Page 12 of Courting Trouble
Her eyes drifted to the shelf above the telly, which held only one trophy, first place in the Eastbourne International, her best trophy, won at twenty. It shouldn’t have been. It should have been a Wimbledon trophy. Itwouldhave been if not for the injury—if not that year, then in the future. Cassie believed that.
Now, at thirty, she coached middle-aged white-collar workers who barely recognised her. And actresses who couldn’t hold a racket.
Delilah bloody Day.
Cassie still couldn’t decide what annoyed her more: the fact that Delilah was trying to cheat her way into that role, or the fact that she felt she could play Tamsin Rowe with zero knowledge of the sport.
Not that any of that was her business. Her business was making her a tennis player, in the loosest definition. She wasn’t hopeless about that. Delilah’s body didn’t do what she wanted yet, but the intention was there. It was funny how watching the worst tennis of her life was almost interesting. Because Cassie had to build a tennis player from the ground up. She’d never really done that before. Unless she counted herself.
She poured the last of the tea down the sink and rinsed the mug.
Her phone buzzed.
A text. From her mum.
How’s the Hollywood princess?
Cassie texted back.She’s hardly that. I’ve never even heard of her.
What’s her name?her mother pried.
Delilah Day.
A moment later, her mother texted back a link to Delilah’s IMDb page. Cassie very nearly texted her something to the effect that she knew how to Google an actress if she wanted to. But instead, she clicked the link. The page was one proper credit—a barmaid named Cheryl in a soap calledMeadow Vale, Cassie didn’t know it—and a handful of credits like ‘Shop customer’ and ‘Bus passenger No 2.’
No wonder she was sweating. She was getting a serious break in her career. An unholy jump, in fact. Did that mean she was a dark horse, actually good?
Cassie clicked on her reel. It was almost entirely clips ofMeadow Vale, and the dialogue was crap, but Delilah made it work. Every look, every pause, felt real. Cassie frowned, impressed despite herself. She hadn’t expected that.
She dropped her phone, turning off the Lego show. She felt a faint ache in her elbow that she knew, if left, would turn into a throb. She went to the bathroom to fetch the diclofenac.
On her way back, she passed her desk. There was a notebook there—old, spiral-bound, with dog-eared pages full of drills and practice plans. She opened a clean page, wroteDAY 3, and started making notes.
There was something about watching someone get better. Even slowly. Even stubbornly. It scratched an itch she hadn’t realised she still had.
Tomorrow, she thought, they’d work on Delilah’s feet.
Fifteen
Delilah had never sweated through her eyebrows before.
But there she was, bent double on the court, blinking against the salt sting, while Cassie barked instructions like a drill sergeant who didn’t believe in mercy.
‘Split step. React. Move. Hit. Again.’
Delilah wheezed out something that might’ve been ‘Christ on a bike’ but could’ve equally been a death rattle. Cassie naturally showed no sign of sympathy. Her voice carried across the court, flat as ever.
‘You keep waiting to see where it’s going. You need toreadit. Anticipate.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Delilah muttered, more to herself than anyone.
Cassie tossed another ball.
Delilah pushed off from the baseline, trying to move without thinking, trying tobewhatever Cassie was telling her to be. And for a moment, it clicked. Her feet obeyed her. Her armconnected at the right angle. The ball sang off the racket and clipped the sideline with a satisfying thwack.
But didn’t even get a chance to crow. Her ankle gave way on the landing.
The pain came hard and fast. Not agony. But enough to bring Delilah to the ground.
