‘Nice pics,’ said Marcus, clearly on a mission to wind Dean up.
‘Shame about the fucking strapline,’ said Dean, pushing back his chair and stalking off.
We were currently seven floors up, sitting out on the terrace of one of the most beautiful rooftop restaurants I’d ever seen and I was craving my battered old sofa again, where thankfully the drama was usually confined to what I chose to watch on screen, and where I could change channels if it all got too much. Mind you, perhaps I should be careful what I wished for – since Marcus was out of the tournament and heading to Spain the following day to prepare for the Madrid Open, I’d asked Ruby to change my flights and I’d be back in London the following evening. I realised that living alone and barely seeing anyone from one day to the next was going to feel like quite the anticlimax.
Marcus cleared his throat. ‘Sorry about that. It wasn’t fair of us to have that discussion in front of you.’
He poured me a glass of water.
‘Do you often clash like that?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘He’s hot-headed like me. I disappointed him, I get it. The problem is, it’s impossible for people to understand where I’m coming from when I don’t know how to explain it myself half the time.’
A waiter came to take our order – I went for a margarita and a Caesar salad in the end and Marcus asked for a burger, fries and a pint of beer.
‘What happened to the clean eating?’ I teased gently as the very polite French waiter scuttled off to the kitchen.
‘I call it a commiseration dinner,’ he said. ‘It’s a ritual of mine. If I lose a match, I eat and drink whatever I want for one night only, guilt free.’
‘What happens if you win?’
‘I rest and I drink water and I get an early night. It’s nowhere near as much fun.’
I nodded. I supposed you couldn’t properly celebrate unless you won the entire tournament, could you, and the chances of that were pretty low. I’d read somewhere that 128 male players were entered into the US Open, so essentially that meant one celebration and 127 commiseration dinners.
‘Beautiful views,’ I said, looking down at the marina below.
Yachts of all shapes and sizes were bobbing on the water, lit up against the dusky sky.
When our drinks arrived, Marcus was quick to take a mouthful of beer, seemingly savouring the taste.
‘Sometimes it’s worth losing just for this,’ he said.
I ran my fingertip around the rim of my cocktail glass, enjoying the way it kept snagging on the salty crust around the edge.
‘Do you want to talk about earlier? About the match?’ I asked, fiddling with the stem of my glass now. Why did being alone with Marcus make me so nervous?
He chewed his lip; I could practically see his mind ticking over.Should he? Would it help? Could he trust me?
‘I’m not really a talker,’ he said.
‘Neither am I, as it happens,’ I ventured, gauging his reaction.
Often, celebrities didn’t want to talk about anyone but themselves, and the private life of the person interviewing them was of absolutely no interest. I had an inkling, though, that Marcus might feel differently.
‘That surprises me. Tell me more,’ said Marcus, taking another mouthful of beer, this time leaving a line of white froth that Iwanted to reach across and wipe off with my thumb. He licked his lips before I had the chance.
‘I feel bad, sometimes, asking interviewees all these personal details about their lives. About their difficult childhoods, or their first heartbreak or their career failures, or whatever it is. Because I’m expecting them to open up to me in a way that I could never do myself,’ I said, keeping my tone light, my voice barely audible.
Marcus looked confused. ‘You had no problem telling me that your ex had left you.’
‘Well, that was purely on a need-to-know basis. And I guess some level of ... opening up has been forced on us with the situation we’re in, hasn’t it?’
I thought immediately of Mia Stephens and the fact he’d slept with her. I wondered how many of the other female players he’d hooked up with, because for every headline I found about his tennis, there would be two or three articles about his love life. One minute he was at an awards ceremony with a Czech model, the next he was at some rooftop party with a TV presenter. It seemed that Marcus Taylor was a player, and that because of his talent and the fact he looked like he did, beautiful women were up for playing. Whether or not he’d ever truly fallen for someone was yet to be discovered, but from the way he carried himself I’d say not. He had the air of someone who had never been heartbroken and although his career failures were plenty, he had probably never been rejected by somebody who was supposed to love him. I felt a shot of envy – life must be so much easier that way.
Marcus rested his arms on the table, leaning forward slightly. ‘This pretending to date you thing is taking me way out of my comfort zone, if I’m honest. It probably won’t surprise you to hear that public displays of affection are really not my thing.’
‘It must be justkillingyou to have to hold my hand for the cameras.’
