When she looked at him, she saw his brow lowered into a frown, but his eyes were full of concern.

‘Don’t mind those bitches,’ he said.

Something inside her softened.

‘That’s your sister and her friends you’re talking about.’

‘Yeah. They’re still bitches though.’

‘I guess.’ The anger inside her was trickling away.

She stepped closer to the bar, and he remarked: ‘I haven’t seen much of you lately. Did you and Lisa fall out?’

‘Sort of.’ Her cheeks flushed and she looked down. ‘She doesn’t talk to me any more.’

‘Well, if it makes you feel any better, your sister won’t talk to me either.’

The note of injury in his voice made her look up. Any possibility of an explanation passed when he shook his head and shot her a smile. ‘Hey, don’t mind me. I probably fucking deserve it anyway.’ Snapping back into his role as a bartender, he clapped his hands together, saying: ‘So? What’s your poison?’

‘Two vodkas and Coke?’

‘No chance. Cokes do you?’

‘Sure.’

She paid for the drinks, but when she looked around Corinne was gone. When a quick scan of the room failed to locate her friend, she drifted out into the lobby, her hands cold from holding the bottles of cola. The benches were unoccupied, and it was only when she went down the ramp to the indoor courts that she saw Corinne.

Leaning against the barrier, Corinne’s eyes were fixed on the court where Eva swung her racket, bouncing about on her toes as she waited for the return. Something avid in her attention. A hunger that Beth recognized. For a moment, Beth just stood there, silently observing as the Coke bottles sweated in her hands, anxiety moving in her chest, a confused, bristling mass of it.

‘Have you told anyone about us?’ Ross asked Eva that night as they were driving home.

‘No,’ she replied.

Still tired from her match that afternoon, now her hips ached a little, her body dry and sore. They’d done it twice that time, the second time a little rough. She didn’t mind, but it had chafed and now there was a dull ache. Eva always showered, but she felt a pressing need for a bath, wondered how she might explain that to her parents. It was after midnight.

‘You’re sure? Not even your friend, what’s her name?’

‘Alicia?’

‘Right.’

‘Hardly. We’re not even talking at the moment.’

‘How come?’

‘Remember Callum? Well, Alicia’s going out with him now.’

‘Right.’ He said it in a way that implied a question, like he was waiting for the real reason why they weren’t speaking.

‘I feel like it’s a betrayal.’

‘I thought you didn’t like the guy.’