Page 55 of In the Safety's Zone
He stood next to the table expectantly and gave me a look that I guess was supposed to spur me into falling in line. A cocky smile was on his face as he held his arms open wide.
“No hug?”
Lucky I don’t clock your ass with this fucking plate.
“No.” My words were apparently too curt for my mother because she had the nerve to chastise me.
“Dite!”
Her words were hissed through the smile on her face and I stared right back at her unbothered. As usual, she was dressed to the nines; her lightweight sweater was blue cashmere, and her khaki-colored slacks were wool. My father had graced us with his presence and he was wearing navy slacks and a cream sweater. We were inside the hotel they were staying in, and I was apparently footing the bill for getting harassed.
They’d been calling me more and more as I moved through the tournament. I sent them the tickets I knew they were really concerned with just so they would leave me alone. My mother messaged me this morning asking me to make time for lunch with them so I stopped avoiding them and got this out of the way. My focus needed to be on the finals and I wasn’t going to allow them to be a distraction. Now I wished I’d just gone to my room and called Anthony.
“Mother, he asked and I answered. It’s as simple as that. I’m allowed to have boundaries even though it seems the three of you seem to think differently.” I removed the napkin from my lap and sat it back down on the plate in front of me my appetite nonexistent.
“You are not going to be rude, Aphrodite.”
My family always thought it was so cute that his last name was Valentine and mine was Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Like it meant we were supposed to be together. It was just happenstance in my mind because nothing about Christopher Valentine was loving.
Having spent the last few months with Anthony, even though it was long distance, I knew even more that Chris was probably the worst type of man. He was the epitome of a fuckboy who felt as though the world owed him more than it did. He was born to a biracial father who had played baseball and a white mother who played softball. They were the type to praise their son even in his wrongdoing, and that attitude ruined him as an adult. The tale that his parents possessed didn’t trickle down to him and he refused to believe it.
I cleared my throat and put a pleasant but small smile on my face.
“Mother, I’m not being rude. I didn’t want to come to lunch because I need to rest up before tomorrow. I requested this to be something low key and I’d prefer it to stay that way. Nobody wants distractions to be the reason I don’t perform well.” I gave Chris a pointed look because I needed him to know he didn’t hold any power over me anymore.
“If having lunch is enough to get you off your game you’re not nearly as prepared as you swear you are.” My father was chuckling like my potential failure was enough for him to feel vindicated.
“Thanks, Dad. Are we going to order or will we still be critiquing what I have going on?”
“I invited Chris here—”
And that for damn sure meant I wasn’t staying.
“I’m sure you did.”
I picked up my menu not trying to be rude but wanting to get something to go. There was no way I was going to stay here long and I could already tell that my parents were going to fuck up my peace of mind. The best way to get back right was to chill by myself or talk with Anthony. I missed him like crazy and I hated that he couldn’t get here. I still hoped that he’d be able to get a waiver but I understood his not being able to spend two weeks here because of his busy schedule.
Anthony’s focus was on assuring everyone that they hadn’t made a mistake by taking a chance on him. I thought he was being too hard on himself because when I looked him up; I saw the streaming he’d done of his workouts when he wasn’t on a team. He was the first person I’d dealt with that hadn’t been pre-approved by my father or completely invested in tennis the way I was. I wasn’t sure how our opposing schedules would work if we actually tried to make this thing work but I was adult enough to enjoy what was going on for however long it lasted. Parts of me hoped that this would be a forever kind of thing.
While I’d been ignoring them Christopher had taken a seat next to me and I glared at him, trying to figure out why. The restaurant was a typical British hotel establishment with large windows facing the street, wood-paneled walls and stark white tablecloths.
Chris wisely kept his head down and I knew then something else besides a bullshit romantic rekindling was on the table.
My father cleared his throat drawing my attention to him but I still angled my body away from this asshole beside me.
“So, Chris is looking to get back into training pro-athletes.”
“Well, good luck in all your future endeavors, Christopher.” I wasn’t leaving any room for there to be confusion about how I felt about what I knew he was trying to get at.
“It would go much smoother for him if he had a big name to say he helped train.”
“Then instead of wasting time having lunch with us you should probably be out there networking so that you can find your next client.” My smile was tight, the anger at them thinking they could force some piece of shit on me that had damaged every aspect of my being back into my life was insulting.
“Your father said that you wouldn’t have issue with adding me on as part of your team for the event.”
My eyes went to my dad’s and I waited on him to explain himself. I had a coach and even though I had issues with her I wasn’t going to replace her with him. The last thing I was going to do was to step on her toes by giving her hard work away and crediting someone else. Teresa was a problem for another day if she wasn’t going to get in line with falling back. She was like my father in a lot of ways constantly pushing me, but she at least acknowledged my successes. I didn’t need someone to coddle me but I damn sure wasn’t going to be bullied by someone on my payroll.
They got me fucked up.
