Page 18 of A Follow-Through in Faking
He drills our backhands and forehands until every muscle in my body hurts. Cata is breathing heavily by the time he tells us to practice our serves. She bends over at the waist, taking several deep breaths. I sip my water before holding out my bottle for her. She emptied hers about ten minutes ago, and Charlie hasn’t returned with Cata’s refill.
“Here,” I offer, making my hitting partner and fake girlfriend look up before she eyes the bottle with distrust. “You saw me drink out of it. It’s not poisoned,” I say with a laugh, so she snatches the bottle out of my grasp and downs the entire thing. “Bruja,” I curse when she hands me the empty bottle.
“Pendejo.” She sinks into a squat, still breathing heavily. My heart is also still racing, my lungs burning, so I can’t even make fun of her.
“Now we only have to practice our serves and then we can go our separate ways for today,” I promise her, holding out a hand to help her up. We’ve been training for two hours without a single break longer than two minutes.
“Give me a second. Your father is ruthless,” she says, waving my hand away.
Even after two hours of training, Cata looks good. Her long hair is still firmly wrapped in a bun, but her baby hairs are sticking to her forehead. Her cheeks are perfectly pink and her lips, too.
Not that I’m looking at her lips.
“While we’re taking a break, I’d like to discuss our first date,” I say, hating myself for forgetting to raise my fingers to put quotation marks around the word.
“God, I hate that word. ‘Date.’ It used to mean excitement, anticipation, thrill. Now it means obligation, torture, and misery,” she replies, but I’m not entirely sure if she meant to say that out loud to me. I mean, logically I know she must have.People don’t just talk without being aware they said something, but it’s so vulnerable, I can’t quite believe she’d admit how she feels to me.
“It’s not ideal for me either,” I reply, but Cata laughs at that.
“You have no idea what it means to go on a date, Santi. You don’t go out with people to date them. You go out with them to fuck them. Ilovegoing on dates. I love planning dates to take beautiful people on. I love kissing them at the end of the night with the promise that we’ll go on another date. And another after that until we’re falling into something consuming and full of emotion. I date to fall in love, not to fuck around. You don’t understand that because you’ve never felt anything like it.”
Catalina is right. I’ve never been on a date like the ones she’s describing. I’ve never wanted to be with someone for longer than a night, but I have no idea why. I always thought it was easier because of my job. But when I look at Cata and she looks up at me with her breathtakingly pretty scowl, I get a feeling it’s not that simple.
I’ve never been in love before.
Have I?
“You’re right, but I have an idea for our first public date that you will also enjoy. Do you want to hear it or not?” Cata gives me a skeptical look but also a small nod, so I sit down next to where she’s squatting and pull out my phone to show her.
“Isabella Ada has a concert in France?” she asks, her eyes lighting up with happiness. Isabella Ada is Cata’s favorite artist. The Colombian makes music that the entire world is obsessed with, including Cata and me.
“Yes, and I got us front row tickets,” I say with a proud, smug smile.
Catalina stares at me, dumbfounded, mouth hanging open for several seconds before dropping her gaze back down to myphone screen. Then back up to my eyes. Down to the screen. Up to my eyes.
“Is this a trick?” she asks.
“Yes, it’s a trick. I’ll bring you there and then right before we go inside, I’ll laugh and say, ‘just kidding!’” I say, but instead of laughing, she looks at me like that’s a real possibility. “Do you really not trust me at all?”
“Have you given me a reason to?” That shuts me up. “If this is real, then thank you. If it isn’t, I’ll gut you.”
“Sounds good.” She shoves my phone back into my hands and stands up to grab her racket.
Catalina always plays with rackets made bySpin, her biggest sponsor. She also usually has a rainbow incorporated into the design. If I wasn’t sponsored byNew Light, I’d switch toSpinso I could have those rackets, too. Instead, I only get all black ones with no meaningful message.
With her back to me, Cata starts serving, the words on her shirt shifting with every move. I have to hand it to her, she’s funny and creative. I know it was most likely supposed to bother me, but I can’t stop smiling at the thought of Catalina sitting in front of her laptop and making this shirt. Choosing the right font and style. Maybe even smiling to herself like an evil villain.
Mi pequeña villana.
I watch her for a few more serves, noticing her stance is slightly off. She’s leaning a bit too far back, which causes her to lose momentum and use more energy than necessary. It’s something I struggled with for a long time, too, until Papá made me serve and serve and serve until I did it the right way.
Charlie is too preoccupied talking to him to notice, so I step up behind Cata, stopping her a moment before she serves again.
“Do you mind?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me.
“Let me help you and your shoulder,” I offer, my hands hovering over her arms.
“My shoulder is fine, Santi,” she replies, taking a ball out of the pocket of her pants.
