The Racquet Accident

Chapter Eleven: He Remembered.

Chapter Eleven: "He Remembered."

I CAME 8th.

It was a goal I had set for myself—a realistic one—and I obtained it.

Yet it wasn't truly enough for me to suppress the small irritation that crept in my mind but I held it all in when the team had gone for celebratory pizza after the award ceremony before the bus ride home.

There was an array of green t-shirts around the table. Liya had managed to snag 6th. Nikko had placed 7th in his pool, the highest in the team of the men's rankings. He was currently engaged in a conversation with another one of our teammates, Alan, nodding to what he was saying as he ate pepperoni pizza. I was currently sending a picture of the shirt to the group chat to which I received stellar compliments.

Jaime: THAT'S MY STAR.

Yasmeen: OUR WINNER!

I wish. 

Mariam: omg, I love that colour on you.

"What's going on with him?" Alan asked on the other side of Nikko, tilting his chin in Rhett's direction. Rhett's eyebrows were furrowed as he typed at his screen while tearing into a pizza. His poor phone screen. 

"Dating issues," Nikko said.

"I am not having dating issues," Rhett grunted. "I'd have to be dating to have the issues that come with it."

"Fine, you're having friends with benefits issues," Nikko said he got up. 

"I am not having friends with benefits issues," Rhett repeated again. "I'd have to be friends with—"

"Okay, we get it," Alan rolled his eyes as Nikko excused himself to the bathroom. Rhett went back to his phone and scowled deeply. Whatever message he had received was clearly not one that made him happy. "Forget I asked." 

Polly, another player who had secured top 32 in our section perked up at the mention of Rhett's sex life. "Who is it?"

"It's nunya." Rhett said with a grin.

"What year is she in?"

"Year nothing because it's nunya business."

Polly rolled her eyes at his maturity. Even I couldn't help but make a face at the lame joke. Rhett, once he realized the disgruntled expression I was making, frowned. Oh God. I knew that face that he was making. I wore it well. I had just become a target of the day for Rhett's consistent brooding behavior.  

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Larine, you've known Nikko for a while, haven't you?"

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"Sort of."

He straightened his back, ready to bother me. "What does 'sort of' mean?"

"It means sort of," I said to him, unbothered by his big body and sneering smile.

Rhett didn't look like he was going to leave me alone. He even put his pizza slice back on its plate as curiosity swam in his mud-like eyes. "What happened?"

"Nunya." I said and his face pinched at me for stealing his terrible joke.

Those eyes narrowed into slits. "I think I have an idea of what happened."

I don't care. "When you finish thinking, which we know could take a long time, come and find me then, alright?" I deadpanned, biting into my veggie pizza that suddenly tasted like cardboard. On the other side of me, Liya held in a laugh while Rhett seemed to find the glare button in his brain, repeatedly clicking intensify.