‘I’m not surprised. He doesn’t seem the type.’ He was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Wecould go skinny-dipping.’ His smile faded. ‘Maybe not such a good idea,’ he said. ‘Sorry. This friends thing takes a bit of practice.’
‘No harm done,’ she said, feeling disappointed. He wasn’t the only one who was having trouble drawing the boundaries between friends and lovers.
Later they barbecued steaks and ate at the picnic table as the sun sank in the sky.
‘I’m going to have an early night,’ Claire said, yawning as she cleared the table. It was only nine, but she was exhausted. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open. It must be all this fresh air.’ She took an armload of plates into the caravan, and as she was dumping them in the sink, she heard voices outside. She went to the window and saw Luca talking to a girl as he gathered up the rest of the stuff. Tall and slender, her blonde hair was pulled into a high ponytail. She looked around the same age as Claire, but she wasn’t one of the regulars she had got to know over the years they had been coming here. Luca had put down the glasses he’d been holding to talk to her. Even though she couldn’t hear a word that was being said, Claire could tell the girl was flirting with him – her posture, her smile, the coy way she twirled her hair around her fingers as she talked to him. She was suddenly filled with an overwhelming urge to run out and kick sand in the girl’s face. So much for feeling numb, she thought. And she’d forgotten all about being tired because she was fantasising about wrestling that girl to the ground, and she knew she’d have the strength to do it.
She was about to go outside, at least to make her presence known, when the girl nodded to Luca, turned and wandered off. He gathered the glasses up again and came back inside.
‘Who was that?’ Claire asked.
‘Her name’s Aideen,’ he said, as he dumped the glasses in the sink. ‘She’s staying in one of the caravans with a friend. She asked if we wanted to go to the pub with them.’
‘We?’
‘Yeah. I told her I was here with a friend too.’
Claire felt knocked back. But, of course, that was all she was to him now.
‘She probably thinks I’m another guy,’ she said, with a hollow laugh. ‘Her friend would get quite the surprise when you turned up with me.’
‘Oh, I never thought of that.’ Luca laughed. ‘But maybe her friend’s a lesbian. She might think it was her lucky night!’ He turned on the tap. ‘Anyway, I presumed you wouldn’t want to go. I said we were going to bed early.’
‘Just because I’m having an early night it doesn’t mean you have to,’ she said. ‘If you want to go to the pub…’
‘Not particularly.’
She knew she was being unfair, acting so possessively. There was nothing to stop him going to the pub with Aideen, letting her take him back to her caravan…
‘Or,’ she said, sliding a hand up under his T-shirt to the warm skin of his back, ‘you could stay here with me. We could go skinny-dipping.’
‘Claire…’
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him softly, coaxingly, and he almost responded, but then he was pushing her away gently. ‘I thought you were tired,’ he said.
‘I’m having an adrenalin rush.’ She tried to kiss him again, but he held her off.
‘Claire, stop.’
‘Why? I thought you wanted to go skinny-dipping.’ As soon as he released her, she reached for him again. ‘Or we could just stay here,’ she said, toying with the drawstring of his shorts.
‘Stop,’ he said firmly, stilling her hand with his. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘Icame here to be with you, okay? You don’t have to take your clothes off to make me stay. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Sorry.’ She hung her head, tears stinging her eyes. She let out a long, heaving breath. ‘I’m going to bed. We can leave that till morning.’ She nodded to the plates piled in the sink.
‘I’ll do it,’ Luca said. ‘See you in the morning.’ He kissed her on the forehead – a brief, chaste kiss that made Claire want to scream in frustration – and turned back to the sink.
Maybe coming here hadn’t been such a great idea, Luca thought, as he washed up. And to a fucking caravan, of all things! He’d find it hard to keep his distance from Claire on the Serengeti Plain, but squashed together in a caravan…
He really wanted to kiss her. He was aching to take her to bed. Turning her down just now had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, especially when he could see in her face how hurt and rejected she’d felt. But she was vulnerable right now. She was sad and maybe a bit lonely, and he couldn’t take advantage. Besides, she would probably regret it later. Then things would be awkward and they wouldn’t be friends any more. It wasn’t worth risking losing her. Sex was easy – he could get his rocks off with anyone. But he didn’t have another friend like Claire.
He heard voices and laughter outside, and turned to see a group of teenagers walking past, dressed up for a night out in jeans and sparkly tops. Maybe he needed to get laid. He should go to the pub, hook up with that girl and get Claire out of his system once and for all.
In her bedroom Claire lay awake, listening to Luca moving around outside, anxiously waiting for the click of the door or the noise of the shower, any sound that would tell her he was going out. She couldn’t relax until she knew if he would go to the pub or not. She turned on her laptop to check her emails. There was one from Emma in her NiceGirl account:
Hi,
Sorry to hear about your family crisis. Hope it wasn’t too serious, and that everything’s okay now.
