Chapter 10
ten
Afew minutes later, I throw a thin sweatshirt over my cropped tank top and spandex shorts, in dire need of a workout to burn off the weird energy that’s been hanging over me since brunch. I have at least an hour before I need to meet Delilah.
The best way I know to win? Put in more work. And with Karolína touring Charleston, she won’t stop me.
I try to get my workouts done at players’ gyms when I’m traveling, especially since hotel gyms rarely have the equipment I need. But this will be a short workout, a few sets of a few exercises.
The moment the elevator opens, I spy Aleksandr in front of the gym doors.
His back presses against the glass, his head bowed over his phone, dressed exactly as he was at brunch, like he came straight here after talking to his family members.
He glances up from his phone, and satisfaction settles in his features.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I grumble.
“Somehow I knew you’d be here.” He looks at me the way my yiayia used to look at my cousins when she was scolding them, eyebrows pulled over squinted eyes. “It’s a rest day, solnyshko.”
“Enough of that. What does that even mean?”
He pauses for a moment, eyes searching mine. “Little sun.”
“Oh, ha ha. Very funny. I get it. Because I’m a ray of sunshine. Asshole.” I step forward. “Let me through. I’m just going to stretch.”
“You’re not a good liar. How many years of your life have you spent overtraining?”
I want to scream.
“Ante pali,” I murmur. Here we go again.
A favorite phrase of my nanny, Daphne, when forced to pick me up from boarding school earlier than she was supposed to.
Like after the headmaster noticed the teasing about my “boy’s name” getting worse.
As if time away from school did anything more than sharpen my peers’ pitchforks.
Aleksandr cocks his head, but I simply say, “You’re annoying me. ”
“That’s nothing new.”
“Don’t you think you got in enough of your antics earlier?”
“If we’re going to work together, you have to listen to me. Rest days are integral to your growth. I know you know this. So what’s the issue?”
“I think we’ve established that I don’t want to work with you.”
He’s quiet, waiting for more. I sigh.
He’s shown he understands me on a level few, if any, do.
I’m not sure I can lie myself out of this one, and at this point, I’m not sure I want to anymore.
Adjusting the hoops along my ears, I say, “I know rest days are important. But I also know any time I’m not working my ass off is time wasted.
At brunch, I got an itch, like spending time with my friends takes away from my training. ”
Infuriatingly, he’s still quiet, watching me.
Making no move to speak. With narrowed eyes, I finish, “I need a major title this year or I’m not sure I can keep doing this.
I’m tired of feeling like I’m not enough.
Like nothing I do is enough. The world tells me I’m meant to be someone great, but with each passing day, I’m not sure if that’s true anymore. Maybe I peaked at seventeen.”
It’s more than I’ve admitted to anyone besides myself.
I can’t figure out why he of all people is able to pull it from me, but I’ve become a wound ball of yarn, unspooled by a look from him.
He’s wrapped the end around a finger and pulled, unraveling every terrible thought I’ve had about myself and this sport for years.
“I didn’t win my first tournament until I was twenty-four. I didn’t win my first ATP1000 until I was twenty-seven. It wasn’t until later that year that I won my first major. There’s—”
“So you’re saying I should just keep going and I’ll win a major in two years?”
Aleksandr tilts his head. “You’re being purposely obtuse.”
“Am I? You didn’t exactly resolve my concerns.”
“If you’d have let me finish, you would’ve seen where I was going.”
Crossing my arms to prevent myself from hitting him, I nod for him to continue.
“What I’m trying to tell you is there’s more to winning majors than killing yourself on rest days.
I’d venture to say that success is predicated upon rest. Only when I took a step back, started taking vacations, hanging out with friends, doing things for me, only then did I break into spaces I’d never been before.
The answer isn’t always to push harder. Sometimes the answer is to take a moment to breathe and give your body the rest it deserves. ”
“And you think if I take more breaks, I’ll win Roland Garros? Hoist the French Open trophy?”
“There are a lot of factors that will go into you winning, but yes, I think it’s the top thing you can change in your training to see more success.”
I scan his features, including the smile that grows as he catches me watching it. We’re closer than I realized, my body a few inches from pressing against his, so I step back. “And yet, here we are. You did all those things and you still quit. Maybe it wasn’t the solution.”
“I won the majors, didn’t I?” He runs a hand through his hair, his eyebrows coming together again.
“Nic, there’s a lot about my life I would change if I could do it over again, and maybe if I had someone like me telling me to slow down, I’d still be playing.
Maybe I’d still love the tour the way I used to.
But if none of that changed and I felt the way I did that Sunday I won Wimbledon, I’d quit again. Despite the consequences.”
This time, the guilt in his tone is unmistakable. Why does he feel guilty about quitting? What consequences? I’m positive there’s much more going on in his head than I’m privy to, and I wonder if I should be paying more attention to him. Observing him the way he does me.
But it’s not my place to pry, and if I were him, I wouldn’t want me asking questions. I switch gears. “One day, I’m going to go to the gym during a rest day and you’re not going to be able to stop me.”
Aleksandr laughs, the tension leaking from his shoulders as he guides me toward the elevator.
His hand never touches my back, again seeing me better than 99% of people I engage with, but I feel its heat from where it hovers.
“I’d say over my dead body, but you don’t need any more incentive to kill me.
” He presses the up button. “One day, you’re going to believe that letting yourself rest is the best thing you can do for yourself. ”
After we enter the elevator, I turn to him, but as I open my mouth, he says, “I know. I’m annoying you.”
Sighing far too dramatically, I cross my arms, staring at the numbers as they change on the screen near the top.
“What did you do for yourself today? You stopped sending me proof after the first one, and I’m sure that doesn’t mean you’re not working on that list.”
“I tried sweet tea at brunch today,” I answer smugly.
“And?”
“Hated every sip of it.”
Aleksandr laughs. “I could tell. Each time you drank it, your nose scrunched. You could have ordered a different drink, you know.”
There he is again, seeing things in me no one else would notice. I turn away, frowning once more.
“You’re cute when you pout.”
“Are you flirting with me?” I ask him before I’ve had a second to filter the thought.
Aleksandr’s grin widens. “Constantly. Glad you’re catching on.”
“That seems like a breach of contract.”
“Really? I combed through it and didn’t see a single thing about flirting.
” I peer at him out of the corner of my eye but don’t respond, which makes him laugh again.
“It’s fun, Nic. It gets under your skin and you get all fiery.
Did you know you play better when you’re fired up? Makes you more creative.”
“Your argument is that you flirt with me for the betterment of my tennis? Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?”
He shrugs. “Guess we’ll have to experiment.”
The elevator jolts to a stop on my floor, and I step out.
“I’ve got to help Natasha, so you be good. I’ll see you at the pool,” he calls after me.
I almost stop to ask what he’s helping her with. Does it have to do with all the guilt he seems to feel? More and more, I wonder if it all boils down to him being the oldest of his siblings. But over my shoulder, I say, “No one invited you to that.”
The last thing I hear before the doors close is his throaty chuckle. I pretend it doesn’t stoke something deep inside of me.