Chapter 6
PENNY ENDED THE CALL WITH JACK AND THEN SCANNED through her messages quickly.
She tried to get more comfortable in her seat on the practice court, shifting back and forth on the hard bench.
At least the weather was cool, a fresh early-summer breeze swirling the London air around her.
Alex was scheduled next for this court, but for the last hour, her attention had been solely fixed on the American who’d been granted permission by the board at Queen’s to use their courts for a practice session.
Natalie Grogan, eighteen years old, long limbed, with a sleek brown ponytail, was in London for Wimbledon Juniors, and from the army of business attire lining the fences, it seemed she was looking for an agent. And a player at her level would have her pick.
Penny didn’t know much about her except that Jack had his eye on her as a potential client and had been in contact with her parents.
So, she’d called her brother and given her two cents, for whatever her opinion on the girl’s potential was worth.
Her game was solid, no real strength, no real weakness, and her playing style actually reminded Penny of her own—doing whatever needed to be done in order to win the match, throwing whatever the opponent sent her back in her face, only better.
She watched as Natalie handed her bags off to her father/coach/manager, and Penny frowned.
There was something about players who didn’t carry their own bags that always bothered her, almost as much as parents who insisted on coaching their own kids, but she wiped the frown from her face when Natalie climbed over the low wall separating the stands from the court and headed in her direction.
“Um, hi, you’re Penny Harrison, right?” Penny slid her sunglasses off her eyes and placed them up on the bill of her cap. So much for that disguise, as if the walking boot didn’t give her away.
“That’s me.”
“I thought so. I mean, I know Alex Russell is scheduled after me, so it would just make sense that you were here. I’m Natalie. Um, like, would it be okay if… Will you take a picture with me?”
Penny blinked, hoping Natalie would take a breath.
She did.
“Sure, no problem.”
She sat down beside Penny and fiddled with her phone before extending her arm out in front of them. They tilted their heads together, and Natalie pointed at Penny, feigning a look of surprise before taking the picture. “This is awesome. Nobody would have believed you came to my practice session.”
“Seriously, no problem,” Penny said. “You looked great out there. Keep it up.”
“Really? I mean, thanks. I, um, I hope your ankle gets better soon. It was amazing, watching you beat Lutrova like that. I couldn’t believe it. It was like out of a movie or something, just unbelievable. And now that commercial, too. So cool.”
There was something about her enthusiasm that made Penny smile. “I couldn’t believe it when I first saw it. They didn’t even tell me before, so it was a complete shock.”
“Nat, let’s go!” her dad shouted from the court below.
“One second!” And then, to Penny, “Are you gonna play at Wimbledon? They were saying on ESPN that your ankle won’t be ready in time.
I had a grade-two sprain once and it sucked.
I had to miss Nationals, and all the college scouts were there, so no one saw me.
Not that I’m worried about that anymore, but they were saying before the tournament that I was going to win it, and then I had to just sit and watch the whole thing, and it just sucked.
I really hope you’ll be good to go.” Natalie paused and Penny cut in, stung as the words hit far too close to home.
“I’ll definitely be out there.”
“Natalie,” her father said, this time making his way up the stairs toward them.
“Good. I can’t wait to see you kick Lutrova’s ass again.” Natalie practically skipped away, tapping at her phone’s screen and most likely blasting out the picture to her socials. Penny’s own phone vibrated in her pocket, undoubtedly a notification that she’d been tagged in the post.
Before she could think too hard about what Natalie had said, Alex and Paolo stepped out onto the court, and she saw the girl dart over in their direction, she assumed for another selfie.
Her phone vibrated again and she scrolled through the alerts to find a message from Teddy, her twin brother.
OMG UR SO FAMOUS!11! it said, with a link to the post, and that pulled her out of her head enough to make her smile.
It was a running joke in her family how much of a celebrity she was.
It still blew her mind that people wanted her autograph or selfies.
Less than a year ago, she hadn’t been anyone special, and everything she’d built could all just go away one day.
Penny sighed, her emotional reprieve over as soon as it had begun.
That was why she needed to get back out there now, despite her ankle; she needed to show everyone that she was fine, that she was still the best.
“Hey, you gonna sit all the way up there the whole time?” Alex shouted at her from the court, and she rolled her eyes before standing and slowly making her way down the stairs, the plastic edges of the boot scraping on the concrete. She finally settled on a closer seat.
“You watch as I destroy him, Penny,” Paolo called from the far side of the court.
They weren’t really playing a match, just working on different aspects of their games that needed attention in the approach to Wimbledon.
Playing on grass was different than playing on clay, and you needed time to adjust. Time she wouldn’t have even if her ankle was ready to go by the first day of the tournament.
The pain was manageable now, not nearly as bad as when she’d first injured it.
She could feel it when her weight was on it, but that wasn’t any different from other small injuries she’d had over the years.
She just needed to be able to get through matches on it.
A fortnight, as they said in this country, would be grueling on a newly healed injury, but she could deal with it if it meant winning her first Grand Slam.
She’d been able to fight through the pain in France. Why should England be any different?
A little voice in her head, one that sounded suspiciously like Jack’s, grumbled the many reasons why not, but she ignored it. She needed to be out on the court in the next few days and that was that.
Alex and Paolo started to hit in earnest, and for a minute, Penny just watched them, her eyes traveling with the ball back and forth, the satisfying thwap of contact with the strings music to her ears.
And then she closed her eyes and let her mind drift, felt the ground beneath her feet, no pain in her ankle, just the soft give of the grass, firmer than the clay she’d just played on in France.
She could feel the ball in her hands, fitting perfectly in the cradle of her fingers, one bounce, two, three, and four, then lifting her arm up to the sky, pushing her weight down to the ground as the ball rose over her head.
Then the racket slashing through the air, perfect contact, barely feeling the ball leaving the strings, over the net; landing balanced, keeping her feet under her and waiting for the return, a crossover step to a slice backhand down the line, drawing her opponent to one side of the court before taking the next groundstroke and firing it to the opposite court with her forehand for a winner.
By the time she opened her eyes again, she’d played full matches in her head against various opponents in the women’s top ten, all with their unique challenges and weaknesses.
Women she could come face-to-face with at Wimbledon, women who were standing in her path to the title.
She knew how to beat them all, even when they were at their best. She just had to make sure that she was at her best.
“Did you fall asleep over here?” Alex asked, flopping down in the seat beside her and taking a sip from his water bottle of a blue concoction that was supposed to replace electrolytes lost during a practice session.
“Visualizing,” she mumbled, a slow smile spreading across her face as he leaned in and pressed a sweaty kiss on her cheek. He didn’t pull away. Instead he hovered for a moment and let his breath slide over her skin.
“Visualizing, hmm? What’s been going through that pretty head of yours, love?”
Penny turned so her lips were just a hairsbreadth away from his. “Well, I was thinking about tennis, but now that you mention it…” She trailed off and was about to close the space between them when a catcall made them both jump and pull apart.
“Are we training or not, lover boy?” Paolo called from the court, whacking a ball in their direction.
Alex caught it deftly and stood, grinning, a hand running over his head, sifting through his hair. “Duty calls. Check out my slice, would you?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He pressed a kiss to her temple, then jogged out to the court. Penny leaned back in her seat with a sigh, settling in to watch.
She slipped the walking boot off her foot and the ballet flat off the other before stretching her legs out in the sun.
She tried to keep her eyes on Alex, to check out his slice serve and see what was giving him an issue, but the warmth of the sun and the steady rhythm of the ball soon had her eyes drifting closed again.
Her opponent was Zina Lutrova this time, like in France, and on grass, Lutrova’s game would be even more formidable, the speed of her serve and groundstrokes amped up by the fast surface.
Beating her on clay was one thing, but beating her on grass to win Wimbledon, that would be something else entirely.
Alex’s match that afternoon wasn’t much of a challenge. A win, 6–3, 6–4, without need of a third deciding set had them finished at the tournament well before their dinner reservation that night.