Three Hundred Words (8 page)

Chapter Eight

I hung back,
burying my head in my bag to check I’d gotten everything. Part of me hoped I’d
forgotten something and it was my excuse not to play. My coach had
guilt-tripped me into it in the end and now the day had come, I was actually
feeling marginally better.

The gossip had at
least slowed down and moved onto more interesting things. The rest of my team
was still unimpressed with my play, but it had definitely gotten better in the
two weeks of hard practise we’d done.

But so had
everyone else and so I still wasn’t even close to being on a level with them.
I’d gone so far as to install a badminton net in my back garden so I could at
least practise serving to perfection. Now I just had to make sure my nerves didn’t
stop me performing.

I blinked when the
door of the minivan type vehicle was slammed behind me. It was more like a taxi
than a minivan and I wondered where on Earth they’d found it. Either way, there
were only four seats and my coach had sat in the back to discuss strategy.

When I reluctantly
opened the front door, I blinked once more. “What are you doing here?”

“The school needed
a teacher to chaperone you and one that had a license to drive you. So here I
am,” Mr. Lane tapped the steering wheel whilst I strapped myself in.

This was the last
thing I’d wanted.

The smile he
offered me as I buckled in was almost neutral, but I still overanalysed it. I
couldn’t tell whether he was angry, sad, or he just felt nothing when he looked
at me. Perhaps his attraction had faded already. Maybe he’d realised what I had
and decided I wasn’t worth it.

I nodded. “Oh,
cool.” Was just about all I could manage in response. He’d volunteered and he’d
known I was going to be here.

It felt oddly
private in the front of the taxi-thing. There was a plastic divider that
blocked out most of the noise from where the rest of my team was and Mr. Lane
hadn’t put the radio on. It was just the two of us, really, though I was sure
we wouldn’t dare to talk about anything incriminating anyway.

It was the closest
I’d been to him in two weeks and I could already feel the response as I
wrestled with myself not to just stare at his perfect face.

“You don’t mind,
do you?”

I absolutely
minded. I’d forbidden any of my family ever coming to watch my badminton games
– the pressure of that would make me play worse and so Mr. Lane being here was
probably going to be a complete disaster.

Mr. Lane wasn’t my
family, he was just a really, really hot guy who’d I’d fucked and was also my teacher.
Him standing on the sidelines and watching was going to be the biggest
distraction I could think of.

“It’s fine,” the
reluctance in my voice was beyond obvious and Oscar shot me a concerned
sideways glance.

“You really hate
me that much?”

My cheeks burned.
“No, no of course not. I don’t hate you at all, or even close to it. I’m just
embarrassed you’re going to be watching me play.”

“Oh, right, why?
You were picked for the team. You’re obviously good.”

“I was picked for
the team because their first choice is in hospital,” I muttered, glad he at
least hadn’t picked up on their hostility quite yet. “I’m really not very good
at all and I get all nervous. It’ll be fine, though. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” I
didn’t sound the slightest bit convincing.

“I can just stay
in the van if you’d rather, I don’t want to put you off or anything.”

I shook my head,
keeping my eyes on the road country road we were driving down. We’d only been
driving for less than ten minutes, but I already didn’t realise where we were.
“That’s okay. You may as well watch, maybe it’ll be more motivating than I
think.”

Mr. Lane nodded
once and we settled into an awkward silence. He didn’t look like he hated me
and I had no idea why he wanted to come and watch me play badminton, but I
tried to put it from my mind. He’d just returned to the professional teacher
and that was that.

We’d ended our
tryst and there wasn’t even anything
to
overthink.

“How have you been
holding up? I heard all the chattering that’s been going off.”

I shrugged. “It’s
died down now. It got better when Emma finally came back to school.”

Mr. Lane nodded.
“Well, good. I worried.”

My lips lifted
into a smile and the murmured “thank you,” had left my lips before I even
realised. That didn’t sound like it had come from someone who harboured zero
romantic feelings.

I had to really
bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself making conversation and it wasn’t an
urge I normally had. But, if we started talking and laughing like we had the
night I’d stayed for dinner, then it would surely be obvious that I cared.

I needed to be
aloof.

It wasn’t long
before we were dissolved into fits of giggles over some stupid story I’d told
him. My normal life might be boring, but my nights out always had some drama and
they were my go to for stories. “It was hilarious, honestly. Emma was just
stood there with kebab all down this brand new dress and the girl who’d done it
looked terrified.”

Mr. Lane chuckled
at the wheel, his cheeks rosy from all the laughter. “Some of my uni stories
are the best. I had this friend who was really into drugs, he was doing
anything he could get his hands on all the time and a few of those times he
went really bat-shit crazy.”

I listened
eagerly, bouncing my bare legs up and down in anticipation. I longed to know
things about Mr. Lane, to know what he’d done through his life and what he
wanted to do with it in the future.

“Well, this one
night he’s done something trippy, I still don’t know what, and he’s just zoning
out on the sofa. We’re playing Xbox, with the sound nice and low so we don’t
disturb and he suddenly breaks out into fits of giggles. He’s just sat there,
in hysterics, looking like he’s trying to bash something off him. And then he
screams, “please, no more tickling, I can’t take it!” and we’re pissing
ourselves watching.” He shook his head now with an amused smile. “I still have
no idea what possessed him to do that stuff, half the time it seemed like he
was having a miserable time.”

I chuckled.
“Hopefully I’ll make some interesting friends at uni. I’m going pretty far
away, it’s going to be weird.”

I’d started to
regret going somewhere nearly four hours away now my parents were probably
splitting up. They’d not spoken a word to each other in the past two weeks, not
even argued, and I hated it. They’d supposed to be fine when I went to uni
because they had each other, but now I was sure I’d need to be around and I
couldn’t afford train tickets every weekend.

“I’m sure you will
do. Uni is a lot of fun. What are you studying?”

“Literature, as
long as I get the grades.” I shifted in my seat and bit. I still wasn’t sure
what Mr. Lane was doing about my coursework grade and I needed that to even
have a chance at my chosen university. I’d only earnt 600 words so far.

“Well, I upped
your grade to an A, so you only have exams to worry about now.”

We’d forgone the
idea that people could hear us talking through the partition long ago – we
definitely couldn’t hear them, even if we strained, so we were certain we were
fine to talk at will – but I still felt a little bit uncomfortable talking
about it. “Oh, cool. Thank you.”

“It’s no problem.
I know you just stuffed it up, anyway. Your other work has all been really
good.”

I’d just seen a
sign for the town where the tournament was being held and so all the jokes fell
from my lips. I really wasn’t ready for this, at all. Mr. Lane picked up on my
nerves almost instantly. “You’ll be fine,” he assured me with a carefree
manner. It would have been easier to believe him if he’d actually seen me play
before. “Besides, it’s only a tournament. Not everyone can win.”

“But they probably
could win if they had someone better playing my position.”

Mr. Lane sighed
and I jumped when I felt his arm on my bare thigh. Our badminton uniform had
always been far too revealing. “How do you know that? You haven’t seen how good
any of the teams you’re facing are yet. Just go out there and play your best,
it’s all you can do.”

The heat soaked
into me from his hand and spread through my body. It was impossible not to
imagine his lips on mine, his hands sliding upwards slightly to slip underneath
my panties. The clear plastic at the back of my head only made this exchange
even hotter.

“I suppose so.” It
was a benign sentence, but my tone was what really spoke to Mr. Lane. He gave
me a sideways glance and his fingers tightened. I shut my eyes, hoping he’d do
it. He could finger me, get me off in the front of this van and no one would
ever notice. I spread my legs further, urging him to go for it, but unfortunately
we pulled into the car park of the tournament grounds before we could go any
further.

So now I was a big
mess of nerves and desire and I wasn’t sure his gesture had helped at all.

My cheeks were so
flushed I was reluctant to even leave the vehicle, but I was forced to and
luckily no one was paying me any attention anyway. I buried my head in my bag,
checking I definitely still had my bottle of water, and trailed behind the rest
of my team as they strode onto the courts.

The sports hall was
bigger than any I’d ever seen before, but that was kind of unsurprising
considering the private school I’d just driven into. People were paying up to
eight grand a year for this place – I’d googled it, out of sheer curiosity –
which was more than my mum earnt in a year. It made me a little bit angry,
really.

Everyone was
huddled in their little groups, discussing strategies and looking altogether
confident. I’d always thought we looked the neatest and pretty well
put-together when we played matches against local school, but we were a rag-tag
bunch compared to these lot. Our uniforms looked cheap, whereas everyone else
was wearing professional kit.

I smoothed down my
rubbed up skirt and took a sip of my water. Even my standard plastic water
bottle felt a little bit inferior here.

We gathered in an
empty space and attempted to gather ourselves. I felt better by the nerves I
saw in everyone else’s faces, too. I wasn’t the only one completely overwhelmed
just by being here. “We are going to crush these snobby little bitches into the
ground,” Lorna sneered, not bothering to hide the disdain from her gaze as she
observed the room.

I stood to the
side a bit, picking at the binding on my racket, and trying not to get too
worked up. At least there was definitely no expectation on us here. We were
good in our area, but there was surely no way we could compete with these
people. They looked like they’d been doing it their entire lives.

“Damn right we
will,” our coach brought out the schedule. “Now, I’ve explained how the method
of play works once, but it’s easier with the schedule in front of us. You’ll
play six matches, two for each pairing. It’s easy to understand because you’ve
all got a number,” she handed us stickers, “and the umpire will check before
each match.”

It did sound
simple enough. “We can do this,” Lorna was really trying to pump us up, but
there were relatively forlorn faces all around. It was amazing how much
appearances could sap confidence. “Now let’s go and warm up.”

We jogged up and
down the court we were on and then did some stretches and mobility exercises.
There wasn’t any time to actually warm up with some practise games like normal,
which felt out of place. I’d normally at least had a whack-around with the
shuttlecock before getting shoved straight onto the court.

Actually doing
some exercise at least made me feel a little bit less lethargic. I spotted Mr.
Lane staring at me one time, or rather, staring at my boobs as I jogged up and
down. I hadn’t felt the need to run with my hands under my chest to stop them
bouncing since doing PE with thirteen year old boys in my class.