Chapter 26 #2
Lutrova was on the other side of the net, bent at the waist, racket spinning in her hands, poised on the balls of her feet. Her forehead was creased, blond eyebrows knit together, face pinched in concentration.
Penny would go right at her, like she and Dom discussed.
It was time to see if the best player in the world could handle her game.
She coiled her body, every muscle tensing, then releasing.
The serve was perfectly placed, right where the lines crossed in the center of the court.
It whistled past Lutrova before pounding once again into the wall lining the backcourt.
“Quinze-zéro.”
The match was a whirlwind as they went back and forth.
The Lutrova she’d beaten in Madrid was nowhere to be found.
The Russian superstar had won two tournaments since then and was at the top of her game.
Her shots were crisp and accurate. They exchanged blows, making each other race around the court.
Penny served, a screaming line drive down the center of the court.
Lutrova fired a return, and it began again, a rally from the baselines.
Penny sent a slice backhand, short and spinning, into the clay, and Lutrova came storming up to the net.
A forehand rocketed into the far corner and Penny raced after it, letting her last step fail, sliding across the clay, legs fully extended as she swung into a winner down the line.
Her momentum died and she stopped in a full split before popping up into the air and back onto her feet. The crowd erupted.
“Jeu. Harrison remporte le premier set, 6–4.”
Sitting in her chair, she placed her racket beside her and downed half a bottle of electrolyte-infused water before burying her face in her towel, wiping off the layer of sweat. She allowed herself a huge grin while the terry cloth shielded her from the cameras.
Lutrova called for the trainer between sets and was having her legs rubbed down.
Maybe it was an excuse for dropping the first set, getting the trainer out there, making everyone believe she was hurt, so Penny would let her guard down in the second set.
Whatever game she was playing wasn’t going to work.
Dom was right; she was better than Lutrova, she was better than the best player in the world.
And that meant—shaking her head, she cleared out those thoughts.
She could think about that after the tournament was over.
Right now, it was time to finish off this match.
The chair umpire called them back, and Penny leapt to her feet, striding quickly out to the baseline, getting her muscles loose for the second set.
This was in stark contrast to Zina, who stood up slowly and walked across her side of the court, examining her racket as if it might tell her how to win the match.
Only about a half hour later, it was clear whatever advice Lutrova’s racket gave her was crap.
Penny waited in the corner of the court for a serve that would never arrive as Lutrova buried her shot into the bottom of the net and yet another double fault brought Penny within one game of victory.
“Jeu. Harrison conduit le second set, 5–4.”
For a moment she let her focus slip away and she listened to the crowd cheering. Turning to her box, she saw they were all yelling wildly.
“Let’s go, Pen,” Jack yelled. “Finish it.”
She stepped up to the baseline.
“S’il vous pla?t, soyez tranquille,” the umpire said as she prepared to serve, and the crowd quieted, but only a fraction.
With a small groan, she sliced her serve, putting an arching spin on it.
Lutrova sat back on the shot, handcuffed for a split second by the angle and the change of speed.
She shuffle-stepped and swung, but mishit, sending a soft lob over the net.
Penny sprinted forward, feet light as she sped up to the net, getting her racket under the ball just in time.
A quick flick of her wrist sent it back over the net.
The ball bounced once and then again before Zina could reach it.
As Penny tried to stop, her toe slid into a divot; her ankle twisted and then rolled under.
She caught herself with her other foot, but a sharp, blistering pain shot up her leg and then back down again before settling on the inside of her ankle.
She tried to put her weight on it. Bad idea.
A murmur of concern went through the crowd, but she blocked them out as she lifted her foot off the ground immediately.
Shit, that was a lot of pain. Way too much pain, more pain than she’d ever been in before. A sliver of panic went through her and she tried to fight it down. Maybe it was just a tweak, maybe she’d be fine.
She tested it again.
Nope. Definitely not just a tweak.
Fuck.
Thankful the last shot brought her near the sidelines, she hopped quickly over to her chair and looked up to the umpire to call for a trainer, but he’d anticipated her request and was waving a member of the tour’s medical staff in from the edge of the court—the same man who’d worked on Lutrova’s legs before the start of the set.
Before she could react, her sneaker and sock were lying on the ground and gentle, well-trained hands were examining her ankle, checking the range of motion—almost none—and the amount of discomfort—a lot—and then he asked, “Do you want to continue playing?”
Withdrawing hadn’t even crossed her mind.
How could it? It had all happened so quickly, but she was not going to give up.
A forfeit wouldn’t just mean a loss. It would practically hand this tournament championship to Lutrova.
She wasn’t going to let that happen. Even if she couldn’t play her next match, she wasn’t going to give her rival a free pass to the next round.
She glanced around quickly and saw the Russian girl standing off to the side, watching intently, a brief flash of victory in her gaze. Oh, hell no.
“Wrap it and give me my racket.”
“It’s a pretty bad sprain, could be worse than that. It might be your Achilles. I can’t tell for sure unless you get a scan.”
Penny raised an eyebrow and the trainer gave up.
“Fine, but it’s against my recommendation.”
“Fine,” she agreed, and winced as he reached for his bag and jostled her ankle in the process.
Her hand came up to her throat and she pulled at the chain secured around her neck.
The penny slipped out and she held it in her palm for a second.
It was warm from resting against her skin, and she began to breathe slowly, closing her eyes and letting her mind go blank.
Like lying on the court with Alex, her hand wrapped in his.
The trainer wrapped her ankle tightly. He had to—it was the only way to stabilize the joint. And as she slid her sneaker back on, she bit her lip to keep from crying out.
Tucking the necklace back inside her shirt, she checked the scoreboard quickly.
She was three points away from the win and she had to get those points as fast as possible.
She had to get the next three serves past Lutrova, because there was no way her ankle would stand a rally.
She had to keep the ball away from her, nothing into the body and definitely nothing off-speed.
It would have to be three serves. Three aces. That was the only way.
This was going to hurt.
A lot.
She stood and the crowd went from eerily silent to a slow but steady rise into a roar.
She was going to play and they loved her for it.
Trying to minimize her limp as she moved to the baseline, she took a ball from the ball boy and breathed deeply, focusing instead on the feeling of the penny against her skin.
With a small prayer that the joint wouldn’t give out, she pushed down into the ground and then up and out, lining the ball dead center as hard as she could and let out a shrieking wail as she did at the pain.
“Trente-zéro.”
The crowd erupted. She could feel them willing her to victory. “Allez, Penny!” someone shouted from the stands over the general roar, and then several others echoed him. “Allez!”
Pressing her lips together, she shuffled her feet, keeping the weight on one foot. The ball boy ran to her and placed one on her racket. Lutrova inched up in front of the baseline, clearly anticipating a softer serve this time.
“That’s a mistake,” Penny whispered to herself before tossing the ball into the air, using every ounce of power she had to send the ball hard, straight, and flat down the center of the court.
“Quarante-zéro,” the chair umpire said, but his voice was nearly drowned out by the crowd’s approval, shouts, and whistles and the pounding of thousands of hands together.
Match point. She had match point, and her ankle hurt so much it was actually pulsing inside her sneaker.
The pain made it impossible to hold her focus, and the sounds from the crowd started to invade her ears—a blur of voices and noise that was actually helping distract her from the throbbing in her foot. One more, just one more.
Lutrova wasn’t having a great match, but she had to know what was coming now.
She set up for the next serve a step behind the baseline, near the center of the court, cutting off the easiest route for an ace.
What Lutrova didn’t know was that over the last month or so, Penny had learned something important.
The easiest path wasn’t always the right one.
She launched her serve, a high kicker, skidding off the edge of the service line, spinning up and away.
“Jeu, set et match, Harrison: 6–4, 6–4.”
The stadium practically exploded around her, but Penny couldn’t move.
She was frozen at the baseline, weight leaning entirely on her good ankle, using her racket to try to balance.
She didn’t want to take a step, but she had to.
The match was over; she needed to shake her opponent’s hand.
She stared down at the court for a moment to catch her breath, willing the pain to go away, when another set of sneakers invaded her vision.
“Good match,” Lutrova said, extending her hand. She’d come all the way over from her side of the court. If Penny didn’t know better and the pain wasn’t totally clouding her judgment, she’d have thought it was a sign of respect.
Nodding, Penny took her hand and shook it firmly. “Good match.”
A moment later, the trainer walked out to her, clucking his tongue in disapproval as he helped her off the court, forcing her to skip the on-the-court interview.
He muttered something about stubborn girls who don’t know what’s good for them, but Penny ignored him in favor of listening to the crowd cheer before they made it into the tunnel.
“Penny,” a voice echoed against the concrete of the hallway, followed by the pounding of feet against the ground. “I’ve got it from here, mate.”
The trainer glanced at her, confirming it was all right to leave her with him.
She nodded and stood on one leg as he switched places with Alex.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and she hooked hers over his shoulders, but before he could lead her down the hallway, she pressed herself into him and rested her head against his chest. He held her tightly, pressing a kiss into her hair, and then she pulled back, nodding to a changing room a few feet away.
Once inside, he led her to a table and helped her onto it.
She lifted her leg up onto the padded tabletop to keep her ankle elevated.
The trainer tsked at her, but she ignored him. “Could you give us a minute?”
He left the room, but Alex stayed a few steps away. He was still in his match clothes, the black-on-black look he’d started wearing during the Athlete Weekly photo shoot. Tennis’s very own rebel. He ran a hand through his hair.
“Did you win?” Penny asked.
“Yeah, I did,” he said, but then shook his head.
“What were you thinking?” She snorted, uninterested in his disapproval.
“It was bloody incredible. I was in a press conference when I heard what happened. I ran over here as fast as I could, knocked over a few reporters come to think of it.” He took her hands in his and squeezed gently. “Are you okay?”
She was in too much pain to lie. “My ankle hurts,” she admitted in a wild understatement.
Alex’s hands cupped her cheeks, his thumbs stroking against her skin softly over the line of her jaw, down to her throat. His index finger hooked into the gold chain at her neck and he tugged. “You wore it.” His voice held disbelief and awe.
“For luck,” Penny said, swallowing roughly, trying to find the voice to say the words she wanted to say. “But really, I needed you. I didn’t realize how much until I was out there all alone and it felt like my ankle was going to fall off and I just needed you.”
“Yeah?” He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers.
“Yeah.”
His free hand brushed back a strand of hair that fell loose from her braid.
“I fired Caroline. I know you said it didn’t matter, but she published that last picture without my permission, and I swear to you, love, I never want to hurt you again.
” He bent his head to hers, pressing a soft kiss against her lips. “I am so bloody sorry.”
“I know,” she said, pulling away just enough to get the words out. “I… I can’t go through that again, Alex. I need you to promise me we’re in this together, you and me, or not at all. Please.”
“I swear it. I promise. I—”
His words were cut off as Dom, Jack, Indy, and Jasmine all poured in through the doorway, words of censure and congratulations spilling over one another. She smiled at them but felt Alex lean away, putting some space between them. Her attention snapped back to him and she took his hand.
“Don’t leave,” she said, tightening her grip.
He raised her hand to his lips. “I won’t.”
They still had so much unsaid between them, so many things to talk about and work through, but for now, she just needed him.
Maybe forever and suddenly, that wasn’t scary at all.