The Love Game

by Emilia Beaumont

  “It’s OK, Cara,” I said, stopping her mid-sentence. “It’s not your fault.” The chief firefighter, who was still on the scene when I arrived, had said as much. His report was preliminary, but currently there was no definite cause for the fire. His voice had been sympathetic when he told me. He also said that everyone inside had been lucky to get out without serious injury, as the fire had spread quickly throughout the old building.

  “Your mom has some smoke inhalation and a small burn on her arm, and she’s resting in the hospital at the moment.”

  “I should go to her.”

  Cara nodded. “I can drive you. You’re in shock.”

  I looked back at the empty space where the bar had been. “It’s a total loss,” I said, my voice shaking. The bar was not only our lifeline, our bread and butter, but also our home. “What am I going to do?”

  “We will help you rebuild,” Cara said, squeezing my waist. “You have me and Luke, Lucia and Jacob. We won’t let you go through this alone, Ginny.”

  A tear escaped down my cheek, and I swiped at it angrily. What had I done to deserve this in my life? Hadn’t I been a good daughter, a good business owner? Why was the universe against me suddenly? Was this my punishment for attempting to live a little? My friends, they had perfect lives, perfect families. Why was I not allowed the same? Drawing a weary hand over my face, I looked at Cara. “Let’s go to the hospital.”

  Cara gave me a nod, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Of course. Luke is there now with your mom.”

  I took one last look at the bar that was no longer there and then walked away, emotionally wrecked. I would shed tears for the business and our home later on, but first I needed to check on my mom.

  “Did you tell my brother?” I asked as we walked to Cara’s car and climbed in. Cara started the car and pulled out of the parking lot onto the road, her hands tightening on the wheel. “He came by a few hours ago and checked on your mom,” she answered. “Honestly Ginny, I don’t know how you are even related.”

  I leaned back on the headrest, my head pounding from the jet lag and the total devastation I was feeling.

  “He has his own ways of coping.” At least he had checked on her, I thought. I would have my own conversation with him later. We fell silent on the short ride to the hospital. I forced my feet to move through the corridors in the hospital as I followed Cara down the hall to my mom’s room. Luke was outside the door.

  “Hey you,” he said, looking utterly exhausted himself, the faint smell of burning wood clinging to his clothes as he enveloped me in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know, I mean one minute I was cleaning glasses at the bar and the next I was carrying your mom out as we escaped the flames. It was surreal.”

  I backed out of his hug before I burst into tears, wrapping my arms around myself instead. “How is she?”

  “She’s fine,” he said with a sigh as Cara came to his side, wrapping her arms around his waist. “She’s a bit confused, but no different than normal. The burn on her arm is nothing, the doctor said, and she should be able to be discharged in a day or so.”

  “Thanks,” I forced out, clearing my throat. “I know you both are exhausted. Why don’t you go on home?”

  “And leave you?” Cara said with a shake of her head. “Hell no. We’re fine, Ginny, nothing that a cup of strong coffee can’t fix. We’ll go grab some from the cafeteria while you visit with your mom, and then we will talk about next steps, OK?”

  “OK,” I sighed. She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, and I waited until they were down the hall a ways before I walked into the room, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. A ton of bricks that just kept on getting heavier and heavier. Mom looked tiny in the hospital bed as I approached. Her eyes were closed, and she had a small bandage around her left forearm. It tore at my heart to see her here, hurt, and me not having been there to comfort her when she really needed me. I shouldn’t have ever left her.

  Reaching the bedside, I touched her hand gently. “Mom?”

  Her eyes fluttered open, and I put on a fake smile. “Hey Mom, how are you feeling?”

  Her eyes focused on mine, confusion filling them. “Who are you? What am I doing here?”

  “It’s Ginny, Mom,” I said, emotion in my voice. “You’re at the hospital. There’s been, um, a small accident, but you are going to be just fine.”

  “A fire,” she stated. “I remember a fire.”

  “That’s right,” I answered, encouraged she remembered that. “But everything’s fine. We are going to be OK.”

  She looked at me, a frown on her face. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are, dearie.”

  “I’m Ginny,” I supplied, despair rising. She didn’t know who I was. I thought I could get used to it, the constant rejection, her never being able to remember who I was, but it didn’t matter. Every time she did this, a small piece of me died inside. I was losing my mom.

  “Ginny, what a pretty name,” she said politely, folding her hands over her stomach. “And do you have a young man, Ginny? My Timmy, he’s not quite old enough to date, but you would make striking couple.”

  I smothered my laugh with a cough, thinking how ridiculous that sounded. She was trying to hook up her own children!

  “I, um,” I started, almost ready to tell her in fact I did have a man. Damon. But that was surely over. By now he would know I was gone again, no doubt confused as to why I had left without a trace. In hindsight, I should’ve left him a note, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Everything had happened so fast; my urge to get to the airport and home superseded everything else. I sighed, almost a whimper. I doubted fate was going to give us another shot. I had blown it and lost the love of my life.

  “There was a guy,” I swallowed, looking down at my hands that had touched him intimately only hours before, when everything in the world was right. “A perfect guy.”

  “Was?” she asked, her conversation as normal as anyone else’s. The only problem was that she didn’t know who she was talking with. Just a minor flaw.

  I nodded, the sudden rush of tears catching me off guard. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

  “That’s a pity,” my mom answered. “You’re a pretty girl. You’ll find another in no time.”

  I gave her a slight smile, deep down knowing I didn’t want another man in my life. I wanted Damon and had lost him. There would be no other.

  20

  Damon

  The crowd roared. The feelings that were usually associated with the noise didn’t fill my body with pleasure this time around. I’d made it to the quarter-finals but lost the last two sets. I hadn’t really expected to get that far, though. Admittedly I was a mess.

  After the rollercoaster ride over the last week, I was fine with where I ended up in the rankings. I could’ve been higher, but I’d been too preoccupied worrying—about Ginny, about my dad, and about my parent’s renewed love for each other. Would it last? Ginny and I certainly hadn’t. She’d disappeared again, without a word.

  I had to move on. She clearly had. Fool me once, fool me twice… Look to the future, I told myself. I would have to work harder to become one of the top-seeded players in the world, but at least it gave me something to work toward, to take my mind off my personal life. New York was the last grand slam on the tour, with a few smaller meet-ups in between to get me prepared.

  I sat and waited on the sidelines as the reporters finished their interviews with the winner of our match, waiting for my turn when they would ask a ton of questions that I didn’t feel like answering. My mind kept drifting to last week. The day that had started out so damn perfect. After practice when Ginny didn’t show up to meet me, I’d fully expected to find her still in bed in the hotel suite, where I would wake her up slowly and continue the high that we both were on.

  But instead I came back to nothing, not one trace of her even being there. Like she was never even there to begin with. My note still sitting on the counter where I’d left it. Pisse
d and confused, I walked back down to the lobby, where finally someone remembered seeing her tear through the lobby and climb into a taxi. My dumb-ass hadn’t corrected her phone number in my phone, but even when I remembered that the 0 was meant to be an 8 and called, there was no answer. Just straight to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. Couldn’t think of what to say.

  Derek had said to chalk it up to my charming personality, but inside I knew something had to be wrong. Had something happened back home that had her running back to the States? Using that charming personality, I called in a few favors and found out that she had indeed boarded a flight that very same day headed back to Miami, but from there the trail ended. She was back home, thousands of miles away, and I was stuck here, missing the hell out of her, but also a little on edge—hurt, angry, and bristly. Fine, if she wants to play these games with me, then I’m done.

  “Damon! You put on a great performance. We saw your usual antics, which the crowd seemed to love. Maybe not the umpire, but what do you think you could’ve done better today?”

  I shook out of my thoughts to see the reporters crowded before me, their mics shoved in my face as they waited my response. I pasted on a bored, robotic grin. “Obviously my opponent played great, and I wish him the best of luck in the rest of the tournament. But I know there’s definitely room for improvement for me. So that’s what I’ll be working on next in preparation for New York.”

  “Damon, what do you think contributed to your success in the tour this year?” another reporter asked. “You’ve beat some impressive odds and players to get this point.”

  “Well,” I said, thinking it through. “It’s all about the people around you, who believe in you. Without them or my team I couldn’t have gotten to where I am at this moment.”

  “Who are they?” another asked. “They must be special to you.”

  I cleared my throat, my hands suddenly slick, and I wiped them on the sides of my pants. Should I do this? I thought. I would be taking a huge risk, but if it paid off, it might help in the long run. No matter how angry I was, I still wanted her back.

  “First my dad,” I started out. “He’s battling some health issues right now, but he hasn’t lost his faith in me and I won’t in him. Love you, Dad!” I drew in a breath, slightly overcome with emotion at what was to come next. “And then there’s a special woman who’s stolen my heart. She has the most unbelievable faith in me, and I honestly can’t live without her.”

  The reporter’s eyes widened. The one asking the question realized that she had just grabbed possibly the biggest social media story of the day.

  “Are you telling us that you, the bad boy of tennis, have settled down?” she asked, pulling her cameraman closer. I nodded, giving her one of my trademark grins. “I have, in a way. It’s amazing how love just punches you in the gut when you least expect it. My sweet Gin, I couldn’t have done it without you. I love you.”

  The reporters scrambled to ask more questions. Who was she? Where was she? How did we meet? But I turned my back, finding Derek waiting for me a few feet away. “Nice interview,” he said as I reached him. “She leaves your ass, and you tell the world that you are in love with her. Seriously, who are you right now?”

  I frowned as we walked toward the clubhouse. “Something happened. I know she wouldn’t just up and disappear for no reason.”

  “You’re right, I guess,” Derek said, “but maybe it’s for the best? You’re fucking Damon Holden—move on, let her go, onto the next I say. Though saying that, half the world just fell in fucking love with you after that speech. It could be a good move, get you some new sponsors.”

  Grinning, I threw my arm around Derek’s shoulder. “That is why you are my coach and not my agent.”

  His eyes softened. Pity? Or just sympathy because he knew I was hurting. “But maybe she’ll have a change of heart and get in touch. Think positive!”

  “Huh-uh. You’re always full of the right things to say,” I said sarcastically.

  “And you’re just full of it,” he answered with a laugh before turning toward me. “But for real. Are you OK?”

  I nodded, feeling the weight not so tight in my chest. Ginny was going to see that interview eventually, and I hoped that when she did she would get in touch. Hell, I was in love with her, probably had been since that day she kidnapped me from the streets of Paris in an attempt to save my career. It wasn’t a bad feeling, being in love, except for the fact that Ginny was missing from my side. That kind of sucked. I couldn’t share my feelings personally, so I did the only other thing that I knew would be effective; the story would be on every sports channel across the world, and the tabloids would certainly pick up the juicy story, too.

  “Yeah,” I finally said, realizing that Derek was looking at me closely, concern edged into the developing wrinkles around his eyes. “I’m good, or I will be.”

  My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I fished it out, seeing my dad’s number on the screen. “Hey Dad,” I said after pressing the button and holding it up to my ear.

  “I saw the match and the interview,” he answered, his voice full of emotion. “I’m proud of you, son. So damned proud.”

  Emotion welled up in my throat, and I swallowed hard. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “And I hope your girl knows how lucky she is to have you,” he continued. “Make sure you bring her to the party. I want to meet her.”

  “I-I will,” I answered, hoping to God I could find her in time. There was no one else I would want to bring but Ginny.

  He said goodbye, and I followed Derek into the clubhouse, my mind trying to plan ahead. I was ready to jump on a plane to the States to at least be closer to Ginny somehow—to start a search, but I had to wrap up here first, do some more private press interviews that had already been arranged, or Jim would hang me out to dry. I’d have a few weeks to try and find her. I could skip maybe one or two of the smaller opens, give Canada a miss. But if I didn’t find her by then, I’d have to buckle down and get ready for the hard courts of the New York Open in August.

  After leaving the craziness of the stadium, my driver took me back to the hotel, where Jim waited to brief me on the next few days. Press tours, interviews, promotional appearances, sponsor meetings. It was an exhausting line-up, but they were all part of the life.

  “Great match,” he said as soon as I walked through the door. “You did good, Damon.”

  I put my bag on the floor and walked to the fridge, pulling it open and extracting a bottle of water. “Thanks.” It wasn’t a trophy-winning place, but I knew I would get there. Sooner with Ginny by my side. “What’s the damage going to be like?”

  Jim handed me a sheet of paper and I swore. The next few days barely gave me enough time to sleep, let alone start the search for her. “Damn, can’t a man at least have a few hours to himself?”

  “Why, so you can search for your woman?”

  I looked up to see Jim staring me down. “What?”

  “Damn it, Damon. We have been trying to sell you as a chick magnet for years,” he said with a sigh, “and then you go and declare your love for some woman you failed to identify.”

  “I wanted to protect her privacy,” I said, taking a swig of my water. I didn’t want to drag Ginny into this world unprepared and not until she was good and ready.

  He looked at me hard. “Do you really love her? It’s not some stunt, is it?”

  I nodded, not quite sure when I decided it had happened, but there was no doubt it had. I felt like I was breathing funny when I wasn’t around Ginny, like my whole body was starved of some missing component. I both hated it and loved it at the same time. “Yeah, I do.”

  “All right,” Jim said, walking to the door.

  “But… it was also a stunt,” I said honestly.

  “What?” he stopped short of the door.

  “Not the kind you are thinking. Don’t worry.”

  “Fine, whatever. I can work with this, I think. Just don’t make any more public declarations withou
t consulting me first.”

  “Got it,” I said as he closed the door behind him. I just hoped that this one worked in my favor, or I was going to look like the biggest idiot in the world. The next news story they’d run if it didn’t would be all about my broken heart.

  21

  Ginny

  I flipped pancakes and looked back over my shoulder to make sure my mom was still sitting on the barstool. Thankfully she was, immersed in a magazine about boats of all things. I’d tried to replace it earlier with home-style magazine, but she pitched such a fit that Jacob said she could keep it if she wanted to. Then she’d asked if he was married because she would marry him on the spot. Jacob, true to form, had told her that she would only break his heart, and Mom seemed to be mollified by that revelation.

  For the last week, we’d been living in Jacob and Lucia’s house. Me in one of their numerous spare bedrooms, and Mom only a few doors down the corridor. After she was released from the hospital, Lucia had practically demanded that we come stay with them. I didn’t want to be a burden, but considering my options were slim, I’d given in and accepted her offer. “Only till we’re back on our feet,” I told her. She’d waved my words away, telling me we could stay as long as we needed to. Both Lucia and Jacob had been wonderful. So had Cara and Luke. I really couldn’t have asked for better friends.

  Taking the last of the pancakes off the griddle, I shut off the heat and placed a few on the plate before sliding them over to my mom. “Here, you need to eat, Mom.”

  She looked up at me, pointing to the boat in the magazine. “I think I have one of these. Will you check?”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes and handed her a glass of juice. “Yes, Mom. I’ll check as soon as you finished your breakfast.”

  She nodded and turned back to the magazine as I grabbed the stack of plates.

  “Boy, you cooked up a storm,” Cara remarked as she entered the kitchen, baby Gwen on her hip. The six-month-old was absolutely the cutest thing on the planet. “You are now officially part of the Sunday morning brunch crew.”