Chapter 19
Hannah woke up in her bed, wondering why she was wearing only her underwear underneath the covers instead of her usual pyjamas.
When she moved her head, however, she was instantly greeted with a monumental headache and groaned as the hangover swept over her.
Her grandmother’s birthday party, she reminded herself. Frankie’s infamous cocktails, of course. But there was something else, said her conscience, nagging at her. What was it?
She glanced over to where she saw the clothes she had been wearing the previous night folded up neatly on a chair. And when she looked down she saw someone had also placed a bucket next to the bed in case she had been ill.
Someone practical, she realised. Who?
And then she remembered stripping off in front of Alex on the beach. Was there anything worse? Presumably not as she realised that she was still wearing her underwear. So what? Then the memories came flooding back. She had kissed Alex. And then promptly been sick.
She groaned and drew the duvet over her head, praying for some kind of imminent death rather than having to face him.
What had she been thinking of? Kissing Alex? Of course, he was handsome, funny, kind, built like the athlete he was. But still, Alex?
She hadn’t kissed anyone since Sean. Getting close to a man was complicated.
Caused pain, as she knew only too well. Of course, Alex was nothing like Sean.
He was better in every way. But the shame rushed over her all the same.
She had leapt on him and kissed him. She didn’t think she would ever recover from the embarrassment.
There was a knock on the door and as it opened, she prayed it wasn’t Alex.
Thankfully it was her best friends, all looking equally hungover. As the hotel hadn’t been full, Beth and Ella had slept in one of the guest bedrooms the previous evening. Not that it looked as if it had a particularly refreshing stay, given their grey faces.
‘What did Frankie put in those cocktails?’ asked Ella, sinking down onto the bed with a groan.
‘Please don’t mention the cocktails,’ moaned Beth, clutching her head.
Lily placed a tray on the bed, laden with mugs full of coffee, glasses of water and a pile of toast.
‘I’m not sure I can face food,’ muttered Hannah.
‘You were pretty bad,’ said Ella, with a nod as she picked up a mug.
‘Yeah, I haven’t seen you that bad in, like, forever,’ said Beth thoughtfully.
‘Where did you disappear to?’ asked Lily. ‘One moment you were in the snug, the next you went off.’
‘Alex said that you wanted a swim,’ said Ella, shaking her head. ‘Good job he was there to stop you.’
Hannah groaned and put her head in her hands.
‘What?’ asked Lily.
Hannah sighed. ‘I may or may not have decided to go skinny dipping in my drunken state,’ she told them.
Shocked laughter rang around the bed.
‘Nooo!’ said Ella, laughing. ‘That’s too funny!’
‘No, it’s not,’ replied Hannah. ‘It’s mortifying.’
‘So you stripped naked in front of Alex?’ Beth’s eyes were on stalks as she stared at her friend.
Hannah shook her head which made everything go a bit swimmy so she sank back against the pillows. ‘Just down to my underwear,’ she told them, trying to keep the duvet from showing that was all she was still wearing, but her friends were putting two and two together.
‘Did you walk back through the hotel in your underwear?’ asked Lily, shocked.
‘From what I remember, Alex had to walk me back,’ said Hannah, frowning. ‘How utterly mortifying.’
‘Rubbish,’ Ella told her. ‘So what? You should be thanking him. Alcohol and swimming never ends well.’
Hannah stayed silent.
‘Unless there’s something else,’ said Lily, studying her with narrow eyes. ‘There is, isn’t there?’
‘How would you know?’ asked Hannah, feeling defensive.
‘Because you’re about as good an actor as your big brother, which is absolutely terrible,’ said Lily, with a grin.
‘So what gives?’ asked Beth.
Hannah sighed. ‘So I stripped off down to my underwear in front of him,’ she began. ‘And, like you said, he stopped me going into the lake.’
‘Thank goodness,’ added Ella, with a firm nod.
Hannah put her hands over her face and groaned. ‘And then I kissed him,’ she said, her words muffled against her palms.
There was a long silence before she peeped through her fingers where she found her three best friends grinning at her.
‘It’s not funny,’ she told them.
‘It kind of is,’ said Ella, with a wide smile.
‘A romantic kiss?’ asked Beth, all starry eyed.
‘Not really,’ said Hannah, grimacing.
‘What did Alex do?’ asked Lily, getting to the point.
‘Nothing,’ said Hannah, feeling a dull pain.
She felt rejected even though it had been the absolute right thing for Alex to do.
‘He was the perfect gentleman.’ Hannah frowned.
‘Then it all gets a bit hazy. I’m pretty certain I threw up and then the next thing I remember is him helping me inside and up here. I’m so embarrassed!’
‘It’s Alex,’ said Lily with a shrug. ‘He’ll be fine about it, I’m sure.’
‘Yeah, he’ll laugh it off,’ added Beth. ‘You just need to talk to him.’
Hannah grimaced. ‘I’d rather just pretend that it never happened, to be honest.’
‘He’s one of Ben’s oldest friends,’ said Lily. ‘He’ll understand. We’ve all been drunk at one time.’
‘Yeah, what’s the problem?’ asked Ella. ‘You’ve known him for years.’
‘What if he thinks that I’m awful?’ said Hannah.
‘He would never think that,’ Lily told her.
Hannah shrugged off the duvet and shakily stood up. ‘I’m going for a shower to drown my sorrows,’ she told them.
As she stood under the powerful jets of water, she thought back to what her friends had been trying to tell her. Yes, Alex was lovely. After all, he was safe. Her brother’s best friend. It was fine.
Why on earth had she kissed him? Was it because she actually liked him?
Yes, he was supremely fit. It worked well with the ladies, so she’d heard. Or rather, tried not to hear. She always knew where she was with him. Safe. Trustworthy… and yet suddenly she felt in unfamiliar territory, as if something had changed between them.
Of course it hadn’t, she reminded herself, feeling cross. It was just one drunken kiss, that was all.
After all, they never flirted with each other. Besides, she wasn’t sporty enough for him. Nor tall. Nor anything. She most definitely wasn’t his type.
Aimee was absolutely his type on paper. She was everything that Hannah wasn’t. Confident, athletic and far more suited to Alex than she could ever be.
Hannah decided there was no way she was interested in him.
No way. Yes, she’d checked him out in his swimwear but she was allowed to look at him, wasn’t she?
After all, he was the most handsome guy she knew.
She knew him so well. And he knew her too.
Which was why nothing was going to happen, she told herself.
So why did she keep replaying the kiss in her mind and wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t been drunk? Would he have kissed her back?
It didn’t matter, she realised. Because she had seen how relationships worked out in the end. There was too much pain to take the risk.
So she would force herself to think of Alex as the friend he had always been. And that would be the end of it, wouldn’t it?