A threesome. She had been trying her best to be open-minded about casual sex with Marco (Her best friend Piper’s voice was always in her head: “Loosen up! You only live once! This is the twenty-first century, no one cares anymore!”), but a threesome was just not happening.
“Sorry, I’ve got to get to sleep. Just wanted to ask if you wouldn’t mind turning the music down, but no worries. I have earplugs.” I have earplugs? she yelled at herself. Why don’t you just say you carried a watermelon?
Charlie reached her own door at the exact same moment she realized two things. One, she’d locked herself out. Two, she was wearing only a nightshirt that just barely covered her butt—and no underwear.
“Now you have to come in,” Marco said. “Come, you can call the front desk from here.”
It turned out that Marco wasn’t stashing some groupie model in his room. He was merely doing a series of push-ups and sit-ups to obnoxious musical accompaniment. “And I dance a little, okay? I admit it,” he said with the cutest, most devious smile Charlie had ever seen.
He offered her water from the minibar while they waited for a bellboy to come up with a key. Marco motioned for her to take a seat on the bed, but she couldn’t manage it without exposing her entire naked crotch. And so they both stood, making small talk about the availability of practice courts and other insipid topics. When they heard a knock at the door and Marco bade her goodnight, she was almost offended he hadn’t made a move. The last time in London right before Wimbledon had been incredible, hadn’t it? Sure, it had been six months, but he’d texted her a bunch while she was rehabbing her injury. He must have moved on, she thought, trying hard to convince herself that she didn’t care. She was a modern woman, capable of handling a casual fling without feeling like her entire self-worth depended on hearing from him again. But just to be safe, Charlie bolted back to her room and threw on a lacy thong. She couldn’t change into cuter pajamas without looking like she was trying too hard, but she could make a few minor, hopefully unnoticeable adjustments: mouthwash, clear flavored lip gloss, scented moisturizer. A swipe of the brush through her hair and okay, fine, maybe a quick little session on her bikini line with the tweezer. It wasn’t the easiest thing to keep perfectly groomed when you were on the road forty-five-plus weeks a year. Back under the covers and pretending to watch her show, Charlie was just starting to feel ridiculous and wholly rejected when she heard a knock on the door that adjoined both their rooms. Which of course she answered.
It had been an insanely fun night, and although she knew she would eventually be exhausted from staying up way too late, right now she felt pretty terrific.
Charlie ate quickly and gulped her bland coffee. Someone from the front desk buzzed up to let her know that the car had arrived to take her to Melbourne Park. She pulled on a pair of spandex shorts, a sports bra, and a sweatshirt, pausing only to slip her feet into rubber flip-flops. Her racket bag was prepacked, of course, with everything she needed for a day of training and practice: she may have stayed up a little too late last night with Marco, but she never, ever forgot to pack her bag.
Charlie settled into the backseat of the Lexus SUV and stretched her legs. The sex had been good, yes. Okay, it had been great. It always was with Marco, which was part of the problem. They’d known each other for years already, having met as juniors when they were both sixteen, but they didn’t sleep together until earlier this year, when Charlie had lost in the early rounds of Indian Wells and Marco had been eliminated before the semis. Coincidentally, both had taken an exceedingly rare night off from training before the next tournament and checked in, completely separately, to the Parker Méridien in Palm Springs for some solo decompression time. Charlie had been reading a magazine in the spa, waiting to get called in for her massage, when she heard a man say her name.
Hesitatingly, almost grudgingly, she lifted her gaze. The last thing on earth she wanted was to be recognized by some tennis fan who wanted to chat about her less than stellar performance the day before. Or worse, someone she actually knew, so that she would be forced to make conversation and ask all about their life and then—god forbid—have dinner together and catch up. She was shocked when she glanced up to see Marco Vallejo smiling across the spa’s quiet room, wrapped in a robe so small it barely cinched closed.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, his smile literally stopping her heart.
Charlie somehow managed to keep her cool. They’d known each other forever, yes, but had not spent any time together alone. Certainly not undressed alone. “Hey,” she said, praying she sounded more casual than she felt. “You doing hot stone or aromatherapy?”
They met for dinner after their treatments, which was flirty and fun, and then, at Marco’s suggestion, took a bottle of champagne to the deserted outdoor pool. It had been three months, maybe more, since Charlie had had a drink, but she didn’t hesitate when Marco poured her a glass. One turned into two and two into three, and before she knew what was happening, they were naked in the deep end of the pool, treading water and staring up at the night sky. It felt like she was in someone else’s body entirely, another girl from a novel or a film without a care in the world, someone who laughed and winked and pushed her shoulders back with confidence. The champagne buzz was incredible, heightened by its rarity and the sensations surrounding her: the glow from the stars above; the completely free feeling of wearing nothing binding or constricting; the way the warm water enveloped her entire body when she floated on the surface and the quickness with which her nipples hardened the instant they hit the cold desert air. It felt like every neuron was firing double-time.
They swam until they were both shivering and hopped into the hot tub, where they finished the champagne by passing the bottle back and forth. Neither had thought to organize towels before stripping down, so they ran back to Marco’s poolside casita room naked, freezing, clutching their clothes and laughing like teenagers. Not that either of them had had many chances as teenagers to do anything crazy or reckless. Charlie helped herself to a robe in the bathroom. By the time she came back out, Marco had lit two candles by the bedside, wrapped some sort of sarong-like fabric around his waist, and pointed the remote control at the gas fireplace. A perfect fire roared forth from the fake logs.
“Well, what do we have here?” he asked, opening the minibar. Out came two mini bottles of Absolut and a can of tonic.
“Are you serious?” Charlie asked with mock shock. “Tonic? Do you know how much refined sugar is in tonic water?”
This cracked them both up, at least until the cocktails were mixed. It was an almost inconceivable act, this casual drinking of alcohol: she knew that until that night, neither of them had consumed more than a single drink at a time in months.
Marco lowered himself onto the floor in front of the fireplace and motioned for Charlie to join him.
“I so wish this were bearskin,” Charlie said, stroking the chevron flat weave beneath them.
Marco gently but firmly pushed her down to her back. He climbed on top of her and pressed his chest against hers. “I will make you forget about the rug.”
In twenty-four years Charlie had never had a one-night stand. She’d made out with other players at junior tournaments, but hadn’t actually lost her virginity until she’d met Brian her freshman year at UCLA. Since then, she’d only been with a handful of guys, and they’d all fallen somewhere in that nebulous place between casual fling and committed relationship: she had dated them, yes, but there was never a discussed exclusivity, probably because she was never in one place more than a few nights at a time. Or at least that’s what she always told herself. If she was being honest, she often did wonder why men fell all over themselves declaring their love for her but vanished as soon as they got a real glimpse of the non-glamorous side of her lifestyle. Wondered if she was just using her travel schedule as an excuse for why she hadn’t had a real boyfriend in six years. Wondered if she would ever meet someone who
was interested in getting to know her beyond how she looked in a tennis skirt and how she had performed at the previous tournament. And most of all she wondered if it was even possible to have a normal relationship as long as she always put tennis first.
But that night Charlie wasn’t wondering at all. That night she was tipsy and free and making out with the most famous men’s tennis player in the world. Or at the very least, the best-looking. He kissed her neck and ground himself into her; they rolled, their arms around each other, alternately kissing and laughing and kissing again. When Marco magically pulled out a condom and raised his eyebrows, Charlie didn’t even have to think before nodding.
“Miss Silver?” The driver’s voice interrupted her delicious memory. It took Charlie a minute to remember where she was.
“Mmm?”
“We’re here. Are you okay with the entrance closest to the locker room?”
“Yes, that’s great, thanks,” Charlie said. She squeezed her legs together as though the driver knew what she’d been thinking.
She yanked her racket bag out of the car and thanked the driver again. Holding her lanyard credentials out for at least another half-dozen people to check, Charlie tried to bring her attention back to practice. The first round had gone easier than she’d expected—easier than she had any real right to expect—but it would be foolish to assume it would happen again. All the girls these days were capable of beating one another at any given time, even the lower-ranked or unseeded ones. And of course her bracket had gotten exponentially harder now that her own ranking had fallen so precipitously after her slip at Wimbledon: her injury had kept her out of the entire hard court summer season and all of Asia in the fall, and her number thirty-six ranking showed it. She had come so close to the chance of playing a Grand Slam as a top seed, and then bam! Blown up by a pair of shoes.
“Excuse me? Would you please sign my hat?”
Charlie looked up to see a girl of twelve or thirteen standing outside the women’s locker room. She had a credential around her neck that read “Player Guest,” and Charlie knew immediately she was a coach’s daughter. None of the male players would have a child that old, and almost none of the female players had kids, period. This girl spoke with a quiet Australian (South African?) accent. It looked like she’d been waiting there for days.
“Me?” Charlie asked, actually pausing to look around. A handful of kids here and there asked for her autograph after every match, but they were usually the dedicated tennis fans who collected signatures from each and every player, regardless of who they were or how they played.
“You’re Charlotte Silver, right?”
Charlie nodded.
“I love your braid so much!” the girl exclaimed, before looking embarrassed. “And I saw you the other night on First and you totally rocked it.”
“You saw that?” At Todd’s insistence, Charlie had agreed to guest host an episode of MTV First to “help raise her profile with the tween crowd.” The show’s stylist had dressed her in a pair of painted-on leather pants, a low-cut silk tank, and those thousand-dollar studded Valentino sandals that she’d seen in every magazine. She’d danced and lip-synched and cracked up right along with the teenage hosts and yes, were she to be honest and a little bit immodest, she had rocked it. Todd had referred to the whole thing as “getting her feet wet.” Charlie was actually a little excited—the night had been fun—but she was relieved, too, to get back into her regular tennis dress, her comfy sneakers, and her standard pink ribbon-woven braid.
“Yes! I loved it. Here.” The girl handed her a powder blue hat that read AUSTRALIAN OPEN in rhinestones and a Sharpie.
Charlie scrawled her name across the side and said, “There you go, sweetie.”
The girl beamed. “Thank you so much. My father coaches Raj Gupta and he never does anything cool like you.”
Charlie laughed. “What can you say? Girls are just better.” She reached for the locker room door. “Thanks for coming to see me.” She and the girl slapped a high five and Charlie all but skipped into the locker room.
When she came back out, Todd was waiting for her. “You look chipper,” he said, grabbing her racket bag. Whenever the two of them walked together anywhere, Todd insisted on carrying the bag. It was less chivalry than a fear she might strain something, and although she found it a bit demeaning—Charlie was, she was pretty sure, stronger—she relented.
“This sweet little girl totally recognized me and asked in the cutest way if I would sign her hat. She’d been staking out the locker room, just waiting for me.”
“Get used to it,” Todd said, walking briskly through the stadium’s underbelly hallway toward the practice court exit. “With the image overhaul we’re rolling out, you’re going to be the Beyoncé of women’s tennis.”
As if to punctuate his declaration, a handful of teenage boys stopped talking and turned in unison to check out Charlie as she and Todd walked past.
“See?” he said, unable to hide his smile. “So . . . is that the only reason for your shit-eating grin this morning?”
Alarm bells went off instantly. How could Todd possibly know about Marco? Neither one of them had ever so much as flirted in public. They didn’t talk at player parties, or give more than an obligatory nod toward each other in the lounge or player dining. Charlie had told only Piper about Marco, which was low-risk from a confidentiality standpoint: having only played college tennis with Charlie, Piper was completely removed from the whole professional circuit. Instead, she was happily ensconced in a fabulous bungalow near Venice Beach with her boyfriend, who was a doctor, and her interior design company was beginning to get all the right attention. Piper was thrilled to hear the juicy details, but there was no way she would broadcast them to anyone. Charlie knew for a fact that Marco had told no one. They were never late for practices or matches. Except for that random first night in Palm Springs, they never drank or partied. Both of them took great care to keep their occasional trysts under wraps: neither wanted the attention from the media or, arguably worse, their fellow players, should the news get out. Besides, it wasn’t like they were dating. It was all very occasional. Very casual. It was what Charlie had come to expect from the kind of guys she met, and Marco was certainly no exception.
Charlie walked through the gate that Todd held open and headed straight for the seats by the umpire chair. She kicked off her flip-flops, pulled on socks, and began to methodically lace her sneakers. “What other reason could there be?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe an extra enthusiastic hola from a certain Spaniard?”
In her shock Charlie completely forgot to play it cool. “How did you know about that?”
“Well, well. So something did happen. I hoped so, but I wasn’t sure.” Todd’s self-satisfied smile was unsettling.
“You hoped so? What does that mean?” What she wanted to say was my sex life is really none of your business, but ironically she still felt like they didn’t know each other well enough to be so direct.
“Start stretching,” Todd said, checking his watch. “Dan will be here in ten minutes and I want you ready to go.”
Immediately Charlie dropped to the court and began her usual routine of hamstring and calf stretches. “Seriously. Why would you hope something happened with Marco?”
He began to laugh. “I can’t think of anything better than you and Marco as a couple. All that shiny black hair and those blue eyes and long, tanned limbs? He’s the fucking king of men’s tennis and you can be his queen. It’s like Steffi and Andre getting together, only with two gorgeous people. Tennis royalty. Just think of the magazine covers.”
“Weren’t you the one who explicitly prohibited me from dating? Who said that if I wanted to play seriously again, I had to promise no relationships?” Charlie had almost laughed when Todd spelled this out during their hiring negotiation: she’d been flattered
he even thought a boyfriend possible. Clearly he didn’t realize what her last five years had looked like.
Todd pushed on her lower back as she folded chest to thighs and pressed both her palms into the ground. “Who said a damn word about relationships? I’m talking dating. Or whatever you want to call it. Showing up and leaving events together. A red carpet here and there. Some full-length feature articles on how well-matched you two are.”
“How romantic,” Charlie said drily, although even his definition of a fake relationship sounded pretty damn great.
“You both travel too much to maintain anything real, you know that. I know that. And Marco most definitely knows that. But smile for the cameras when you’re already in the same place, hold hands, show off those bodies, and whatever you choose to do behind closed doors is your decision. So long as it doesn’t interfere with your training. Just no sex the night before a match, okay?”
“You want me dating Marco because it’s good for my image?” Charlie asked, incredulous.
“I want you dating Marco because it’s great for your image,” Todd corrected. He checked his phone. “Where is that kid? He’s two minutes late.”
Charlie wanted to ask Todd if he knew about her and Marco’s history and the fact that last night wasn’t the first time, but she didn’t want to reveal anything he might not already know. Deciding to fish a little, she said, “Why Marco? He’s not the only good-looking top-ten player.”
Todd motioned for her to begin stretching her upper body. “That’s true. But he’s definitely the most high-profile. And let’s just say I had a feeling you would . . . how should I put this? Hit it off.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly that. And I was right. A simple request to the hotel for connecting rooms, and it sounds like you two took care of the rest. Of course, that’s none of my business, but I have to say, you do look to be in good spirits this morning.”
“You did not!” Charlie said, almost unable to process what he had just said.