Page 28 of The Challenger

“You said you’ve got nothing going on for the next while. And you’ve played,” he adds, before I can interrupt. “Fuck, you can still play. You hit harder than some of the junior guys.”

Somewhere in Vancouver, June is laughing.Chavez is asking me to come to Australia, but with completely different intentions than what she predicted. Did I misread all the signals? I thought cabana-gate was pretty defining, but instead of a Santa shag, I’m deep in Echo Park at a job interview slash parental vetting session. I sink my face into my hands, overwhelmed with swirling emotions.

Don’t lose it. Stay strong.

“Look at me, Flynn.” Through the screen of my interlaced fingers, his eyes carry the same dark intensity as his voice. “Tell me what went down between us at my place wasn’t real.”

My hands lower so our eyes connect. “Of course, it was real,” I whisper. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“You and me both then,” he says, gentler, as he squares himself to face me. “I like you, you seem really cool, and it’s fucking hard to make any relationship work when I’m on the road all the time. I know I probably sound crazy, but I go with my gut on a lot of things and my gut is telling me something about you.”

I cut him a sharper glance. “A coach-with-benefits arrangement? Is that your vision?”

He shrugs like it’s not a bad idea at all. “That’s one way of looking at it. But I am being serious,” he adds. “Can we try? Two weeks in Oz is all I’m asking for. We can always ditch the coach part if it doesn’t work out. And you can always ditch me, too, if I don’t work out.”

Rodrigo and Gloria suddenly appear in the living room window, pulling back the curtain to investigate what evil spell the she-devil is casting on their only son. Chavez glances from them back at me with guilt riddling his features. He’s played both sides, and neither very well.

“It’s important that my parents know what’s going on,” is how he frames it. “I wanted them to meet you today in case you said yes.”

The thing is, I have agreed to nothing. I can drive away in an Uber and ghost Chavez until he gives up on me. But if I stay in LA, I’ll have to deal with the stalker. And the loser knows where I live. I can’t handle the idea of reopening a can of worms with the police and getting everyone involved. The security and constantly looking over my shoulder sound exhausting already. Avoidance of pain is a form of pain itself, but if I’m halfway around the world, maybe that is enough distance to have it all go away. But will it? I don’t know. My spidey sense tells me to use caution, but where has that gotten me lately? Maybe this is a solution on a silver platter.

Chavez and I lock eyes, and a certain tension digs into my body. I hate feeling conflicted, but I’ve had too many months where I’ve felt nothing, and that was worse.

“So, the plan now is to go back in there and tell your father I’m replacing him?” I ask. “Somehow I don’t see that improving the situation.”

The tiniest opening is all Chavez needs to run with it. “I’ll work on my mother,” he says. “You talk to my father. He always wanted to be a writer.” About to open his door, he adds one last thing. “Do me a favor and eat whatever Mama puts on your plate, all right?”

ChapterTen

I feellike I’m having an out-of-body experience. From high above, I watch us walk back into the house and see myself bracing for the shit to hit the fan. I already won a preliminary award for sucking the life out of a room, so why not grab gold by sticking the proverbial finger in their eye with the coaching announcement? But then some other Flynn, a mystery girl, expertly handles Gloria when she asks,“What do you know about tennis?”And after I explain my credentials, I watch Rodrigo become visibly relieved that someone will be taking the reins on his son’s career.

Chavez must think this is all fine and dandy and normal—me about to uproot my life and join him on the tennis tour. I certainly give him no reason to think otherwise, floating around in my dissociative state. He happily steers his mother into the kitchen to help with last-minute brunch preparations, leaving me with Rodrigo (and a very curious Carmen) to talk tennis in the living room.

Carmen makes herself comfortable on the sectional and both boots land on the coffee table with aclunk.

“He must be paying you a fortune,” she says. “No other coach will touch him.”

Rodrigo eases into a plaid Laz-E-Boy lounger that’s seen better days andshhh’sher, annoyed. A soccer game plays silently on the TV angled toward his man chair, and behind him, Virgin Mary in the nativity scene judges me with her solemn gaze.

“It’s true,” she insists. “You know how stubborn he is.”

“We haven’t talked salary yet,” I admit. And now that I think about it, payment in a coach with benefits arrangement has a disturbing undertone. Carmen pats the space next to her, encouraging me to take a seat. I keep a respectful distance, both hands crossed over the expanse of thigh she’s stealing a look at.

“My son can be challenging,” Rodrigo starts. “But—”

Carmen spits a laugh. “You think?”

“Go help your brother in the kitchen.” Rodrigo orders her out, unamused.

She sighs theatrically and leaves us in peace for fifteen minutes, allowing Rodrigo to share some family history. We’re called to the table before he gets too far along, but we swap numbers and he encourages me to keep in touch.

Brunch begins with cutlery clinking in the strained silence. I might have found an ally in Rodrigo, but I am not in Gloria’s good books, not by a long shot. By virtue of being thirty-two and not catholic, I am both cradle robber and heathen, and my Stanford graduate and best-selling author status don’t warm her up either. While I politely stuff my face, she grills me on how I plan to coach her son and juggle a full-time career. When I say I’m taking a break from writing, she looks at Chavez, mortified, as if I have somehow pulled off the scam of the century and bamboozled her son in the process.

Thankfully every family has a resident diplomat, and Rodrigo saves the day by stepping in with the wine. With the coaching drama temporarily washed away in Napa Merlot, Carmen takes over as the afternoon entertainment. At UCLA studying urban planning, she brims with intelligence and opinions and is unafraid to crush you with either. She, unlike Gloria, is intrigued by my Stanford cache and accomplishment as a writer.

And, well, it seems she’s intrigued by other things also.

Chavez keeps a watchful eye on the proceedings as his sister gets progressively drunker and more touchy-feely. The bathroom calls him away eventually, and Carmen pounces on the opportunity to exchange numbers.

---