Twenty-Six #2
He laughed at that, the sound harsh. “I do, but I don’t talk to her either unless it’s about something she can fix.
” With a squeeze of my arms, he heaved a sigh.
“Shit, I’m really bad at this, huh? You aren’t just dick and you never were.
I’ll do better, and if I still suck at it, please ask.
If there’s something you want to know, I’ll tell you, all right? ”
“All right,” I said, the words sticking in my throat, my own troubled face reflected back to me from his sunglasses.
Perhaps because he could tell I was fighting tears, or because it was easier to talk if he didn’t have to watch my expression, he pulled me down to rest my head on his shoulder.
And reaching for the blanket I’d discarded, he threw it over me, encasing us both in a damp little cocoon.
“Right,” he said, the word vibrating from his chest into mine.
“Let’s see. Update time. So, my parents are awful, that bit you know.
Also that they run everything and always have.
And I told you about how they got shitty about me hiring Cam and expecting them to sign off on it, at which point I realised there was no way to draw any boundaries with them without fully extricating myself financially.
So, I started talking to lawyers, and organised for my US Open winnings to get paid into a new account in my name only. ”
As he spoke, I found myself piecing each action into the picture I already knew.
His trip to Miami before the US Open. The phone call he’d taken when he’d arrived.
The match in which I’d knocked him out in the second round, leaving him less money for his new beginning than he’d likely been hoping for.
“They noticed,” he went on, speaking past my head to the grey afternoon while I lay against him.
“And then realised I’d gathered up a bunch of documents while I was there.
They put two and two together, and now they’re using my money to pay for lawyers to fight against my lawyers, while making my life as painful as possible. ”
His arm had tightened around me as he spoke, keeping me against him like he didn’t want me to pull back and look at his face. “What are they doing?” I asked into his shoulder.
“They know I love my house,” he said, and I caught the thickening of his voice because I was listening for it.
“So, they’ve sent three different estate agents around to value it for market.
Gave them keys and everything. I had to have all the locks changed and get listings taken down.
They also hired new team members and tried to embarrass me into taking them on, that was fun.
Oh, and about a week ago, they did a fancy big interview without my knowledge that’s being splashed everywhere, talking about being the love and power behind the rise of Miles Callahan. ”
All things I might have been able to support him through if it hadn’t been for that damned match. For Miles barely talking to me for weeks.
“Wow,” I said, because I couldn’t blame him for that. “That’s really shit.”
“Yeah, it’s been a time all right. I wish I could just cut them out of my life, but best to take things slow for now, tread carefully, or they won’t even come to the negotiating table. I don’t want this to end up in court – wouldn’t that look great!”
He wasn’t wrong, but I had my doubts that any amount of diplomacy would bring them around. Not when control of their son and his money was in question.
“Is that why all the pictures with Emily recently?” I asked.
“Oh, you noticed?”
“Of course I noticed. I’m at least fifty percent of your social media traffic when we’re apart.”
Miles’s arm tightened about me even more and he murmured a fond, “idiot,” into my hair, before sighing. “Yeah, Emily is part of Tina’s ongoing plan to show them this isn’t about me wanting to come out, and to make sure my sexuality doesn’t somehow become a point of contention with the legal shit.”
In the few moments of silence that followed, the sounds of playful argument filtered out from the lounge, while distant thunder rumbled.
“Thanks for telling me all that,” I said, finally lifting my head from his chest to look at him.
“Of course.” He brushed my cheek softly with one knuckle. “You’re more important to me than anything. I’m sorry I made you doubt it.”
Now was probably the time to talk about the US Open, to clear that air as well, but too much of me still feared his reaction. It was for him to broach when he was ready, not for me to push on him because I needed it.
When I didn’t answer, he slid his hands into my damp hair and pulled me in for another kiss – softer now, tender and slow like fingers reaching right into my heart.
The heat we’d built up between us had dissipated during our conversation, but still sitting astride him, it wasn’t long before it was back.
“Let’s go inside,” Miles murmured when thunder rumbled closer. “And continue your physical therapy in a warmer, safer, and more . . . intimate way.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” I said and got to my feet.
Leaving the damp blanket by the door, we headed in, and as we walked quietly past the game taking place at the table, Macca turned amid a collection of grins and said, “You know you’re both too tall for sneaking, right?”
AS THE WORLD number six, Miles got a bye in the first round and didn’t have to play, but I did.
Macca wasn’t convinced I should, but as it was the last big tournament of the year, the plan going in was that I played so long as I was winning.
As soon as any match became too much of a fight, or too painful, I was to pull out.
The first round was rough. I got through in two gruelling sets playing far less than my best, and spent the rest of the day in pain.
I was determined to play again, to break free of this pattern I’d gotten stuck repeating, but they all ganged up on me.
Miles shook his head. Jada made serious faces and Marcel looked solemn.
Macca and Cam both expounded at length about the extra damage I could do with words like kinetic and compensation and rupture.
And Tomas was insufferably right about everything.
I was done. Still stuck in that damn eddy, every success inevitably followed by interruption.
Just an injury this time, yet failure was sure to follow all the same.
In an attempt not to dwell on it, and because it would be many weeks before I saw Miles again, I stayed despite pulling out of the tournament.
Tomas flew home, but Macca stayed on to go sightseeing between therapy sessions.
Miles, meanwhile, was on fire. He tore his way through his first match in an emphatic fashion, followed by his second, and looked untouchable.
I could have sat courtside to watch, but with his worries about his parents it wasn’t worth the risk, so I stayed at the house and watched on TV as he demolished opponents with brutal efficiency.
All seemed to be going well until the day before his fourth-round match, when he returned from the practice courts with a heavy scowl.
I set my e-reader down, but he strode straight to where Tina sat working at the dining table.
“Hey,” he said, dropping his tennis bag with a heavy thud.
“Did you organise for Emily to fly over without telling me?”
“What? No, of course not,” Tina said, looking up from her laptop. “Why would you think so?”
“Because she’s been messaging me all morning. Says she’s in Paris and wants to see me.” He thrust his phone out, demanding she take it by wiggling it irritably in her face.
Tina’s fingers had frozen over the keys and hovered there a few seconds before she reluctantly took the phone. “She didn’t say anything to me,” she said, scrolling slowly, eyes darting side to side. “I wonder why she’s here.”
“No idea, although after last time, I’m worried it’s just to see me.
” Miles didn’t look my way as he said it, but Tina did, her worried glance drawing Miles’s attention to the fact I was sitting there.
Some of his annoyance faded beneath an apologetic grimace.
“She was all over me last time I saw her,” he admitted.
“Even when no one was around taking pictures.”
The deep, possessive beast in my chest wanted to snarl at anyone else touching him, but I was good and said nothing.
When Tina also said nothing, Miles frowned at her. “What is it? Did you tell her about Mat?”
“No! Well, yes, I told her you had a boyfriend, but I didn’t say who.
She’d been posting . . . pictures of you.
” Tina set his phone gently on the table, flicking a worried look up at him.
“Ones she’d taken without your knowledge.
And when I asked her to take them down, I gave her a hint, you know, to remind her that this is an arrangement, not a relationship.
And now all her pictures have to be okayed by me. ”
“What sort of pictures?”
Tina seemed unwilling to explain, but her worried look slid my way again.
With his brows raised in faint incredulity, Miles followed. “Mat? You know about this?”
“Half your social media traffic when we’re apart, remember?
” I said, my heart flip-flopping in sudden panic that I’d done the wrong thing and he was about to walk out on me again.
“I noticed when we were in Cincinnati that her photo drops always started with a few selfies or snaps of food, then descended into . . . look, softcore porn is honestly the best way to describe it. Close-up shots of your hands, your ankles, your profile while you’re napping against car windows. Things like that.”
“Cincinnati? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He told me,” Tina said, coming to my defence with a mulish look. “Since it’s my job to deal with these things, not yours. You’ve had quite enough going on, if you remember.”