Beach Cute, page 23
It’s a feed I’m proud of and have worked hard on. It’s a personal brand I’ve put so much effort into building and a social media presence I was trying so desperately to grow.
And now I have seventeen thousand followers.
Eighteen.
It’s gone up already.
Eighteen thousand followers who only have this fleeting interest in me because I flashed my knickers and almost drowned in a cheap lobster costume and have become the latest internet joke. I don’t dare look to see if my TikTok following has had a similar trajectory.
I feel the lump in the back of my throat and the prickle in my eyes, and a split second later tears are running down my cheeks.
“Oh, Rory.” Jodie sighs, putting an arm around me. “It’s not that bad. It’s all right.”
“Not that bad?” I cry, looking at her and the pity in her face. “Not that bad? If someone googles me if they want to work with me, this is the first thing they’ll find! Luna was—she was—Oh God, Jodie, I’m a joke! I’m never going to come back from this. Nobody’s ever going to take me seriously again. And—shit, my family is going to find my accounts, and they’ll—they’ll see…”
They’ll see all the effort I’ve been putting into social media, into my art, after nodding along when they said it wasn’t a viable career, and they’ll see all the videos that flopped and that will prove them right, and…
Her mouth twists. “I think you’re overreacting…”
But she doesn’t sound so sure, and there are more than two hundred thousand people who’ve seen that TikTok, and that’s not even counting the ones who have seen reposts across different platforms…
Some guy—my age, maybe seventeen or eighteen—barges his way into the gaggle around me.
“Are you Lobster Fail Girl?”
My life is over.
I shove the phone blindly at the hen-do women, who scramble to take it and are asking me if I’m okay, the group selfie they wanted to take forgotten, but I shove past them, running for the glowing sign that says WC to seek sanctuary.
27 Jodie
Zoe and I spend a solid half hour in the toilets, trying to coax Rory out of a stall. At least it sounds like she’s stopped crying now; all we can hear are soft, intermittent sniffles. I’d rushed outside to look for Luna when Zoe went after Rory in the wake of the #LobsterFail reveal, but she’d already gone.
As pissed off as I am at Luna for dragging me into the firing line when I’ve done nothing wrong, I hope she got back to the hotel okay. I don’t know why she had to take out how wound up she is about her heartbreak on me.
It’s not as if my own love life is so good at the minute.
The “lonely and desperate” dig was too far, and so at odds with how nice she’s been all week. The quiet, gentle voice of reason, looking out for Rory and helping coax me out of my lifelong confidence crisis…What the hell happened to trigger whatever that was?
I knead my forehead with my knuckles, head still fuzzy from all the predrinks and the shots we did when we got here. Zoe ducks out to grab us some waters, and I knock on the stall door again.
“Rory, open the door, please.”
“No. No, I can’t face it. Please, just…You and Zoe go have fun. Go find that cute guy in the khaki shorts. I’ll come and join you in a bit.”
I don’t point out that we both know that’s a lie, and she’ll either still be locked in this stall tomorrow or will make a run for it and jump in a taxi back to the hotel without telling us. I feel like I know Rory well enough that I’m convinced she won’t be persuaded to come out and enjoy the rest of the night or laugh about the whole thing. Especially given the way she reacted to finding out.
Not that I can blame her, I guess. I’d be mortified if it were me.
(I’m glad it’s not me. I’m so, so glad it’s not me. I’d never live it down. And she’s got a point—prospective employers google you. They’d find that video. I can do without something like that. Much as Mum and Gran might think it absolutely hilarious, my friends would lord it over me forever.)
“Look, why don’t you just come out and we’ll head back to the hotel, yeah?”
She doesn’t reply.
“Rory?”
A sniff.
I sigh and lean against the tile wall. This is not the fun, carefree distraction I’d envisaged for tonight. Not that it’s Rory’s fault the video’s gone viral and threatened to uproot her whole life, but it is kind of Luna’s for picking a fight with us…
Although if she were here right now, and not in a mood, I bet she’d be able to talk Rory out of that toilet stall. She’d have some rational, reasonable plan to help fix this, and she wouldn’t be too busy thinking about how relieved she is that it wasn’t her or feeling bitter about the night being spoiled.
Or maybe she would be every bit as useless as I currently feel. Maybe we don’t know her as well as we thought we did.
Zoe comes back at last.
I take a cup of water off her. “Finally! You were gone ages. Has it started to get busy out there at last, then?”
She wavers. “Um, kind of. Some of the guys from work have showed up, actually. I got caught talking to them. I guess after I mentioned we were all coming out here tonight…”
Her tone is casual enough, but she looks uneasy, not quite meeting my eye.
And then it clicks. Even though we’ve only just met tonight, something about that look makes me realize suddenly, deep in my bones, what she’s not saying.
Mouth dry, I ask, “Is he out there, too?”
Zoe’s cringe is answer enough.
There’s a little bit of movement from inside Rory’s toilet stall and her voice floats out. “Is that guy Eduardo there?”
“Yeah.” Zoe rolls her eyes at me. “Ugh, honestly, they’re fine to work with, but that crowd—they’re so immature. Real ‘poo-poo heads,’ as my kids would say. But you didn’t hear that from me,” she adds with a laugh and a wink. There’s a wobbly giggle from Rory.
No surprise Gabriel’s out with those guys, I guess.
Did he encourage them to come here, or had they already decided? Was he disappointed that he didn’t see me out there? Do I even care if he was?
Then Zoe pulls a more sympathetic face and asks, “What happened? Rory said you guys had really hit it off! And Gabe seemed super into you! Honestly, that little cocktail class you guys did—it was the worst-kept secret. Like, he shouldn’t have been doing it, but he was dead excited about it, and it was so adorable.”
“What makes you think something happened?”
“I—well, um…It’s just…”
I’d been so careful to keep my answers short and sweet earlier when she was talking to me about “Gabe,” but I’d tried to make it clear to her that I wasn’t interested in him anymore. It was bad enough that I was already a subject of ridicule and gossip, I didn’t need to add fuel to the fire, and Zoe didn’t owe me any kind of loyalty over Gabriel if I’d explained the whole thing to her anyway.
And if he said it didn’t mean anything, well, she was hardly going to judge me if I hooked up with a different guy tonight, was she?
“You know what, Rory? I’m gonna go back out there for a little bit, after all. Find that guy, like you said.”
The lock on the stall door slides open. “Jode, maybe that’s not—”
The bathroom door opens again and half of the hen do spill in. They recognize me and Zoe and one of them crows, “All right, gals! Where’s your friend, Lobster Girl?”
The lock bolts shut again. As Zoe makes up an excuse about Rory not feeling well and the women start to coo in sympathy and crowd around Rory’s stall, I slip out. I pat down my hair, brushing some of the frizzier strands off my face, and then steel myself as I emerge from the bathroom corridor and out into the club.
It’s busier now, but still not exactly packed to the rafters. The dance floor is half-full with bodies surging and writhing in time to the too-loud music pouring from the DJ booth, and there’s a queue at the bar.
I immediately spot Gabriel, nursing a bottle of beer, among some guys around my age. I think I vaguely recognize a couple from the hotel in the half-dark. They’re chattering away, laughing and jeering, drinking fast, their eyes roving over the other people in the club.
Gabriel’s easily the best-looking of the group, and even though he’s not the tallest, the way he holds himself upright against the bar, looking a little bit bored, makes him stand out from the others. My heart gives a traitorous flip-flop in my chest.
One of the guys points at me suddenly. I can’t make out what he shouts, but Gabriel’s gaze snaps toward me, pinning me to the spot, and I fight the urge to fidget with my dress or hair. His expression is closed off, unreadable, and as someone digs a playful—or maybe mocking—elbow in his ribs, I whirl around and make for the dance floor, launching myself into the fray.
I push through to the middle, hoping to lose myself in the joyful delirium of everyone else. The school-leaver boys are nearby, and I spot the bride with her tacky veil and a few of her friends. I could probably do with a little more liquid courage if I plan to dance, but there’s no way I’m going up to the bar to face Gabriel and his friends right now, so I throw my arms in the air and dip my hips to the music with a confidence I definitely don’t possess.
Fake it till you make it, I tell myself.
At least this far into the crowd, nobody can see me very well if I’m making a total fool of myself. I always preferred hanging out in the kitchen at house parties or holding down a table at a club whenever I went out with people at uni. It’s not something I’ve had a lot of practice at.
I must do something right, though, because before long a guy sidles up to me. He might be my age, or maybe the beard adds a year or two. He’s blond and has a streak of sunburn across his nose and cheeks that mark him as a tourist. He’s broad-shouldered, muscular in a way that makes me think he must spend all his free time at the gym. He’s not much taller than me. He’s cute, but he’s no Gabriel.
Which makes him perfect.
I smile back at him when he ogles me in a way I think is supposed to be an attempt at a flirty smolder, and when he steps in close and puts his hands on my waist, I keep dancing, my arms up in the air as we sway out of time with each other to a club remix of an Ed Sheeran song blaring from the speakers.
The bass thrums through me so fiercely it overtakes my pounding heartbeat, and I close my eyes, trying my best to lose myself in the music. To be part of the current, to let it carry me along this wave with everybody else and wash away the sting of being pursued because I was lonely and desperate, the humiliation that I ever believed a guy like Gabriel might have genuinely been interested in me…
I just want to forget about him. Salvage what’s left of my trip—as difficult as that might be with my plush hotel room exchanged for a shack, Luna unreasonably pissed off with me and Rory hiding in the toilets.
Turning, the blond guy pulls me in closer to him, hands snaking around to hold my front while he presses his lips to my shoulder. I squirm a little, the sensation of his lips on me pulling me too close back to reality. His breath is warm and damp against my neck, and I give up, forced to admit to myself that for all my posturing earlier, this is not the distraction I’m looking for.
When I open my eyes, I find Gabriel standing right in front of me. Something burns in the depths of his lovely brown eyes, and his mouth is pressed into a grim line. A furrow has set in deep between his eyebrows.
I stand still and meet his gaze.
“Oi, shove off, mate!” the boy behind me shouts to him.
I extricate myself from his arms and step up to Gabriel. The guy mutters, annoyed, but goes back to dancing and enjoying himself without me quickly enough.
For a moment, Gabriel and I stand there, people twisting and swaying around us, bodies bumping into us as we stay completely still, the eye of the storm.
“Well, muchas gracias for scaring him off,” I tell Gabriel, as though I didn’t push the guy away all on my own. “Did you come here just to spoil my night? Just because we kissed, it doesn’t mean—”
“It does,” he interrupts, shifting closer. Close enough that I can feel the heat of his body, that I can’t help but glance at his lips and notice the sadness etched into his frown. In spite of how loud the music is, his voice is low and makes me shiver when he says, “Significas mucho para mí.”
But I shake my head, refusing to be drawn in by that sultry voice and his good looks.
“I don’t mean anything to you. You said so yourself. This is just you playing games with me. Trying to convince me to get into bed with you to make it all worth it.” I give him a mirthless smirk, hoping if I sound sharp enough it’ll push him away and he’ll give up. Maybe his friends egged him on, or this is to appease a guilty conscience because he got caught.
Gabriel swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. My eyes catch on the movement and drop down to the planes of his chest beneath his plain white T-shirt, his arms…
I snap my gaze away.
One of his friends appears out of nowhere, grabbing his shoulder and shouting something in his ear with a laugh. My Spanish isn’t good enough to follow it, but it doesn’t sound especially kind, whatever it is. Gabriel pushes him off with a scowl and shouts something back that I don’t understand either, but I recognize his tone well enough to understand it probably means “piss off.”
The music shifts, and it’s Abba. The crowd goes nuts, jumping into the air with arms flailing as everyone yells along to “Voulez-Vous.”
I’m about to join them, to turn my back on Gabriel and let him know just how little I think of him, how little he means to me, too, but, as if sensing what I’m about to do, he catches my wrist, his fingers warm and light on my skin, and steps close enough that his body brushes against my side.
“Please, Jodie.” His head dips low, probably so I can hear him better, but it makes me shiver and want to lean into him. “Let me explain. Please.”
I don’t owe him anything. Not even the chance to talk his way out of this.
But he sounds so earnest, so regretful…And, just like the girls pointed out that I’d regret not putting myself out there and always wondering “what if” when I went back home, I know I’d regret not hearing him out now.
So I nod, and Gabriel gives a sigh of relief. I let my hand slip into his and follow him away from the commotion of the club so we can talk, just the two of us.
28 Luna
The taxi fare is extortionate. The hotel reception is quiet as I trudge through it. There are lights on around the pool, and the water casts an ethereal glow, turquoise shadows dancing on the umbrellas that are still up.
By contrast, the beach bar is lively. I slow down as I get closer and can hear it: music and chatter and people having a great time, enjoying themselves and their vacation. I keep walking.
When the path turns toward the luxury villas under renovation—to the sorry shack we’re staying in—I don’t follow it. I walk straight on, into the sand. My heels sink quickly and I stumble, throwing my arms out to brace myself.
I give up and flop down, reaching for my feet to wrestle off my shoes. These awful, awful shoes I didn’t even really want to wear. I’m so bloated from all the drinking earlier, and from my period being due, that the waistband of my dress feels like it’ll cut me in half now that I’ve sat down. I undo the zip down the side, not caring what it looks like or who might see, but I don’t seem to be able to breathe any easier for it. I hook the straps of my shoes over a finger and push myself off the sand.
I struggle to get up, but once I’m up I keep going.
The sand is warm and soft on my bare feet, and I make my way toward the sea, where the sand is packed tight and cooler. I drift closer until the waves wash over my feet, and continue walking along the shore, my shoes and bag swinging from my hand, dress gaping loose at my side.
It’s dark, but out here the stars seem so bright.
After a while, I get to a patch of rocks. I climb onto them, knowing that Sane Luna, Normal Luna, would never do something like this. Climbing onto a big pile of rocks next to the sea in the dark after getting drunk is a terrible, terrible idea, a recipe for the sort of cautionary article I’d send my friends with a headline like “Young woman drowns at luxury beachside resort!”
I throw down my shoes and bag and press my hands over my face.
I am such a fool.
I can’t believe I went off like that. It’s not the adrenaline-fueled blur that breaking up with Liam was. No, this time I can remember every word I said, every glimmer of emotion on the girls’ faces, and my whole chest seems to cave in on itself. I can’t believe I was so nasty to Rory and that I made those remarks to Jodie about Gabriel, and…I was so horrible to them.
And why? Because I can’t deal with the fact that my closest friends might be two girls who I’ve known for all of five days? Because I was jealous that they’re both so much more outgoing than I am, with their vacation fling and new friend Zoe, and I feel like I’ve lost my boyfriend, my future and my old friends in one fell swoop?
I like to be in control of my life. I’m a problem solver. I like to have things in order and to think about consequences, and I like to be prepared. Those are all things I’m good at.
And what’s it got me?
A vacation from hell. An ex-boyfriend I’m starting to think I probably should have dumped a long time ago and friends who are really just people whose Instagram stories I watch and react to.
I’m aware that I might have latched on to Rory and Jodie a bit much, what with the three of us being more or less the same age and thrown together without any of the outside world on our phones to distract us. But—but you don’t just click with people like that unless you’ve got a real friendship, right?
