Chapter 10 #2
Grant sat glumly on one of the benches at the edge of the playing area, under an awning, but he sprang to attention when Tripp gave him a sharp nod to join them.
And Sydney? Well, Sydney was trying to torture Reese, standing at the edge of the court stretching, her long, lithe limbs accentuated as she extended and contorted her body into various extremely visual positions .
“I’m going to head to the locker room. Either of you want to join?” Brynn said as she finished packing her bag.
That got Sydney’s attention, and she sprang back to a standing position. “I’d love to grab a quick shower and change.” She looked toward Reese. “You coming, babe?”
Heading to the locker room with Sydney was a level of masochism she wasn’t prepared for. Instead of meeting Sydney’s welcoming smile, she glanced down at her watch. “I think I’m going to head to our lunch reservation.”
“Margie and Sharon are at one of the outdoor tables, off to the side of the club restaurant,” Stan supplied, cutting off whatever Tripp had been in the middle of saying.
When she reached the edge of the court, Reese handed Sydney one of the rackets she’d let her borrow. “Thank you.”
“You did great,” Sydney said as she leaned forward to take the racket, giving Reese a soft kiss on the cheek.
Reese’s body responded immediately to the light contact, her skin buzzy where Sydney’s lips had touched it.
It was the second time in as many hours that Sydney had somehow managed to have her lips on some part of Reese’s face—or head, depending on how you defined the ears as a part of the body—but regardless, Reese wondered what it meant.
But she was trying to take a page out of Sydney’s book, even off the court.
They’d promised to have fun this weekend, and waiting with anticipation for the next time Sydney would touch some part of her was fun. And exhilarating. And exciting. And tingle-inducing.
It was with that in mind that she grabbed Sydney’s hand and pulled her close, their bodies touching from hip to chest. “Thank you,” she said, nuzzling her face into Sydney’s neck, which was slightly salty Reese discovered as she inhaled lightly.
She felt as much as she heard Sydney’s sharp intake of breath; it only lasted for a second before Sydney melted into the touch.
The scoff she heard a few feet away, undeniably from her brother, only made her lean into the moment more. She ran her hand down Sydney’s arm until she found her hand, their fingers intertwining as she finally took a small step back.
A moment passed between them as Sydney looked at her openly, like she was, just as much as Reese, wondering what this meant.
“Excuse me?” A younger teenager had moved toward them, unbeknownst to Reese, and was now fidgeting a few feet away. “Are you Sydney King?”
Sydney looked at Reese quickly, biting her lip. “We’ll continue this later? Or, at the very least, talk about it?”
Reese nodded, worried her voice would betray her.
“I am,” Sydney said, turning her attention to the girl and returning her smile.
The girl’s hands were so fidgety that Reese wondered if she’d drop the phone she was holding. “I’m sorry to bother you. I waited until you were done playing, but I didn’t want to miss having the chance to talk to you. You’re my favorite player.”
“I love that,” Sydney said genuinely, taking a step toward the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Maddie,” the girl said breathlessly, like she’d been waiting her whole life for this moment.
“Well, Maddie, I was about to hit the locker room, but did you want to grab a picture before I go?” Sydney asked, glancing down at the phone.
“I’ll take it,” Brynn said almost as excitedly as Maddie. She reached forward to grab the device out of Maddie’s still-shaky hands.
Reese could commiserate. Sydney was currently inspiring a consuming, jittery feeling in her as well.
“Go rest up,” Sydney said in Reese’s direction, tilting her head toward the clubhouse beyond the courts. “I’ll be there soon.”
It was while Reese was walking along the edge of the courts and through the gate that exited the tennis area that she realized how she was feeling .
She missed Sydney, and it became punctuated as she moved farther away.
She hadn’t wanted to leave the comfort of Sydney’s sphere, of how she made Reese feel: like anything was possible, like everything would be okay.
When she reached the table to find her mother sitting alone, she was still mulling over the distracting idea.
She plopped down unceremoniously into the seat next to her mom. “Hey.”
Sharon was sipping on a glass of iced tea, sunglasses taking up almost half her face. “Hi, honey. How was your match?”
“We won, but some of the pride is taken out knowing that I brought a ringer,” Reese said wryly as she clocked her mom’s sunglasses. “What’s with the new look? Going incognito today?”
Be in the moment , she promised herself, even if that meant pulling her thoughts—not an easy task—from Sydney and the last, lingering glance she’d given Reese as she’d walked away.
“Allergies,” her mom said, waving her off as she set her glass down on the round table.
Reese looked around to the patio that was half full with lunch patrons. “Where’d Margie go?”
“She’s hosting a fundraiser at the club next month, and the manager asked for her sign-off on the menu.”
It was then that Reese stopped the conversation and took a closer look at her mom. “That sounds like your dream day coming true. Why didn’t you join her?”
Her mom shrugged, her hands still grasping her glass of iced tea. “I’m a little distracted today. Didn’t think I’d be much help.”
“What’s got you distracted?” Reese asked, continuing to focus on what was right in front of her, on how her mom’s posture was a little off, and how, even under the sunglasses, she could see how her eyes darted around.
“It’s nothing, honey. We can talk about it some other time.”
Only, the way her mom said it, voice shaking with a light tremble, made the hair on Reese’s neck stand up, made her stomach do a swift somersault.
Reese scooted her chair sideways so that she could touch her mom’s knee, and the anxious, whirring feeling inside of her picked up momentum. “Mom? Is everything okay? What’s going on?”
It was probably nothing; she just needed her mom to confirm that, in fact, it was nothing.
So, why wasn’t her mom doing that?
The silence stretched out between them, causing Reese to hold her breath.
“I’m fine, honey,” Sharon finally said, breaking the tension but doing nothing to allay Reese’s fears. “I’m just waiting for some test results, and I guess I’m a little nervous.”
Reese sat up ramrod straight. “What test results?”
Why hadn’t she known? Granted, she and her mom didn’t talk often, but this wasn’t a casual check-in call or an invitation to one of her fundraisers. This was serious .
And, for whatever reason, her mom hadn’t told her.
“I had to have a procedure about a month ago. It went well, but they needed to run tests yesterday afternoon to confirm that they got everything. I should have the results back early next week to give me the all-clear.” Sharon smiled weakly, poorly selling the confidence she was trying to project.
It was like time had stopped, and Reese really did have no option except to be excruciatingly present in the moment, trying to make sense of her mom’s words.
She rolled the words around in her mouth. They tasted bitter before she forced herself to say them out loud. “Mom, are you telling me you have cancer?”
“No, no,” Sharon said, placing her hand on Reese’s. “I had cancer. They caught it very early. Stage 1. They’re confident they got it all, but they want to make sure. I’m just, well, you never know…” Her mom trailed off, her fingers absently stroking Reese’s kn uckles.
“I’m sorry I didn’t know,” Reese said before thoughts came tumbling into her mind that she couldn’t help voicing. “Did Dad go with you yesterday? Is this why you called me Thursday? Mom, why didn’t you tell me?”
Shame flooded through her like a dam had broken, more potent than the fear she’d felt moments ago.
“I didn’t want you to worry, honey. Until a week ago, I didn’t even know you’d be in town so soon. I was planning to let you know when the post-op check-up results came back.”
“But you had a surgery,” Reese argued.
“A minor procedure,” her mom corrected her, missing the point by a mile.
Reese had always felt like an outsider in her own family, but this really took the cake.
She shook her head, pushing the thoughts away. Whatever feelings she had about the situation, she needed to be here for her mom, who was obviously scared about whatever was happening.
“You’re worried, though.”
The words hung between them, and she watched her mom’s shoulders deflate.
“I probably shouldn’t be, but I’ve just had weeks to worry at this point.
I think I got a little carried away. But I promise,” she said, squeezing Reese’s hand, “that no matter what, it’s going to be fine.
Even if I’d have to do radiation or something, they really did catch it so early. ”
“Who took you to your appointment yesterday?” Reese asked, the guilt continuing to gnaw at her.
Suddenly, she wanted to know every piece of information related to her mom’s health, from how she’d discovered something was wrong to this current moment, where a literal piece of her mother was off in some petri dish, probably, awaiting a litany of tests that would hopefully come back with clear and conclusive results.
For whatever issues she and her mom had, Sharon Devereux had been there for every scraped knee, every school project, and every milestone in Reese’s life.
In adulthood, it had been Reese’s choice to keep her mom at arm’s length.
She’d taken her mom’s unwillingness to stand up to her dad on her behalf as her tacit approval of his behavior, and when she’d realized that, stepping away from her family as a whole had become much easier.
But she’d known, on some level, that her parents’ relationship wasn’t as simple as that.