Chapter 50
US Open
Round of Sixteen
I pulled myself together and gave it my all again in the third set, playing aggressively and trying to score at the net.
Unfortunately, my courage wasn’t rewarded.
First of all, I was unlucky with the net cord; then Bozovic countered one of my strokes with an unbelievable shot.
After more than three hours, she finished the match with an ace and sank to her knees in joy.
As the crowd cheered, I waited for the grief to come.
The pain. The shame of having failed. But none of that happened.
Instead, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction.
A kind of calm. I had lost. But that wasn’t a bad thing because I had played well.
Because I was back. Stronger than ever. And there would still be plenty of opportunities to prove myself.
* * *
Hair damp from the shower, tennis bag over my shoulder, I left via the back exit where a shuttle bus was already waiting for me.
After the match, my parents had gone straight to the hotel.
As for me, I’d decided to wind down on the ergometer, visit the physio, shower, and attend the press conference.
“Hey, Champ!”
I froze in my tracks and my head jerked to the side.
At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.
I was frozen as he sauntered over to me, hands casually buried in the pockets of his beige chinos.
It was the first time I’d ever seen him wearing long pants—and a polo!
—which was all the more reason to believe that my subconscious was messing with me.
But once he was standing in front of me and our eyes met and he smiled, he was anything but make-believe.
I stared at him and just couldn’t get the words out.
For at least ten seconds. Ten seconds in which his face alternated between determination and nervousness.
“What are you wearing?”
He stopped short then started to laugh. “Okay, that wasn’t the question I’d been expecting.” He gave himself a sheepish once-over and shrugged. “I’ve never been to any kind of tennis thing before and didn’t know if there was a dress code.”
Right then I realized how much I had missed his voice. “A dress code? For the spectators?” I asked, amused.
“Well, I mean, Bradley Cooper was wearing a button-down.”
“Bradley Cooper?”
“He was in the audience. At your first match.”
“Oh,” I exclaimed surprisedly.
“Justin Bieber was there for your second. And one of the Kardashians at your third.”
“Hmm.” I nodded, though it wasn’t any secret that the US Open was a true VIP magnet. Every year actors, singers, and sports stars made their way to the stands of Arthur Ashe Stadium. “You watched my matches?”
“All of them.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“The scoring system remains a mystery to me, and I have no idea what a tiebreak is, but…”
“Why?”
“Why…I don’t understand what a tiebreak is?” His voice grew softer at the end of his question.
“Why you’re here, Vince.”
A hesitant smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Because there isn’t anyone else I’d rather hear say my name, I think.” He took a deep breath, as if having to gather courage. “And because I love you. Because I never should have let you leave without telling you that.”
I couldn’t make a sound, just stared at him while my heart did the strangest things. First it stumbled, then it stopped, and finally it began to beat at triple speed.
“I love you, and I want to be together with you, Lou. Even if that means we can’t be together.”
Confused, I furrowed my brow.
“That sounded a lot cooler in my head,” he said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
He tried again. “I know we can’t have a normal relationship.
Or, well, not one where we see each other every day.
And I know that it’ll be complicated. Really damn complicated.
” He paused. “But if I’ve learned anything from you, it’s that complicated is no reason to give up.
You proved that all last week. Every time you went out on the court.
” He smiled softly. “Your love for this game didn’t let you give up.
And”—he took a shaky breath—“my love for you…won’t let me give up. ”
“But…you said you didn’t want to be a part of my world.” I made a gesture toward the stadium. “That you had to protect yourself and…”
“That was bullshit. Or… No. That wasn’t bullshit. I was simply scared.” He sighed. “Scared that I wasn’t up to you and your life. That it would remind me of my own past life too much. And my demons. And I was scared that I would always feel like a weakling in your presence.”
“You…”
“But the only thing I am in your presence is…happy.” He reached for my hands and looked deep into my eyes. “And damn proud. I mean, what you do out there, the way you play and fight for every point, it’s just…intense. You are intense.”
“Intensely intimidating, you mean.”
His expression said Fair. I deserved that.
“Intense in the sense that the caveman in me would have loved to have run out onto the court and tell everyone that you belonged to me.”
“You got that I lost, right?”
“You didn’t lose. You just didn’t win.”
“Since when have you become so philosophical?”
“Probably since the moment I started wearing long pants.”
I had to laugh.
“Jokes aside, I can’t wait to ditch them.” Wriggling his nose, he tugged at the stretchy cotton. “I sweat like a pig during the match.”
“How on earth did you even get a ticket? Wasn’t it sold out?”
“I hit up my neighbor. She’s got some serio connects.” He grinned, and my eyes almost popped out of my skull.
“Kay helped you?!”
“I went over there and told her that I wasn’t ready to give us up. And that I would never stop you from living your dream.”
“And that convinced her?”
“Um…no.” He laughed. “But, at some point, she realized I wasn’t going to go away. And I had to promise her that I’d only profess my love to you after the match.”
His reply reminded me that he’d done that numerous times. And that I still hadn’t responded.
“Is that yours?” Ana Bozovic asked, pointing to the black van with a US Open logo on the side. I hadn’t heard her come up and was too confused for a moment to answer. My glance drifted to Vince, whose shoulders had tensed up. As if he knew how much depended on my answer.
“Yeah, I’m going to the hotel.”
The expression in his eyes changed. As I began to move, he stayed put. I looked back over my shoulder. “You coming?” I looked down at his pants. “I know a place you can get rid of those.”
* * *
“Better?” I asked and checked how his shorts were sitting. He’d exchanged his polo for a loose-fitting blue T-shirt that brought out the color of his eyes.
“Tons. I jumped under the shower for a sec. Hope that was okay.”
“Of course,” I said, though the image of him there made it hard for me to concentrate.
“Somehow when crying about all your lonely nights in hotels you managed to leave out the marble bathtubs and king-size beds,” he said as his eyes scanned my room, which was really more of a suite.
It was tastefully modern and luxurious. There were flowers in a vase and a bowl with perfectly polished apples.
“The promoters book the hotels for us.”
He raised his eyebrows. “All of you stay in these kinds of rooms?”
“Not all of us,” I admitted. “Depends on your ranking.”
He moved to the window looking out onto New York City’s skyline. The setting sun reflected in the skyscrapers.
“Do you have a room for tonight?”
With his back to me, he nodded. My heart reacted with a nervous flutter.
“Oh,” I said, and could feel myself blushing when I realized how disappointed I sounded.
It spoke well for him that he didn’t automatically assume we’d be spending the night together just because…
why? Because he had flown over ten hours to see me?
Because he had confessed his love for me?
Because he had said all these wonderful things about me?
Because he hadn’t pushed me in the slightest?
Because he had given me time to figure out my feelings?
And suddenly I saw everything quite clearly.
Heard it in my head. Felt it in my heart. The yes.
I walked up to him, framed his face with my hands, and kissed him, stifling the little sigh that came out of his mouth. Enjoying the warmth that passed from his lips to mine. I closed my eyes and savored the moment to the brim. When I opened them again, I looked into his eyes.
“I love you, too, Vince.”
He flashed me that smile I’d been in love with since the beginning. Then he pulled me to him and kissed me, hungrily and deeply. Our lips parted; our tongues met. A bit stormily, as if we were trying to say too much too quickly. Both of us giggled.
“I’ve missed you,” I whispered and wrapped my arms around his neck, as if never wanting to let him go again.
“I’ve missed you too. Tremendously.”
We began to undress. Quickly. Tugged at our clothes, ran our fingers under them, over them.
“Stop,” he said as I moved to pull his T-shirt over his head.
I looked at him, confused. With a disconcertingly serious face he said, “I’ve only packed for two days. If you set this one on fire or soak it with blood or…”
“If you don’t have anything else to wear, well, then we’ll just have to spend the next few days here in bed. Doesn’t bother me at all.”
“How much time you got?”
For a split second the question was like a cold shower.
“I’ve got to be in Guadalajara in a week.” At his questioning look, I added, “Mexico. And you?”
“Laurie’s got everything under control for the moment. So, a few days at least.”
That was great news.
“If you want, later we can go through my tournament calendar,” I suggested carefully.
“Sounds good. Now that Laurie’s decided to stay, maybe now and again I could…”
“Wait, wait, wait. Laurie’s staying?”
“Oh. I thought you knew that already. Yeah, she’s staying on Oahu.”
“What about school?”
“She called it a day.”
“Wow. So, she’ll run the hostel with you or…”
“No, she’s found her own calling.”
I couldn’t miss the hint of irony in his words.
“She wants to become a lifeguard.”
“Lifeguard?!”
“Yep.” He sighed. “When Chip pulled her out of the water, she had a kind of”—he made quotation marks in the air—“awakening.”
“Why are you so skeptical?”
“I’m skeptical of anything where Chip’s involved.” He made a face. “But what I originally wanted to say was that, if Laurie’s living with me, then she can keep an eye on the place whenever I fly to see you.”
I grinned and put my arm around his neck. “Or when I fly to see you.”
“I’ve heard there’s going to be a launch party in around three weeks. Maybe I can manage to squeeze you onto the guest list.” He winked.
At that very moment there was a knock at the door. I was reluctant to break away from him. When I opened it, I found my mother standing there. She was wearing a polka-dot summer dress and had her leather jacket over her arm.
“Where have you been? We had agreed to meet at seven in…” She stopped mid-sentence when she saw Vince. “Oh, you…you’ve got company.”
“Um…yeah.” I cleared my throat and took a step to the side. “Mom, this is…”
“Vince Greenfield.” He came up to her with a smile and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Herzog-Riggs.”
A little surprised, but with an embarrassed grin on her face, she said, “Sabine, please.”
“Sabine,” Vince repeated, doing his best to pronounce it in German. Which sounded a little odd. And a little adorable.
“Well, so”—my mother’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of us—“I didn’t mean to disturb you. Your father and I were concerned.”
She’d switched to English to make sure Vince was included.
“I’m sorry. I totally forgot about dinner,” I said in English too.
“That’s okay. The two of us will simply go on our own.”
I nodded at the same time Vince said, “Or we’ll come along?”
“You want to go eat with me and my parents?”
He shrugged. “Why not? I haven’t eaten a thing since my overpriced hot dog in the stadium, and I’d love to meet your dad too.”
My mother looked at me in anticipation, beaming from ear to ear.
“Okay,” I heard myself say, and grinned at the whole situation. All the twists and turns the day had taken. “Can you give us ten minutes, Mom? I’ve got to get changed.”
“Of course. See you soon.”
“That was the first time I ever heard you speak German,” Vince said once we were alone. “You sound totally different than that dude from Anniemaycandyride.”
I laughed. A little more seriously I asked him, “Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, it’d be okay if you didn’t. We’ve only been together for five minutes. Meeting the parents comes later.”
“Whatever… Doing things in order isn’t really our thing.” He kissed me on the lips and winked. “I carried you before we’d even had our first date, remember?”