Off Court - Chapter 7.1

A/N: Sorry this is so short, and entirely about a match. There was just no useful way to split the chapter other than this :/

Maderic bounced the ball. I breathed. Again, he bounced it, and again. I just kept breathing. Knees bent, weight steady, I kept my eyes fixed on the bright yellow ball as he threw it up. Height of its travel - split step, bounce forward. Eyes still on it as it clipped the corner of the service box. Racquet out for a backhand. On the strings - swing!

The ball flew away through the air, over the net, past the service line. And unfortunately over the baseline as well.

"Fault!" the line judge howled.

But it didn't bother me. He'd held his serve, that was fine. Everything was fine. The centre court crowd stared at me for any sign of nerves, all uncountable thousands of them, but it was fine. The sun was beating down on my shoulderblades and making me sweat like crazy, which wasn't ideal, but still fine.

I took my seat for the change of ends and stared at the court as I got ready to serve. If I held this game I'd take it into a tiebreak. The plastic chair was so hot it stung as I sat down, even through my sweat-sodden shorts, but I barely even noticed. There could have been smoke rising up from me as I burned alive and I can't guarantee I'd have noticed.

Up from the chair as the umpire called time. Ready to serve. I barely looked at Maderic as I walked past, just saw his shoulders all tense and him looking down at the ground. We were tennis players, focussed on the only thing that had mattered for the last hour and fifty-seven minutes.

I bounced the ball, letting the rhythm of its bouncing keep me calm and in my rhythm. Threw it away up past my body, my shoulders, my head. Away up into the air. When I looked up to see it, I just about registered the bright stretching blue of the sky and the little yellow circle resting against it like the sun as it reached the apex of its arc.

With a grunt, I slammed the serve as hard as I could - into the net. My second serve was a spinning kicker, which bounced up as high as Maderic's shoulder. He stumbled backwards, his racquet out awkwardly in front of him as he tried to keep his balance and reach for the ball at the same time. His racquet reached out to connect with the ball, just as his foot pushed backwards against the baseline. His ankle twisted awkwardly and he toppled over to the side.

Oh shit.

It was the first thought I'd allowed myself in a while. When I play, I force my brain to think only in images, other than tactical ideas. But I never think in the middle of a point, and rarely in the middle of a game.

But when I saw Maderic groan to his feet and clutch at his achilles tendon, I couldn't stop myself from worrying about him. It had been three weeks since that dinner where I'd first met Natalie, and she, Maderic, Camillo and I spent almost all our off court time together. I really hoped he wasn't hurt.

There was also the fact that I was in the middle of one of the greatest comebacks in a match of my life and didn't want a possible injury to throw my momentum away. But mostly I was worried about my friend.

He looked up at me and raised a hand as if to say sorry after a bad mis-hit. I shook my head and raised my hand in a similar gesture, which I hoped he'd realise meant for him to take his time. Maderic might be my friend, but I was desperate to crush him. This was the closest I'd ever got to defeating a top-ten opponent (except that time I went to a fifth set with the world number one) and I’d hate for my first time to be on an injury-default. But again, he was also my friend and I didn’t want him to get hurt, honest.

Unfortunately, it seemed that this had aggravated an existing injury. Maderic had to retire from the match.

“Sorry, man,” Maderic said as he came to the net.

I offered him a hand to shake and sighed. “That’s a bummer, yeah. Take care of yourself though. You okay?”

He took my hand and leaned on the net with his other hand, taking the weight off his hand.

“I will be, but not if I keep playing.”

I let him lean on me slightly as we made our way to the umpire to shake hands with her. With his backwards baseball cap, sunken eyes and dark stubble, Maderic can look pretty intimidating. I’ll admit to being terrified of making a fool of myself in front of him for at least the first week since that dinner. But he was hobbling along like an injured racehorse; he looked so vulnerable.

I eased him off my shoulder as we went to pack up our bags, but as I passed by him on my way out I stopped to see if there was any way I could help.

“Could you take my bag?” he mumbled. I could understand his embarrassment. It’s not fun when your body, the thing your career lives and breathes by, lets you down. Even quieter he added, “Carrying it makes it harder to limp.”

I smiled with one side of my mouth and heaved the bag up onto my free shoulder, with my bag on the other. With a final wave to the devastated crowd – that was one of the tensest matches I’ve been involved in in a while – we made our way to the tunnel that led to the locker room.