the change wasn’t instant, it took time. it wasn’t just about them and whatever years of repressed feelings they needed to work through. art and tashi had a image. a family. a life. patrick couldn’t just waltz right in and take a place.
starting in new rochelle. the three of them getting tangled up in the soft sheets of art and tashi’s penthouse bed. adrenaline from the game previously played still coursing through them. it was like muscle memory the way they moved together. just as seamless as that first time when they were younger.
he didn’t know what would happen tomorrow when the high of it all wore off, when they all would come back to reality. he really didn’t want to find out.
he like it here. where tashi loved him again and patrick was back in their lives.
patrick was gone before tashi woke up.
her head hurt like she had spent the previous night drinking, and there was a dull ache between her thighs.
art watched his wife slip out of bed and into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
neither of the them talked about it after.
they greeted their daughter, who had spent the night with her grandmother, at breakfast. she talked animatedly about what the two of them got up to last night while shoveling pancakes into her mouth.
tashi kept her attention on her phone, throwing little comments in here and there. the sports news was buzzing with what happened yesterday. the tension between tennis star art donaldson and an unknown patrick zweig was felt by everyone. they all wanted to know more.
tashi closed her phone and turned to her daughter “lily, baby. i need you to go to your room with grandma and start packing up, ok.” before lily could start pouting about wanting to stay another day her grandmother came to collect her.
it was quiet, before art spoke up. “i think we-” only to get cut off
“the reporters are speculating about your come back after yesterday’s game. we should capitalize on this. start training up again when we get back, get you ready for the open in august.”
“tashi. please.” art looked at her right in the eye like he did the other night. only this time tashi saw him. “…ok. ok.” she ran her thumb on the underside of his eye. wiping away the shed tear. “ok.” she repeated. so that he knew she ment it. art turned his cheek into her hand letting his eyes close before standing up to go check on lily.
the conversation she had with patrick couldn’t help up play in her head. he was right to an extent. she wasn’t ready to give up tennis, not yet. she picked up her phone that felt like heavier than it is. her thumb hovered over patrick’s number. she felt sick, texting him after he just left them like they some random hookup.
it’s been a two months. two quiet months in the dondalson household. art still wakes up way earlier than needed, his body was just too use to it. and tashi has been trying to take on new players, but none of them had what she needed.
“it’s not gonna work out.” tashi entered the house through the slide door, taking place on the couch. spiderverse was playing on their living room tv, again. “what was wrong with this one?”
this was the fifth player tashi’s turned down in three days.
she left out a tired sigh. “he didn’t have it.” none of these players had it. she didn’t feel anything when she watched them. “maybe next time mama.” lily comforted her.
tashi really didn’t want to, but she was getting restless. patrick was good player, but he could be great player. he just needed discipline.
patrick’s check from new rochelle lasted him two months. he was able to stay in a motel for awhile giving himself a break from sleeping in his cramped backseat. but it didn’t last.
he swiped it three more times. it still declined.
the guy behind the counter gave him an annoyed look. patrick didn’t bother staying to plea with him, just accepted it. pocketing his card and leaving the corner store. his sandwich and snapple left on the counter.
he parked out side of national park, switching between signing up for other challengers and swiping thought tinder waiting for a match. he hated this part, where he had to play cause he was too broke not too. it didn’t matter if won the whole them for not he was getting paid just for entering.
a ding from his phone broke patrick from the tiny nap he slipped into.
april :) has matched with you! swip to chat.
hey, cute pictures. wanna meet?
it’s the same message every time. sometimes he’ll care enough to throw in a how are you.
how’s tonight at 8. meet here?
patrick got there first. he sat at the bar, not bothering to get a table. they wouldn’t be staying long anyway.
she had on a sweet smile, and her hands were soft against patrick’s.
“hey, this is a nice place. how do you know it?” he asked, referring to the restaurant they’re in right now. “oh, i come here sometimes with my roommate.” patrick’s face fell slightly at the mention of a roommate. april seemed to have noticed cause she was quick to add. “but, she’s out a town right now.”
a few dry conversations later patrick was fucking her on her apartment kitchen counter. she was moaning loud, too loud. it was kind of taking patrick out of it. he closed his eyes can tried to block it out, and focused on getting her to cum so he could go to sleep.
from the back of his mind memories from new rochelle made their way to the front of his mind. and all the sudden it wasn’t the skin of a random girl he was touching, it was tashi’s. the fingers in hair tugging weren’t skinny and soft they were thicker and calloused. they were art’s.
he came before she did. before she could point it out, patrick sank to his knees.
she let him stay the night, and use her shower. her sheets were so soft. patrick was knocked out the second he laid down.
he woke up to the smell of food cooking, and would be stupid not to stay for breakfast. he gave her a goodbye kiss with the empty promise of seeing again.
once back in his car he checked his endless notifications. a few from tinder, emails confirming his attendance at the challengers she signed up from, and one text from… tashi?
never in a million years did patrick think he would be on his way to california to meet with tashi.
they have been texting back and forth for a week, strictly about tennis. she mentioned how she’ll give him a chance and to come to cali. then he mentioned how he doesn’t have the money for that. which led to tashi cash apping him. now he was on his way, their address placed into his gps.
driving up to the donaldson house had patrick’s eyebrows shooting towards his hairline. it was huge. you’d think he’d be use to seeing such a lavish home, but it’s been awhile. the gate separating their home from the outside world opens letting him drive his car into their driveway.
he felt so fucking nervous. he sat in his car for a good ten minutes before he got out. his knocks rapped against the wooden doors before he rang the doorbell.
tashi answered the door. he caught a quick glimpse of the inside, and he could see art standing off in the background.
“you get one week, don’t make me regret this.”
and he didn’t. he worked his ass off all week. woke up and crazy hours, drank whatever disgusting up smoothies tashi gave him, he cut back his cigarette intake, and only interacted with the donaldsons on a personal level. until the youngest donaldson approached him.
“are you gonna be the one?” a little voice suddenly spoke, waking patrick from his relaxed state.
“no other player has stayed this long. so, are you the one?”
he didn’t know how to respond to that. and before he had to art came running from the main house to the pool house where he was staying. “lily! you can’t just run off. your lunch is ready, go i’ll met you back at the house.” he sent her off with a soft pat on the back of her head. “sorry, she’s been really eager to met you.” oh? patrick shook his head. “it’s fine. she’s uh- cute kid.”
patrick hated being alone with art. it was different from being alone with tashi. with tashi he could just fall into easy banter. neither of the thinking about what happened, but with art it’s like ever unspoken word and thought made it’s self known.
“you’ve um. you’ve be doing good patrick. tashi has really been noticing the work you’re putting in.” art said. patrick huffed an exhausted laugh. “she better have. been kicking my ass.” he joked, which in turn earned a chuckle from art. “just don’t go on and get too cocky the weeks not over yet.” art was gone before patrick could respond.
finally the week was over, and the three of them were seated across from each other. art and tashi on one side patrick on the other. patrick felt like he was in detention, and tashi was the principal with art as her dutifully assistant.
“patrick.” tashi started. “i wanna continue working with you.”
“i understand, sorry i disappointed you- wait what?”
“i wanna continue working with you. which means everything you gave me this week, times it by a thousand. your first challengers in a week. don’t fuck up.”
and for once in his life he doesn’t. he didn’t get lazy in the second half like usual and basically throw the game. he pushed through. he lost but at least he played a good game.
tashi put him in challenger after challenger, some he won some he lost. the tennis world had their eye on him. some nobody that the tashi donaldson took and rose up. and when his rank was finally higher to jojn an open, covid hit.
“a complete lockdown has just been announced, of course it’s fucking canceled.”
tension was high. in tashi’s mind she’s got a giant shadow from her past that’s she just put so much time in effort into for what is now seeming like no reason. to patrick, he’s counting the days when she realizes that this lockdown will be something hard to come back from and kicks him to the curb. art just feels like a kids again watching his parents fight, so much that he wanted to say but too afraid it’d be the wrong thing and he’d make things worse.
“look, we don’t know how long this will last. we could only be looking at a month, two max. before you know y’all be at the next open.” art finally said, trying to ease some of their nerves.
he couldn’t have been more wrong. it only got worse from there.
“should we let him stay here?”
patrick has been confined to the pool house, and them to the main. the practices have stopped. they hadn’t seen him in a week.
art shrugged at tashi’s question. “i don’t know. i mean it’d be an easier way to stop the germ spread. have us all in the same place.” tashi cocked her head to the side and gave him a look. she could see right through him. “i think you just want an excuse for him to be closer.”
“art. it’s ok new rochelle happen and we never talked about it after. and then i invited back into our lives. it’s ok to want to want him.”
she could see art visibly relax. whatever weight he was carrying from the night getting lighter at the knowledge that tashi understood him.
that night the two of them walked hand in hand to the pool house.
when patrick opened the door they both had to stop themselves from staring at bare chest. “yeah?” he snapped them both from their trance. “we uh… we wanted to ask if you’d like to come up to the main house. to stay.” patrick’s eye flickered between them. “to reduce the spread of germs.” art added. “you can say no.”
they put him in the guest room down the hall from their bed room. he came to every breakfast and dinner. lily even started inviting him to family movie night. things were getting incredibly domestic and it scared them how quick and easily it seemed to have happened.
“tashi will kill you if you come to the movie smelling like that.”
patrick looked back to see art stepping onto the patio to join him. “i’ll shower.” he answered, letting smoke blow out his nose. art’s body moved before his mind, and he couldn’t stop himself from pulling the cigarette from patrick’s lips and slipping it between his own. he took a long drag holding it for a moment before blowing out the smoke, letting his shoulders sag down.
“fuck, been needing that.”
“now you’ll have to shower too.” patrick took the cigarette back.
“yeah. maybe i’ll join you.”
they both bit back a stupid grin.
tashi couldn’t take it anymore. they all need to talk.
patrick felt so out of place standing in the middle of their master bedroom. art was sitting on the bed and tashi standing off by the bathroom door.
tashi broke the uncomfortable silence.
patrick knew what was coming next. “i’ll start packing up-”
“why’d you leave us that night.”
the elephant has been addressed. he wasn’t here so they could kick him, yet, they want to talk which is probably worse.
“why’d you leave without saying anything?”
patrick scoffed. “what, you wanted me to wait around til you both woke up so you could kick me out?”
“that’s not what would have happened.”
“oh, i’m sure.” sarcasm dripping from his words.
“we wanted you to stay.” art’s voice interrupted them from going back and forth. “but you always think you know better than what people want. you never even gave us the chance.”
“love you.” tashi spoke up. “god, you’re always so fucking difficult… i invited you here because yes, i see potential in you, but also because when we’re all together it’s like everything makes sense.”
the two men were silent. they’ve never heard tashi speak so vulnerability.
“i saw something in art come back when you played together. i felt something come back in me. jesus, patrick we need you ok. we need you in our lives not just as a player we’re coaching but as ours.”
“please say something.” art said.
patrick gaped at them a little longer letting her words skink in.
“yes. fuck yes.” was all he needed to say. “i don’t care if it’s too early for, but i love you guys.” he moved fast towards tashi pulling her in for a kiss that caught her off guard, but she quickly recovered. backing him towards the bed where art still sat. the three of them fell into a rhythm similar to the one in new rochelle except this one was slower, they enjoyed each others company.
when morning came patrick was right in the middle where they left him.
