12. Twelve

“Jamie! Jamie, wait!”

By the time I catch up with him I’m red-faced and panting from the effort of running — okay, jogging — in the hot sun, and his headphones are obviously drowning out my voice, so I have to reach out and grab his arm; an action I instantly regret when he spins around as if he’s being attacked, almost knocking me off my feet in the process.

Now I really wish I hadn’t worn a pair of platform-soled wedges today…

“Whoa, sorry,” Jamie says, his forehead creasing with confusion as he reaches out a hand to steady me. “You gave me a shock there. Can I help you with something? Do I know you?”

If ever there was a moment for me to die on the spot, this would be it: the one where I’ve traveled halfway around the world (okay, a quarter of the way around the world…) to find my first love, and he doesn’t even recognize me.

This is a new low, even for me.

“Um, it’s Summer,” I say, mortified. “Summer Brookes? From next door? Um, I used to be from next door, I mean. In Margate?”

There’s a single beat of silence, and then Jamie’s face clears.

“Mark’s sister?” he says “Summer-the-Singer? Wait: you did want to be a singer, right? That was you?”

He grins, and I’m instantly back in high school, the years melting away until I’m once more the girl in the front row of the school choir, blushing because the boy she likes actually spoke to her.

“That’s me,” I confirm, sounding like I’ve been sucking on helium. “Summer the, er, singer. Not that I’m a singer, obviously. I mean, I do like singing. But I’m not—”

I’ve no idea how long I might go on like this, just babbling like I’m out in public for the very first time, but, luckily for me, Jamie saves me from myself by smiling at me again.

“Wow, this is so random,” he says, “I can’t believe I bumped into Mark Brookes’ little sister all the way out here! What are the odds?”

The odds are actually considerably higher than he thinks given that I came here for this very reason, but telling him that will make me sound like a literal stalker, so I just smile back at him as if ‘bumping into’ him here is as much a surprise to me as it is to him.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” Jamie is saying now. “Still got that quirky dress sense of yours, I see.”

I look down at myself, horrified to realize I’m still wearing Alex’s jumper over my clothes.

No wonder I’m sweating.

“Oh, this isn’t mine,” I tell him, pulling it quickly over my head. “I just borrowed it from … someone. We went up the mountain earlier. On a tour bus, you know? There was snow. But also sunshine.”

“Right,” says Jamie, looking amused. “Right. So, you’re here on holiday, I take it? Where are you staying?”

“Yeah,” I tell him, crossing my fingers tightly behind my back. “I’m staying at the Hotel Martinez in Del Duque. Do you know it?”

Jamie lets out a low whistle.

“Nice,” he says, looking at me appraisingly. “You must be doing well for yourself to afford that place. Hey, who’re you with? It’s not Chloe, is it? You were friends with Chloe Gardner back then, weren’t you?”

This time my stomach just flops. It’s flipping days are over, it would seem.

“Um, no, I’m not with Chloe,” I say quickly. “I’m just with… with some friends.”

Okay, it’s maybe pushing it a bit to refer to Rita and co. as “friends” — and I’m not technically with them as such — but it’s better than having to tell him I’m here on my own… or why. And at least this way I sound like I have friends, too. Cool girl Summer: that’s me.

“Nice one,” says Jamie, grinning. “The clubs are pretty quiet at this time of year, but there’s still plenty going on. I can show you some of the best places, if you like. There’s some great bars near here.”

I wait for him to mention The Rowdy Squirrel, but he just looks at his watch, then back up at me.

“Hey, I don’t suppose you fancy a drink now, do you?” he asks hopefully. “I’ve got some stuff I have to take care of later, but it would be great to catch up?”

“Sure,” I reply, trying to make it sound like no big deal, even though my stomach has instantly started with the flipping again, like some kind of Comeback Kid, and is currently doing a full gymnastic routine somewhere near my ribs. “I’ve got some time before… before I have to meet my mates.”

“Well, great. Come on, there’s a place just along here I think you’ll love.”

I turn obediently, and follow him down the street, hardly able to believe my luck. Me, Summer Brookes, going for a drink with him, Jamie Reynolds. It’s like every one of my teenage dreams come true, except… except, rather than taking me to the Squirrel, which is just one block down from here, if memory serves, Jamie ducks down a narrow side street, and we find ourselves in a little tapas bar with just a few tables, and a view of the dustbins on the street opposite it.

“This is lovely,” I tell him, as he leads me to a table in the corner, which is still heaped with dirty dishes from the last customer. “It’s very… authentic.”

I take a seat, recoiling slightly as my legs brush against something sticky on the chair.

“Yeah,” says Jamie, picking up the plates and moving them to the table next to us. “Yeah, it’s great. I come here a lot. I know it’s not much to look at, but the food’s amazing.”

I smile, slightly reassured. This might not be exactly how I’d always imagined my first date with Jamie Reynolds (Not that this is a ‘date’, of course…), but this place could definitely be described as ‘authentic’, which has to be a good thing. Alex would think it was, anyway. He’d deem the touristy bars and restaurants — the ones with beach views and exotic looking cocktails — “fake” and lacking in substance. But Jamie hasn’t brought me to one of those. Instead, he’s brought me to a place that’s important to him. A place the locals come to eat. That’s even better, really.

Isn’t it?

I pick up the menu on the table, quickly re-calibrating my ‘Summer and Jamie on a date’ daydream as I scan it.

“It was perfect,” I imagine myself telling Chloe later. “Personal, you know? Intimate. Just me and him, without any distractions. And anyway, Jamie and I don’t need fancy restaurants or expensive cocktails to enjoy each other’s company. Our connection goes much deeper than that. It’s —”

“Summer?” I look up from the menu to see Jamie looking at me questioningly.

“I was asking if you want me to order some tapas for us?” he asks. “You were miles away.”

“Sorry, sorry,” I reply, giving myself a small shake. “Yes, tapas would be lovely. I’m absolutely starving. I haven’t eaten all day.”

“Well, we’d better do something about that, then,” he says, grinning. “I’ll get us some sangria too, will I?”

I nod happily, and he gets up and heads to the bar, where he gives our order to a Spanish waitress, who looks over at me suspiciously. I tug at my shorts self-consciously, wondering if I should put Alex’s jumper back on. It’s way too hot for that, though, and before long, Jamie’s back, sliding into the seat opposite me, with a large jug of sangria, and two glasses.

I watch him covertly from behind my sunglasses as he pours for both of us. Up close, Jamie doesn’t look quite as much like his old self as he did from a distance; or even on his Instagram. He’s still good looking, with that boy-next-door vibe he’s always had, but he also looks a little worn around the edges, somehow, like someone tried to draw high school Jamie from memory, and didn’t quite capture him. His tanned skin has an unhealthy sheen to it, and when he pulls off his baseball hat and puts it on the table, I notice that his hairline’s receding in a way that makes him look a lot like his own dad.

It feels both disloyal and shallow to be even thinking these things, though — I mean, it’s not like I look exactly the same as I did back in high school either, is it? — so I push the traitorous thoughts aside and take a nervous sip of the sangria he’s poured me, wondering what I can say to make this situation feel even slightly less awkward.

“So, you own a bar now?” I say brightly, telling myself it’s only awkward for me, because I know why I came here. Jamie doesn’t, which means, as far as he’s concerned, this is just a chance meeting between old friends. Well, acquaintances, I guess.

Jamie’s glass pauses halfway to his lips.

“How did you know about the bar?” he says, instantly proving that, actually, this can definitely be awkward for both of us. Just leave it to me to make sure of that.

“Oh! I, er… I’m not sure,” I stutter, deciding on the spot not to tell him about the strange chain of events that led me to this knowledge. “I think Mark might have mentioned it at some point? Maybe?”

I pick up my drink again to buy myself some time. I haven’t seen my brother since before Christmas, and it’s been years since he so much as mentioned Jamie to me, but, much to my surprise, Jamie buys it.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, as the waitress appears and starts piling plates of food onto the table in front of us. “He probably heard about it from Sparky, if they’re still mates. How is Mark these days, anyway?”

I’ve no idea who/what ‘Sparky’ is, or if my brother is, indeed ‘mates’ with him, but I’m so relieved that I didn’t have to admit to stalking Jamie on the internet that I just smile broadly, and start telling him all about Mark, his wife Lisa, and the glamorous new apartment they just bought in the city, because they’re both doctors, and can afford stuff like that.

“And you?” asks Jamie, when I finally pause for breath, and pick up my fork to try some of the food at last. “What are you doing with yourself these days? You still like singing, you said? I remember I used to hear you through the wall sometimes. I used to kill myself laughing at you. You were pretty good, to be fair, but you were no Mariah Carey.”

I pause, a green pepper halfway to my mouth.

“I’m… taking a bit of a career break right now, actually,” I tell him, trying — and failing — not to feel hurt at that last comment. “Just so I can decide what my next move should be. There are so many options, you know?”

This is almost true, to be fair. I’ve just omitted the bit about how one of my ‘options’ is going back to work in the call center again, like my boss is expecting me to.

“Tell me about it,” Jamie agrees, spearing a Canarian potato with his fork. “I think that’s brilliant, Summer. Too many people get stuck in a rut with work, you know? Why not take a break if you can afford it? Why not take some time to figure out who you really are without all the 9-5 bullshit weighing you down?”

I nod enthusiastically.

I can’t believe someone actually gets it.

“That’s exactly it,” I breathe, excitedly. “Who is Summer, really? That’s the question?”

I rest my chin on my hand thoughtfully, ruining the look slightly when I almost knock over my glass of sangria.

Jamie looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

“So, are you still playing guitar?” I ask to change the subject, and he immediately launches into a very long story about his band, Havoc, who play at the Squirrel every weekend. When it’s over, though, and I’ve dutifully laughed along at the wild and kerrazy antics of band mates whose names I’ve already forgotten, Jamie falls silent, and I realize there’s nothing much left to say.

We’ve exhausted all the topics we have in common; school, and Margate, and how our parents are. All we’re left with now is banalities about the weather, and how much nicer it is here than it is in the UK, and I wrack my brain, frantically trying to come up with something else we can talk about, because I don’t want this to be it. I don’t want to have to admit to myself that I don’t really know this man, and that it’s entirely possible that we don’t have anything in common. I don’t want to have flown all the way out here to see a guy who still thinks of me as “Mark’s little sister” and makes fun of the way I used to sing into my hairbrush loudly enough to be heard in the house next door.

“Did you hear Arianna Morgan got married?” I say, grasping for some common ground as I try to find my way back to the Jamie of my teenage years: the one who seemed to have a kind of golden glow around him all the time, as if he wasn’t quite human.

But it’s like the Jamie I knew — or didn’t know, as the case may be — has been overlaid with this new, older version of himself, and it’s already hard for me to reconcile the two. This new Jamie isn’t particularly interested in Arianna Morgan and her wedding — which is fair enough, because neither am I, really — so we lapse into another long silence, broken only by the sound of Jamie noisily chomping his way through the remainder of the tapas in a way that reminds me of a cow chewing the cud.

This is not how this was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to be a noisy eater who barely remembers me, and wears cheap plastic flip-flops which showcase his weirdly long toenails. I wasn’t supposed to be a shallow airhead, who cares about people’s toenails, of all things. And, I mean, I’m trying not to. I’m trying so hard not to be hopelessly superficial about all of this, but, of course, it’s not just the toenails, is it? Or the way he screws his face up as if he’s in pain every time he takes a bite of his food. It’s the way he laughed at my singing, but didn’t laugh at any of my jokes. It’s the way we can’t seem to grab onto a single thread of conversation that’s equally interesting to both of us.

It’s kind of everything, really.

I think about Alex’s comment about high school popularity not being a guarantee of future happiness, and shift uncomfortably in my seat.

“This has been great,” says Jamie, who seems totally oblivious to the uncomfortable atmosphere that’s surrounding us. “We should do it again sometime.”

“Um, yeah,” I agree, hoping this is just one of those things people say but don’t really mean.

“Wow, is that the time?”

Jamie’s looking at his watch, an expression of surprise on his face.

“Sorry, Summer,” he says, getting hurriedly to his feet. “Gotta bounce.”

“Oh. That’s okay,” I reply, mentally adding the phrase “gotta bounce” to the growing list of things that give me the ick all of a sudden.

“Right. Well, like I said, it’s been great seeing you. We should do it again sometime.”

Jamie leans forward and, before I know quite what’s happening, his lips brush softly against mine, so quickly that it’s over before it even begun, and there’s no time for me to feel awkward about it. There’s no time for me to feel anything about it, actually, other than mildly repulsed by the fact that he tastes like mojo sauce, and garlic.

“You know how to get back to your hotel from here, yeah?” Jamie straightens up as if nothing happened, glancing at his watch again.

Didnothing happen? Did I just imagine that kiss… if you can call it that?

“There’s a taxi rank just around the corner,” he goes on. “Just where we met. You’ll be okay getting there, won’t you? It’s just—”

He holds up his wrist and taps his watch apologetically, looking like he’s itching to run away.

Way to serve up some seriously mixed signals, Jamie.

“Sure, sure,” I tell him, getting up myself. “You …. bounce. I’ll be fine.”

“Great. Thanks, Summer. You’re the best.”

He throws a handful of euros on the table, which I can already tell isn’t going to be nearly enough to cover his share of the bill. Then, with a jaunty little wave, he’s gone.

I just had my first date with Jamie Reynolds.

And I’m not entirely sure what to think about it.