Twenty-Three
I FLEW OUT to New York a day before Miles, leaving him to pre-tournament preparations and a collection of media commitments.
He’d refused to do any in the week we had together, leading to more than one frustrated call from Tina as she sought to smooth over the abrupt termination of his team.
I wouldn’t have minded, but it had felt important for him to set a boundary and hold to it after a lifetime of being steamrolled by his family.
Katie was already at the hotel when I arrived. She’d gotten through the first two rounds of qualifying and had one more to go, her mood one of mild optimism.
“It’s been good!” she said, releasing me from a tight hug.
“It might all go to hell tomorrow, but that’s just tennis, right?
Oh, you want to put your bag down – Tomas had your suitcases put in the bedroom so hopefully everything is there.
” She led me along the short hallway that bisected our suite.
“This room must be costing you a fortune, Mat, I swear. There’s only the one bedroom, but we each have a double bed and there’s a lounge with a whole fake fireplace in it.
And the bathroom is huge! It even has lit mirrors that make me feel like an influencer.
” She paused to squeeze my arm. “Thanks for letting me stay with you.”
It was far from the finest room in the hotel, but I wasn’t going to say so. “No, thank you for staying with me. It wouldn’t be a grand slam without my partner. Although, this definitely beats the tiny place we stayed in last year that was over an hour away.”
“It’s about twenty minutes in from here and cars head over all the time. There’s also a gym! And—” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “—they do laundry service.”
With a skip in her step, she gave me a tour.
It wasn’t a huge suite—slightly smaller than our apartment in London had been—but extra space was unnecessary when we didn’t have to cook.
We’d shared a bedroom before too, but for the first time she gave me a worried look as I sank onto the bed she’d indicated was mine.
“Is this going to be okay?”
“If you mean can I afford to—”
“No, I mean with Miles,” she interrupted. “Surely, having me here will cramp your style.”
“It didn’t in London. Besides, he knows, and just like in London you can always kick us out if there’s horny noise. He has his own room we can go to.”
Katie’s smile turned reminiscent. “You can be sure I will. I’m super happy for you, Mat. Both of you.”
I’d messaged her the most important update from San Diego and called her from the airport – a call to congratulate her on her first-round qualifying win having become an hour long talk about Miles during which she’d smugly said she’d told me so at least a dozen times.
“And very happy to share in the spoils of your success,” she added. “Tomas and Ben have been great while you were away.”
“Ben? Just call him Macca like everyone else.”
“Never. My cultural cringe will not allow me to be that intensely Australian.”
Boyfriend
hey, not going to be there until friday afternoon
Everything ok?
yeah, just coming via miami
Seeing your parents?
unfortunately, but i can’t avoid them forever
Well, I’m here if you want to talk about it. Call me anytime
sure, but it’ll be fine. except seeing you a day later, that’s not fine
I’ll find a way to make it up to you
hope that’s a promise
It’s a promise
i love you
I love you too
KATIE MADE IT through qualifying for her third grand slam in a row, so Thursday found the two of us in our traditional hunch before the laptop awaiting the announcement of the draw.
It was a moment of familiarity that anchored me given so much had changed since Wimbledon, not least of all that Tomas and Macca were sitting with us.
“They sure like to drag out the drama, don’t they,” Macca said, leaning back in his chair. “Should have brought popcorn.”
“Got to keep fans interested,” Tomas replied. “And nauseate the players.”
He shot me a glance but I was determined not to notice it.
Not to let the wriggling eels in my stomach show.
I kept my gaze fixed to the screen as the top thirty-two players in the men’s draw were filled in first, equidistant from each other so they wouldn’t meet too early.
There was Miles at number three, and as the rest of our names were filled in, I begged them not to pull out mine in his section of the draw.
“Matteo Russo.”
My stomach sank. Our names sat together on the screen – not a first-round meeting thank god, though a second-round meeting was little better.
It was a cruel repeat of Paris, only this time it mattered so much more, because this was the US Open and he was my boyfriend.
Now, Miles would land in New York to find his hopes of a dream run at his home slam already tainted.
Silence had choked the room. Katie bumped her knee into mine. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” I got to my feet, a few long strides taking me to the window where I could go no further, though I wished I could keep walking out into the cloudy New York day.
Footsteps followed. “Hey.” Tomas touched my shoulder. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes.” I turned, determined to be, but meeting his look of stern disbelief deflated me with a sigh. “All right, no. Any other tournament would be better, so of course it’s this one.”
“Any other? You’d have been happier if it had been the Australian Open instead?”
“Yes!” I said, the draw coverage droning on behind him while Katie flicked worried glances my way.
“I would far rather risk getting hurt than hurting him. Especially after everything with his fucking team and all my own mistakes. Besides, I’m not the world number three.
No one expects me to win a grand slam, even at home. ”
Tomas conceded this with a shrug. “Maybe not yet, but it might come.”
“And I’ll deal with it if it does, but right now I can’t be the reason he doesn’t get his chance.”
“You think you can beat him.”
It wasn’t a question, and he wasn’t telling me I was wrong.
I sighed, leaning back against the window frame.
“At first, I thought the way he talked about playing me was just to help me find my confidence, but he meant it. I know it sounds really up my own arse to say I can beat the current world number three—”
“Not when you beat Bicchieri at Wimbledon,” he interrupted. “But even if you hadn’t, it’s not up your own arse to be realistic. You’re a serious threat to him and acknowledging that is a lot better than sticking your head in the sand.”
I looked at him a long moment, waiting for more. He was saying everything a coach ought to say, but not what I wanted to hear. “Tell me I’m wrong, Tomas.”
“I wish I could. When Danny first mentioned you needed a coach, I went back and watched as many of your matches as I could find. Your junior titles, those big matches before your accident, a few when you first came back and were using your protected ranking, and everything this season up to your loss at Wimbledon. I don’t think it’ll be easy—I actually think you and Callahan are pretty evenly matched—but you can beat him. ”
Blowing out a heavy breath, I looked up at the ceiling, fighting a ridiculous urge to cry.
“And you can’t let him win,” Tomas went on, prodding me in the chest when I didn’t reply.
“Don’t tell me the thought hasn’t crossed your mind, because I’m not a fool, but you are if you think you could do it without him and everyone else realising.
Not only would it be a terrible precedent to set in your relationship, but disrespectful.
You have to love honestly and you have to play honestly, or you’ll fuck this up before you’ve even begun.
It might take him awhile, but he’ll forgive you sooner for beating him than for letting him win. ”
He was right, both that I had considered it and that it was a terrible idea – I didn’t know how to throw a tennis match and I was a bad liar. Miles would play to win because he always did, and I would have to do the same. It was the only way we could make this relationship work.
I heaved a sigh. “Fuck, this sucks.”
“Sure does,” Tomas agreed. “Just talk about it, all right? Both with him, and with us. Remember, we’re here to make sure your head is in the game and if you start panicking about this you won’t even get through the first round.”
“Maybe that would be for the best,” I muttered.
“He won’t thank you for that either. Look, you’re right that you could have met at a better tournament, but this was always going to be part of your relationship and he knows that. Probably better than you.”
I thought back to those days on the practice court in London and couldn’t but wonder whether it had occurred to Miles then that helping me find my game again might one day backfire in his face.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be this time, and maybe it never would, but the possibility hung heavy as I messaged him.
Boyfriend
Hey, you seen the draw?
yeah, i’ve seen it
lucky you not having to face the third seed until the SECOND round this time
Assuming I get through the first
i believe in you
I wish you didn’t. I wish we’d been in different halves again
can’t avoid each other forever
Are you ok?
about probably having to play you?
That, and whatever is going on with your parents. Everything really
promise i’m good don’t stress, love
. . .
I like that name
and i like you
WHEN MILES ARRIVED, he sent me his room number and I reached his door as a pair of porters finished hauling his luggage inside.
They seemed to have gone to the trouble of lining the suitcases up neatly the way he liked and he thanked them with one of his easy smiles and a sizeable tip.
He caught sight of me as he did so and his smile widened.
“And then you have to meet with Carney tomorrow,” Tina was saying, scrolling through something on her phone. “That’s at ten and then—” She seemed to notice Miles wasn’t listening and looked up as the porters departed. “Oh, hi Matteo.”