Slammed, стр. 29
“Well, we don’t want to wear out the fresh paint too early, do we? You’ve met Toni before?” I gestured to her, not wanting to look like a snob by excluding her from our catch-up.
“Miss Cortes Ruiz.” Mohammed bowed slightly before offering his hand, and she fumbled her racquet from one side of her body to the other in order to meet it with her own. “A pleasure. You were quite something in the first round.”
“Thank you,” she replied, shaking his hand with enthusiasm. Poor Mohammed looked a little startled.
I thought maybe I should distract them before his shoulder got dislocated. “Good crowd today?”
“Not bad for the end of the first week. There are some VIPs, of course. We’ll introduce you around after the match.”
The PA system from outside boomed into life, though we were insulated from the worst of it.
“Looks like they’re playing our song,” I said to Toni, whose smile wavered for the first time since she’d arrived.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Loser buys the first drink after?”
“You know how I like my martini.”
We followed Mohammed down the corridor and out onto the court. Not quite the winding maze of Wimbledon, just gladiators thrown directly to the lions.
Hard courts made for fast, sometimes brutal, matches. We walked with slightly squeaking soles around the green section of the floor around the dark-blue court, taking our places either side of the umpire up on her elevated seat. I hadn’t checked her name, but I remembered her face. The top-level umpires travelled with the tour, and she was relatively new. She’d told me off in Melbourne for smacking my racquet off the ground after a double fault, deducting a point for my temper.
Okay, maybe I had deserved that one. She gave me a knowing look as we moved to start the warmup rallies.
Once I saw Toni across the net from me, I started to remember our previous match in Paris. She’d come right after me, like we were both juniors with nothing to lose and not much difference in our rankings. The way she started to hit even in this loose warmup suggested she’d be bringing the same big hits. Her two-handed backhand came at me like I’d talked about her mother, and it had taken a quick adjustment to be able to return it.
All too soon the match was underway, the crowd a little restless given the early afternoon start. Fridays were always strange mid-tournament. The second week usually provided the big drama. I wasn’t defending champion this year either: Celeste had kicked me out in the semis last year, on her way to winning the whole thing.
Toni won the toss and opted to serve first, which was common in players against me. They figured they’d have a chance to rack up the first game quickly, reduce the risk of me getting into my stride and leaving them with a zero for that set. I’d done that to more than a few players in my time, after all.
She looked good, with her cute little bandana, the same black and neon green as her shorts and tank top. Her dark hair was pulled up high in a ponytail, and on that front at least we matched. Thankfully, New York had gone for a bearable sort of grey day, far from the scorching heat of Australia in January. My navy-blue-and-gold dress felt good, felt almost like wearing nothing at all, which is really what you want in sportswear. The matching Lycra shorts underneath would be on display at moments I hadn’t even considered, but that sort of thinking always melted away as soon as the first serve came at me.
She started with an ace.
Fifteen-love, the umpire confirmed. I had to get my head in the game, and quickly. Toni’s smile was long gone, replaced by an expression of total concentration. Unfortunately for me, that was somehow even more attractive. I managed to stop staring long enough to return her serve the next time, but she took that point with a sneaky net shot I hadn’t seen coming.
Okay, losing the first game was hardly a deal-breaker. I took a deep breath, the nagging tightness in the depths of my chest flaring at me, a reminder that I didn’t always have this under control. I held my racquet loose and confident, bending forward in anticipation of what would come to my baseline next.
Toni tossed the ball in the air for her next serve, and from that moment she all but disappeared. Just a shape, just the blur moving behind the ball. All that mattered was beating that blur.
Game on.
Chapter Eleven
“Jesus!” Toni gasped as the locker room door closed behind us. The private dressing rooms were now the territory of whoever was playing on court after us. Our things had been thoughtfully relocated by Mohammed’s ever-competent staff. I moved straight for my locker, tucked in the corner away from all the others. Number 19. Some people said it must be lucky; I just liked a little consistency in a life where I was somewhere different every other week.
I didn’t know what to say to her.
I never did really, after matches like that. I considered some platitude or other, but as I turned to say it, she unleashed a torrent of Spanish with her head pressed against her own locker door, racquet bag still over her shoulder. Something about madre and then something else about leche. The speed and the furious tone made me glad that while I spoke fluent French, Swedish, and English, with a decent grasp of German, I had never been able to retain much in Spanish beyond dos cervezas, por favor. All the more annoying when I didn’t even drink beer.
Hoping it wouldn’t backfire, I dropped my things in the locker and turned to comfort her. “Hey, it was a good match.”
“Are you kidding?” She faced me then,