Slammed, стр. 30
I shrugged. “Sorry? I mean, you know how it is. We’re all friends until the coin toss, then it’s every woman for herself.”
“6-1, 6-1 is not exactly a great match,” Toni argued. “Damn, I knew you were good. You were great the last time we played, but at least I felt I was in it that time. At one point I thought the line judge was going to forfeit the match for me out of pity.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, reaching out to squeeze her arm. “It wasn’t that bad. Sometimes when a rhythm builds up…”
“Well, if I had to have my ass handed to me, I’m glad it was by you.” Toni’s groan as she said it suggested ‘glad’ was still quite a way off. “Don’t you have to go do your press conference now? Tell the world how you swept me aside?”
“In a few minutes.” They’d come looking for me; Parisa would already be watching the clock. “If it’s any consolation, I really didn’t enjoy it.”
“You didn’t enjoy beating me?” Toni looked faintly amused. “Do you usually enjoy it? With other people?”
“Oh yes.” I nodded my head harder than I needed to. “I mean, I wouldn’t still be doing this if I didn’t love crushing mere mortals, would I?” It was a joke, of course. Please, let her have taken it as one.
“I guess I did call you a goddess and all. Didn’t realise it would go to your head.”
God help me, she actually reached across and rapped her knuckles gently on my head, as though checking for a hollow sound. I think my knees were close to buckling.
“Elin!” Parisa called from the hallway.
I sighed. “Duty calls.”
“Tell them I was gracious in defeat. And when you come back, you can tell me where we’re getting that drink tonight.”
“You really want to get a drink with me?”
“It might be nice to do it on purpose, instead of just finding you hiding in a bar, right?”
“Well, we could meet at my hotel—”
Toni raised an eyebrow.
“No, wait! I mean it has this fancy cocktail bar, on the roof? But you probably know a bunch of cooler places in Brooklyn or something, right?”
“Brooklyn?” Toni shuddered, and I mentally awarded myself a point over Alice. “If I wanted to drink out of jars and see men with terrible beards, there are cheaper ways. No, I like fancy. Where are you staying?”
“Elin!” Great. Mother had joined forces with Parisa in the hallway. There must have been some big-name journalists waiting instead of just the stringers.
“Coming! I’m at the Palace. If you’re gone before I’m done, I’ll see you there at seven?”
“Nice and early. I guess you do have a quarterfinal to prepare for.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s all good,” Toni assured me, and just to compound my state of panic, she leaned in to kiss me lightly on the cheek. No big deal. With my closer friends we did it all the time, over the net at the end of matches. Greeting each other at events. No. Big. Deal.
So why was my cheek tingling? Why did I feel myself blushing like I had a sudden, noticeable sunburn? If Toni noticed, she was classy enough not to say anything.
“Go knock ’em dead,” she commanded, and I found myself on auto pilot towards the door. I pulled my sweatband off and shoved it in the pocket of my tracksuit. Fixing my fringe, I let my hair down and mussed it enough to make it look intentional before facing my mother and Parisa.
“Okay,” I said, all business as the door closed behind me. “What am I saying out there?”
Alice was treating herself to an in-room massage when I returned.
“I think that was probably meant for me,” I said, rotating my aching shoulders to drive the point home.
“Oh, Miss Larsson, there was a booking for two, so you can go right after.”
I smiled at her. The girl looked barely twenty, even in her professional white scrubs.
“No problem,” I said, throwing myself down on the sofa next to the massage table. “Make sure you really dig in on her lower back, though.”
Alice flipped me off from where she looked perfectly blissed out under a white towel. “Ignore her, I have a disc problem there.”
“O…kay?”
“Sorry,” I said, not wanting to get our poor masseuse in trouble because of sisters and our endless games. “I’m Elin, by the way.”
“Jasmine. And uh, I know. I’m a really big fan. When I played tennis in school, I used to always pretend to be you.” She dipped her head at the admission. “Sorry, is that really sad?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s sweet. Honestly.”
“If you’re going to keep talking and ruin my bliss, could you at least bring me some gossip?” Alice demanded. I stood up and started prowling the bedroom for something to keep me occupied. I was deliberately not looking at my phone, not for at least an hour. No matter how often it beeped.
“No gossip,” I replied. “I mean, I won my match. But you don’t usually care too much about that stuff.”
Alice answered with a grunt as Jasmine finished up working on her shoulders.
“Then why are you pacing like a caged tiger? Usually after you win, you’re the happiest girl on earth.”
“I’m happy. Well, I didn’t love beating Toni or anything, but that’s the game, right?”
“Toni, is it?”
“Don’t start.”
Alice probably had more teasing in store, but when she looked over at me, I nodded at Jasmine, who moved off to clean her hands and pick out from fresh towels from her bag. Not in front of outsiders.
I sat back down on the sofa. “It wasn’t personal. It’s our job. My career. She understands.”
“I think that’s called being a good loser,” Alice said. “I mean, if she hates you, she’s hardly going to say so to your face, is she?”
“She doesn’t hate me. If she did, why would we be going for drinks