Losing at Love (11 page)

“In London. We decided to tell everyone in London.”

“That’s good. I can’t wait to get out of here. If I have to watch that bitch sink her claws into Teddy again…”

“Wait. What?”

“Amy. She was all over him at breakfast today and he wouldn’t even look at me. It’s like it’s happening all over again.”

“It is.”

“What do you mean?”

“He asked me not to say anything, but this morning, when I came out of my room, Teddy was sneaking out of hers.”

Jasmine felt her heart twist and she tried to muster some shock, but she wasn’t all that surprised. “He’s such an idiot.”

“Well, clearly.”

“No, you don’t get it. You weren’t here when she broke up with him. She basically destroyed him. He didn’t speak to anyone for weeks. Then all of a sudden, he was at a beach party slobbering all over some girl’s face and laughing like nothing happened. Then after the match today, she dragged me along on their breakfast to ‘catch up’ like some third wheel and he just went along with it, like she’s got some kind of spell over him.”

Indy tilted her head. “First loves have a weird kind of power over us like that. You know that better than anyone.”

“I do?”

“Why else did you go to breakfast with them, Jas?”

“Crap.”

June 18th

Alex was already up and moving around the bedroom when Penny opened her eyes. She could hear him opening and closing drawers in his dresser and digging through the mess on top of his nightstand to find his watch. Just like every morning lately, her first instinct was to point her toes and then rotate her ankle. She waited for the pain, the dull ache that accompanied the movement, but there was nothing, just her ankle twisting in a circle one way and then the other, but no pain, not even a twinge. Spinning her legs out from under the covers and planting her feet firmly on the floor, she waited again, pushing a little at the injury. Nothing. So, she stood up, making sure to keep her weight evenly balanced and then leaned her full body to the injured side. The tiniest of twinges, but then it held strong.

“Alex,” she said, staring at the joint, not sure if she was still dreaming.

“Yeah, love?” he called back distractedly.

“Would you mind if I took up some of your practice time today?”

“What?” He spun around, his hair still sticking up from the night’s sleep. “Are you sure?”

“It feels…” she trailed off, rotating the ankle again to make sure. “It feels good.” Or at least it felt better than it had since she hurt it.

Alex crossed the room and tapped her shoulder, guiding her back to the bed. Kneeling in front of her, he took her leg in his hand, cupping her foot by the heel. His thumb pressed into the joint, increasing the pressure and looking up at her for a reaction. She just shook her head, her smile growing with every moment she didn’t feel pain.

Leaning forward, she took his face in her hands. “I’m training today,” she said before brushing her lips over his.

His hands came up to cover hers and he squeezed gently. “You’re going to stretch and wrap it tight and take it easy, but yeah, you’re gonna train. My mum is going to meet up with you before the final tonight, so no overdoing it and using that as an excuse to get out of it.”

“Me? Never.” she said and he ran a finger up the bottom of her foot, one of her few ticklish spots. She fell back onto the bed and let out a squeal, pulling her foot away. Alex came with her, landing on his side, propping himself up on his elbow.

“Dom’s gonna kill me for letting you work out without him.”

“Dom’s a big boy. He’ll get over it.”

“You promise me you’ll take it easy.”

“Promise.”

“You want me to hit with you?”

“Nah, you need to put in a tough workout. I know exactly who to call.”

As soon as she walked out onto the Queens practice courts, it was pretty obvious that word had spread about her taking up part of Alex’s hitting session. Reporters were lining the edge of the court, kept back by the fences and security. Photographers had their cameras poised, looking for any sign of weakness, a limp, a grimace of pain, anything to write about and call into question her chances of winning Wimbledon.

“Penny,” Natalie Grogan said, jogging up to her as she stepped onto the court.

“Hey, glad you could make it.”

“Oh my God, of course! I was so excited when my dad told me you called.”

“You ready to get started?”

She had stretched out fully in the trainer’s room after getting her ankle wrapped up tight, so she was pretty much ready to go and didn’t want to waste any more of Alex’s practice time than necessary.

“Let’s do it. Just moving around the court a little bit, get some serves in, baseline and then net work.”

“Sounds good to me!”

The grass was a little slick after a few days of the tournament players using it far more than the usual club members, but it felt good under her feet, solid and a little cushioning. Natalie was a good player, a little rough around the edges still, but they gave each other a decent workout. She tried to put her ankle out of her mind, but as they crept close to the hour and a half they’d agreed on, she began to feel it twinge as she worked through her serving arsenal, growing a little worse with each impact. It was only the first day, so Penny felt pretty good about how long it held up. She waved Natalie to the net.

“That’s good for now.”

Natalie’s face fell a little bit, but then she brightened again, racing to her racket bag and pulling out her phone. “Can we do another selfie?”

“As long as you don’t mind us looking like a sweaty mess,” Penny said with a laugh.

“Please, I’m always a sweaty mess.”

“Me too, up until recently. It’s actually nice to feel like this again.”

“Are you kidding? You always look fabulous.
Seventeen
had this whole thing about your off-court style. Flawless.”

Penny grabbed her phone and held it out, tilting her head toward the other girl. “Okay, stupidest face you can imagine,” she said, twisting her mouth into a snarl and crossing her eyes. Natalie blew her cheeks up like a balloon and they snapped the pic. “Okay and now duck face.” They pursed their lips and took another selfie.

“Awesome.” Natalie took her phone back. “How’s your ankle feeling?”

Glancing down at it, Penny shrugged. “Wrapped so tight I don’t even know. I’ll ice it and see how it feels later tonight.”

“If you need another hitting partner, just give me a call. I mean, I know you’ll probably want to hit with Indiana Gaffney when she gets here tomorrow. She’s like your best friend, right? But I thought she might be busy because she’s playing doubles qualifying with Jasmine Randazzo and then the juniors too, so if you need anyone, I’d love to help out.”

“You’ll be my first call, Nat. Promise.”

“Great! Oh, and is your brother coming tomorrow too? The blogs were saying that the OBX girls were, but they didn’t say anything about Jack and my dad wanted to talk to him about some business stuff, I think.”

Penny brightened. She knew Jack had had his eye on Natalie for a little while as a possible client, but up until this week, she hadn’t given any indication that she planned on signing with an agent. He’d be thrilled. She made a mental note to text him from the trainer’s room. “He’ll be here tomorrow too. Hopefully, they can get together.”

“Yeah, that’d be awesome. I’ll see you later.”

Penny showered quickly and pulled on her favorite white eyelet dress, letting her hair air dry, the dark brown curls falling down her back, completing the look with brown leather flip flops, gold metal fixtures near the toes that wouldn’t interfere with her ankle wrap.

~

“Well done,” Anna Russell said as Penny took the seat next to her at the edge of the practice court.

“Thanks. It’s nice to get back out on the court.”

“How does your ankle feel?”

Penny glanced down at the large ice pack wrapped securely around her foot, numbing the joint. “I can’t feel it right now, but it’ll be sore tonight. Shouldn’t be too bad though. Not like it was in France.”

“It was extraordinary, what you did there. I was on the edge of my seat for that last game. I haven’t felt that way during a tennis match in a long time. Not even when Alex was playing.”

“Thank you.”

She didn’t know what else to say and the silence hung in the air like a dead man at the end of a noose. Death a foregone conclusion, just the agony of waiting for it to happen remained.

Thankfully, Anna knew how to make small talk. She pushed through the awkwardness like one of her son’s serves. “How do you like London so far?”

“Haven’t really seen much of it. Just the airport, the courts and Alex’s house.”

“You’ve been here before though, haven’t you?”

“Last year for juniors.”

“Which you won. Rather spectacularly, if I recall.”

“I did.” She didn’t know Alex’s mom had seen her play before.

“I can’t wait to see you play in the main draw this year. Even taking away my new bias in your direction, you’ve been one of my favorite players to watch for some time now. Truly.”

“Thank you.”

The conversation stalled again. Penny never felt like this before, there were no words, nothing to say that wouldn’t be completely mortifying. They watched Alex continue his warm-ups, he and Paolo trading groundstrokes and keeping up a verbal sparring match at the same time. Their usual routine, half in English, half in Italian and mostly aspersions on everything about the other, none of which were taken the least bit seriously.

“Penny, you don’t have to be embarrassed around me, sweetheart.”

The tension broke and Penny chewed on her lower lip before responding. “Yes, I really do.”

“You think that’s the first time I’ve walked in on Alex and one of his girlfriends?”

“That’s the thing, I don’t care what the press thinks or what other people think, but I don’t want to be
one of his girlfriends.
Not to you.”

“You’re not.”

“Feels like it. I mean, not that you made me feel that way, just that… I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

Anna placed a hand on top of the fingers Penny was twisting together so hard they were beginning to turn purple. “You’re not. He made us dinner reservations for tonight so we could get to know each other. Do you know how many girls my son has asked me to go to dinner with, to even have a conversation with, to meet at all?”

“No.”

“One. You. Just you.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, indeed. I’ve never been thrilled with the women Alex has been with in the past, but he’s a grown man and he’s been making his own decisions for a long time. Since he was a little boy, really. You, my dear, are one of the best decisions he has ever made. The change in him, I swear.”

“Change?”

“You might love my son, Penny, but you don’t know him. Not really, not yet. He is different and it is clearly because of you.”

“I…”

“It’s not a bad thing. I haven’t seen him this happy in a very long time. Years.”

“And you think that’s because of me? He just won the French Open. He’s going to win Wimbledon again. I don’t…”

“A mother knows.”

“Knows what?”

“When her son’s found the woman he’s supposed to be with for the rest of his life.” Penny let the words sink in and didn’t respond for a moment and then another. Anna reached out and took her hand. “I’m sorry, was that too much?”

“No.” Her voice cracked a little. “No, it wasn’t and I think — I think that’s what’s scary.”

“Let me guess, this wasn’t part of your plan?”

“No, I…tennis is — was everything.”

“For him too, since he was just yea high,” she said, lining her hand up with her thigh. “I enrolled him in anything that would keep him busy enough to tire him out. Football, cricket, basketball. Tennis was the only thing that stuck.”

“Didn’t play well with others?”

“Well spotted. He liked boxing too, but I put a stop to that.”

“I was the same way. I hated relying on other people to help me win.”

“You two are so different and yet so alike. You have tennis, your family, your friends,” she nodded out toward the court, “and now each other.”

“I think that’s why it works.”

“I think so too.”

“I’m so sorry that was the first impression you got of me. I know you say it’s not a big deal, but it is to me. I don’t…that’s not something I take lightly. I fought it for a long time. Too long, maybe, but you have to know, I do love him, very much.”

“Sweetheart, I think that’s pretty clear and I’m sorry too.”

“For what?”

“For not knocking.”

Anna laughed lightly and nudged Penny a little and though she fought it for a moment, her laughter was contagious.

“This can’t be good. I don’t need you two teaming up,” Alex said, tossing himself into the seat beside Penny, pressing a sweaty kiss against her temple. “Everything all right?” he whispered against her hair so his mother couldn’t hear. She squeezed his arm gently in a silent “yes.”

“You’re doomed,” Anna said, smiling widely at her son. “Outnumbered from here on out, darling.”

“Your mother was just telling me about when you were little.”

Alex groaned dramatically, burying his face in her shoulder, his scruff scraping against the skin before he pressed a soft kiss there. “Okay, back to it. Mum don’t give away all my secrets. Penny already knows too much about me, any more and she might bolt.”

“I don’t know,” Anna said, smiling widely. “I think she might be here to stay. Lord help her.”

“You both ready to watch me kick some ass?”

“Absolutely,” Penny said, lacing her fingers through his and letting him pull her up from the seat.

~

Penny and Anna were ushered to front row seats at the Queens center court. It was much more intimate than the center courts at the Grand Slams. The clubhouse lined one side of the court and temporary seating along the club’s famous trellis added a second viewing level. The other side of the court was long, sloped theater seating, providing a great view even from the worst seats. A lottery had been held months earlier to decide who would receive tickets, much like the one held for Wimbledon, club members of course taking priority over the rest of the public.