Page 72 of Off Court Fix

“Yeah. Not in the traditional sense.” I can feel her questionable stare probing me, and I try to remember that feeling I had when Hunter was walking away with that money, how much freedom flooded my body. “That day, it was the last day I worked for Hunter.”

Shaking her head, Maxine asks, “What do you mean? He’s a member at the club, but does he—”

“Gambling. He runs a gambling ring. The biggest on the East Coast. It’s been dormant for a year or two. But he’s got it back up and running.”

Maxine’s head juts back, and her hand falls from my arm. I want to take her hand and put it right back where it was, but I don’t because I’m scared of how it will feel when she pulls away from me again—fucking awful.

But I can’t let it go. When I reach for her hand she yanks it back and, as expected, the action stabs me in the chest. “Max—”

“And how were you involved exactly?”

When I don’t answer, she pushes back from the counter and rises from the stool.

“You know what, Crosby? This entire relationship is built on secrets and lies. But the truth matters between us. If you’re not going to tell me the whole truth, you can go.”

I grit my teeth. “What if I’m omitting the whole truth to protect you?”

“Oh, please. From a bookie—”

“No one really uses that word. Technically,bookmakeris the right term.”

Maxine lifts her hands in frustration.

“Okay, okay... look, I need you to understand something. All of this, when I worked for Hunter, it was a long time ago. Long, like maybe you hadn’t even started playing tennis yet.”

She waits for me to continue.

“That part of it... let’s just say... people don’t think about tennis and gambling. Basketball, the Superbowl, sure, but tennis? It’s a huge piece of it. But it gets tricky, especially big matches. I mean, team sports, you’ve got a bunch of people, but tennis, it’s one-on-one, and what you think might happen, it might not in just a second,” I pause. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?”

“You’re right, you aren’t. But I’m not getting anything about howyouwere involved here, Crosby.”

I feel up against a wall here. I don’t want to tell Maxine the truth for two reasons. One, obviously because she’ll hate me. But the other—the more important one—is I don’t know what could happen with Hunter one day. All I know is I don’t want her involved in the slightest.

“I found the right people who were willing to lose so Hunter’s circle—and Hunter—could win big.”

The frustration masking her face shifts to confusion for only one millisecond. It only takes her that long to get what I’m saying.

“You fixed matches?”

“I—”

“Get out.”

“Maxine—”

“I said get out!”

“Maxine.” I stand, dipping my head so she will look me in the eyes. “Can I just explain?”

“Not right now. You’re right. Me knowing, it’s worse. But not because it makes me complicit... it’s worse because do you even understand what you did, Crosby?”

Sighing, I nod becauseof courseI do. “I’ve violated every—”

“If the answer you’re about to give me has to do with whatever oath you took when you became a chair umpire, at best you’re just a crooked, selfish chair umpire who hasnoidea. What you did?” Maxine tells me, “Is take advantage of people. And not just of players who needed money. You took advantage of people who max out credit cards and retirement funds and—”

“Hold up, hold up,” I say, and now I’m annoyed because I can tell where this is going. Maxine is going to defend a bunch of lowlifes like my father, the guy who did max out every credit card, including two he opened under my name when I was akid.“You’re turning this into something it’s not. No one is going around with agunto someone’s head to make them bet on Novak Djokovic losing to Nadal by two sets.”

Maxine’s eyebrows raise into angry arches before they settle, and I watch as her mouth opens and closes repeatedly, like she’s stopping herself from what she wants to say. But she proceeds.

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