“I’m going to head back to my room.” Zeke’s voice snapped her back to reality. When had he gotten up and dressed?
“What? Sorry. I, uh . . . this is all kind of new to me.”
He walked around the bed to sit beside her and didn’t stop her this time when she yanked the covers up to her armpits. “Try not to worry too much, okay? These things never last more than a news cycle or two.”
When Charlie didn’t respond, Zeke reached out and took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Hey. My people have already put out a statement that while I am a huge fan of yours, we are nothing more than friends who enjoyed a dinner together. That we shared a ride back to the hotel together is hardly noteworthy. It’s not much of a coincidence we’d be booked at the same place, considering it’s the nicest in Charleston. When there is no new information beyond that, it tends to fade quickly.”
Charlie realized he hadn’t yet seen the Marco part of the story. Or he had, and he didn’t care. And why should he? Like he said, they were consenting adults and she was mature enough to have predicted at least some of this was going to happen. Truth be told, she’d known it would, and she did it anyway.
“Okay. Thanks.” She smiled, and accepted a kiss from him. At some point during the night, he’d morphed from Zeke Leighton, Movie Star, to Zeke, the sexy older guy who was funny and complimentary and had the slightest paunch and knew his way around a damn good full-body massage. Maybe it was when she caught the briefest glimpse of his self-consciousness when he’d gotten naked, or when he’d peed with the bathroom door ajar, or when he’d made that face in bed. She wasn’t sure when, exactly, she’d realized he was just a person, but it had been both a relief and a disappointment.
“What’s your number?” he asked, typing it as she told him.
Her phone rang.
“There, we have each other’s numbers now. Keep in touch? I know we both have crazy schedules and the whole thing, but I had a great time last night, Charlotte.”
“Charlie. Call me Charlie.”
They both laughed.
“Charlie. You’re headed on the European swing now, right? Clay season?”
She nodded, slightly impressed.
“Well, I’m off to shoot in Sydney after here, but I’ll be back in the States after that for a long stretch. Maybe we’ll link up sometime this summer?”
She lowered her lashes and batted them. “I’ll have my people send your people some tickets to the Open. Come if you can.”
“I go every year, did you know that? We have great box seats in the—”
“You ever go as the guest of a top-seeded player? No? Well, the player box seats are the best ones of all.”
He grinned. “You’re the real deal, Charlie Silver, you know that?” Before she could answer, he kissed her once more on the cheek and walked to the door. A moment later, after one last delicious Zeke Leighton smile, he was gone.
Charlie didn’t remember dialing Piper’s number until her friend started yelling.
“Is it true? I mean, I saw the pictures with my own eyes, but is it really true?”
When Charlotte cleared her throat, Piper literally screamed.
“Oh my god. You had sex with Zeke Leighton. Zeke Leighton! There’s some publicist-issued bullshit about you guys being just friends and trying to turn a box of condoms into a tin of Sucrets, but I knew it. I just knew it!”
Charlie glanced at the condom wrappers on the floor and smiled. “Yeah. It was pretty fun.”
“I wish you could see me right now,” Piper said breathlessly. “I’m pacing. It’s six in the morning here, by the way. I woke up to go to the bathroom at three and glanced at my phone, and Jesus Christ, Charlie. Zeke Leighton?”
“It’s strange, but he’s just kind of a regular guy.”
“Yeah, and just kind of not! If that’s some BS move on your part to keep from telling me every fucking detail, well, it’s not going to work. Can you imagine if I just happened to fall into bed with Matt Damon and then claimed it was no big deal?”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t a big deal, just that—”
“How many times? What positions? Is he a generous lover? He always plays such sensitive roles, I imagine he’d be amazing in bed. Let’s start with that. You can tell me about your dinner after the good stuff.”
Charlie laughed. Part of her felt ridiculous sharing the intimate details with her friend, but it was too much fun to keep it to herself. This was what girlfriends did, right? Growing up, she’d missed it all: the games of spin the bottle and the movie theater make-outs and the sneaking out at night to meet a boy. She’d never had a best friend before Piper, never really shared her secrets with anyone besides Jake. It was too delicious to resist.
“Oh, you know. It was pretty much what you’d expect,” she said coyly, smiling in anticipation of Piper’s reaction. It didn’t disappoint.
“I’m hanging up. Seriously, I’m hanging up right this second if you don’t start talking!”
“Okay, okay. We got back here a little after ten. He went to his room first in case anyone was watching and then came down to mine a few minutes later. He brought a little speaker and his phone and a candle he found somewhere and—”
“He’s a total pro. I bet he brings, like, a sex kit everywhere he goes. Did he have little airplane bottles of vodka to mix drinks? They’re always doing that in the movies.”
“He’s recovering, remember?”
“I thought that was for show? For his kids? Or his image? That can’t be real . . .”
“I think it is. He didn’t have a drink at dinner, and I only had one.”
“You had sober sex with Zeke Leighton? Is that what you’re saying?”
Charlie held the phone away from her ear. “Can you stop screaming? You’re killing my ears.”
“Let’s just be clear on this: You were both stone cold sober?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my god. You’re getting married! Charlie! You’re marrying Zeke Leighton!”
“Piper, come on. Except for that very first time with Marco in Palm Springs, I don’t think I’ve ever not had sex sober. I go months at a time without having a single drink. You did it once, too. Remember?”
Piper shuddered audibly. “Worst hookups of my life, hands down. I am, in fact, actually marrying Ronin—literally agreeing to spend my entire life with him and have his babies—and we both still want to split a bottle of wine before doing the deed. It’s human nature, Charlie.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I had sex with Zeke Leighton sober. Three times. One of those was in the shower. Well, technically in the shower, although we ended up on the floor . . .”
Piper moaned. “I can barely breathe. You remember his shower scene in Around The World? Where he goes down on Rachel McAdams and there’s all that steam and water and it’s pretty much the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen? Because that’s what I’m picturing right now.”
Charlie glanced toward the shower, which was still wet, and felt herself blush. “Yeah, it wasn’t too far off from that.”
“That is soooooo insanely hot! Okay, okay, let’s start from the beginning. You win Charleston—congrats, by the way—and you get a call from him? His people? Take me through the whole thing from the very first moment.”
Charlie knew she should get up and face the mayhem. Her father and Jake had both been calling nonstop since she’d been on the phone. Emails from Todd were popping up on her screen every three minutes. The maid had knocked twice. She still needed to straighten out her travel plans to Europe. There was the small matter of having her one-night stand plastered all over the place. And there was Marco, her semi boyfriend on whom she’d publicly cheated, and who had cheated right back. And whose tennis rackets she was supposed to shuttle from JFK to Munich, on a flight she wasn’t sure she was going to make. But the pull
of Piper’s interest and the pleasure of reliving the night was too strong. Screw it. The world wasn’t going to fall apart if she took another few minutes to talk to her best friend. She collapsed back into the tangled mess of cottony soft sheets and fluffy down and stretched her legs. Toes pointed like a ballerina, she began slowly lifting each leg high into the air.
“I knew the second I walked into the restaurant that something was up,” she said, feeling calmer than she had any right to feel. Not thinking about what it meant, for once, to be the bad girl. Not thinking about how good it was to break a few rules. There would be fallout to deal with for sure—Marco, the tabloids, her family, just for starters—but Charlie told herself she’d think about it all later. Right now, there was a story to tell.
Charlie grinned. And then she talked and talked and talked.
16
better in bed?
PARIS
MAY 2016
Charlie spotted her father on the escalator before he saw her, but something about the way he stood kept her from running toward him. She hung back for a moment and watched as he stared off into space, looking barely aware of his surroundings. He wasn’t slumped, exactly, but he hunched forward in a way that made him look older. The worry lines looked permanently etched into his face—she could see them from where she was standing.
He shuffled off at the bottom and glanced around, clearly unsure of what to do next. When his eyes found Charlie’s, his entire expression changed. He instantly stood taller and his mouth turned into a deep, genuine smile, but his eyes remained distant.
“Charlie! What are you doing here?” Mr. Silver asked, although his joy was apparent. He wrapped his arms around Charlie and she immediately smelled the smoke.
“What, I can’t hang with my dad a little?”
He pressed his hands on her shoulders and kissed both her cheeks. “Don’t you have something better to do than meet your old man at the airport? It was nice enough you bought me a plane ticket. I was planning to take a taxi.”
His embarrassment at accepting the ticket was obvious, and Charlie did him the courtesy of ignoring it. “What, you don’t remember French taxi drivers from your player days? Because they haven’t changed at all. And I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
Her father laughed and offered her his arm. Together they weaved through the crowds gathered at baggage claim. He didn’t have a suitcase so they headed outside, where a tournament car waited for them. They climbed into the backseat and her father shook his head.
“I can’t believe your mother never gets to see this,” he said, his voice cracking just the smallest bit. “The car service, the awards and accolades. The French Open. You.”
“I’ve been thinking about her, too,” Charlie said quietly. In moments they’d exited Charles de Gaulle and were whizzing through the farms that surrounded the airport. It always surprised her how rural the land was around one of the busiest international airports in the world. “Today’s her birthday.”
Her father nodded. “She would have been forty-nine today. My god, I can’t even imagine it. Almost fifty. She’s frozen in time at thirty-five, a beautiful young mother. She’d already had both you and Jake at your age.”
Charlie stared out the window. He hadn’t said any of it, but he didn’t need to: her mother had dedicated her life to Charlie and Jake and their father. She had sacrificed her career to be home for all of them; she had cooked and driven carpool and helped with homework and threw surprise birthday parties and cheered from the sidelines every chance she had. And what had Charlie done to honor her? Excelled at her sport, yes. But also fired her coach and mentor, who’d always stressed the importance of honesty and integrity. Gotten accused of winning tournaments by cheating. Become embroiled in a very public scandal involving two men she had slept with but didn’t love. “Agreed to disagree” with her father, who was clearly struggling with something that she couldn’t even name. Charlie noticed her father had not said how proud her mother would have been in ages. It was something he used to say frequently, almost reflexively. Your mother would have been bursting with happiness to see the woman you’ve become. She would have been so proud of the person she helped raise. You remind me so much of her. He had said the words so often they’d almost lost their meaning, but now she would have done anything to hear them again.
Charlie coughed. “Thanks for coming all the way here, Dad. I know it can’t be easy to miss that much work.”
Her father looked at her, surprised. “What are you talking about, ‘come all the way here’? You think it’s every day your daughter is seeded fourth in a Grand Slam? Charlie, you won Charleston and made it to the finals of Munich. You have a very real chance of winning the French Open. The French Open. How can you even suggest I wouldn’t be here to see it?”
Munich. Perhaps the strangest tournament of her entire life. Fresh off her win in Charleston, feeling alternately exhilarated and terrified by the Zeke Leighton media frenzy and the out-of-body strangeness of Marco and the hot au pair, Charlie was convinced she would be too distracted to do much of anything in Munich. She’d actually spent the entire flight to Germany berating herself. Forget about the sleeping with a stranger and having the whole world find out—that was bad enough. Not to mention embarrassing. But the all-nighter was too physically taxing on an elite athlete, even if she hadn’t been drinking. That sleepless night combined with jet lag would make her feel like she was slugging through mud on the court. She would be lethargic and slow and mentally distracted. Just when so many other things were coming together, she was doing her best to sabotage herself. By the time she had checked into the Mandarin Oriental in Munich, she was a mess: exhausted, achy, humiliated. Todd greeted her with an insane workout and the advice: Steer clear of Marco. All tournament. No distraction. You hear me? And somehow she had managed it. They texted once—good luck at tomorrow’s match, so busy, see you soon—but nothing else. The awkwardness of the non-reckoning was even worse than the shame of actually putting it all out on the table and acknowledging that they’d both “cheated” on each other.
Charlie had been certain she would lose in the first round to a wild card player. And she had stumbled, no doubt. It took her three dicey sets of some of her worst tennis ever to win the first round, and the second round wasn’t any prettier. Charlie was better rested by the quarters but still feeling emotional and off-balance, and she surprised herself when she stayed focused enough to win that in two clean sets. When it came time to face Natalya in the semis, Charlie was certain she would lose, but Natalya had gotten a horrible case of food poisoning the night before and had to withdraw from the tournament. And just like that, Charlie advanced to the finals. There she once again faced Karina Geiger, who’d been ranked number two under Natalya for the third-longest stretch in history but, as Charlie had been earlier in the tournament, Karina was off her game. She couldn’t get a first serve in, and her net game quickly fell apart. She rallied briefly toward the end of the second set and forced a tiebreaker, but Charlie was still able to capitalize on Karina’s mental breakdown at that point to close it out 6–4, 7–5. She’d stood on the court, motionless, for nearly a full minute before the realization set in: she’d won not just one but two major tournaments. Back to back. That win would bump her worldwide ranking up to the top five and give her great seeding going into the French Open. It was happening, all of it, and happening fast. Still, she could barely believe it.
“Charlie? Charlie? Tune in, Charlie . . .”
She turned back to her father. He was staring at her, brows furrowed.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” She knew it had everything to do with the fact that his daughter was involved in a very public love triangle, but she also knew he would never bring himself to say it.
He smiled. “Just your old man being concerned. That’s all.”
The taxi exited the highway into city limits, hurtling along
side the Seine, the Parisian buildings growing taller and more condensed.
“I just won Charleston and Munich! Are things really so grim?” She tried to keep her voice lighthearted, but she knew exactly what he meant.
“You’re looking thin.”
“That’s a good thing, Dad. Todd has been saying from the beginning that losing ten pounds would make me faster on my feet. He’s right! I was exhausted in the first round—and if it had been last year, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to see it through—but I rallied this time. Got over it. And I think it’s because I slimmed down overall while still building lean muscle. Who knows? Maybe the Achilles’ never would have happened last year if I’d been at fighting weight.”
“It’s just that . . .” He appeared to be choosing his words carefully. “I’m worried that he’s pushing you too hard. Your fitness regimen alone sounds excruciating. And that’s not taking into account your actual tennis training.”
“It’s not that much more than what I was doing with Marcy,” she said. A total lie, and they both knew it.
“Take me through it.”
“Come on.”
“I’m just curious. Indulge me.”
Charlie sighed. “Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are full days. That’s three hours of tennis, an hour and a half of fitness, lunch, a break, and then two hours of tennis and another hour of fitness. Thursday is a half day, which is only the morning tennis and fitness. Friday and Saturday are full days. Then Sundays are off. It’s really not so bad.” Charlie cleared her throat, hoping her lie sounded more believable. The truth was, the regimen felt even more grueling than the description suggested.
“Sweetheart.” His voice was low, as though he found this information heartbreaking.
“Dad, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you’re a little out of the loop. Everyone says that fifteen years ago women could get by with solid strokes and strategy alone. If you went to three sets, the winner was the woman who could just stay standing. But now? After all these crazy physical girls have come up? Where they train every bit as hard as—if not harder than—the men? There’s no choice anymore. I have to train like that if I want to compete.”