Page 93 of A Summer of Stars

Usually, I’d be walking around with my stomach twisted in a thick knot, avoiding every pair of my mother’s flats that gave me blisters out of fear they’d affect my footwork. Knocking on wood every time someone said, “You’re going to win the US Open!” and pretending I was tired at eightP.M.when Amir and Cecilia were trying to drag me out of my hotel room, when in reality, I was dying to practice our ridiculous choreography to club versions of ABBA music in the wild.

Practice would last longer, my ability to talk while doing drills would scratch my throat, and my clothes would stick to my body with stickier stubbornness.

All because of the daunting fact that I had yet to win a US Open.

Five years pro, five Wimbledon wins, three Roland-Garros wins, two Madrid wins, one Australian Open, and no US Open.

Thatshould’vebeen the reason I was picking at the skin around my nails.

Stupid dark hair, stupid blue eyes, stupid soft lips, stupid attentive gaze, and stupid protective grip on my waist and stupid stupidstupidKieran Alexander were the real reasons. And there was nothing stupid about him at all.

The fact that the US Open was creeping out from the trap I routinely set under my bed, and it felt like nothing more than a tea stain on my sheets, waswrong.

No blinking red font that spelledYou’re Going to Fail at the US Open AGAINwas stinging my eyes in a taunting manner like a hypnotist with a pendulum.

The only words that triggered that pendulum were—God, no I couldn’t say it.

I wanted to claw out the anxious knot in my chest. It was getting in the way of the strategies for my first four matches in Madrid. The knot felt physical enough that it could have been seen right through my dress. I looked down at the shimmery fountain blue silk to confirm it was mental. At this point,Iwas mental.

“What’s up with you?” Deidra asked across from me in the car, her eyes wide.

“What?”

“You’re picking at your nails. You never pick at your nails,”Willow interjected, the light of her phone screen illuminating her face as she followed the live stream for the French premiere ofSaving September.

“That’s not true.”

“I’m pretty sure it wasyouwho said you couldn’t have bad nails since you already had calloused toes,” Mary pointed out.

“I said that?”

“You weren’t wrong,” she responded as if she had seen my toes.

Cecilia parted her lips. “Don’t tell me this is about K—”

I cut her off with a deadly stare.

All of the girls whipped their heads from Cecilia to me with a disturbing amount of focus.

“Kieran?” Mary’s dark bob bobbled. “What about Kieran?”

Willow gasped, coming to a conclusion. “Is this about this weekend’s photos from the boat?” Her words were muffled under her fingers. “I’ve been scrolling through the Lieran hashtags all night. Iknewthey looked different.”

“Different? Different how!” Mary interjected.

“Yes, exactly. Nothing’s different.” I nodded at Mary.

Cecilia whispered something in Mary’s ear, and then her eyes became cartoonish circles. “You kissed?!” she shouted.

Like possessed porcelain dolls, their heads twisted in my direction.

Willow turned to me. “Based on those photos, half the world knows you kissed him, so…”

“There was an instance before that…” I reluctantly shared.

They gasped.

“Do you want to do it again?” Mary asked.