36
“How Is Luna Aldridge’s Newest Relationship Compared to Her Marriage with Jeremiah Evans?”
—Marie Style
“WHAT ARE YOU doing?” he groaned with one eye open, squinting against the light of the lamp. “It’s four in the morning.”
“Kieran, it’s six o’clock.”
He ignored me. “Come back to bed.” He reached for my hand. I squeezed his palm before tying my shoe.
“I’m going for a run. I’ll be back by the time you wake up again,” I whispered.
“Stay. I’ll let you have the left side of the bed.”
“I slept on the left side of the bed all night.” I laughed.
“This time I’ll be less grouchy about it.”
I leaned over and said, “I’ll see you in an hour, Grouchy.”
My sneakers creaked against the floorboards as I left his childhood bedroom and went downstairs.
With the sun yet to fully rise outside, the hallways were dark.
Usually, I’d wait until it was light out, but I couldn’t lie there anymore, staring at his quiet face while my nightmare played itself over and over.
Last night had ended on a good note when we got back from the beach.
His parents and grandmother had returned, sitting in the kitchen with Franny, Mila, Anica, the neighbor’s three children, and Rosco.
They all ran into the living room when we slid the back door open.
I wouldn’t have been as startled if it weren’t for the fact that it looked like Kieran and I had just gone skinny dipping, painted in the sea.
Mila and her girlfriend had snorted before we left to get cleaned up—separately.
Kieran waited downstairs while I showered.
Once I finished, and he had gone up, the kitchen was full of clattering crockery, the smell of saffron and red sauce, and a family prepared to tell me every embarrassing thing about Kieran.
Apparently in high school, he had asked a girl out, and she told him she was busy, only for her to show up at the family restaurant on a date during Kieran’s shift.
“That’s horrible!” I told Mila. She only laughed, saying that he survived.
His father shared that Kieran once rear-ended a neighbor’s car while trying to parallel park and blamed it on a raccoon. “The best part about it was that she believed him! She still has no idea that there isn’t a raccoon the size of a human running around.”
Even though I went to bed with a full stomach, sore cheeks from laughing, and a handsome man wrapped around me, I hadn’t stopped thinking about the conversation on the beach. It carried itself into my sleep.
Two A.M., I woke up sweating, old memories burrowing themselves into my dreams. The first of me and Jeremiah in New York before the US Open, him reminding me that my forehand wasn’t strong enough. Why don’t you focus on winning a match before telling me how to practice?
The second, the night I first met Kieran. You could never love someone like that. Who said something like that and then changed their mind? How did that work?
Almost outside. Almost to the ocean.
“Good morning.”
“Oh, Mr. Alvarez. You nearly gave me a heart attack.” I pressed my hand to my chest, after not noticing him on the deck through the screen door. He sat in a rickety chair with a coffee in hand, watching the rolling waves.
He released a gruff laugh. “No one is awake in this home before seven. What are you doing up so early?”
“Just going on a run. Keeping up with routine.”
He nodded, approving. “Hard work is what life is all about. It builds good character and a strong heart. Maybe you’ll rub off on my son,” he said.
A muscle in my jaw twitched. “I don’t mean to overstep, but your son is one of the most hardworking people I know.”
He laughed. “I don’t imagine that it’s very difficult to be good at something that involves pretending.”
I inhaled. “Mr. Alvarez, have you ever seen one of your son’s movies?”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you seen anything your son has acted in?”
“No, but—”
“Then you have no right to speak about him like that. Even if he was a horrendous actor, you’d still have no right to speak about him like that because he’s your son.
And I apologize, I do, because this is your home and you’ve been kind enough to let me stay for the night.
But your son rips himself apart over his career because you don’t believe what he does is good enough.
He won’t watch himself act because he thinks that makes him arrogant, something you’ve led him to believe.
” His face twisted more and more with annoyance, prepared to argue.
“You’re correct,” he said. “You have no right to talk to me like that under my roof.”
My blood boiled. Inconsiderate, traditional, stubborn man. I should have stepped away. Apologized. Eaten my words. But Kieran didn’t deserve this.
I exhaled. “The last conversation my mother and I had before she died was an argument over the fact that I didn’t want to go to college.
I wanted to enter pro tennis once I graduated high school, and she disagreed.
She said that I needed something to fall back on because careers like professional sports weren’t kind to women.
” I paused, looking at the ocean. She’d love this beach.
She’d find more than enough seashells to decorate the kitchen island with.
I could picture her running her fingers through the sand, trying to find the smoothest ones.
Wouldn’t this just look beautiful on a necklace? she’d say.
“There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t regret that our last conversation was an argument.
I spent years wondering if she would be happy that I went to college but pursued tennis anyway.
Don’t let your son live his entire life wondering if his family is proud of him, because this family is his entire life. ”
I left him to ponder my words, stepping off the back deck and onto the sand.
Sand in my shoes, sweat in my sports bra, and stress slithering up my calf muscles were unpleasant, all the time. But it tripled in unpleasantness when I was trying to be quiet. My legs shook as the stairs groaned under my shoes.
“Be quiet,” I angrily whispered at the stairs. I just needed to get into the shower before anyone could smell me.
“Abuela, you’re not listening to me.”
My weight sank into the stairs, jolting at the sound of Kieran’s voice. I whipped my gaze around, finding a door cracked open at the end of the hall, across from the bathroom. Not ideal.
Quietly, I took the next step and the next, making it to the top of the stairs. With long, slow movements toward the bathroom door, their voices became clearer.
“Alejandro, this is important to her, you must go to Madrid.”
I stilled.
“You haven’t received the results of your blood work or X-rays yet—”
“Dios mío, you’ve let your father get into your head with that phone call. I’m fine!”
“But—”
“Do you tell the stars about her?”
“Oh, God, not this again,” he groaned.
“Do you?”
“Abuela—”
“I was asking to be polite, but since you’re going to be stubborn, then I’ll tell you: I already know the answer.
It was obvious enough from all the pictures online.
Then last night you wouldn’t take your eyes off her.
You watched her move as if she sculpted the moon herself. You look like a puppy.”
A pause. All I could hear was the pounding of my heartbeat. I questioned for a moment if it was drowning out their voices.
“You keep this big heart of yours so locked up, and for what? To protect it from something you’d regret missing out on at my age?
I know you don’t like to talk about it, but I know how much that last girl hurt you…
how difficult it is to trust others now…
But I’ve noticed the way Luna sees you—in those pictures and in person.
There are stars in her eyes for you. You two know each other. ”
“I…”
“You love her, don’t you?”
My heart dropped like a stone in the ocean, sinking with speed.
Woof!
I spun and my back hit the threshold of the bathroom as Rosco barked at the bottom of the stairs. I scurried into the bathroom, shutting the door, gripping the sink, my heart working overtime to return to a steady beat.
Kieran’s footsteps sounded outside the door, rushing to the first floor. I took that as my opportunity to turn the shower on before he had a chance to knock and question when I had come in.
Quickly, I rinsed the sand off my skin and scrubbed the sweat from my hair. Turning the shower off, I pushed the curtain aside, stepped out, and grabbed a towel from the rod on the wall. I unfolded it and—
“Jesus!” I yelped, the bathroom door opening. I rushed to cover some part of my body as Kieran swore in unison, looking up at the ceiling. “Who just opens a bathroom door?!”
“This is my bathroom!” he argued.
“Well, yes, you’ve got me there, but—why are you shutting the door behind you!”
“Because there are three children running around and I’m not too sure they’re prepared to learn about the adult female body or why Uncle Kieran is interested in learning about the—”
“Yes, I get the picture!” I scrambled to wrap the towel around myself, holding it tight. The one time I didn’t shave. “I’m decent,” I told him, his head retreating from the ceiling.
The one downfall to having eyes as captivating as his was that you could follow them everywhere they went. It was impossible to miss what he was focused on. Like now, how they stared anywhere but my face. Water droplets ran down my arms in streams. The blue of his eyes seemed to track each river.
I adjusted the towel, trying to tighten it under my arms.
He cleared his throat.
“Kieran.”
“Luna.”
“You could go into your room,” I reminded him, gesturing to the connecting door.
“I know.” He took a step forward. “But that’s difficult to do now that I’m here. You’re making my decision a lot harder.”
“What decision?”
“Whether or not I should leave and go to Madrid with you.”
“Kieran.”
Another step forward, this one so much closer. I could feel his words before they came out.
“Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it,” he whispered.
“You should stay, here, with your family.”
“I should?”
“You should. Spend time with them. Take some time for yourself. I’ll see you in New York in three weeks anyway.”
“Three weeks,” he repeated. “What if I can’t wait three weeks?”
“I…” I didn’t know. What I did know was how likely it was for Jeremiah to be at the Madrid Open and the event that followed it.
A pain thwacked my heart. Rejection, it felt like, when he didn’t cut me off. Tell him you want him to come.
A knock at the door made us both jump. “Uncle Kieran, are you in there? Mila can’t get Dru to stop crying!”
“I’m coming,” he answered through the door. His face somber now, he told me, “I’ll let you get ready.”
“So you’ve been pining over him for ten days now?”
“Dad, that’s not at all what I said,” I huffed, pressing my headphones further into my ears as I swung the racket again, the machine across the court spitting out another ball.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Then a pause as the machine stirred. I took it as a moment to come up with a better response.
Coach stood at the side looking less than impressed. I told him I could multitask. Good for vascular health. The machine quieted before shooting another ball to the right of the court. I lunged, sending it back.
“Fine, what did you mean, then?” he responded over the call.
“All I meant was that I haven’t heard from him.” I swung the racket again, the ball going high this time.
“It sounds like he’s giving you space because you asked for space.
” His voice sounded the same as it always did when he had to explain something that he didn’t think needed explaining.
Luna, you’re in a bad mood because you haven’t eaten.
Luna, the chair is falling apart because you didn’t read the instructions.
“Well, I didn’t expect this much space!”
“Drop shot this time, Luna!” Coach ordered.
I ran to center court, swinging the racket parallel to my knee.
“Why don’t you just tell him that, then?” Dad offered.
“Because apparently I told him I wanted space! I can’t change my mind now, he’s going to think I’m insane. I should stick to what I said: focus on tennis and let him spend time with his family.”
I was so close to my best ranking, I could taste it. It was sweet and addictive. Being the sixth best woman’s tennis player in the world again was right under my tongue. It fueled my energy, which had been pulsing all week, waiting for the final, five days and two matches away.
“I don’t think that’s a problem seeing as you’re playing in the final.” I extended my right arm out, reaching for the ball. “Why can’t you just be honest with the man?”
“We’re not even in a relationship, Dad, that would be weird,” I panted, racing to the other side of the court. The ball flew over the net, hitting the clay court. “Like the time Walt had a crush on Sarah Anthony, do you remember that?”
“Was that the girl Walt asked your mother to bake cookies for on Valentine’s Day?”
“Yes, her! Walt would stare at the back of her head every day but talked about her as if they were married. It was so weird.”
“Your brother was a weird kid in general. He treats his cats like children. You and Kieran are both adults, so you have no excuse.”
“But I just met his entire family. That’s overwhelming enough.” Swing, hit.
“How was his family?”
“They were fun and loud and kind. But his father was brutal.”
“Why’s that?”
Forehand. My knee was beginning to throb. “He does everything in his power to make Kieran feel ashamed about his career and treats him like a child because of it. It’s like he has no desire for his son to be happy.”
“Sounds like he needs a reminder of what being a father is about.”
“That’s exactly what—” I stopped, letting the ball bounce behind me. “You’re a genius. Can you do me a huge favor?”