Page 8 of Love All
“It’s for thegate.You heard him. We’re a ticket.”
“You’re a ticket with excellent ground strokes,” Tess says. “And, look — power-couple energy. The crowd will lose its mind. People love a war they suspect might be foreplay.”
“It is not foreplay.”
“I didn’t say it was. I said they’ll think so. That’s the entire product.” Tess spreads her hands, serene. “You’re welcome. I just sold forty tickets in your head.”
Margo isn’t teasing, though. Margo has gone quiet the way she does about twice a year, and she looks at me — at what I feel instead of what I’m worth, which is the thing the fortress does that the name never has. “Say the word and I’ll go tell Leon to pair you with anyone else alive. Right now. I’ll cry. I’m devastating when I cry. Ask Tess.”
“She is,” Tess confirms. “It’s genuinely upsetting.”
And the worst part, the loose thread I should have pulled while I had the chance, is that I almost say yes.
I almost say yes. Then I don’t.
“It’s fine,” I hear myself say. “It’s two weeks. I can stand anyone for two weeks.” Which is true, and is also not the reason, and Margo knows it isn’t the reason, and grants me the grace the rest of the world never does: she lets the lie stand.
“On the bright side,” Tess offers, “you do have the face for it.”
I pick up my bag. I do not dignify her.
But walking out, I’m already running the draw in my head, his serve, my net, the shape of the two of us on the same side of a line for the first time in our lives — and somewhere under the fury, in a place I’ll deny under oath, something I refuse to name has already sat up, bright and awake, and started, quietly, to look forward to it.
CHAPTER FOUR
Benedict
THE EXHIBITION PAIRINGS go up on the corkboard outside the locker room on a single sheet of paper, and I know which line is mine before I can read it, because six guys are already standing in front of it making the noise.
It’s a specific noise. Somewhere between a stadiumoooohand the hiss of air leaving a slashed tire. You learn it early as an athlete. It means something has happened to somebody, and the somebody is about to find out it happened to them.
“Dead man walking,” Reyes says, parting the crowd like an honor guard at a funeral. “Hawthorne. Buddy. Did you do something to God personally?”
I look at the sheet.
MIXED DOUBLES — FOUNDERS’ EXHIBITION
And there, second line down, in Coach Leon’s flat block capitals, like a verdict, like a dare, like the single best piece of news I’ve gotten all year, an opinion I am determined to keep to myself:
ASTOR / PRESCOTT-HAWTHORNE.
“Two weeks,” Reyes says, with relish. “Two weeks of practices. Withher.She’s going to bury you in a shallow grave on court four and the boosters are going to clap.”
“She might,” I agree, because agreeing is the fastest way to take the air out of a roomful of men enjoying themselves. “She’ll look incredible doing it. I’ll sell tickets to my own funeral. It’s for the children.”
“He’sintoit,” Reyes announces to the room, scandalized. “Look at him. He’s pleased.”
“He’s not pleased, he’s planning,” Julian says from the next stall, not looking up from his laces, because Julian reads me the way other people read a scoreboard. “Which is worse. Pleased wears off.”
“I’m standing right here.”
“We know. We’re discussing you anyway. Builds team chemistry.”
“I’m always pleased. It’s my brand.” I clap his shoulder and head for my locker, and I do not let one single member of this roster see my face do the thing it wants to do, which is something undignified involving my whole chest.
Because here’s the truth I’m not handing out for free: I’ve just been chained to the most interesting person on campus for fourteen days. By official athletic-department decree. With a paying audience, Coach Leon’s blessing, and no way for Charlotte Astor to claim she chose it. Shecan’trun; the scheduling won’t let her. For two weeks the most relentless avoider I’ve ever met has to stand four feet from me and learn my rhythm, and her only option is to show up furious, which happens to be one of my favorite things in the world to watch her be.
And then there’s the doubles of it, which occurred to me approximately one second after theherpart did. Charlotte doesn’t playwithpeople. She playsatthem. She’s the best singles player I’ve ever shared a facility with for exactly one reason: she decided, sometime around age eleven, that a partner is just a second person standing close enough to lose your matchfor you. Now she has to put half a court in my hands and trust me not to drop it. Twice a day. Two weeks. Paying crowd.
