It Starts with Love

Chapter 5 - Compliment-y

A/N: Here's a fairly happy chapter :) I decided to postpone drama for a little bit but we'll have more of that soon enough. Btw, I used a few Filipino words in here so here's what they mean. Ate means older girl, it's a term that's usually used for older girl siblings. Bwiset means annoying LOL guess who's annoying.

    It was an early day for Taliana. She had a morning practice that was already promising to be brutal. It was one of those late to bed, early to rise days. Her sister had snuck into her room in the middle of the night and they spent hours catching up with each other. Taliana blames Karla for her lack of sleep so she saw it fit to drag her sister with her to practice.

    "I'm jetlagged, ate Talia! Please let me go back to the hotel to sleep," Karla whined on the way to the practice courts.

    "If I'm going to suffer from lack of sleep, so are you." Taliana looked back at her sister and continued, "Get your ass moving. James doesn't like it when I'm late."

    "Stupid tennis," Karla muttered.

    "Don't hate the game, sis."

    Taliana's thoughts became slightly unpleasant when she spotted Sascha and Belinda in the practice courts. Belinda had been enlisted as her practice partner. The Swiss girl had found out that she needed one and decided to be nice and help her out. If only Sascha hadn't opened his big mouth, Taliana would not have to endure an hour with Belinda.

    "Hey, Sascha!" Karla shouted in excitement. Sascha had grown on her, obviously.

    "Good morning, champ and junior," Sascha greeted the sisters with a hug. The nickname never gets old, it still makes Taliana smile.

    "Morning. Hey, Belinda."

    "Morning, Talia and little Talia," Belinda said. "I'm Belinda, a friend of your sister's."

    Karla giggled. "Hello."

    "I can see where the 'junior' nickname came from. You look so much like Talia. But what's with the champ thing?" Belinda wondered.

    "She won in Madrid. I won in Madrid. We're champions so champ," Sascha explained.

    "Nice, very humble, Sasch." Belinda shoved him playfully and Sascha retaliated by pulling on her ponytail. They looked so intimate that Taliana felt like she was intruding so she turned away and started pulling out her racquet from her bag.

    "Bwiset," Taliana muttered.

    "What's that?" Sascha asked.

    "Nothing."

    James arrived in a few minutes. He introduced himself to Belinda then thanked her for coming. They began their practice session without any more chitchat. Sascha sat himself on the bench beside the court and observed with Karla. He folded his arms across his chest, his mouth pulled into a frown. Taliana smiled to herself as she noticed his serious expression. Belinda had noticed it, too. On the other hand, Karla was practically falling off her chair while sleeping.

    Their practice session went well and Taliana was spent. Belinda, in all fairness to her, was a good hitting partner. She wasn't overly aggressive but still played well enough to challenge Taliana. James met the two girls in the court.

    "Belinda, thank you very much for today. It was a very productive session. If I may give you a piece of advice?" James wondered.

    "Sure, go ahead."

    "Your movement is a little restricted. If you move more, you'll be able to cover more of the court."

    "My coach's been telling me that for a while now. Thanks, James," Belinda said. Then James went back to his seat, he was examining his clipboard which contained his list of workouts and game plan. Belinda turned to Taliana, "Is he always that intense?"