Chapter 20
20
Dressing for dinner feels utterly pointless, and kind of sarcastic, when dinner consists of crackers, crisps, and tinned olives, but here I am, decked out in my ‘going-out’ dress – for a night in.
My red dress is short and glitzy, and my heels are high – the kind that would be suited for a trendy bar or a club. To be honest, shoes like these aren’t great on an actual night out, because they always leave you with burning, aching feet. At least here I can just kick them off.
That said, I do wish I was going out for dinner and drinks, rather than just sitting here eating bar snacks.
We’re eating around the firepit this eve because, well, it’s that or the bedroom. I follow the glow of light and the smell of the fire until I find Lou sitting there alone.
‘Well, look at you, all dressed up with nowhere to go,’ I joke as I approach her.
She’s wearing a green dress – one that she bought and then customised herself, Lou loves sewing – with silver sequins that reflect the flames in front of her.
‘Looking good,’ she tells me. ‘Although you’ll never shimmy in through the kitchen window wearing that.’
‘Then I guess espionage, breaking and entering, and theft are off the menu tonight,’ I reply, feigning disappointment.
‘There’s always tomorrow,’ she says, patting the seat next to her, welcoming me.
‘And, truly, why not look fancy when you’re eating olives from a tin?’ I reply.
‘Well, exactly,’ she agrees. ‘We’ll make anything five-star. Here, let me pour you a glass.’
Lou pours me some Prosecco.
‘I managed to get it pretty cold in the bath,’ she tells me.
‘Delightful,’ I say with a laugh. ‘Thank you.’
Lou hands me a glass of bouncing bubbles. I can smell the sweetness in the air.
‘To… whatever this is,’ Lou says, making the toast.
‘To whatever this is,’ I agree, clinking my glass with hers.
Lou shifts in her seat, her gaze glued to the flickering flames in the firepit. There’s a tension in her smile that makes me wonder if she’s got something on her mind – more than just, you know, this entire shit show.
‘You doing okay?’ I ask, giving her a nudge with my elbow, keeping my tone light.
‘I’m just trying to keep myself focused on the wedding,’ she replies. ‘That’s what all of this is for, right? I just need to keep reminding myself that.’
‘What did you tell Ellis in the end?’ I ask, my curiosity piqued.
I feel like I can see the gears turning in her head. She glances at me, and her lips twitch as if she’s holding back a secret.
‘Not everything,’ she confesses. ‘Just that we’re double-booked and sharing with another group. I left out the fact that it’s all boys, and they’re being difficult.’
‘Ah,’ I say simply.
Lou shrugs, suddenly looking a bit sheepish.
‘You know what Ellis is like,’ she replies. ‘He trusts me; he didn’t ask, and honestly, I don’t want to worry him with it. I’ll tell him after we’re married, when we can find it funny. Right now he’ll only feel sorry for me or he’ll turn up, which would be even worse. I just want everything to go to plan.’
‘You know best,’ I reassure her. ‘I wonder if Nolan has told his fiancée about us.’
‘I doubt it,’ Lou says. ‘He probably doesn’t want to stress her out either – I feel like a woman would take this sort of revelation badly. I know I wouldn’t like the idea of Ellis sharing a house with a bunch of girls on his stag week. I know, that’s hypocritical of me…’
‘You don’t need to explain yourself to me, I get it,’ I reassure her. ‘It’s not that you don’t trust Ellis, it’s just that you know you trust yourself. And also it doesn’t hurt that these boys in particular are completely unlovable.’
‘Oh, completely,’ she echoes.
I do get where she’s coming from. No one would be happy about this – no one is happy about this – but we’re just making the best of a bad situation.
She exhales a deep breath, her expression softening as she leans back, her shoulders relaxing a bit.
‘All I care about is getting to the wedding on time, marrying Ellis, and then jetting off to Sydney for our honeymoon,’ she says. ‘Sometimes it feels like it just isn’t going to happen. Like something is going to go wrong, or the boys are going to make something go wrong.’
‘I won’t let that happen,’ I promise her. ‘None of us will, we’ve all got your back. This whole competition is just a bit of fun. It’s just daft. It’s only to see who gets the second week – you’ll be off on honeymoon either way. If we have to go home, we have to go home.’
I smile to let her know that I mean it.
‘It’s oddly fun, right?’ she says, in a significantly lower voice, like she shouldn’t really be saying it. ‘A wild last hurrah of single-girl craziness before I officially shift into married life.’
I can’t help but smile back at her, although there’s a tiny pang of something in my stomach that I hadn’t anticipated. Lou’s moving forward, taking the plunge into her new life with Ellis, leaving little old me all alone, stuck in single-girl craziness, navigating it on my own from this day forward (well, from Sunday forward).
‘Okay, enough moping. Spill,’ Lou suddenly says, her voice playful but piercing through my thoughts. ‘Do you like any of them? You can tell me, I won’t say anything to the others.’
Caught off guard, I laugh nervously.
‘Oh my God, you do, you’re into one of them,’ she says. ‘Come on, you have to tell me now. Quick, before Nita and Willow get here.’
‘All right, fine, I guess Travis seems kind of nice,’ I confess, trying to sound all cool and casual about it.
‘Oh,’ she says simply.
I look at her, surprised. Does she know something I don’t about him? Has she noticed something?
‘You don’t like him?’ I reply.
‘I don’t like any of them,’ she says with a laugh. ‘He’s definitely cute though. I just thought it was Owen who you liked – that’s what Nita said.’
I roll my eyes.
‘Honestly, since she caught me talking to him, once, she’s off on one,’ I reply. ‘No. It’s definitely Travis.’
‘Definitely, hmm?’ Lou teases, her eyebrows dancing knowingly.
‘Hey,’ Willow says as she approaches us, putting an end to our conversation – probably for the best.
She sits down at the firepit next to us.
‘Love the dress,’ Lou tells her.
‘All dressed up with nowhere to go,’ Willow jokes, although there’s a slight edge to her voice that makes me think she might actually be mad about it.
Willow has also opted for a sparkly dress – also in red. So that’s me, her and… oh, and Nita’s face. She looks furious as she marches over to join us.
Her eyes are wide, her hands gripping what looks like a… a bottle of shampoo?
‘Unbelievable!’ she practically spits, holding it up as though she’s just won an Academy award. ‘This is custom-made. ￡140 a bottle! And it smells like mangoes – because I love mangoes!’
‘Nita,’ I say cautiously, raising a hand in a futile attempt to signal peace. ‘Calm down. Slow down. Sit down, and just tell us what’s going on.’
Nita ignores me entirely and starts pacing – well, technically it’s pacing, but in her head, I think she thinks she’s circling her prey.
She stops on the spot suddenly, as though a thought had just occurred to her, and then she starts sniffing us, one after the other, kind of aggressively, like a dog at an airport.
‘Nita!’ I squeak, laughter bubbling at the sheer absurdity of the situation. ‘What are you doing? Are you actually sniffing us?’
She stops in front of me, her face dead serious.
‘It’s half empty!’ she declares, shaking the bottle to emphasise the fact – not that it makes a sound, it’s shampoo. ‘Half. Empty. Do you have any idea how much shampoo that is? Do you know what it takes to make this?’
Her voice rises with every word, echoing through the hills that surround us.
Lou leans forward, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.
‘What are you saying? Someone used it?’ Lou asks. ‘Obviously it wasn’t one of us. We have our own shampoo.’
Nita laughs. Slowly and softly at first, but then it turns into a cackle.
‘Oh, not someone,’ Nita replies darkly, her gaze narrowing like a laser beam. ‘The bloody boys. It has to be them. Who else?’
I think for a moment. The boys? When could they have… oh!
‘Earlier, when they came to talk to us, two at a time, I think they were keeping us distracted,’ I say. ‘That’s why it was so weird, so out of character, so repetitive. They needed to keep us here while they snuck into our bathrooms.’
‘They probably all used Nita’s, because it’s the first one at the top of the stairs,’ Lou adds, almost excitedly, happy to have cracked the case but then furious that they’ve got one over on us.
‘The idiots weren’t even smart enough to use different bathrooms,’ Willow points out. ‘They all used your shampoo, that’s why it went down so quickly.’
‘Eww, I hope they didn’t all use my towel,’ she says. ‘I thought it felt a little damp when I used it.’
‘I’m sure they took their own towels,’ I reassure her. ‘But it’s a boundary cross either way. And to think, they had the cheek to lock the kitchen! It’s because they judged us by their standards.’
‘Bastards!’ Nita blurts, finally taking a seat.
She reaches out, grabs the bottle of Prosecco and takes a big swig.
‘So, what do we do?’ Lou asks.
‘We’re going to have to start locking our rooms,’ Nita declares. ‘If they can lock the kitchen, we can lock our bedrooms. It’s only fair. And we have to smell them, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ I joke. ‘But why?’
‘We have to call them out,’ she says, her voice sharp with determination as she stands tall again.
‘They’ll just lie. What’s the point?’ Willow replies. ‘If they deny it…’
‘Because we’re going to have them banged to rights,’ Nita insists. ‘We smell them before they get chance to deny it. If they smell like mangoes, they can’t actually deny it.’
‘The proof is in them smelling like pudding,’ Lou jokes.
‘Exactly,’ Nita replies. ‘But we have to think fast and do it before they get in the pool again, or the evidence will be washed away.’
‘But what’s the point?’ Willow says again. ‘It won’t bring your shampoo back.’
‘Leverage,’ I chime in. ‘If we catch them, and there’s proof, then they’ll owe us. They’ll have to even the score, if they want to be fair. We might even be able to wangle an evening in the kitchen.’
‘Exactly,’ Nita says. ‘We’re being cool about the competition, honouring the rules. They’ll owe us, but we have to smell them before they can destroy the evidence.’
‘I don’t think the kind of men who are dishonourable enough to sneak use of the bathroom and liberally use your shampoo are going to be honourable enough do the right thing,’ Lou points out.
‘Nah, if we smell it on them, there’s nothing they can do but make it up to us,’ Nita replies. ‘This competition means a lot to them. I think they’d be gutted, if we said we weren’t playing any more.’
‘Hmm, she might have a point there,’ I tell the others.
‘But if they can get away with it, they will, so what we need to do is take a boy each, and focus on them – and smell them.’
Nita says this like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
‘I’ll take Harry,’ she suggests. ‘We really push each other’s buttons, I think I can get to him.’
‘Fine. I’ll take Nolan,’ Willow replies. ‘He’s the quiet one, I’m the quiet one – maybe he won’t bolt the second I try to sniff him.’
I’m not sure she’s the quiet one but she’s welcome to tackle Nolan.
Nita’s gaze drifts over to Lou and me as she waits to hear what we’re bringing to the sniffing mission.
‘Molly should take Travis,’ Lou says, before I get the chance to say a word. ‘I’ll handle Owen.’
‘Good idea! Keep Molly and Owen apart, so he doesn’t wrap her around his little finger again,’ Nita suggests.
My cheeks burn as I look to Lou. She gives me a completely innocent look, but I know exactly what she’s doing. She’s giving me the chance to spend time with Travis.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ Willow asks, her tone a mix of curiosity and doubt. ‘How do we do this?’
‘We seduce them,’ Nita says through a smirk.
Lou chokes on her drink, practically spraying it across the fire.
‘I’m sorry, what?’ she shrieks. ‘I don’t know why I have to keep reminding you, but I’m engaged. We’re here for my wedding! This week!’
Lou gestures dramatically at her engagement ring, like she’s an extra in a Beyoncé video.
‘Lou, relax,’ Nita says, rolling her eyes with exaggerated annoyance. ‘No one’s asking you to cheat. Just… offer Owen a shoulder rub or something. Tell him there’s a bee on him. I don’t know, just think of something.’
‘You know Nolan’s engaged too, right?’ Willow points out. ‘I can’t seduce him.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ Nita replies. ‘I’m just saying get close to him. Molly and I will do the heavy lifting, won’t we, Mol?’
‘It’s a bit… extreme,’ I point out. ‘Will it even work?’
‘Molly, come on. We’ve all seen how Travis looks at you,’ she replies. ‘Seduce him – or at least pretend to. Sniff him, get him banged to rights, and it’s done.’
‘Okay, fine, fine, I’ll do my best,’ I tell her.
‘Good,’ Nita says, sitting down again. ‘Need any pointers? It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?’
‘Cheeky cow,’ I reply, rolling my eyes with faux annoyance.
She means well, and I know she’s only trying to use humour to point out the obvious, but Nita always finds a way to slip in these digs about my non-existent love life.
Still, part of me wonders – maybe this could be good practice? Seducing someone, even if it’s just a joke, or a scam, or whatever, is a no-pressure way to not quite jump back in the deep end, but paddle in the shallow end. I wonder if I’m even capable of seducing anyone any more? The art of flirting is a skill, a dance I haven’t done in a long time, and if all I have to do is give a man a big sniff, then there’s no pressure. Practice makes perfect, so I’ll use this as an exercise. It will come in handy when there’s someone I really do want to seduce.
But that’s not Travis… right? Which makes him all the better for practising on.