Chapter 25
Landon
Ishut off the TV when they start interviewing Tessa, and a few things strike me.
I don’t love that I wasn’t there for Rori’s semifinal match. The biggest win of her career, and I missed it. It felt wrong not to be there for the celebration.
I really don’t love that I wasn’t there for today’s finals match. A hard loss for her to swallow, from the pain on her face as I watched on TV. It feels very wrong not to be there to help her through it in-person.
A few hours later, she calls me from her burner as they arrive at Heathrow to fly back. I do what I can to console her, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
“Hey,” I say softly when I pick up.
“Hey, is it okay to talk?” she asks. “I wanted to hear your voice for a minute, and we’re about to take off.”
“Yes, of course. I’m—fuck, I’m sorry Rori. I’ve been there.”
She sighs. “This sucks. I didn’t—I don’t even know what happened.”
“Sometimes you don’t have answers for what’s happening on the field, on the court,” I say, remembering some tough losses that felt incomprehensible at the time.
“Yeah, I definitely have no answers right now,” she replies.
I give her space to keep talking, staying silent.
“Julie’s helping though. She keeps saying how it’s my first final of a Grand Slam, what a big deal that is.
And it is, I mean I’m so proud of that. Plus I won six of my seven matches.
” Her voice is still a little pained, but I also can hear that the positive reframing of her Wimbledon is resonating with the pride seeping through.
“That’s right, and the fact is, we both know—you come back stronger from tough losses. The next final you’ll be that much more prepared.”
She mumbles something to someone and then speaks into the phone again.
“What still makes me angry at myself is that I was so out of it mentally. I one hundred percent know better. I was distracted, I let myself get psyched out, I didn’t level up even though I knew I needed to when I hit the court, sick or not.
I knew exactly what Tessa was doing with her mind games too. ”
I know she probably needs to get this all out, so I don’t interrupt as she keeps going. “It’d be one thing if I had an actual injury. But that can’t ever happen again. Getting pulled out of a match that important, mentally. Being distracted.”
Once she seems to have spoken it all out, I jump in. “Here’s the thing, Rori. Next time, you won’t allow it. You’ll know better, so you’ll do better. I believe it.”
She hums in response, like she’s considering my words, and then there’s more mumbling on her side of the phone.
“Landon, they’re making me put away my phone.”
Damn it, I’m not sure I’ve helped much yet. “Okay, babe, text me when you land. Or call if you want.”
Honestly, I'll talk to her as long as she wants about this when she’s off the plane.
For someone as competitive as Rori, simply telling her, “you did great,” will not feel genuine or helpful.
Acknowledging that she can work on a weakness for next time—that will resonate better as she digests the loss.
If I can help by being her sounding board, I’ll take on that role readily.
This is so much more than a casual “no labels” arrangement. I can’t avoid the thought from entering my head. This isn’t a temporary “let’s see how it goes” thing to me.
Real feelings are involved. At least for me. And I’m starting to think for her, too. The fact that I’m the voice she wanted to hear after the loss—major.
With Rori returning to Florida, we are going to have to talk about it soon.
Though it’s not clear how our schedules are going to mesh at this point.
My days are settling into a familiar routine with the Waves training camp coming up.
Lifting, cardio, team practice, player meetings—rinse, wash, repeat.
The demands of this part of the pre-season are consistent and constant.
I can’t drive to Tampa at the pace I was in the early summer.
And training camp will mean three weeks stuck in our dedicated facilities, staying in a hotel together as a team. Only going home on Sundays.
Camp serves a lot of purposes. For rookies or players who aren’t amongst the top, it’s a time to earn your spot.
Maybe ninety players total get invited to training camp.
By the time our first game rolls around, we’ll be down to a roster of fifty-three.
So, camp is cut-throat, even as much as it’s a time to bond as players.
One of my roles as I step into leadership will be to help manage the guys through the cuts. Sometimes, people you really like personally are on the chopping block, and it sucks. Just another challenging aspect of pro sports.
And one more reason I will need to be fully present for my guys in the coming weeks. So Rori and I really do need to sort out how this is all going to work before I get any deeper into the pre-season activities.
Grace pops over for dinner the night of the Wimbledon final, which had ended around noon Florida time.
Her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and makeup free, Grace looks so much like her younger self that it throws me off a bit.
She tends to be primped at all moments nowadays.
Not that she needs to be with me, but my big brother antennae go off.
“How was your day, Gracie?” I ask, using her childhood nickname that sometimes still slips in. With business school on top of acting as my personal assistant, her schedule is quite full right now, and I want to make sure she’s not overwhelmed.
“It was alright,” she says in a tone that makes it seem exactly the opposite. “I got feedback on a project, and it was bad. Kind of sulking about it, actually.”
“Oh man, that blows. I’m sorry. Is there anything you can do?” I ask as I open the fridge to start dinner.
“Yeah…I’m going to drop this class, I think. All the others are going well. Maybe try again another semester,” Grace says anxiously. Of all of us competitive Battle kids, Grace is the one who hates to fail the most. I can hear how stressed she is about the decision to drop the class.
So I try to make her feel better, coming towards her and resting my hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay to bail on this course. If it isn’t the right class, there’s no reason to force it. You’re brilliant and amazing, regardless.”
Grace gives me a small smile in return, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. I hate to see her struggling.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” she says, clearly not feeling reassured.
I nod. Sometimes it's best with Grace to let her solve things herself.
She changes the topic, putting the focus back on me.
“How’re things going with Rori?”
I shift my hands to the counter, where I’ve set the food we need to prepare for dinner.
“Well, her Wimbledon obviously didn’t end the way she wanted today. But between me and her—yeah, things are good. Really good, actually.”
Grace’s face brightens at my words. “Oh Landon, yay! That makes me so happy, you don’t even know.”
“Our whole situation, the constant distance, the traveling, you’d think it would trigger some of the fears I’ve had about being with someone. But I don’t even think about it. We talk all the time. We just…we just work. I don’t have any doubts about her, ever.”
Grace comes up to me and gives me a quick hug. “I love that for you. And it’s important we break the cycle, you know? We’re not our parents.”
“No, we’re not.”
As Grace steps out of the hug, I decide to get into my earlier thoughts. “Rori and I are still doing the ‘no label’ thing though. But I don’t know, I can’t lie. It feels like more.”
“Have you guys talked about that?” Grace asks. “It’s a big deal.”
“Not yet, it hasn’t been time,” I respond. “Been too soon. I think it might be time now, though.”
Before she can respond, my doorbell rings. I go and open it to find Johnson there. At the Waves facility, he said he might stop by for dinner tonight, but we never followed up, so it’s a little unexpected to see him.
“Hey man, I realized that I did want to come over for dinner as I was driving home. Eating alone, studying the playbook, sounded depressing,” he explains as he walks in.
“No worries,” I say, as we walk to the kitchen. “Grace is here too.”
When we walk into the kitchen, Grace has picked up where I started, getting the oven going to reheat the food.
“Hi, Little Battle,” Johnson says in greeting to her.
As she keeps focused on her food prep tasks, I don’t see her face when she responds, “Hi, Johnson.”
A moment later, she’s finished the prep work, and she turns back towards us.
“So Landon, when the oven finishes pre-heating, can you pop this dish in for twenty-five minutes? I’m going to go for a run before dinner if that’s okay.”
Grace may not be a college track star anymore, but running has always been her outlet for relieving stress.
I think she’s crazy, but she says she actually loves to run.
Maybe because I have this big, tall body, I don’t enjoy it at all.
Running’s a painful necessity for me to maintain conditioning, not a fun and relaxing hobby.
Johnson’s no different than me, so I’m surprised at his next words. “I’ll go with you, Little Battle. I didn’t get much cardio today.”
Grace looks surprised for a moment too but then wipes that expression away. “Okay, Johnson, let’s see if you can keep up.”
“I’ve no doubt that I’ll be chasing you down the whole time,” he responds.
I shake my head at the turn of events, abandoned to make everyone dinner. “I guess Grover and I’ll play chef together.” The pup is lying content on his dog bed but will 100% get moving again soon at the prospect of food dropping on the floor.
I flip on the TV and watch my favorite sports talking heads show while I wait for the food to heat up, muting the sound and turning my head when they show Rori’s loss this morning.
It hurts my heart too much to watch it again.
Instead, I decide to text Rawley. He came in to “help” Grace with Grover over the weekend while I was in London. Grace did all the work, I’m sure, but it’s nice to check off another week of things staying trouble-free for him.
LANDON: Hey, thanks again for coming this weekend.
RAWLS: WSP. No problem.
LANDON: You catch that Sox game? That kid out of Maine is unreal.
RAWLS: Y sick.
RAWLS: U19 camp is soon. You should talk to Con. He’s stressing.
Translation: Connor’s training camp for the U19—under age nineteen players—national soccer team was coming up.
LANDON: Y I need to. I’ll text him.
All I get in response is a thumbs up, but that’s normal for Rawley.
Now that we’ve reached July, he’s occupied with an elite wide receivers camp and informal summer practices with his own team, so he’ll be traveling here less. He just needs to get through the Bowl Games in January unscathed, and the draft in April will be his golden ticket, like it’s been mine.
Two Battles in the NFL. Fucking wild.