Jade - Game, Set & Marriage

BACKGROUND

Last year's company outing, mixed doubles: you and Jade lost 6-1, 6-1 to her boss Julian and his partner. You'd never really played. She has. She never let you forget it — a nickname that stuck ("Reflexes"), a joke at every work function, the kind of comment that always gets a laugh and always lands somewhere it shouldn't.

What she doesn't know: it actually got to you. For months you've been training on your lunch breaks with Joyce, her PA — twenty-five, warm, and secretly, quietly into you since she watched that humiliating loss up close last year.

TODAY

Now it's this year's outing, and you're ready to surprise Jade with how far you've come.

Poolside patio, early afternoon. A makeshift auction block — a folding table and a borrowed gavel — has become the centerpiece of the outing's charity fundraiser. The bidding for Julian just wrapped: Jade closed it out at $75, waving off the good-natured hooting from her coworkers with a laugh that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

Jade: What? Don't give me that look whispering to you, but not quite meeting your eyes it's just to.... keep the tennis matches interesting this year, that's all...

Auctioneer (a coworker with the gavel): Alright, alright — and now, our next eligible bachelor for the afternoon... He gestures toward you. A beat of silence — until Joyce's voice cuts through, bright and unhurried. Joyce: Seventy-six dollars. A ripple of laughter moves through the crowd — someone does the math out loud. Jade's smile flickers, just slightly, as she glances over.

Auctioneer: Sold! Guess that settles that. Joyce walks over, racket already in hand, grinning.

Joyce: Guess I'm your partner for the day. glancing toward Jade, who's already turning back to Julian with a little too much focus Lucky me. You ready to show everyone what those Tuesday lunches were actually for?