Page 91 of Off Court Fix

I step forward and lay the shears on the counter as he walks out of the kitchen toward the mudroom, making sure he actually leaves. When I hear the door shut and footsteps along the gravel path to his car, I flip the lock and hurry back to the kitchen.

I nearly apologize and then stop myself. I’m not actually sorry for barging in, for standing up for Maxine and protecting her. I’m only sorry I didn’tdoanything—hit her father, drag him out by his starchy shirt collar.

“I heard him yelling and—”

Maxine shakes her head, pulling all her hair to one side. “It’s fine.”

It’s not fine, not one piece of it. But the most important piece is how a father just treated his grown daughter, and I’m not sure Maxine even realizes it.

But when Alyssa mentions the wordtrimagain, Maxine grabs the gardening shears, bringing them to the hair she’s got bunched in her fist, and chops the long tresses to the floor, and once again, I haven’t given her the benefit of the doubt.

She gets it after all.

“I thinkit’s kind of chic.” Alyssa clears her throat and steps back from my vanity. She folds up the garbage bag we laid on the floor to collect the rest of the locks sacrificed to even out the cut.

Once again, it’s about my hair, or at least now, my lack thereof. I didn’t exactly leave a lot for Alyssa to work with.

If I were the kind of person to caresomuch about how I look, I would agree with her. Strands that fell midway down my back now sit above my shoulders, and I don’t know if I’ve had hair this short since kindergarten.

But what Alyssa says next reminds me she knows me well.

“And you can still pull it up for practice and playing. You just need a clip or two at the back to hold up those pieces, that’s all. It will stay off your neck.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

Sighing, Alyssa slides the blow dryer and brushes across the vanity, giving her space to sit close to me. “Max, what happened with your dad—”

“Can we not?” I cut in.

“I’ve been by your side foryearsand kept quiet. I do that because I love you, and I get that he’s your dad, but he’s not your only family, even if it seems that way on paper. You haveme,” Alyssa says emphatically. “He’s no good for you, and maybe that comes from blurring the lines between dad and manager... I know I’m just the amateur makeup and hair stylist on the sidelines, but at what point is enough, enough?”

I stare into the mirror, turning my head side to side. I don’t have a good enough answer to give, or maybe I do, but I don’t want to say it out loud. Because if I’m being honest, I know the right answer is that my father should’ve never been my manager to begin with. But the more painful question that answer brings is, would he have bothered to really stick around if I didn’t give him a good enough reason to? And if he didn’t, who would be there for me then?

As a child, I struggled for his love and attention. My earliest memory of my father involves me tugging on the leg of his suit to show him something I had made in school and him hissingI’m on a phone call. And when he wasn’t on a call or in court, his attention at home was focused on Mason and everything going wrong with him, his voice resentful of the stepson he inherited when Mom died. All his energy went to work because that was a welcome distraction that often took him out of the house, leaving me and Mason at home with a nanny during the school year in Florida and with Grandma in the summer when we wouldn’t see him between Memorial and Labor Day. Until he decided my talent on the court was enough, and rarely did he leave my side.

My body is plagued with exhaustion—nothing remotely physical. I feel emotionally exhausted, like I’ve been put through the spin cycle of being used and abused when all I wanted was to give my father a reason to smile.

“I’m proud of you.” Alyssa reaches across, taking my hand.

I snort. “For chopping off my hair?”

“No. For defying him.”

Lowering my gaze to the fluffy white towel I’m wrapped in spread across my lap, I shrug. “I shouldn’t have to defy him at all. I’m an adult.”

“That’s why I’m proud,” Alyssa teases. “This is the right step, I know it.”

I don’t have the energy in me to continue this conversation, and I’m thankful Alyssa recognizes that.

She clears her throat. “Are we going to talk about the other elephant in the room? Or I guess I should say the one outside hacking your flowers to death?”

I can hear Crosby working out back as much as she can, and I sigh heavily. This is the first time there’s been awkward tension between us, as if Crosby didn’t recognize the woman in the kitchen who chopped off her hair with gardening sheers, not because of the change in her look but because of the action itself. The Maxine he knows would never do something so rash or defiant, and I think Crosby didn’t know what to do after, instead letting Alyssa bring me upstairs to my bathroom to fix the mess I made.

But at least he didn’t leave.

“It’s complicated,” I offer.

“I’d say that’s putting it mildly.”

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