Chapter 12
"How are you?" Diane asked the moment Thomas left Kate's room.
"Good, honestly. No discomfort at all, not even when I got up, which is usually when everything feels like it's creaking."
"Glad to hear it, sweetheart. And the nerves?"
The tennis player exhaled through her nose and gave her a smile.
Today was the Wimbledon final. Despite everything working against her with her back, Kate had won every match she needed to get here, and for the first time since this Grand Slam began, she and Leire were facing each other in a final.
The crowd was buzzing, and the press had talked about nothing but the two of them since the semifinals.
"I'm calm," Kate said, looking at her from the bed where she'd sat down a moment ago.
Diane was in a chair next to the dresser and raised her eyebrows when she heard her.
"And the other nerves?"
The redhead made a face. She and Leire were still tense.
They hadn't talked about what happened the other night, and they'd only seen each other once since then—when Leire, against all expectations, showed up at her room at midnight.
They'd stood looking at each other for a few seconds, and Leire had almost opened her mouth to say something, but Kate wasn't in the mood.
She'd won that morning, she'd made it to the final, and the last thing she needed was to add more tension to what already existed between them.
So she'd grabbed her by the hair and kissed her, and they'd made love until two in the morning.
It was different from every other time. There was something strange in the air that made them go slower, more aware of each other's bodies, touching each other as though it might be the last time they could.
That was the feeling Kate carried the whole time—that it was a goodbye, that their hands were saying what their mouths couldn't. She felt a tightness in her throat when Leire started getting dressed.
"I'm going to win tomorrow, so I'll see you in the final," she'd said, turning around, and she'd leaned over the bed to come close to Kate and kiss her.
That was the goodbye. No words had passed between them since, not even when Leire won yesterday, because Kate couldn't find it in herself to go into the locker room and congratulate her.
What would she have done? Kissed her and hugged her like nothing was wrong?
Acted like there wasn't something unresolved hanging between them?
She could have sex while angry—that was a release, a way to burn off tension with the one person she had the kind of connection with that made it feel like something real—but pretending nothing was going on between them was different.
Leire had had plenty of chances to talk to her since that night.
They didn't need to meet in secret for that.
They were in the same sport, in the same places at all hours.
She could have invited her for coffee, pulled her aside from the group to find somewhere to talk.
Even the stands would have worked—no one was going to suspect anything from seeing them together during the day, because being rivals didn't mean they hated each other, and everyone knew that.
"Those are fine too."
"Kate, it's me," Diane said, and the redhead smiled and ran her finger along the scar above her eyebrow.
"Okay, it'll be strange facing her. It's been more than a year since we've been in this situation on the court, and the last time we were in a good place—it was fun.
" Kate smiled at the memory of the tension that had run through her entire body as she moved around the court, trying to keep her eyes on the ball instead of on Leire.
"Maybe you two should talk before the match. Clear the air once and for all," the woman suggested. She was fully up to speed on where things stood between them.
"I don't think that's a good idea for either of us. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I don't think that conversation ends well. I'd rather talk to her after the match."
"Fair enough," Diane agreed, slapping her hands on her thighs as she got up. "In that case, let's go. You need to start warming up."
Kate arrived at the locker room early. She liked to change at her own pace and take a few minutes of doing nothing—time she used to get her head in the right place, to push out anything that wasn't about the match. But today she couldn't do that, because almost right behind her, Leire walked in.
The Spanish woman stopped near the door and waited for a physical therapist who'd been working at one of the treatment tables to cross the room and leave, then closed the door behind her, aware that they were alone.
"Hey, baby." She walked toward Kate and hesitated, because they'd reached a point where neither of them knew whether they had any claim on the other anymore.
"Hey."
Kate's voice was quiet. She ran a hand over the back of her neck as she looked at her.
"I don't want to be like this, Kate. I'm suffocating."
"This isn't the time, Leire—"
"Please," she said, and couldn't help glancing toward the door. "I'm sorry about the other night. I wasn't expecting it and I didn't know how to respond."
"I didn't need you to respond. I just needed to know you were there."
"I know." Leire dropped her gaze, ashamed of herself. "And I don't know how to make up for that. I wish I could go back, but I love you, Kate—that I can promise you. I just need—" She pressed her fingers to her forehead, rattled and restless.
"What do you need?"
"You."
Kate exhaled and shook her head, and Leire put one hand in the center of her chest and the other on her waist.
"I know things aren't okay between us, but please don't leave, Kate. I need more time to—"
She stopped again, because she didn't even know herself. She'd never felt so lost, and the fear of losing what she had with Kate had her so frozen she could barely think past the next moment.
"Are you—" She couldn't finish. Her eyes filled without warning and her lip and chin started to tremble.
She took a step back and pressed her hand over her mouth, holding it there for a few seconds to push down the knot in her throat.
"Hey," Kate whispered, moving toward her.
She put a hand on her waist and with the other pushed the hair away from her face.
She knew she shouldn't be doing this, that she wasn't the one who should be giving ground, but she loved this woman and she knew her, and she knew Leire had hit a wall, and that any decision she made right now would only come from desperation.
"Sorry," Leire said, clearing her throat, and glanced toward the door again.
Kate did the same. It used to bother her a lot when the Spanish woman did that, but she was used to it now.
"Are you playing Toronto? I know the Open is the last one, but I wasn't sure—" Leire was unsettled.
It still hadn't fully sunk in that Kate, one of the most talented players she'd ever known, was going to have to retire because of an injury.
It didn't seem fair—but what she'd been doing to Kate wasn't fair either, and that only made her feel worse.
"I'm entered, but I'm not going. I talked it over with Diane and Thomas. Better to use those days to rest and get ready. I'll go to Cincinnati to start getting back on hard courts."
"Hard courts are your thing," Leire said, looking at her with a sadness in her eyes.
"They are, though I won't be competing there either. I'm saving that for the Open."
"Are you going back to Melbourne until then?" the Spanish woman asked.
"No. I want some quiet. I'm going to the Azores with Diane."
"I'm going to Madrid for two days and then flying to Canada."
"Then I'll see you in Cincinnati." Kate's voice was low and her hand tightened on Leire's waist.
"Can I kiss you?"
The corner of the redhead's mouth curved and those little lines appeared beside it as she let out a breath of a laugh through her nose.
"Yeah, of course you can."
Leire didn't hesitate, catching her lower lip between her teeth after the kiss and releasing it slowly.
"Good luck today," the Spanish woman whispered.
"You too." Kate winked at her, and Leire turned and walked toward her locker.
The Australian turned to hers and sat down on one of the benches after grabbing her things.
She realized Diane had been right. She felt calmer after talking to Leire, even though they hadn't actually resolved anything and had really just agreed to an unspoken truce.
The difference from before was that Kate had a very clear picture of where things stood.
The US Open was her goodbye to tennis, and it would also be the end of her relationship with Leire Cobos.
They both walked out onto the court at almost the same time, and the stadium erupted because the crowd had been waiting months for these two to face each other.
They looked at each other as they met at the net for the coin toss—just a second, but Leire almost stumbled when she got caught in the intensity of those green eyes.
Candela Valle watched them with a knot in her throat while her photographer captured the moment.
The journalist wasn't sure anymore if it was because of what she knew, but as far as she was concerned, what was between these two players couldn't be more obvious.
Maybe she was paying closer attention than everyone else, or maybe she had a sixth sense, but the way they looked at each other and stretched certain moments—in her view, it spoke for itself.
Leire took the first set seven-five, shortly after Kate broke her serve with a crosscourt volley that got the crowd on their feet. Leire answered with two service winners, including one where Kate's return sailed two centimeters long.
Kate didn't look at Leire so she wouldn't lose her focus, and massaged the base of her neck with her fingers as she walked to get her water.
Nothing hurt. It was as though her body had decided to give her a break and let her play this match at full strength, and that was precisely the thought that unsettled her, because she couldn't make sense of it: if her body could do this today, why couldn't it do it all the time?
She knew the answer. Dr. Faruk had given it to her a few weeks ago, and yet today her body seemed determined to prove him wrong. She put down the water bottle and went back to the court.
She took the second set four-six—not because Leire played badly, but because she played better.
During the changeover between the second and third sets, Diane pressed ice wrapped in a towel against Kate's lower back while she drank water.
"I'm fine," Kate said, but her coach didn't move her hand.
Kate was grateful anyway, because the cold had travelled down her spine and cleared her head a little.
"Go get her, honey," the woman said, just before Kate headed back onto the court.
The third set lasted one hour and four minutes—the longest of the match and the quietest. No gestures to the players' box, no conversations with the chair umpire. Just the two of them, the ball, and the sight of the other woman across the net.
Kate won the first three games and Leire won the next three. Then Leire broke in the following game, a nineteen-shot rally that saw Kate come to the net twice.
When it came down to the final point, they were both exhausted, but neither showed it or lost focus.
It was a crosscourt backhand from Leire that ended the match—a shot hit with a pace that seemed impossible to reach, and yet Kate did reach it, and Leire was about to hit the ball back to push it to the other side, but she decided to take the risk and let it go when she calculated it was heading out.
Her read was right. The ball bounced right on the line, three centimetres behind it, and the crowd exploded while she stood there, arm still raised.
By the time she snapped out of it and looked across the net, Kate was already walking toward her with her racket in her hand and that half-sincere, half-playful smile that made her weak from head to toe.
They shook hands for a few seconds, and then both of them pulled the other in at the same time into an embrace. It was brief—bodies pressing together for just a moment—but long enough to exchange a few words without the cameras catching the movement of their lips.
"Congratulations, babe," Kate whispered, still running on adrenaline.
"I almost got it back," Leire said, sniffling, crying from a mix of euphoria at winning, the tension of having won it against Kate, and a tangle of emotions and feelings she no longer knew how to manage.
They pulled apart and smiled at each other again, and Candela pressed her lips together without stopping her applause, almost as emotional as they were.
They both spoke to the cameras at the same time, but Kate finished first and headed toward the locker room with Diane.
"You played one of your best matches today, darling," the woman said.
Kate scrunched her nose with an amused grimace that got a laugh out of Diane.
"Yeah, I really enjoyed it," she admitted, and her coach felt the urge to break something when she caught the flash of sadness in her eyes.
She knew it wasn't about the loss. It was about knowing she wouldn't be able to play matches like this one for much longer.
By the time Leire got to the locker room, Kate was already gone.
She sat on one of the benches and leaned her elbows on her knees for a moment as she took in what had just happened.
She was happy she'd won the tournament, but at the same time she knew she was losing something that mattered more than that—she'd started losing it that night in the hotel room, when Kate told her about her injury and she didn't know how to be the person she needed.