‘I met up with him a couple of months ago. He was even more of a spoiled brat than he was when he was twenty-one.’
‘Four?’ Adam prompts.
‘David, my university boyfriend. He was lovely,’ I say with a smile. ‘He had a girlfriend in his first year, but they split up after the summer and we were already friends. We were together for about a year and a half. But... I don’t know. I just stopped fancying him. I’ve never really been able to work out why because he had so much going for him. He’s now living in South Africa with his wife and three kids. I caught up with him recently and he seemed very settled and happy.’
‘Five?’ Adam asks.
‘I’d better speed this up or we’ll be here all night,’ I say. ‘Am I boring you yet?’
They both deny it, so I carry on.
‘Five was Freddie. I’d decided to go travelling around America for a bit, and I met him on the road. He was a Norwegian wildlife photographer.’ As wild and free as the animals and landscape he photographed. He snapped off a piece of my heart as easily as breaking off a KitKat finger. ‘He encouraged me to buy a camera and taught me how to take photographs so I could submit pictures along with my articles.’
He had loads of contacts, too, which he generously shared. I’d been writing for years about the places I’d been visiting, working from the ship’s internet café during my downtime, but I hadn’t had much published. Freddie changed all that.
‘He really helped kick-start my career. He was a bit older than me.’
‘How much older?’ Charlie asks with interest.
‘I was twenty-one and he was twenty-eight. I loved him desperately. I was heartbroken when things fell apart and he went back to Norway.’ I smile sadly and shrug.
‘Six!’ Adam chirps.
I groan. ‘Vince. When I came back from America I decided to try to get a job at a travel magazine, but knew that would probably involve doing unpaid work experience, so I helped behind the bar at my dad’s pub to get by. Vince was a regular.’
Or, at least, he became a regular while I was working there. He was a landscape gardener doing a big job on a house nearby. He’d come in every day after work for a pint of beer, and I liked that he always looked a bit grubby from a day’s hard labour.
‘He had a certain arrogance about him that initially wound me up. Freddie and I had only recently separated, so I wasn’t looking for anyone else, but I soon warmed to Vince. He was funny and confident, and, even though I’d sometimes call him a twat to his face, he never gave up.’
Charlie and Adam grin. You can tell a mile away that they’re brothers when they’re side by side and smiling like this.
Eventually, my dislike of Vince was only pretence. I used to inwardly smile when he walked through the door, while outwardly rolling my eyes. When he asked me out on a date on the eve of his job finishing, I agreed. It had been a month since he’d first sat down at the bar.
He was twenty-seven, stable, settled and not about to fly off to a far-flung country and desert me.
Looking back, I see I’ve bounced between settled, stable boyfriends and wild, free, untamed men all my life.
‘Dad had started seeing someone while I’d been away, and, even though she was always nice enough to me, she wasn’t thrilled that her partner’s grown-up daughter had invaded their love nest. I stayed more and more at Vince’s, and, before I knew it, I was living with him. He turned out to be a proper arse, though. Very controlling.’
Charlie looks concerned. Adam looks bored.
‘Right, that’s it,’ I say, taking the hint. ‘My round, and then we’ll talk about something else.’
‘No!’ Charlie protests.
‘Yep. Six is halfway. That’s a good end point.’ I get up and go to the bar.
When I come back, Charlie is sitting alone.
‘Where’s Adam?’
‘Over there.’ He nods at the two o’clock table. Adam is surrounded by four girls, including the pretty blonde. He looks like he’s in his element.
‘Good work,’ I say, impressed, climbing onto the bench seat properly and facing Charlie.
‘Come on, then, tell me about the others.’
‘No, no.’ I shake my head. ‘I’ve talked enough.’
