A Game to Love Read online

  A Game to Love

  By

  Fox Brison

  Bold Fox Publishing

  First Edition: January 2017

  This is a work of fiction. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the author’s express permission. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  See more of Fox at www.foxbrison.com, or follow her on twitter and Facebook.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Other Books by Fox Brison

  Chapter 1

  Georgia

  Dubai, 2011

  I stood to the side of the stage, waiting, my chestnut hair pulled back tight in a plait that should have hung between my shoulder blades, but was currently in between my teeth, a nervous habit I’d picked up as a child. I let it drop.

  I was a child no longer.

  The stark white lights started flashing before I even reached my seat. Briefly shielding my light blue eyes I searched the sea of faces, desperate to see a familiar one, a friendly one.

  There was, of course, none.

  I was twenty one years of age and on my own, not an unfamiliar feeling these past few months. I wanted to hug myself but that would be a sign of vulnerability to the big cats stalking their prey. I sat ramrod straight, stopped my eyes from wandering the room, and showed no emotion, just like I’d been taught to do my whole life.

  It was time to put my game face on.

  I’d been abandoned by the two people who should have had my back; my parents. My father had a valid excuse. He was back in England trying to salvage what was left of his sport consultancy business which had been brought to its knees through bad investments and the global downturn. Still, I wondered how much his absence was influenced by my mother.

  She owned no such excuse for staying away.

  Unless you believed her accusation that I was a failure, an abhorrence she could no longer countenance. I quickly glanced to my left and took some solace from Catherine Murphy, the WTA rep, sitting next to me. At least I wasn’t physically alone. She might not have my back but she wouldn’t take any crap from the reporters baying for my blood. When silence eventually eased through the room, slowly, insidiously, I knew it was time to pay the piper.

  “Good afternoon,” Catherine began. “Ms Maskel will make a short statement. She will not be taking any questions after.” The reporters began clacking away on their keyboards, or silently feathering their iPads, all poised with fastest finger first to click the enter button and bag themselves an online exclusive.

  One click to ruin my career and life.

  One click to shred to pieces the last vestiges of my dignity.

  Tennis, apart from my childhood friend Julia, had been my constant throughout my life, the one thing I could rely on to quell my loneliness. Sometimes you didn’t have to speak to a person to conquer the silence and feel less afraid. The repetitive sound of balls hitting strings, the grunts of exhaustion when one more rep was complete in the gym, the banging of locker room doors and the hissing of showers were sounds I would forever associate with the game, sounds that filled my head with white noise rather than with the silence of thinking one’s own thoughts, thoughts that filled me with self-condemnation and doubt.

  Those sounds were lost to me now.

  “First I would like to apologise to the tour for my behaviour on court this morning. I can offer no excuse because there is none.” I paused. I would not cry in front of these people. “On Monday the twenty fourth of January, I failed a drugs test. Whilst competing at the Australian Open, I experimented with cocaine the night before my match with Jessica Arnez. I would like to make it clear that this was in no way an attempt to enhance my performance.” Anyone who watched the match would know that, idiot. “I would like to apologise to my family, friends and my fans; it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. There really are no excuses.”

  Actually there were, but I wasn’t about to share them with the whole world, I could barely acknowledge them to myself.

  “I fully accept,” I continued, “the four year ban handed down to me by the ITF. I deserve it.” I paused again and this time, try as I might, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I hurriedly pushed my chair back and stood. I was falling apart and didn’t want the world to see any more of my ignominy, they had witnessed enough. I didn’t hear the crash as the metal chair thundered to the ground because the dull roaring in my head deadened the sound.

  Pandemonium broke out as questions were fired like bullets from an automatic weapon; I only heard snippets, yet each one caused a fresh flesh wound to open… was it Ana… your mother… what happens next… addict… Catherine quickly ushered me from the stage, her hand on the small of my back a comfort.

  My only comfort.

  From a stranger.

  When it should have been family.

  ***

  The winter storm caught me on the hop, and the wipers of my camper van struggled to keep pace with the rain battering the windshield. The repetitive screech of the blades scraping across the glass was like fingernails scraping across every last one of my nerves. It didn’t help that each passing car, their lights almost blinding me, brought up a visceral reminder of the bright explosions from cameras as I’d sat alone before the world’s press.

  I was done.

  A loud BEEeeep dragged me back to the present and gripping the steering wheel even tighter, I swerved sharply back onto my own side of the road. My heart beat a loud tattoo in my chest and the near miss caused adrenaline to instantly flood though my body, the feeling at once so familiar, yet also so rare. For the last year and more an icy numbness had begun to spread through my veins, and only the suspension had melted the glacier of dispassion.

  Pulling to a stop at a crossroads, my tears now matched the rain for speed and ferocity. Ten miles and twenty minutes earlier I was sure I was going in the right direction; now I wasn’t so certain. The English country roads surrounding Cambridge all looked the same, especially in the pitch black of a dark and stormy night, the clouds covering the bright stars and moon which would normally light the way. Wiping my eyes, I narrowed them as the rain finally softened giving me a moment of clarity and I saw a sign across the road highlighted in the yellowing gleam of my headlights. I sighed heavily in relief. I was on the right road. I turned left and a few miles later pulled i
nto the drive of a large farmhouse on the outskirts of Linton, a village located between Saffron Walden and Cambridge.

  “George? Oh my God, why didn’t you call? I’d have come to get you.” Julia dragged me into the small hallway. Catching sight of my reflection in the small wrought iron mirror, deathly pale and shivering, I was shocked. I didn’t look like I’d seen a ghost, I looked like I could give Casper a run for his money in the spectral stakes.

  “Are Caroline and Sean home?” I asked, my voice tremulous.

  “No, they headed into Cambridge for dinner. I thought you said you were going to Eastbourne?” She pushed a lock of damp hair back from my eyes.

  “Do you think they’d mind if I crashed here for a few days? Jules, I need a place to stay, just for a while. I need…” what I needed was a friend, someone who knew me, someone who wasn’t part of the conspiracy. The truth that must remain unsaid, the real reason I threw my life away.

  “Of course they won’t mind. You can stay for as long as you want if you don’t mind sharing with me. Come on, let’s get you dried off and I’ll stick the kettle on.”

  Chapter 2

  Georgia

  Peterborough, 2016

  Okay I’ll admit it; I was hiding

  It may have been in plain sight, still I was hiding nevertheless. Sweat dripped down my face in tiny rivulets that fell onto the chipped blue and white tiled floor. The slatted wooden bench in between two rows of grey metal lockers wasn’t the most comfortable of hideouts, in fact it was as uncomfortable as a bed made of nails, but I relished the pain. It was my punishment for losing.

  Again.

  So who was I hiding from? Well first of all I was hiding from my peers. I couldn’t bear to listen to their condescending platitudes or see that look on their faces, you know, the one filled with pity and youthful arrogance… the one I’d given often enough when I was a junior beating players much older than myself who were desperate for a W next to their names.

  Karma can be quite the bitch.

  Secondly I was hiding from my coach. He was a good guy, for a tennis coach, but even he would be seething at my woeful display this morning. Hell, a three year old child wearing stilettos would have performed more convincingly, and would probably have won considering the standard of my opponent.

  But mainly, despite the impossibility of the task, I was trying to hide from myself. Another first round defeat. I spun my racket in my hands and stared at it. It’s becoming a joke. I’m becoming a joke.

  The door to the locker room opened and as if to mockingly confirm my thoughts, laughs and giggles carried through the air towards me. I angrily threw my towel towards a large laundry trolley left at the end of the bench; it landed on the floor with a disappointingly dull thump.

  Bollocks, I can’t even hit that!

  “I don’t need this shit,” I blustered, bending down to pick it up. “What the fuck am I doing?” There was no answer from the now empty room, just the silent ricochet of my frustration. Peeling my tennis dress off my sweat soaked body, I wrapped a white towel around my chest and grabbed my wash kit. Poking my head out from between the lockers, I checked the coast was clear; this had nothing to do with modesty, far from it, because shyness was one characteristic an athlete had no business having, not unless they wanted to permanently ache and smell rank.

  No.

  What I wanted was to avoid was questions, questions I didn’t have the answers to, and, even worse, questions I could answer but knew if I did more and more would follow.

  I hated the looks, but I hated the questions even more.

  I was half way to the shower when I heard a familiar rhythmical tapping and I raced back to the bench just in time to catch my jig dancing phone as it careered towards the floor, almost losing my towel in the process. Thankfully my reflexes were razor sharp because there was no way I wanted the hassle of heading back to the Carphone Warehouse to replace a fourth phone. The last time I’d turned up, sheepishly holding my contract and passport as proof of identification, the manager glowered at me with an expression that bordered on suspicious. I’m sure he thought I was some sort of scam artist, selling my eighty quid smartphone to fund my extravagant lifestyle. It also made me laugh (sardonically) because those self-same reflexes were conspicuous in their absence whenever my left foot stepped onto a tennis court; then I couldn’t save a point to, well, save my life.

  Turning the phone over in my hand I saw Julia’s smiling face staring up at me, her grey eyes twinkling and her long lustrous copper hair shining vibrantly. It had been windy the day I captured the image, her curls blowing freely in a take no prisoners way, and the picture summed up Julia in a way no amount of words ever could.

  Julia Ryan was my bestie, a term I hated, but one which seemed to describe our relationship to a tee. We’d known each other since we were four years old, and even though we’d spent a lot of time apart our bond only stretched and never weakened, the connection we held as strong as ever. She always made sure she knew where, when and who I was playing. Even if it was in the middle of an Outer Mongolian rain forest with no connectivity to the outside world she’d find a way, probably by sending a carrier pigeon to ask the chief of one of the remote tribes to smoke signal her the result, she was very imaginative!

  “Hey, sweetie, tough break.” Her gentle tone caused my eyes to well up.

  Crap, I’m a mess today. PMT’s a bitch. I snorted. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that’s the reason you’re a wreck. “I suppose you could call letting three match points slip away a tough break. Look, Jules, can we change the subject? No doubt David will be here in a minute to read me the riot act.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Let’s just say you could have beaten my opponent today and leave it at that, shall we?” I mentally shrugged. I had lost all confidence in my ability, something that I’d had in shovelfuls during my teens and early twenties.

  “I’m not sure if I should be offended by that. I’ll have you know I could’ve gone a long way if it hadn’t been for my-”

  “Forehand?” I cut in teasingly. “Backhand? Serve?”

  “Ankle injury, cheeky mare!”

  There was silence on the other end of the line and I instinctively knew she had something to tell me. “Jules, I’m standing starkers just about to head for a shower, I haven’t got time for this little game. I can tell you have something on the tip of your tongue,” I shook my head when I heard a stifled giggle. Julia also had one of the dirtiest minds I’d ever encountered.

  “I wish. Jaysus I’m thinking of joining a convent, it’s been that long. Sure granny would be over the moon, God love her!”

  “Jules, spit it out.”

  “So yes, I have news and it is gargantuan. Daniel’s just after handing me my first national event.” Julia screamed excitedly. “This could be my big break, George.” She’d been struggling to break into the predominantly male world of sports journalism, and even though a few freelance pieces she had written were well received, her boss at the Cambridge Chronicle was Chauventisticus Rex a dinosaur who, despite it being the twenty first century, still thought women had no place in serious sports journalism.

  Which explained my shocked reaction. “Really? Oh my God, Jules, that’s so great.” Silence met my enthusiasm. “Well come on, the suspense is killing me!”

  “I’ll be reporting on the National Roller Derby Championships in Milton Keynes,” she said proudly. I tried not to laugh, I honestly did, but that was another thing I failed to do successfully.

  It really wasn’t my day.

  “Oh thanks, Georgy, thanks for the encouragement! I’ll have you know it’s a fast growing sport that’s sweeping the nation.”

  I immediately felt a sharp pang of guilt. If anyone deserved my wholehearted support, it was Julia. “I’m sorry Jules. I’m not making fun, it’s just not what I was expecting to hear. Erm… do you know anything about roller derbies?”

  “Do I know anything about roller derbies? Do I know anything abou
t roller derbies? Please, I’ve seen Whiplash at least twenty times!” Julia’s laugh echoed around the locker room. She had a great laugh, it was like a baby’s, pure and utterly infectious.

  “You’re already in trouble, sweetie.”

  “Trouble? How hard can it be to write about a group of women roller skating in circles for an hour?”

  “Next time you watch the film don’t ogle Drew-”

  “Ellen,”

  “Ellen, so much. It’s Whip It, not Whiplash; unless, of course, you’re writing a handbook for Direct Line car insurance?”

  “Sally’s organising an open mike night at the Birdcage, you should put your name down, yer a hoot.”

  “Maybe I will, my game’s a complete joke at the moment.” I slapped myself for being so melodramatic. This was Julia’s moment and I wasn’t going to let my bad mood take the shine off it.

  “Anyway, Georgy, let’s not get bogged down with minor details.”

  “You can hardly call the title of the film minor!” I exclaimed.

  “It is compared to… oh, I don’t know… silky shorts… firm thighs… Ellen Page’s-”

  “And on that note,” I interrupted knowingly.

  “And on that note I’d better dash, my coffee break officially finished twenty minutes ago. So you’ll be home tonight?”

  “There’s no point sticking around here, as exciting as a Friday night in Peterborough would be.”

  “Great, I’ll make sure my wine and your J2Os are chilled. Take care, sweetie.” Julia hung up and I smiled, my heart lighter.

  Until I remembered why I was standing in a towel in Peterborough.

  Chapter 3

  Georgia

  “What the hell was that, George?” David growled when I eventually emerged from the freezing shower, and despite being almost blue, I nearly turned tail and went back for another to escape him. “There’s no way you should have lost that match. If this is how it’s going to be, why don’t you stop wasting your time, and more bloody importantly mine, and pack the whole God damn thing in!” His face was red, but not from just having played three sets of tennis in what might as well have been a Swedish sauna. I couldn’t blame him for being angry, as my coach he had every right to be. Now ranked four hundred and eighty-fourth in the world and struggling to make the second round of any event I entered, I was firmly wedged in a loop of failure with no end in sight. He finally shook his head in exasperation, or was it defeat? Both emotions were valid. “Shit, Georgy, you played like one of those people who only dust their racquets off during Wimbledon fortnight. You’re better than that.”