It was time to grow up in some areas. I wasn’t a student anymore. I wasn’t the kid who’d moved to Puffin Bay when he was sixteen and had realised that he had the world in his hands, doing whatever odd jobs to have some spare cash so his dad didn’t think the only reason he’d gotten to know him was because he had a healthy liver and some cash spare.
The cleaners left at eight, ushering me out of the door with them because they’d done some spray thing in the kitchen and bathroom that got rid of any viruses or bacteria and inhaling it wasn’t advised. It’d been my suggestion rather than theirs because it wasn’t really that bad, I just wanted to go the extra mile.
I locked up the flat and headed down the stairs and up another set to one of the guest rooms Amelie had first opened all those years ago. I’d stayed in them before, many times, occasionally because Amelie’s friends, the Callaghans, were staying and the flat was better because they’d had little kids or sometimes because there was a spare one and I didn’t want to bring a woman back to my flat, or I’d hooked up with a guest – that’d only happened about three times over the years. Zoey had stayed in the rooms too one year when she’d visited, a fleeting couple of nights over Christmas, when she’d felt like my best Christmas present, only I’d never told her that.
We were also sharing a room, which meant we’d probably share the bed. It’d happened a few times, all of which I could remember every minute of because I hadn’t slept a second.
Before I met Zoey I’d known who she was. It was hard not to that summer, the summer I sat my GCSE’s, the exams you did at sixteen. She’d gone viral first as an influencer for make-up tutorials, then a video of her singing a song she’d written blew up. Kids talked about her, loving or hating the trends she was setting, and some kids fancied her. She was pretty and always smiling, long curly blonde hair that shoutedgirlfriend materialand I might’ve had a few dirty thoughts about her while looking at photos on social media. So the day I first met her I’d tied my tongue and told myself I was never going to be that boy who just wanted to say he’d snogged someone famous. My filters were firmly fixed on and, apart from one occasion, I’d never given away that I fancied the pants off the girl who became my best friend.
The guest room was empty of Zoey; just her stuff littered the floor in a more organised manner than mine would be in five minutes. She was still downstairs in the bar for book club, otherwise known as the night all the men avoided the Puffin Inn. We weren’t welcome, as had been discovered the time when book club was breached by Gulliver and Roe, only for them to find themselves sitting in a silent pub, while everyone else read their books or e-readers.
I stripped off and got into the shower, aware that I was absolutely filthy as I felt like my skin was crawling. The flat really hadn’t been that bad superficially. In reality, it was probably a health hazard, or at least the sofa had been. That was now gone, thank fuck.
I turned the water pressure on to its fiercest and the temperature up. The day had gotten colder, and while I’d been hot doing the cleaning, I was cooling down quickly. I felt the water smash against my skin, lathering up my hair with the shampoo made on the island and in all of the bedrooms both here and at the hotel my dad’s company owned. I could’ve stayed there rather than dossing in Zoey’s room, but it felt weird to stay apart from her for a night, and she’d rather stay at Puffin Inn than a hotel, given she’d been living in hotels for the last nine months.
Singing filtered into the bathroom, audible even over the shower. I rinsed off, feeling nicely clean and warm again and turned the water off, wrapping a towel round my waist. I opened the door into the bedroom and saw Zoey sat on the bed, singing True Blue by Madonna of all things, clearly high on female conversation and fizzy wine and having a moment where she could be sixteen again and singing into a hairbrush.
I leaned against the door frame and watched her toss her hair around, adding a rock twist to the song somehow, totally oblivious to her audience. I would’ve joined in, but that would’ve set the seagulls off.
Her head tipped back, hips shaking. It wasn’t exactly an unappealing image. I liked seeing her like this, carefree, happy, totally herself. At some point, she realised I was watching and froze, her eyes locking with mine until she started laughing and half collapsed onto the bed, her gaze leaving my eyes and trailing over my chest and onto the towel.
The laughter stopped.
“I need to get my shorts.” It was the explanation why I was almost naked. “Good performance, by the way. How was wine club?”
“Hilarious.” Her cheeks had tinged pink. “It wasbookclub and we did talk about books. I only had two glasses of prosecco.” Her eyes wandered back to my chest, hovering there.
Those two proseccos had clearly made my abs impressive.
“You could be a backing dancer if I ever tour again.”
I walked over to the bed and sat down next to her. “I could apart from the fact I can’t dance, which you know.”
“You shuffle well. You managed to shuffle with me at Gully and Iris’ wedding reception.” She poked my side with her finger, the nail of which was a different colour than it had been this morning.
“Shuffle is about all I can do. So what gossip do you have?” I captured her hand after she poked my side for the fifth time. “In fact, have a think and you can tell me when I’m in bed like a bedtime story.” I stood up, rearranging the towel.
Her eyes went there again.
I knew I was grinning like a smug bastard. I wasn’t unattractive; I was well aware women were interested in me mainly because I had a buff body, a decent tan and a face that wasn’t ugly. But Zoey was surrounded by attractive men all day every day, even though she said most weren’t interested because she had the wrong pieces and others were arseholes, so her having her eyes fixed on me was kind of a decent boost.
“You could model, you know. You’re not too old.” She pointed to where the outline of my dick was visible through the towel. “Underwear modelling maybe. I could be your agent.”
“I think I’ll stick to measuring plankton in sea water and such things. Back in two.” I grabbed my shorts and a T-shirt and went back into the bathroom, brushing my teeth and getting dressed, my brain screaming at me that this was a bad idea and I should go and sleep in the backroom in the pub, a spare bedroom we kept for staff or punters who were too drunk to get home.
When I came back into the bedroom, Zoe was in bed, her bra on the messy pile of her clothes on the floor, but I could see she was wearing a T-shirt, a Puffin Bay one she’d bought years before.
“Shall I sleep on the floor?” I asked because it was the gracious thing to do. I knew she’d say no. We were old enough to not be tempted just because there was a warm and hot body next to us.
“Give over, just get in. I love this place but it’s still a hotel room.” She pulled the duvet back and I slipped underneath it, the coolness of the sheets soothing.
“I’m sorry your second night’s another hotel room. I didn’t realise how manky the flat was else I would’ve done something about it before you got here.” I really did feel bad about that.
She burrowed under the duvet, sticking an iceblock cold foot on my leg. I inhaled sharply, feeling man enough to take the torture.
“If I’d only been here for a week I’d have been pissed off, but I’m here for a while this time.” She hitched closer to me. “I might just stay.”
I suddenly felt very warm. “In Puffin Bay?”
