“Hey!” I called back at her. “Leave him alone.” The crowd applauded, but I didn’t really care what they thought anymore. This was something primal, to the point where I moved across the court and placed myself between the boy and Sarah. Just as well, since she’d picked up a stray ball to hit in his direction. This damn match was going to make sports news the world over.
“Get out of the way!” she snapped at me. “If he wants to catch every last ball, he can have it.”
“Sarah, don’t!”
Where the hell were the officials in all this? Everyone was just standing there watching.
Luckily she thought better of swinging her racquet, letting that arm drop, but the temper stayed with her just long enough to hurl the ball towards the poor kid, only it bounced off my hip as I turned to shield him better.
That did it. The place was in an uproar. I vaulted the net in one stride, ready to challenge her, but catching my mother’s eye in the stand stopped me short. The damage was done. I didn’t need my own disciplinary problems, especially not if I was going to help the other girls on the drug testing problem.
Some of the line judges had surrounded Sarah, so I looked back to comfort the boy. He’d been taken care of by some other officials, so I stood there by the net, hands on hips and waited for Bill to call it.
“Code violation. Unsporting conduct. Default, Miss Harrow. Game, set, match Miss Larsson.”
The crowd cheered, but it had a nasty, ironic tone to it. I shook my head, jogged over to shake Bill’s hand, and gathered up my things. No need to sit and drink, put on my jacket, or even put the racquet back in its cover. I wanted off court, and away from all those eyes on me. It was a crappy way to win, but the rules were clear. Any unwanted physical contact with anyone in the court area was a disqualification. Sarah was probably in a world of trouble, even as I heard her still making her case to unsympathetic officials.
I felt my phone vibrate as soon as I got out of the shower and read Toni’s blow-by-blow commentary with a smile as I sat there in my towel.
Is she really doing this?
Someone get the kid her pacifier, this is wild.
My hero, saving the children. Tell me, Miss Larsson, does that outfit come with a cape?
I rolled my eyes and fired off a reply.
If that’s your way of saying you’re into role play, I’ll consider it. Good luck for yours. See you back at my room.
What better way to roll off the stress of the day than with some quality time in bed, or on any other piece of furniture for that matter, with Toni? I could hardly wait.
Of course, I watched her match and was both relieved and proud she’d made it through. Her reward was yet another matchup against Celeste in the semis, while I would be facing Keiko.
I expected her first demands on walking through the door would be either dinner or a full breakdown of what the hell happened, but Toni’s first priority turned out to be backing me up onto the bar in the corner and going down on me until I practically had to beg for mercy. It turned out I was going to like her post-win routine very much, and I made sure to repay the favour once I got her as far as the edge of the bed.
We paused long enough to order room service, although we took dessert to bed. The strawberries and cream might have been a nice little joke from the chef, but the way we used them would definitely have resulted in us being thrown out of Wimbledon.
“Will you have to talk to the media tomorrow?” Toni asked. “Only I checked and you missed them entirely today.”
“I slipped away in all the chaos,” I told her. “Officially, the statement was that I didn’t want to comment on a volatile situation, but at some point I’ll have to do some questions, yeah.”
“When’s the last time someone got a match penalty? I’ve seen games get taken for busting up racquets or swearing, but this was straight to maximum.”
“It doesn’t happen often; I’ve certainly never seen it in person before. I don’t know what made her that mad. She’s young, I know, but this isn’t such an insane pressure here. Nice to win, sure, and competitive. But she might have blown up her whole career unless she finds someone who can teach her to control that.”
“I’m just glad it was punished,” Toni admitted. “I spent a lot of time fighting that ‘fiery Latina’ bullshit, and too often you see white girls get away with so much more. At least your umpire was in no mood.”
“Bill’s okay,” I said. “The one time I cursed at him he put the fear of God in me, and I haven’t misbehaved since.”
“Before all your drama, I heard there’s some kind of leak with the testing data. That some newspaper will run that the testing has been biased.”
I sat up at that news, dragging Toni with me.
“Seriously? You wait until now to tell me?”
“They won’t run it now, not with footage of the disqualification to play with,” Toni pointed out, and she had a point. “But it’s out there, it’s working. You got it started.”
“Okay, good.” I reached for the water by the bed, dealing with my thirst. “Now, where were we?” I asked, dealing with another kind of thirst entirely.
I ran Keiko close in the semi-final on that Thursday of the second week, when a lot of people were already letting their attention drift to the Miami Open the following week. I had no excuse but to join them when I went out
