CHAPTER37
‘Alex, what the fuck is going on?’
Alex felt like she was either going to pass out or throw up.
‘Tara, I…’ Alex felt her words fall away. The game was up. There was no point in lying anymore, not to Tara and not to herself. An entire weekend pretending that whatever was happening between her and Aiden wasn’t actually happening. Fighting it. Rationalising it. Enough was enough.
‘The guy I met on the plane. It was Aiden.’
‘Whaaat!’ Beth exclaimed, her jaw almost hitting the sand while there were audible gasps from the rest of the group.
‘I had no idea you guys were together!’ Alex insisted. ‘Not until you both turned up here and—’
‘Butheknew we were together,’ Tara hissed. ‘He knew from the moment he met you. And when he turned up here with me, you didn’t think to say, “Hey, lads, weirdest thing: we’ve just sat on the plane together! Isn’t that a fun story?”’
Alex shifted uncomfortably. ‘Not really. Not after I’d already announced that I’d met someone amazing and given him my number. That seemed worse, to be fair.’
Tara, hands on hips, began pacing back and forth beside the bonfire.
‘So, let me get this straight; you’ve been sneaking around all weekend? Stealing moments together, kissing behindmyback, but in full view of Sigmund fucking Freud over there! Gah, the whole thing is so grubby, I can’t look at you.’
‘Maybe I should go,’ Alex suggested, standing up. ‘We can chat when—’
‘You’re not going anywhere!’ Tara barked. ‘Not until I find out what in the hell has been going on here.’
And with that Tara grabbed Alex’s shoes and threw them into the firepit, a smouldering end to a perfectly good pair of Christian Louboutins. Alex gasped.
Beth, Erin and Paul sat on the sand side by side, guarding their own shoes while transfixed by the whole situation. Christine could have been inside, robbing them blind, but that was a chance they were willing to take.
‘Is this revenge?’ Tara asked Alex.
‘Revenge?’
‘For me banging that guy in uni? Nigel Boyle or whatever his name was, because if it is, that’s just pathetic.’
‘Niall Doyle,’ Alex reminded her. ‘And of course it isn’t.’
Tara paused for a moment, bracing herself for the next question. ‘So have you slept together?’
‘No!’ Alex exclaimed. ‘It was just a kiss. One kiss.’
‘Did it mean anything?’
She wanted to tell Tara it was just a mistake. That it meant nothing. Anything to spare her feelings. But there had been too many lies already.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘It did. It meant everything.’
Alex didn’t feel the slap at first. She felt herself falling and hitting the sand after Tara lunged at her, but the sting on her face came later. And when it came, it burned like hell.
