As he stalked past her at the end of a set, she nearly sent him head over feet by smacking his ass with the flat of her racket.
“How are you sweating?” she snickered. “It’s forty degrees out here!”
Adrian tossed his sweatshirt off, glaring his scandalized objection at her. His undershirt was sticking to his body.
She seemed to think better of her attitude. Her teeth raked her lower lip as she wet it.
“Good hustle though,” she told him, searching for some possible praise in light of his abject subjugation on the court. She returned to the service line.
“Have you not won yet?” he demanded, assuming his position on the opposite side of the court for what felt likethe millionth time. He was going to have a heart attack if he kept this up much longer.
“I won, like, two sets ago,” she admitted.
Adrian dropped his head back and stared up toward the floodlights above them.
“So, your biggest problem,” Caroline said, “is that you should be using your backhand when it comes toward your nondominant side, instead of trying to step around it to get it with your forehand. You’re running yourself ragged when you could just extend a little. Play smarter, not harder.”
“Oh, is that my biggest problem?” Adrian asked, breathing heavily.
“Well, that and your prereturn leaves a lot to be desired. Let’s try to work on it, Mr. Flatfoot,” she announced, as though their bodies weren’t steaming in the late-night air of a decrepit Brookline tennis court, and they were instead discussing the finer points of form at his father’s country club in the New York suburbs on a fine May afternoon, and also he was fifteen.
Caroline sent another serve across the net, the ball passing a couple of feet to his left.
“Backhand,” she said.
He watched the ball go.
“Sir, your attitude needs some work,” she said firmly, her accent deepening. “Don’t you want to win?”
“You are literally paying me to be here,” Adrian reminded her.
“I’m not paying you to suck!” she yelled back, a giggle beginning to work its way into her tone. She scooped up another ball from her bag. She sent it over to his left, slightly closer. “Backhand!”
Adrian made one last, abortive lunge for the ball but spun it off the edge of his racket.
“That was better,” Caroline chirped. She picked up another ball. “Backhand!”
“I’m done,” Adrian growled. “You win.”
“Noooo,” Caroline mock wailed. “We can make some real improvement on your backhand.”
She served another ball to his left, which he ignored. Then a second one that barely missed him. He looked up at her sharply to see if she’d done it on purpose.
“Backhand!” she called.
The next one grazed him. Shewasdoing it on purpose.
“Oh, come on!” she yelled. “You’re not that old. Are you tired already?”
Adrian squared his shoulders and gave her his sternest look, to no apparent effect. “I’m done,” he repeated. He turned to look at all the balls he’d need to pick up, and she hammered a serve directly into his shins. He yelped and swore as he jumped, turning to freeze her with a promise of vengeance. That was going to leave a bruise.
“Backhand?” she said.
He dropped her racket on the hard court.
“Uh-oh,” she gasped, quickly bending to scoop up another couple of balls. As she continued to pelt him with tennis balls, he charged across the court, using his last surge of adrenaline to vault the net and barrel right at her. She was in the middle of a final volley when he caught her and wrapped his arms around her, trying to wrestle her racket out of her grip. She squealed and turned so that her back was against his stomach, both of their hands grappling to hold on to her tennis racket.
“Oh, no, no, no, you’re covered in sweat!” she yelped, barely able to form words over her desperate, hysterical laughter.
