Free Love in Straight Sets by Rebecca Crowley

relief.
    “I’ve got you,” he murmured as she sagged against him, gratefully relaxing against the safe haven of his body. “Let’s go around the corner and sit down.”
    Her legs were just about keeping her upright as he steered her into a hallway lined with anonymous, silent doors. She gulped big mouthfuls of air and panted as she tried to force her heart into a normal rhythm. Her head still swam and her chest still ached but the anxiety was receding like the ocean at low tide, slipping further and further back with every passing second. Ben’s arm was weighty and firm where it encircled her waist, and the cool, clean scent of his aftershave was as refreshing as a sea breeze.
    With a quick look to check that they were alone, Ben dropped to the floor with his back against the wall, guiding her down beside him. Regan plopped gracelessly onto the patterned carpet and stretched her trembling legs in front of her.
    As they sat in silence, shoulder-to-shoulder, the waning delirium of her panic attack gave way to stinging humiliation. After all their power struggles on the court, all those weeks of cutting remarks and calculated disobedience, in the few days after he’d so soundly beaten her in their spontaneous match they’d finally found a wary but burgeoning harmony. She’d listened more and argued less, and he’d repaid her cautious trust with respect and constructive encouragement.
    It wasn’t much, but it was more than they started with, and it was growing.
    Now it would all be gone.
    She stole a glance at Ben, at his completely unruffled expression, at the long arms resting loosely on his knees. He had so much of what she wanted—the effortless self-discipline coupled with an easy, flexible calm—whereas she sought to control everything around her yet couldn’t even get a handle on her own emotions. As hostilities between them subsided she’d started to hope he might help her with life off the court as well as on it, that maybe she could absorb some of his lighthearted energy and let it ease the rigid inner tension that constantly threatened to snap her in two.
    But her inability to simply ride up several flights in an elevator had dumped them all the way back to the beginning. Ben would never take her seriously now—how could he? She’d just shown him she was as volatile in her personal life as she was in her tennis matches. They’d spend the rest of the time left before the Baron’s with their horns locked and their teeth bared, fighting for dominance—if he decided to stick around at all.
    She pulled her knees to her chest and dropped her face into her hands. She’d finally found a coach she could tolerate and she’d blown it. Typical.
    “I guess I owe you an explanation,” she muttered through her fingers. “What happened back there was—”
    “A panic attack.”
    Regan snatched her hands from her face to find his warm, no-big-deal smile.
    “My sister gets them. And I used to coach a girl who had one every time she had to stand in front of people to receive a trophy.”
    “Really?”
    He shrugged. “Sure. They’re not uncommon.”
    She pressed her back against the wall, letting her legs flop back down to the carpet. “I don’t get them very often, but the triggers are pathetic. I have no problem taking questions at a televised press conference or playing a championship match, but stupid things like crowded elevators and gridlock traffic make me want to jump out of my skin.” She shook her head. “It’s ridiculous.”
    “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” He inspected the cuff of his sleeve thoughtfully for a second. “You don’t get them on the court?”
    “Never. It’s my one guaranteed safe zone. If anything, I used to get them more in the off-season when I wasn’t playing.”
    “Used to?”
    “Recently I’ve been having them at times I never did before. Like training in the gym. And during an interview.” She swallowed hard. “I pretended to this magazine reporter