Chapter 20
Rori
JUNE
“It feels real now,” I say quietly to Julie.
“Yep, here we go,” she replies in a focused tone.
Dad steers us to the private car waiting to take us to a large rental house which will be our home base during the grass court season. The Hesters kindly took Buster in for the next few weeks. Apparently, he’s become besties with their two dogs, so it’s a nice setup.
Maggie and Peter will be staying with us, as well as another American player on the rise, Malcolm Solomon.
I don’t know him very well. At nineteen, he is starting to breakthrough on the men’s side.
He came from one of the big California training academies, so we haven’t had a lot of chances to interact.
When we get to the house, everyone else is already there, waiting for us. “Welcome to our home,” says Maggie with a very bad fake British accent.
“Ha, stick with tennis,” I tease her. Nevermind that I’d been harassing Landon with a terrible fake accent all week myself.
Once we’re all in the house, everyone hugs each other in welcome. I stop in front of Malcolm and give him more of a half hug, since we aren’t really friends yet. He’s undeniably striking—dark brown skin, eyes beaming with warmth, lean muscles carved into a classic lithe six foot two tennis frame.
“Thank you for letting me stay here, Rori,” Malcolm says as we step back. “Peter was saying it’s much nicer than being at a hotel.”
“Yeah, as soon as Wimbledon starts, there will be fans waiting around the big player hotels to try to get autographs,” I explain. “It can be exhausting just getting in and out of them.”
“Speaking of exhaustion,” Julie jumps in. “I’m going to go unpack and take a nap so I can work on the jet lag that’s going to hit us.”
Maggie steps in. “Let me show you guys around. There are seven bedrooms total, and I thought Julie and your dad could grab two of the bigger ones next to each other, Rori? The other rooms are all about the same.”
I give Maggie a pointed look. She knows exactly what she’s doing by suggesting those two be in rooms next to each other.
“I don’t need anything fancy,” I say. “I can grab one of the smaller rooms.”
We claim our rooms officially, and I start to settle in. Unlike Julie, I have no interest in sleeping. The thought of what’s to come has me wired instead.
The grass court season marks one year from when I came back to the circuit after my recovery.
I started slow last year, only winning three matches total across the two grass warm up tournaments I played.
But then I made it to the quarters of Wimbledon.
It’d been huge, my biggest result in a Slam yet.
The wins had done wonders for my belief that I could still compete. I was overcome with relief on the way back to the states afterwards, with Dad hugging me repeatedly in his own excitement.
This year I’m feeling ambitious. A whispering voice in my head promises that I can win it all. My body’s juiced with adrenaline as I sit here on my bed. I want to win this tournament—badly.
Unlike clay, grass courts work well for my game. So, winning feels truly in the realm of possibilities.
I try to unplug my brain from tennis for a minute, knowing it’ll be a long four weeks before the Wimbledon finals are even a possibility.
Checking my phone for the first time since getting to the house, I see a message waiting for me from Landon, with a cute picture of Grover mugging for the camera.
NEW YEARS: Grover wants to know if you find any hot lady dogs over there.
I laugh and write back.
RORI: I see—like father, like son…I mean dog.
Within a minute he responds.
NEW YEARS: Hey, I already have a hot lady over there.
I roll my eyes but cannot keep the smile off my face. This will be the first tournament where Landon and I talk without a “friend-zone” filter on, and I’m excited to have our texts be more like our real conversations, flirting and all. No distractions from guys indeed, I tease myself.
Once I worked up the nerve to ask Landon for something more—exclusive ‘no label’ status, as he joked—I felt calm about where we stood. It seems best not to worry about labels, and enjoy the time we have together.
There was a momentary blip of uncertainty when he shared about his situation with Trinity.
I actually knew who she was because Maggie had sent me some of her viral videos breaking down one of our favorite shows.
But after hearing Landon out and knowing nothing had come of it, I decided not to let it get to me.
Things are good—and we both have other people in our past.
Otherwise, I’ve been a little shocked at how well we fit into each other’s daily flow.
I would’ve thought Landon would get bored not going out to clubs and bars.
He’s a twenty-three-year-old guy who could get any woman on the planet.
But no, he seems completely content having dinner and couch time with me at my house.
And then the really fun times…are out of this world.
Like Landon said, sex has never been like this before.
Beyond the physical though, I love how intently he listens to me talk about training, prepping, strategy, and how the tour works. He really wants to understand my world and totally appreciates the work involved as a fellow athlete.
That’s true of my tennis friends too, but we’re all sort of jaded about the normal tour routines, so we actually don’t talk too much about them. It’s all fresh and new to Landon.
Admit it, Landon is not what you expected, I think to myself.
Stepping back out to the living room area after I unpack a little, I see Maggie and Peter in the kitchen. They are speaking quietly between themselves, so I can’t hear what they are saying.
“Hey,” I say softly, so as not to startle them. “Are you guys staying up a while?”
“I’m going to go call my parents,” Peter replies. “They keep trying me.”
“No worries, say hi to Barbara and Phil for me,” I tell him, having gotten to know them well when they’d hosted dinners for us as teens.
He nods and heads to his room. Maggie watches as he leaves and then turns to me.
“You want to go catch up?” Maggie says brightly.
“Yes, let’s hang in my room so we can talk without anyone overhearing,” I respond.
She comes in and sits down in a cozy armchair. The bedroom, though small, is decorated in a quaint style fitting for an older London home.
“Soooo, how we feeling now that you’ve arrived? Nervous? Excited?”
“Ready,” I say. “I feel ready.”
“YES! Love to hear it!” Maggie is truly the best cheerleader.
“How about you?” I grab a hair tie to put my curls up in a messy bun.
“Peter and I had solid practices all last week.” She grins. “I feel like you and I were passing ships on the practice courts though, so I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk more in Florida. We were always booked at different times.”
“All good, now we get to stay in the same house for a month.” I smile back. “It’s gonna be fun.”
Maggie sits back in the chair and crosses her arms. “Rori, you aren’t going to make me beg for the details, are you?”
“Of what?” I ask, pretending I don’t know what she’s talking about.
Maggie rolls her eyes. “Girl. All I know is that you kept hanging with Landon during the last couple of weeks. I need more details than our quick convos about it.”
I pick at my bun to get more of the loose tendrils up. “Do you now?”
“Rori. Spill.”
I sigh. I don’t mind Maggie knowing everything, but I really don’t want anyone else to know. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise that this info goes no further. Everything is meant to be private, a secret for now.”
Maggie nods vigorously. “Yes, yes, of course. I’ll take it all to my grave.”
Taking a deep breath, I launch into the update. “So I talked to him right when I got home from the French Open about continuing to meet up when we can and spending more time together. He wanted that too! And then I mentioned exclusivity, and he was fine with that as well.”
Maggie looks like she’s about to burst when I say that, but I continue, not letting her interrupt. “Since then, we’ve spent the last two weeks largely crashing at my place, just staying in, so no one else knows, I don’t think.”
The look of shock on Maggie’s face is kind of priceless. “Oh my god. This is with Landon Battle, Rori? Right? Not some other Landon?”
“Yes,” I say with a laugh. “Landon Battle. And he’s coming in a few weeks for the last part of Wimbledon! We’re still staying a secret, though. I’m not sure how that’s going to work yet.”
“So wait,” Maggie interrupts. “You’re exclusive, he holed up at your place in Florida for two weeks, and now he’s coming to London to see you?”
“Yes?” I’m not sure where she is going with this.
“Rori, Landon Battle is your boyfriend,” Maggie shouts in glee.
Now it’s my turn to be stunned, and I still. When she puts it like that…
But no, that isn’t the arrangement. “Noooo, no he’s not,” I finally reply. “We aren’t using titles. No obligations.”
Maggie lightly slaps my knee. “Landon Battle is your boyfriend,” she repeats. “That’s boyfriend behavior. And it sounds like there’s a lot of the best kind of obligations going on.”
I sit with what she is saying for a moment. “I don’t know. That isn’t what I meant when we talked about things. I mean, I’ve never even had a boyfriend.”
“Until Landon,” Maggie says, teasing me now.
“Enough of that.” I laugh lightly. “I really like him, but no boyfriends.”
I stand up to indicate the topic is over. Wanting to keep my hands busy, I walk over to one of my still-unpacked duffle bags and start putting my clothes away in a dresser.
“Well, anyway, it seems like we’re both in situations of ambiguous natures,” Maggie shares to my back, clearly wanting me to pry.
“And what do we mean by that?” I say, taking the bait and turning my head back to her.
“Remember how you said that you weren’t the jealous type?” she says, with some unknown emotion coming into her tone. “I’ve a potential girl code violation to confess.”
I stare at her, now thoroughly confused.
Maggie takes a deep breath, squirming a little in the chair. “Last week, Peter and I accidentally started making out. Twice.”
Oh.
“Maggie, accidentally making out? What is that?” If I wasn’t so surprised, I probably would’ve laughed at her comment.
“It wasn’t intentional,” she explains, and starts talking quickly.
“We went to a nice dinner one-on-one after practice because everyone else was busy. Ugh, he smelled so amazing after getting cleaned up. He drove me home and walked me to the door and then he leaned over the mantle to make sure I got in okay. You know that lean guys do when they put their arm up on the post and stand there looking hot? I mean, he’s really grown into his body at twenty, don’t you think?
Anyway, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—but I grabbed him and kissed him. ”
“What?” I don’t want her to think I’m mad, but I cannot hide my shock. Walking back to the bed, I sit down.
“And then we kept kissing,” she gushes out. “Then it happened again the next night before we came here.”
My head is swirling with thoughts. “He’s your doubles partner, Maggie!”
She’s looking at me with genuine concern. About her relationship with him, friendship with me, or both, I’m not sure.
“I know. Are you angry?”
I want to put that to bed. My thoughts are more focused on how she and Peter will be able to make things work on and off the court with this revelation.
“No, I’m not upset. I’ve got no feelings for Peter, and if you’d asked me in advance, I would totally have been fine with you exploring something with him.
But I’m worried under these circumstances—have you talked at all with him about what is going on?
You know, before you go out and try to win tournaments together? ”
Not surprisingly, her answer is no. So we chat through a game plan for her to discuss the situation with Peter, not unlike her conversation with me on the plane coming back from Paris. She hugs me and leaves to go talk to him before she loses her nerve.
I gut-check myself and find I truly am not angry at her for being interested in Peter. I guess her behavior did go into a girl code gray area, but I don’t have it in me to be mad at her. It was clearly nothing she planned.
And I have a different man occupying my thoughts for now. Though definitely NOT a boyfriend.