Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
NAOMI
My birthday game night had been a total domination from Lois and me, but that teamwork counted for nothing when we were on opposite sides of the court.
Lois was fighting to defend her title, and she was punishing my weaker backhand with her serve in order to get there. But my serve was on fire today, and she couldn’t get to grips with it.
Fighting tooth and nail had led us to a first set tiebreak, and even I didn’t know how it was going to go. Tiebreaks were so fragile, and one mistake could be enough to cost us the first set.
As I waited for the balls to come back down my end, I looked over at my box.
Wyatt made a sweeping motion with his hand, his way of saying I should serve out wide more.
I’d noticed over my last two service games that she’d really been struggling with the return when I went out there, so it was good to know that Wyatt agreed.
I was so used to only seeing Wyatt and Alisha in my box that it took me a moment to notice a third person there.
All black outfit, arms crossed, making his chest look alarmingly broad. Sunglasses on. A backwards white cap covering damp hair that was curling around his ears.
Sam.
I knew he was getting a strength session in today as he came in with us, but he said he’d wait for us in the players lounge when he was done. Alisha had asked him if that was a good idea because on our day, Lois and I could play for hours.
And we were both on our day.
Clearly, he’d changed his mind.
I was aware Sam watched me play in an abstract sense.
But it felt oddly intimate for him to watch from this close to the court.
Right next to my siblings. Since I’d changed to this set-up, no one else had been in that box but those two.
If my parents or any other friends came to watch me, they were buried in the crowd somewhere.
That was how I liked it, and it’d been working for me just fine.
Sam being there felt like it should change the energy I was getting from the box, which was chill, but as I looked at them, I realised it didn’t feel all that different. Mid-match was not the place to figure out why that was. Or to think about how this was going to become a thing with the media.
I accepted three balls on my racquet, threw one back, pushed the other one up my shorts and bounced the third.
I served out wide. Lois couldn’t get a racquet to it, and then it was her serve again.
Lois tried to beat me at my own game and served her next ball out wide, but she forgot I was left-handed, so instead of serving to my backhand, like she planned, she served perfectly to my forehand.
I punished her for it and went up a mini-break.
Then I went three–love up. Lois let out a loud roar in frustration as she watched my serve land straight on the T, just out of reach, to go four–love up.
I’d broken her. Both in the game and in spirit.
I knocked the defending champion out.