26. Twenty-Six

“The thing is,” says Chloe, “Objectively speaking, Alex is much more your type, really. Don’t you think?”

It’s the next morning, and although she’s still looking a little green from her sickness bug, she’s persuaded me to have breakfast with her at The Rowdy Squirrel rather than the hotel restaurant. I left a note on Alex’s door earlier, letting him know our shared table’s all his this morning, but I’m still weirdly disappointed not to be seeing him, and Chloe isn’t doing much to make me feel better about it with her insistence on dissecting last night’s breaking news about Alex and his non-marriage.

“Not really,” I reply, anxiously scanning the bar area for any sign of Jamie, who doesn’t seem to have arrived yet. “And what do you mean, ‘my type’? I don’t have a ‘type’.”

“Oh, you do,” says Chloe, prodding her plate of bacon and eggs without enthusiasm. “You go for complicated, emotionally unavailable men. You always have. And Alex fits the bill exactly. It’s like he was made for you.”

“Jamie isn’t complicated and emotionally unavailable,” I point out, even though I know she’s completely nailed ‘my type’. “He’s like a Labrador puppy.”

“He wasn’t like that when he was a teenager,” replies Chloe. “All that sitting about listening to music no one else had ever heard of. God, you were unbearable, the pair of you.”

She pokes her tongue out to show me she’s joking.

“Now that he’s made it clear he’s available, though, that’s when you decide you don’t actually want him any more,” she goes on. “And when Alex reveals that he almost got married last week, suddenly he’s the man of your dreams. You only want what you can’t have. As soon as you think it might be within your grasp, you panic and run away. It’s the Summer Brookes story. And it’s time you changed the ending, don’t you think?”

“That’s not true,” I protest, crumbling a piece of toast between my fingers. “It’s just not.”

“Of course it is,” Chloe replies briskly. “I think you do it because it’s safer that way for you. Either that or you’re just a bit mad, really.”

“It’s not mad to want to protect yourself from disappointment,” I say, stung by this. “I just don’t want to get hurt, that’s all. That’s totally normal.”

“If you say so.”

Chloe glances at her watch and frowns.

“I’m going to have to get back to the hotel soon,” she says, pushing her plate aside. “I’ve got a massage booked in the spa. Which I’m actually kind of regretting now, because I really wanted to have one last go at getting you and Jamie together before we go home. Where is he?”

“I don’t want to get together with Jamie now, though,” I tell her, for what feels like the 100th time since we got here. “I told you that.”

“You’ve just got cold feet,” she says firmly. “Oh, look, there he is.”

I look around just in time to see Jamie walk through the door of the bar and head for the door marked ‘staff only’. The sight of him gives me the same feeling I used to get at school when I was about to sit an exam I hadn’t prepared for.

“Jamie!” yells Chloe again, oblivious to my distress. “Jamie! Over here!”

Jamie glances over his shoulder, then disappears through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

“That’s weird,” says Chloe. “I’m sure he heard me. Shit. I’m going to miss my massage if we don’t leave soon.”

She looks at her watch again.

“We’re going to have to go,” she says. “But I need to pee first. Go and ask someone if they can fetch Jamie for us while I’m in the bathroom, Summer, will you? Maybe we can arrange to see him later.”

“Oh. Er…”

I frantically wrack my brain for a good reason not to do this, but Chloe’s already out of her seat and en route to the bathroom, so I reluctantly get to my feet and go over to the bar, where I manage to get the attention of one of the staff.

“Can I speak to the owner, please?” I ask her, cringing as I realize how stupid I sound.

“Is there something wrong?” the woman asks. She has shiny black hair piled up in one of those effortless looking topknots I can never seem to manage, and a slightly harassed expression, which I’ve just made worse. “Can I help?”

“Oh, no!” I assure her. “Everything was great. It’s just, Jamie’s a friend of mine. Well, sort of.”

“Jamie?” The woman’s eyebrows rise in disbelief. “Jamie isn’t the owner; he just works here, like the rest of us. Did he tell you he owned the place?”

“I… I…”

I open and close my mouth like a confused goldfish as I take this in.

Jamie doesn’t own the bar?

So why did he let me think he did?

“It’s okay, Lina, I’ll handle this.”

I turn around to find Jamie standing behind me. His hair flops sweatily into his eyes, and there’s a large blob of mustard on the front of his t-shirt.

At least, I hope it’s mustard.

“Summer! Didn’t expect to see you here; having breakfast, are you?”

Jamie’s being deliberately upbeat, trying to pretend he hasn’t just been caught out in one whopper of a lie. He thinks that if he doesn’t mention it, I won’t either; that I’ll go along with it, just to avoid the awkwardness of calling him out. Just to be nice.

I almost do it, too.

Every instinct in my body is telling me to nod, and smile, and pretend nothing happened. Because that’s exactly what Old Summer would do. She would put Jamie’s feelings above her own, and then she’d go home and wonder why she’d rather let someone take her for a fool than tell them what she really thinks.

But no more.

“Yeah, Chloe and I thought we’d pop in to see you,” I reply, looking him dead in the eye. “To your bar. That you told me you owned.”

The smile falls from Jamie’s face

“Now, I didn’t actually say that,” he says, looking at his feet. “You just assumed.”

“Oh, come on, Jamie. You deliberately made it sound like you owned the place. And even if I had just somehow got the wrong end of the stick, you had so many opportunities to tell me the truth. So why didn’t you?”

I’m angry now; not because he’s just a lowly barman, rather than the entrepreneur he made himself out to be — I couldn’t care less about that. But because he lied. Because he’s not the person I thought he was; and I’m starting to wonder if he ever was. And, most of all, because I don’t think I deserve to be treated like this.

“It’s just such a pointless lie,” I go on, not giving him a chance to make excuses. “And it’s not just me you lied to, it’s Chloe, too. What else did you tell us that wasn’t real?”

There’s a lot more I could say here. I’m just getting warmed up, in fact. But, luckily for Jamie, before I can really get into it, a little girl with her hair tied up in pigtails comes bounding towards us.

“Daddy!” she says, throwing her arms around Jamie’s legs. “Hi, Daddy!”

Daddy?

Okay, so maybe this particular interruption isn’t so lucky for Jamie, after all. And he obviously doesn’t think so either, because his face turns scarlet with embarrassment as he reaches down and takes the child by the hand.

A daughter.

Jamie has a daughter.

Which means he probably also has a—

“Hi!”

A harassed-looking brunette who’s basically an older version of the pigtailed girl comes strolling towards us, completely oblivious to the minor drama that’s unfolding in my head as she approaches.

“Hi,” the woman says again, with a glance in my direction. “Who’s this, Jamie?”

I smile politely as Jamie fumbles for an answer. I could help him, of course. I could hold out my hand and introduce myself as an old friend who just happened to be passing, and who definitely hasn’t been hanging out with what I’m assuming is her husband all week, without him saying a single word about her.

I could do that.

But, right now, I somehow don’t feel like doing anything at all to help out this man I barely know, and owe absolutely nothing to. So I just stand there until he shrugs weakly and gives a slight shake of his head.

“It’s no one,” he says. “Just someone looking for a job.”

And there it is.

The Jamie of my teenage memories abruptly flickers and fades and all I’m left with is this stranger, standing there with the wife and child I didn’t know he had, with an apologetic look on his face.

“Sorry, love,” he says, looking at me. “You’d have to speak to the manager about that. I just work here.”

“No worries,” I say in a level tone which is completely out of step with the rapid beating of my heart right now. “I don’t think this is for me, anyway.”

Just as I’m about to turn away, I open my hand and let my bag fall to the floor, where it lands with a soft thud.

“Whoops,” I say cheerfully, waiting until Jamie bends down to pick it up for me, then crouching quickly down to join him.

“You’re a lying traitor, Jamie Reynolds,” I whisper in the seconds it takes for his hand to curl around the strap of my bag then hand it to me. “Guess you better hope I never tell anyone, huh?”

Jamie’s eyes widen in horror, but it’s too late, because by the time his mouth opens to say something, I’m already halfway to the door, striding through it with a confidence that’s quite unlike me, and not stopping until I’m outside in the sun, feeling it warming my skin after the cool air of the bar.

“Right,” says Chloe, wiping her hands on her shorts as she appears beside me. “What did I miss?”

***

“And then the kid was like, ‘Daddy! My daddy!” says Chloe, to a rapt audience consisting of Rita, Gerald, and anyone else who happens to be within earshot at the hotel pool a short while later. “Honestly, you should’ve seen it!”

“You didn’t see it,” I hiss, wishing she’d stop going on about this. “You were still in the loo at the time.”

“I can imagine it, though, can’t I?” says Chloe, unperturbed. “I can totally imagine it.”

She’s fresh from her massage, and, from the look of things, is never going to get tired of re-telling the sad tale of how Jamie Reynolds turned out not to be the love of my life to anyone who’ll listen.

“So can I,” says Rita, her bracelets rattling as she reaches for her drink. “I just wish I’d been able to warn you, Summer, love. I saw something like this in the tea leaves this morning at breakfast, only I didn’t realize it was your Jamie I was seeing; I thought it were that Rishi Sunak.”

“Rishi Sunak doesn’t look anything like Jamie, though,” Chloe begins, and I tune out of their conversation to focus on Alex, who’s lying on the sun-lounger next to mine, his eyes hidden by dark glasses. He looked up briefly when we arrived at the pool, and said a quick hello, but he hasn’t said anything at all in response to Chloe’s dramatic re-telling of this morning’s Jamie-related revelations. I’m not sure he’s even awake, actually. I’m pretty sure he’s either sleeping or just pretending to be sleeping, so he doesn’t have to get involved.

I can’t say I blame him, either.

“Are you okay?” he says in a low voice, proving my theory wrong. “That must’ve been quite the surprise for you.”

I shuffle forward to separate myself from Chloe and Rita, who are still discussing the tea leaves and Rishi Sunak.

“I’m fine,” I say truthfully. “I really am. Well, I’m annoyed, obviously. I wish he hadn’t lied to me. But I’m not upset that he’s married. I think I’d already figured out he wasn’t the person I thought he was. I’m just annoyed it took me so long, and I had to fly thousands of miles to do it.”

Alex says nothing for so long that I start wondering if he really has fallen asleep this time.

“Still,” I go on brightly. “It could have been worse, couldn’t it? Imagine how I’d have felt if I’d really been in love with him, and then his wife and daughter had come waltzing in? Now that would’ve been a disaster.”

“You’re not in love with him?” says Alex, looking around at me. “But I thought you two were destined for each other?”

“I’m not sure I believe in any of that stuff anymore,” I admit. “Destiny, soul mates… And even if I did, what are the odds of my one true love being the boy who lived around the corner from me growing up? What are the odds of it being someone who was right there in front of me? I mean, he didn’t even recognize my Biff Loman quote. That says it all, really.”

“Don’t tell us there’s another bloke on the scene,” says Gerald, who’s been blatantly listening in to all this. “Between him and young Jamie and this Tim McGraw chap, I don’t know whether I’m comin’ or goin’.”

“Which Biff Loman quote?” says Alex. “Is it the one about spending your life doing something you hate, just for the sake of a two-week holiday? Or something like that, anyway?”

“Yes,” I say, surprised. “Yes, it is. We read the play in high school. It’s only now that I realize how much I relate to it, though.”

And it’s true. This holiday hasn’t been what you’d call ‘relaxing’ exactly. But as I look around the pool deck, the scent of sunscreen and freshly cut grass filling the air, I realize I’m not ready for it to end. I don’t want this break to be something I spend an entire year working in a call center for. I don’t want to resign myself to only really being myself for two weeks every year. I need my life back home to feel like something worth going back to. Which means I still have a fair bit of work to do on my plan; because I’ve kissed Jamie Reynolds (sort of), climbed a mountain (again, sort of…), ridden a motorcycle (okay, okay…), and even sung on stage… right up until I got kicked off it…

But I still haven’t changed my life.

Not even close, in fact.

“Hey,”says Alex. “It turns out the hotel staff didn’t get the message about my non-honeymoon last night after all. They’ve arranged some kind of special dinner on the beach tonight.”

“Oh. Okay,” I say, trying to hide my disappointment that he won’t be joining me at our usual table. “That’s no problem. I don’t mind eating by myself.”

The corners of his mouth curl up in an amused smile.

“I wasn’t asking you to eat on your own, Summer,” he says. “I was asking you to eat with me. It’s a dinner for two.”

“Oh! That sounds…”

That sounds suspiciously like a date, is what I’m thinking. It can’t be, though. Because he’s just ended his engagement, and I’ve spent the entire duration of our not-a-friendship talking endlessly about some other guy, so we’re the last two people in the world — or by this pool, even — who should be even thinking about going on a date.

Right?

“Look, you’d be doing me a favor,” says Alex, confirming the Not a Date status of his suggestion. “Because if you don’t come with me, I’ll just be sitting there on my own, all tragic. Imagine how sad I’ll feel?”

He pouts with feigned misery and I can’t help but laugh at the hangdog expression on his face.

“Well…”

I glance over at Chloe, who’s watching with a resigned expression on her face.

“Oh, go on,” she says, rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine on my own. I can make my own entertainment.”

That last statement doesn’t exactly reassure me. But everyone’s looking at me, waiting for my response, so I can’t exactly say no to Alex now, can I? That would be like kicking someone when they’re down.

“Okay, okay,” I say, before Rita can jump in and offer to go instead. “I’ll come with you. I can’t possibly let you endure an ordeal like that on your own, can I?”

“Great,” says Alex. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

It’s a date.

I mean it’s not a date.

It’s just two recent enemies-turned-friends helping each other out and having dinner together. It really doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.

Does it?