by Joe Satoria
“Pleasant,” I mumbled. I didn’t want her to continue after hearing the mention of his name. Looking to the food. I’d already lost my hunger before I arrived. The call with my dad, he said he was fine, but I could hear it in his voice, phlegmy, even though he said it wasn’t, I knew the sound.
“Come on,” she continued, “eat up, I can’t imagine training with Jordan is going to be fun today.”
“Huh? What?” My finger flinching as I reached for the fork. “What have you heard about him?” I looked across the table, he wasn’t here either.
“You haven’t heard?” she asked, smiling with wide eyes. “You’re sharing a room, and you didn’t hear about how he was all horned up trying to hit on the Germans.” Shying her head, she glancing to the side across the table where the two German girls were sitting, chuckling around a mobile phone. “Mila was crying, homesick, and Jordan was there in a towel trying to impress them with bicep curls.”
“No—I didn’t, why?”
She rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue—I wondered if she was waiting for me to give her the details, but she knew more than I did, although I was glad none of the sentence involved me or him together.
“He broke up with his girlfriend,” she said.
That might explain why he was acting the way he had been, but even earlier, he was still acting strange—I’d even agreed to continue training with him if he paid me—now I felt worse. And no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t shake the image of him in the shower—something I was still regretting, even though every time my brain brought it up, I was convinced he’d done it on purpose; he wanted the attention, he wanted someone to want him—that was some type A psychopath behaviour.
“Harv, eat up. Gah, you’re going to waste away.”
There was a lot on the plate. I never ate this much. I could never afford to eat this much. But I tried. It was mostly generous portions of rice, vegetables, and chicken, almost like that’s all they knew how to make. Using my spoon, I hocked a mouthful to my tongue and began chewing on it.
“What are you going to do after?” she asked as I filled my mouth.
“Uhm.”
“I have my one-on-one, which should be like old times between me and Petra,” she continued, scraping her spoon across her clean plate. “She mentioned we would be getting a guest, but I’m convinced it’s Nico, even though he said someone else was coming.”
“Who’d you think it would be?” I asked. I didn’t know a lot of the female tennis player, I mean, with the exception of the greats, but I didn’t know a lot of the ones that would be at Nico’s level in the female singles.
“It’ll probably be Oles,” she said, “Polish player, just won her first big tournament, and from what I hear, she’s making one of those I did it, so can you tours. From what I hear, she made it from being dirt poor.”
“Really? How’d she manage that?”
“Luck,” she chuckled back. “Nah, I think she got some big government grant and afforded to get a team behind her, training schedule, nutritionist, coach, you name it, she’s probably the next big player coming out of Poland.”
I’d tried to do same thing, looking at individual sports grants, but every single one of them was a series of rounds, and then the final round I didn’t make it. This was the first one I’d ever found myself benefitting from, and I had to really get my head into it because there was a scout arriving at the end of camp and I needed to get myself seen.
“How are you finding everything?” she asked. “The tennis scene can be horrible, but I’m guessing you’re just putting everything back into equipment.”
She was right. The money I made was going back to pay for equipment and entry fees. I’d barely made anything that I could say—oh, I had money in my bank—because I didn’t, a big fat ZERO pounds, or whatever was left in there. “If I win the FFT, I’ll have finally made it.”
“When.” She nodded. “When you win.” Her head grew closer to mine. “Don’t tell anyone, but my dad is waiting at home, hoping we hear something about the invitational soon. Invites obviously go out this week or next, but if I don’t get it, I’ll win the camp matches and get my invite anyway.”
That was a surprise. I’d figured she had an invite. “Ugh. I have to go train with Jordan.”
She tutted. “Eat more first. And, you know you can switch partners. You don’t have to train with him.”
I really did have to, he’d agreed to pay me for it—even if I didn’t want to be around him, I figured I could at least pretend what happened last night wasn’t real.
“Guess I should go too,” she said as others began to stand, “and whatever he does, don’t let him pull you in for practice on Sunday.”
“Sunday?”
“Yeah,” she said with a matter-of-fact scoff, “that’s beach day, or in your itinerary as rest day. Honestly, there’s this cute, secluded beach they have near here, and you have to see it.”
“Beach day,” I said with a nod, and just like that, I remembered I hadn’t brought any swimming trunks—well, I didn’t have to go into the water, I suppose I could sit in the sand—and then I’d look like a loser.
* * *
Jordan was in the gym forcing out grunts as he counted reps. He was only one there—red in the face, his shoulders beefed up and aching to pop through the seams of his t-shirt. He’d probably scared everyone away, either that, or everyone saw him and decided they’d take their training to the court.
“Late,” he let out through a strained breath.
“I was eating,” I told him.
It was quiet—no music.
He picked himself up off the weight bench, leaving a line of sweat. “Eat faster, I thought I’d agreed to pay you to train with me.”
I nodded, forcing a smile. “How much?”
“Five hundred,” he repeated back with a nod.
“Per day.”
“Per day, per hour, whatever, jeez, I’m not being pushed out of every training group. So, take the money, just train with me.” He looked away—or passed me as he combed a hand through his wet hair.
That might’ve been the realest thing he’d said. He didn’t want to be training alone. “Ok, per day is fine,” I said, “except Sunday.”
“Why except Sunday?” His brows pinched facing me.
“It’s the-uh, beach day.”
“Beach day,” he repeated, “who’s going?”
“Everyone, I thought it was on the timetable.”
He shook his head.
Of course, they hadn’t invited him. And now I wasn’t sure who to feel sorry for. Him for not being invited or Sasha for ruining her perfect beach day. “Well, I don’t know, but I was invited by Sasha, so I assumed it was for everyone.”
Jordan gave a single sharp laugh before his face turned to a frown. “Yeah, no, they meant to invite you and not me,” he said, pointing a finger. “Which is fine, because that’s an extra day I get to train, and they get to sit around doing nothing.”
And now I felt even worse—perhaps it was little food inside me, or the phone latched to my leg inside the pocket.
“What do you want to do?” he asked, gesturing out around the empty room filled with all different exercise equipment we could use.
“Well, I should warm up.”
“There’s yoga mats, Pedro was telling me earlier I should be using my hips more,” he said. “Opening them up, so I could move around the court. I thought I was already doing that, but apparently hip exercises will help.”
“Yoga,” I repeated back with a smile. “Yeah, sure! And tonight we can play a couple games.”
He was already grabbing at rolled mats from the corner by the water cooler. “We’re not keeping score.” He threw one over at me, landing by my feet. “Joachim was in earlier teaching me; I can show you the move.”
“The position, you mean.”
“You do yoga?”
I wasn’t sure how to word that I’d done yoga during a therapy session held at sch
ool when they thought I wasn’t managing my dad’s condition well. They said it would bring me clarity, all it brought me was the knowledge that my legs weren’t quite flexible, and I couldn’t keep focus on anything for too long. “No—but I’ve seen some hilarious yoga fail videos.”
Jordan kicked the mats open. “Well, I’ll show you—” he kicked the mats together, beside each other, “—like this.” He stood with his legs apart, squatting as he rolled his hips in a clockwise motion.
“Ok, so,” I turned around, attempting to copy him.
“No, no, like this.” He slapped his hand against my hip. “Squat a little. Hold it.”
“Are you—are you—” I was more concerned with his hand as it lingered, “are you sure this is right?” I felt the tension in my legs as I took the squat.
“Yeah.” His hand reached up my waist, forcing me to move with it.
I freed myself. “No,” I said, “that’s not for hips, that’s all about core and legs. Hips is the floor thing.”
“Floor thing?”
I nodded, shooing him back. “Sit on the floor, like this,” I said, demonstrating. I sat and placed both soles of my shoes together, pushing my knees and thighs to the mat—oh, that was the one, the stretch in the inner thigh and my hip as I felt a release pop.
“Flexible, huh?”
“Not really,” I said, struggling to release myself as the stretch continued. “But that’s for opening your hips.”
He scoffed at it. “Think I might have too many muscles for that one,” he said, “plus, I’m going commando, you’d probably catch another look if I did that.”
I looked away. “I didn’t—I don’t care.” In the reflection, I caught him biting on his bottom lip. “Are you really that lonely since your girlfriend broke up with you?”
He let out an exaggerated laugh. “Who told you that? I broke up with her.”
“But you’re not denying that you’re lonely,” I said, attempting not to look directly at him again, even his reflection. “I mean, you’re paying me to train with you, and you asked me if I fancied you earlier.”
“That was a joke,” he chuckled harder. “I was kidding, obviously.”
I turned back, my eyes darting to his crotch then to his smug face. “You make it weird.”
“You made it weird last night.”
“You kissed me!”
Jordan sputtered his objections, but it didn’t mean anything, he’d kissed me and I remembered it. “I didn’t.”
“And you made me touch your dick.”
And again, his face turned, scrunched as he didn’t know what say. He approached, stepping over the yoga mats. “I thought you liked it.”
Ew. I stepped further away; my body overcome by an electric spasm of energy. “No, no, I—nothing happened, I’m not telling anyone, you’re not telling anyone. Whatever you think—stop, I’m—we’re going to train, that’s it.”
“So, you don’t fancy me then?” he asked, scoffing, “well, I’m relieved, I was testing you.”
Great. I didn’t care what he was doing, but to be sharing the same room with him, train with him, and then have him think I fancied him—even though to an extent his naked body was etched on the inside of my eyelids, and I was always brought to the image every other second, praying I wouldn’t get a hard-on because of it—but no, this was all one great big joke, right?
10. JORDAN
Harvey was a talented player—I’d never tell him that. But it’s what I needed to train with—against. I’d seen all the other guys play, I knew they were all weak, but Harvey was new. He had something about him. He forced me to play like I was in the game with effort.
Over the next couple of days, we trained in the gym and on the court. I started winning a couple games, I think he let me win, even though I knew I was more than capable of winning without his weak backhand. He knew what he was doing—it angered me, but for some other reason, I’d yet to trash a racket.
“Break—break—” Harvey said, creating a T with his arms.
It was another late night. The floodlights were blinding. I grabbed my bottle and threw his from my corner of the court. “What do you usually practice on?”
He shrugged, leaning back on his shoulders as he poured water into the back of his throat. “Uh—I—I play on whatever I can,” he said through gasps, “I can’t be too picky, just play on whatever they have at the local clubs.”
That made sense, he didn’t have the private courts or expensive club memberships. “So, you practice a lot then?”
“I wish,” he chuckled as he continued to squeeze the bottle into his throat. “This is the most practice I’ve done in a while, I try and get to the court twice a week, but this month I’ve had so many exams.”
I recalled, he was studying, still, the now dried book on the bedside table. My brows collected together as I wondered how he could waste his potential on education, and I would never admit it, only to myself, but he was more talented than me—probably because of his slimmer physique; it took less energy to move across the court, while I had more muscle to move.
“Do your parents want you to play?” I asked.
He wiped at his wet lips and dropped the empty bottle. “Why the twenty-one questions?”
“You know, get inside the head of my opponent.” My brows wiggled. “Kidding, I haven’t got many friends I can play tennis with, especially not the type that don’t make me break rackets.”
“That what happen between you and Nico?”
Oh—fuck.
“Me and Nico were friends,” I told him; the truth—in part, past tense, sure we had been friends, once. “We played tennis together too, here actually.”
“He win? Get mad? What happened?”
“Why?” Great. People were obviously speaking about me, I didn’t mind, but as long as they kept it to themselves and didn’t ask me about the past. It happened years ago, and I wanted it to stay there. “What have you heard?”
“There was drama,” he said, “I wasn’t going to ask, we’re friends, and I heard you were friends with him once.”
“Oh, you want to know about him then?” I asked. Great, he was doing what I knew people who had nothing tried to do, they wanted the connections, they wanted the financial aid. “Listen, let’s play another game. We’re not friendly friends, we’re tennis friends.”
He nodded back, batting at a ball with his racket against the ground. “Sure. Your serve or mine?”
I took a final squirt of water before nodding to him and readying myself to catch his serve—note to self, don’t engage in conversation. Especially not with the new kid who has everything to gain with a little bit of gossip to trade.
After a further fifteen minutes, and on a win, Harvey paused the game. “We should head back, it’s almost midnight.”
“We have a free day tomorrow for rest,” I told him, “they have a sauna if you’re feeling too tense.”
“No, no, I can’t, I’m going to the beach,” he continued, grabbing at the balls on the court, “we should, clean these up before we go.”
They had people to do that. “You’re alright, I’ll go back and shower before you,” I said, “don’t want a replay of the other night.” I let out in a scoff. It still kept my nerves on edge whenever my brain pulled it back.
I’d kissed a guy once before.
Nico.
We were teenagers.
It was a game of spin the bottle.
Fun and games. I hadn’t wanted to do it again, but I thought he did—so I went it for another. Our friendship seemed to crumble after that—yeah, that happened here, a similar camp held by his parents.
Nico’s face flashed before mine as I entered the shower room with my things. It was right there, sitting beside Harvey’s grin. I didn’t want to kiss either of them, but now—they were in my head making kissy faces.
“Fuck off,” I mumbled, screwing my eyes.
In the empty shower room, I sat on the bench and did my breathing exercises.
Behind my eyes in this room, I was replaying the other night.
Harvey was so shy, hiding away behind the cubical door. Perhaps that’s why my mind was still so curious—my heart thudded in my ears like a stampede of hooves on wet ground. My breathing matched the beat—quickly panting.
I could only manage a three-minute shower, any longer and my mind swirled the drain with images projected on the white tile, images inspiring my hand to take my cock. After three minutes, I was out in a race to the dorm room.
Harvey was still out.
The bedroom was empty.
Thrown to my bed in just a towel, I let out a groan. I closed my eyes again for a moment, relaxing into a long breath. I turned over, tucking the towel tighter at my waist. I’d have to change before Harvey arrived.
I sorted through the clothes I’d taken off, the watch, the bracelet—I organised it all, adding what needed to go into the laundry bag before grabbing at a pair of shorts.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
“Come in!”
Harvey entered. He paused in place, his hand flinching to his face, nearly dropping his water bottle and racket. “I thought—”
“I’m in a towel, I’m not naked.”
He placed his things on the side. “We didn’t use all those balls out there,” he said, “so, I think I cleaned up an entire day’s worth from all parts of the court.”
“I told you, that’s someone’s job,” I said. There were people here employed to pick those balls in the morning and add them back into the basket.
“Well, I’m glad I did it,” he continued.
I pushed myself back in the bed, still in my towel. I laid the pair of shorts over my legs, where they would approximately be on my body. “I think we did a decent job today.”
“You’re doing great, actually.”
“I know, that’s what I said, we did great.”
“Yeah, but you’re improving.”
My teeth bit down in my jaw, trying to take the compliment. I was used to them, but not like this. “That’s why I wanted to train with you,” I told him, “you’re one of the more—skilled players.” Choosing my words wisely, I didn’t want to tell him he was great, and I didn’t want to tell him he was amazing, even though he was.
