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‘OK,’ said Hannah, ‘but I wanted to ask you something first.’ She’d been thinking about this all day, and it felt like now or never.
Rob looked at her curiously, his head tilted. The setting sun behind his head brought out the copper flecks in his hair. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘Can we stay in touch? After I leave? Just as friends, I mean.’
Rob smiled, a full-beam grin that lit up his face like the sun had gone into reverse. ‘Sure. I’ll give you my number. Maybe we can play tennis some time.’
Hannah looked at him, feeling a mix of happiness and pain and relief and a million other emotions. ‘I’d like that a lot.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘Here’s to us,’ said Gaynor, holding up her drink. ‘And another brilliant week.’
‘It’s been amazing,’ said Hannah, feeling a combination of sadness that the week was nearly over, but also excitement about the solo road trip she was about to begin. Throw in some confusion and pure unadulterated arousal over Rob, and it was fair to say she was experiencing mixed feelings.
‘We need to give our group a new name,’ said Jess. ‘The Pina Colinas was always us and Carla – she’ll feel like we’ve thrown her out.’
‘Carla’s expecting twins,’ said Trish, slurping the remainder of her cocktail through a straw. ‘On top of the two kids she’s already got. Realistically, is she ever coming back?’
‘Still,’ said Jess, ‘we should at least consider her feelings.’
Trish pulled a face, like this was an alien concept. ‘Fine. What shall we go for?’
Hannah thought about it for a moment. ‘It needs to have tennis in it,’ she said. ‘For me this has been more about the tennis than the booze, not that the booze hasn’t been great.’ Trish slurped a bit more by way of protest.
‘But it should also be about sun,’ said Jess. ‘Because the tennis here is way different from when we’re at home. So something that relates to tennis in the sun.’
‘I definitely feel like you’re all overthinking this,’ said Trish, her face deadpan.
‘Well, that’s it,’ said Gaynor with a huge grin. ‘Tennis in the sun. TITS. That’s our group name.’
‘HA, I love it,’ said Jess, clapping her hands together as Trish rolled her eyes. ‘We’re TITS On Tour. I’ll change the name of our WhatsApp group.’ She picked up her phone and started tapping intently, as Hannah said the word a few times in her head. She couldn’t think of an occasion when she’d said it out loud other than in a bird capacity, although Graham had occasionally observed, during a rare moment of passion, that she had amazing tits. Observation had been a core part of Graham’s bedroom modus operandi –you have nice skin, I love your neck.Hannah had never found it particularly sexy; perhaps because his tone was more ‘man visiting a museum’ than ‘hot seducer’. Once Hannah had been going down on him and he’d announced thatthe view from here is magnificent, like he’d just unshouldered a backpack to look out over Lake Windermere. Hannah had laughed so hard she nearly choked, which had killed the mood a bit.
‘We’ll be blue tits if they don’t turn the air conditioning down in here,’ said Trish, rubbing her goosebumpy arms.
‘Do we need more drinks?’ asked Gaynor, who hated an empty glass.
‘My turn,’ said Hannah, leaning forward to gather the empties onto a tray. The past week had taught her that two cocktails gave her a happy buzz, and three was time to call it a night. But since this was their last night, maybe she could stretch to four.
‘What’s going on over there?’ asked Trish, craning her neck.
Hannah turned and spotted Rob and Olly nose-to-nose at the far end of the bar, deep in conversation. They were both in profile and whilst it didn’t look like they were fighting, exactly, there was an intensity to the hand gestures and their facial expressions that suggested hostilities were under way.
‘That looks heavy,’ said Gaynor.
‘Rob looks like he could blow his load at any moment,’ murmured Jess.
‘If only,’ muttered Trish excitedly. ‘Hannah, have a listen in while you’re at the bar. See what they’re arguing about and bring us back the goss.’
Hannah sidled over to the bar with the tray of glasses, positioning herself a few metres away from Rob and Olly with her back to them. She placed her order and listened hard – the conversation was whispered and strained, until Olly said, ‘Fuck OFF, Rob,’ and things started to escalate. She turned and watched out the corner of her eye, taking in the aggressive posturing and gestures that looked like they might turn physical any moment. Hannah looked around for someone to intervene, but nobody was paying attention – the other coaches were all off schmoozing guests, and Jess, Gaynor and Trish were still on the sofas over by the window, waiting for Hannah to come back. She paused for a second, feeling a little unsteady on her feet from the third cocktail, then held up her hand so the barman knew she’d be back and edged across to where Rob and Olly were engaged in a tense face-off.
‘Is everything OK?’ she said.
‘Oh, here she is, the lovely Hannah,’ said Olly with his particular brand of oily condescension. He seemed to think this approach made him appear smooth and charismatic, but it was entirely repellent. ‘See, Rob? One of us has magnetic qualities, and it’s probably not you.’
‘What’s this about?’ asked Hannah, putting herself firmly between them.
‘I’ll tell you, shall I?’ said Olly before Rob could interrupt. ‘I was just telling Rob here that I found you rather attractive – just a passing observation, you know. But Rob seems to have made himself your protector – clearly Monday’s unfortunate events have given him a saviour complex.’
