She's back ~ L. Hamilton

36. | Italy

I was alone on the court.

I'd booked this court for myself on one of the local tennis clubs for the week I was here in Italy.

They were more than happy to accommodate for me, letting me pick any of their courts for the one I wanted to rent. I chose the one furthest from the clubhouse, it was also blocked off well from the main footpaths by the large oak trees.

In the distance I could hear a faint chatter of a group of people as they played and laughed on another court. The only noise coming from my court was my heavy breathing, the noise of the ball machine firing balls at me, and me returning them to the other side of the net.

What the fuck was I doing?

Helping Lewis Hamilton of all people with something. My brother doesn't hate many people, but the people he does he absolutely despises, and Lewis is at the tippy top of that list.

And again, I'm Delaney Fucking Ricciardo, the greatest tennis player to ever live, and I'm spending my time teaching a beginner how to bit a ball.

Fuck.

If he wasn't hosting a charity tournament there wouldn't be a chance I would be doing this. But I've spent the past five years working with charities and I know how much work it is to organise these things, so I might as well help a tiny bit.

It was kind of sweet, come to think of it, that he was doing all this, hosting a massive tennis tournament in aid of charity. Most people that do something like that would be retired or have a lot of free time, but he's in the middle of one of the biggest years in his racing career—

"You want someone proper to play against or is that machine satisfying you enough" A voice said, breaking me out of my train of thought about this whole situation

I wiped my face on my top, wiping the sweat that had formed from running around in this heat.

Liam was standing at the gate, leaning against the pole on one side of it, his kit bag hanging from his arm.

"What are you doing here?" I called, walking over to the bench where I had dropped my stuff, grabbing my bottle of water

"I heard my tennis partner was in town" he shrugged, pushing off the pole and walking towards me "I haven't seen you for a while, not including that time in Burnswood"

"Sorry about your loss" I said

"It's alright, my own fault, I shouldn't have lost my shit like that" Liam said "thanks for helping me out, you stopped me from getting disqualified completely"

"You would've done the same for me"

"Why do I have a sneaky feeling at some point I will have to do the same" he smiled

"I don't know what your talking about, only men loose their shit like that"

"Whatever you say Delaney" he laughed "now come on, your not going to win the French Open by sitting around and playing against a ball machine all day"

Three hours later and we were dead. Both of us were lying on the ground under some shade like starfish as we caught our breath.

"I won" I said

"Yeah I know" Liam mumbled,

"What are you doing for the rest of the day?" I asked after a minute

"Nothing planned, why?"

"Why don't you come to the Grand Prix qualifying, I hate third wheeling with Daniel and Heidi"

"Wouldn't tickets be too hard to get, it starts in a couple of hours?"