Off Court - Chapter 10.1

This would all have been fine if I hadn’t managed to sneak the victory against Camillo in the third set tiebreak. The media was calling me “the world number thirty-three who beat Camillo Tamer” for a month and a half. This didn’t exactly ruin our friendship; Camillo’s as gracious a loser as anyone else. But we certainly weren’t having heartfelt midnight chats in the couple of weeks afterwards.

I kept looking up from my book to stare at him as we sat in the players’ lounge in Barcelona one day in the middle of April.

“What you watching?” I’d asked when I walked in.

“Drota versus Ellovic. I play the winner,” he’d said, barely even looking round.

It was much, much smaller than the one in Indian Wells so there was no way to avoid being physically close to each other. Again, I promise we weren’t trying to stay apart, but the guilt I felt for telling him to snap out of it when he’d been on such a tear put an enormous gulf between us.

I imagine he felt awkward too that afternoon, and it got more awkward as time went on and this silence got more ridiculous. We felt much further apart than the metre and a half that actually separated our armchairs.

On my fourth glance up in the space of a minute though, I knew this was stupid. I opened my mouth to say his name – and was interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind me.

“Uh, Léo Romain?”

I twisted round with a frown on my face. That voice sounded awfully timid. Had they let a fan in here?

“Oh,” I said, “Hello, Koji.”

Koji Yokota was a bright-eyed young player from Tokyo, whom I’d almost never seen without a smile on his face. He was also Natalie’s ex-boyfriend.

“Er, hi,” he said. He looked from side to side, then his eyes settled on Camillo. He frowned for a moment then pointed toward the corner of the room. “Uh, could I talk to you?”

“Uh, sure,” I said. I pushed myself up from the armchair, which was surprisingly comfortable for the cosiness of the room. I glanced briefly at Camillo but his eyes were firmly on the TV. Fair enough, I told myself, scouting your next opponent is essential.

I followed Koji to the corner of the room furthest from the door and stood a little bit apart from him. He looked nervous, like he could use some space to think.

“You, um, you know Natalie, right?” he said eventually. There was a slight smile on his face, but only at one side. It was like he was never quite capable of turning it off.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’d call her my friend.”

Where in God’s name was this going?

“Okay, good. I, uh, I just want to know…” He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “How is she? Is she doing okay?”

I rocked back a little on my heels. Um…

“Um…” I repeated out loud, because I still hadn’t figured out what to say. “Yes, I think? I mean, her wrist still seems a bit-”

“No, no,” he said, his eyes widening a bit. “Is she happy?”

“Um… I think so,” I said. I looked from side to side, words all jamming in my throat and none of them getting out.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said, the smile finally disappearing. “I just miss her.”

“I’m just not sure I’m the right person to talk to.” The words blurted out of my mouth and I almost felt like I burst forward towards them with him. “Why not talk to her? Or I guess Max Maderic, if things didn’t end that well between the two of you.”

“I’m not talking to Max Maderic.” All of a sudden Koji was snarling. His eyes had darkened and his frown deepened.

“Okay, okay,” I said, raising my hands.

He must have seen my shock or something because he closed his eyes again and relaxed as much as he could.

“I just-”

He stopped in the middle of, I’m guessing, whatever his explanation for this sudden interrogation was. His eyes darted towards something over my shoulder and I braced myself as I turned my head around. He looked like there was some sort of demon coming straight for him.

A demon called Maderic, apparently.