Chapter Seven Juliette
SEVEN JULIETTE
Juliette does not win Roland-Garros.
Luckily, neither does Luca Kacic.
They both lose in the quarterfinals, narrowly avoiding a Grand Slam rematch.
Juliette grinds through the press conference with no quippy remarks for Twitter to blow out of proportion.
She sticks to the script, even as the questions grate on her last exhausted nerve.
Livia told her she would cut all the strings on her rackets if she didn’t follow the perfunctory bullet points.
Whenever she has to take a breath to compose herself, she thinks of her sisters’ latest messages in the group chat.
CLAUDIA
shit luck, Jules. finish your presser quick and we’ll eat ice cream.
OCTAVIA
We have matches tomorrow. Eat whatever you want, I’ll be sleeping.
CLAUDIA
more for us!
She wishes she could breeze through, but it’s hard to talk about how high her expectations were for the French Open. She wishes she would have had a new chance to beat Kacic, get to another final, and prove she is just as good—no, better —than Lucky Luca Kacic.
Juliette fumes the entire way back to her hotel room and slams the door open.
“Uh oh, here she comes!” Claudia’s singsonging voice carries through as Juliette shuts the door with more grace.
“Shut up!” she shouts back, letting her bag drop by the door despite the tripping hazard.
She stomps into the living space, bombarded by the scent of skincare products.
Her hotel room has been overtaken by her three sisters.
Octavia glowers on the couch, ice wrapped around her slightly bum knee.
She looks like a ghost with the sheet mask on her face.
Her dark hair is expertly braided—courtesy of Livia, no doubt.
Claudia is on the floor in front of the coffee table, putting together a puzzle with a painful-looking charcoal mask on her face.
She looks up as Juliette arrives and grins, cracking the mask around her cheeks.
Livia lounges in the desk chair, still on her laptop.
She’s sans face mask, but she has a large glass of red wine, which she delicately lifts to her lips as if she’s sixty-five and not twenty.
“What is happening here?” Juliette asks.
Claudia rolls her eyes. “A girls’ night, obviously,” she says, waving her hands. “Take off your shoes, you heathen. Who raised you!” She shoves the coffee table back and fishes her long legs out from underneath it.
“She’s on a warpath,” Octavia bemoans with her eyes closed.
Juliette shucks her sneakers off before Claudia shoos her into the love seat. She plants her hands on her shoulders. “Sorry about your loss today,” Claudia says, so sincere that Juliette feels her eyes prickle again. “We’ll get them next year. You’ll win Roland-Garros, I know it.”
Claudia is almost a carbon copy of their mother.
Her hair is wild and curly, soft golden-blond, and streaked naturally by the sun, whereas the rest of them have variations of their father’s brown curls.
She even has their mother’s long legs, ski slope nose, dip in her chin, and soft sage-green eyes.
She is also the one who appears in headlines the most, either because she’s won another doubles title with Octavia or because she was sleeping with a married man. Even if she didn’t do it on purpose.
But they don’t talk about that.
“Now, chocolate or vanilla?” Claudia asks, leaning away from Juliette and heading for the minifridge in the corner of the kitchenette.
Juliette is in the mood for a shower and sleep, but she humors her anyway. “Chocolate.”
Claudia barks out a haughty “HA!” and points at Octavia.
“Thanks, Jules, you lost me thirty bucks,” Octavia grumbles.
“I thought you would’ve been with Leo. He won today,” Juliette says, trying not to sound too bitter but failing miserably.
“Claudia dragged me here,” Octavia says. She’s never one to flatter. “She says I need to ‘ relax ’ more.” She dramatically flips her hands.
“You do, Octo,” Livia says. “And do not say you can relax with Leo.” She makes a gagging motion, and Octavia huffs.
Juliette snorts and curls her legs beneath her.
“We need to talk about your problem,” Livia says, because apparently Juliette isn’t allowed to have any time to simply mope.
“What if I don’t want to talk about it?” Juliette whines.
Claudia balances four bowls in her arms, and Juliette relieves her of a chocolate one. “Absolutely not. This is gossip, and that is the tenet upon which these girls’ nights were founded.” She flops onto the floor in front of them, puzzle abandoned.
Juliette stabs her plastic spoon into a mound of ice cream.
“This is about Luca, isn’t it?” Claudia asks.
“Shut up.”
“Why do you insist on getting distracted by what Luca is doing?” Octavia asks through a mouthful of vanilla.
Juliette sighs into her ice cream. “I’m not!” She can feel their eyes on her, intense and curious but not malicious. They aren’t journalists. Still, they don’t understand how irritating Kacic is. She shoves ice cream into her mouth and nearly gags. “Is this sugar-free?”
Claudia shrugs, trying to appear innocent. “Livia says we can’t completely ruin the diet Antony put you on.”
“Traitor.” Juliette glares at her and sets her bowl on the arm of the chair.
“Come on, Jules, spill it. You’re obviously bothered by Luca. What’s going on?” Claudia insists, gentler this time.
Juliette rubs her left wrist, the wrap that hides Luca Kacic’s ink-black name. They know Kacic is her soulmate, they saw the Sharpie on her arm the next morning, but Juliette has successfully managed to avoid talking about any of it until now.
Kacic has been an irritant these last few months, with her perfect and quiet excellence. She coasts through every tournament as the one everyone needs to beat, but in the media, she’s understated and coy. Juliette hates her for it.
“I don’t understand why you hate her,” Octavia says, fiddling with her braid. “She’s very polite.”
“She beat me in Australia! In Dubai! Defeated us in Indian Wells!” Juliette points to Octavia and Claudia. “I don’t hate her, I just want to beat her. Don’t you?”
“And so you play mind games in the media? Jules, you know that’s dumb,” Octavia says.
“And you did kind of start this,” Livia adds. Juliette glares at her, and she shrugs. “Just saying. Telling a press conference full of reporters that her game was ‘wholly unoriginal’ and that her serve was overhyped did not help.” She tilts her wineglass at her, most of it already gone.
Juliette winces. “They asked me what I thought, and I was honest.” She shakes her head. “Plus, she started it. She acted like I only won against Xinya by default.”
Livia sighs. “Honesty doesn’t mean being a bitch. And wanting to beat someone doesn’t mean you have to be cruel. Especially to your—”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Juliette snaps. They know how she feels about soulmates. She doesn’t want hers, and she won’t be told what to do. If Juliette never speaks her name, never looks at her wrist, and never acknowledges what Kacic is to her, it won’t be an issue.
“We just want you to be happy, Jules, and holding this grudge is not going to help your game,” Claudia says.
“I know we’ve always put our ambitions before our romantic lives, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be civil to Luca,” Octavia adds solemnly.
“You guys are supposed to be on my side,” she pleads.
Her sisters piling onto her after her loss just adds insult to injury.
Tennis has always come more naturally for Octavia and Claudia.
They have worked hard to be the best players, but they don’t understand the pressure of being the third professional player to come up the ranks in a family, especially considering their early success.
They don’t understand how much Juliette has had to sacrifice to get to this point, how much she’s had to chase just to get within sniffing distance of their accolades. And even then, she isn’t close.
“We are on your side,” Octavia says. “It just seems unfair that you just write Luca off without knowing her.”
Frustration bubbles in Juliette’s stomach. “Easy for you to say. You had a chance to grow your career early with Leo. Plus, he isn’t your rival,” she snaps.
“Fair point,” Octavia concedes with a tilt of her head.
“And you’re the lucky one! You don’t have a soulmate to worry about.” Juliette waves her hands at Claudia, wishing for not the first time in the last few months that she could switch places with her and not have a soulmark.
“Why do you let Luca bother you so much?” Livia chimes in, drawing Juliette’s attention.
“She’s annoying! A fact that all of you seem to ignore,” Juliette grumbles.
“An opinion none of us hold, more like,” Octavia says primly.
“I’m just trying to be pragmatic.” Livia finishes her wine and sets the glass down with a loud click.
“The more you fuck around with mind games, the less focused you are. You don’t care that she’s your soulmate?
” Juliette winces at the word. “Fine. But don’t let it get in your head.
” Livia taps her temple, swaying a bit in her seat.
“I’ve already had a bad day, can we stop now?
” Juliette whines. She knows they mean well and want what is best for her, but their feelings about soulmates are different.
Octavia is able to commit to tennis and Leo.
Claudia can have a vast and fluid love life without the worry of tying herself down.
And Livia doesn’t have a single competitive bone in her body; she doesn’t have to worry about a rival in any aspect of her life.
“Fine, we’ll let it go,” Octavia says soothingly. “Do you want to talk about your match?”
“Not really,” Juliette mutters, slumping farther down into the love seat. She already knows she’s going to get a lecture from their father. His silence is concerning. He should’ve sent a document of all her failures already, but it’s suspiciously absent.
“Why don’t you go to Naples early?” Livia suggests, her purple acrylics tapping away on her keyboard. “I can get you a flight tomorrow.” Three more clicks, and before Juliette can reply, she’s cooing, “Oh look at this cute apartment near the water!”
“But what about you two?” Juliette gestures to Claudia and Octavia. They’re still alive in the women’s doubles draw together.
Claudia waves her off. “Don’t stop on my account.
I’d rather you clear your head before the Connolly Cup.
” Juliette fights her grimace. The last thing she wants is to think about being chummy with Kacic.
Is it too late to quit the exhibition? But bad publicity is the last thing Juliette needs.
Plus, she wants to play, to be coached by Karoline Kitzinger and Payton Calimeris.
She’ll be damned if she lets Kacic ruin that chance for her.
Octavia nods. “Don’t sulk because we’re here. Go home if you want.”
“Antony will kill me if I leave,” Juliette says.
Claudia frowns and then winces. “Ouch, my mask is dry, hold please.” She scrambles off the floor and disappears into Juliette’s bedroom.
“Where is he?” Juliette asks, glancing around as if he’ll appear from behind the couch.
“I told him to lay off tonight,” Octavia says as she sits up and unwraps the ice from her knee.
Juliette sinks even lower into the cushions. “Is he really that mad?” she asks, voice raspy and soft.
“Not mad, more upset.” Octavia rips her mask off and crumples it into a ball, tossing it toward the trash can and missing horrifically. She rubs the serum into her skin. “You know what he’s like. He thinks you should never lose.”
Sometimes, despite how much she loves her sisters, they make her feel worse. “Great.”
“I’ve got a plane ticket on standby, just say the word,” Livia pipes up.
Octavia sighs. “That is why I fired him as my coach. Not that he ever acts like a dad, but it’s better now.
Maybe you should do the same.” She turns her gaze to Juliette.
She has their mother’s piercing and knowing sea-glass green eyes, brighter than Claudia’s.
At least now her brows are lifted and the corners of her mouth soft, her overall bitch-face toned down to be sympathetic.
“No one plays well under all that pressure.”
Her words are loaded with a lifetime of trauma and scars and ambition.
Juliette rubs the thin scar threaded along her wrist from surgery last year.
It was to try to prevent the eventual ruination of her career; if her doctor hadn’t been successful in patching her slipped tendon, she would’ve had to put down her racket forever.
She hasn’t had a break since she was forced to because of that surgery.
Months she suffered without tennis, and she had been so eager to return to play, she didn’t even consider taking any time off. That it might be good for her.
“Book it, Livie,” she decides. A smile tugs at the corner of Octavia’s mouth, sparking warmth in Juliette’s chest.
Livia dramatically slaps the enter key. “Done.”
Juliette picks up her sugar-free chocolate ice cream and digs in without a grimace.