Chapter 19 #2
‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ I yell over, cutting the engine, allowing the jet ski to float up to him.
He’s got fronds of sea kelp in his hair.
His bandage is lost at sea. He’s picked up some engine grease from the thin layer of petrol lying on top of the water.
Looks like it’ll stain his shorts. I best not mention it.
Not after what happened on the plane. I try not to stare at how ripped he is.
Or how the tattoo sleeve on his arm moves with every muscle.
Even half-covered in slime, he’s magnificent.
Credit where credit’s due, he wades back in and hops on without saying anything.
I put my hands nervously on the handlebars.
I turn to give him a reassuring grin. I hope he can’t tell that I’m now shitting myself.
Just as I twist the throttle, his hands cover mine.
I glance down at his tanned fingers. It feels very intimate, and a white-hot shoot of electricity runs through me.
I wait to see what he does next. He applies a tiny amount of pressure, guiding me to twist the accelerator slowly, and we gently pick up speed and expertly glide out of the marina.
Suddenly, I can think of nothing else but his hands on mine. His skin feels hot, and it’s making me prickle all over.
‘You might want to watch where you’re going,’ he says in my ear. It sends delicious currents down my neck.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. My whole body has started to tingle.
‘Seriously. Watch where you’re going.’
I nod, daring to glance back at him so he can see my big cow eyes from close up. Water is spraying over him.
‘Left, Connie, left!’
He has such dark eyes to match his thick, dark hair, which is swaying very attractively in the breeze.
‘No, other left!’
Gaaaah! He sounds so masterful as he leans in and gently swerves the jet ski so we can avoid a boat coming in and a group doing doggie yoga on paddleboards.
We don’t go as fast as the others but make sure to keep up at the back.
I am finding the experience invigorating.
I cannot believe I’m doing this. By the time we reach the caves, I am ecstatic.
The others have already jumped off the jet skis, leaving them afloat in the cove, and are swimming into the caves.
The water is so clear it’s almost fluorescent with vividly coloured fish of all shapes and sizes.
It feels as though I’m in an exotic dream.
This can’t be me. I wish my mother could see me now.
She’d never believe it. The rest of the group disappear deeper into the darkness to explore the nearby caves.
‘You coming?’ Matteo asks.
Now is not the time to tell him I’ve developed a crush on him that is so overpowering it has affected my ability to swim.
My body has literally turned to jelly. I need to get a grip.
This is ridiculous. He can’t be interested in me after the show I’ve made of myself, and I shouldn’t be interested in him either.
It’s too soon. Or maybe it’s been too long.
Either way, he is way out of my league and I’m going back to my humdrum life in a couple of days.
‘I’ll catch you up,’ I say.
He dives off the jet ski and swims into the dark depths while I slip into the water and float on my back at the cave entrance to let the experience soak in.
I stare up to the cave roof high above me and wonder at the rock formations twinkling away.
The Dollz’ words echo in my brain. I’m a strong, powerful woman.
I deserve happiness . I must keep reminding myself of that.
I should put these affirmations into the universe, so they come true. I check to make sure I am alone.
‘I am a strong, independent woman!’ I shout up to the ceiling and listen to the echo.
What else do I need to be?
This is the most at peace I have felt in a long time. I’ve been in Spain less than a week and have already felt more emotions than I have in the last couple of years. In a way it feels as though I’m being shaken awake.
‘I am a confident, powerful, sexy woman!’
No, that sounds too much.
I hear Ged and Liam in my head telling me that life doesn’t always turn out how you expect but that doesn’t mean I have to remain so bitter and miserable about it. I have been bitter since my mother passed. This is very true. Perhaps I should be more honest with myself.
‘I am a sometimes lonely, often bitter woman with the ability to cope adequately when the need arises!’
Hmmmm. More accurate but far less punchy.
My voice echoes off the cave walls as I float with my ears submerged, listening to the vibrations of sea life humming through the water.
I do believe I’m being in and of the moment.
My busy mind is cleared of thought as I focus on each breath, my chest swelling before I exhale slowly.
I am calm. I am thankful. I am going to try and be more accepting.
I must not harbour this resentment of how my motherless life has turned out, as it will only hold me back.
A niggling feeling gnaws at my serenity as thoughts of the gig later this evening and performing to the Benidorm festival crowd flood into my mind.
Nancy has not been backwards in coming forward.
The main thing is to keep her happy. I will make sure to impress.
I have yet to get a playlist and backing tracks together, never mind quickly learning some of Ed Sheeran’s hits.
It will take some time to sort out and do a run-through.
Nerves get the better of me just thinking about Matteo coming to hear me and me making a mess of it.
As though he has read my thoughts, he pops up right next to me, causing me to suddenly lose my stride, my arms flapping. Matteo grabs me firmly by the life jacket. We stare at each other for a few moments.
‘Sorry to startle you like that. Fish whispering or whatever it was you were doing,’ he says.
‘Vocal warm-ups,’ I splutter, focusing on the light bouncing off the sea, the rocks, anywhere but his glistening skin as droplets of water drip tantalisingly down his neck. ‘I was doing vocal warm-ups for tonight.’
I brace myself for an eye roll. He doesn’t need any further proof that I’m mental.
‘Why? What were you doing?’ I ask.
Swimming, Connie. He was swimming.
‘I was looking for lonely, bitter women with the ability to cope adequately,’ he says. ‘I hear the caves are full of them.’
Cheeky fecker.
Matteo laughs, raking his gaze from my eyes slowly down to my lips, which, as if on command, part ever so slightly.
Suddenly there is an unmistakable charged current flying between us.
I must give him a signal of some sort because he leans towards me and then thinks better of it and stops. We are mere centimetres apart.
‘You are very cheeky. You should be punished,’ I purr, sounding like a dominatrix.
Where is this coming from? I should hop on a plane to Amsterdam. I could make a fortune.
His eyebrows raise a fraction. He likes it.
Time feels as though it is standing still.
Our mouths are hovering dangerously close together and the air between us is crackling with unresolved sexual tension, as far as I’m concerned anyway.
He may well be thinking of doing his taxes, getting a puppy or what he’s going to have for tea.
When it comes to men, especially this man, I’m lost at sea, quite literally.
He does not move a muscle, so neither do I.
I briefly worry if the attraction is all one-sided.
As he tilts his head, I can see his mind racing to make sense of me.
He’s clearly unsure. It could be an opportunity for this strong, independent woman to take the lead.
I should lean in and place a salty kiss gently on his lips, but I can’t.
The rejection would be crushing. Snippets of all the times I’ve humiliated myself in front of him sap my confidence.
Matteo will have to make the first move.
My eyes drill into his, willing him to do it.
Just as I think he’s about to move in, I hear my name being called.
‘Cenicienta!’ Nacho is bobbing in the water just outside the cave. ‘Cenicienta, come! Come! We go back to shore now.’
‘Your date is calling for you, Cinderella,’ Matteo says. ‘The name suits you,’ he says before he swims away from me, slicing through the water like he’s part dolphin .
Date? Why would he think… Oh.
I swim over to the jet ski. Matteo hauls me up onto it and straight into the driver’s seat. I immediately twist round.
‘There’s no date. We’re not on a date,’ I say. My heaving chest causes the life jacket to swell. My boobs are almost touching my chin. ‘There have been no dates. It’s very, very platonic. Nacho is like my brother.’
‘Oh?’
‘Like my newly discovered, foreign, given-up-for-adoption brother. And this excursion would be like meeting for the first time. Or a second time, if the first was arranged by the agency and we met for coffee. Then we decided to meet again and do something more fun.’
There’s something very wrong with me.
Matteo’s eyes give nothing away in the face of such madness. Maybe he has come across my kind before.
‘So, he’s like the brother you never knew you had?’
‘Yes.’
As if that makes any sense.
My whole body grows tense as he leans in to cover my hands with his, the muscles on his arms rippling every time he pulls the grips on the handles towards him.
I lean back ever so slightly, pressing against him.
I feel the length of his body against mine and experience pangs of wild, out-of-control lust.
It is almost like I’m dreaming this whole thing.
In fact, I might be. It is bizarre, after all, isn’t it?
It’s not like my dull, boring, grey life has suddenly become a fairy tale in full Disney technicolour, with an evil queen and handsome princes fighting for my attention, in some beautiful far-off land…
We rev up the engine to head back to the kiosk. I am high with anticipation as we zip along. Matteo has my nerves on end. He knows everything about me, and I know nothing at all about him.
I yell over my shoulder at him, ‘Tell me all about you.’
It’s probably not the time, but like I say, I’m really not myself.
‘Seriously?’ he bellows. ‘Can’t it wait?’
I shake my head. I need to know where this gorgeous man comes from. What he does. How he got here. What sort of woman he goes for.
He throws his head back to laugh just as we are hit by a massive wave.
In one violent motion, the jet ski topples to one side, throwing us into the water with a thud.
I’m momentarily disoriented as my head smashes into the sea as though it was concrete, and a swirl of waves instantly sucks me under.