Chapter 11
While Mirabel spent the afternoon with her parents, Fabs took the rest of them a short way along the coast to Cane Malu, a tidal pool that had been gouged and shaped within the pale volcanic rock over thousands of years by stormy seas and rough winds.
The rock reminded Lola of a huge pumice stone pitted with holes, its rounded sides smoothing down to the pool of rippling turquoise and sea-green water.
Fabs had told them that when the wind whipped up and the waves crashed over, it was impossible to dive in, but that wasn’t the case today.
Freddie and Gareth wasted no time in stripping off and diving neatly into the water with barely a splash, sending delicate ripples shooting across the surface.
Lola settled herself with the others on a flattish part of the rock facing the sea.
Fabs was across the other side with his friends, offering them advice, which they chose to ignore, although they did heed his warning about sea urchins so kept their beach shoes on.
Lola couldn’t help but smile at their camaraderie; it reminded her of the good-natured teasing of her own friends.
She glanced at Rhys, perched on the rock next to her, still in his shorts and T-shirt, his lips tight and expression unreadable behind his sunglasses.
His arms were wrapped around his knees, which were drawn up to his chest. She wondered if he was longing to join them, but was holding back, perhaps because of the confidence Freddie and Gareth exuded.
When Sarah and Zoe wandered round to join them – Zoe clad in a bikini that showed off her trim figure and Sarah in her low-cut swimming costume which covered, in her own words, her ‘mum tum’ – Lola knew there was no chance that Rhys would pluck up the courage to join in.
So she kept him company, resting back on the rough, sun-baked rock and soaking up the other-worldly lunar-like landscape.
The sky was streaked with clouds so they got a respite from the sun every few minutes and the breeze swirling off the sea tempered the heat.
Freddie and Gareth took it in turns to dive into the water, each of them trying to best each other with increasingly impressive flips.
It would have been even more special without the constant testosterone-fuelled showing off.
Zoe only had eyes for Freddie. Rhys kept glancing their way, and Lola cringed every time Zoe trailed her fingers across Freddie’s toned stomach or planted a sensual kiss on his lips.
‘What actually happened with you and Zoe then?’ Lola decided to ask the difficult question and get it out of the way.
‘Nothing “happened”.’ Rhys sighed. ‘That was the problem – we just bumbled along. At the time, her walking out was completely out of the blue, but looking back there were plenty of signs. She would always suggest we do something like go away for a weekend or for meals out, but I just didn’t have the money when I was ploughing it all into my house?—’
‘Didn’t you live together?’
‘For the last year we did. She rented when she first moved back to Bristol, but spent so much time at mine that it made sense for her to move in. Maybe that was part of the problem too – that I always thought of it as my house. I’ll be the first to admit I was a bit of a homebody back then, working on the house constantly.
It’s not that we never went out, we just didn’t do anything particularly exciting or spend money on stuff.
At least I didn’t. The truth is, she got bored, I did nothing to entice her to stay and then when she got a job opportunity too good to turn down, she went for it. ’
‘Without discussing it with you?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Rhys nodded. ‘The first I knew about it was the day she said she was leaving. She’d made up her mind and was pretty blunt that we had no future.’
Lola mulled over his words. ‘Did you see a future?’
‘I had till that point.’ He tightened his hold where he gripped his arms. ‘I’ve spent the past year trying to move on, because in hindsight I accept we weren’t right for each other. It’s difficult when home reminds me of her?—’
There was an almighty splash as Gareth barrelled into the pool, spraying them with a fine watery mist.
‘Watch it!’ Deni called from where she was sunning herself on a towel further along the rock.
‘Come join us!’ Sarah said, swimming her way.
Deni put down her book and peeled off her dress to reveal a stylish black and white swimsuit. She glanced Lola and Rhys’s way, raised her eyebrows and leapt into the pool to a chorus of cheers.
Lola wondered what Deni’s clients would make of that image: their lawyer’s arms and legs akimbo dive-bombing into a pool without a care in the world. She wondered what her husband would make of it too and wished he was here to witness Deni focusing on something other than work.
Lola cast her eyes across the pool to Zoe, who was resting back against Freddie, her slender legs crossed. Lola pursed her lips and nodded in Zoe’s direction. ‘Did she help you out with the house?’
Rhys shook his head. ‘She only moved in after I’d finished doing it up…’
From the way he trailed off, he obviously understood that he’d been used; Lola didn’t need to spell it out for him.
Zoe had been with him when it suited her and moved on when it hadn’t.
That wasn’t love. Love was when someone stuck with you through the good and bad times, supported you unconditionally, were as much a friend as a lover, allowed you to breathe and grow, rather than supress or cage you, and didn’t run away when things got difficult or monotonous.
But then what the hell did she know about love when she’d never truly experienced it, only seen it from afar?
Perhaps Rhys was too quiet, sensitive and reticent for someone like Zoe, but on the flip side maybe she never gave him a chance; it didn’t sound as if they’d talked, at least not properly.
They hadn’t delved beneath the surface enough to understand each other.
When Lola had delved beneath the surface with Jarek, she hadn’t liked what she’d found one bit.
Although with Rhys and Zoe, it might have been as simple as them wanting different things.
Rhys had the responsibility of a house and a mortgage, whereas Zoe sounded as if she’d been clinging on to the fun and freedom of their student days – actually, she seemed to still be doing that, Freddie too.
Maybe they were perfect for each other, while Rhys had been the wrong man for her.
Zoe had been the wrong woman for him; that sounded a hell of a lot better.
‘What happened to put you off men and relationships?’ Rhys’s question broke her train of thought.
Lola watched Gareth pick his way across the rock in his beach shoes.
He was confident in his ability to dive into the pool like a pro and in his looks.
His ridged chest gave Freddie a run for his money in the muscle stakes, except he was taller and leaner without Freddie’s bulk.
No wonder Rhys was sitting on the rock with his T-shirt still on.
Not that he should compete with his friends, but he wasn’t as in-your-face confident as them, which was one of the things she liked most about him.
Lola knew she was stalling over whether to open up to Rhys; they’d talked frankly already, but confiding in him about Jarek felt meaningful.
Then again, he’d just worn his heart on his sleeve over Zoe.
‘I haven’t gone off men,’ Lola said slowly. ‘It’s more about not wanting to end up in an unhealthy relationship again. My ex-boyfriend wasn’t a good person.’ The words caught in her throat and that constant knot of tension in her chest grew.
She glanced around. Deni was in the pool with Sarah; no one was in earshot, it was just her and Rhys and there was something about the way he was looking at her, patiently waiting for her to speak rather than pushing for her to open up, that made her want to.
She traced her fingers across the pockmarks, ridges and grooves of the rock and concentrated on the warmth of the sun on her face.
Rhys’s gentle breathing was soothing and Sarah’s throaty chuckle drifting from the pool grounded her.
Talking about him wouldn’t hurt her; trying to contain her feelings and deal with the aftermath by herself had done no good.
Lola loosed a breath. ‘Everyone loved Jarek. Everyone apart from Mirabel; that should have been the biggest warning sign, but I ignored it because I was in love.’ Lola scratched a fingernail across the rock, back and forth, back and forth, as an image of Jarek when they’d first met invaded: handsome in a way that had made her stop in her tracks, in a well-cut suit, his tie loosened and the top couple of shirt buttons undone.
He’d smelled delicious, a seductive spiced scent, and he’d wooed her with wit, charm and intelligence as much as a sexiness that had left her breathless and made her so sure that sleeping with him at the end of their second date was the right thing to do.
Lola cleared her throat. ‘He was someone who on paper was too good to be true, but then so is Fabs, so I know it’s possible for someone to be good-looking, kind, thoughtful, wealthy, have a stellar career, be the whole damn package.’
‘But Jarek wasn’t like Fabs?’
‘No, and Mirabel knew it. She saw through his perfect veneer, or at least got a sense that he was hiding the real him. Not that she knows quite how right she was.’
‘Did he hurt you?’ Rhys’s voice guttered, the warmth of his arm brushing against hers anchoring her to the present when she was at risk of spiralling off into fear at the memories.