Chapter 38
38
On the plus side, I managed to eat the most amazing seasoned egg wrap for my breakfast. Sadly, though, despite Travis and I having an amazing chat while we ate, neither of us managed to bring up last night. I don’t know how he feels about it. He doesn’t know how I feel about it. To be honest, I’m not even sure how I feel about it. It was amazing, of course it was, but that was in the moment. I can still feel the echoes of his hands on me, his lips on my neck, his tongue on my body – but what happens now? What about the future? I know, I know, I worry too much about the future, but will I even see him again after this trip? I hate not knowing where I stand.
‘And where, pray tell, have you two been?’ Nita calls out from her spot by the pool. ‘And why is it so bright?’
‘It’s daytime,’ I tell her with a chuckle. ‘We just popped to town.’
I take a seat next to her while Travis heads inside – presumably to put the rings somewhere safe.
‘I thought the two of you might have been… y’know,’ she says suspiciously.
‘I promised you I wouldn’t,’ I tell her, feeling awful about lying.
‘I’ll believe you,’ she says. ‘Thousands wouldn’t.’
Eventually, Lou comes out to join us. Then Willow. Then the boys show up, and they’ve got coffees and cakes.
‘Travis made these,’ Harry tells us.
I take a bite and – wow.
‘They’re amazing,’ I tell Travis as he takes a seat next to me.
‘I try,’ he replies, flashing me a smile.
I can’t help but notice that he’s moved his sun lounger, to be closer to me. I wonder if he wants to talk.
‘Wow, aren’t you a dreamboat,’ Nita says to Travis. ‘There’s something so sexy about men who cook.’
‘Well, I think there’s something sexy about girls who love to eat what I make, so it’s nice to be appreciated,’ he jokes.
‘Between the dinners and these cakes, we might actually miss you guys,’ Nita says. ‘We’ll never see you again, but we’ll always have… whatever this mess was.’
‘You’ll never see us again?’ Harry repeats.
‘Not unless you crash another one of our holidays,’ she says from behind the privacy of her sunglasses.
‘You crashed our holiday,’ he reminds her. ‘And we kindly let you stay here.’
‘We kindly let you stay here,’ she claps back. ‘But we won’t be so kind next week, seeing as though we won the competition.’
Shit, the competition. I’d completely dumped it from my brain. Did we win?
‘I thought we won,’ Owen adds. ‘You don’t win just by saying you won. Nolan, you kept score – who won?’
It’s like we all forgot about it. I guess we were all having such a good time together that we stopped thinking about it, but this intense… whatever it is, between Nita and Harry, has caused them both to drag it back up, and now we’re back to worrying about next week. Who gets to stay? Who has to leave?
‘It’s a tie,’ Nolan says. ‘We got three points each and then… just sort of forgot about it.’
‘So we need a tiebreaker,’ Harry says. ‘Let’s do it now, let’s choose cards.’
‘We’ve already done cards,’ Nita says.
‘Plus, you can cheat at cards,’ Willow adds.
‘What about Rock, Paper, Scissors?’ Harry suggests. ‘You can’t cheat at that.’
Nita thinks for a moment. She lowers her sunglasses on her nose, to look Harry in the eye. Honestly, what is going on with these two? We were all getting on so well, now we’re competing again, and there’s a very real possibility we might not be staying here next week. I feel sick.
‘Okay, sure, but only one round,’ she tells him. ‘One player from each team, one winner, and whatever happens, we have to accept it.’
‘Deal,’ Harry says. ‘What do you reckon – you and me, head to head in the final showdown?’
Nita looks to the rest of us.
‘Why not?’ I tell her. After all, it will decide on a winner (assuming they don’t keep choosing the same things indefinitely), and then it will be over.
‘Okay, bring it,’ Nita says.
She scoots to the edge of her sun lounger, placing her feet firmly on the floor. Harry sits opposite her, so they really are head to head.
‘Ready?’ he asks her.
‘Let’s do it!’ she says with a smirk.
You would think, with something like Rock, Paper, Scissors, that the winner would be obvious. And yet…
‘Oh my God, I win,’ Harry bellows. ‘We win. We’re staying here, lads.’
‘You fucking cheated,’ Nita shouts back at him.
‘You lost, get over it,’ he replies.
‘Come on, Harry, we all know you cheated,’ I add – because he did.
The mistake we all made was not agreeing on how the game would be played, before we played it, because while Nita went on three, Harry was clearly going after three. So when Nita made scissors, Harry’s hand was coincidentally still in a fist position, and you could tell he was just about to move into paper, before he realised Nita had gone early, but as soon as he saw her scissors he quickly made a fist again, passing it off as rock, and beating her.
‘You’re just a poor loser,’ he tells her. ‘And we did all agree that there would be one winner, and we’d all accept it.’
‘So you’re just going to kick us out?’ Willow asks. ‘After everything…’
‘Yes,’ Owen tells her firmly.
‘We could try—’ Travis starts, but Owen doesn’t let him finish.
‘Whose side are you on, mate?’ Owen asks him, disappointed.
‘The lads’, obviously, but?—’
‘But nothing,’ Harry says. ‘Come on, let’s go inside and celebrate, leave these girls to lick their wounds.’
‘Can we go to town?’ Nita asks us. ‘Can we have another night out? Get some food, have some drinks?’
She’s so angry she’s shaking.
‘Yeah, of course,’ I tell her. I think the breather will do her good.
‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she says. ‘I had no idea he would cheat. I can’t believe they’re going to make us leave.’
‘They’re dicks,’ Willow says. ‘We’ve known that this whole time.’
‘Let’s get ready, head out, and leave them to it,’ I say. ‘Maybe they are going to make us leave but, if they do, we can do it with our heads held high. We don’t need these stupid boys.’
I say this, although I’m not quite sure I believe it.
‘Yeah, okay,’ Nita replies. ‘Let’s go. Because if I stay here, I think I’m going to kill someone.’
She really does seem so angry. I actually think I believe her.