Page 37 of This Could be Love

“Well, good. Maybe you’re right, and I’m seeing ghosts. I just don’t want anyone to hurt you.”

“I know. But you can give me a little more credit than that.” I winked and put the empty glass down on the countertop. “Right. I’ve got to get going!”

Jogging along the ocean a little later, I thought about her words again. Even though I still felt her worries were unfounded, I hadto admit that Vince’s behavior toward me had only changed the moment I made Kay retract her complaint. But that didn’t strike me as suspicious. I put the conversation to one side and concentrated on my running, my breathing, my pulse. I still couldn’t estimate how last night’s pizza would affect my performance, but for the moment I felt good. I was firing on all cylinders.

Chapter 16

Over the course of my first two weeks on Hawaii, my legwork had improved considerably. I was taking a different approach to the ball and hitting it sooner and more precisely. All the intensive training was paying off. I was slowly starting to serve as quickly as I had at my best and was varying them more.

“I’m happy you’re making such progress,” my mother said during our weekly Zoom call. Dad had canceled at the last minute due to his flight being delayed. “I knew the change of scenery would do you good.”

“Yeah, I think coming here was a good idea.”

MacBook on my lap, I slid up to the head of my bed and made myself comfortable.

“Kay mentioned that you’ve even made some friends?”

“She said that?” I asked in surprise.

“Well, she said that you were over at a girlfriend’s house watching a movie.”

“Laurie, yeah. She lives next door. She’s here for the summer to help her brother renovate the house.”

I watched her reaction to my having brought up Vince but didn’t notice anything change in her expression. My mother wasn’t a good actor, so I was pretty sure Kay hadn’t mentioned him. On the one hand, I was relieved—my motherdefinitelywould have asked me a thousand questions—but on the other, surprised. Though maybe it meant that Kay had seen that Vince didn’t have any ulterior motives. It had been four days since I’d seen him or Laurie, though that mainly had to do with the fact that I was endlessly training and then just falling into bed. Laurie and I had texted a few times. She asked me how training was going and suggested getting together to do something again. And sent me a selfie of her painting the window frames, which made me gasp. There in the background was a shirtless Vince up on a ladder with a hammer.

“That sounds nice. Tuning out sometimes is important. Maybe you can see a bit of the island with her. Your dad and I once visited that ranch where they shoot so many Hollywood movies.” She furrowed her brow. “The name escapes me at the moment. But Kay will know it. You definitely have to go. And then there’s that waterfall. You can go hiking and even have a swim. And maybe the two of you could…”

“Mom!” I groaned in a good-natured, annoyed voice. “I’m not here on vacation.”

“Of course not. But it would be an awful shame for you to see nothing but Kay’s house and the tennis school while spending six weeks on Hawaii.”

“I go jogging on the beach every morning. And I’ve been in the ocean already too.”

“If I were you, I’d jump in there every single day.”

“I jump into Kay’s pool. Does that count?”

Laughing, she rolled her eyes.

We chatted a bit longer about this and that, a series we both had seen, the heat wave in Germany, and the invitation my mom had received to some German celebrity quiz show that she ended up declining.

“Apropos. Helena said you hadn’t responded to her email yet. She doesn’t want to push, but she needs to give them an answer.”

I dug through my memory.

“The interview request fromSternmagazine,” my mother reminded me.

“Oh, shit. I totally forgot about that.” I stopped myself from yawning. “That arrived right after I’d landed.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Do you want to do it, or should I tell Helena to say no?”

I thought for a moment. “After the US Open. I don’t have the head for something like that at the moment. Should I write her?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Mythankswas swallowed by a yawn.

“You should go to bed.”