Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
SAM
When I arrived at Queen’s for my practice session, Naomi was already there, hitting with Lois. There was quite a crowd gathered to watch them, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves as Naomi also tried to keep Lois guessing.
Wyatt and Peter, Lois’s coach, were standing to the side talking amongst themselves.
Naomi and Lois were the two greatest players in our sport, and both had started with their mothers as their coaches before switching to their brothers in their mid-twenties. Both became even better players after they made the change.
As my dad and I reached our court for practice, I wondered if either of them had fallen so deeply out of love with the sport that they would rather quit than try to find the will to get out on court. Or if they woke up one day and realised they had a coach but not a parent.
“We’re going to focus on your movement along the baseline today. When is Ryder getting here?”
Ah.
Ryder Quinn was the closest person I had to a friend on the tour, and even then, the word acquaintance might be better suited.
We used to be close, but then my star had started to rise, and like most things I’d had at the beginning of my career, my friendship with him had morphed into an occasional hitting partner, but that was pretty much it.
I’d also cancelled on him before I asked Naomi last night.
“He’s not. Um, Naomi is going to come give me a hand instead,” I answered, searching through my racquet bag like my racquet was hard to find.
“Isn’t she on court elsewhere right now?” His voice came from closer behind me than I expected, but I didn’t look up to see where he was.
“Yeah. She’s with Lois, but she’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”
Naomi had insisted she could do both while she ate chips so hot they burned our fingertips.
“What did I say about getting distracted?”
I finally looked at him. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, his eyes like stone.
“Who’s distracted? She’s left-handed and can hit a ball clean and hard. What else do I need in a hitting partner?”
Dad’s mouth opened, but he offered no rebuttal.
“Better get warmed up then,” he said instead.
Twenty-two minutes later, the buzz around my court increased, and I knew Naomi and Wyatt had arrived.
To prove that I wasn’t getting distracted, I finished the drill I was running before I turned my attention to her.
She was wearing black cycling shorts, one of the pockets bulging with a ball, the T-shirt I’d seen her in with Lois was now tucked into the waistband of her shorts, so she was only in a matching sports bra.
There was a slight sheen to her skin. Wyatt was dressed similarly and was holding both Naomi’s bag and racquet.
She was re-tying her hair, the muscles of her arms flexing with the movement, and whispering to her brother.
Whatever she’d said, Wyatt clearly found it hilarious because his head tipped back with a laugh.
I chanced a look at my dad, who was looking at the two of them like they were being far more disruptive than they were.
When Naomi noticed I was done, she smiled.
“Hey, what do you need?”
“We’re working on baseline power,” Dad answered before I could even take a breath.
Naomi and Wyatt shared a look before he handed her the racquet, and she headed to the opposite baseline.
“Do you want me to serve and get it started that way, or just start?” she asked my dad as she removed the ball from her pocket.
“We can work on return of serve later.”
Naomi nodded, and I moved back to my baseline.
After years of watching Naomi Sullivan play tennis, I was very well acquainted with how she set herself up for a serve. Which was how I knew she was about to ignore what my dad said and serve the ball to me anyway. She staggered her stance, bounced the ball twice, and threw it in the air.
The ball came right at my forehand, a perfect set-up to allow me to wind my arm back and strike it hard.
And then we were off.
Wyatt was the one who called time on our hitting practice, and I could tell by the tight line of my dad’s shoulders that he was annoyed.
In his head, we could’ve probably kept going for another hour, just running the same drills until my arm felt like it was going to fall off.
I would’ve done it because I didn’t know how to say no to him anymore, but I was grateful that I wouldn’t have to.
We’d done a solid forty-five minutes, and Naomi provided exactly what was asked of her.
She helped work on my baseline power, and when she was bored of running up and down, every now and then, she would throw a drop shot across the net.
It was only towards the end of the session that I managed to stay on my toes enough to run up and try to reach the ball.
She was waiting for me at the net, catching her breath, while Wyatt packed up various things Naomi’d discarded—a broken hair tie, a half-drunk bottle of water, her T-shirt, and her racquet.
“Your backhand really packs a punch,” she said, her smile bright and her eyes radiating happiness. It seemed absurd that she’d ever given this up when the court was clearly a place where she came alive.
“I might need to change it to make it more powerful. You know, sometimes two hands are better than one.”
The corners of her mouth turned down slightly, but the smile didn’t fully disappear.
“It’s pretty powerful single-handed. And you’ve got great control with it. Not everything is about power. Sometimes things can just look really nice and also be effective.”
I was grateful that my face was already flushed from all the running, so Naomi wouldn’t notice it deepen at her nice words.
“Uh, thanks?”
“It was a compliment, Sam. You’ve got a sexy backhand. You want to do this again? I’m around for most of this week. We don’t leave for Eastbourne until Tuesday.”
I flicked my eyes over to where my dad was standing at the side of the court. He was already looking at us, his expression hard.
“I’d like that.”
“Great, let me know when works for you, and we’ll see what we can do.”
With one final smile, she and Wyatt were gone. They had barely disappeared out of sight before my dad spoke up.
“There are better hitting partners for you than her.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. He wasn’t wrong. There were. But much like the other day when I’d finished hitting with Naomi, I felt what I used to feel when I played tennis.
Excited.
“Naomi feels like a pretty good choice,” I defended before walking away.
Just over a week later, when I won Queen’s running up to a poorly executed drop shot, I felt even better about my choice.