Miles had tilted his head, his brows drawn close. Beside him the waitress stood patiently waiting.
“Sorry, um . . .” I stared down at the drink menu.
“Can you give us a few more minutes?” Miles said, glancing up. “I think he’s having a crisis.”
The waitress laughed and said she would be back soon, leaving me to glare at him. “I am not having a crisis.”
“Then you’re overthinking something. I told you, your face is a very bad liar. What were you thinking about?”
“It’s not important.”
“It was important enough to matter just now.”
“Damn it, Miles,” I laughed, the sound painfully nervous. “It was just a stupid thought I had, all right?”
“All right, so tell me.”
With a sigh, I ran a hand down my face, only to find him watching with a genuine little frown of concern. “Fine,” I said. “If you must know, I was thinking about how when you come back next year it’ll be with your sister, not me. Which is fine! It just . . . I don’t know . . . made me sad for a moment.”
It was a ridiculous admission, but it was out and he didn’t laugh. He just looked at me in his steady way for a few thundering heartbeats, before his gaze dropped to my hand on the table. “We can come back here together,” he said, sliding his own across thepolished wood. “We could make it an annual thing.” Soft as a breath, he brushed my knuckles with a fingertip. “I’d like that.”
I couldn’t look at him, only at his fingers trailing over my skin. “Yeah,” I said, the word oddly thick. “Me too.”
The waitress returned and he quickly retrieved his hand, taking up his menu again. “Good. Because there are definitely too many desserts for us to try in one night.”
We ordered drinks. We ordered far too much food. And while we waited, we talked about tennis and the book Miles was reading, conversation with him always easy. Then at some point, he began asking questions about my family. So, as food filled our table until it was all but overflowing, I told him about my mum’s tennis obsession and my dad’s love of endangered animals he’d picked up as an immigrant kid trying to connect to his new country. I told him about my twin brothers, Benji and Nico, and how I’d resented them suddenly appearing when I was twelve to put an end to my stint as an only child. I even told him about my nonna and how her house was always full of friends and neighbours and sometimes total strangers.
Whenever I was sure I was getting boring, Miles would ask another question, and between the cocktails and the food and his seemingly genuine interest, it was a while before I realised how long I’d been talking about them.
“Why did you let me go on about my family forever?” I said after he’d ordered more drinks.
“Let you? I asked because I wanted to know, idiot.” On his corner of the table, his phone vibrated. Miles glanced at it, declined the call, and turned it over. “You had the misfortune of meeting some of mine,” he added, gesturing at it. “And I realised I knew nothing about yours. Do your brothers play tennis?”
“Nico does,” I said. “Benji couldn’t care less. He wants to be a streamer. Nico watches my matches and tells me what he thinks,although the rest of the time he mostly sends memes. What about your family?” I very deliberately didn’t look at his phone. “Do you have any other brothers and sisters?”
Miles downed the last of his current drink. “No, just me and Tina. But my family really aren’t worth talking about. You know all there is to know about them.”
“I know nothing about them!” I cried, but knowing his parents weren’t a safe topic, I added, “What about your grandparents?”
“One set are ‘the immigrants are coming for our jobs’ conservatives, the other set belong to one of those megachurches that scams people out of money so the leader can have six private jets. I avoid them whenever possible. Tina is the only one worth talking about.”
That was excessively depressing but I sure as shit wasn’t going to say so. Instead, I asked, “Does she always travel with you?”
“Not always. She comes on the big swings, to the grand slams and some of the masters tournaments – Indian Wells, Rome, Monte Carlo. She wants me to move to Monte Carlo because its glamorous and she likes Europe, but the idea of stepping out my door and running into tennis players all the time sounds like a special kind of hell. I like my privacy.” He thanked the waitress as she set our new drinks down amid the gathered plates. “Where do you live when you’re not in shitty London apartments?”
“Oh, I also live in shitty Paris apartments. Terrible American motel rooms. Once in a place in Finland that was so small I didn’t fit the bed. But if you mean where is home, I don’t really have one. I live with my parents when I’m not touring because there’s no point in paying for my own place. It’s very glamorous.” I took a sip of my fancy cocktail. “And you? Where’s home?”
“I have a place in San Diego – beach, tennis court, swimming pool. It’s very glamorous. You should come visit.”
“So I can get jealous?”
“No, so you can fuck me in my pool.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when hurried steps approached on a tide of muffled giggles. “Excuse me,” came a breathless voice. “Are you Miles Callahan?”
A pair of young women stopped beside our table, their wide eyes fixed on Miles with barely contained excitement. One was holding the other’s arm as though for moral support.
“Ah, yes, I am,” Miles said, gifting them one of his easy smiles. “Can I help you?”
