23. Twenty-Three

“Oh my God,” I say, as Alex and I climb up the steps that lead from the beach to the hotel. “I’ve just thought of something.”

“It’s not something to do with Whatshisface, is it?” says Alex, who seems to be back to his usual self, after his unexpected moment of vulnerability on the beach. “I think I’ve had enough of him for one day.”

“No, it’s not Jamie,” I reply. “It’s you. Your eye.”

“My eye?”

“Yeah. The bruised one. Was that the best friend you mentioned? Did you try to fight him, and he gave you a black eye? Were you fighting over Rebecca?”

Please say you weren’t fighting over Rebecca…

Alex laughs mirthlessly.

“No,” he says matter-of-factly. “We weren’t fighting over Rebecca. I told you they were welcome to each other, and I meant it. We were fighting over my dog.”

“Your… your dog? Your dog was at the wedding?”

We’ve reached the stop of the steps now, and I sit down to put my sandals on, imagining a shaggy-haired dog wearing a bow tie and standing next to Alex at the altar.

“No, he wasn’t at the wedding. He was at the best man’s house; that’s the friend who… well, you know.”

I nod, and he sits down to join me.

“I left him there because we were supposed to be coming here the day after the wedding, and Luke said he’d take care of him while we were away. But then I found out he’d been sleeping with my fiancée. The best friend, I mean, not—”

“I get it.”

“I told him I wasn’t going to stand in his way with Rebecca, but there was no way he was getting Brian, too. No way.”

“Brian? Your dog’s called Brian?”

I have no idea why this is amusing to me, but Alex just nods, as if men like him always have furry friends named Brian.

“Anyway, I went round there to get him back, but the house was in darkness, so I used the spare key Luke had given me to get in, and, well, I guess he thought I was an intruder.”

“So he punched you.”

“He did. And I punched him back. But I did get my dog, so that’s the main thing.”

He says all of this without any emotion; as if it’s just a set of facts he’s telling me. Now that I know him better, though, I can tell that it isn’t. The emotion is right there in his face. And any man who loves his dog enough to try to steal him away from his traitorous best friend is obviously not the kind of emotionless freak I had Alex pegged as.

I feel pretty bad about thinking that now.

Reallybad, in fact.

“Well, I’m glad you got Brian back,” I say, to cover my sudden discomfort. “What kind of dog is he?”

“A labradoodle,” says Alex, surprising me again. If I’d had to guess, I’d have thought he’d have a much less fluffy breed than that. “He’s great. Look, this is him.”

He pulls out his phone and shows me a photo of a wild-haired poodle cross, who looks like he’s laughing, and I coo over it appropriately, while silently berating myself for having got absolutely everything about this man wrong.

He’s not a dementor; he’s just sad. And now that I know that, I find myself going back over every one of the interactions I’ve had with him since we met, re-framing them in the context of this new and significant piece of knowledge, which has — in the space of an evening — changed everything.

“Is that why you’ve been glued to your phone so much?” I ask. “Have you been talking to… her?”

“A bit,” he says. “Not much, though. No, I’ve mostly been talking to my family; trying to explain to them why I’m not coming back to ‘try to work things out’. Oh, and trying to get a refund on the reception, obviously. You would not believe how much of a headache that’s been.”

“I bet.” I chew my bottom lip thoughtfully. “Well, I guess all of this explains how sad you’ve been,” I say. “I’d be sad too if I’d just broken up with someone I’d been with since we were teenagers.”

“Oh, I’m not sad because of that,” Alex says, surprised.

“You’re not?”

“No. When I said the humiliation was the worst thing about it all, I was wrong,” he says quietly. “The worst thing about it was the relief. When I realized it was all over, and I it, I was just so relieved, Summer. And I guess I do feel sad now, but it’s not because I miss her, or want her back. It’s more of a sadness for all of the time I’ll never get back, you know? All that time I spent setting up a life with her, trying to make it work… When I think about what I could have done with that time instead, that’s what makes me feel sad. Does that make sense?”

“I don’t want to feel like my life has been wasted.”

Wasn’t that what I wrote in my diary?

“Yes,” I say softly. “Yes, that makes perfect sense.”

We sit there in companionable silence for a few moments, then Alex stands up and offers me his hand, pulling me to my feet.

“It looks like dinner’s almost over,” he says, glancing over at the terrace, where the waiters are circling the last few diners, waiting to clear up as soon as they leave. “I’m sure they’d let us grab something if you’re hungry, though? I kind of ruined your dinner, didn’t I?”

“No,” I reply truthfully. “You didn’t. And I’m not particularly hungry, either. You’d got us enough starters to feed the entire island.”

“Okay. Well, if you’re not hungry, then I guess—”

He trails off, and we stand there looking at each other, the atmosphere between us suddenly awkward as we try to figure out where to go from here. It seems weird to just say goodnight and go our separate ways after everything we’ve just shared, but then again, there’s no real reason for us to hang out together.

We’re not friends, after all.

“We could have a drink?” Alex suggests. “Unless you have somewhere you need to be? Or… someone you need to see?”

“If you mean Jamie, then no,” I tell him, telling myself I’m probably just imagining the hopeful note I thought I heard in his voice when he suggested drinks. “I don’t have any plans with Jamie. I should probably check on Chloe, though. But I could meet you at the bar after that? If you like?”

Alex smiles; a proper smile this time, not one of the guarded ones he’s been offering up lately.

“I like,” he confirms. “Go and check on your friend. I’ll get us some drinks.”

I nod, then race off across the grounds towards Chloe’s ground-floor room, almost as if he might change his mind if I don’t get back fast enough. Once I’ve established that Chloe’s still alive, but nowhere near well enough to come out for a drink (“You go without me,” she says, like the dying heroine in an end-of-the-world movie. “There’s nothing you can do for me now.”) I take a moment to inspect my makeup in one of the public bathrooms, then head for the main bar, trying to ignore the way my stomach’s fluttering at the thought of having a drink with Alex.

It’s just a drink, though. That’s it. He’s probably just regretting telling me about his broken engagement, and now he wants to take my mind off it by getting me drunk.

Yeah, that’ll definitely be it.

When I reach the bar, though, I find Alex standing outside it without any of the drinks he said he was going to get, and my heart sinks with disappointment.

“Have you changed your mind about that drink, then?” I ask, pretending to be totally fine with this. “Because it’s no problem if you have. We can do it another night. I’m cool.”

Alex chuckles.

“No you’re not,” he says, sounding much more like his usual self. “But you’re about to be. Look.”

I turn and look in the direction he’s pointing, but all I see is the door of the entertainment area; the one with the stage where they held the karaoke the other night. My entire body cringes reflexively at the memory.

“What am I looking at? I don’t understand?”

“The stage,” says Alex, looking pleased with himself. “You’re going to go on stage. Right now.”

“Oh, hell no,” I say, crossing my arms firmly across my chest to underline my determination not to do this. “Absolutely not. You saw what happened the last time. I’m never singing in front of people again. Like, ever.”

“Well, from what I saw, you didn’t actually sing in front of anyone the first time,” Alex points out. “You just stood there and made this weird choking noise. It sounded a bit like—”

“Yeah, I remember,” I interject crossly. “You don’t have to re-enact it for me. I feel bad enough just thinking about it.”

“Okay, okay. But, look, you don’t have to sing in front of people this time either. It’s closed tonight. There’s no one there.”

“Oh. Right.”

I take a closer look at the door to the stage area. Sure enough, the cavernous space behind it is in darkness; not a single orange-skinned singer or chirpy member of the ‘animation team’ in sight.

“So, why are you showing me it?” I ask, confused. “I’m not following?”

Alex grins devilishly.

“I said you don’t have to sing for people,” he says. “But you can sing for yourself, can’t you? For practice. And there’s a handy empty stage right here for you to do it on.”

I blink, still confused.

“You want me to sing to an empty room?” I ask. “For practice? Practice for what, though?”

“For the end of the week,” Alex says, sounding pleased with himself. “When you enter the karaoke contest and blow everyone away with that voice of yours. And it won’t be a totally empty room, either. I’ll be there.”

“You’re ‘people’,” I point out. “So that would still be me singing for ‘people’, wouldn’t it? And anyway, you have no idea what kind of voice I have. You’ve never heard me. The ‘choking’ incident doesn’t count.”

“Summer, I’m staying in the room next to yours,” Alex says, looking me right in the eye. “The walls are thinner than you think, you know. And you take really long showers, just FYI. It’s terrible for the environment, but excellent entertainment if you happen to be in the room next door.”

I gape at him, thinking about my habit of singing in the shower, and how I belted out the entire ten-minute version of All Too Well this very morning.

Please let him not have heard that. Please let him not have heard that.

“What’s the significance of the scarf?” asks Alex thoughtfully, dashing my hopes to the ground. “Is it a metaphor, or is there an actual scarf, do you think?”

“Oh God,” I moan, covering my face with my hands. “I’m mortified. Completely mortified.”

“Don’t be,” he replies briskly. “You have an amazing voice. Really. And I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it; trust me. I never say anything I don’t believe.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that about you.”

I look from the closed door of the entertainment area to Alex, then back again.

He really sounds like he means what he’s saying. But I still feel horribly shy at the thought of singing in front of him. It’s not so long ago that I thought he was the most annoying man I’ve ever met, after all; one who’d judge and sneer, and probably laugh all the way back to his room the second I got the first note out.

But if tonight’s shown me anything, it’s that Alex Fox is not any of those things. And he’s looking at me now with that line between his brows still faintly visible, and an expression in his eyes that makes me somehow sure I can trust him.

“Look, I just poured my heart out to you about my doomed marriage, and how it’s all my fault,” he says, as if he can sense me wavering. “Which is pretty embarrassing for a guy, really. The least you could do is at least consider embarrassing yourself in return. Not that I think you will, obviously. I’ve heard you singing that scarf song too many times now.”

He smiles at me appealingly, and it’s totally impossible not to smile back at him. Even though he did just refer to the greatest song ever written as “that scarf song”.

“It’s probably locked,” I say, still not quite ready to commit to this.

“Well,” says Alex with a grin. “There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”