Page 76 of A Summer of Stars

I pressed a cold water bottle to my forehead, closing my eyes. “It’s fine, just sore. Old injury.” I stretched my leg out in front of me without shuddering to prove it, the compression sleeve around my knee flexing. “I assumed you would’ve known I wasn’t around tonight. Sorry to have been a—how did you say it? Stick in your ass? Yesterday’s match didn’t go well, as you can see. So if you could leave, that—”

“I know. I was there,” he responded.

“You were what?” I dropped the bottle, letting it fall on my lap. There was no sign of humor or satisfaction.

“I was there, for the whole match,” he repeated.

He nudged his suit jacket off his shoulders as I tried to process the fact that this man had seen me fall on my facein person. Not online. Not in a photo. Not in an article. But inreal time. I waited for him to make a joke about it. Dish out a play-by-play of my loss. But he proceeded to take his dress shoes off and leave them at the door.

“What are you doing?” I sat up.

“Are you playing in the French Open this week?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“And what have you done to make sure you’ll feel better by then?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re talking to a professional athlete—”

“Right, nothing, that’s what I thought. Well, I can’t show up at this event tonight without you. So it looks like I’m staying here to help.”

“Oh,no, no you aren’t,” I responded, shooting up from my spot on the couch to push him out the door. But the floor spun, and my balance gave out.

Kieran’s hands latched onto my arms, keeping me steady. I was immediately hit with the memory of those hands running past my elbows when his lips had crashed into mine. I ripped them out of his grasp and fell back onto the couch, shooing the image away.

He opened his mouth again. “You didn’t need to do that, but thank you for proving my point. Have you eaten?”

I gave him a level look. “I can take care of myself. Just go back to your room.”

“You’re playing in a tournament this week, and I have several appearances and premieres you have to be there for. Which means that you need to feel better before you can mess with our schedule more than you already have. Now, do you have a thermometer?” he asked, rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt.

“Are you being serious?”Is he being serious?

“Seeing as you don’t even keep Band-Aids in your house, I don’t know why I bothered asking.”

He leaned forward and pressed the back of his hand against my forehead. I jolted at the feeling of his skin against mine.

“Sorry, my hands are cold,” he apologized. But his cool knuckles were soothing against my brow. It was comforting enough to lull me to sleep. “You shouldn’t be this warm,” he decided. “Take the bathrobe off.”

“What?”

He walked away, toward the hotel phone in the corner of theliving room. “The bathrobe. You don’t want to add to your temp,” he clarified.

“Oh, okay.”He wasn’t asking for you to undress, you idiot.I pulled the bathrobe off, feeling unusually exposed.

“Bonjour, Eloise.” I twisted in horror. Kieran had a perfect French accent over the phone. “Est-il possible de passer une commande pour un repas dans la chambre?”

Of course, he spoke French fluently. I watched with wide eyes as he undid his tie with one hand and gripped the landline with the other.

“Merveilleux. Puis-je commander une salade de pastèque, un thé au miel, et un croque-monsieur? Oui, c’est tout. Je vous remercie de votre attention.”

I turned around abruptly as he dropped the phone into the receiver.

“I ordered you a watermelon salad and tea with honey. You should take a cold shower before it arrives.” He dropped his undone tie beside the phone.

“Honestly, I’m fine, really, you can go. I appreciate you ordering me food and offering to help, but I’m fine. I used to pass out all the—”

“I saw you fall.”