by Sarina Bowen
“Tennis,” Delilah says. “You told me that Brett didn’t like to lose.”
“Does he still play?” I hear myself ask. Because I never touched a racquet again. Not after what happened.
“Sometimes. But there are trophies in his parents’ beach house. I mean—that house is impeccably tasteful. It’s all wood and beiges and blues. But right there on the sideboard are like a dozen gold, gaudy tennis trophies. I always thought of it as the Shrine to Brett.”
“All trophies are ugly, but it doesn’t matter. You still want them. Never get between a man and his trophies.”
“Now, Ralph.” She squeezes my arm. “Do you have an apartment full of hockey trophies?”
“Nope. They’re in a box somewhere in my mother’s garage. But if my team ever gets a Stanley Cup, you can bet your cute little butt that I will have my photo taken in every possible combination with that thing. I will treasure it as non-ironically as I’ll treasure my vinyl edition of Delilah and the Sparkle Puppies’ first album.”
She snorts. “Fine. I’ve been warned.”
My smile dies, though, as I realize she’s still waiting for me to tell her about my life’s greatest disaster. “Brett won trophies because he was good. It didn’t hurt that he had the best coaches and the most expensive equipment I’d ever seen. But before I showed up at the school, nobody could beat him.”
“And then you did?”
“Sometimes. Freshman year I was still learning fast. But sophomore year I began to dominate. Especially once I learned about the Darlington Beach scholarship. It was sponsored by the country club—there was one winner each year. It went to whichever Darlington student was the highest ranked tennis player. Male or female.”
“Fancy.”
“Yeah. Usually that prize went to a senior. But as juniors, Brett and I were already setting records in our division. Our school was cleaning up all the meets. My mom and I moved to Darlington Beach to make me eligible for the scholarship. You had to be a resident. If I won, it would be like getting a blank check. I could use the money at any private college that would have me.”
Delilah’s hand skims my arm. “And Brett wanted it, too?”
“Yup.” I shake my head. “Richest kid in town, but he hated the idea of losing to me. And tennis is weird. There are no teammates in tennis. It’s a pretty brutal setup, where every man is ultimately out for himself.”
“Sounds perfect for Brett. That man is not a team player.”
She’s right. I prefer hockey for exactly this reason. Tennis is the loneliest sport in the world. You’re not even allowed to speak to your coach during a game.
“So he started to cheat,” I tell her. “Do you know anything about tennis?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “Not a lot of tennis happens in foster care.”
“I took up tennis just so I could see how the other half lived,” I admit. “And because Darlington Beach was crazier about tennis than about hockey.”
“How does a California boy take up hockey, anyway?”
“That’s a different story. Hockey is all about the refereeing, right? If they don’t call it, it didn’t happen.”
“Okay.”
“In tennis—unless you’re on the pro circuit—there’s like one official for every eight games in progress. When a ball lands on the line, the player has to call it in or out.”
Her eyebrows draw up into arches. “And nobody argues the calls?”
“Not usually. So Brett started cheating during his games.”
“Against you?”
“Me and anyone else who’d threatened his standing. Eventually he was sort of famous for calling his opponent’s balls out when they were on the line and should have been good.”
“And nobody noticed?”
I shrug. “People noticed. But he was careful not to do it in front of the officials or his opponent’s coach. Once I watched a parent get up in his face, and he just lied his ass off.”
I remember these days like they were yesterday—the heat of the clay courts and the sound of the balls thwacking off racquets all around me. I’m competitive, too. I lived for that shit.
“So that’s how he got an edge on you?”
“Yes and no. We had to play each other in a tournament at the end of the season. I felt intense pressure to win. The recruiters were circling. My SAT scores had come back better than my counselor had expected. ‘You could do this,’ he said. ‘You could win the Darlington Beach Club scholarship. Or maybe even a tennis scholarship to Stanford.’”
At that point I probably didn’t even need the damned town scholarship. But that doesn’t mean I’d give up.
And there’s a reason I never talk about this. A tightness grips my chest as I remember how this felt. Teenage me would have done anything to avoid failure. It took me years to get past this stupid incident. And there are days when I still feel the lingering damage to my psyche.
“So…” I can almost smell my own nervous sweat as Brett and I waited on the sidelines for the officials to tell us we could start that last game. It was the stupidest week of my life. And I really don’t want to tell Delilah all the ways I failed myself. “We both cheated. I sank right to his level.”
“And?”
I can’t do it. I’m not going to tell her the whole story. “He cheated better,” is all I say.
“He won the scholarship?”
“He did.” And so much more. Only one of us walked away with our pride intact, and it wasn’t me. “At least I had senior year to switch gears. I ended up taking a gap year and playing juniors hockey while applying to colleges. And that went well, so a hockey scholarship paid for everything.” I didn’t get to go to a private school like I’d planned, though. I had to settle.
Some days I blame Brett. Most days I blame myself.
“He took a bite out of both of us,” she whispers. “But no more.”
“No more,” I agree. I want to be done with this conversation and with him. “Should we get up and shower?”
“Soon.” She puts her head on my shoulder.
I smile at the ceiling. “Okay. Soon.”
The ceiling fan makes another lazy rotation, and I try to relax. But now I’m all keyed up inside. The specter of Brett Ferris has me thinking about my failures.
I cheated on the tennis court. My teenage brain had been sure I was only reclaiming what Brett had stolen from me. You need luck to win by cheating, though. Not every game offers up a ripe moment for an ethical lapse.
That match had done the trick for me, and I’d won the day. The season had been drawing to a close, with me in the lead. The following weekend would have sealed to deal—I would have been the first Darlington student to ever take home the scholarship in his junior year.
But before the weekend, Brett had left a note on my beat-up car. Meet me behind the Quickie Mart at six. There’s something I need to ask you. I think we can both get what we want.
Teenage me hadn’t been very cunning. I’d hated cheating, and I wasn’t eager to do it again, but I was intrigued. So I met him like a goddamn fool. He’d been standing there beside his BMW, waiting for me.
“What’s up?” I’d asked, wondering if he’d suggest that we take turns. One of us wins this year, one of us wins next year. I wouldn’t have been able to trust him to stick to a plan, though.
“Here’s the thing,” he’d said, picking his fingernail. “The scholarship has more than one factor.”
“You need a B grade-point average,” I’d said. I’d read the scholarship rules many times.
“And a good standing in the community.” He’d looked up at me. “Which you don’t have.”
“What do you mean?”
He’d folded his arms. “I wonder what the board chairman will think when he finds out your dad is in prison for a violent felony?”
My head had snapped back as if I’d been punched. My mother had gone to great lengths to make sure that nobody knew that. “Who’s going to tell them?”
“I am,” he’d said. “Unless you get injured tomorrow at practice and don’t play on Saturday.”
He made air quotes when he’d said the word “injured.”
There are so many things I might have done in that moment. I might have laughed. I might have lifted my chin and told him where he could shove his obnoxious threat. I might have turned around and walked away without another word.
Any of those solutions would have been better than balling my hand into a fist, wrapping my thumb, and punching him right in the face. He went down in a soul-chilling tumble of limbs onto the dusty asphalt.
“You’re so fucked now,” he’d said as the blood began to run out of his nose.
That’s when I’d finally turned and walked away. And the security camera he’d scoped out ahead of time showed my departure—centered, in crisp detail. The video is the first thing they showed me when I was arrested a day later.
Sometimes I can still picture the grainy image of me coolly walking away from my bleeding competitor. He just lays there on the ground for a while after I go.
The only blessing was that my mother hired a good lawyer immediately. We didn’t have the money, but she did it anyway, putting down her tax refund and borrowing the rest.
Since I wasn’t eighteen yet, my lawyer got the charge knocked down and made sure that the conviction would be expunged a few months after my birthday.
My stupidity had no lasting effects on my prospects. But it got me kicked off the tennis team. With a broken nose, Brett Ferris won the championship the following weekend. He went on to receive the Darlington Beach Club tennis scholarship and a spot at Stanford.
I lost my scholarship to the prep school and had to attend a public high school instead for senior year. So my tennis career was over. Without the prep school to back me, I couldn’t train.
We moved out of Darlington Beach, too, because we couldn’t afford it. Rents were higher. And my mother got tired of hearing women whisper about us in the grocery store. Did you know the kid’s father is in prison? Aggravated assault. Just like his dad.
Hockey became my outlet, and I didn’t look back. Never played tennis again. I liked being part of a team. And let’s face it—if my hockey team had found out about my violent offense, it wouldn’t have made headlines. I’m a nonviolent guy who was convicted of violence. Who now plays a violent sport.
Not in a fighting role, though. The goalie is a puck eater, but he rarely throws a punch. If you ask my teammates, they’ll say I don’t even have a temper.
I hit Brett, though. I (briefly) had a criminal record, which was hideously embarrassing to me and heartbreaking for my mom.
“You’re lucky he won that final tennis championship!” my mom had sobbed the night before my court date.
She was right. It meant Brett couldn’t tell the judge I’d given him a head injury or a permanent disability. Nine years later I’m still upset, though. I let Brett Ferris outplay me.
Never again.
Delilah
It’s dusk by the time Silas and I finally venture outside. We’re both starving.
“Dinner is at seven,” he says. “But there will be snacks and drinks on the beach. I feel like an ass for starving you all day.”
“Oh, I think it was worth it.”
He gives me a hot smile.
Hand in hand, we walk along a path that winds past a cove where kayaks are waiting on the shore. The water is an impossible shade of turquoise blue. “This place is mind-blowing. I think I need to get out more.”
“It is. And I’m all for you taking more beach vacations with me.”
I squeeze his hand and feel as though I’m walking through a dream. A really good one.
The path leads us toward a beach where a couple dozen people gather. I’d rather have Silas all to myself, but that’s not what I signed up for. So I put on my People Face and let him lead me into the fray.
“Look who it is!” his roommate calls from the water’s edge. He’s holding a soccer ball. “Decided to show your face? You missed ping pong entirely. Afraid of the competition?”
“I thought someone else should be allowed to win sometimes,” Silas says easily.
“Get over here,” Jason says. “You need a beatdown for saying that.”
“Patience. You’ll get your beatdown.” He grins at his roommate.
“Go head and play,” I urge. I don’t want to be the kind of date who needs babysitting.
“We need a drink and some of those appetizers, first.” He scans the beach, taking in a little tiki hut where a bartender waits. But someone else is flagging us down.
“Over here!” A short, smiling woman waves at us. “I have munchies. Introduce me to your date!”
With a grin, Silas leads me toward her. “Rebecca, this is Delilah. Delilah, this is the bride.”
“Oh, hello!” I sit down on the empty beach chair beside her and shake her hand. I don’t know why I’m surprised at her appearance. She’s completely adorable. But I thought billionaires married supermodels. I was picturing someone six feet tall with a European accent and hair that rarely leaves the salon. “Thank you so much for letting me crash your big day. This place is exquisite.”
“It’s my pleasure. The groom is—” She points at another man in swim trunks. He’s in a circle of men kicking the soccer ball around. “That guy. I’ll introduce you after their tournament ends. It’s an elimination game, and Nate usually doesn’t make it to the final four.”
“Who usually wins?” I ask.
“I do,” Silas says. “Duh.”
“Look at the ego on this guy,” Rebecca teases.
“It’s not bragging if it’s true,” Silas argues, sitting down right beside me on the chair. He lifts a tray from the little table beside Rebecca’s chair. It’s piled with skewers of shrimp and crab cakes. “Delilah, I ate about twenty of these last night, and they are worth it.”
“Have some!” Rebecca encourages me. “I put the snacks next to me so that everyone would have to stop by. We also have this.” She hefts a pitcher of what looks like frozen margaritas and grabs an empty glass off an inverted stack. She pours the drink, and it looks delicious.
And now we arrive at the awkward part. “Oh, Silas can have that,” I say as she offers me the glass. “I’m not ready.”
Honestly, I wish I could just take the drink like a normal person. Nobody on this beach is trying to drug me. But some habits are so deeply ingrained you can’t even imagine breaking them.
Silas takes the glass and then stands up. A warm hand lands on my head. “Back in one sec.”
“So,” I say to Rebecca. “How did you end up working in professional sports? Did you always love hockey?” I help myself to a shrimp skewer, because I really am starving.
“Hockey is the best,” she says. “But I didn’t see my first pro game until Nate bought the team a few years ago. Now it’s my life. The same could happen to you if you’re not careful.” Her eyes sparkle. “But I heard you went to your first game only a couple of months ago.”
“True story.” My eyes cut to Silas, who’s speaking to the bartender. I’m realizing now that Silas underplayed his relationship with the bride and groom. Rebecca isn’t just an acquaintance. She’s his friend. “The first time I met Silas, I didn’t know he was a hockey player. He was just the guy behind the bar who brought me my beers.”
“Really?” she squeaks, wide-eyed. “That is adorable!”
“Yes, ma’am. And I had a thing for him right away. Even though I thought his name was Ralph.”
“Ralph,” she repeats at a whisper.
“Yeah, it’s a nickname they gave him in high school.” I shrug, but it occurs to me that I’ve made a tactical error.
“Ralph…as in vomit?” she gasps.
“Um…”
Rebecca puts two fingers between her lips and whistles toward the soccer circle. “Georgia! Come here.”
“What did I miss?” The publicist comes bounding over.
�
��Did you know that Silas’s high school nickname was Ralph?”
“As in…” Georgia makes a face. Then she bursts out laughing.
Uh-oh.
Silas returns a moment later holding an unopened can of Coke in his hand. Rebecca and Georgia are still laughing. “What did I miss?”
“Not a lot, Ralph,” Georgia says.
“Really?” He frowns down at me, then checks his watch. “I step away for ninety seconds, and you manage to give that up? Three years of discretion, gone in an instant.”
“I’m sorry! It was an accident.”
He gives me a wry smile. “You’re lucky I like you.”
“You are a perfect man.” I pop open the can of Coke. “And I will endeavor to keep all your other dirty secrets private.”
“Which dirty secrets?” Rebecca asks, laughing.
“Yo! Silas! Get your booty over here!” Castro yells from the sand.
I put a hand on his hip and nudge him toward the game. “Go on. I swear I’ll behave. I won’t tell them about the time you cut your thumb—”
This bit of silliness is cut off by Silas’s mouth, which is suddenly on mine. I receive a blazing kiss. It’s a very effective form of censorship. With his hot mouth on mine, I can’t actually remember what I was saying.
“Dude, leave the poor girl alone for ten minutes!” Leo yells from somewhere nearby.
Silas breaks our kiss, and for a split second we’re staring into each other’s eyes again, wondering where the nearest bedroom is. But then I blink. “Go on. Show me how you’re a legend at sportsball.”
“Try not to do too much damage to my rep, okay?” He grins, pivots like a ninja, and jogs off toward the guys.
“You can play too, you know,” Georgia says. “I made it through five eliminations today.”
“My personal best is three.” Rebecca sighs. “My coordination is legendary. And not in a good way.”
“Unless we’re doing manicures,” Georgia argues. “I’m the one who’s not allowed to apply polish anymore.”
“That’s just because you don’t care enough to do a good job.” Rebecca turns to me. “I have to put Netflix on in front of her so she won’t get up and walk away in the middle of a manicure.”