Irresistible (16 page)

As her footsteps fade, Jamie looks at me with his arms crossed.

“Swimming tonight?”

“You must be kidding.”

“Someone told me I don’t make jokes.”

“You just wrecked someone’s relationship. For no reason. They weren’t some horrible old couple who had it coming. They did nothing to you.”

“Because it’s all fake,” he snaps. “It’s classic wedding venues and personalized phone cases and going through the stages—university, jobs, marriage, babies—and none of it’s real. We do it because we should.”

“But they were happy.”

“Are you happy?”

“What? Yes. I’m really happy. Dan’s … He’s invited me to go to Paris with him at the end of the summer. We’re really … going out now.”

Jamie’s face is unreadable. “I look forward to seeing your phone case.”

“Right. So, can I go now?”

Jamie laughs to himself.

“What?”

“I just know, come two o’clock, you’ll be here, or in the shower.”

“I won’t.”

“You will, Mia. You love me.”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. “That’s where you’re wrong. This … ‘thing’ never had anything to do with love. I was attracted to you. I don’t feel anything else. I don’t love you. I love Dan.”

“Well,” says Jamie evenly. “Good for Dan.”

He’s looking behind me and I turn my head. Dan has just reached the edge of the pool. I don’t know how much he heard.

“The taxi’s here,” he says.

“Enjoy your new girlfriend, pot washer,” says Jamie.

Anger flashes across Dan’s face. “Well, you enjoy university, okay?”

Jamie freezes, and then his eyes meet mine. We all stand there in silence.

“Well, if we’re sharing …,” Jamie says slowly. He pulls his phone from his pocket, presses a few buttons, and then shows me the screen.

It’s that picture. The one Kieran sent around his entire school.

I feel sick. I chase him back to the pool house but stop at the window. He’s showing his phone to people. They’re pointing at the screen, slapping him on the back, some craning around to try to see. I’m shaking. It’s happened again, and, just like the first time, I’m completely powerless. People are looking at me. Judging me. And I have no control.

My eyes are full of tears and I can’t see. I spin around and collide with Dan. His face is a mixture of anger and confusion as he tries to read my expression for clues. He tries to put his arms around me, but I push him away and run. I hear him calling after me as I stumble toward the parking lot and find Gabi. I run into her arms and she hugs me fiercely, even though she doesn’t know why.

Jamie Elliot-Fox is toxic.

I don’t write in my diary much. Gabi and I used to write them side by side when we were younger, so there’s lots of stuff like
I secretly totally love Kieran Saunders. Don’t tell!
and
I luv Max Holmes and his sexy body!
written about fifty times by Gabi.

There’s some stuff in there from when I was going out with Kieran, but it’s all written like I thought someone was reading over my shoulder. It’s all about how we were soul mates and “knew each other inside out.” Nothing about feeling uncomfortable, secretly panicking, and sending naked pictures. I kept those parts in my head.

But there’s no pretending with Jamie. He’s damaged, and I need to tell myself that. Just in case at some point I start to kid myself that he’s normal.

“I’m with you there,” says Gabi, peering over my shoulder. “What a dickhead.”

I take a deep breath. “Gabi?” I’ve rehearsed the story in my head. It’s going to start with, “I’ve been an idiot.”

But she doesn’t hear me.

“I don’t understand why anyone would go near him. Melanie and Simon and that leggy girl he’s going out with all need their heads examined. The girlfriend must either be stupid or just as evil as him.”

The words evaporate from my tongue. “Yeah, I know.”

“Mrs. Elliot-Fox? I need to cut down on my shifts.”

Julia doesn’t look up from her desk. “Oh?”

“Yeah, I’m getting tired, and I haven’t been getting any A-level reading done and …”

“It’s encouraging to hear that A-Levels do at least require reading. Bring me the schedule when you’re done.”

I take the schedule sheet out and lean it on the bar, crossing out my name in various squares.

“Gin and tonic, please.”

“Sorry, I don’t actually work on the bar—”

Cleo laughs. “I didn’t ask for a chat. I asked for a gin and tonic.”

I keep looking down at the schedule sheet. “I don’t work on the bar. I’m not eighteen. You know that.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’ll get it myself.” She goes behind the bar and grabs the bottle of Tanqueray from the shelf. “You shouldn’t go shouting about your age,” she says. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to get your tits out before you’re eighteen either.”

There’s a nastiness to her voice that I’ve heard directed at other people but never at me, and it hits me like a slap. A cold realization dawns that I haven’t been doing anything to earn her
friendship. I don’t know what she knows, but I know that the wrong side of Cleo is not a safe place to be.

I grab the schedule sheet and walk quickly to the door, my face burning. I try to compose myself in the corridor outside Julia’s office before going back in.

When she looks over the sheet, she arches one of her eyebrows. “All the ones you’ve kept are those working with Dan,” she says.

“I …” But I can’t think of anything to say.

“Young love,” Julia says dryly. “Is there anything else? Because I have to find people to fill those shifts now.”

“No, thank you. That was it.”

When I’m nearly at the door, Julia says, “Your friend, the loud one …”

“Gabi?”

“She left this.” Julia holds up a customer comment card covered in Gabi’s bubbly handwriting. “Lots of pointers for me. Do convey my gratitude.”

Jeff’s in his study planning lessons when I hover at the door and tell him that I’ve cut down on my shifts.

“That’s good, love,” he says, not looking up.

“I brought you some tea.”

He turns around. “Oh, come here.”

I shuffle over to him, and Jeff hugs me for the first time since I was about seven.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble into his cardigan.

“I’m made of strong stuff,” he says, giving me a squeeze. “You should hear some of the things my students have said to me. Now, if you want to be picked up from your late shifts, you just have to say so.”

I nod.

“Except for Wednesdays. Eric and I are going to trivia night. I thought I’d get myself one of those ‘social lives.’”

I grin at him. As I leave, I realize Mom is standing on the stairs outside the study.

She kisses me on the top of my head. “Thank you,” she says.

“S’all right.” I smile at her and turn to go.

“Ooh, wait,” she says, fishing something out of her bag. “I won this in the work summer raffle. Can you believe it? I’ve entered every year and never gotten more than an assortment of chocolates.”

She hands me an envelope, which I open.

“Oh my God!” I say. It’s a ticket to Paris.

“So, do you want it? You said you and Dan were planning a trip.”

“What? Are you serious? Don’t you and Jeff want it?”

“Jeff took me to Paris on our first anniversary. Granny told me you spent the weekend in a rotten mood because we didn’t take you. It’s only fair!”

I can’t wait to tell him. But for a moment, the wrong face flashes before my eyes.

Dan pokes me with a wooden spoon. “Earth to Mia,” he says.

“Sorry. I was daydreaming.”

“What about?”

“Nothing. Paris.”

I haven’t told him about the tickets yet. I need to soon—he’s planning his route and might book the hostel or something.

“Huh. Did you know there’s a zoo there?”

He’s already on his way out the door. I run after him.

“I did not. We’ll have to have a monkey day.”

Coming out of the reception door, I realize Jamie’s sitting on the main steps. I don’t know if I even see him, but I feel him there.

I grab Dan’s hand, trying to dispel the shameful thought that I’m doing what I yelled at him for. I swing his arm. Like a child, I think too late. Sooner or later he’s going to notice that nothing I do is normal.

“We’ll do the art and shit, yah?”

He laughs. “Yah, like the Louvre and shit. Totes.”

Along the pathway to the park, I think I hear the crunch of feet behind us. I wonder if Jamie has followed us.

The park opens out, and we’re at the part where there’s a line of trees on each side pointing back toward town. I stop and pull Dan back by his arm. I stand on tiptoe and press my lips onto his. We’d be in full view of the end of the path.

Dan looks down at me with a half smile. With our hands still clasped, he runs his thumb along my knuckles. “What are you looking at?”

I turn back. “Nothing.” I focus on his face. I try to imagine a bubble closing around us.

“You know, Paris is just the start,” he says. “There’ll be Hawaii at the midterm break. Chile at Christmas.”

“Eastbourne at Easter when we run out of money.”

“I love you a little bit, Mia.”

He feels my hand tense and watches me apprehensively. The feeling in my chest is warm, like melting. But there’s something deeper. A buzz. The outlines of words, not fully formed. I fight it down and cling to the warmness.

I put my arms around his neck and he stumbles backward, his back making contact with a tree. And I kiss him. Pressing against him and digging my fingers into his skin. I picture the bubble again. Just us.

The buzz continues in the background. I don’t allow the words to form, but other things escape occasionally and move in front of my eyes.

Bare legs touching in water.

Pink sky.

Teeth grazing my shoulder.

I start scraping the food into the garbage can and loading the dishwasher. Dan called in sick today, so I’ve been half on kitchen duty and half in the restaurant. I’m beginning to regret saying that I would finish cleaning so that Andreas could go. My feet really hurt.

When it’s finally clean and I think Jeff is probably already in the parking lot, I come out of the kitchen to get my phone and bag.

Jamie’s standing there in the empty restaurant. “I’d like to talk to you.”

The panic that gripped me when I first saw him is gradually transforming into a feeling of white-hot anger.

“Why?” I feel my voice shaking. “Why the HELL would I want to talk to you?”

“I need to explain some things.”

I give a hollow laugh. “I really,
really
don’t see how you can.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand fine, thanks. You betrayed—no. You didn’t even betray my trust, because I never trusted you with anything.”

His jaw clenches and his eyes narrow angrily. “I trusted you with something.”

“You were just boasting. You can lie to anyone. Great. Well done. I hope that makes you happy, because it’s all you’ve got.”

He moves closer, our eyes fixed on each other. “I’m not the only one whose relationship is a lie.”

I walk forward. My heart is pounding. Everything about the way he’s standing there is fueling the burning rage that I can feel pulsing through my hands.

“I hate you.”

“I hate what you do to me,” he shouts back.

And then his lips are on mine. We’re kissing, forcefully, almost hungrily. The anger flowing through every part of me has set me on fire. His hands move over my back, but not in the controlled way they did before—in a frenzied way, like he
needs
to touch me.

We stumble backward and I land against a table. We move together again and I pull him closer, feeling the weight of him on my chest and between my legs. Cutlery is swept off the table and clatters to the ground. The friction of our clothes as he moves against me starts a buzz running through my body. Aching for him is almost painful.

The shrill tone of the restaurant telephone blasts through the room. We stop abruptly and he lifts his head. We slowly sit up, looking at each other and trying to catch our breath.

“Mia …”

“Leave me alone.” I slide off the table and walk toward the phone, smoothing down my skirt.

“Good evening, Radleigh Castle Restaurant. Mia speaking. How may I help you?”

“Hi, love, it’s Jeff. You weren’t answering your phone. I’m outside.”

There are noises coming from the pool house. A dull, angry ache goes through me as I think of them all in there. I clang the plates together as I pick them up off the table. Then I hear some squealing and a splash. I look over at the pool and see a massive white hat moving around with a person under it. It looks like it’s Dezzie who’s having the party rather than Jamie.

I can’t lose the feeling of nervousness. I got asked to change my shift today at the last minute by Julia, so for the second day in a row I’m not working with Dan. There’s not much I can do. I can’t really tell her that I don’t trust myself to be on my own. Especially after yesterday.

So far tonight there’s been no sign of him. Or Cleo. I’ve been willing the hours to go by quickly so I can escape without seeing either of them.

And I feel treacherous that I can’t help looking around
for him as I walk through to reception to meet Jeff, but he doesn’t appear.

Jeff is sitting there in silence while Andy, who handles the nighttime reception duty, just stares at him. He jumps up when I arrive, and we start out across the gravel to the parking lot.

I can make out the Volvo in the gloom. And a familiar silhouette standing next to it.

I want to scream in frustration. But then I look more closely. I think he’s carrying someone.

As we near the car, I see Jeff squinting too. “Who’s … ? Excuse me? Who are you?”

I’m now close enough to see that Jamie is holding Dezzie. And she’s unconscious. He has an expression of pure panic. He looks briefly at Jeff, but speaks to me.

“Please … Can you help? I think she’s taken something. I need to get her to a hospital.”