The flight was long and tiring. I grabbed all my luggage from the baggage carousel and walked out to the parking garage where my battered car was located, glad to be at least out of that plane and chaotic airport. The guy next to me had been the world’s worst sleeper ever and had the window blind open the entire way. I didn’t get a wink of sleep myself. I was grumpy, tired, and jet-lagged. I didn’t seem to know which way was up.
It didn’t take me long to get home; it was just after eight in the morning when I finally pulled into the lot behind the bar and shut the engine off. I was going to suffer from jet lag for weeks, but worse than that, I was going to suffer from a broken heart.
Gathering my stuff out of the trunk, I climbed the stairs to the second level of the bar, where I lived with my mom. It was cheap, the old mortgage having been paid off little by little, and it kept me close to the bar and to my mom, so I couldn’t complain, even if it did look like we were packed in there like sardines. I fumbled for my key and inserted it in the lock as quietly as I could, not wanting to wake up the household. Pushing it open, I set my suitcases and bags just inside the door.
“Great you’re home. It’s about time!”
Whirling around, I saw my brother standing in the small kitchen, a frown on his face. “Geez, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
Tim shrugged, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. “God, I’m exhausted. Mom didn’t sleep at all last night. I had to hide all the spoons. She thought she was being attacked.”
“Hello to you, too,” I muttered. “Where is she?”
Tim pointed to the back, where the bedrooms were located. “She’s all yours. I’m going home.”
I stepped in front of him. “No, we have to talk. You have to tell me what happened with mom and the bar while I was away. I need to get up to speed.”
Tim rubbed a hand over his face. “Come on, Gin, not now. I’m tired, and I want to sleep in my own bed.”
I loved my brother, really I did, but there were times when he grated on my nerves.
“Get out of my way, Gin,” Tim stated, annoyed. “I’m fucking tired and I need a drink.”
“Timmy? Where are you, Timmy?”
“Oh hell,” he said, rubbing his hand over his head. I shot him a look and walked to the bedroom, rolling my eyes as I heard the front door shut behind me. You would have thought I’d asked him to stay with mom for two months the way he was acting. He wasn’t around enough to help out, and I had to literally promise him the world just to watch out for mom and the bar, even though it was his idea and present in the first place, to “give me a break.”
Knowing I had left him in charge had been nerve-racking, but the place was still standing, and Mom was still here, so he must have not done such a bad job. The bar, well, I would check that out later.
“Mom?” I asked as I entered the bedroom. “It’s Ginny.”
My mom sat in the corner of the room in her favorite rocking chair, staring out the small window. In her hands she had a blanket, one that I gave her when she was particularly fidgety. It calmed her down or as much as it could calm her. My mom was sixty, still young, though her current health status made her look a great deal older. Her once clear blue eyes were constantly clouded now, the Alzheimer’s robbing her of more than just her memory.
She had been fifty, living not far from the bar when I had first noticed her forgetfulness. The fire department had been called out twice to her apartment when she forgot to turn off the stove, nearly burning down the building itself. The doctor had said there was nothing they could do but give her medication that would slow but not halt the process, and so far, those hadn’t worked as well as we would have liked them to.
So, I had moved her here, where I could keep an eye on her constantly. A night nurse or sitter sat with her while I tended to the bar, but other than that, she was my responsibility—one of the many reasons I couldn’t go to London or stay in Paris with Damon.
Just the thought of him caused my chest to ache, and I forced it away, turning my mind to the present. “Hey Mom, I’m back.”
My mom turned toward my voice and I stood there, hoping that this would be the day she recognized me. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice tearful and afraid. I sighed and walked over to her, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed.
“Hey Mom, it’s Ginny, remember? Your daughter? I went on my trip, and now I’m back home. It was a wonderful place, Mom. I wish you could have seen it. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”
She frowned. “I don’t have a daughter. I only have my Timmy. What did you do with my Timmy?”
Tears gathered in my eyes and I forced them away, trying to keep my emotions in check. She didn’t mean what she said. “Mom, Timmy went home. Are you hungry? Do you want some breakfast?”
She shook her head, her limp gray hair like a waterfall around her face. “I just want my Timmy.”
I got up off the bed and walked out of the bedroom, wishing that things were different. My life would be different had my father not died of a heart attack or if my mom had not been diagnosed with this devastating disease. I could be the person I wanted to be, with Damon. But life wasn’t fair, to any of us.
12
Damon
“Come on, Holden! Pick up your pace.”
I stopped mid-run, put my hands on my knees in order to catch my breath. I’d been in London for two weeks, playing in the Queens Club tournament—the one that led up to Wimbledon—and attempting to get myself into the final rounds, but right now I felt like I was sitting in the loser’s bracket. Fighting in each and every match; none of it had come easy. It had been hell, literally. And training was just as bad.
“What the hell is wrong with you? You’re gonna have to dig deep if you want to win Wimbledon… hell, you’re gonna have to do better than this if you want to win Queens!”
I looked up to see Derek staring at me, his hands on his hips.
“Geez, give me a break. I’m giving it all I can.”
“No, you’re not,” he said with a frown. “You suck royally right now, and that is not a jab at Her Majesty.”
“Seriously. Cut me a break, will you? Stop riding my ass,” I said angrily, pissed off at the way I was playing and the way I felt.
It was all because of Ginny. I knew it was. I hated to admit it, too, but I missed the hell out of her. She had consumed my life for three solid days, and it hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough. Now it felt like it had been years since I had seen her, when in fact it was only coming up to four weeks. After she’d left, I’d struggled through a few more matches at the French Open and ended up going out in the quarter-finals. If she’d been there, in my corner, cheering in the stands, I knew I could’ve gone all the way.
“Dude, you need to get laid,” Derek said with a sigh. “It’s that chick, isn’t it? That’s why you are all screwed up.”
“She’s not a chick,” I said, standing and stretching my aching muscles. “And no, I don’t need to get laid.”
Derek chuckled. “You could have fooled me. You look a little tense.”
I shot him the bird and picked up a tennis ball, executing a perfect serve over the net. “See? Just an off day.”
“Yeah sure,” Derek nodded. “You keep telling yourself that and you might believe it. I’m going to take a leak, then we’re going to get back to work.”
I watched as Derek walked into the clubhouse, and then I groaned in frustration. I’d tried to call her, texted her even, but there hadn’t been a word in reply. My texts had been friendly enough, with a little humor to lighten the mood, but she had either deleted them or ignored them. I’d said it wasn’t the end, but clearly she thought differently. But truly I didn’t care if she didn’t want to continue whatever it was that was between us; I just needed to hear her voice, talk to her as a friend. At least, that’s what I told myself. She seemed to get me when no one else did. I had the best fucking time with her, and now it was as if a part of me were missing. I should’ve pushed
harder, and I wished I’d persuaded her to stay. To travel with me on the circuit. At least I would have been more on my A game and less in my own damn head.
Even Jim, my agent, taking pity on me, had tried to locate Ginny, but all I knew was her first name and that she lived in Florida somewhere, near Miami. I couldn’t remember if she’d ever told me her last name. And the name of her damn bar was lost in the recesses of my mind. I knew it was something quirky, Heat? Grind? Fervor? I just couldn’t remember. It was a needle in a haystack.
With a racket in my hand, I swung it down fiercely and heard the strings break. I should’ve asked her more questions. Gotten to know her better. Jim told me to forget her, so did Derek, but I couldn’t, not until she herself told me to get lost.
Something whacked me in the chest. I stumbled and looked down, half expecting to see blood on my t-shirt or something. Instead a tennis ball was lying at my feet. I raised my head to see a grinning Derek on the other side of the net, a racket in his hand.
“Damn that was a nice shot,” he said. “The accuracy couldn’t have been better. Though I probably should’ve aimed for your head and not your heart.”
I picked it up and served it back to him, both of us volleying around for a few minutes until he held up his hand, breathing hard. “All right, you win. Let’s go. We’ll get a beer or something. A non-alcoholic beer; you’ve got a match tomorrow. And maybe we’ll pick up some women tonight.”
“Yeah, right,” I said, walking over to the net. “Your wife would not appreciate that.”
“OK so I will watch you pick up the chicks,” Derek said, a grin on his face. “Come on, man. You need to blow off some steam, loosen up a little. I need you 100 percent focused. And if removing the sex embargo just this one time will help with that, then I’m all for it.”
“I’m focused,” I grumbled, handing him my racket. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine. I don’t need some meaningless lay to sort my head out. See you in the morning.”
I walked away, stopped by the locker room for a quick shower, and changed before exiting with my bag slung over my shoulder and a baseball cap on my head. It was my small attempt at going incognito. I didn’t want to party or raise hell. Hell, I wanted a quiet evening, watching movies, with Ginny. That would be the one thing to calm my nerves and get me focused.
“I’ve turned into a douche,” I muttered to myself as I walked across the intersection toward my hotel. A woman had turned me into a hot mess. Up ahead, I spied the lights of a movie theater, and my mind drifted back to the night I had nearly screwed it all up with Ginny. Our first date. Who would have thought she would have been the type to be impressed by a movie and stale popcorn? Who’d have thought it would have been the best damn night of my life? Well, besides the next night when I had her against the wall, moaning my name. Now that had been a night I wanted a repeat performance of.
I dug in my pocket for my phone and checked my messages, ignoring the ones from Jim. Still no answer from her. Had I scared her off somehow? Had I come on too strong in the end, wanting her to stay? And now she was just happy with the thought of how she had Damon Holden on his knees? I didn’t think Ginny was that type of girl, but now she had me thinking I might have put her up on the pedestal just a bit too soon. At least there hadn’t been any tabloid stories of her revealing all about her exploits. But maybe if there had been, I would’ve been able to track her down.
Stopping in front of the theater, I read the titles. The exact movie Ginny and I had watched four weeks prior was playing, but this time it boasted English subtitles. Shrugging, I walked over to the ticket window. What the hell? I didn’t have anywhere else to be.
A knock at my hotel door interrupted my sleep the next morning. Grumbling, I climbed out of the bed. I wasn’t due on the training courts until ten and had planned to sleep in. Throwing the locks, I opened the door.
“Damon.”
I looked at my mom, dressed in a pair of slacks and silk blouse, her expensive perfume wafting and almost choking me. She was just shy of sixty, but thanks to Pilates and some plastic surgery, she looked half her age. And acted like it, too. I hadn’t seen her in a few months.
“What do you want?”
“Oh Damon,” she sighed, disappointment on her face. “Is that any way to greet your mother? The woman who gave you life? I just want to talk, that’s all. Can’t I talk to my son?”
I rubbed a hand over my face and stepped aside, not wanting to air my dirty laundry in the hallway where anyone could overhear. She gave me a grateful smile as she stepped inside, and I shut the door. “Should I call for coffee or tea?” I asked politely. Kill her with kindness.
She shook her head; her expertly styled bob moved about her head. “No, I’m fine, thank you. Can we sit down, please?”
I nodded toward the chairs in the living room area, and she took a seat on one of them, leaving the other for me. I sat and crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for her to start. She obviously wanted something, like always.
“I know you aren’t terribly happy with me,” she started, not keeping me in suspense, “but I wanted to come talk to you personally. I love you, Damon. You mean the world to me.”
“What do you want?” I asked, knowing there was something she was getting at. I loved my mom, but after the divorce—leaving my dad a wreck—she’d gallivanted off like a horny teenager. It was disgusting. It was as if suddenly our family wasn’t good enough for her, and my dad had been crushed when she left. I was left to pick up the pieces.
She looked crestfallen but I refused to let it bother me. “I want you to come to the engagement party.”
I blew out a breath, not believing she was so petty. “What? So I can watch my mom make a fool out of herself by marrying the pool boy? No thanks.”
She cocked her head, an amused smile on her face. “Is that what you think? I told you it wasn’t.”
I shrugged. “Maybe he’s the valet parking attendant this time. Or your personal trainer? Why do I care?”
“Maybe he’s your father.”
I exploded into laughter. “He will never be my father!” I had one of those already and admired him greatly.
My mom laughed as well. “No, Damon, it is your father. We are getting remarried.”
My mouth dropped open. “You’re shitting me.”
She shook her head. “I’m not. Did he not tell you about us when you saw him a few weeks ago?”
I thought back to the day I’d seen my dad. Combining a business trip with pleasure, though he hadn’t been able to stay long. We’d gone to the same barge-bar Ginny and I had visited later the very same week. We’d caught up, and he’d also dropped a bomb that day, but he hadn’t uttered one word about my mom.
My father was a stockbroker by trade and a damn good one. It was on a business trip to London, many years ago, that he had first met my mom, a young British fashion model at the start of her runway career, and they’d fallen in love. I was born a year later and for the most part, we’d lived in the States but with frequent visits to England. I had more miles on my passport when I was ten than most adults have in an entire lifetime. But it had all come crashing down, the family torn apart during my first year on the pro tennis circuit when they’d split, for reasons unknown. But I guessed what those reasons were. My mother always had a wandering eye.
“No, Dad had other things to talk about.”
Her smile faded. “You know he’s in the States, getting treatment this week. We talked last night, about you, and he’s excited to catch your matches at Queens.”
I rubbed a hand over my face, the pain welling up in my chest as I thought about my father and the bombshell he’d decided to drop on me that day. The first day of the French Open, and the same day I would later meet Ginny, before she too would turn my life spinning and upside down, rotating on every conceivable axis.
“Son, I have something important to tell you.”
I looked up from my beer, the seriousness in my dad’s voice causing
me to pause. “What is it? Is it Mom again? What has she done now?”
He shook his head, his eyes mirroring my own. “No, I have cancer.”
My heart dropped into my stomach then. He didn’t look sick. “Cancer?”
He nodded. “Prostate cancer.”
“Fuck. No.” I closed my eyes. Shutting the world away. This couldn’t be happening.
“Yeah,” my dad responded, giving me a slight smile. “It’s the damnedest thing. Never thought it could happen to me. Hell, I used my pecker enough to keep the thing cleaned out.”
“Don’t joke about this, Dad. What can we do?” I asked, seeing the worry through his attempt at humor. Whatever he needed from me, I was going to do it. Screw tennis. I would quit at the drop of a hat for him.
“You keep playing and winning,” he said, holding up his pint, “and I will keep on fighting.”
That had been the reason I’d gotten so drunk that day, not because of my mom. After my dad left for a business meeting in the city, I stayed at the bar and ordered the bartender to start lining up shots. All I wanted to do was erase the worry from my mind. It hadn’t worked very well, but there had been a silver lining; I’d met Ginny.
“I know this is probably a shock to you,” my mom was saying, bringing me back to the present, “but I love your father. I have always loved your father, and there is no one else I would rather be with.”
I eyed her, looking for the telltale sign that she was up to something. She always had an angle. She did things only to benefit herself and her pocket.
“You want his money, don’t you? He wrote you out of the will.”
“Damon Ellis Holden, you will not speak to me like that,” she announced, anger flashing in her eyes. “Your father could be poor as an English church mouse, and I would still remarry him. There is such a thing as love! Why can’t you see that?”
The Love Game Page 10
