A SECOND CHANCE AT FOREVER Chapter 26: CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

KYLE

THWACK!

The sound of the racket colliding with the tennis ball echoed like a gunshot across the court. The ball shot over the net, fast and ruthless, missing Ryan’s face by mere inches.

He barely managed to return it, his scowl deepening as the ball bounced back with force.

“Are you playing tennis or trying to send me to the hospital?” he snapped, wiping sweat from his brow. “That’s the third time you’ve almost broken my nose. I’m starting to take it personally.”

“Quit if you can’t handle it,” I shot back, my voice clipped, sharp. My grip tightened around the racket, the strings digging into my palm. “I won’t hold it against you.”

Ryan responded with a brutal backhand that smacked against the ball, sending it ricocheting past me with a satisfying thud. His frustration mirrored mine, though his was directed at me. Mine… well, mine was a goddamn hurricane brewing inside my chest.

The sun blazed overhead, unforgiving, baking the clay court beneath our feet. Today was different,I didn’t have back-to-back meetings, no endless conference calls or power lunches. My chief of staff had suggested I take the opportunity to rest, maybe even “clear my head.”

Yeah, right.

Rest meant thinking. Thinking meant her.

So instead, I’d dragged Ryan here, hoping the physical exertion would drown out the noise in my skull. But it wasn’t working. Every time I blinked, I saw her.

Ashley.

Her name felt like a splinter lodged under my skin.

Ashley at the gala, her silver dress hugging every curve, her smile lighting up the goddamn room. But it wasn’t for me. No. She’d been smiling at him—that smug bastard with the slicked-back hair and the kind of face that begged to be punched.

Ashley laughing, her head tilted back like she had no worries in the world, like she wasn’t living rent-free in my head.

Ashley kissing him.

That last image ignited something dark in me. I slammed the ball again, harder this time, fueled by rage I couldn’t contain. It shot across the court like a missile, and Ryan didn’t have a chance to dodge.

The ball hit him square in the face.

“Fuck!” he cursed, stumbling back, his racket clattering to the ground as he cupped his nose.

I froze for a second, breathing hard, my chest heaving with more than just exertion. A thin trickle of blood slid from Ryan’s nostril, and he shot me a murderous glare.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Kyle?” His voice was muffled, nasally from the impact. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I tossed my racket aside, running a hand through my sweat-drenched hair. “Nothing,” I muttered.

Ryan grabbed a towel from the bench, pressing it against his nose, still glaring at me like I’d personally offended him.

“Bullshit,” he snapped, dabbing at the thin trickle of blood. “Are you trying to kill me or work through some deep-seated emotional issues with a tennis ball?”

I didn’t answer. Just picked up another ball, bouncing it lazily against the court, pretending like I hadn’t just assaulted my best friend.

Ryan let out a heavy sigh, the kind loaded with frustration and resignation. “You’ve been swinging like you’re auditioning for the U.S. Open finals. What’s your problem?”

“Nothing,” I muttered, my eyes locked on the fuzzy green blur in my hand, the repetitive bounce against the clay grounding me more than his words ever could.

“Bullshit,” he repeated, more forcefully this time. He spat some blood to the side, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, still glaring like he was trying to see through me. “Come on, man. You’ve been in a mood since we got here. Actually—scratch that—you’ve been in a mood ever since… hell, I don’t even know when it started. What the hell is going on with you?”

I shrugged, indifferent. “It’s work. Stress.”

Ryan barked out a harsh, humorless laugh. “Yeah, sure. Work. Because that’s why you’re playing like someone’s paying you a million dollars per injury.” He tossed the towel onto the bench with a finality that made me glance up. “That’s it. I’m done for the day.”

“Glad you can finally admit you’re a quitter, Jenkins,” I shot back, gripping the racket tighter even though my arms felt like lead.

But it wasn’t just the game weighing me down.

Ashley’s face flickered in my mind, shimmering like a mirage in the heat waves rising off the court. I blinked hard, but she didn’t fade—not really. She never did.

Since the divorce, I’d thrown myself into work like it was the cure for heartbreak. Meetings stacked on meetings, numbers crunched until they blurred, deadlines chased like they mattered more than breathing. But none of it worked. No matter how busy I kept myself, she was always there—in the quiet moments, in the spaces between seconds, in the places I couldn’t escape.

Especially after she came back to New York.

She was everywhere, haunting me like a ghost I couldn’t exorcise. And the worst part? I didn’t want to. Part of me craved any glimpse of her—while another part dreaded it because it reminded me too damn much of what I’d lost.

Seeing her unexpectedly was bad enough.

Seeing her kissing another man?

That nearly killed me.

It’d taken everything I had not to put my fist through his smug face.

“I’m not a quitter. I’m pragmatic,” Ryan muttered, pulling me out of my spiral. He stretched his arm, wincing slightly, then added, “I have a dinner date with Violet, and if I miss it because you can’t aim properly, we’ll both be pissed.”

I snorted, grateful for the distraction. “I thought you and Violet were headed to Italy tonight,” I replied, clinging to the normalcy of small talk like a lifeline. “Or are you staying in town for the weekend?”

Ryan hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second. But I noticed.

“Ashley’s goodbye drinks are in two days. Violet said they’d be going out, hanging out, and all that, so we postponed—” He cut himself off, realizing too late what he’d just said.

The world seemed to tilt slightly beneath my feet.

I stilled, the tennis ball slipping from my fingers, forgotten. “What goodbye drinks?” My voice was low, too calm, the words bouncing off the empty clay courts like echoes from a distant place.

Ryan’s face shuttered instantly, like a door slammed shut.

But it was too late.

“What goodbye drinks?” I repeated, my grip tightening around the racket handle until my knuckles turned white. A familiar buzzing filled my ears, drowning out everything else. My heart kicked into overdrive, pounding against my ribs like it was trying to break free.

Ryan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck like he regretted every life choice that led him to this moment. “Ashley’s going back to Germany,” he finally muttered. “This Friday.”

The words hit harder than any tennis ball ever could.

I didn’t react. Not outwardly. I stood there, frozen, while something inside me cracked—quiet and invisible, but undeniable.

She was leaving.

Leaving.

***

Ashley’s going back to Germany… this Friday.

Ryan’s words echoed in my mind, a relentless refrain that haunted me through the night and into the next morning as I sat at my desk, the glow of market numbers flickering across my screen, but none of it registered.

The world could’ve been burning outside my office window, and I wouldn’t have noticed.

Ashley couldn’t be leaving.

Not now.

Not when I’d done nothing to bring us back together.

I can’t lose her.

Not again.

My mind drifted, unbidden, to all the mistakes I’d made—every reckless choice, every selfish decision that carved the space between us wider and deeper until it became a chasm I didn’t know how to cross.

How had I ever willingly spent so many hours away from her when now I’d give up my goddamn kidney just for one minute alone with her again?

Why had I been more afraid of losing everything else instead of losing her?

How had I betrayed her with someone else when the only woman I ever truly wanted was her?

I’d told myself giving her space after the divorce was the right thing to do. That it was too soon to reach out, that the wounds were too raw—for both of us. I needed time to figure out how to win her back, to build a plan, to fix what I’d broken.

I’d signed the papers, but that didn’t mean I’d signed her out of my heart.

Not even close.

But time had played its cruel trick. While I was busy waiting for the perfect moment, she left. Slipped away like sand through my fingers. Gone from New York before I could even say I’m sorry, before I could tell her I’d never stopped loving her.

And now… she’s leaving again.