lies in the eyes of love

by strawberrybug139

Summary:

college was messy for gisele evans. really fucking messy. and she'd thought it was over. wished it was over.
and it had been, for a while. tashi and art were on billboards. gigi and patrick were living paycheck to paycheck. the last place she'd expected to see tashi donaldson was across the stands from her at phil's tire town.
challengers, yet again.

Notes:

hi guys so this is completely a passion project of mine which may be a complete shit show that's all bye xx

GISELE - 01
Stanford, California. 2007

California was hot. Stanford was hot. Gisele was fucking pissed. She had no right to be, technically. Tashi’s boyfriend was none of her business, technically. Patrick Zweig. They’d seen him over the summer, of course. Watched his matches. Talked to him and his little friend at parties. Gigi didn’t care much about him. Or Art, really. Just Tashi. Just wanted to see her win. Wanted to see her happy. Who didn’t?
She backhanded the ball into the net. “Fuck!” Her racket clattered onto the hot court. Tashi just stood there, leaning on one leg, the bitch.
“You’re not focusing.”
“Fuck off, Tash.”
“Just saying.” Tashi paced over to the net, wiping sweat off her brow absently. “If you want to start winning-”
“Can we just play?”
Tashi flipped her racket, smirking.
“Up to you.”
Gisele picked her racket up from the ground, adjusting her skort. They stood there for a second. Out of breath. Sweaty. “Serve, then.” Gisele snapped.
“What’s your issue?” Tashi snorted, pulling her ponytail tighter.
They had always been friends. The term best friends was childish, in Gigi’s opinion, but it had always been like that. In high school, their names were always smushed together, like they were one person. TashiandGigi. GigiandTashi. Tashi had been her first real kiss, in the eighth grade at Lilah Evans’s party. Just so she would know how to kiss boys properly, they said. It was that kind of friendship. Tashi, to Gisele, was a contradiction. She loved her. She feared her. She loved her.
“I’m just tired, ok?” Gigi said, dismissively. She wasn’t really. A flash of blonde hair caught her attention. Usually, it was only her and Tashi at the courts this time of day. Everyone else was coming back from classes, having dinner, whatever. That's why Tashi liked it so much. Another person showing up was like a blip. Gigi turned. She almost instantly regretted it. Art fucking Donaldson. He waved and smiled that big cheesy ass smile of his. Gigi wanted to roll her eyes.
“Art, hi!” Tashi said, loud enough for him to hear across from the court. He jogged over, crookedly grinning.
“Hi. I was just, uh, coming to practice my serves.”
“Alone?” Gigi snorted, propping a hand onto her hip.
“Well I knew you guys were here.” He said, pushing his hair out of his face. His nose was beaded with sweat.
“How?”
“You guys are always here. Rally?”