Slammed, стр. 37
“You hungry?” Toni asked. “I slept the whole flight and now I’m starving.”
“I could eat,” I said, and although in my jeans and a tank top I wasn’t technically dressed for dinner, I knew the staff here in the restaurants would accommodate me. Toni looked much smarter in her kicky blue dress and sandals. I looked for Parisa, but she was deep in conversation at reception. A text would do. “You stayed here before?”
“No, never made the finals before. The last time I was on track was the year I did my back. Is it always so humid here?”
“Pretty much,” I admitted, although we were in the blissful cool of industrial-strength air conditioning as we walked through the lobby to where the restaurants were laid out. “We’re right on the equator, so we don’t linger outside for long. Not when we can be chilled like this. You okay with Italian? It means we can sit out by the pool, which is nice.”
“I love Italian,” Toni replied, falling in step with me like we went out all the time. “But what are my other options, just to see what I could have won?”
“Well, there’s fantastic Chinese.” I gestured towards the elevators that would take us there. “Or down here also French. They have these little… I forget the word, but it’s like almost private dining? Which is nice when the press is around, but it might look a bit much. Or something.”
“A bit much?” Toni asked, her smile teasing. “You mean it might look like a date?”
I managed to choke on air for fully five seconds. Thankfully I hadn’t been drinking anything. “Right. Might look like that.”
“Well, I know how you hate drawing attention, so let’s see if we can have pasta by the pool.”
The maître d’, Mauro, greeted me like an old friend, even though I only spent a week here every year. I supposed in real terms that almost made him a constant in my life. Mauro chatted to Toni as he led us outside, and I was pleased to see the free table was the one tucked in at the far end, with some plants mostly obscuring us from view.
I declined the offer of wine, still feeling my way back into my regular schedule. I’d be up and in the gym by six a.m., so I decided to be kind to my future self. Toni was more adventurous, opting for a glass of red.
We didn’t really get talking again until the drinks came out and we ordered our food. I caught myself fidgeting with the napkin, my cutlery, the seam down the side of my jeans. I’d chosen the seat with my back to other diners, not wanting the distraction if anyone did recognise me. It felt like some rare achievement, having Toni all to myself after weeks of just texting.
Her phone interrupted just then, prompting a quick but quiet torrent of Spanish. She ended the call with a dramatic roll of her eyes.
“Xavi,” she explained, although I’d already worked that much out. “To warn me not to go wild tonight. Like I’d forget I have a doubles match tomorrow.”
“Maybe he just misses you,” I joked. I knew it would be polite to invite him down to join us, but the words stuck in my throat. “God, that pool looks nice.”
“I think the other diners would notice if you dived in.”
“So that’s a no on skinny dipping?” I asked, taking a sip of my sparkling water. Awful stuff, but I’d made myself get used to it. “I’ve been swimming a lot lately, good for my busted hip.”
I didn’t miss the way Toni’s eyes had widened at the mention of skinny dipping or how her smile got wider. Maybe I had finally learned how to play it cool.
“Any big plans for your vacation time?” she asked, taking a hearty mouthful of her wine and not quite looking at me.
I didn’t have any. Usually I dragged my heels and then by the end of the finals picked something from the e-mails Parisa would send me. Some of them were favours or gifts from sponsors or friends, while others were just nice places she thought I might like. I was starting to realise I might be a little bit, well, spoiled.
“Part of me would like to just go home. We spend so much of the year on the road that it’s nice to just be in one place, you know?” I ran a hand through my hair. She nodded, knowing the feeling all too well. “But then there’s that quiet pressure to… Well, it’s silly, but I feel as though if I don’t have a real holiday then it adds to this idea that I’m this boring person who never has any fun.”
Yikes. A little more honest than I intended to be.
Even Toni looked a little startled by it. She recovered quickly. “You really worry what people think, don’t you?”
“I try not to. I’ve done every kind of meditation and therapy exercise, but the only time I can really drown it out is when I’m on court. There, I just have to win. My brain finally lets up on whether I was polite to my driver, or if my skirt is the right shade of white, or if the people in the third row think I’m dating Jürgen.”
Toni took another long sip of her wine. “Maybe that’s what makes you so good. That you need the peace you get out there.”
“Maybe. I, for one, am thoroughly sick of talking about me, though. In case you thought I liked it. How was your week? You played the Kremlin Cup, right?”
“You pay attention to all that?” Toni laughed, playing with a strand of dark hair that had fallen forward over her face. We both defaulted to hair down on occasions like these, having to spend so much time with it tied up