Three Hundred Words (9 page)

A bell echoed
around the hall and everyone hushed up. I cringed when my bottle made a loud
creaking sound where I’d been fidgeting with it as we walked back to our
huddle.. The woman who must have been running the tournament tapped her
microphone. “Welcome, everyone, to the Derbyshire Badminton tournament. We’ve
got seven sixth forms competing here today, and I’m sure there’s going to be a
very high standard of play. Keep it nice, girls! And good luck to everybody
competing. Matches begin in five minutes.”

Talking resumed
immediately and echoed around the hall, but our camp was silent. Our coach
fixed us with worried glances, before initiating a huddle like some of the
other girls did. It felt quite ridiculous. “Listen, these girls look down on
you and they don’t expect you to accomplish anything, but we already beat some
people like this to get here. You know we can do it. You’re good at the game.
Believe in yourselves and play some good matches.”

I was very
relieved she didn’t make us do some kind of chant.

I turned to my
partner, Millie, for the first two matches. Her face became even more
despondent when she realised who she was playing with. “We’ll just have to do
our best,” she muttered.

“Shouldn’t we at
least try and have some kind of strategy?”

Millie shrugged.
“Try and let me hit most of them. I’m pretty fast, so I can get to a few on
your side of the court as well. Just hit safe shots, don’t try and do anything
fancy.”

“Okay,” I took a
final sip of my water before dropping it at the side of the court and focusing
my attention on fidgeting with the racket instead. I let Millie deal with the
coin toss, whilst I hovered around and attempted to swing my racket. I felt a
bit silly and stopped, bouncing on my heels instead. That was something people
did in the professional matches.

Our opponents were
in a hushed conversation, their bodies entirely still and confident. Everything
about their body language screamed experience and I wanted to quake. Every so
often they stole glances at us and I could have sworn their lips lifted in a
smirk.

Well, that was one
way to get under someone’s skin, and I was stupid enough to fall for it.

Millie and I stood
a couple of steps apart, just waiting for the game to begin. In professional
matches, it was a best of three games where each game was the first to
twenty-one points; for the purposes of this tournament, we were only playing
one game. They normally lasted about twenty minutes, which meant nearly two
hours of actual playing time. I didn’t know if my body could physically take
that much.

Or if my brain
could concentrate on where I was actually hitting things for that long, either.

When the bell
rang, I stepped up to the net, shuttlecock ready to serve. This was the thing I
was good at – I’d practised and I knew I could do it.

My first one
soared right into the net.

I stared at it in
horror, getting ready to panic. If the second one missed and I managed to lose
us a point in the first two seconds of the game then I’d never recover.

Luckily, it peaked
just over the net like I’d intended, and the game had begun.

The girl diagonal
to me fired it back easily enough, but Millie was ready and landed a
spectacular drop-shot that they obviously hadn’t been expecting. I grinned, but
that was only the first point and we still had a long way to go – not only in
this game, but in the entire game.

Shockingly enough,
we got to twenty-twenty in our first game. I’d done nothing spectacular, just
hit some normal shots and let Millie do all the work. My serves had been good,
but I wasn’t feeling overly confident about my game in general and neither was
she. Our opponents fist bumped after every point, win or loss, and it was
obvious they’d picked that up from the pros.

Millie and I
didn’t have any kind of interaction like that.

We moved straight
onto the next point and I was forced to acknowledge there hadn’t been a lot of
teamwork.

It was my serve
for the final point.

And I smashed it.
A corner shot that the girl diagonal to me could have never reached. For the
first time, Millie and I shared a grin. “Nice work,” she praised, taking our
sheet to be filled in by the umpire after we’d shaken hands with the now
incredibly sullen girls we’d been playing against.

“Yeah, you carried
me through, though.” There was no point in denying it.

Our next match was
even better, taking home a victory with six points to spare.

It was almost a
shame we had to swap partners after that; Millie and I had found a pretty good
rhythm. No doubt she’d be just as good with someone else, though.

And hopefully my
new partner, Lorna, and I would pull through.

We didn’t. Our
chemistry was awful on the court and even though I managed some decent returns
myself we lost both games. They weren’t complete annihilations, but it was
enough to make Lorna shoot glare after glare at me throughout the match.

Going back to our
team was embarrassing, but from our results, it didn’t look like anyone was
dominating the rest of the field. It was all a bit of a mixed bag.

So Rhianne and I
still had a chance to help us bring home the tournament. Unfortunately, Rhianne
was also the person friends with Luke. She sent me a piercing dead-eye as we moved
towards our court. “Just please stay out of my way and let me handle this.”

I nodded,
scratching the back of my head and really hoping I wasn’t going to ruin this
for everyone. It turned out we actually had a shot of winning.

I served as
perfectly as I had all tournament and hoped that might be enough to impress
her. It wasn’t. She just had her head completely in the game and I supposed
that was the best thing.

She carried me in
spectacular fashion. Taking most of the shots on my side of the court and
leaving me to deal with any outliers that she just couldn’t quite reach. Even
when the opponents targeted me, Rhianne was there to cover my horrid attempts.
I hit one winner in nearly fifty points.

And yet we won
both games.

Rhianne was
good
.

And so when we
went back to the team when the bell had rung, there was silent confidence in
the camp. We’d beaten a lot of pairs.

“An excellent
tournament, girls,” the organiser droned on and I blocked her out. If we
managed to lose this I’d probably be shunned for a lifetime. If the other girl
had played they’d have won by a mile.

“And in first
place, the girls from High Borough Community School!”

We stood up and
cheered and even I was included in the hug. Our captain went to collect the
small plaque we got in reward and I was forced to accept I was going to have to
repeat this trauma at a national scale in another two weeks.

Still, for now I
was riding the high all the other girls were. We’d won the county tournament
and, even though I was by far the worst player, without me they couldn’t have
done it.

I grinned myself
silly and noticed Mr. Lane was grinning himself silly, too. We really had beat
those snobby little bitches who looked down on us.

I clasped the
straps of my bag and trailed behind the girls as we exited the hall, plenty of
harsh stares on our backs. Our coach had definitely made all the difference.

Mr. Lane stuck by
my side, but we didn’t speak. It was understood he’d be giving me a lift home
again whilst the other girls travelled with the coach.

Nothing could
bring myself to hate that arrangement, I was just too happy right now.

I slipped into his
passenger seat and Mr. Lane followed suit. For the first time since we’d
arrived at the school, he spoke to me. “Congratulations on the win.”

Part of me wanted
to argue that I’d really not done anything to contribute, but I beamed instead.
“Thank you.”

“Time to get
practising for the National Finals then!” He sent me a teasing grin.

I shook my head
instantly. “No way. Don’t go trying to make me worry so much it ruins my good
mood. Just praise me on my glorious win.”

“It
was
a
fantastic win,” he started up the engine and we were on our way home. “Your
serving was quite excellent.”

He’d followed me
around every single court, no matter how suspicious it might have looked. I had
been incredibly flattered, if not completely mortified by how poorly I’d
played. “Why thank you. It is kind of you to say so.”

Mr. Lane chuckled
to himself. “Do you have plans for the evening? Lots of celebration?”

“I doubt it. I
don’t think I’m the first thing on my parents’ minds at the moment. I wouldn’t
be surprised if they’d forgotten I’m even playing today.” I hadn’t seen either
of them when I was walking out the door this morning. My dad wasn’t in the
house at all, I was sure – probably staying with his not-so-secret lover.

“Ah, well, you’re
always welcome to come and celebrate at mine.”

It was a brave
move, to say something like that when we were only ten minutes into an hour
long drive, but he’d dared to anyway. It was a good job my ecstatic mood was
quite impenetrable. It made it easy to say “I’d like that,” without letting any
of the sadness and guilt seep in.

I didn’t have a
boyfriend anymore, and that was a good enough argument for me in the moment.

Mr. Lane’s
eyebrows shot up, but he certainly didn’t question me. “Good.”

And just like
that, the temperature in the car seemed to ramp up a notch. I’d done an awfully
good job of keeping the intimate images from my mind all day, especially after
what Mr. Lane had done just before we’d arrived, but now they all came flooding
back.

Mr. Lane’s hands
running up my thighs, us skin-to-skin, flush up against each other.

My cheeks burned
and Mr. Lane was watching me unabashedly with an intense stare and that only
made my skin hotter.

His hand moved
from the gearstick to my thigh. We were on a straight road now and he wasn’t
going to need to touch it again.

My entrance,
however, which was quickly becoming slick definitely required attention. As his
nails dragged up the exposed skin of my thigh, I leant my head backwards and
shut my eyes.

I was beyond glad
he was willing to finish the job he’d started earlier.

His fingers
slipped up my shorts, despite the tight material, and barely brushed against my
swollen clit. I let out the tiniest whine, brushing his hands away so that I
could pull down the shorts and give him complete access.

There was no
reason anyone should be able to look into the window and I was desperate enough
to not
really
care. I’d have my eyes shut, anyway.

He returned his
hand as soon as my shorts were around my ankles and I spread my legs wide. This
was a stupid idea, really. He should have been concentrating on the road, but
neither of us cared.

We were both far
too horny, far too consumed by finally being close to each other again, to care
about whether it was dangerous.

When there was a
blaring car horn from the left side, I was forced to open my eyes and Mr. Lane
slammed his hand back onto the steering wheel. He cleared his throat and his
cheeks were pink. “I think maybe we should find somewhere to pull up, instead.”
His cock twitched against his tented trousers and I was forced to agree. “You
could play with yourself until we get there, though.”

I grinned, slipping
my own hand between my spread thighs and giving him a good show. I made sure to
moan far more than was necessary so he didn’t feel the need to look at what I
was doing instead of the road.