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‘The Luna Lounge,’ said Jess. ‘It’s happy hour until ten, two for one on cocktails. I’ve booked us a table by the window from nine, so let’s do dinner at seven thirty in the hotel.’
‘This your first season here?’ Trish asked Rob, sidling over to him. She pulled the band out of her ponytail and shook her hair free, which reminded Hannah of those birds that flash their plumage as part of a mating dance. Of course Trish would make a play for Rob – she was single and he was gorgeous. The question was, how would Rob respond? Hannah had only spent twenty minutes in his company and absolutely wasn’t interested in a holiday fling, but the thought of Rob and Trish hooking up still made her a bit itchy. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and she didn’t like it one bit.
‘Yeah,’ said Rob. ‘How long have you ladies been coming?’
‘This is our fifth time, but that’s been spread over, like, a decade. We’ve had to take breaks for babies and Covid and stuff.’
‘Hannah, I love that tennis skirt,’ said Gaynor.
Hannah returned a shy smile. ‘Thanks, it’s new. Everything I brought on this holiday is new.’
‘Hannah had a big makeover before this trip,’ explained Trish, grinning at Rob. ‘You wouldn’t have recognised her a month ago, honestly.’
‘I don’t think Rob needs to know that,’ said Hannah quickly, blushing under Rob’s curious gaze.
‘I’ve actually got a pretty good memory for faces,’ he said with a shrug. ‘You meet so many people doing this job, then one night you see them in a bar and they look completely different. So I have to pay attention.’
Hannah turned away to hide her smile, wondering if the penny would drop for Trish. There was no reason why Jess and Gaynor would make the connection from last night – Rob had just been a distant blur from a moving taxi – but Trish had practically sat on his lap.
‘Yeah, I’m good at that too,’ said Trish, giving him a megawatt smile. Rob caught Hannah’s eye and his mouth twitched, and it felt for the briefest moment like they were back on that bench in Marbella again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rob took the steps up to the terrace two at a time, leaving the women to grab food and drinks while he went to the bathroom in the clubhouse. He locked the door to the cubicle and sat on the closed lid, taking deep breaths and trying to make sense of the chaotic thoughts in his head.
First, the insane coincidence that the woman he’d met in Marbella last night was not only a guest at the hotel, but also part of the group he was coaching this week. He hadn’t even planned to BE in that bar – he’d left the rest of the coaches circling a group of much older women in pursuit of a bingo win, and picked the first place that looked half-decent.
And God, her tennis. Mark had told him this would be the strongest group of female players he’d work with all season, and he wasn’t kidding. Gaynor tended to lose focus at the net and Trish could generate more power in her backhand, but Jess was a solid all-rounder and they made an impressive team. But Hannah . . . well, she was definitely the star of this particular show.
Watching her this morning had taken his breath away. Strong shoulders, feet firmly planted, absolute focus on the ball. And that olive skin and gorgeous curly hair, never mind those legs . . . yet she clearly had absolutely no idea how well she played and how great she looked. The other three were hyper self-aware, but Hannah lit up the court without even trying. He hadn’t been able to stop looking at her, in the same way he hadn’t been able to stop looking at her in Marbella last night. Maybe he’d just had too much sun, or he’d gone too long without sex.
If he was honest, he’d gone to bed thinking about Hannah. He’d kicked himself for not getting her number – even though he’d vowed not to even look at women until he got back to the UK, there was something about her that had tested his resolve.
Rob dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes. How could she be a guest at the hotel? Somehow that felt SO much worse than never seeing her again. Now he had to spend hours of every day with her, knowing that she was strictly off limits.
There’s nothing you can do about it, and sitting in this toilet cubicle isn’t helping, he told himself. He took a deep breath and headed out, only to discover Head Coach Mark using one of the urinals.
‘Hey, Rob, you OK?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ said Rob, pointlessly washing his hands so Mark didn’t think he had poor hygiene standards.
‘How are you finding your group?’ asked Mark, zipping himself up and following Rob out without going anywhere near the sink.
‘They’re great,’ said Rob, conscious to avoid getting too friendly with Mark. He’d already drawn attention to himself by refusing to board Olly’s Club Colina Banter Bus, and he definitely didn’t want the others to think he was part of Mark’s crew.
‘I’m going to keep you on the next lot of Gloss Mums, I think,’ Mark said thoughtfully. He had names for all the different groups of women who booked into Club Colina – the Gloss Mums were well-to-do women in their thirties and forties who had escaped from their families for a week and made the most of every single minute. The Menos were the women in their fifties who worried that the humidity might unstick their HRT patches, and the Lady Greys were the over-sixties. There were sub-categories of all three groups – Essex Gloss Mums, Loaded Lady Greys, Divorced Menos. Rob found the whole business gross and sexist, particularly as Mark didn’t seem to have similar labels for the men. But Mark ran the show, and he was nothing but respectful when the guests could hear him. Much as it wound him up, Rob was learning to pick his battles.
‘Why me?’ he asked. He’d assumed that old hands like Olly and Chris and Jonno would get the best female players, and he and Nick and Aaron would get whoever was left.
‘Because you’re a great coach, and you don’t get distracted,’ said Mark. ‘I see all the women chatting you up, trying to get you into the holiday fuck zone. Been there, done that, believe me.’ His eyes glazed over with hazy nostalgia, like he was mentally re-living past glories. Rob said nothing, keen to avoid hearing about the notches on Mark’s Club Colina bedpost. ‘But you’ve got your eye on the ball. That’s what I need here.’
Rob sighed internally, knowing this was just going to be another black mark against him on Olly’s score sheet. He wondered if Mark knew about Club Colina Bingo, and that Rob had opted out.
‘Got a few more good groups coming up in the next few weeks,’ continued Mark, flipping through the pages on his clipboard. ‘Great bunch of Gloss Mums from Kent first week in June, they’ve been a few times. First division district league players, almost as good as your Surrey lot. All pretty easy on the eye, too.’
‘Shouldn’t one of the more experienced coaches take them?’ Rob had decided he’d rather coach men or floss-haired pensioners for the rest of the season, just to free himself from this relentless parade of hot women.
‘Who do I have to shag to get some lunch around here?’ bellowed Olly, bouncing up the steps to the clubhouse terrace two at a time. ‘All right, Reverend,’ he said to Rob with a sneer, shoving him on the shoulder as he passed. ‘Good to see you getting cosy with management.’ He barged his way through the loitering players to the lunch table, not noticing or caring when he elbowed a plastic cup of water out of one woman’s hand and soaked her trainers.
