Page 124 of Off Court Fix

I so badly wish I knew the answer that gets me and Crosby out of thistogether,both of us unscathed. But there isn’t a way. If I play Hunter’s game,Ilose. If I take Crosby’s strategy,heloses. And so do I. The two of us, we’ve already lost enough.

“I need you to do something for me. For years, everything you’ve asked me to do, I’ve done. Now it’s your turn to do something for me, Dad.”

I reach into the small cross-body bag now sitting in my lap and pull out my cell phone. “Hunter Wembly wants me to fix the match tomorrow. And I wantyouto fix things so I won’t have to.”

“What do you mean hewantsyou to?” Dad asks, his question a harsh hiss.

“I’m being blackmailed,” I admit. “Crosby and me, we’re being blackmailed.”

“By Wembly?”

I nod and explain everything, leaving out the details of my first encounter with Crosby, instead starting the story from after Indian Wells. The truth is, how I met Crosby initially is irrelevant to where we are today. But I fess up the rest of it, including Crosby’s past mistakes.

“He dragged you into this,” my father insists.

“He didn’t get me into anything,” I insist. “But I have to get him out of it.”

“Maxine—”

I cut in immediately. “Whatever you think you know, you don’t, alright? There’s no coercion. There’s no force. For the first time in my life, I havepeace. And I have that with him. And I’ll be damned if anyone takes that away from me. I earned that. After everything, Mason, and my injury... I deserve that, Dad. And I need your help. I know you, of all people, can fix this.”

Dad looks at his lap. “This might be the first time you ever asked me to fix anything.”

His words strike me hard because they’re true. But that’s because I was too afraid to let him know anything was ever broken. I can’t fault him forever. But I can change the narrative.

“What you said at the gala,” he begins, “about it never being too late to do the right thing...”

I shut my eyes because this is the second time my words are being used against me. I worry my dad will say it’s our responsibility—mine and Crosby’s—to make things right. But he surprises me.

“I’ll take care of it.”

I turn to him. “You will?”

“I pushed you, you’re right. And, my intentions, they were never about money. After all,” he says with a laugh, “one day it all goes back to you anyway. But I wanted you to be focused and determined, not distracted by something that might lead you astray.”

I look down into my lap. He doesn’t need to say,like drugs, like alcohol.

“I never really took care of you the way you needed. If it’s okay, I’ll start now in ways you let me.” Dad takes a shaky breath, running a hand through his white hair. “I’m sorry you felt so alone while Mason was... struggling. I have experience loving someone to death. I did that with your mother, and you were just a baby back then. You might think because Mason was my stepson, because he was anaddict,I never loved him. I did—Ido—but love, it’s not always enough. I coped the only way I knew how, by deflecting and ignoring. And by not really talking toyouabout it when you were just a kid, well, it was a mistake. I’m sorry. We should’ve talked about it.”

Lifting my arm, I swipe the back of my hand across my cheek. “We still can,” I say quietly, “talk about the hard stuff.”

Dad clears his throat beside me.

“It has to be different between you and me going forward, but there won’t be any way forward if Hunter gets his way,” I tell him with a sigh, but I mean every word.

Whatever relationship waits for us, it will be one where I’m heard because I speak up, about the hard stuff, the happy stuff—all of it. If I speak my mind, my truth, there will never be room for resentment. I’ve had enough of that kind of bitterness.

I resented Mason for being such a fuckup.

I resented my grandmother for loving him anyway.

I resented my father for loving me the only way he really knew how.

And I don’t want to walk out of this church with no family.

“I don’t know if it’s good for us to work together.” I clear my throat. “But I’d love it if you came to watch me play tomorrow.”

“I never missed a match.”

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