Tess said, ‘Tom would have been my One That Got Away if we hadn’t got engaged, and I’d have been sad forever.’
Aaliyah rolled her eyes more and Meg gave a miserable little whimper.
Lily thoughtMatt’s clearly my One That Got Awayand was immediately furious with herself. He wasn’t. When the chips were down,herchips, she’d realised that they weren’t right for each other. Serious romance probably wasn’t right for her full stop, and she was happy with that. She liked her life.
And given all of that, she should be completely relaxed about the fact that she and Matt were on the island together. He was just someone she’d once known.
Knowing, though, that she’d been going to see him, she’d really wanted to blow him away again, just once. Out of pride. And hurt. Because, with all his declarations of undying love and undying misery post their split, why thehellhad he married someone elseless than one yearafterwards?
She’d trusted him, she’d trusted what he’d told her; but it couldn’t have been true.
Which was absolutely completely fine, because they really hadn’t been right for each other, and splitting up with him had definitely been the right decision.
‘Lily, are you okay?’ Aaliyah had a forkful of stuffed vine leaf halfway to her mouth. ‘You’re frowning.’
‘Yeah, fine. Just thinking about a difficult client,’ she said. A very plausible answer. She met alotof awkward clients in the new business she’d set up, photo curation, and they were always good for a story or two, obviously on a strictly anonymous basis.
‘I’m going to go and ask him now.’ Meg pushed her chair back and stood up. ‘When you have very strong feelings, you have to act on them, improve your life.’
Lily had very strong feelings right now and she wasnotgoing to act on them. No way would it improve her life if she went back to the hotel, made herself look as good as she could possibly manage, and then hunted Matt down and yelled, ‘Okay, fair enough, it was my decision for us to split up, but why did you marryherso soon afterwards?’ She wasn’t going to do any of that. She was going to be dignified.
‘Got it.’ Meg was almost dancing back to the table, waving a piece of paper. ‘I think he feels the same way.’
‘Hun, I hope this doesn’t end in tears.’ Aaliyah pushed her plate away. ‘I’m done. Don’t want to blow my diet.’
‘It won’t end in tears,’ Meg said. ‘I justknow.’
Yeah. In Lily’s experience that meant nothing.
The next morning, Lily slid her hand towards her beach bag and pulled her phone out, very slowly. She waited a few seconds, to check no one had noticed, and then tilted it towards her and tapped the screen gently. Keeping her head in the same position, face up to the sun, and holding an ‘I’mlovingthis’ little smile, she moved her eyes so that she could see the screen.
What? No way. How could it be only eleven fifteen?
She checked again. Still eleven fifteen. So they’d only been here for forty-five minutes. Realistically, they weren’t going to be heading off for lunch for at least another hour. She was going tofry.
And die of boredom. Why weren’t any of the other three talking or reading? How could they just lie there, doing absolutely nothing?
She looked to her right at the beautiful fine, white sand and the gorgeous turquoise sea. And then to her left at the beautiful fine, white sand and more gorgeous turquoise sea, and some very nice palm trees and some shrubs with fiercely pink flowers. Idyllic.
Heavenly.
God, she was bored.
And so, so hot.
She was pretty sure that she’d been good at sunbathing ten, fifteen years ago. When she thought about ways in which she’d aged, it wasn’t a surprise that she got the hangovers from hell nowadays, or that she was a full dress size bigger than she’d been then. Or even that despite her hair being blonde – she’d always thought that only dark-haired people would have to go down the dye route in their thirties – her roots were hideously grey unless she coloured her hair every three weeks. But she really would not have expected to have lost the ability to sunbathe properly.
She looked over at a couple of boats bobbing on the horizon, and then around at all the sand again.
Right.
She needed to do something, for her sanity, otherwise she wasn’t even going to make it to lunchtime of Day One of three pretty solid days of sunbathing – right now she was really looking forward to their hair and nail appointments, just for the variety – without losing it slightly.
She rolled to her right – another ability she’d lost since her early twenties was a sit-up without somethingveryheavy on her feet, although she was a lot more flexible recently after some Pilates lessons from Meg – and pushed herself up.
‘I might just pop up to the shops,’ she said. ‘I think I forgot to pack any aftersun.’ She totally hadn’t. She’d packed two tubes, just in case.
‘I might come with you actually. I forgot aftersun too.’ Aaliyah sat up fast and scattered sand with her feet. ‘Whoops, sorry.’
