Against the Score

chapter 5

Bakley's POV

I arrived at the press conference ten minutes early and still felt late.

The room was already full—cameras, microphones, the same PR faces that had orchestrated yesterday’s mixed-zone chaos.

Arthur sat at the far end of the long table, posture perfect, expression locked. He didn’t look up when I took the empty chair two seats away. The space between us felt deliberate.

Management opened with the expected questions. The exhibition result. The ranking points. The old “distraction” quote resurfacing in every headline. Then the personal comments.

“Bakley,” one reporter called, “you confirmed you’re dating someone. Has that changed the dynamic with Arthur?”

My shoulder still ached from Vivian’s work and from the way Arthur had looked at us the night before. I kept my voice even.

“It hasn’t changed anything on the court. The rivalry stays the same.”

Arthur’s fingers tapped once against the table—small, controlled. He spoke without turning his head.

“Agreed. Personal lives are irrelevant. Results are not.”

The questions kept coming. I answered what I had to. Arthur answered less. The tension in the room was thick enough that even the moderators glanced between us more than once.

Then the head of the tour association stepped to the podium and the tone shifted.

“We have an additional announcement,” she said.

“Effective immediately, the Carson and Davenport teams will collaborate for the upcoming Continental Championship. Both squads will merge into a single joint entry. The goal is a unified run at the title.”

Murmurs rolled through the press corps. My spine straightened. Arthur’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

The official continued. “Leadership will be decided internally. One team captain will be named before the first group stage.

The selection process begins today. Both players are eligible. Both are expected to compete for the role.”

Compete.

The word landed like a second serve I hadn’t prepared for.

A reporter leaned forward. “So the rivalry continues inside the same team?”

Arthur’s voice cut across the room, calm and sharp.

“It never stopped. Now it simply has a new scoreboard.”

I felt the old heat rise under my skin. Eight years of public executions.

Last night’s misunderstanding is still raw. And now we would share a locker room, a strategy table, and a captaincy fight that would put one of us in charge of the other.

Management smiled for the cameras.

“We believe the collaboration will elevate the championship. The infinity rivalry between Carson and Davenport has always driven viewership. Now it drives a team.”

Infinity rivalry. The phrase was already being typed into live blogs.

The conference ended in a blur of follow-up questions. I stood there the moment we were released. Arthur was already moving toward the exit. I followed because the alternative was letting the announcement sit unanswered.

We reached the service corridor behind the media room. Arthur stopped only when the door closed and the noise of the press faded.

“You heard them,” Arthur said. “One captain. I won’t share the armband with someone who uses physio tables and fake relationships as weapons.”

My laugh was short and hard. “It wasn’t fake. And Vivian was doing her job. You walked in looking for a reason to hate me harder. Congratulations. You found one.”

Arthur stepped closer. The corridor lights threw sharp shadows across his face.

“I don’t need to look. You give me new reasons every time you open your mouth. Yesterday you told the world you’d moved on.

Last night you let her hands stay on you long enough for me to see it. Today you sit two seats away and pretend the captaincy is just another ranking race.”

“It is a ranking race,” I said. “Only now the prize is control of the team. Including you.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed. The controlled stillness cracked just enough to show the heat underneath.

“Then understand this. I will take the captaincy. And when I do, every decision, every lineup, every practice will remind you exactly who left whom eight years ago and why.”

I held my ground.

The air between us felt charged, the same electric distance that had lived in every hotel hallway and every changeover since the night Arthur walked out.

“You’re still telling yourself you left for me,” I said. “Keep the story. It doesn’t change the fact that I’ll fight you for that armband the same way I fight you for every point.”

Arthur’s mouth curved into the coldest version of the smirk he had worn after the exhibition.

“Good. I prefer it when you stop pretending the war is only on the court.”

A staff member appeared at the end of the corridor, tablet in hand..

“Gentlemen. Selection committee meeting in twenty minutes. Both of you are required. They’re starting with captaincy criteria.”

Arthur turned away first. I watched the line of his shoulders disappear around the corner.

The joint team. The championship. The competition for captain.

And the certainty that the rivalry had just been given a new, permanent stage—one that would force us into the same rooms, the same decisions, and the same unfinished past until one of us finally broke.

My phone vibrated.

A message from the selection committee:

Captaincy evaluation begins with a private closed-door session. Carson and Davenport only. Report immediately.

I stared at the screen. The corridor was empty. Somewhere ahead Arthur was already walking toward the room where we would be locked in together with no cameras and no buffer.

The infinity rivalry had just been given a locked door.