Chapter 18
JASMINE TIPTOED DOWN THE STAIRS, GLIDED ACROSS THE tiled kitchen floor, then slid through the French doors at the back of the house.
She held her breath as she braced the door against her palm, letting it shut with a soft click.
Sighing in relief, she sprinted across the patio and down the wooden walkway that led to the beach.
She felt like a criminal escaping after a heist, her heart pounding as she started down the beach toward OBX.
Her parents had found out about the fight.
It was easier when she was a kid—they would have punished her.
Now, she felt the suffocating weight of their clear disappointment in her, not as a tennis player, but as a person.
She could barely look either of them in the eye and couldn’t wait to get back to training.
The fastest way to get to OBX in the morning was to cross the private beaches that sat between the house and the training center.
She could avoid the crush of cars in the parking lot, the dozens of younger athletes who would want her attention—oh, who was she kidding?
She snuck out of the house to avoid her parents and was sneaking into OBX to avoid the stares and gossip.
Nowhere was safe anymore.
The usually bustling locker room was empty, no voices echoing off the tiled floor and walls.
The fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling flickered to life as she made her way to her locker, hoping to dress and grab her equipment long before anyone else arrived.
As she pulled her hair into a ponytail and clipped back her bangs, her luck ran out.
“I wonder if she’ll even show her face.” Lara Cronin’s voice echoed through the room, dripping with ill-concealed glee.
A laugh, high-pitched, bordering on the edge of a screech, responded. That was Addison. “I know. I mean, everyone saw what happened.”
The girls giggled together.
“Really, though, how pathetic can you get?”
“Please, she’s so overrated. The only reason Dom lets her train here is because of her parents.”
Jasmine slammed her locker shut and stepped into the main walkway.
The same girls who’d made Indy’s life miserable when she first arrived stared in shock, then small, cruel smiles slipped over their features.
Spinning on her heel, Jasmine didn’t give them the satisfaction of eye contact even as she heard one of them say, “Oh my God” before they dissolved into uncontrolled cackles.
That was what Indy had felt like those first days, with everyone against her.
It must have been awful, and Jasmine could have put a stop to it, but she didn’t, just like Teddy said.
A knot of regret twisted in her stomach.
Exhaling a harsh breath, she adjusted her bag over her shoulder and marched toward the courts.
Those girls didn’t matter, and she could only hope that the people who did would forgive her.
First, she had to talk to Dom. She had to set things right with him.
He was her coach, but while she lay in bed the day before, avoiding her parents, she realized something else.
He was right about her game. He knew her strengths and weaknesses better than anyone.
And if she wanted to have the career she’d always dreamed of, he was the person who could get her there.
She needed to suck it up, be an adult, and apologize, then prove to everyone that she was more than just a nepo baby who got by on her parents’ rep and the access to elite training their money paid for.
Jasmine mumbled to herself. “Dom, I’m so sorry. What I did was awful and I’m grateful you’re giving me a second chance.” That sounded about right. She nodded and pushed through the gate, catching sight of her coach setting up the ball machine.
“Dom,” she began, but her voice caught when she saw Indy dumping a basket of balls into the machine’s feeder. Their first private doubles practice was scheduled for eight and it was still a quarter to the hour. Why was she here already?
“Jasmine,” Dom said, waving her in, “welcome back.”
His words said one thing, but his eyes, trained on her like a hawk, said another. He only meant “welcome back” if what had happened over the weekend would never happen again. She tried to assure him it wouldn’t, but he cut her off.
“Warm up, then we can get started.”
She nodded and began her stretching routine. She would apologize the first chance she got, probably after he got whatever training torture he had in mind out of his system.
She and Indy stretched together. Jasmine kept her eyes glued to the fence at the end of the court but felt Indy watching her. Her stomach twisted again, like in the locker room, only worse. She still couldn’t stand the bitch, but a sharp sliver of empathy cut against her conscience.
“Ladies, are you ready?” Dom called, striding toward them.
They stood and Jasmine glanced quickly at Indy, but she was looking at their coach now.
“Today we’re going to start with some light conditioning.
” There was something in his voice that drew Jasmine’s attention.
She turned to him and saw a sadistic glint in his eyes.
He nodded at the doubles line. “Einsteins.”
“How many?” Jasmine asked.
“Until I tell you to stop.”
The trick with Einsteins was to not think about how awful you felt, to clear your mind of the burn in your legs and the shortness of breath, and to try to focus on something else.
Dom was leaning against the fence, watching them to make sure they ran to each line and not short of it.
Jasmine didn’t count as their feet pounded down upon the hard court; she focused on Dom and ran her apology over and over again in her mind like a penance for her sins.
Sorry, grateful, second chance, sorry, grateful, second chance; the words were like a mantra to the thuds of her sneakers.
Sorry, grateful, second chance, sorry, grateful, second chance.
“Okay, grab some water,” Dom called, and they skidded to a stop.
Jasmine glanced at Indy. She wasn’t huffing and puffing, not like she did on her first day.
Still, her breath came hard and quick, while Jasmine wasn’t all that winded.
At least that was one thing she had over her new partner.
No, that wasn’t actually a good thing. Indy’s weaknesses were her own weaknesses now.
They both grabbed their water bottles and sipped slowly.
“What’s he doing here?” Indy said eventually. Jasmine turned to see Alex Russell striding up to the court and waving Dom over. The two men spoke for a few moments, keeping their voices low, then Alex shook Dom’s hand and left.
“All right, ladies, footwork, on the service line, no rackets,” their coach said, ignoring the curious looks they were both shooting him.
The drill was pretty straightforward. They stood where the service boxes met, halfway between the net and the baseline, with Dom opposite them, a ball in his hand.
He moved his arm left and right, and they would mirror the action with their footwork until he released the ball.
Without a racket, they were expected to catch it before the ball could bounce twice.
Jasmine loved this drill. It played to her strengths: quick feet and quicker reactions.
She felt Indy’s eyes on her and she met her gaze for the first time all morning. Jasmine motioned out to the court and said, “After you.”
Dom kept Indy’s feet moving—short, quick steps against the clay court—before he tossed her the ball and she lunged to her left and caught it with the tips of her fingers. Indy tossed the ball back to Dom.
“Beat that,” she muttered.
“Game on,” Jasmine mumbled back as they switched places.
“What was that?” Dom asked.
“Nothing,” Jasmine said, setting her feet shoulder width apart and waiting for Dom’s first cue.
Twenty minutes later, they were both dripping with sweat, but neither had dropped a single ball.
“Okay, take ten.”
“No,” Indy protested, dragging her wrist across her forehead, then over her knee, which she’d scraped when she laid out for a ball.
“Not yet,” Jasmine agreed, hands on her hips, bent slightly at the waist to try to regain her breath.
Dom laughed at them outright, clearly satisfied with their performance. “Take ten and rehydrate.”
He began to walk away and Jasmine saw her opportunity. “Dom, hang on a second,” she said, jogging to catch up with him. “I wanted to—”
“I know what you want to say, Jasmine, but I don’t want to hear you’re sorry. I want you to show me you’re sorry.”
The laughter and smile from seconds before were gone, replaced by a stern glare and a set jaw.
“I will,” she said. “I promise.”
“Good. Now try not to start another fight while I’m gone.”
After Dom walked away, Jasmine made eye contact with Indy for a second, but Indy looked away, bent and dug through her racket bag, pulling her phone out and shooting off a rapid text.
“Dom’s been pretty tough so far, huh?” Jasmine said, swallowing back her pride.
It was bland as hell, sure, but it was the best she could do, and at least she was trying.
Indy looked up from her phone, disbelief written across her face. “Yeah, I guess.” The phone binged and drew her attention.
Jasmine watched as Indy wandered to the opposite end of the court, tapping away at her phone screen. “Or we could just not talk.”
“Hey, Randazzo.”
Her shoulders stiffened as an involuntary shiver slid pleasantly through her body.
It was so annoying that Teddy could still do that to her, even when she was pissed as hell at him.
He was standing just outside the fence, smiling at her.
A sense of déjà vu niggled at the back of her mind; they’d been here before, after they kissed.
“Isn’t it a little early for you?” She glanced over her shoulder at Indy, who was still focused on her phone.
Teddy shrugged. “We need to talk and I knew you’d be here.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
She thought she’d made that pretty clear right before the Classic final, and if that hadn’t done it, she’d ignored every single text and voicemail he’d sent since.
When was he going to get the point? Why couldn’t he accept that things would never be the same between them?
And why, despite everything, did what she just said feel like a lie?
Because she did want to talk to him, she always wanted to talk to him, and that was the problem.
“You don’t have to talk. You can just listen.
” His eyes crinkled at the corners, the damned dimple appearing alongside his easy smile, and then he hopped the fence.
Her heart pulsed and then fluttered into a faster beat.
Seriously, screw those dimples. “Or you can stand there and pretend like you’re not listening while I talk. ”
“You’re such a stubborn ass, you know that?” Jasmine avoided his eyes. If she looked into his eyes, she’d be lost. She’d smile, and his would widen, and she’d give in, and that would be that.
“So, how’s it going?” he asked, a hand gesturing across the court.
Her patience was already gone. “Seriously, that’s what you’re leading with? ‘How’s it going?’ Did you actually want to talk to me or are you just wasting my time?”
“Not well, then, huh?”
“Teddy—”
“Fine, look, I wanted to talk to you because…” he began, but immediately lost his momentum. Jasmine had had enough of his hesitation and stepped forward, pushing past him, but he caught her arm. “Because I feel terrible about what I said to you. You were right. I was being a shitty friend.”
“Come on,” Jasmine said, shooting a glance toward Indy, who was still focused on her phone.
The last thing she needed was for Indiana Gaffney to know what a fool she made out of herself with Teddy.
She led him through the gate and around the corner back behind the courts where they would have some privacy.
“You wanted to talk, so talk.” She crossed her arms and waited.
“Don’t look at me like that, Jas. We both said some crappy things to each other. And look, you were right about Indy. I wasn’t helping her just to be nice. I—”
“You always did have a thing for blonds.” She cut him off, pushing the hurt down as best she could. “If you like her, you should go for it. Ask her out, I mean.”
Nah,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t think she’s into me.”
Jasmine looked away, studying the twisted chain-link fence intently and avoiding his gaze. “I shouldn’t have let those girls be horrible to her. I could’ve put a stop to it and I didn’t.”
Teddy sighed. “We shouldn’t have done a lot of things, huh?”
Like getting drunk and kissing and nearly destroying their friendship. “You got that right.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence for a moment, and then Teddy looked down before shooting her a boyish grin, that dimple reappearing, making it impossible for her not to smile back, just like she knew it would. He probably knew it, too. Though maybe he didn’t, and that somehow made it worse.
“So, how is it going, really? Penny told me Dom paired you guys up as a doubles team.”
“We haven’t done much yet.”
“I think you two would make great partners.”
“You would,” Jasmine drawled.
“Not like that. Your games, they’re complementary. It’s like pairing up Federer and Nadal: power and precision with speed and hustle. Her weaknesses are your strengths, and vice versa. A perfect match, and Dom’s a genius for thinking of it.”
“Yeah, he’s a real Einstein.” The muscles in her calves twitched at the mere mention of the word. “Besides, that’s not the worst of it.”
He was silent, waiting for her to continue, but the words caught in her throat.
The girls she thought were her friends clearly weren’t, and she definitely couldn’t tell her parents.
She didn’t have anyone else to talk to, and Teddy used to be the person she’d trust with anything, but she couldn’t anymore.
She couldn’t tell him about how Dom agreed with Hodges about her game and how he didn’t think she had it in her to be in the top ten.
That she wouldn’t win Grand Slams or Olympic medals or live up to her parents’ legacy and that everything she’d worked for all these years was nothing but a dream, one that they all let her believe in for way too long.
So instead, she let the dam inside her break, a lump in her throat choking her as the tears burned her eyes and fell in streams down her cheeks.
Somehow, even after all the crap they’d been through, he knew exactly what she needed.
She needed him to be there. Teddy didn’t love her, not the way she wanted him to, but in that moment, as his arms tightened around her and he hushed her lightly and she fought back the rushing of her blood and the tingling warmth that settled in her lower belly, Jasmine knew she would never find a better friend, and maybe one day that would be enough.