Though winning in Tunisia and Mexico totals my titles to eight this season and are a great way to solidify my place in the WTA finals tournament that starts on the 31st, I find myself more caught up in whether or not Fleur is doing okay than in my celebrations.

Emma Hayes did not agree to terminate her contract before the season started, and only Scarlett knows that Fleur wants to leave Chelsea. Their relationship is tense at the moment. Neither of them know where anything is headed.

From what Fleur has told me, I gather that she is pushing for a compromise with the club and hoping to sign for Barcelona in January. That way, she helps them in the first half of the Champions League, but also manages to have a hand in the undefeated Spanish team. What footballer doesn't dream of playing in a sold out Camp Nou?

I'm not sure exactly why she is moving clubs, but it must have something to do with her losing the Ballon d'Or to Alexia Putellas for the second year in a row. They play the same position, but my sister is two years younger and believes that she has been in England for too long. Reports from Scarlett show that she isn't coping well, and that she spends every minute she is not at training either practising even more, going to the gym, or talking to her agent. They seem to hardly be in each other's company at the moment.

The thing is, Fleur has told me that Scarlett doesn't want her to go, but refuses to come with her. She thinks Chelsea is the perfect team for her, and won't be convinced otherwise.

They have been arguing a fair bit.

Fleur calls me a lot, ranting about how frustrating it is that Scarlett won't hear her out. "My career is on the line!" she says, though I'm not sure if that's entirely true. She starts and plays a full ninety minutes for almost every game at Chelsea. I think she is just determined to prove she can be better than her counterpart. Besting her in her own club would definitely satisfy Fleur's thirst for competition.

When the Guadalajara Open ends and I have sent my trophy off to Melbourne, I'm on a plane to the US quicker than the paparazzi can catch me. (And they often do, which is never fun.) Leah is injured and in California, and we have a day's overlap to get dinner before she heads back to England for rehab.

I get to Los Angeles at midnight. Juan has allowed me three days of rest before we crack on with training for the last tournament of the season for me – I didn't play the qualifiers for the BJK Cup due to my hamstring injury. He has gone to visit some family in Argentina, not asking who I am so eager to spend time with in LA.

Leah is supposed to have messaged me where we are going to meet for dinner before my flight landed. I refresh my texts to see if I have missed it. She hasn't said anything.

I am waiting for my taxi, slumped on my suitcase with a cap pulled over my face, when someone grabs me by the waist. The scream that leaves my mouth causes a few people to turn around, and I jab my elbow into the person's stomach, shrugging them off. Until I recognise the rings on their fingers as the ones that took ages to remove on the last day of July.

"I will not be doing that again," Leah wheezes, winded from the force of my self-defence. I turn around sharply, and she pulls my cap off to get a better look at my face. I glare at her. "I wanted to surprise you."

"You scared me," I groan, my heart rate not slowing down. Her eyes are practically sparkling. She looks at me, I look at her.

Fuck.

"Gonna kiss me or what?"

It isn't dating. We aren't dating.

I press my lips to hers quickly, knowing that people are nosy and that photographers will be lurking in every dark corner of LAX. "I missed you," I whisper, a confession that I know I should not have made the minute it is spoken aloud. "I can't stop thinking about you."

She rests her forehead against mine, arms circled around my neck, smile soft and lips looking unfairly inviting. "Jaimie, you're speaking in Dutch." Oh. Good. That means I can pretend I never said that.

Intending to lie, I mutter, "I said that I–" but I am cut off when a car horn honks, and Leah's eyes track down the vehicle.

"My friend said she'd take you to your hotel," Leah explains sheepishly, regretting ruining this moment. I stiffen. "I know you've got a taxi, but we can get food on the way. Where are you staying? Wait, don't tell me, tell Tobs. C'mon." I don't like spontaneity and surprises, but I feel as though I would follow Leah to the end of the Earth even if she gave me two minutes' notice.

She takes my suitcase and points to the black Chevrolet, pushing me gently in that direction. I don't want to get into a car with Leah's friend, because that means someone knows. I'm not delusional enough to say that there is nothing to know about now, but I don't need anyone involved in this not-relationship.

"Hey, I'm Tobin." The woman behind the wheel nods at me, expression neutral. "Congrats on the win."

"You watch tennis?" I ask sceptically. She looks like she exclusively tunes into basketball and football games with the way her cap sits backwards on her head and how she slouches in her seat. She also looks effortlessly cool.

"Leah watches tennis," Tobin says. I am about to ask her how she knows Leah, but she answers my question before I can get the words out. "I used to play with her at Arsenal."

Leah's in the car by now, settling in the front seat. I spread out in the back, feeling the full force of the post-tournament fatigue hit me. It's going to be a solid hour before I can barely speak my first language, let alone my second. "You should've stayed," Leah interjects, laughing. The car is cold enough to give me goosebumps.

"I'm Jaimie," I tell Tobin. "You might know my sister? She's called Fleur."

"Yeah, I know her."

It's a bit awkward. Leah connects her phone to the car's bluetooth, and plays her stupid music that she makes me listen to whenever we call for longer than half an hour. Apparently my laugh can only give her so much joy. (It was so cheesy that I couldn't stop the grin that broke out on my face.)

"The Ballon d'Or was a close one," Leah says, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "How's she taking it?"

It's hard to keep secrets from Leah, but I'm aware of Tobin's presence too. She doesn't seem to be listening, though. "She's trying to leave Chelsea," is all I give her for now, knowing that I will probably tell her everything that's happening when we are alone. Leah's friendship with Scarlett doesn't affect her ability to keep things quiet. "I'm staying at the Ritz-Carlton, Tobin. I forgot to say."

Her expression remains neutral, and she pulls up directions to the hotel. It will take us just over twenty minutes to get there. "Did you fly privately?" Leah asks, curious as to how quickly I appeared in the States. Football teams tend to use the plane belonging to the club, and so charter flights are commonplace for her too, though she is emphatic about how lucky I am that it is mainly just Juan and I on the plane. Fleur always sends me videos of her with the Chelsea girls on flights, and I disagree. It looks quite fun.

"Yeah. You know, I saw a tweet that was like 'I aspire to have Jaimie de Voss' carbon footprint'. It made me laugh." It's not my fault that they scatter the tournaments all over the world. "I'm going to Texas on the 26th, and then back home!"

"When you're in Australia, do you go even more Aussie?" I roll my eyes. "'Cause, y'know..."

"Jaimie, how come you're in LA?" Tobin questions me suddenly. Taken aback, I open my mouth to reply but find no reason to tell her other than because Leah is in LA. Which I can't admit to. Because we aren't dating.

"It's a fun city to celebrate a successful season in," I eventually get out, thankful for the years of media training I have endured. "Eight wins and one more tournament left, and a consistent third place ranking for the last month."

"So can we crack open the champagne yet or not?"

I yawn. "Nee, I need food en sleepen first, or you will start having to decode dronk en tired Dutch." Leah doesn't tell Tobin that this isn't the first time she's watched me slowly slip into a language she doesn't understand, which I'm grateful for. That would imply that we talk a lot, and Tobin already seems suspicious.

"Right, let's go to In-N-Out."

Successfully fed now, I spread out in the backseat of Tobin's car, halfway asleep by the time we arrive at my hotel. It's now nearly one in the morning. I sigh as the car stops, forcing my eyes to stay open long enough for me to check myself in.

Leah gets out of Tobin's car too, swatting my hand away from my suitcase and insisting that she will deal with it. The bellboy then takes my luggage from her, leaving her to follow me inside to the lobby. I rest my head on her shoulder as we wait for the concierge to finish his call.

"Do you want me to do it?" she asks quietly, hand resting on my waist, pulling me closer to her. "You're falling asleep standing up."

I mumble something in an incoherent response, handing her my passport and standing beside her in front of the desk.

The concierge is a man with a chiselled face and slicked back hair. His suit is too crisp for this time of night, and so I imagine that he irons it at his desk when nobody is looking. He addresses me first as Viviënne, much to Leah's confusion, and then realises that I am the Dutch tennis player everyone has been talking about recently. I wonder if he is having an internal debate as to whether I'm called Jaimie, or if he is just sleep-deprived. "Ms de Voss, will you be in need of any specific nutritional requirements? Our chefs here are very capable of providing the correct meals to suit your diet."

"Thank you, but that will not be necessary. I'm not here for business," I tell him, hoping this is the right language. "I will contact you if I need anything." He nods, reassured.

Check-in is swift enough for Leah to still be with me, but when I make my way to the lift, she stays behind. She shuffles her feet, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, and looks up at me with an expression that I'm too tired to analyse. I sigh, hating that she's making me ask.

"Please can you come up with me?" It is an uncharacteristically pathetic question. "If you want to," I add, growing self-conscious.

It takes a second longer than what is comfortable for her to process what I said, but she obliges with blushing cheeks and a look of adoration in her eyes that I am not going to give into. I'm just tired and vulnerable and she is here. I would ask the same of anyone else who was in the same position she is in.

My room is on the thirty-seventh floor, overlooking the city. Leah takes in the view while I peel off my leggings and shimmy out of the t-shirt my agent said I had to travel in for sponsorship reasons. The shoulders were too small, and I think it looked weird, but, at this point, I don't care. I tell Leah I will be back in a second, wanting to wash off the feeling of the plane in the shower. I almost ask for her to join me, but think better of it.

"Lee," I say, resting my chin on her shoulder as she gazes at the city lights. The towel covering my body is loosely wrapped around me, and its warmth is nothing in comparison to the swell of my heart as my skin touches Leah's. "Can you stay the night? I have clothes you can wear."

She runs a hand through her hair. My chin remains in the same place. "We aren't dating, Jaimie," she replies with a lesser form of exasperation than what she could have spoken with. "I don't know if it's a good idea."

At this, I turn her around gently so she can see the king-sized bed in the middle of the room. The mattress bulges under the tightly tucked-in sheets, as if it is a cloud longing to escape and expand. Cushions, meticulously placed, stack their way up to the headboard, and there is no doubt that the bed looks just as inviting to Leah as it does to me.

"It's late."

"Tobin's waiting for me outside."

"Text her to go home."

She sucks in a sharp breath, eyes scanning the room and settling on her phone. My phone begins to buzz. "You're tired."

"I am," I agree. "So why are you making me stay up longer?"

Her chuckle is soft and breathy, and this time, I am the winner, because she glances at my suitcase to check out the clothes in there.

After much deliberation, Leah manages to untuck the bedsheets while I reply to Fleur's messages. She climbs under them, patting the space to her right. "Jaimie." I look up from my phone. "Can it not wait? You're the one who's nodding off mid-sentence."

"It's Fleur," I murmur, sliding under the covers. She cranes her neck to see what my sister is saying, but Fleur is ranting in Dutch to her disappointment. She does pick out Scarlett's name, though. "Her and Scarlett are arguing."

I tell Fleur that she needs to apologise for what she said, and ensure that they don't go to sleep before talking at least some of it out. She's not very enthusiastic about doing that.

Leah grabs my phone from my hands. "I am tired," she narrates as she types, "and I am going to sleep. Goodnight, love you."

I roll my eyes. "Seriously?"

She drops my phone onto the carpeted floor; it lands with a soft thud. Her lips brush my neck, kissing it once, twice, and then a third time. I reach out to find her hand, tangling her fingers with mine. Her rings have been removed, littering the bedside table. I have never felt safer. "Goodnight, Jaimie," she murmurs, face pressed into my body as she adjusts herself to mould around me. "Congratulations for winning in Mexico."

Her skin radiates heat, counteracting the work of the whirring air conditioning unit. I fall asleep quickly. I dream of a woman with blonde hair waking up next to me in my bedroom in Melbourne. Conscious me would deem it a nightmare. I am starting to think that it is just an impending reality.

notes: 

i'm hungover so i couldn't be bothered to proofread this 

thanks for reading xx