“Babe, there is nothing wrong with this photo.” I pass her phone back and she grips it tightly.
“I know, but I didn’t tell him this was a joint trip and that Beck would be here.” She hangs her head. The picture is an innocent shot of us all at the club. Arms slung round one another, goofy smiles on our faces, and the top hat and sombrero are making more sense as we’re all wearing different hats of various sizes. But it’s the way Trixie is leaning into Beck and the lopsided grin on his face as he presses his face into hers. As an outsider looking in, they look like a couple, and if I know Ezra, he’s pissed. “How do I tell Jade?” she pleads, her gaze darting between my eyes. “Please help me; you know Ezra better than anyone.” Her tone is frantic as she picks at the skin by her nails.
“Trixie, are you scared of Ezra?” I say softly.
“What? No, of course not.” She jumps up, her posture defensive, as she pins her deep brown eyes on me. “I don’t like what you’re assuming.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to say something out of turn. You just looked shaken.”
“I am shaken. I’ve now got to tell my best friend that my boyfriend is coming to crash her bachelorette party and take me home because I was drunk and stupid and posted a picture of me and Beck on my Instagram. And I lied saying it was a girls’ trip.” She’s pacing now, and I stand and grab her shoulders to stop her spiral. I smile warmly at her.
“Jade will be fine. And you’re not going anywhere. He can’t make you do anything you don’t want.”
“I know.” She sighs. “But he can’t hang around with the boys; they hate him too.” She flops back down on the bed, groaning as she throws her arm across her face. “I sure know how to pick them. This is why I never did relationships before. I’m fucking terrible at them.”
I lie next to her and pull her arm away from her face. “You aren’t terrible at them.”
“I am.” She lets out a humorless laugh. “I can’t help but fuck things up.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong here except post a picture with your best friends.”
“And lie about who was here.” She cringes.
“Okay, yeah, you shouldn’t have done that, but if he can’t trust you enough to let you have a trip away with your friends, then that’s his issue not yours.”
“So what do I do?”
“You tell him you’re staying—if you want to stay, which I know you do—and that he’s going to be making a wasted trip. I happen to know he has a very important meeting next week that he will not want to miss, so he isn’t hanging around for the whole trip.” I give her a half smile.
“How do you know he has a meeting?”
“He emailed me yesterday gloating that he was meeting this client before me. Rookie mistake, if you ask me, because now I can plan for his tactic. He forgets I taught him everything he knows. I know how he will play this.”
“So you’ll help me?”
“Yeah, he isn’t taking you home. And I know for a fact Lily will throw down if he tries.”
She laughs, staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I don’t think Ezra has seen the full wrath of Lily Chambers. It’s enough to make a man’s balls shrivel up into his stomach and never drop again.”
“She is a queen.” Nudging her shoulder with mine, I smirk. “But add Grace and my mom, and Ezra isn’t taking you anywhere.”
She quickly returns her gaze to mine. “Shit, that’s a force I don’t know any man would be able to cope with.”
“Okay, ladies.” Grace swings the bathroom door open, wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe. “I’m feeling refreshed.” Flamboyantly, she poses, stretching her arms above her head. “Show me the grease.”
“Where the hell have you gone?” Grace clicks her fingers in front of my face.
“Huh?” I blink over at her as she pushes her oversized sunglasses on top of her head. She is perched on the edge of my sun lounger with a worried look on her face.
“This face”—she jabs her finger gently into my cheek—“isn’t the face of someone who is just nursing a hangover. If you’re thinking about work when you promised me you wouldn’t on this trip, I’ll ask Chuckles to throw you in the pool.”
“I’m not thinking about work as such.”
“Don’t try me, Ria; I’ll do it.” She brings her forefinger and thumb to her lips, ready to whistle when I pull them back down into her lap.
“Please don’t.”
“What is it then?” She pinches her brows in concern.
