Love All Read online

  “I’m not an entertainer. I’m a gamer.”

  Hank nodded toward the stage. “She’s both.”

  Sadie lifted her index finger to her lips, not wanting to miss a word this woman uttered.

  “Any more questions?” Jay started to rise.

  “What happened in the third set?” someone called out, with a bitter edge to her voice.

  Jay’s smile twisted slightly but didn’t disappear. “What? You didn’t see it? I’m disappointed in you, Haley. I wouldn’t think a journalist of your caliber would spend an entire set asleep at the wheel.”

  “I saw, Jay.” The words sounded clipped, and Sadie craned her neck to see the woman who’d spoken them. She had pale skin and a severe, dark updo. Her cheekbones seemed impossibly high, but maybe she’d merely accentuated them by pursing her lips. “I wanted your take on why you fell apart after your self-proclaimed glorious rally in the second set.”

  The room fell silent, and Jay’s smile faded only to the point where it didn’t crinkle the edges of her amazing eyes. “I suppose that’s a question we’ll all spend the next few hours pondering, but for me, I suspect I’ll settle on the explanation that Peggy Hamilton had a great rally of her own. I’ll raise a glass of wine to her fine play as I dine alone tonight.”

  The tone of the room had shifted as reporters bowed their heads over notepads and tape recorders.

  “Now, if there are no other questions, comments, or endorsement offers,” Jay said, her voice once again light, “I’ll let you all get back to your thesauruses, as you’ll no doubt want to look up a few synonyms for charming, charismatic, and humble in order to write your stories about me.”

  “Just one more, Jay,” a reporter down front called.

  “Shoot,” Jay said, kicking her feet up on the table. “I’ve got nothing else going on for the next week.”

  “After her loss today, rookie Destiny Larsen said she didn’t know of any other American tennis stars left to meet in Melbourne this week. How do you feel about that?”

  Destiny stiffened beside her, and Sadie placed a hand on her arm, trying not to tighten her fingers with the same torque twisting in her chest.

  “Well,” Jay drew out the word, then grinned. “I think the kid and I have a few things in common.”

  “How so?” the reporter pushed.

  “We both lost in the second round, and I don’t know who she is, either.” With that, Jay hopped up and waved for all the cameras. “Thanks all. You’ve been great. No need to applaud. I’ll see myself out.”

  With that she bounded off the stage and out a side door to the players only area, leaving the room abuzz with energy. Everywhere reporters stood, chatted, and compared notes, leaving only Sadie, Destiny, and Hank sitting silently.

  “Well,” Sadie finally said, “I think it’s probably a good time to call it a day. We’ve all got plenty to think about before we discuss anything.”

  “Did she just call me a nobody?” Destiny asked softly.

  “No,” Sadie said quickly.

  “Little bit,” Hank corrected, as he rose and stretched. “Sort of like you did to her.”

  Destiny hopped up. “I didn’t mean it the way the reporter said. They put words in my mouth.”

  “That’s what happens when you don’t give them anything else for their columns.”

  Sadie stood between them, placing a hand flatly on each of their chests. “This is an important conversation that can happen over the course of the next several weeks, not in the middle of the press corps.”

  Both of them glanced around and seemed to notice they’d begun to attract a bit of attention.

  “You’re probably right,” Hank said. Sadie raised an eyebrow at him, and he smiled before adding, “As usual.”

  Then she turned to her daughter, who just shrugged. “Fine. Let’s get out of here.”

  Sadie didn’t argue. She’d seen and heard and defused enough for one day, or week. She would’ve given anything to sink into her own bed with a good book and a mug of tea, but she would settle for a quiet hotel couch and room service. The thought made her flash back to Jay’s jokes about her plans to eat alone, and her stomach tightened unexpectedly. She glanced over her shoulder toward the door Jay had fled through, as a pang she didn’t recognize settled in her chest.

  “Mom.”

  The word cut through her haze and instantly sharpened her focus, the way it always did. Destiny stood before her, one hand on an open door. “Come on.”

  She smiled broadly at the center of her universe. “I’m right behind you.”

  ★ ★ ★

  No one paid much attention to Jay once she got back to the locker room. Players came and went with their entourages in tow. Staff scurried about trying to look busy, or maybe they actually were busy. This early in the tournament, there were still roughly sixty-four women in the main draw, and even more when you counted the doubles and junior fields. Just because she had never been one to place excessive demands on the locker room attendants didn’t mean her fellow tour members had the same mentality. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder why everyone had to do everything in such a rush. Did they really all have somewhere better to be and something more important to do? The thought might have been more depressing if it didn’t also give her the freedom to come and go unnoticed and unquestioned.

  Jay slung a bag full of rackets over her shoulder and pushed through the door labeled “players only.” She remembered when access to the room behind it had felt like a privilege instead of a burden. She shook her head. Not a burden. Maybe a responsibility, though. Press conferences, fines, twenty-hour flights, nights alone in unfamiliar beds— they all added up. The good still outweighed the bad, though, and they both outweighed any other options she currently had on the table.

  With that happy thought, she headed down a long hallway adorned with the smiling portraits of past champions, purposefully averting her eyes from her own, albeit much younger, likeness. She kept her head down so long she didn’t notice the person standing in front of her until she nearly slammed into him.

  “Hey, Jay. Didn’t anyone ever tell you to look ahead every now and then?”

  She grinned as the familiar voice cascaded over her.

  “Someone might have mentioned it, many years ago, back before his hair started to thin and turn gray.”

  Hank laughed so loudly the roll of it echoed down the long corridor. “Says the woman with arthritic knees.”

  “Hey now, tendonitis, not arthritis.”

  “How’s it feeling?” Hank nodded to her right leg.

  “It’s been worse.”

  “You’ve still got a way with words. Maybe I’ll have you write my biography someday.”

  She winced as a slew of unbidden memories made her stomach lurch. “Yeah, no thanks. I’ve had enough people telling stories about me to last a lifetime.”

  His face softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “It’s fine.” She shrugged. “We’ve all moved on.”

  “Really?” he asked quietly.

  “Yeah.” She forced a smile to let him off the hook. “Water under the bridge.”

  “Good.” He clapped a meaty palm on her shoulder and gave a little shake.

  The easy affection of the contact felt better than it should have, and she forced herself not to lean into the sturdiness of him. “It’s really great to see you again, Hank.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad you think so, ’cause I’ve found a new doubles partner for you.”

  She stepped back with a sharp inhale. Unable to find a voice that wouldn’t betray the panic gripping her chest, she shook her head forcefully.

  “Come on. You don’t have to commit. Just come meet with the girl.”

  “No.” The single word offered the entirety of her thoughts on the subject.

  “I need your help, as a favor to me, for old times’ sake.”

  She clenched her jaw. He, of all people, knew better than to play the “old times”
card. The old times were exactly why she wouldn’t even entertain the request. Resentment bubbled up at him for even making it. Tilting her shoulder at him she muscled her way past.

  “Jay,” he called after her. “I’m sorry. Please come back. I should have said it differently. I didn’t mean to hurt you . . . again.”

  The pain in his voice was the same one spreading through her chest, and she couldn’t face either, not now, not after she’d come so far. But something else inside her wouldn’t let her turn her back on him completely. She hated that instinct more than the one to run. Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, she planted her feet until the urge to bolt subsided enough for her to turn and face him once more.

  “Look,” she said, her voice raspier than she would’ve liked. “You didn’t hurt me, okay? I just don’t play doubles anymore.” With that, she hoisted the strap of her bag a little higher, lowered her head, and trudged off down the hall.

  Trying in vain not to listen for his footsteps, she didn’t know if she should feel relieved or betrayed that he didn’t come after her. Maybe a little bit of both. She hated that. She’d spent so much time feeling so many things, but she would gladly have taken any one of them over the mix of emotions warring inside her now. Sadness, anger, regret, happiness— they each came with their own social cues. She knew how to express them or bury them as needed, but she had no protocol for being ripped in half as comfort and pain collided again. She had no recourse but to bury them both in equal measure.

  At least she’d had plenty of practice in that arena.

  Chapter Two

  Indian Wells, California

  Sadie sat in the shade created by a cluster of palm trees while Hank put Destiny through her paces. Forehand, backhand, overhead, lob— they all looked flawless to her. Then again, they’d all looked flawless to her since around the time of Destiny’s eighth birthday. She’d been a marvel even then, so naturally gifted she made every swing appear effortless. Not that Sadie was biased, but if it’d been up to her, Destiny would’ve been handed every major tennis award in existence the moment she first picked up a racket. She smiled at the only slight hyperbole.

  Thankfully, Hank had no hint of a mother’s disposition. He was one hundred percent bear, grizzly when it came to all things tennis, and teddy when it came to everything else.

  “Lean into it, Des,” he called from the baseline of the practice court nearest to where Sadie sat. “You have to use your body weight to maximize your forward momentum. Some of these women serve a hundred and twenty miles per hour. You can’t let your wrist take the brunt of that force.”

  Destiny knew that; even Sadie knew it, but she supposed sometimes everyone needed a reminder. She couldn’t imagine all the things Destiny had to remember in the second between when a ball left an opposing player’s racket and when she had to decide how to play it. Footwork, angle, bounce, speed, spin. Even after nearly a decade of following the game closely, Sadie couldn’t imagine taking center court herself. Not under the kind of pressure her daughter now faced. Just keeping up with her travel schedule and court times and vitamin regimen consumed Sadie’s entire life. She thought she’d finally gotten the hang of everything last year, but as soon as she’d settled in, the conversations about going pro began in earnest. Now her baby girl was leaning into shots in the middle of the desert, a mere two practice courts away from Novak Djokovic.

  “Sadie,” Hank called, jolting her out of her thoughts, “come give us a hand. We need a line judge.”

  “Fine, unless by ‘line judge,’ you mean ‘target.’”

  He and Destiny both laughed, but neither one of them refuted the charge. Still, she’d never been able to deny her daughter help with anything from a science project to playing the role of human bull’s-eye. She pushed out of the chair and strode onto the court, shading her eyes from the sun hanging low over the mountain horizon. “Where should I stand, and do you want me to put on a blindfold so I don’t flinch as the knives are thrown?”

  “No target practice . . . yet,” Hank said matter-of-factly. “I want Des to work on her baseline rally shot.”

  “Her baseline or your baseline?”

  “Both,” he said. “She got burned last week by power players pushing her back, then rushing to the net to take balls out of the air and dumping them toward the sidelines. She can’t let them manhandle her if she wants to get past the second round here.”

  Sadie stifled the urge to rush to Destiny’s defense. She’d gotten better about not getting upset by every criticism, but habits formed in the early years of parenthood turned out to be hardest to shake. “So, you want me to stand on the baseline and see if the ball goes in or out?”

  “Exactly,” Hank said, choking up on his white-rimmed racket. “I’ll serve, then rush forward, Destiny. Every time your return gets within arm’s reach of me, you lose the point whether I make the shot or not. And every time it goes out, you lose the point.”

  “Sure seems like a lot of ways for me to lose the point.”

  “That’s not even close to how many ways you’ve found to lose them in real matches.”

  Sadie’s fists tightened at the comment, but she bit her tongue and took her place at the corner.

  Taking her line judge job very seriously, she didn’t watch Hank, or Destiny. She looked up only when she got to flash a thumbs up to show the ball was in or on the line. At all times during the actual drill, she kept her eyes glued to the line and prayed neither of them shanked an errant shot in her direction, though at least if she got hit, it would be with a lob and not a serve.

  The exercise went on for several minutes. Sadie fell into an easy rhythm of giving both player and coach the thumbs-up signal they all three wanted, but about five minutes in, one index finger became three in a row, then four. On the fifth miss, she heard a racket clatter to the court, and checked to see which one had dropped it.

  “Good God,” Hank called. “What’s the problem now? And don’t say the heat, ’cause this is nothing compared to the cavernous toaster oven you played in during the Australian.”

  “No.” Destiny shot back, racket at her feet. “It’s all the fluids you’ve forced on me since then.”

  “Hydrate or die.” Hank bellowed one of his many mantras.

  “I’m hyper-hydrated, to the point where I can’t last an hour practice session without having to pee.”

  “Then how are you going to last a long set against one of the toughest players in the league? Do you think Azarenka’s going to give you a mid-set potty break?”

  “Maybe I’ll have to invest in some Depends.”

  “Maybe you should’ve had that brilliant idea before we came on court, ’cause time is money out here.”

  “Hank!” Sadie finally scolded. “The sooner she runs to the bathroom, the sooner you get back to practice. The more you argue with her, the more she’s just going to dig her heels in.”

  “Sadie, I’m her coach.”

  “And I potty-trained the child,” Sadie snapped back. “Trust me. She’s got a weak bladder and an iron will.”

  He cracked a smile, but tried to hide it by bending over to check his shoestrings. “Fine, go. But hustle.”

  Destiny didn’t have to be told twice as she scurried off the court.

  “And drink some more water while you’re at it!” he called after her.

  He turned to Sadie, his voice softening. “You too, Line Judge.”

  She didn’t have to be told twice. While Indian Wells didn’t compare to Dubai in the heat department, 87 degrees was still entirely too hot for mid-March if you asked her. She grabbed Destiny’s racket as she walked off the court and carried it over to the player’s bench.

  “Is she really doing as bad as you made her out to be?” Sadie asked when Hank joined her.

  “Nah,” he said. “I mean, in practice today, yes, but overall she’s making the transition as well as anyone could expect.”

  “As well as, or better?” Sadie twirled the racket in one hand an
d lifted the water bottle to her lips with the other.

  He sighed. “As well as, Sadie. She can’t be perfect at everything.” She raised an eyebrow at him and he laughed. “Down, Mama Bear. It’s not a bad thing to struggle every now and then. It builds character. She’s not going to win her first major this year. It’ll be a long journey, but she’s going to grow up quickly along the way.”

  “Yesterday I was baby-proofing our first apartment. Today we’re talking about winning majors. Growing up,” Sadie scoffed. “You can’t even imagine how fast it all happens.”

  A fence gate clanked shut behind them, and they both turned to see a lone woman enter the practice area carrying a bag and ball hopper filled to the brim. She glanced their way with a hopeful smile that faded quickly as she lowered her head.

  Hank turned back to Sadie, his jovial expression gone. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

  “Kids, growing up,” she offered to jog his memory, while wondering about the change she’d just witnessed in both of them.

  “Yeah,” he nodded solemnly. “Faster than you can ever expect.”

  The woman took the court next to them, wordlessly dropping her bag several feet away from their shared seating area.

  Hank looked over again and opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself.

  The woman tipped back her white ball cap, and her eyes emerged from the shadows, strikingly blue in an almost unnatural shade that sent a shot of recognition up Sadie’s spine. “That’s Jay Pierce, right?”

  Hank’s mouth curled up in a half smile. “The one and only.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “It’s been a while.”

  Sadie tried to decipher the unspoken behind the comment. Hank was never overly gregarious, but his usual straightforward tone had grown guarded. Jay, too, seemed to be working hard at polite but distantly nonchalant as she stretched with her back to them. She didn’t seem like a loner, or at least she hadn’t at the press conference, but Sadie had heard plenty of horror stories about temperamental athletes. Maybe Jay didn’t play well with others. Still, when Jay twisted her midsection in an obliques stretch, Sadie couldn’t resist flashing her a smile. Jay immediately returned the expression or, more accurately, escalated it, because her smile was more brilliant than any Sadie could’ve offered. She had perfect white teeth and pink cheeks that pushed all the way up to crinkle her mischievous eyes.