Slammed, стр. 34
“Same muscle?” My mother came to sit beside me, touching gently but firmly with both hands. Despite her briskness, it didn’t actually hurt more. She’d been a nurse before she’d quit to become my full-time coach. For a moment, I was back in our house in Stockholm, sitting on the stairs with a scraped knee and trying not to cry.
I nodded, and she started rooting around in her purse for something. A moment later, I hissed at the cold swipe of ibuprofen gel.
“Tack,” I said, thanking her as it soaked in. The stuff worked fast. I was going to be fit for the winner’s walkthrough then, with all the handshakes and polite cheek kisses that came with it. Less royalty this time, but still some pretty fancy names and the faces to go with them. The editor of Vogue, a couple of Oscar winners; I hadn’t really been paying attention. No doubt a politician or two.
“It’s okay,” my mother insisted as I pulled my shirt and the light windbreaker-type jacket back into place. “Just get through this and you can have some time off. Nothing matters until Singapore.”
“Right,” I said through gritted teeth. “Singapore.” She meant the end-of-year finals. The GTA held them at the end of every season to confirm the rankings that had been racked up and dropped over the calendar year. They used to make us go right through to the start of December, leaving us about two actual weeks off all year with no tournaments to play. Thankfully, some smart and organised female players had banded together and requested a shorter season; the men were still working on it, since their tournaments were a whole separate organisation.
In that moment, Singapore seemed a hundred years away, but I got myself back on my feet just as Ezi arrived.
“You want me to take a look now?”
“No, but as soon as I can get out of the glad-handing?”
Ezi gave me a quick hug and went to collect her things.
“Come on, Mamma, let’s go do the rounds,” I said. “Look, we made it to twenty-one.”
I had taken my phone from the depths of my kit bag and it vibrated in my pocket as we walked over to the big reception in the stadium’s impressive event space.
Congrats. You were great out there. Sorry for ever suggesting you don’t want it enough. Guess that makes me the asshole.
I smiled. I had worked my ass off for it out there, it was true. The pain in my side had dampened the high of winning but not entirely.
Not such an asshole, but I forgive you anyway. I’ll call you later when I’m done with the posing and the ass-kissing. They’re all lined up and waiting.
I didn’t get a chance to check the replies for a while after that, swept into the compliments and the room packed with VIPs waiting their turn and their exclusive snap for their social media. When I finally grabbed a drink and a seat later, I was a little concerned at how tired my legs felt just from the extra standing around. I really wasn’t getting any younger, and these new aches and pains would keep cropping up when I went this hard.
“Good match,” Fatima said as she breezed past, her handsome movie-star boyfriend, David, on her arm. I liked him a lot, and despite his own busy career where he headlined hundred-million-dollar movies, he made it to a lot of tournaments to support his woman. I owed David a reply about playing in a charity tournament for their foundation back in Trinidad.
I waved at them both in acknowledgement, hoping nobody else would notice my quiet corner. As I sat back in my chair, my pocket vibrated again.
So you have to get in line for that? Good to know.
Wait. Was that some kind of flirting? I mean, I’d been talking about my ass. Technically. I drank my glass of champagne in one gulp, and the bubbles tickled my nose.
Where are you? I asked, realising I hadn’t seen her once in the chaos.
No immediate reply. I scanned the room as discreetly as I could without standing, but it was too packed to tell much.
I had to go, my flight is actually in a few hours but I couldn’t miss the final. Your sis is lovely, she came out and got me a car and everything. She’ll be back in now.
Sure enough, I looked up and saw Alice approaching with her own glass of champagne and a whole tray of canapés.
“Your little girlfriend is off to JFK.”
“She’s not my—”
“You sure about that?” Alice took the seat next to me, giving me the once over before extending the platter of crab puffs in my direction. “I was getting chapter and verse on how great you are, and how lucky she was to be there. And she’s right, even I know you kicked seven kinds of ass out there. So what’s up with you?”
I took my time stuffing the little puffs of pastry in my mouth so I didn’t have to answer. I know, very classy for the tournament winner to be pulling faces with her cheeks full of crab, but sometimes Alice brought out the kid in me.
“Who’s says anything’s up?”
“You’ve got that pinched look, like you’re sitting on broken glass but you don’t want to cause a fuss.” Always with the cute turn of phrase, my sister.
“Hip being a little bitch again. Nothing to worry about,” I said, wrapped around a sigh. My mother was gesturing from where she was talking to someone who might have been a rock star or just really into leather and eyeliner. I turned just enough on my chair that I could plausibly ignore her. At least having Alice to talk to had stopped some of the hovering people glancing over to see