‘Sure,’ I replied without turning round, ‘I’ll be in the Scotsman.’
I staggered back to the apartment, praying that nobody would be awake. I quietly opened the door and was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when I saw a sea of expectant faces. The gang were indeed up and broke into a standing ovation.
Laughing, Kate gave me a drink.
‘What’s this?’ I stammered.
‘It’s a new cocktail we invented for you. It’s called an Invaded Vagina.’
Oh, the embarrassment. Was nothing private in this world?
‘But how did you know?’
Sarah butted in. ‘Graham here,’ she said, gesticulating to my night of passion’s friend, who was sitting in the corner, ‘went back to the hotel last night, but he heard you inside, so he hotfooted it over here with a full report.’
I was mortified. Ground open up now and swallow me please.
‘Well, aren’t you going to say anything?’ Jess asked.
I paused. ‘Graham,’ I said ashamedly, ‘what is your friend’s name?’
It was difficult to hear his reply over screams of amusement and mock outrage from the others. ‘Nick,’ he said, joining the laughter. ‘Nick Russo.’
That evening, unlike the night before, I took hours getting ready. Every outfit made me look too fat, too small, too flat chested. Every hairstyle made me look like my mum or my gran. So this was what happened then. You spent one night with a man and suddenly you morphed into an indecisive, neurotic nightmare. I kept waiting for the seeds of regret to set in, but they never did. I just couldn’t wait to see him again.
When we got to the pub, there was no sign of him. I was glad of the crowd and the noise because at least it stopped the girls’ endless interrogation about the night before.
It’s not that I didn’t want to tell them, I just couldn’t talk about something that I didn’t understand.
How should I act? Should I be coy, distant, friendly, forward? Where was the bloody rulebook? In the end, I settled for terrified and anxious.
All night I kept staring at the door. Eventually, at about ten o’clock, Graham entered. My heart leapt, then sank faster than a stone as I realised that he was alone.
‘Where’s Nick?’ I asked, scared of the answer.
He shrugged and there was something uneasy in his posture that sent my alarm bells straight to screech levels. ‘I don’t know, Carly, I’m not sure if he’s coming down tonight.’
The others looked uncomfortable now too, all the guys’ eyes immediately drawn to their feet. They must teach that in Men School – ‘When one of your fellow males is ceremoniously dumping a member of the female sex, you must immediately stare at the floor, or you’ll be stricken down by the Testosterone God.’
I couldn’t speak. I stood up, grabbed my bag and fled, not stopping for a second lest they saw the tears that were threatening to blind me.
After running for what seemed like miles, my brain locked in a mantra of ‘Bastard, Bastard, Bastard’, I found myself at the beach.
This had never happened to me before. Never had any guy let me down or upset me, never mind make me cry. I had always thought that I was indestructible.
I found an overturned dinghy on the sands and collapsed against it, facing out to sea. Why is it that at times of crisis I always see a vision of my mum lecturing me?
‘They’re only after one thing, you know.’
‘Never give in to sex because they’ll just cast you aside like yesterday’s newspaper afterwards.’
I felt like banging my head on the dinghy, just to get rid of the sound of her voice. A coma would definitely be preferable.
That was where he found me hours later, eyes swollen from crying, mascara ingrained into my cheeks, hair so flat that it resembled a balaclava.
I felt a movement beside me and he sat down, put his arms around me and squeezed tight. I stared at him in dumbstruck shock.
‘How did you find me?’
‘We were all looking for you, and Kate figured you’d be here. The others headed back to the bar when we spotted you. I promised the girls I’d bring you back later. Carol said if I didn’t, she’d remove my nuts.’
That made me smile, but I couldn’t get any words past the massive lump that had formed in my throat.
‘Why did you run off?’ he went on.
‘I thought I’d made a horrible mistake. I thought you weren’t coming,’ I spluttered through the tears that had started again.
‘Don’t be daft,’ he smiled. ‘I just fell asleep while I was getting ready. I was a bit late, that’s all.’
‘Oh.’ Conversational skills were on annual leave again.
‘But I do think we have to talk.’
Here it comes, I thought. The whole ‘holiday romance, it was just a bit of fun’ thing.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that you’d never had sex before?’
Hello again, mortification. My cheeks burned. ‘How did you find out?’ Was it that obvious? Oh, the indignity of it all.
‘Kate told me,’ he replied. ‘She was explaining why you did the hundred metre sprint when Graham appeared without me.’
Oh. Relief.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered honestly. ‘There didn’t seem to be the right moment.’
‘So why did you do it then?’ he persisted.
‘I don’t know that either. It just felt right.’
He laughed. Laughed! I was sitting there feeling like my heart had been shredded and he was laughing. He kissed the end of my nose, then drew me in close to him, dispelling my indignation in a heartbeat.
‘I think I’m going to like you, Carly Cooper. Now, come on, we’ve got some catching up to do.’
The rest of the holiday passed in uninterrupted bliss. The next morning, we went back to our apartment with all Graham’s clothes and swapped them for mine. Graham and Sarah were delighted – they were fast becoming a permanent feature.
Nick and I were the same. We woke up together, sunbathed together, went to the pub
