Chapter Five
Jenna
Where is my brother when I need him? I want him here with me, rescuing me, not saving the resort from a bubble bath tsunami.
I need him here to laugh at the ridiculousness of my thinking a man possibly ten years younger than me was interested in me.
I need him to join me in snorting at how that young man is now flirting with the most attractive woman in the resort, a woman who could easily be fifteen years younger than me.
Of course, men like him go for girls like her.
I’m not surprised. It's human, and I don’t mean that flippantly.
Most of us allosexuals are wired to look for aesthetically attractive people so that we, in the simplest terms, can produce attractive offspring.
It’s what we are wired to do. Throw in some very restrictive beauty standards exploited by capitalism and colonialism, and of course, this man is going to choose that woman over me.
With this in the forefront of my mind, my brain has a path it is comfortable walking down to explain away this rejection.
And yet still my stomach sinks. Why do I feel like I have a bruise growing all over my body?
Why is the rejection making my throat dry and my eyes sting with the potential tears?
Why do I feel like I lost a lot more than just a fun one-night stand with a man far too young to be anything more?
I quickly tell myself that I shouldn't feel so downhearted that the first real flirtation I've enjoyed since my divorce is now over. I should be happy I had a little fun for a few minutes and that even watching him walk to the bar - a visual I know I can and will mentally summon again, possibly along with the soundtrack of Donna Summer’s Love to Love You Baby – is on hand for me later in my villa with my vibrator.
I nod once as I realise what else will help me feel a bit better; taking control of this situation. I don’t need to sit here and wallow while this younger woman gets to hear the filthy things that I want Marty to say in my ear. I get up and head to the bar.
“Hi,” I say as soon as I’m in earshot.
“Oh, Jenna, shit, sorry, I got distracted.” Marty turns and looks genuinely surprised to see me, which only goes to confirm he'd either completely forgotten about me or he's now unsettled at the prospect of me interrupting his best lines for this young woman who is unbearably more beautiful now I'm standing next to her. Her naturally blonde hair – I know it’s natural because I’m studying her roots far too keenly – floats down her back, almost to her waist, which is impossibly narrow and wrapped in a tight spaghetti-strap vest top that disappears into high-rise, high-cling and just, wow, high-impact figure-hugging jeans.
While she has the proportions of a 1980s supermodel, her face is that of a 1940s movie star, with prominent cheekbones, a narrow nose, elegant dark brows and olive-green eyes which keenly measure whatever, or whoever, she looks at.
“Hello,” she says, looking as suspicious of me as I feel of her.
“Hi,” I say with my thinnest smile.
“Shit, sorry,” Marty slaps his forehead. “Maeve, Jenna. Jenna, Maeve.”
I blink at him in disbelief. Does he expect me to pull up a stool and chat with them?
“Nice to meet you, Maeve, but listen, Marty, sorry to interrupt.” I wince at my apology because whatever I'm feeling, it's not sorry. At least not to him. Sorry for myself? Absolutely. “Did you already order that drink, because I think I'll just get a glass of wine and take-”
Marty cuts in, “Oh, yeah, I did order it but no problem. I'll get you a wine as well. Maeve, do you want a drink?”
My mouth falls open.
“Nah,” Maeve says, now looking at her phone. Her fingers are moving quicker than my heart rate, which is lining up with the speed of my thoughts. What a mess. Did I simply imagine the previous words we shared? Did I hallucinate the way he pointed his finger at me? What the hell is going on?
I’ve got to get out of here.
I place my hand on Marty’s arm to stop him trying to get the barman’s attention and I instantly regret it.
Because it feels so good. He feels so good, and I wish he didn’t.
I wish his skin wasn't warm under my fingertips.
I wish it didn't feel so smooth but textured with fine hairs, like the softest velvet.
I wish I didn't feel his warmth transfer to my skin as I keep my fingers there a moment too long.
“It’s okay. I don’t need a glass of wine, and keep my mocktail too,” I say, taking my hand away a moment after he looks down at it. “I’ll just leave you both to it.”
I turn to walk away because suddenly I feel so stupid, and ludicrously, like I'm about to cry.
“Wait.” Marty grabs hold of my hand, and in the same movement he somehow manages to lace his fingers between mine. He gives me a pull strong enough to stop me walking. “Where are you going?”
I don't want to open my mouth and say something foolish or risk crying when I've only known him five minutes, so I don't speak, just slowly, regrettably, pull my hand away from his. I then look at him before I look at her, and finally back at him again.
“She thinks you want to ride me,” Maeve says, still staring at her phone's screen. As I hear the slang, I also hear the accent. It’s Irish too, the same silky vowels and swirling tone.
“Oh, Jesus, no,” Marty says. “Fuck, no. This is Maeve, my sister.”
Sister. Sister. SISTER.
Relief calms me from the inside out while embarrassment heats my cheeks. I close my eyes to savour the feeling that returns – hope – and at the same time, I try to think of a response that can wipe away the uneasiness that now hangs between us all.
“How was I supposed to know that?” I say, a small smile curling my lips. “You look nothing alike. She's way hotter than you!”
Everything about Marty creases into laughter, his mouth, his cheeks and his body too as he leans forward a little.
Maeve also takes it the way I’d hoped, looking up from her phone and studying me with a thoughtful grin. “You're funny, I could like you.”
“I should hope so. I did just call you hot,” I say, stepping closer to them both. “Unless you're under the age of eighteen, in which case I would like to apologise profusely.”
“All good. I’ll be twenty next month. And I get called pretty approximately one thousand times a day,” she says without a hint of sarcasm, again looking at her phone. “Okay. Best go back to Ma and Da and tell them I found you alive and sober. Albeit in a bar.”
Ma and Da... He's here on holiday with his parents and younger sister. That's... interesting.
“You don't need to mention that part. Oh, fuck it, mention it. Whatever. They should know by now I'm not going to do anything,” Marty says to Maeve and his tone is different, rushed and tense.
“Bye, Marty. Don’t forget, dinner is in an hour.” She taps his arm with her phone then turns to me. “Sorry, I've totally forgotten your name, but nice to meet you.”
And then Maeve is gone, her long blonde hair and slender limbs winding their way around the tables until she disappears.
“Seriously, she's a stunner,” I say to Marty as the bartender places two glasses in front of us. “God was clearly saving up all the good genes for her.”
He laughs again and hands me a drink. “You have no idea,” he says. “You still want that glass of wine?”
“No, this will do just fine,” I say with a shy smile.
Marty glances back behind us. “Look, we lost our table. Fancy taking these to the beach?”
I nod and turn to walk there with a smile I don't really want him to see.
I still don't know what exactly is happening.
That panic I felt at him finding someone else - a younger, prettier, slimmer woman - while unpleasant, didn't exactly feel misplaced.
It made sense. It felt logical. Part of me wanted it to make sense so I could stop walking the plank I feel I'm edging down again.
“Shit, there's nowhere to sit,” I say as soon as I realise it.
All the tables outside are taken, which is understandable because the sun has begun painting the sky copper and gold as it slowly slips closer to the sea, a perfect circle of hot pink. I look around for the sun loungers, but they're already packed away, stacked high to the side behind the DJ booth.
“Shall we just sit on the pebbles?” Marty says from behind me. I like hearing his voice behind me.
“I'm up for it,” I say with some trepidation but also a shrug that I hope compensates for it. When he walks past me, I follow. We find a spot on the slate-coloured pebbles and he drops down in a far too effortless move. I can’t help but notice that his knees don’t crack like mine do when I join him.
It only takes a moment to feel how uncomfortably lumpy and bumpy the pebbles are under my butt and thighs but I daren't say anything, nor do I risk looking at him to see if he's having the same realisation. Instead, I bring my sunglasses down from the top of my head, take a sip of my mocktail and look at the strips of fiery orange branding the sky. It’s beautiful.
Maybe that’s why silence descends because neither of us have anything to say that could top what’s happening right in front of us.
It's a strange kind of quiet because its presence only brings the noises around us into sharper focus; the soft crashing of the waves, the melody and rhythm of the bar’s music, the rising and falling hum of other people’s conversations, interrupted by the chiming of glasses.
It’s a silence that isn’t heavy, but it's not light either.
It's made of something that begs to be filled but at the same time, it doesn't give me any clue what I should say next. But I know I have to say something.
As it happens, we speak at the same time.
“Sunsets are like visual poetry, aren’t they?” I say.
“My arse is really fucking uncomfortable on these pebbles,” Marty says.
We laugh together for a moment, but he breaks off, looking behind me at the stack of loungers.
“Considering your brother is the manager and all, what do you think about grabbing a couple of those loungers,” he suggests. “Because you're right, sunsets are awesome, and I don't want to not enjoy this one because it feels like I'm sat on a million LEGO bricks.”
“Let's do it,” I say. Balancing our drinks on the pebbles, we head over to the stack of wooden loungers.
He hauls one off the top with very little effort and sets it down before getting another.
I bend to grab the first and while it's weighty, it’s easy to carry, albeit a little too wide for a comfortable grip.
Ignoring onlooking eyes, I manage to carry it over to our drinks.
The job is much easier for him and so he's there before I am, and he watches me straighten up with an amused smile.
“You're strong,” he says, but I can't tell if he's impressed or put off.
“I lift,” I say but don’t wait for his reaction.
Instead, I sit down on my lounger, adjusting the back so it's upright.
I don't know why I feel compelled to explain more, to throw a potential obstacle in my own way, but when he says nothing in return, I start talking.
“After my divorce, my therapist recommended lifting weights as a new hobby, a new focus, a way to get out of my head and back into my body.”
I wait for his questions about the divorce, about what went wrong, about my ex-husband and about why our marriage failed.
Instead, he asks, “Did it help?”
This almost leaves me as speechless as his flirty cocktail names earlier, and I brave a quick look at him.
The dramatic reds of the sunset give his cheeks a new rosy glow, and his irises now have even more colour in them, definite flecks of gold in pools of dark brown.
My eyes are drawn again to the bump in his nose and the oddest questions fill my mind.
Was that a rugby injury? How did it happen?
Is he self-conscious about it? Can I bite it?
“Yeah, it did,” I answer him. “Or rather, it does. It's a journey, I guess.”
“Yes, it is,” he says like he really does agree.
“Oh, you're divorced too?” I say in a light way to show I'm joking. He's too young, surely. Isn't he?
“I’m not. Now, do you want to talk about your divorce while the sun puts on this show?” He nods at the horizon with what could have been a sad smile.
“God, no,” I say, turning my head back to look at the stretches of colour that have again rearranged themselves. “My divorce has nothing on this view.”
“So, will we just go back to flirting outrageously with each other?”
“I'll give it my best shot,” I say, noticing how the colours are also reflected in the sea, making it shimmer effervescently. “But I am starting to think this view is now considerably more attractive than you, I have to say.”
I hear him laugh. “What about my sister? Is it more attractive than her?”
“Oh, God, no. She's still much hotter.” I turn to him, ready to wink, but I don't because he's looking at me like maybe he's proud of me, which makes no sense at all.
“It’s good to know where I stand.” His smile reappears, dimples too.
I take in a deep breath. “I think you could be in a lot of worse places than this right now.” I nod at the sunset and raise my glass towards him. He nudges his against it and together we turn back to look at the horizon.
The silence returns but this time it's transformed into something welcome and comfortable. Now it’s something I can, and want to, hold on to.
Even as it unfolds in front of us, the sun sinking lower, bleeding more gold into the sea, I long to stretch out this moment because of what it already is and because of its deep, delicious possibility.
I can practically smell and feel and taste the undeniable potential for sex with a man I’m fiercely attracted to, something I've craved for the longest time.
I smile into the silence and watch the sun fall slowly towards the Earth, thinking about how I too could be in much, much worse places.
Possibly a minute or two later, maybe longer, he finally responds in a much quieter voice, almost as if he's talking to himself. “Maybe I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.”