Page 1 of Backhanded Compliments

ONEJULIETTE

It starts as all vile things do.

On Twitter.

“One more question,” the media officer says, and Juliette Ricci smiles, hoping it comes off as sweet and placating. A camera flashes and she struggles to maintain the smile, her eyes stinging. All she wants to do is to dunk into an ice bath until the heat bubbling under her skin abates. At least all the questions have been softballs about her last match, the semifinal. All about her strengths, her weaknesses, her condition after a grueling three sets in the Melbourne sun.

A disheveled reporter clears his throat and corrects his askew glasses. “You will be playing Luca Kacic in the final.” Juliette clenches her teeth. She thought she’d wriggled out of having to say a single word about Kacic, but reporters will never miss a chance to pit two women against each other for the sake of article clicks. “Tennis fans online are already frothing at the mouth for this burgeoning rivalry. Lucky Luca versus the Bridesmaid. Given this is your first time playing Kacic, do you have any idea how you’ll combat her good fortune and finally snag a big title for yourself?”

It takes every ounce of self-control to keep her thin smile plastered on her face. Juliette knows she should be better at this. She has been playing this media game since she was fifteen, when the majority of the questions centered around living up to her potential as the younger sister of two tennis stars. But she doesn’t know how to keep her cool and tiptoe around the snarky questions about being thebridesmaidand never thebrideof the Women’s Tennis Asssociation.Until this Australian Open, she’s never made it past the quarterfinals in any Slam. She has hardly any big titles to her name, only a single WTA 1000 last year.

And even Luca Kacic had commented in her earlier press conference about this being Juliette’s firstreal teston a big stage.

“Such a shame she only won because her opponent sprained her ankle in the third game,” Kacic had said with a subtle, scathing judgment that had made Juliette’s skin flush. Still, a win is a win to Juliette.

“Well,” Juliette drawls, aware of every eye locked on her. She preens, exhilarated at being the center of attention. “I’ve watched a couple of her matches.” An oily feeling expands in her gut, and she takes a deep breath. She could be neutral and professional… or she could do anything to achieve the mental edge over Kacic and win. “To be honest, I find her game wholly unoriginal, and her serve is overhyped.” She shrugs, as if she doesn’t care about Kacic. “I guess she really has been skating by onluck,” Juliette says, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at how stupid the nickname is. “Twitter is right about that.”

“So, would you say you’re looking forward to tomorrow’s match?” the reporter asks, leaning forward with a hungry gleam in his eyes like a shark.

Juliette knows it’s a long shot that Kacic will even see this press conference, but she can already see her own words splashed all over her feed. She knows her younger sister, Livia, is most likely screaming into her pillow about damage control.

At this moment, Juliette doesn’t care.

She doesn’t even have to fake her smile. “Of course. I always look forward to winning.”

LUCA

Luca Kacic watches Juliette Ricci’s press conference four times in a row. She shouldn’t have clicked on it. Tomorrow is the biggest match of her life; if anything, she should be analyzing Ricci’s past matchesto learn how to beat her. Although, she knows if she turns on an old match, all she’ll focus on is the fluid grace of Ricci’s movements, the way the sun adores her high cheekbones, the glistening sweat in the dip between her collarbones. Nerves twist in her stomach again, nausea at the thought that she’s never been in a Grand Slam final before. The furthest Luca has gotten before was the quarterfinal at last year’s US Open, which ended in a thorough loss. Anxiety had made her rigid and tight, barely able to move to hit the ball.

Even though Juliette’s scathing words ring through her headphones, she can’t help but keep watching. Luca hates how drawn she is to Juliette already, and they haven’t even met on court yet. For months, she’s been distracted by a curiosity she can’t squash, no matter how many times she tries.

Luca traces her fingers along the familiar curve of each letter of her soulmark, slightly raised like a scar. The twisting loops that slide into each other, the sharp slash connecting the double letters; they weave together to tell her who was made to love her. It appeared when she was a toddler, when her soulmate was born, the name drawn in barely visible silver. Now, it tells everyone she hasn’t touched her soulmate yet. Not that she ever lets anyone see the mark. Soulmarks are secretive, intimate; no one likes speculation about their mark. Luca is as careful as she can be, covering it with a wristband when she plays. Still, nearly universal secrecy is what makes the headlines so splashy when a celebrity does accidentally reveal their mark.

As she replays the conference, Luca can’t exactly parse what she’s watching for. Maybe a crack in Juliette’s media armor; a flicker of nervousness or a flash of excitement. Maybe a sign that Juliette is looking forward to this or that her words are just a facade. That maybe Juliette feels the same tug in her stomach, the same giddy excitement that Luca could be the one made for her. That’s why she clicked on Juliette’s press conference; there is a nonzero chance Juliette Ricci isherJuliette. It would make sense to Luca if they were. Juliette Ricci would understand what it means to be a top player—the pressures, the scrutinity, the travel—and they could work through that together.

But instead of feeling her stomach fill with giddy butterfliesabout the possibility that this woman could be her soulmate, her stomach twists with disappointment at Juliette’s calculated and cruel words.

Juliette is the youngest of the tennis-playing Ricci sisters, only a year and a half younger than Luca, but she turned pro young, while Luca played in college first. Touted to be better than both of her elder sisters, she shot up the rankings with consistent results but has yet to win a big title.

Well, Guadalajara counts points-wise, but she didn’t win the tournament outright. It was a tragedy that Chen Xinya rolled her ankle. Luca had been looking forward to that matchup and had said as much in her press conference yesterday.

Luca has watched over the years as Juliette stalled around the seventh or eighth place in the rankings, intrigued both by Juliette’s attitude on the court and at the possibility that this washerJuliette. Despite how she sometimes acts on court when she’s losing, Luca can’t deny that Juliette Ricci is as vibrant as a sunbeam, especially when she’s playing her best tennis. She’s had a few good wins over several top players, like her sisters and American Remi Rowland, but never at crucial points. Clearly, Juliette sees this as her opportunity to establish herself, like Luca, and unfortunately, she’s not above trash talk.

On-screen, Juliette is still flushed from her win, her big, doe-brown eyes soft and almost innocent. Her lion’s mane of brown curls float around her shoulders, untamed and gilded from the sun. Her smile widens, her cheeks crinkling as she says her final statement.

“I always look forward to winning.”

Luca scoffs. As innocent as a snake in the grass.

She’s halfway through a fifth watch when a key card clicks in her door. She scrambles to shut her laptop, getting tangled in her headphones in the process.

“Luca?”

“Yeah?” Luca manages to close her laptop and drops her headphones onto it. “What’s up?”

Her coach, Vladimir Orlic, stands with one hand on the doorknob.Her best friend and sunshine incarnate, Nicholas Andrews, slides in behind him, carrying a plastic bag full of food. He lost earlier in the day. Luca is always impressed by how he’s able to keep smiling; after she loses, she mopes facedown in bed with a trashy reality show on the TV to chase away her thoughts.

“What were you watching? Porn?” Nicky asks with a waggle of his brows.

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