‘I didn’t tell anyone. For ages, like a week.’
‘What?’
‘I know.’
‘Why?’ he asked, incredulous.
‘Because when something goes wrong, I deal with it on my own.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since my sister was born. She was premature and nearly died. I was three at the time and was sent to live with my grandparents until she was home because my parents were too stressed out and worried to deal with me as well as Cassie. She’s fine now. A bit fragile. She relies on my parents a lot, and as a result I have to be strong and capable so that they don’t have to worry about me too.’
‘So who does worry about you?’ he asked.
For some reason, I felt a little bit choked up. See? It was much better when I buried all my feelings and forgot that any of this was happening.
‘Charlie used to, but now that he’s gone, it’s really just my friend Zoe,’ I said.
Slowly, I became aware of his perfectly muscular knee, right there next to mine, even though this table was pretty spacious and I was sure he could have avoided touching me if he’d wanted to. And even more alarmingly, I had no desire whatsoever to move.
‘Perhaps we’re more similar than we thought, Ava,’ said Marcus.
‘Why, do you feel lonely too?’ I asked, realising I’d just revealed something else about myself that I hadn’t meant to.
‘All the time. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not particularly popular on the circuit, probably because I don’t actuallywantto make friends. For me, the only way I can win is to be ruthless out there on the court. If I start to care about the people I’m playing, I won’t have the edge I need to beat them.’
‘You’re afraid you’ll feel more emotional about your game?’ I asked.
‘Sort of. Although feeling anything at all isn’t exactly my strong point,’ he admitted.
He picked up his glass.
‘Cheers,’ he said.
I followed suit, tapping my glass against his, our knuckles knocking together. ‘What are we celebrating?’
‘I was going to say a fun evening, but I’m not sure that’s quite the right word.’
‘To a revealing evening,’ I summarised, knocking my glass against his again.
‘We should take a selfie,’ said Marcus suddenly. ‘Dean’s going to kill us, we haven’t taken a single photo.’
‘Hmm, good point,’ I said, ripping off my apron and touching my hair self-consciously.
‘Plus the more photos there are of us out there, the more chance there is of your ex seeing them,’ said Marcus, with a mischievous look in his eye.
I laughed. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Deadly. Put it all over your socials. Didn’t he do that weeks ago with some new girl he was seeing? And if you think about it, maybe it’s time we started doing this fake dating thing properly. Loved-up people put loved-up images of themselves on Instagram, or so I hear.’
‘I guess you wouldn’t know,’ I said.
‘That, Ava, is a conversation for another time. Right now, it’s cosy photos time.’
I put my glass down, sitting back in my seat to observe him, amused. ‘You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?’
‘Itmaybe more fun than I thought it would be,’ said Marcus. ‘And although I don’t know the guy, I’d honestly take great pleasure in imagining your ex’s face as he flicks through his feed and sees a photo of the two of us having the night of our lives in Paris.’
