Love on the Line (Beaumont Legacy #2)

1. Maya

Chapter one

Maya

M aya’s face was plastered to the cold living room floor when she awoke, head pounding, stomach turning, and for the life of her, she couldn’t remember what debauchery had taken place the night before to leave her in such a state. She rolled over onto the rug, reaching in the direction of the couch until her fingers found the edge of a blanket, and she yanked it over her body.

The movement caused her wrist to twinge painfully, despite the brace it was in. And that was when Maya remembered.

There had been no debauchery, no fun with her friends. She hadn’t seen her friends in weeks. Not since she’d learned that her wrist injury was the end of her tennis career. Even physical therapy wouldn’t help it heal completely .

No. This feeling was grief and wallowing and anger and exhaustion. Her head pounded from dehydration, and her stomach was turning because she’d been subsisting off peanut butter and jellies and gummy bears for days. It was all she could afford now that she was off the pro tour.

Professional tennis wasn’t all people believed it was. Just because she’d played on the tour didn’t mean she was flush with cash. Only the top hundred players were so lucky. With the cost of coaches, training facilities, physiotherapists, travel, and meals, Maya had hardly been getting by. Which is why, when she’d learned that she was done, she’d used a majority of her money to get to her dad’s empty house in Los Angeles.

As far away from her friends and family as she could be.

After her computer had died for the fifth time in as many days, she’d decided the living room was a better place to rot. The TV wouldn’t die on her, and she was much closer to the food when her stomach grumbled.

Maya couldn’t complain too much. The cold was a welcome reprieve from the emptiness she’d been feeling for days as she’d cycled through seasons of her favorite sitcom like she was competing for an Olympic medal.

She curled into a ball, leaving a hole in her blanket just big enough to breathe through as she dozed off again, the sounds of two characters fighting lulling her back into the darkness she was getting all too familiar with. Maya couldn’t have been asleep for longer than a few minutes before she felt the blanket ripped from her body .

“Jesus Christ, Mai. We thought you were dead .” Her oldest brother Colton’s voice jolted her from a REMless sleep.

Maya opened her eyes and groaned, seeing the curtains thrown agape and sunlight spearing through the room like it was looking to burn her to ash.

“Why are you on the floor?” At the sound of Landon’s voice—her other brother—she sat up quickly. Her brothers had never been more than cordial to each other, and though Colton had made attempts to mend their relationship, the fact that they were willingly in the same place when, surely, they both wanted to be elsewhere was alarming enough to make her contemplate how long she’d been dodging their calls.

Maya cleared her throat, trying to disperse the cobwebs in her mind she was sure had been created by her lack of mental stimulation and abysmal macronutrient consumption. “Uh…”

Her brothers exchanged a look. Again, alarming.

“I wanted to feel the cold,” was what she managed as an explanation.

“So you decided to lie on the rug and wrap yourself in a blanket?” Landon placed the back of his hand against Maya’s forehead, a gesture she didn’t think he’d ever done for anyone. “She’s warm,” he said to Colton, like she’d disappeared.

Colton frowned. “Mai, are you sick? Why haven’t you been answering our calls and texts? I know you’re going through a rough time right now, but you can lean on us. You know that, right? ”

This was the exact reason she didn’t want to be on the East Coast where Colton, his girlfriend, and Maya’s entire group of friends lived. Maya had never been one to talk about her issues, especially not with the people closest to her. She had always been the invisible Beaumont child, and she liked it that way. She’d gone through life like that, her problems invisible to others, and she was content knowing she was never burdening the people around her. They had far better things to worry about than her.

The last thing Maya wanted to talk about was that she was a failure. That the one talent she had was now moot because she wouldn’t be able to use it for anything. That dropping out of school to pursue her dream had not panned out for her. She had already been telling herself that enough.

The fact that they were both here, changing their daily lives for her, brought back that familiar feeling she’d been outrunning for years.

Maya was usually the one holding their little family together, going out of her way to call as often as she could manage while playing tennis. She’d spent years, since she’d been twelve, forcing herself to be the independent one. The one who took care of others.

Now that they were here, she was once again the burdensome little sister they had to worry about, not the full-grown woman she’d become.

Maya cobbled together her best, most convincing smile. “I’m not going through a rough patch. Nothing’s going on. You came here for no reason. Please locate your nearest exit and go away .”

Landon snorted. “You always get extra witty and weird when you’re upset. We’re not going anywhere until you tell us how you’ve been doing.”

As if to prove his point, he sat on the couch beside her head, clicking out of her comfort show in search of something else. Rude . Colton continued to stand, his worried look fixed on her.

“Maya, please. I know tennis is really important to you. We just want to help,” he pleaded.

This was another problem: they could never really understand what this injury meant for her because they would never be able to put themselves in her shoes. No matter what happened to them, they would still have money and fame.

“If your career ended tomorrow, you would have something to fall back on. Both of you. I don’t have that same luxury,” she snapped at him.

Colton reared back a little like he was surprised by her words. To be fair, she never talked to them like this. And that only made her feel worse because this situation wasn’t their fault, and it wasn’t fair to take it out on them.

Maya knew no matter how stubborn she might be, she wasn’t more stubborn than Colton. She would have to tell them eventually. Better now than to have him stay for hours trying to pry it from her .

He was a championship-winning quarterback. He had better things to do.

She sighed, leaning back against the couch and pulling the blanket they’d abandoned at her feet over herself protectively, as if it would prevent her next words from burrowing deep beneath her skin.

“I don’t know what to do with myself. Tennis is all I have. It’s all I am. What now? I don’t know where to go from here,” she blurted honestly.

Landon had stopped scrolling, sitting on the coffee table so he could look at her. Colton dropped down beside her, clearly waiting for her to say more. But what more was there?

Tennis had always been her safe space, and now it was gone. She would never play at the same level as the rest of her friends again. She would never again enjoy the adoration of the fans, the competition in her veins, the feel of the ball hitting her strings so perfectly that they sang.

Maya pushed a knuckle into her leg, hard, trying to shove away the burn of unshed tears behind her eyes. “I didn’t know the last time I played in front of a crowd like that would be the last time, you know? I didn’t know that would be my last time playing doubles with Delilah,” she said, referring to her closest friend on the tour. “You spend your whole life training for something, put everything else on the back burner, decide you don’t need a college degree because those years are prime tour years. And then it’s all gone in an instant. ”

Sandpaper bit the back of her throat, and she choked down a sob. “I have no degree, no other prospects. I don’t know what to do with myself now. I’ll be lucky if I can even play rec league .” Her voice broke on the last two words, and she was embarrassed at the emotion she was displaying. She hadn’t cried like this in front of either of them since Ryan had ended things with her over a year ago.

Maya felt strong arms wrap around her, pulling her slouched body into a chest and holding her tight. Then she was rocking slowly. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know which brother held her. Colton’s consolatory words and movements hadn’t changed since he’d held her together after their mom had died.

Only when the well inside her had dried up did she pull her face from her hands, her cheeks tight with tears, eyelashes clumped together and heavy with the weight of the salt. Landon looked at her solemnly, holding out a hand for her to clasp.

“I’m so sorry, Maya. I just…I really am so deeply sorry. There’s nothing I can say beyond that.” Landon had never been good at expressing his feelings, and she appreciated him trying to articulate them for her benefit. She squeezed his hand weakly.

The three of them sat like that for a moment before Colton spoke softly. “I know I could never understand what you’re going through, but we need to know you’re taking care of yourself. Peanut butter and jelly and candy are not going to help you get better, and even if you can’t go back to the tour, you should heal for the future. Have you been drinking water? Going to physical therapy?”

Maya grimaced, the feeling of three missed calls from her physical therapist like a tangible weight pinning her to the floor. For a flash, she felt bitter anger sweep through her before it burned out. She glared at him even though she knew he was right. He smiled sadly, like that had been answer enough.

“Just try? Please? To take care of yourself. I hate you being here all alone, but at least Landon is an hour flight away. And you know you’re always welcome at my and Lucia’s house.”

“I’ll try,” she mumbled, breaking eye contact and resting her head on his shoulder, not wanting the conversation to continue. She didn’t need a reminder she was worrying him. It only made her feel worse.

Maya hadn’t been making any effort to rectify the issue so she could play at a lower level. She’d found zero motivation when she’d thought about the fact that no matter what she did, her surgeon had told her it would only get worse if she went back to play on tour.

What was the point?

The sound of Landon’s stomach growling garnered a chuckle from them all. Her brothers were up in an instant, Landon searching through the empty pantry, Colton moving to peer out the curtains that hung over the two windows beside the front door.

“Yeah, they’re gonna be here for a while. We should order in,” he said .

Maya stood, grabbed the almost empty peanut butter and jelly jars, and pushed them in front of Landon, whose face scrunched like she’d offered to stab him through the heart with a steak knife.

“Who’s gonna be here for a while?”

“Fucking paparazzi,” Landon grumbled, smacking at her hand when she tried to start making another PB&J.

“Hey! I’ve been eating these for days and I’m fine. Stop treating me like a child.”

“Treating you like a child? You’re the one eating PB&Js and gummy bears daily. What do you want for lunch? You choose.” He was already pulling his phone from his pocket and handing it to her.

Maya chose, then passed the phone to Colton, who had joined them in the kitchen. Maya began walking back into the living room, but Landon stopped her by stepping in front of her and putting his hands on her shoulders.

“Maya, I have to tell you something.”

“You followed Colton’s example and found a woman you want to settle down with?” she mused wryly.

“Yeah, right.”

“A man you want to settle down with?”

“Not quite.”

“You’ve taught yourself to knit, and now you’re making sweaters for penguins. ”

He removed his hands from her shoulders but pointed at her. “You’re doing that thing again where you try to repress your feelings with your sense of humor.”

“You’re just mad I do it better than you.”

“True, but still not what I was going to tell you.” He leaned closer like he was going to tell her a secret and then whispered, “You smell horrible.”

Something like a laugh flew past her lips. Or maybe it was a gasp. She couldn’t be sure. She batted at him. “Rude.”

“That might be true too, but you need a shower because”—he waved his hand in front of his face while pinching his nose with the other, like he was trying to rid himself of her stench—“I didn’t want to say it when you were crying, but it’s putrid.”

“Dick.”

“Stinkerbell.”

Even Colton laughed at that, though he looked apologetic when she glared his way.

“Assholes.”

She barely heard Colton’s “I didn’t even say anything!” as she ran up the stairs to her bedroom, her Crestview Tennis T-shirt covered in new stains and smelly in a way that was definitely not socially acceptable.

When she stood in the scalding water, staring up at the shower head, she marveled at the way her brothers had managed to help her forget—even for a few minutes—that despair that’d settled over her like a steadfast storm cloud .

Problem was, they had their own lives and couldn’t be with her all the time. She didn’t want them to have to be with her all the time. Their company was great for keeping the emptiness at bay temporarily, but Maya still felt it tucked inside her, waiting until they left to be let loose. She knew the moment they were out the door, it would come crawling back and sink its teeth into her until she was nothing but a void, rotting on the couch once more. Even now, as she lathered her hair and cleaned the saltiness from her face, she felt it creeping in again.

She wondered if it would ever go away.