Page 78 of A Follow-Through in Faking
My sunshine man looks downright murderous.
It's my turn to return the serve. After missing her first serve, Eunice places her second one in the center of the service box, but she puts a spin on it that has me jumping in the air a little to get a good position on it. My ball goes straight to her, and we rally back and forth until I place my ball too far toward Colin's side. He doesn't hesitate to step toward it, hitting a volley that goes straight into Santi’s stomach. And he put so much force behind it, my partner lets out a painedoomphand bends over at the waist as he clutches his stomach.
I see red.
I storm toward the net at the same moment Colin backs away, not even raising his hands to apologize. It's the most unsportsmanlike behavior I have ever witnessed in my professional tennis career. The crowd seems to agree because they start booing him, and I would smile at Sami being the one to boo the loudest if I wasn't so worried about Santi.
“Are you okay,mi corazón?” I ask, my heart racing because of how angry I am. The tears that usually come with this type of anger combine with my worry, making me swallow hard to get them under control.
My hand slips onto his back, but he only very slowly straightens it out again. I notice tears have appeared in his eyes, and it makes even more anger spread through me.
“Fuck, that hurt,” he mumbles, letting out a strained breath. It's nothing new for a tennis player to get hit with a ball, we're used to it, but not so hard from so close up and then straight into the stomach.
“Do you need ice?” I ask, lifting his shirt to see the red spot on his stomach from how hard Colin hit him.
“I'll be fine. It doesn't even hurt that badly,” Santi assures me, but I don’t believe him. Not even a little.
I stare at the red spot on Santiago's stomach for a second longer, wondering if I could rip off Colin's head and feed it to Tornado.
“It's okay,” Santi says, caressing my jaw before he steps away and goes to line up at the baseline.
Red is still clouding my vision as I step toward the net on my side. Colin is already on his, the crowd still booing. He catches me staring at him, so I offer him a threatening smile that has his eyes widening.
“If you hurt Santiago again, I'm going to beat you with my racket until I'm sure your career is over. As a matter of fact, if you ever hurt anyone physically again, I'll do that. I don't give afuck about what happens to me if it means one less prick like you is part of my sport,” I warn, quietly enough to ensure the crowd can't hear me, but loud enough so Colin can.
He has no time to respond before Eunice serves again, and Santi hits the ball back to her, but the look on his face, anger and surprise, is enough to satisfy me. He seems scared of me, and he should be. As much as it seems like an empty threat to him, I’ve once punched a guy in the throat and kicked him in the balls after he grabbed my ass at the club and rubbed his bulge against me non-consensually.
I’ll do the same to Colin, maybe even worse.
Santi and I fight for the point until finally, we secure it through an overhead smash on my part.
Fifteen-thirty.
Santi is at the net again, but for this point, I make sure not to let the ball get anywhere near Colin. I don’t trust my warning to have been enough for him to get the message.
Fifteen-forty.
Colin is getting more frustrated, yelling at Eunice like it’s her fault. She doesn’t take his bullshit, though, and instead yells right back at him, telling him how useless he is. It’s quite unprofessional from a tennis standard perspective, but I almost want to applaud her for standing up for herself.
“A wrongly matched pair,” Santi starts, and I nod several times, my stomach clenching from nostalgia as I finish the sentence.
“Will never reach the top.” His father used to say this to us before every match as children, and I will never forget those words. “They’re not going to recover from this tension,” I whisper, and he nods several times.
“They won’t have a comeback. This is ours.”
And it is. Colin and Eunice fight each other until the end, but the battle against us is long lost. No matter what they try, a newstrategy or having both players stand at the baseline after the serve, nothing works.
The match goes to us.
As soon as the final point is ours, I spin around to run to Santi. He opens his arms for me to celebrate, but I have another mission: making sure his stomach is okay. The crowd screams for us, but I drown everyone out as I focus on Santi.
“It’s already bruising. We need to put some ice on it,” I say, placing my fingers around the area gently. “How hard did he fucking hit you?” I mumble, but he tilts my head up to get me to look at him.
“Forget about the stupid bruise and kiss me, Cata,” he says, but he doesn’t give me the chance to tell him we need to ice it again before putting his lips on mine.
Sharing a win with a doubles partner is always wonderful, but sharing it with Santi makes it all the sweeter.
And when we accept our trophy, and he says, “My half of the paycheck is going directly to a charity for domestic abuse victims,” I know falling in love with him again isn’t just a possibility anymore.
