Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Click.
“Yes, Leo.”
Click.
“Love that.”
Click.
“Good, more of that.”
Nearly as intensive as Leo’s practice schedule in the lead-up to Indian Wells is his sponsor schedule.
Every day is a new obligation for the brands who fund him to wear their athleisure or drink their sports drink or eat their pasta.
To be clear, it’s a privilege to have such a solid roster of companies backing him, especially the pasta brand, but holy hell, there are only so many photo shoots and videos for TikTok and interviews for Instagram he can take when all he really wants to do is hit the court and stay in good form ahead of the tournament.
He could never make it as an influencer.
Today, he’s thinking Just do it, yet again, as he poses in some new tennis gear for Nike ahead of their spring launch.
Fortunately, Tess is here, too, having some solo shots taken and posing with Leo in others.
Two perennial American favorites, they’re the perfect duo to rep Nike’s new line.
Well, they’re the perfect duo when Tess isn’t off camera, teasing Leo like the little brother she never had.
“Yes!” she cries as he mimics his backhand for the next shot. “Make love to the camera!”
Leo fights his smile and his red ears as he tries to stay poised for the photographer.
“He’s serving!” Tess continues. “It’s giving ’03 Roddick!”
The “R” word officially snaps his concentration, forcing an embarrassed grin and an apology to the photographer out of him.
“Totally fine, Leo,” the photographer says. “This is good, actually. Let’s keep up this playfulness in our next round of shots. Tess, you can step back in.”
They have Leo and Tess sit on a bench by the practice court they’ve been shooting on this afternoon—Leo leaning forward, Tess leaning back. There are tennis balls scattered across the ground around them. They both stare into the lens with focused expressions.
“Perfect, keep it right there, you two,” the photographer tells them.
They turn to their lighting tech to direct the setup for their next shots, giving Tess an opening, unfortunately, to quiz Leo about his practice with Gabe tomorrow.
Though, to be fair, it was his mistake for telling her in the first place.
“So, how are you feeling about Practice with Your Nemesis: The Sequel?” Tess asks, snapping out of her model-like expression and into a much sillier one. “Excited? Nervous? Full of dread? Who set this one up? Brian?”
“All right, stand down, Sporty Spice,” he says.
“Um, Mel C wishes,” Tess says, smoothing out her skirt as she turns to Leo. “So?”
“I’m feeling good about it? We’re good now, I guess. It’s all good,” Leo says evenly, refusing to give away how giddy he is to practice with Gabe again.
“Riveting stuff, Leo.” Behind her, the lighting tech is adjusting some reflectors, and the sun bounces off into Leo’s face for a moment.
“Okay, well, I set it up,” he says, relenting. “Is that more riveting?”
“Uh, yeah! Way more. What compelled this decision?” she says, eyes widening, leaning in closer.
“I don’t know. I just figured I would keep following Brian’s strategy. He’s letting me be a little more creative with my approach, so yeah, playing with Gabe might help with that.”
“Okay, cool, cool,” Tess says. “And you’re, like, friends now, or?”
“Maybe ‘friends’ is too strong a word, but definitely not enemies anymore. We talked things out at Delray. Well, sort of. We’re putting our weapons down, at least.”
“Wow, burying the lede!”
“It’s not that big of a deal!”
“Yeah, well, your ears say otherwise.”
He can feel them heating up, his face going all rosy. He’s always betrayed by his blushing. In a blink, one of the makeup artists is already standing over Leo, getting ready to put a bit more foundation on his cheeks.
“I just think it’s nice,” Tess continues. “I know growth when I see it. Carrying around old grudges may feel good, but they’re wasted space. Trust me, I’m a Virgo. I should know.”
The makeup artist snaps his fingers in response and adds a final touch to Leo’s face.
“Okay, let’s get back to it,” the photographer announces to everyone on set. “We don’t want to lose the sun.”
Leo always feels like he’s woken up on a different planet during his time at Indian Wells.
Opening the long white curtains that pool on the hardwood floor of his hotel room, his sightline is filled with the snow-capped Santa Rosa Mountains springing up in the distance and forming pockets of flat land decorated with palm trees.
He feels as if he’s slept inside a crater overnight.
Or maybe it’s not another planet. Maybe it’s the moon. Because when he steps out of his room to meet Brian in the lobby for practice, his body nearly defies gravity, almost floating off the ground when he sees Gabe walking by.
“Oh, hey,” Leo says. Still only halfway in the hall and experiencing weightlessness, the heavy door closes automatically behind him, literally bumping him into Gabe, his hands breaking his fall on Gabe’s arm. “Sorry.”
“Well, good morning to you, too,” Gabe says, and when he puts his hand on Leo’s shoulder to help steady him, Leo’s officially up in the stars somewhere. “Looks like we’re neighbors. I’m right down the hall.”
“Sweet,” Leo says, beginning their walk to the elevators. Sweet? “I always try to get the same room every year. One of my own superstitions, I guess.”
“How’s it working out for you this year?”
Leo’s not going to make a quip about how Gabe will find out when he goes further than him in the tournament. He’s going to stay true to his side of the truce. He is. Really.
“So far, so good,” he says, shrugging. “Practice has been going well. Just so much media and endorsement stuff to do this week.”
“God, I know, like a million photo shoots.”
“Yeah, you must be in heaven,” Leo says. Shit. Okay, whatever, he’s not perfect.
“Meaning?” Gabe asks, head cocked.
Welp, no turning back now.
“Oh, I don’t know, I just mean, Mr. Cover Star must live for all this attention,” Leo says. He then puts on his best Gabe smirk and voice. “Remember: Always keep it neat.”
“Did you just recite my whiskey commercial?” Gabe asks, a devilish smile curling.
Oops. A slight miscalculation. “Well, it used to be on TV, like, every other minute. It was kinda hard to miss.” All right, decent save. “But, hey, if I’m allowed to be a bit of a teacher’s pet, you’re allowed to be a little full of yourself.”
“Oh, is that what I am?” Gabe asks, eyes widening.
“Well, I, um …” Leo stumbles.
“No, no, don’t get shy now,” Gabe says.
“Okay, well,” Leo says, realizing this is the chance he’s been waiting for.
The chance to call out the golden boy. “All I’m saying is that you seem to love the spotlight.
Like, you must love scrolling through all the Instagram fan accounts dedicated to you.
You must wake up in the morning and stare at your own reflection in the mirror.
You must bask in your own glow. You must—”
Before Leo can dig himself in even further, Gabe asks, an eyebrow raised, “How do you know there are fan accounts dedicated to me?” And Leo nearly trips, suddenly a victim to gravity again.
“Gabe, thank God I caught you,” a frazzled woman with winged eyeliner and a long black ponytail says, popping out of one of the hotel rooms on their floor like a prairie dog.
“I know, I know, you’re heading to practice, but I need you to sign off on one of these before this fucking company tars and feathers me.
I also can’t look at these things anymore.
My night terrors are going to come back. ”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Gabe says. “Look at what exactly? And is it cool if Leo—”
“Yes, sure, hi, Leo,” she says, speaking as quickly as Lorelai Gilmore and frantically motioning for them to step inside. “I’m Gabe’s agent, Esme.”
Leo would introduce himself, but as he enters the room, his mouth slowly opens at the singularly outrageous sight before him.
“Oh … my God,” he says, stopping dead in his tracks.
Set up around Esme’s room are at least a dozen life-size cardboard cutouts of Gabe modeling a new sport wristwatch in varying poses—arm across his chest, hand on his hip, arm resting atop his head. In all of them, his perfect smize would make Tyra herself root for him in the stands.
“I know, it’s harrowing. The eyes … they follow you around the room,” Esme says. “Why they want one of these greeting people at their launch is beyond me, but hey, glad to have a new brand coming on board right now.”
Leo is simply standing there, gagged, gooped, gobsmacked at all these Gabes, whose suave expressions belong on the cover of one of Gabe’s smutty novels.
His mouth is still slightly agape, and he’s forcing himself to squash the thundering cackle that’s threatening to burst out of him.
He glances over at Gabe with a wry smile.
“You are so pleased with yourself right now,” Gabe says.
“I hate to say this—”
“No, you don’t.”
“—but now you must be in heaven,” Leo says.
Moving across the living room, he sidles up to one of the cardboard figures.
“I think it’s pretty clear you have to go with this one,” he says, putting his hand on his hip as he stands beside the cutout of Gabe doing the same.
He has to bite his lip to keep from smiling too hard.
“Oh, God, please not that one,” Esme says, and looks down at her phone that’s begun buzzing.
“Ah, fuck, I have to take this. Okay, well, just put this Post-it on your favorite. If it were me, I’d pick the arm-across-chest. The rest of them look like you have a secret and we’re done with that era, aren’t we? ”
With a knowing smile, Esme sticks the note on human Gabe’s forehead and scurries into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.