BUILDING A, STUDENT PARKING, then an arrow that pointed right at the roundabout >TENNIS COURTS.

Her mother followed the road uphill.

At the highest edge of campus, six brand-new courts appeared beyond the student parking lot, Lake Fitzpatrick sparkling behind them. The lot was already packed. Texas plates everywhere.

Their Massachusetts plate was the only out-of-state one.

“Of course we are the outsiders, and late.” Allison could feel the heat in her cheeks.

Her mother pulled into the last available space beside the courts and killed the engine. Allison didn't move. The waistband of her white tennis skirt clung tighter to her skin than the seat belt across her chest. Heat pooled beneath her thighs, her sports tank already damp along her spine.

She folded the MapQuest directions and placed them in the glove compartment. She closed her LIFE NOTES marble composition notebook, and tucked it inside her tennis bag. Then wiped her palms against her skirt.

Outside, the courts looked like nobody had played on it yet. White lines sharp enough to look painted that morning. Nets pulled tight. Not a scuff mark anywhere. The asphalt still gave off that hot petroleum smell beneath the Texas sun.

A banner had been zip-tied crookedly across the chain-link fence.

TENNIS TRYOUTS TODAY!

The registration table had been under siege since 8:45—clipboards passing between hands, Sharpies disappearing beneath tennis bags, name tags curling away from sweaty hands. Parents crowded the table as if varsity spots were being handed out according to proximity. Coach Nichols had counted the names twice on his manifest.

Forty-four. He double checked. Still forty-four. His varsity roster was due by Friday. He needed eight boys/eight girls; sixteen varsity spots to submit and another sixteen for junior varsity. Judging by the private coaches lingering outside the fence, freshly strung rackets and parents' fierce edge, most arrived expecting their child somewhere in the Top Six. Coach Nichols straightened his hat, fixed his whistle, and clipped a pen to the clipboard and called for the next player. Nichols hadn't coached a single match in his life. But nobody here needed to know that.

Allison and her mother joined the back of the registration line. Twenty-three people ahead of them. Allison counted each head. She reached into her tennis bag for the Secret Platinum she'd already applied three times since breakfast.

“You smell like roses, sweetheart.” Her mother smiled.

Allison froze with the cap halfway off. She shoved it back into the bag and wiped her palms on her towel instead. Texas was hot. Not normal hot. Not summer-in-Scituate hot. This was the kind of heat that made the backs of her thighs stick together beneath a tennis skirt and had her reconsidering every decision that had led her mother to accept a job here.

“Remind me why we moved in the summer?”

“Because I got a great job in Austin.”

“You couldn't have gotten one in Alaska?”

“I don't think they play much tennis there.”

“Even better.”

Her mother raised an eyebrow at her.

“Kidding, Mom.”

Mostly.

“You'll meet people today.”

“I already know someone.”

“Who?”

Allison bumped her shoulder against her mother's.

“You.”

“I'm your mother. I don't count.”

“You count to me.”

A man in a tucked-in polo brushed by the line. Brand-new white cleats. His daughter trailed behind him, head down, thumb testing the tension of her racket strings.

“Excuse me, Coach Nichols.”

Nichols looked up. The man's hand was already extended.

“I wanted to introduce you to my daughter.”

“Hi, I am Hannah.”

Coach glanced at the line stretching behind him.

“Happy to meet her if you wait your turn.”

Coach grabbed a name tag and uncapped a Sharpie and scribbled: ANNA.

“Hannah,” the young girl corrected softly. “With an H.”

Her father reached across the table, peeled off the name tag and crumpled it in his palm.

“She might be the next Anna Kournikova, but her name is Hannah Langley.”

He wrote it himself: Hannah Langley

Then handed the Sharpie back, reaching out his hand. “Rick Langley.” He waited. “You might recognize my last name.”

“I don't.” Coach Nichols firmly shook his hand. “Next in line!”

Allison laughed before she could stop herself. Hannah turned. Allison immediately wished she'd swallowed the laugh. The girl was pretty. Blonde ponytail tied with a thick white bow, country-club visor, navy Jon Hart bag hanging from one shoulder with H.L. stitched neatly into the leather.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to laugh.” Allison mortified. “I heard you say it right.”

Allison smiled.

“I am Allison. With an A.”

Hannah laughed.

“Don't be sorry.” Hannah glanced toward her father. “He thinks he owns the town.”

“Does he?”

Hannah considered it. “He thinks so.”

Coach Nichols blew his whistle.

“Everyone, single line. We'll move faster if we have one line instead of four.”

“Faster?” a woman called from somewhere behind Allison. “It isn't moving.”

“I'm late for league,” another complained.

Nichols wiped the sweat beneath the brim of his hat. Behind Allison, two mothers lowered their voices just enough to make sure everyone could still hear them.

“I heard he used to teach philosophy.”

“College?”

“Apparently.”

“And now he's coaching high-school tennis?”

A pause.

“Maybe philosophy didn't work out.”

“Would love to know the real story…”

“Next in line!” Coach Nichols heard every word unphased.

Allison chewed at the edge of her thumb, unsure of how she would register her name, the level of play needed to be noted: Allison Nash (Freshman/Intermediate).

Ms. Nash reached into her purse, pulling out Texas Monthly, as she noticed the jumbotron in the distance. The cover showed Fitzhollow High's ribbon cutting, the new football stadium rising behind it. BIGGEST PUBLIC SCHOOL TO OPEN ITS DOORS

“I mailed your dad a copy.”

Allison looked at her.

“Why?”

“I thought he'd like seeing where you'll be.”

“Dad barely cared where I was before.”

Her mother folded the magazine once.

____

9:09 AM

Each name checked off and registered as he called all the players onto the baseline on Court One. Coach Nichols stood in front of the net. Parents crowded the fence line or claimed patches of shade beneath umbrellas in the bleachers. Players bounced on their toes, adjusted grips, dribbled tennis balls against the asphalt.

Coach Nichols lifted the whistle to his mouth.

“Good morning. I'm Coach—”

The gate clicked open behind him. Metal against metal. Forty-four heads turned toward the opening. Coach Nichols looked at his watch.

Nine minutes late.

He wrote something on his clipboard.

“Sorry we're late.” The shorter of the two boys headed straight for Coach Nichols. “Won't happen again, sir.” He pushed his tinted glasses higher on his nose and extended a hand.

“Miles Singer. Freshman.”

Coach shook it. Miles nodded toward the boy half a step behind him.

“And this is Kasey. He's a freshman too.”

“Last name?”

“Hayes.” 

Kasey didn't offer his hand. He reached down to tie the lace on his worn sneakers. Coach Nichols watched as he placed his one racket on the pavement.One racket. No bag. No water bottle. Converse worn through at the toes. A red bandana tied around his neck in hundred-degree heat.

Kasey glanced at HEAD COACH stitched across the hunter-green polo like it was information, not intimidation.

“One more minute late and I wouldn't have let you gentlemen try out. But I will make an exception today.” Kasey stood, folded his hands across his chest hugging his racket.

“Thank you, Coach.” First thing Kasey had said.

“No reason to be late tomorrow, right?”

Kasey glanced at Miles. Miles glanced at Kasey. Both responded.

“No, sir.”

“No.”

Kasey had several, none he intended to share.

Most of the players had already turned back toward Coach. Allison hadn't. She noticed the bandana first. Red. Knotted tight around his neck in the dead heat of August. Is this a Texas thing? Then the Converse. Worn white at the toes while everyone around him seemed to be wearing shoes freshly pulled from a box.

Then she caught a glimpse of his face. He looked toward the group. Their eyes caught. Just for a second. Allison looked away. Then, annoyingly, looked back.

Coach Nichols blew his whistle.

“Let's go. Line up on the baseline.”

The players scattered into motion. Scott Adler fell into line behind the two latecomers, bouncing a ball against his racket.

“What club do you guys play out of?”

“Fitzhollow,” Miles said.

Scott looked at Kasey. “You?”

Kasey spun the racket once in his hand.

“My backyard.”

Scott laughed. Kasey didn't. He reached for the back of his neck instead. Two fingers beneath the knot of the red bandana.

“Hayes,” Coach Nichols called. “You're up.”

Kasey stepped toward the baseline. Something changed. His shoulders dropped. His jaw was unclenched. The hand at his neck returned to the racket. He spun it once and settled his grip. Across the net, Coach fed him a ball.

Kasey moved before it bounced.

Crack.

The forehand landed inches inside the baseline. Coach Nichols looked up from the basket. So did Allison. Kasey walked backward toward the line, trying not to smile. A dimple gave him away.

Allison smiled too.

“Nash!”

She jumped. Coach pointed toward the baseline.

“You're up.”

“Right. Sorry Coach.”