Chapter Twenty-Two Luca
TWENTY-TWO LUCA
The persistent drizzle of London refuses to let up.
After the bright warmth of sunny Naples, Luca isn’t thrilled by the prospect of several days of dreary rain.
She stares out the car window, watching condensation gather on the glass.
She draws a frowny face in it before wiping it away with the edge of her hoodie.
“Luca?” Vladimir asks. “Are you listening?”
“Sorry, what was that?” Luca twists around to look at her coach.
Vladimir sighs. “I was saying you have Ricci as a practice partner today.”
Luca grimaces before she can stop herself, a pinch of panic threading through her chest. “Which one?” She prays it isn’t—
“Juliette.”
Of course. Luca snaps one of her bracelets against her wrist.
“Your first round is a qualifier you’ve never played before, but she’s left-handed and very quick.”
Luca nods. Juliette is quick, left-handed, and twice as good as the qualifier, which is precisely why Vladimir requested Juliette to practice against.
“Luca?” The cab skids to a halt, and Luca glances at Vladimir. “Are you all right? You seem unfocused.” Vladimir strokes his dark goatee, pensive rather than upset.
Luca shrugs. “I’m fine. I just know Twitter will have a field day with this practice.
” It isn’t a lie, but her feelings are tangled in complicated knots when it comes to Juliette.
It’s more than just media concerns. She wants Juliette, but she isn’t naive enough to think that Juliette wants anything more than physical pleasure with her.
She can see being entangled with Juliette is a bad idea from miles away.
But her body yearns to be near Juliette, to twine their fingers and bodies together.
Vladimir hands a wad of cash at the driver, and Luca flees from the car, her heart beating too quickly.
Droplets of rain land on the back of her heated neck and slide underneath her collar.
She shudders and lifts her hood over her head, smacking her cheek with the end of her braid.
Vladimir takes her bag over his shoulder, and they rush into the side entrance of the club.
“Damn rain,” Vladimir mutters, shaking his thick, dark hair off his shoulders. “I hate London.”
Luca huffs. She doesn’t hate London as much as she hates rain. Vladimir leads the way through the labyrinthine halls of the country club. She prefers to play outside, but it’s better to practice inside than not at all.
Their court is a secluded, lonesome one on the opposite side of the club.
The vivid fluorescent lights irritate Luca’s eyes.
The revolving glass door sticks as if it hasn’t been oiled in a while, and she has to shove through it.
Dozens of balls litter the court, about half of which are lying at the base of the net, mocking whoever hit them.
Rapid Italian flies through the air, and she glances to her right to see Juliette Ricci repeatedly bouncing a ball on the baseline while her father yells something from the opposite side.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid Juliette forever.
That would be an impossible endeavor, but she had hoped she wouldn’t have to run into her so soon after Naples.
Instead of Juliette, Luca focuses on Antony Ricci.
This is the first time she’s seen him close up.
He’s taller than Luca expected, but she usually only sees him in Juliette’s box at matches.
His hair is dark, streaked with white at the temples and cut short to reveal tight ringlets.
He is tan, much like Juliette, like he’s spent his entire life lounging in the sun.
Like Octavia, he’s right-handed, but a brace keeps his arm immobilized.
Antony’s eyes snap to Luca and narrow, annoyed that she’s entered the court. Does he know that she’s the Luca named on his daughter’s wrist? She shrinks into her hoodie, hating how his gaze pierces through her.
“Ricci,” Vladimir says, breaking the moment.
Luca glances at Juliette, who has paused the bouncing ball to stare at her. She’s clad in all-white with her hair tied up into a tight bun and a headband tied around her forehead, the ends brushing her shoulders. Luca quickly looks away, not knowing how to handle Juliette’s scrutiny.
“Orlic. We still have an hour and a half,” Antony Ricci says in a clipped tone.
“I’m aware,” Vladimir says calmly, dropping Luca’s bag before joining the Ricci patriarch on the other side of the net.
Luca forces herself to move to the unused bench. She busies herself with peeling off her sweatpants and withdrawing both her and Vladimir’s rackets.
“I thought you didn’t have space for my baggage,” Juliette says, and it takes all of Luca’s self-control to keep from looking up.
She shrugs, trying to come off as nonchalant despite how much she’s sweating. “I don’t pick my hitting partners. Vladimir does.” She sets her racket on the other side of the bench and lifts her foot to tighten her shoelaces.
Juliette thunks a ball rhythmically against the grass. “I see.”
Luca hums because she doesn’t trust her voice.
The ball stops abruptly.
“I thought we were going to be friends,” Juliette says, her voice so close that Luca flinches.
She looks up to see Juliette leaning in close, a tightness to her jaw that Luca wants to smooth away with a brush of her lips. “Aren’t we?” she whispers back, and Juliette’s lips press into a flat line.
“You tell me, Kacic.”
It’s jarring hearing her last name when all she wants is to hear the way Juliette’s lilting accent curves around the vowels in Luca .
“Luca. You can call me Luca,” she says, finally meeting Juliette’s eyes. Juliette blinks, startled. “If you want,” Luca adds in a rush, the tightness in her chest forcing the words out.
“Do you want me to?” Juliette asks, the edge of her mouth twisting into a smirk.
Luca shrugs. “It is my name.”
“So is Kacic.”
Luca looks down and switches feet to distract herself. She fiddles with the loops of her laces. “Okay, but you don’t call your friends by their last names, do you?”
“Depends on the friend, I guess. I call Rowland by her last name.” Juliette sounds thoughtful.
“Just call me Luca, okay?” She says, even though it feels dangerously intimate. Her last name could nearly be a barrier, but it’s just too weird to have Juliette call her by her last name when they’ve kissed.
Heat strikes Luca in the stomach and she tries to distract herself by grabbing her racket.
“Whatever my soulmate wants,” Juliette says and Luca’s whole body jolts.
Soulmate.
The word carves through her and she snaps her gaze up to Juliette. Is she messing with her again? Before practice to make her play terribly?
“That’s not funny,” Luca says, crossing her arms over her chest, racket strings pressed against her as a shield.
Juliette tilts her head, face unreadable as she studies Luca’s face. “No, it isn’t, is it?” She sounds pensive, as if she’s doing this to try to test the boundaries, see where she can press and where she has to back off.
“Enough chitchat over there!” Antony Ricci calls from across the court. Vladimir must have been successful in getting Ricci to relent to actual match play against each other for the remainder of Juliette’s session.
Juliette tosses her the ball, and Luca barely snags it before it flies over her right shoulder. “Good luck, Luca,” Juliette says with a smirk before she brushes past her and onto the other side of the court. “Hi, Vladimir,” she says brightly as Vladimir joins Luca.
“I don’t know what you were so worried about. Ricci is very strict about media around his player.” Vladimir grabs his racket. “You and Juliette should be practicing against each other more. It’s good for you both.”
Luca ignores the pointed look from Vladimir and jogs over to her side of the court. The grass is firm and browning beneath her shoes on the baseline. She scuffs her heels over the white lines.
Her knees are like jelly, but after a few rallies, Luca eases into the routine of practice.
The problem, however, lies with Antony Ricci, who will not stop shouting in Juliette’s ear and let her play.
Luca knows it would drive her insane if Vladimir tried to micromanage every aspect of her game.
Her favorite part of tennis is sinking into the quick-time instincts of strategy.
There is no time to overthink when she has a fraction of a second to decide.
The muscle memory kicks in, and she only needs to live in the moment.
After twenty minutes, Luca sheds her hoodie and tosses it to Vladimir, who appears pleased.
Told you , Vladimir mouths, and Luca purposefully turns away and smacks a ball back at Juliette.
They move into actual points, a couple of tiebreakers, and Luca starts with a serve. As she’s tossing the ball into the air for the first point, an alarm blares and she flinches. Her shoulder twists through the air and she connects awkwardly with the ball, sending it into the ceiling.
“This thing!” Ricci yells, and he stomps across the court to the revolving door. “It’s been blaring off and on all session. I thought they’d fixed it.” Ricci snarls something else in Italian before he vanishes through the revolving door.
“I better make sure he doesn’t kill the club manager,” Vladimir half-shouts over the pulsating noise. “You can handle this, right?” Vladimir pauses.
Luca waves Vladimir off, even though her throat constricts. She certainly would not want to be the employee dealing with the hotheaded Antony Ricci. Vladimir dips his head and jogs away.
The blaring alarm feels like it’s throbbing in the back of Luca’s neck, irritating and too loud.
She can’t even hear herself think. Juliette jogs to the net, her bun flopping and her curls nearly spilling free.
Sweat drips down her cheeks, gathers in the hollow of her throat and gleams on her arms. Luca forces herself to look away as she joins her.
She grabs water from the cooler behind the bench and rips it open.
“That’s irritating!” Juliette shouts.