Sister. Sister. SISTER.
Relief calms me from the inside out while embarrassment heats my cheeks. I close my eyes to savour the feeling that returns – hope – and at the same time, I try to think of a response that can wipe away the uneasiness that now hangs between us all.
“How was I supposed to know that?” I say, a small smile curling my lips. “You look nothing alike. She's way hotter than you!”
Everything about Marty creases into laughter, his mouth, his cheeks and his body too as he leans forward a little.
Maeve also takes it the way I’d hoped, looking up from her phone and studying me with a thoughtful grin. “You're funny, I could like you.”
“I should hope so. I did just call you hot,” I say, stepping closer to them both. “Unless you're under the age of eighteen, in which case I would like to apologise profusely.”
“All good. I’ll be twenty next month. And I get called pretty approximately one thousand times a day,” she says without a hint of sarcasm, again looking at her phone. “Okay. Best go back to Ma and Da and tell them I found you alive and sober. Albeitin a bar.”
Ma and Da...He's here on holiday with his parents and younger sister. That's... interesting.
“You don't need to mention that part. Oh, fuck it, mention it. Whatever. They should know by now I'm not going to do anything,” Marty says to Maeve and his tone is different, rushed and tense.
“Bye, Marty. Don’t forget, dinner is in an hour.” She taps his arm with her phone then turns to me. “Sorry, I've totally forgotten your name, but nice to meet you.”
And then Maeve is gone, her long blonde hair and slender limbs winding their way around the tables until she disappears.
“Seriously, she's a stunner,” I say to Marty as the bartender places two glasses in front of us. “God was clearly saving up all the good genes for her.”
He laughs again and hands me a drink. “You have no idea,” he says. “You still want that glass of wine?”
“No, this will do just fine,” I say with a shy smile.
Marty glances back behind us. “Look, we lost our table. Fancy taking these to the beach?”
I nod and turn to walk there with a smile I don't really want him to see. I still don't know what exactly is happening. That panic I felt at him finding someone else - a younger, prettier, slimmer woman - while unpleasant, didn't exactly feel misplaced. It made sense. It felt logical. Part of mewantedit to make sense so I could stop walking the plank I feel I'm edging down again.
“Shit, there's nowhere to sit,” I say as soon as I realise it.
All the tables outside are taken, which is understandable because the sun has begun painting the sky copper and gold as it slowly slips closer to the sea, a perfect circle of hot pink. I look around for the sun loungers, but they're already packed away, stacked high to the side behind the DJ booth.
“Shall we just sit on the pebbles?” Marty says from behind me. I like hearing his voice behind me.
“I'm up for it,” I say with some trepidation but also a shrug that I hope compensates for it. When he walks past me, I follow. We find a spot on the slate-coloured pebbles and he drops down in a far too effortless move. I can’t help but notice that his knees don’t crack like mine do when I join him.
It only takes a moment to feel how uncomfortably lumpy and bumpy the pebbles are under my butt and thighs but I daren't say anything, nor do I risk looking at him to see if he's having the same realisation. Instead, I bring my sunglasses down from the top of my head, take a sip of my mocktail and look at the strips of fiery orange branding the sky. It’s beautiful.
Maybe that’s why silence descends because neither of us have anything to say that could top what’s happening right in front of us. It's a strange kind of quiet because its presence only brings the noises around us into sharper focus; the soft crashing of the waves, the melody and rhythm of the bar’s music, the rising and falling hum of other people’s conversations, interrupted by the chiming of glasses. It’s a silence that isn’t heavy, but it's not light either. It's made of something that begs to be filled but at the same time, it doesn't give me any clue what I should say next. But I know I have to say something.
As it happens, we speak at the same time.
“Sunsets are like visual poetry, aren’t they?” I say.
“My arse is really fucking uncomfortable on these pebbles,” Marty says.
We laugh together for a moment, but he breaks off, looking behind me at the stack of loungers.
“Considering your brother is the manager and all, what do you think about grabbing a couple of those loungers,” he suggests. “Because you're right, sunsets are awesome, and I don't want to not enjoy this one because it feels like I'm sat on a million LEGO bricks.”
“Let's do it,” I say. Balancing our drinks on the pebbles, we head over to the stack of wooden loungers. He hauls one off the top with very little effort and sets it down before getting another. I bend to grab the first and while it's weighty, it’s easy to carry, albeit a little too wide for a comfortable grip. Ignoring onlooking eyes, I manage to carry it over to our drinks. The job is much easier for him and so he's there before I am, and he watches me straighten up with an amused smile.
“You're strong,” he says, but I can't tell if he's impressed or put off.
“I lift,” I say but don’t wait for his reaction. Instead, I sit down on my lounger, adjusting the back so it's upright. I don't know why I feel compelled to explain more, to throw a potential obstacle in my own way, but when he says nothing in return, I start talking. “After my divorce, my therapist recommended lifting weights as a new hobby, a new focus, a way to get out of my head and back into my body.”
