My dad laughed. “You’ve earned more than chicken, sweetheart.”
Nan leaned across and patted my hand. “Did you even hear the crowd when you hit that last forehand? It was like Centre Court was going to explode.”
“I kind of blacked out?” I admitted. “I remember the ball going long. Then the umpire’s voice. Then just nothing. Just white noise and my heart trying to beat out of my chest.”
Nan dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “You made me proud, Olivia. You made your mother proud too.”
The table went quiet for a moment, a soft kind of silence that felt like a hug.
Then Maddie leaned in, her voice teasing. “Okay, but now that you’ve won the biggest title of your life, how many celebrities and players have slid into your DMs already?”
“Too many. Celebs, players, even influencers I’ve never spoken to suddenly acting like we’re best mates.”
Maddie smirked, sipping her drink. “Please. You’re acting like you don’t enjoy the attention. Golden girl wins Wimbledon and suddenly the world wants a piece of you.”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “Honestly, I haven’t even looked at most of them. After the dinner, the photoshoots, the interviews... I barely have energy to answer my friends, let alone scroll through DMs.”
Coach Dani gave me a knowing look. “Enjoy tonight. Rest. Tomorrow will be a new kind of pressure.”
I exhaled, letting myself lean back into the chair, the weight of the day finally settling.
“Yeah,” I murmured. “But for tonight... I think I’ll just let it feel real.”
Dinner with the team stretched longer than it should have, too much laughter, too much pasta, the kind of easy comfort that made me forget for a while how heavy tomorrow might feel.
Later that night, tucked under a ridiculous number of pillows in my hotel suite, I found myself wide awake. Nerves maybe, or adrenaline that hadn’t quite faded. Out of habit more than anything, I pulled up the replay of my match, letting the commentary and crowd noise fill the quiet. I watched the points play out, the angles I’d hit, the mistakes I wanted back.
The camera panned across the crowd between games, and oh,you’ve got to be kidding me.
Alexandra Cadiz. Standing. Clapping. Looking like she’d just watched her own tennis match.
I actually froze. Then rewound. Watched it again and again. Because surely I was imagining it. But no, there she was, that calm, unreadable Alexandra Cadiz face, except this time, there was a flicker of something else. She wasn’t doing the polite, camera’s-on-me clap. She looked… invested.
By the third replay, I wasn’t even watching the match anymore. Just her.
I reached for my phone, half-buried in the sheets, completely forgotten until now. The screen lit up the second I touched it, buzzing like it had been dying to tattle on me. Notifications were pouring in faster than I could blink: tennis blogs, edits, interviews, congratulations, absolute chaos.
And threaded through all of it were screenshots of Alex in the stands.
Someone had already made a fan edit. With a nickname. Aship name, for god’s sake.
I groaned into my pillow, face on fire. Winning a final was one thing. Realizing Alexandra Cadiz had been watching and clapping like she actually meant it was something else entirely.
Why was she even there? Alex wasn’t the type to just wander into the stands for fun. She was private, guarded, the kind of player you only ever saw behind headphones.
So what was she doing on her feet for me? Did she actually want me to win? Was it respect? Pity? Something else I couldn’t name?
The Cadiz family had always been a pedestal in my mind. To have one of them in the crowd for me… it pressed on something I didn’t even know was there.
And I hated how much I liked it.
•••••
The curtains hadn’t done their job. Sunlight cut across my face, dragging me out of what little sleep I’d managed. I lay there for a while, tangled in sheets and last night’s thoughts, unwilling to move, unwilling to face what today meant. The chaos after the win had been exactly as expected: content requests, statements, plans. Everyone wanted a piece of me, though to their credit, they gave me just enough space to breathe.
By the time lunch was over, the next obligation loomed: the formal photo session with the Venus Rosewater Dish. I slipped into a soft, blue dress that fell just below the knee, elegant and timeless. My hair was styled in loose waves, makeup was light but camera-ready. When I held the trophy again for the official portraits, the weight of it settled differently. No longer heart-pounding disbelief, but something steadier, calm pride, a quiet confirmation that this wasn’t a dream. It was real.
Later that afternoon, we returned to the hotel to rest and regroup before the Champions’ Dinner tonight. While I sat in the players’ lounge with my team, still in my robe and slippers with curlers in my hair, the men’s final was about to begin.
