The Unforgiving Minute (29 page)

“I’m okay,” Ryan reminded him.

“Yeah,” Josh said. “You are.”

J
OSH
left early next morning, intending to go through his usual training day routine. Ryan scarcely had time to miss him because Elena and Lily dropped in, then Tommy, and Daniel and Finn, and Danny came round too, until it got to the point where Stefan said Ryan was either to stop treating the place like a drop-in center or Stefan was leaving. Given that Stefan had promised to make his signature dish for lunch, which Ryan suspected was the only one he actually knew how to cook, Ryan assured him these were all the people he knew well enough to call in.

The media stayed away. Perhaps it was because Leonie had reached an understanding with them that Ryan would give a press conference on Sunday, when he was recovered enough to do so. But a more cynical part of Ryan figured that it was because they had bigger fish to fry. One of the tabloids that morning had published blurry, long-distance photos of Philippe’s wife kissing her bodyguard in what should have been the privacy of the grounds of their château. So after a lunch of eggplant, tomatoes, olives, and garlic, mixed up with pasta, which was way more awesome than it sounded, Ryan had a quiet afternoon, interrupted only by a phone call to his parents to reassure them that he was okay.

Unfortunately that left him with enough time to realize just how much his ribs hurt and also to think about the fact that Josh would be facing Mitchell tomorrow. Mitchell, whose TV interviews he’d had to stop watching because this was a rented place and he didn’t want to be charged for the cost of replacing the TV after throwing something through the screen. Mitchell had been smarmily concerned for Ryan and looking forward to playing Josh in the final, about which he was confident with just the right amount of humility. And the whole time, he managed to work in subtle, disparaging comments about the two of them in his fucking fake cowboy accent.

Ryan knew
Josh was an adult. He had fought his own battles long before Ryan came along and was more than capable of doing so. That didn’t stop the lurch in Ryan’s stomach every time he thought about that
asshole
facing Josh. He knew Mitchell would use every last dirty trick he had, not only to beat Josh, but to put him back into the headspace of an eighteen-year-old who hadn’t had the resources to deal with Mitchell’s deliberate, malicious tearing down of every part of him. And he could scarcely bear to think what it would do to Josh to have that done to him in the full glare of worldwide publicity, and in front of his father, who was so desperate for Josh to win Wimbledon.

Ryan didn’t blame himself for what had happened in the semifinal, because there was no point. But that didn’t stop him from wishing desperately that things had turned out differently.

W
HEN
Josh came around that evening, he brought pre-cooked supper from Danny, who apparently hadn’t wanted his evening interrupted by emergency cookery-lesson phone calls. Stefan had gone out, so they ate while sitting on the couch and watching Bruce Willis blow shit up.

“Haven’t we done this before?” Ryan wanted to know.

“A classic’s a classic,” Josh pointed out. “Besides, it’s the only thing on TV tonight.”

When the movie finished, Ryan switched the TV off. They needed to talk before Josh could claim he was interested in watching something else.

“You’re playing Mitchell tomorrow,” he said.

Josh turned wide eyes on him. “Really? I thought I was playing that new kid, the one with the hair, who keeps falling over his own feet all the time.”

“I just—”

“Leave it. I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to listen to you talking about it, okay?”

Well, that was pretty damn clear. Ryan backed off, and Josh glanced at his watch. “I should go,” he said. “Early night.”

They’d agreed Josh would go home for the night because Ryan had been restless the previous night. Every time he’d moved, his ribs or ankle had protested and woken him up, and half the time that had woken Josh up too. In any case, it would probably be a good thing for Josh to go straight into the right headspace tomorrow from the minute he woke up, with Carlos and Rob and the others there around him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Ryan kissed Josh goodbye. “Love you.”

“You too,” Josh said. “Try not to fall out of the box onto the court, won’t you? I don’t think the crowd could take any more excitement.”

Chapter 29

A
S
R
YAN
made his laborious way to the Centre Court box assigned to Josh for the final, he was startled by a sudden cheer from the crowd. At first, he didn’t know what they were cheering, but when people started shouting his name, he realized. He smiled around at the crowd, feeling unusually shy, and touched by the goodwill shown toward him. Another cheer rang around the court as he smiled, but after that, Ryan steadfastly ignored the cameras trained in his direction. Today was all about Josh.

Getting settled in the box was a bit trickier than he’d anticipated. Danny insisted he needed to keep his ankle elevated, but when one of the stewards, at Danny’s request, brought a chair for Ryan to put his foot on, they found there wasn’t the space for it in the box. They tried placing it on the stairs next to the box so Ryan could sit at the end and put his leg up that way, but the angle made his ribs hurt. He also felt like a complete fool, because the steward set out a load of cones and tape around the chair to make sure no-one would accidentally trip over it. Ryan opened his mouth to make a snarky comment. He then remembered exactly how he’d gotten hurt and promptly closed it again.

They finally got him set up to Danny’s satisfaction, with his leg propped on a stool the helpful steward had found, which was small enough to place in the box so he could sit straight and not pose a risk to members of the public. He was glad that he had Danny as a buffer between himself and the rest of Josh’s entourage. Roger Andrews had greeted Ryan with a firm handshake, but he looked grim, as they all did. He guessed they were feeling about as sick as he was about the upcoming match. He didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t see any outcome other than Josh rolling over and losing to Chase Mitchell yet again, and this time doing it in front of the world.

It was the exact opposite of what Ryan had hoped to achieve. Mitchell would be absolutely unbearable after this.

“W
HO
do you think is going to win this afternoon, Mark?”

“Thanks for putting me on the spot there, Claire. For my money, I’d say Mitch. We all know what Josh Andrews is capable of, but he’s been inconsistent since coming back from injury at the beginning of this year. More importantly, when you look at the head-to-head record of these two, Mitch has beaten him on every surface at every meeting. Josh hasn’t won once in the last seven years. I don’t know why, because Josh is the better player, but a record like that gets into your head. They’re both going to be aware of it, walking out onto that court today. For one of them, it will weigh them down; the other will take great confidence from it.”

“Interesting thoughts there, Mark. Tom? Your verdict.”

“I have to go with Mark on this one, Claire. I think if Andrews can pull Mitchell in to the net, we’re going to have a real battle on our hands, but in his previous matches with Mitchell, he’s always been passive, letting Mitchell control the match from the baseline. I think Mitchell will win in straight sets.”

“David? Are you going with the majority verdict here?”

“Actually, Claire, I’m not. I know what Mark and Tom are saying, but Andrews was playing sublime tennis when he won Queen’s without dropping a set, whereas Mitch’s performance at Eastbourne last week was very ordinary. I also think that Andrews is at his best on grass. It suits his game better, allowing for more subtlety and nuance. I think it’s going to be close, but I’m picking Andrews.”

“Very thought-provoking stuff there from our commentary team. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see how the match unfolds. We do have some good news for you today, because Ryan Betancourt, who was so unfortunately injured in that fall in his semifinal match against Mitch, is here today, watching the match. Now, I think—oh, yes! We can bring you live footage of the players leaving the locker room and coming down the stairs, making that wonderful historic walk. Past the boards with the names of all those winners, and beneath the marvelous quote from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’: ‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same’. Well, for one of these two men, the match will end in triumph; for the other, we hope not disaster, but definitely disappointment.

“I’ll hand you over to Tom, Mark, and David in a moment for commentary on the match, but first, let’s just watch the reception these two wonderful finalists receive as they walk out onto Centre Court, the scene of so much heartbreak and joy over the years.

“Oh, that’s unfortunate. Josh Andrews’s shoelace appears to have come untied. He’s kneeling down to do it up, leaving Mitch to walk onto Centre Court on his own. The crowd don’t know quite what to make of that and are a little subdued in their reaction, but now Josh is on his way and they’re cheering, looking forward to an afternoon of superb tennis, as are we all. Gentlemen, over to you.”

Chapter 30

W
HEN
Mitchell walked out onto the court and there was no sign of Josh, Ryan’s heart just about stopped. He didn’t know what he thought—whether Josh hadn’t been able to face it when it came down to it or whether Mitchell had murdered Josh in the locker room—but even through his alarm, the crowd’s reaction caught his attention. The applause that had started at the first sight of one of the finalists suddenly dropped in volume, and Ryan was almost sure he could hear boos and whistles from one corner of the court. Then Josh came onto court and the place erupted, Ryan adding his own heartfelt applause to the general noise.

As the players got ready, stripping off sweats and ensuring their bags were just so before going through the traditional coin toss with the attendant ritual and photographs, Ryan sat back and thought. For the first time, he realized that it might actually work to their advantage if Mitchell were to beat Josh. Josh was a popular player. It was clear from the reception Mitchell had just received that a significant proportion of the crowd had seen that incriminating photo. If Mitchell were to beat Josh while the stain on his character was still fresh, nobody would love him for it. But then Ryan realized what he was doing, getting himself so focused on revenge that he’d lost sight of what being beaten like that by
Mitchell
, in front of half the world and in front of his father, would do to Josh. His heart squeezed. He didn’t care about Mitchell any more. He didn’t care who won or lost. He only cared what it meant for Josh.

Josh won the toss, but gestured for Mitchell to serve first.

Josh’s entourage, used to being the subject of roving TV cameras, kept their faces expressionless, but Ryan could hear Roger Andrews’s low-voiced reaction perfectly well. “What the
hell
?”

Ryan shared the sentiment. Josh believed that serving first gave him an advantage, and here he was, giving it away. Was he really so certain he was going to lose that he wouldn’t even try?

After the warm-up, as the umpire called the start of the match, Josh looked up briefly to the box. He met Ryan’s gaze and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Ryan’s breath caught, and he suddenly knew. Josh giving away first serve to Mitchell wasn’t a sign of weakness. It was contempt. He didn’t need any advantage in order to beat Mitchell.

After that, Ryan was probably the only member of Josh’s entourage not to be surprised when Josh broke Mitchell in his second service game. And then broke him again, and again, and again.

Josh was close to taking the first set when Ryan finally saw it—the number of times and the number of different ways Josh kept putting that ball exactly where Mitchell had put it in the instant before Ryan’s accident. He wasn’t sure if people in the crowd caught on or not, but he saw when Mitchell suddenly did and stared at Josh, incredulity in his face. Ryan, with a strength of will that he hoped his mom and dad appreciated, managed not to surge to his feet to punch the air and scream
Take that, you asshole.
Because for the first time ever, Mitchell was
looking
at Josh, seeing him as something more than the vulnerable kid he’d exploited. This was karma, or justice, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it. So far as Ryan was concerned, this was beautiful
. Josh
was beautiful.