The Unforgiving Minute (2 page)

Ryan came back to reality when Tommy elbowed him in the ribs. “Dude, you totally swallowed your tongue.”

“Did not.”

“Did so.”

“Did not.” At that point Ryan remembered he wasn’t twelve years old anymore. “It’s just, Josh Andrews is a legend, and he’s here. In the flesh.” And what utterly
glorious
flesh it was.

And damn it, what had Ryan been
thinking?
That had been his chance to exchange a casual
hey
with Josh, one player to another, and instead he’d—well, swallowed his tongue, apparently.

Tommy hit him on the shoulder, in a subtle, breaking-him-from-his-thoughts kind of a way, and they made their way back toward the locker room. Ryan was still ruing his missed opportunity with Josh Andrews as they parted company, wishing one another luck. Tommy had been a good friend back when they were both juniors, but they’d drifted apart as Tommy had climbed the senior rankings, leaving Ryan grinding away in the Futures and Challengers tournaments. It wasn’t until last year, not long after his twenty-third birthday, that something had clicked for Ryan and he’d started to play consistently well. He’d also, Elena said, finally gotten control over his ridiculously long legs and arms. Certainly he’d been having his best season ever, which was why he’d been given the wild card that resulted in his amazing run at the US Open.

Now he was about to play in his first tournament of the new season, and he was ready for it. He was ready for anything that anyone could throw at him.

Chapter 2

H
OURS
later, Ryan remembered his easy confidence with a certain amount of ruefulness. He’d had three set points against Philippe Martin, but somehow they’d all slipped away and Martin was now serving for the game. But Martin double faulted and the score was back to deuce. Nerves, Ryan thought, because the Frenchman had been serving like a machine up to that point.

The sight of the fifth-seed faltering gave Ryan back a resolve he hadn’t realized he’d lost, the confidence that he could do this, and he broke with all received wisdom and stepped into Martin’s next serve to take it early. His return screamed down the line, giving Martin no chance, and leaving Ryan one point from taking the set.

Ryan somehow managed to return Martin’s next punishing serve. Martin took advantage of his soft return with a horribly short drop shot to the side of the court, and Ryan charged for it, flinging himself horizontally at full stretch and just getting his racket to the ball before he crashed to the ground. The ball hit the net cord on its way back to Martin and wobbled for what seemed like a lifetime as Ryan scrambled back to his feet, before it dribbled over the net and died on the spot. Game and first set to Ryan.

As the crowd roared its appreciation, Ryan grinned, dusting himself down. He hoped that if Lizzie had been watching she’d enjoyed that one. He did seem to end up measuring his rather long length on the ground quite frequently during matches. One particular blog had likened his game to that of a baby giraffe on speed galumphing around the court. He’d thought that was overstating the case just a bit, but Elena, who hadn’t been able to speak for laughing for a solid ten minutes after reading it, said it was pretty accurate.

The crowd was chattering excitedly at the unexpectedly dramatic end to the set. Tennis crowds always loved an underdog, and it seemed they loved Ryan in particular. Ryan still wasn’t sure quite why that was, unless it was that they could see he loved them back. He loved making them laugh, which he did rather often and not always on purpose. He also loved simply being out on the court and playing tennis.

Martin never seemed to recover from losing the first set. Ryan broke him easily in the second to take the match. The crowd cheered him in the particularly uninhibited way only the Aussies knew how, which in itself brought an even bigger grin to his face as he applauded the crowd right back.

“Well done,” Stefan greeted him as he came off the court. “Practice is at nine thirty tomorrow.”

Long gone were the days of fulsome praise from his coach for winning, but that was as it should be, Ryan reckoned. He now realized that he hadn’t done the job until he’d won the tournament. He’d always put the hours and the effort in, but it was only from working with Stefan that he’d realized the mental component to his game had been lacking. He needed to think like a winner.

R
YAN
and Tommy were walking out to the practice courts the next morning when he saw Josh Andrews and his entourage approaching again. Not taken by surprise this time, Ryan managed a friendly nod and a casual “Hey, Josh” as they passed one another. It may have come out as a slightly breathless squeak, but it didn’t matter; Josh Andrews took not the slightest bit of notice. He walked past them as if they weren’t even there.

“What the hell?” Ryan asked, turning on his heel and looking after the retinue that trailed in Josh’s wake.

“Andrews, man,” Tommy said. “He’s a dick like that.”

“You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding.” Ryan couldn’t bear the thought that the golden boy of tennis he’d worshipped for all those years might not be all he seemed.

“Sorry, man, I don’t know how else to say it. He’s way too self-important and up his own ass to notice people like us even exist.”

As he prepared for that afternoon’s match, Ryan tried everything that Stefan and Zoe, the sports psychologist Stefan insisted he engage, had taught him about clearing his mind. Nothing, however, took away the lump of disappointment that sat heavy in his stomach.

It was sheer luck that his opponent that afternoon was having an even worse day than Ryan, because the way Ryan played, he didn’t think he could have beaten an egg if it had resisted. Stefan’s stony face from the sidelines looked no different from his usual impassivity, but Ryan knew he would need to explain himself later.

Elena wasn’t so reticent about making her feelings known. Having breezed through her doubles match with her partner, Lily Blake, she’d come to watch Ryan play.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded as he exited the locker room.

“Don’t shout,” he begged. “I know it was crap.”

“
It
wasn’t crap.
You
were crap, Ryan. Where the hell was your head at?”

Ryan sighed and sat down on the low wall that ran along the flowerbeds outside the building. After glaring at him for a time, she sat down next to him.

“Ryan?” she prompted, more quietly.

“It’s stupid, okay. I know it’s stupid. It’s just that I finally got to talk to Josh Andrews today, and it turns out he’s a complete dick.”

“Ryan Betancourt, how old are you?”

And damn, she sounded
just
like his mom. “I know, I know.”

“Look,” she said, “I get you’re disappointed. But you nearly blew this tournament, which affects your career, just because your teenage pin-up didn’t live up to your expectations? Did you really think you were going to get to bang him?”

“Elena!”

“Well, did you?”

At that, a reluctant smile started tugging at his lips. “You may have a point,” he confessed. “God, now I feel like a twelve-year-old girl.”

“Enough with the sexism, thank you. You acted like a twelve-year-old
boy.”

He nodded because she was scary sometimes. “I’m an idiot,” he said.

“Got that right. Now come on, let’s go watch some tennis. You can still admire his talent. And his body, because no matter how much of a dick he’s turned out to be, Andrews sure does pretty a place up.”

He nudged her in the ribs, and she nudged him back, and they wandered over to Pat Rafter Arena where Andrews was playing local Brisbane boy, Pete Rivers. The roars from the crowd, intensified by the roof over the court, were deafening. The audience was a sea of gold and green in support of their boy, but even with the home interest, the majority of those present were serious tennis fans, meaning the place was electric with the excitement of watching Josh Andrews start his comeback.

They were into the second set, Josh leading by one set to love. Rivers was a scrappy bastard, doing everything he could to get every ball back over the net, but Andrews was just too good for him. He made it look effortless, placing shots with absolute precision. It should have been a joy to watch, except there seemed to be something lacking.

Ryan finally realized what it was. Despite their partisan support for Rivers, the crowd cheered as Andrews returned an artful lob that should have nailed the point for Rivers and placed it exactly on the baseline. But there was no reaction from Josh, no pleasure in it. God, if Ryan could play like that, he didn’t think he’d ever wipe the grin off his face at the absolute primal joy of having that much control over the flight and placement of a ball, that much natural anticipation as to where the ball was going. But for Josh it seemed as if it was just another day at the office and about as exciting as doing the filing. Not that Ryan actually knew how exciting that would be, having never filed a thing in his life, but he could imagine.

A roar from the crowd dragged his thoughts back to the court, only to see that Rivers had at last managed to get a ball past Josh.

“He’s incredible,” Ryan said to Elena.

She shook her head. “Yeah, yeah, golden skin glistening with sweat, muscled perfection, Michelangelo face, blah, blah, blah. Heard it all before, Ryan.”

“I was talking about his
tennis.
Look at him. He just doesn’t get anything wrong.”

“Yeah, I’m not finding it that attractive,” she said. “I’d want my boyfriend to be human, not perfect. He’s more like an android than a person.”

Elena really was the best friend Ryan could possibly have asked for. And looking at Josh again, Ryan couldn’t find it in him to contradict her. As the match ended, Josh said a few words at the net to Rivers, briefly saluted the crowd, and disappeared off court, having signed a couple of the programs thrust under his nose on his way out. But it had seemed as though there was something missing, almost as if he’d been reading from a script.

Ryan sighed. There was a reason they said you should never meet your heroes. But then they also said you should never realize your dreams, and Ryan didn’t agree with that one at all. He was living his dream right now, and it was even better than he’d thought it would be.

R
YAN
got knocked out in the quarterfinals by Tommy, of all people. Tommy grinned at him across the net when they shook hands at the end of the match. “Sorry, man,” he said, obviously not meaning a word of it.

“It was you or me,” Ryan pointed out before giving him a quick hug. The crowd approved, if the increase in the volume of their applause was any indication.

While he would normally have packed up and moved on that day, Ryan begged a concession from Stefan because he’d never been to Australia before and it was criminal not to explore. On the strict understanding that Ryan wouldn’t slacken off his training sessions, Stefan agreed.

Ryan spent a couple of days exploring Brisbane like an archetypal tourist, happily introducing himself to complete strangers in order to quiz them about aspects of the city, and deciding he liked Australia. People were friendly, informal, and sports-mad. Ryan fitted in perfectly.

He watched the men’s final on Sunday and saw Josh Andrews win in majestic style. Ryan was on his feet and cheering with the rest of the crowd by the end of the match. Tennis that beautiful was why he wanted to play. Afterward, he and Elena went out for a meal to celebrate their successes and their friendship. They’d both lost too many friends over the years: those who didn’t have the talent to make a success of the life, or who didn’t have the determination to hang in there when money was so scarce and life was a series of crappy motels and crappier rental cars. And then there’d been one or two like Tommy, who’d shot off up the rankings at great speed. When Elena’s progress through the doubles rankings had started taking her to better tournaments three years ago, they’d vowed not to let it end their friendship.

Sitting by the river as the sun was setting, Ryan felt that life just didn’t get better than this. Here he was, Ryan Betancourt from Colorado, at one of Brisbane’s top restaurants with his best friend, and this was just the beginning of a year of traveling the world and playing tennis.

Elena seemed to be almost as happy as he was, judging by the enthusiasm with which she threw herself into a running commentary on their fellow clientele. That couple was definitely having an affair, that couple was having a make-or-break evening out together, and then there was the first date, which was going horribly, disastrously wrong. Her eyes suddenly widened as she looked past him.

“Isn’t that…?”

Ryan turned and followed the direction of her stare.

“Josh Andrews,” he said, and suddenly his succulent rib eye didn’t taste quite so good after all.

“It doesn’t look as if he’s having as much fun as we are.”

“He wouldn’t know fun if it bit him on the ass.”