The Summer Switch-Off, page 28
I break the kiss first; Gabriel leans forward as I pull back, though, groaning melodramatically as his lips finally part from mine. I feel him smile, and don’t mind that his hands tighten around me to stop me from going anywhere.
‘Okay, that was all,’ I tell him, patting my hands against his chest. ‘You can go back home now.’
He chuckles. It’s such a loud, hearty sound, and it wraps around me like a hug.
‘I’m sorry I dragged you in on your day off. I didn’t realize, um …’
He doesn’t even shrug, just keeps smiling at me. ‘I was glad Rafael called. I thought you would be with your friends today.’
‘I did promise I’d meet up with them for dinner.’
He tugs me back closer to him with a cheeky wink. ‘If I can spare you.’
My heart skitters, and all I can think is: I’m done for.
Gabriel sweet-talks the kitchen into packing us a picnic. They make us chicken salad sandwiches, the baguettes still warm and soft, some fruit salad, and they even throw in a bottle of cava, glasses and everything. The bottle is still sweating when Gabriel pops it open on the beach.
He’s brought us out in the opposite direction to last night, beyond the beach villas and far out of the way of any wandering guests. The palm trees are thicker here, and there’s a cluster of rocks near the shore. We sit on the sand and munch our way through the picnic and sip our cava, the sun beating down on us. It’s quiet all the way out here – private, almost. You can only just see the beach bar – if you squint. The people are dots in the distance.
‘You’re not going to ask if me and Rory made up with Luna after last night?’ I ask him eventually.
He scoffs, leaning back on one elbow and reaching for a piece of mango from the bowl of fruit salad. ‘Por favor, querida, you were always going to make up. The three of you, it’s like …’ He considers it for a moment. ‘Like the Doctor, Rory and Amy.’
‘I guess Rory is Rory in that analogy.’
He laughs, only just hearing it once I point it out.
‘I think that’s a compliment,’ I go on. ‘I’m going to take it as a compliment.’
‘Claro que sí. You three have a bond, ¿sabes? If you hadn’t told me, I would have thought you had all been friends for years. One fight is nothing. But I am glad to hear you made up.’
I tell him that Luna apologized and seems to be in crisis about how she doesn’t have any friends back home and about breaking up with her boyfriend, and how Rory has decided to make the most of the #LobsterFail thing. Gabriel is in stitches just thinking about the video – laughing so much he’s even snorting, wheezing, gasping for air.
It’s maybe the most unattractive laugh I have ever heard – and it is utterly infectious.
I get a warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach thinking how much more I like him now that I’ve found something not flawless about him.
Oh, God, why do I like him so much?
Gabriel takes a sip of his cava, but then I say, ‘And the fact she tried to go back into the pool to get the bloody costume …’ and he chokes on the drink, snorting cava from his nose and sending me into hysterics.
I fall onto my back and have to roll on my side, turning away from him as he wipes his face and tries to stop coughing, and I try to calm down. I genuinely think I might wet myself laughing – and it would still be less unattractive than Gabriel right now.
By the time we both get a grip and he’s tidied himself up, I’ve got a stitch, and my cheeks ache. My eyes slide closed behind my sunglasses.
‘You’re lucky you’ve got such lovely earlobes,’ I tell him, ‘or I’d be long gone.’
He throws a grape at me. It bounces off my nose.
‘Don’t,’ I whine. ‘I haven’t got the energy left to laugh again.’
‘How about for this?’
He is smooth. Cava-snorting-out-the-nose and all.
Gabriel has shifted so he’s leaning over me, his hands planted either side of my shoulders, and he leans down so slowly to kiss me. His soft lips skim lightly along my jaw, kiss under my ear, bite gently at my skin, suck at the bottom of my neck. And I swoon, making soft little humming noises as my hands grip his shoulders and arms, then rake through his hair and eventually move under his shirt …
His skin is hot and smooth, and his hips press against me as my hands slide up his chest and pull his T-shirt off. Gabriel’s lips leave my skin for the split second it takes for him to duck out of his T-shirt, and I ogle him shamelessly, making up for the darkness of last night. He chuckles when he catches me looking, but then he’s busy returning the favour, undressing me bit by bit, kissing and caressing my body as he goes. He lingers over each of my breasts, tender in a way that feels reverent, my self-consciousness melting away under his mouth and hands.
I arch into his touch, heat pooling in my stomach as his hands travel lower; he murmurs sweet nothings in a mixture of English and Spanish against my skin, compliments that make me every bit as dizzy and delirious as the curl of his fingers and caress of his tongue. My fingers fist in his hair, hips canting towards him as I moan his name before dragging him back up to kiss him and fumble to undo his trousers. A low groan stutters out of him when my hand wraps around him in long, slow strokes, and the sound makes my heart flutter, scattering the last scraps of my self-consciousness. I draw Gabriel in close, my legs wrapping around his hips, and cup his face in my hands, sand brushing off my thumbs as I trace the lines of his face.
He presses his forehead to mine, our breath mingling, and I have that same feeling as last night: that whatever happens next, this is worth it, and it means something.
I’m not the kind of girl who goes totally giddy over a guy she fancies, and I didn’t think I was the kind of girl to have sex with a guy she’s only known for a few days on the beach – twice.
But it turns out, I am exactly that girl. And I’ve never been so happy about it.
I am also, it turns out, the kind of girl who goes skinny-dipping with a guy she’s known for five days and just had sex with on a beach.
Droplets of seawater glisten on Gabriel’s olive skin. With his wet hair slicked back off his face, he has kind of a big forehead. I’m weirdly thrilled to find something else that’s a little less than perfect about him.
We both float near the rocks. The water is calm, waves rocking gently against us. I can just about stand on tiptoe here, but Gabriel’s arms are holding me up and my feet don’t touch the bottom. I’d make a joke about him sweeping me off my feet, but it would be a little too accurate.
‘I wanted to kiss you the day I met you,’ he tells me. ‘When you asked me for that cocktail class, I almost said no.’
‘You did?’
He nods, looking grave, but a small smile tugs at his lips. ‘I knew I would like you. Y me dio miedo. It scared me, ¿sabes? But it is like I said – I thought a short while with you would be better than wondering what if. I haven’t met anybody before who makes me want to be … so much myself.’
Oh, man. Just when I thought he couldn’t be any sweeter. He looks so vulnerable right now, too, with that pucker between his thick eyebrows and the way his lips pout. I can’t resist pressing a kiss to them.
‘It’s hard for me to open up to people, too,’ I say. ‘Luna and Rory – and you – are the first people I’ve been honest with in … God, years. I didn’t even tell my mum and my gran exactly how much I’ve been struggling being away at uni. I didn’t want them to think I was … being soft. Giving up.’
‘Are you going to tell them?’
‘Yeah. Yes,’ I say, more definitely. ‘My friends – so-called friends – make everything feel like a competition, but all that does is drag me down. The people who matter, like my mum, my gran … even Rory and Luna – they won’t see it as a wasted opportunity, or think I’m letting anyone down.’
‘What are you going to do next?’ he asks.
I’ve always known what’s next. Not in the way Luna did, with her five-year plan and her whole life so carefully thought out, but in terms of: school, exams, uni, graduate scheme, job. It’s a path that’s been hewn out by the thousands of students who’ve gone before me, and I’ve been following it blindly.
My arms hook a little tighter around Gabriel’s neck, both of us bobbing through the water on a fresh wave. A giggle slips out of my lips as I smile, and kiss him, and say, ‘I don’t know. Isn’t that exciting?’
And then, stealing a bit of this newfound courage about my future, I ask him why he wanted to kiss me on that first night we met.
‘I liked the look on your face.’
‘You mean when I was gawping at how fit you are?’ I blurt.
He laughs, though looks flattered. ‘You seemed like you were the kind of person who –’ he takes a minute to find the words – ‘doesn’t take shit off anybody. Like you know who you are, what you want, and nobody can take that away from you.’
Well, now I’m flattered.
I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.
‘Gracias.’
His eyes are hooded, and he tugs me closer, fingers dancing up my sides. ‘I like when you speak Spanish, querida.’
‘I like when you call me querida.’
I sense the shift in the conversation before he speaks again, the seriousness that we’ve allowed to sneak in around the edges of our flirting and gentle confessions. ‘Are you …’ Gabriel stops, glancing down, a frown slipping onto his beautiful face. I feel his spine stiffen and shoulders tense. ‘You leave tomorrow.’
‘Yeah,’ I murmur. I get what he’s angling at, and I can feel my heart racing. But somehow I gulp down the lump in my throat and say, ‘We could stay in touch, maybe. If – if you wanted. I mean, I’d … I’d like … that.’
Gabriel’s forehead is pressed to mine once more, and his lips ghost over my skin. He draws me closer and my legs wrap around him. ‘I would like that, too, querida.’
I kiss him again, and I have never been happier to be that kind of girl.
CHAPTER 37
Luna
‘You done?’
‘I think so.’
I’ve borrowed some pages at the back of Rory’s notebook, at her insistence, to make a list of pros and cons of my relationship with Liam. After her little pep talk before lunch, I admitted that I hoped that this week would somehow magically cure my heartbreak, but I’m a bit scared that when I get home, I’ll see a text from him or run into him somewhere, and cave and beg for him back.
To which Rory had declared, ‘No. You know what you need? A good old-fashioned pros and cons list.’
I took a lot of convincing to do this.
Partly because I was afraid of what I’d find out. (What if there were so many pros that I realized I’d made the world’s biggest mistake, and he wouldn’t take me back, like I’d been worried about all week? And what if there weren’t as many pros as I thought, proving how much time I’d wasted with him and been a fool to stay with him?)
But, honestly, it just made me feel like a terrible person. I like planning. I like lists. But reducing Liam, and our four-year relationship, and all the plans I had to marry him and have kids with him, and the way I’d pictured our lives together … Reducing all that down to a list just felt wrong.
It took me ages to get about three things on the list, but once I found my groove it became frighteningly easy to add to it, an outpouring of months of feeling like I didn’t know who he was anymore, feeling left behind and lesser, not fitting into his new life at uni. Rory was right when she said I had probably bitten my tongue around Liam plenty of times, rather than be honest with him about something he’d done that upset or annoyed me.
Most of the list consists of fleeting moments that it feels petty to hold a grudge over, but they all add up to something larger – something that made me have a complete meltdown and end things, unable to take it anymore.
Now I skim through the three pages of ‘cons’ while Rory watches me.
‘It kind of turned from a list into one long rambling rant,’ I confess in a mumble, a little ashamed now I’m sitting back and reviewing the pages. I cringe, groaning and pushing the notebook to the edge of my towel. ‘I don’t need Reddit to pass judgement. Oh gosh. Why did you make me do this? No, don’t read it!’
But too late – she’s already grabbed the notebook and is flicking through it. She arches her eyebrows at me and says, ‘Hey, if you can snoop, I can snoop.’
I bury my face in my hands, pull my knees up to my forehead and groan again.
‘Mate,’ Rory scoffs after a moment, ‘you are definitely not the one in the wrong here. The cheating was totally out of line, obviously, but are you kidding me? He could find the money to go out with his mates and buy video games, but not to get you a Christmas present? Are you shitting me? What a douchebag. God. I’m sorry, Miss Lola, but why did you put up with this guy for four years? He sounds bloody awful. Ugh. You are much better off without him.’
I expect to cringe again, and I’m ready to defend him, but the words die on my tongue when I realize I’m not embarrassed.
I’m … relieved?
I’m relieved.
I’m glad she thinks that about him. I’m glad she’s looked at that list of pros and cons, read all the sweet, lovely things about him that I miss, and still believes I’m better off without him.
She thinks he’s a douchebag. And awful. And that I put up with him.
‘You know what?’ I say suddenly, sitting up a bit straighter. ‘You’re right. I am better off without him. He was never going to change. Not for me, not with me. He just made me tired, and what kind of relationship is that? What kind of person would I be if I stayed with him?’
‘You’d be settling,’ Rory tells me. ‘That’s what! And you’d be miserable and resentful and you’d get divorced after your third kid when he forgot to buy “the big present” for the first kid’s tenth birthday, and by then all the stress would’ve given you wrinkles and grey hair and saggy boobs.’
I gasp and clutch my boobs. ‘Don’t say such blasphemous things.’ I crack a smile, though, and say more softly, ‘Maybe I should’ve broken up with him a long time ago.’
‘Nah. Nu-uh. Don’t go worrying about stuff like that. Look, you guys had a great run, but it ran its course, and now you realize what a goddamn catch you are and get over him. Which, honestly, you really need to do. I mean, you thought Zoe was Liam’s rebound. Zoe. The kids’ rep.’
I laugh, but it quickly turns into a pitiful moan of humiliation. I feel my cheeks flame. ‘Please don’t remind me.’
Rory’s face scrunches up, her brown eyes glittering. ‘Mm, you did go a bit bananas. But it’s okay.’ She pats my leg. ‘All the best ones do.’
I get a similar pep talk from Jodie when she meets us for dinner. Her hair is matted with salt water and sand, her clothes are rumpled, and she looks so completely happy with herself that we immediately know how well her afternoon with Gabriel went.
So instead, she and Rory quiz me on my relationship with Liam until I feel like they know everything about our four years together.
And they’re right.
I deserve better.
Liam made me happy, for a while, but not towards the end. Not really, and not enough. And that’s not his fault. (Well, it is, but … not completely.) What I mean is, I’m sure he will make someone else very happy one day, maybe. But that someone is not me, and that’s okay.
‘I’m not saying I need someone better than Liam,’ I declare, placing my hands flat on the table. Rory’s shovelling profiteroles into her mouth and tries to say something, but then shakes her head and waves it off while she chews. ‘I’m just saying I need someone different. I am a grown-ass woman,’ I tell them. Jodie nods and Rory slaps the table in support. ‘And I did the right thing. I deserve someone who fits with me, and doesn’t wear me out.’
‘Oh, babe, you need someone who wears you out,’ Rory tells me. ‘Just, you know. In the right way.’
Jodie hoots with laughter.
‘You’re right! And I can be on my own,’ I go on. ‘I don’t need him around to make me happy because he didn’t anymore. I’m better off without him.’
And, for once, I don’t feel like it’s something that if I say it enough, if I pretend hard enough, I might be able to convince myself.
I say it because it’s true.
CHAPTER 38
Rory
Gabriel, God bless him, helps us with our luggage from the villa. He walked Jodie back this morning (from … wherever they spent the night) and stuck around to give us a hand with our things.
For that alone, he is the new standard by which I will hold all romantic interests in my life.
(After Jodie hung out with us for a while at dinner, positively glowing and with a huge smile plastered on her face and a dreamy look in her eyes, she went back to find Gabriel. And I can only guess, judging by the fact she’s still smiling, and humming away to herself while she packs and gets ready, that it was a really bloody good night.)
And when I say Gabriel is helping us with our things, I mean mostly mine.
I have to admit defeat and get the girls to help me repack my suitcase. I have no idea how Hannah got everything in there. Luna does her best to help me roll my clothes up as tiny as possible, but I still end up with a handful of bras and a pair of wedges in my carry-on bag. In the end, Jodie has to sit on top of my suitcase, with Gabriel wrestling the zips to make it shut.
I also don’t remember my suitcase being nearly this heavy when we got here.
‘Must be all the memories you’re taking back with you,’ Luna jokes.
‘I swear to God, if this is the cheesy crap you come out with, I will stop being your friend the second that plane lands.’
She only laughs though.
In the hotel reception, I take my case from Gabriel. He and Jodie hang back. Her hands are gripping his T-shirt like she physically can’t bear to let go, pulling him into her with their heads tipped close together as they talk softly. Gabriel’s lovely, lovely arms are wrapped around Jodie, his thumbs stroking her back.
