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‘Ugh,’ said Rob. ‘Yeah.’ They both ate in silence for a minute, Hannah realising how glad she was of Rob’s company. Today there was no pressure to impress him or practise her flirting, she was too exhausted and numb for that. They were just two people eating pizza on a Spanish wall in the evening sun.
‘I got a proper bollocking from Mark today,’ said Rob.
‘Really?’ Hannah turned to look at him.
‘Yeah. We weren’t supposed to be in Marbella. He said that if you guys wanted to go out and get drunk or assaulted or whatever, that’s your problem. But we coaches needed to be a very long way away.’
‘Wow,’ said Hannah, taking a long swig of beer. ‘Mark sounds lovely.’
Rob nodded. ‘I mean, he’s a prick, obviously. But you can kind of see how it looks from his point of view. It’s bad publicity for him if people hear that something bad happened to a Club Colina hotel guest, and his coaches were there.’
‘Well,’ said Hannah, feeling her voice catch in her throat and blinking away tears. ‘I’m definitely not sorry you were there.’
‘Me neither,’ said Rob quietly. ‘Sorry, let’s talk about something else. What other sports are you good at, apart from tennis?’
Hannah shook her head and smiled. ‘I was good at netball at school, because I’m tall. But tennis is the only sport I’ve ever loved.’
‘I was watching you earlier,’ said Rob. ‘When you were hitting against the machine.’
‘For how long?’ asked Hannah, giving him a challenging look.
‘The whole time, actually. Sorry.’ Rob smiled, and Hannah couldn’t help but return it. It felt nice to be with Rob like this, still in her tennis gear, no make-up, no stress.
‘What was your verdict?’ she asked.
‘I’ve spotted a tiny weakness,’ said Rob. ‘A little bit of under-rotation in your hips that’s losing you power in your topspin forehand.’
Hannah nodded. ‘Interesting.’
‘If you get to training early tomorrow I’ll show you.’
‘Are you trying to sell me a private lesson?’ teased Hannah.
‘I couldn’t take your money,’ he laughed. ‘It will take me about five minutes, and then I’ve got nothing left to teach you.’
You could teach me so many things, thought Hannah, feeling goosebumps break out on her arms. ‘Show me now,’ she said, putting the beer on the wall and standing up.
‘Now? Really?’
She unzipped her bag and pulled out her tennis racquet. ‘Sure. Why not?’
‘OK,’ said Rob, standing in front of her and brushing bits of pizza off his polo shirt. ‘Show me your sequence for topspin forehand, then stop when I tell you.’
Hannah imagined the ball coming towards her, pulling back her right arm and stepping forward on her left leg, her knee turned and her wrist angled to sweep her racquet over the top of the ball at the perfect trajectory.
‘Stop there,’ said Rob. Hannah froze, her body sideways on.
‘OK, look at the angle of your hips,’ he said. ‘You’re not giving yourself room. Give me thirty degrees more.’
Hannah nodded and re-set her stance, running through the sequence several times more. ‘Stop,’ said Rob again. He walked around her, looking at every angle thoughtfully. ‘Something still isn’t right.’
‘Can I move?’ she asked, still with her arm outstretched. Her nerves were jangling, and the smell of him made her giddy. How could anyone focus on tennis when Rob was this close?
‘No,’ he said. He walked behind her, then reached forward and rested one hand on each hip. Hannah didn’t see him coming and gasped as she jumped out of her skin, prompting Rob to back away swiftly.
‘Oh fuck, I’m so sorry,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Hannah. ‘It’s not—’
