Mila had lost to Tarik three times and remembered all three defeats better than her own birthdays. They played recreational tennis after work at a club where nets were patched and the autumn tournament trophy was smaller than a teacup. Tarik kept coming to the net. Mila kept promising herself she would lob him next time. When he invited her to dinner, her first thought was that he wanted to discover how she trained and what her serve was like.
At dinner they avoided discussing tennis for almost twenty minutes. Both considered that an achievement. Mila led a design team; Tarik ran a small sports shop inherited from his uncle that he was struggling to sustain. Both liked winning because it was a clear event in days full of unfinished work. Their second meeting was in his kitchen. He made too much rice, and she washed the dishes without asking, a habit that led him to request that sometimes she simply sit down.
When they ended up in the same tournament group, friends began teasing Tarik that he would have to let Mila win. She laughed the first time, but not the second. Tarik said it would be interesting to see how she handled losing to her boyfriend. She liked that word more than the whole sentence, but the rest still bothered her. She said she did not want a relationship in which her effort became a shared joke whenever someone felt uncomfortable.
They arrived separately for the match. Mila played patiently; Tarik attacked too much and ultimately lost. He was not immediately pleasant. He shook her hand and went to shower while she gathered the balls alone. That evening he called and admitted being angry with himself and ashamed that he had left her to interpret it. Mila said she did not need a perfect loser, but she needed someone who would not punish her with coldness because she had played well.
The following week he watched her final and loudly protested one poor decision she made, exactly as he would have reacted for a friend. Mila lost the last set. Tarik did not offer his own defeat as consolation. He took her for fries and let her explain the wind in detail for ten minutes. On the way out she booked a court for Thursday. She asked whether he would play. He kissed her and said yes, but that this time he intended to win. That sounded like a perfectly good arrangement.