Apples Never Fall

Logan shrugged. Then he said suddenly, as though he couldn’t help himself, “I don’t get how you play socially.”

He said socially like the word smelled.

“I enjoy it,” said Troy truthfully. He had friends he played with on a semiregular basis both in Sydney and New York. They were all former competitive players like him. He won maybe seventy percent of the time. “Keeps me fit. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“You’re saying you don’t care if you win or lose?”

“Obviously I play to win,” said Troy. “But it’s not life or death.”

They contemplated each other. They were exactly the same height, although Troy preferred to think he had just a fraction on his older brother. It was probably just his hair. He used mousse.

Logan said, “I don’t mind having a hit, but the moment we’re scoring, I start to care if I win or lose, and then I just…” He paused. “I can’t stand it.”

He looked warily at Troy as if waiting for him to throw this revelation back in his face.

After a moment Troy said, “But you still follow the tennis, right?”

“Sure,” said Logan.

“I don’t follow it. Don’t even watch the finals,” admitted Troy. “If it’s on TV, I switch it off. I can’t stand watching it.”

There were still a couple of guys playing in satellite tournaments who he and Logan knew. Guys they’d beaten. Logan gave a half smile, half grimace to show he got it. Troy understood why Logan couldn’t play. Logan understood why Troy couldn’t watch.

Tennis was complicated. For all of them.

“What about the girls?” asked Troy, suddenly curious. He should know this, but Logan was more involved with family life than him.

“Brooke plays with Dad fairly often,” said Logan. “I don’t know about Amy. The last I heard of her having a hit was that time she grifted that beach volleyball player.”

They both grinned with identical derision. Beach volleyball. Every now and then Amy dated a loser who didn’t believe it was possible for a woman to beat a man in any sporting endeavor, even if tennis wasn’t his sport. She generally capitalized on their sexism with a cash wager.

They stood for a moment in uncharacteristically companionable, brotherly silence, and Troy considered telling Logan what was really filling his mind right now. Something of zero consequence and yet mind-bending significance, depending on how he chose to shift the prism of his perspective.

I saw Claire in New York, he could begin. Logan would raise an eyebrow. He’d liked Claire. Claire had liked him. He would listen, with interest and without judgment. Logan couldn’t be bothered to judge.

But no. Troy wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, and anyway, at any moment Savannah would get out of the car and interrupt them.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. Was the chick going to sit there forever?

Logan began his toneless whistle and Troy felt his mind break free: Fuck this.

He marched around to the side of the car where Savannah was sitting, opened the back door, and bent down to look at her. She still hadn’t even undone her seatbelt. She sat with her hands pushed hard into the center of her stomach, as if she’d just that moment stabbed herself.

His impatience dissipated. “Savannah,” he said gently.

She looked up at him with unshed tears in her eyes. She blinked blond eyelashes. The tears spilled.

Troy couldn’t stand to see a woman cry.

“You’re safe,” he said. He hunkered down next to the car so they were face-to-face. “You’ve got us.”

“I know,” she said.

She wiped her cheeks and fiddled with the tarnished silver antique skeleton key that hung on a cheap chain around her neck.

“I like your necklace,” he said. He’d learned this from Amy’s meltdowns: redirect her focus.

“Thanks.” She dropped the key.