Scene 10

Dillon's older sister, Seren, had razzed her once—long before Kelsey—that she had a bad habit of fancying straight girls. A practice, Seren insisted, bound to set her up for failure. Dillon had been unconcerned.

"Every girl is straight until they're not."

"Touché." Seren had been unable to argue. "Still, it'll nip you in the arse one day."

But over the years, it hadn't proven to be much of an issue. Until Kelsey, Dillon had kept a very blasé approach to her love life—one she'd adopted again once her relationship with the footballer had ended.

Her theory: you won some, you lost some. And for the most part, she won.

Kelsey was a prime example. She'd been supposedly "straight" when they met, after all. And for a time, she'd been the best thing that ever happened to Dillon. For three years, she'd been unable to imagine her life with someone else. They'd been a perfect fit—driven to succeed—fierce competitors—in love. But then the Lionesses won the Euros, and their success had favored them to bring home the World Cup, and Kelsey's already prominent career was suddenly shoved into famedom. Kelsey became England's darling. The face of football. A national hero. Her fan base—already impressive—quadrupled overnight. She was on chat shows and television adverts, her face plastered across the United Kingdom. Where previously she'd only been recognizable to the devout football fans, suddenly, everywhere they went, people knew her name—who she was—and, by the laws of social media, who Dillon was, also.

The relative anonymity Dillon had enjoyed in her own career, and in turn, her personal life, was abruptly abolished. She unexpectedly found herself in the limelight, on the receiving end of fan mail, hate mail, love letters. She and Kelsey became an unhealthy fixation for obsessive football fans, along with acting as a beacon for homophobic hate. Men and women from across the globe spewed their disgust on every social media post, with some of the more devoted creeps even going so far as to track down Seren—sending her odd friend requests and follows on her own athletic profile.

None of it had been Kelsey's fault. She'd been no different than Dillon—a rising star in her career. But football was an international pastime— the beautiful game —popular across the entire world. Triathlons were different. Triathletes were unknown.

Olympic medalist. World Champion. Dillon Who?

Exactly how Dillon liked it. Had liked it.

Suddenly, the pressure of their relationship became too much. The night England won their home turf quarterfinal, advancing to the semis, Dillon called it quits.

She'd broken Kelsey's heart.

It had been selfish. It had been unfair. It had drastically backfired on her quest for anonymity, drawing a tidal wave of hatred from Kelsey's fans—and, at the time, what had felt like the entirety of England. She'd been forced to delete her socials to escape the wrath of the football fanatics, and spent a couple of years lying low. The whole ordeal left Dillon with few friends, and an albatross of guilt that almost killed her.

But that was neither here nor there.

Point being—Kelsey had been straight. Until she wasn't. And now, after Dillon, the English footballer had dated half the women in the WSL.

Thus… straight until you weren't. That was Dillon's theory and it had yet to let her down.

So it didn't faze her that Kameryn had clearly never previously questioned her identity. Sometimes you met a person and just clicked. What was wrong with that? Maybe it worked out, maybe it didn't. But for now, Kameryn appeared to be on the same wave length. Which was cool, because Dillon really liked her.

After leaving the aquarium, they spent a few minutes wandering through the crowd in Mallory Square, before deciding to forgo the food truck lines and head over to the Historic Seaport District. Dillon wasn't a fan of tourism related nightlife, but Kameryn had never been to Key West, so a tiki bar on the white sand beach seemed an appropriate choice for dinner.

Seated at a wooden spool table, Dillon ignored her body's dissatisfied opposition to the deviation of her routine. Usually, after a race, she spent the remainder of the day in recovery. Stretching. Icing. Rehydrating. Refueling. Always thinking ahead, preparing for the next victory. She'd rarely leave her hotel, and habitually forced herself to an early sleep, even when her adrenaline was still soaring.

Sometimes, however, certain circumstances made rules worthy of breaking.

Kameryn Kingsbury was proving to be a sterling example of exactly that type of situation.

As the tables around them filled, the patrons growing boisterous, Dillon enjoyed watching Kam take in their surroundings. She quickly forgot about her aversion to crowds and distaste for loudmouthed frivolity, and instead found herself enchanted by the paradox Kam presented. Where she was shy and uncertain on one hand, Dillon found her bold and unreserved on the other, her charm built in a macédoine of certitude and fragility—an enigmatic puzzle she was determined to piece together.

She found she loved the way she laughed when their server—costumed as a cabana boy—gave her a flirtatious wink, sashaying his barely concealed hips in his skintight short shorts as he took their order. She appreciated the respectfulness of her nature—always leading with please and ending with thank you—and how she didn't bat an eye when Dillon asked for a seltzer and lime, instead of matching her order of a rum runner.

After the drinks arrived, Kam pulled the tiny paper parasol out of her pineapple, and stabbed it into the lime Dillon had discarded on the table.

"I bet it gets wild here over the holidays." Kam's voice was muffled by the live brass band blasting out upbeat Cuban love songs.

Dillon plucked up the tiny umbrella, twirling it between her thumb and forefinger. "I imagine it's not much different than an average day in Hollywood. Surely this type of scene is your status quo by now."

"Not really," Kam slid one of two cherries off the plastic cocktail sword into her drink, and offered the remaining one to Dillon. "I'm kind of boring."

"Somehow I doubt that." Dillon didn't like maraschino cherries, but took it anyhow.

"Then you might be sorely disappointed."

Tugging off the stem, Dillon tossed the cherry into her mouth. "Somehow I doubt that, also." She washed down the offending fruit with a sip of her seltzer. "You won't convince me that the girl who was voted in school to be Most Likely to Drop Her Phone in the Toilet has nothing interesting about her." She smiled behind her glass. "I'm not the only one with a page on wikipedia, Kam-Kameryn."

Kam's dark eyes widened, her drink paused midway to her mouth. "Tell me it doesn't really say that!"

Dillon laughed. "I assure you it does."

"Oh my God." Her cheeks glowing scarlet beneath the flame of the tiki torch glare, Kam wrestled her phone out of her still-damp jeans pocket. "Fucking Dani!"

"It did also mention something about being voted Most Likely to Lead a Protest."

"I swear I'm going to kill her!" Kam fussed with her phone, before giving in and tossing it on the table. "There's no service." She stewed another moment, and then laughed. "Wait—I can't believe you looked at my wiki page! I thought you never went on the internet?"

Dillon swirled the ice in her glass. "I had to make sure I wasn't meeting with an axe murderer."

"If I was going to kill you, don't you think it would have been easier to do it during the privacy of our hike on Ka'uiki? Or even better, just finishing the job I started on the Road to Hana?"

"That sounds like something someone would say who's given the thought some consideration."

Kam gave a noncommittal tilt of her head. "Maybe I'm a thrill seeker? Just looking for a steeper challenge?"

"Lucky coincidence for you, then, that you had work in Miami."

As soon as the words were out of Dillon's mouth, Kam's face shifted, losing all its playful bluster. She stared at the melting ice of her cocktail, before looking resolutely up at Dillon.

"I lied to you."

Uncertain what to say, or where this was going, Dillon waited.

"I—I don't even know how to say this." Her brief determination to hold her eye faltered, and once again she returned her stare to the table.

Sitting up a little straighter, Dillon fought down the uneasiness that crept up from the bottom of her stomach.

"I didn't have work in Miami. I didn't—I didn't have any reason to be here." Kam's voice trembled, as if she were on the verge of tears. "I just… after the way we left things in Hawaii, I didn't… I wanted to…" she swallowed. "I wanted to see you again. And," she rushed on, before Dillon could say anything, "I know that makes me look like a psycho. You have to think I'm a freak. And I really understand if you want to skip out now. It's probably what I would do. But I—" again she wavered, before turning her gaze to Dillon once more, her humiliation evident. "I didn't want to lie to you. And I didn't know how to tell you the truth."

Dillon stared back at her for a long second, wrapping her head around everything she'd said. It wasn't what she'd been expecting—though she wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Just—not that. And, as caught off guard as she was, it still came as a colossal relief.

Kameryn hadn't blinked, or taken a breath. "Please say something."

Dislodged from her surprise, Dillon couldn't help but laugh. "You flew all the way across the country not even knowing if we'd find time to meet up?"

The color of Kam's cheeks—never fully recovered from her embarrassment over the wikipedia page—grew more deeply flushed. "Yeah." Her shoulders sagged. "I know how that sounds…"

"Flattering? Bold? Sweet?" Dillon shrugged. "And, yeah, a little crazy, maybe. Especially coming from someone who tried to convince me a few minutes ago they were boring—but, what can I say?" she smiled. "I think that might be the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."

Kam's expression tentatively brightened. "So, you're not—freaked out?"

"By the girl who flew across the country to see me? No. No glaring red flags there. Now, having a tendency to drop your mobile in the toilet, on the other hand…"

Kameryn managed a laugh. "Just so we're clear, I've never actually done that before."

"Flown across the country on a whim, or dropped your mobile in the toilet?"

"Flown across the country on a whim. I mean, actually, neither. The yearbook superlative was an inside joke. I just—I can be, um, clumsy when I'm nervous."

As if to accentuate this admission, she reached for her drink, catching the lip of the glass with her pinky finger, almost tipping it over.

"Jesus," she righted the cocktail. "I swear—"

"Sinclair?" A shadow crossed their table. "I thought that was you."

The annoyingly familiar voice cut a nasal path through the din of the surrounding tables. Dillon looked up to find Isaac Fortin, the husband of one of her long-time competitors—a Canadian woman named Claudia—staring down at her, his hands settled on his slender hips, smile smug as ever.

Dillon tolerated Claudia. She'd seen her name on the start list. She was a regular middle-of-the-pack finisher, dumb as a fence post, but bearable enough on her own. Her husband, however, was a different story.

"Hello, Isaac." Dillon's voice was flat, leaving no indication he was a welcome intrusion. If given the opportunity, he would talk—strictly about himself—until the bar closed. Or they died by virtue of his outrageous ego. Whichever came sooner.

The man was a long-course racer, always clapping himself on his back for competing at an amateur level in the notorious Ironman competitions. An age-group athlete who'd never raced a professional minute in his life.

At least Claudia was actually sponsored.

His attention swept across the table, landing on Kameryn.

"Well," he sniffed, arching one of his thin eyebrows that creased his forehead, the lines disappearing into his receding hairline, "fair guess to say you aren't with Kelsey anymore?" It wasn't really phrased as a question. Nor should it have been. The entire continent of Europe knew they'd split almost two years prior. He was merely being impertinent, sticking his too-large nose where it didn't belong.

"Nope."

"Shame. I imagine she's worth a mint by now, branded the way she is. Hello," he stuck out his hand toward Kameryn, "Isaac Fortin."

"Hi." Kameryn didn't offer her name.

"Ah, American." Again, it wasn't a question. "Broadening your horizons, eh, Sinclair?" His smile never touched his pale eyes. "Speaking of—good to see you were back in form today. Saw the results from Hana last week; what a pity. Rough terrain, that area. Be glad it was as short as it was. I've done Kona twice—brutal race. I imagine you'll keep more flat courses in your future—wouldn't want to see those rankings fall."

Dillon opened her mouth, uncertain what variation of piss off was going to fall from her lips, but before she could squeeze a word in, he'd already turned back to Kameryn.

"You race? I don't imagine, you don't look the type. I'm an Ironman , myself. Certainly, you've heard of it? It's about four times the distance Sinclair here does."

Kam trailed a finger along the rim of her cocktail glass. "You know, it's only recently I've learned about it."

The pompous prick perked up at what he undoubtedly imagined was the prime opportunity for enlightenment. He didn't appear to notice the flicker at the corners of Kameryn's mouth or the tilt of her head as she sat back, crossing her legs, her gaze veiled beneath dark lashes.

Dillon remained silent, curious to see where this was leading.

"It's a grueling sport—"

"So I've heard," said Kam, disallowing him time to launch into his monologue. "What I've found interesting is the diverse levels of competition. I think it is wonderful that the longer endurance races have opened the door for aging athletes to continue to compete, even once they are well past their prime." She offered Isaac a brilliant smile.

The stunned Canadian opened his mouth, then shut it, and opened it again. No words came out, however, as he stood there, resembling a fish gaping for air.

"Be sure to give Claudia my best," nodded Dillon, before leaning into the table, cutting him off with the angle of her shoulder.

For once in his pathetically mediocre life, he took the hint and walked away.

"Oh, what an asshole," said Kameryn, once the crowd had swallowed him in its fold. "I'm sorry if I was out of line—I just…" she shook her head. "What a total prick."

Dillon laughed, dragging her hat off to run a hand through her hair. "I don't even know what to think about you, Kameryn Kingsbury. You are full of the most marvelous surprises."

"You still certain you don't want to bolt? I won't hold it against you."

She was certain she'd never wanted to bolt less in her life.

Glancing around at the sea of bodies taking over the narrow strip of sand, the only thing she wanted to get away from was the jam-packed hum of the bar.

"I swear I don't mean this the way it's going to sound, but do you want to go back to my hotel?" She couldn't remember the last time she'd really cared whether a woman said yes or no. She blathered on. "I can make us dinner. I'm a decent cook."

Without hesitation, Kameryn got to her feet, digging a twenty out of her wallet. "It sounded more fun," she teased, dropping the bill on the table, "when it sounded the way you didn't mean it to sound."

Dillon sat for a second, trying to decide how one person could be so many things. Forward, reticent. Knock-out-pretty, self-effacing. And somehow, she imagined, she'd barely scratched the surface.

Pulling her hat back on her head, she stood. The one thing she knew—for the first time since Kelsey—she didn't want to screw this up.

"Cart before the horse, Kam-Kameryn," she smiled, glad when Kam took her hand, weaving their way toward the street. "It may be you who wants to bolt once you've tried my cooking."