Page 29 of The Ghost of Exes Past

‘Follow me.’ She puts her hand in his and leads him towards the hotel.

They wait impatiently, giggling, for the lift doors to shut. As soon as they close, she’s on him. Hands to his chest as he reaches for the back of her head and pulls her towards him. The lift passes floors one and two. Pings at level three, where they peel themselves away from each other, wiping their lips, and the doors open … to no one. Belle hurriedly presses the button to level seven. The doors close again and he corners her to the wall, cupping her breast in his palm as her hand wanders frantically between his legs, where he is already hard.

The lift chimes at level seven. She grabs his hand and they run to her room. She pulls her key card from the pocket of her denim shorts as he kisses her neck, hands running over her waist. He reaches between her thighs, which makes her stop, her hands braced on the doorframe, unable to press the card to the right spot on the lock as he finds the right spot between her legs.

Finally, she manages. The lift whirs and starts to move again.

The door swings shut behind them as the air-con swallows them whole. They waste no time making it to the bed, almost tripping over her suitcase, surrounded by clothes strewn across the floor, in the process.

On the bed, he fumbles with the ties on her bikini top, which falls as she kicks off her shorts. She tugs at the ties at her hip, lets her bottoms drop and watches as his eyes go dark, his breath catching.

He flips her around. Impressive. Definitely rehearsed. She leans into it anyway, a smirk on her face.

On all fours, she leans towards the makeup bag on her bedside table, locates a condom, and throws it to him. She listens to him unwrap it as she arches her back, ready and waiting for him to enter behind her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Belle

‘Oh … I like it here.’ Jake nods along to the kick drum like a bopping parrot, arms spread wide, face tipped up to the sun with his eyes closed. I know that feeling – the summer warmth on your skin, when you want to soak it up, bathe in the golden rays, truly let go. He would have loved Ibiza. Too bad he never got to experience it.

‘Where are we? Surely not Great Yarmouth?’

‘We’re in Ibiza, Jake.’

Sometimes when I’m walking through London on a warm day, I’ll be pulled back to this memory without warning. It’s always something small that does it: any heat on my skin, the smell of salty air from the chippie down my high street, sun cream on someone passing, or the perfume I wore that summer catching in the back of my throat.

I’ve always thought nostalgia is the oddest sensation: the pleasure of the memory and the ache of it, sitting tight next to each other, inseparable, since the happiness of it only exists because the moment is gone.

For that one long weekend, it was us girls against the world. Twenty-seven, feral for life, experience and, well … dick! I’d picked myself up, polished myself off and packed up my belongings. I’d moved to London and, with help from Vik, perfected my CV, landing me my first PR job. Life was truly starting.

We’d booked this trip as colleagues, using it as an excuse to actually get to know each other. I’d arrived a little reserved, holding myself slightly apart the way I did back then, not wanting to embarrass myself, get things wrong. We left Ibiza as friends for life. I have vivid memories of feeding each other ham straight from the packet at 2 a.m. to sober us up, wetting ourselves laughing over first-kiss stories in the hotel with pre-drinks, and then, of course, skinny-dipping in the sea at midnight, howling under the moon, tits out. We were one step away from sunning our vaginas to charge them up on the hotel balcony. Daniela wore the evidence of our blossoming friendship as a badge of honour – in the form of a bruise on her chin from her worm on the dance floor – for the next week and a half.

I don’t need to crane my neck to know exactly where we are. I thread through the sweaty, half-naked bodies, past the jacuzzi, the swimming pool, and towards the balcony of the beach bar overlooking the sea. We pass girls draped across sunbeds, plastic boobs in the air like coconuts lined up in a shy. A lifeguard is standing close by. He isn’t watching the water. Jake is following close and I don’t need to turn around to know he’s fallen behind somewhere around the sunbeds.

Fuck, I’d love another drink right now. Beach bars are great when you’re slightly tipsy, but when sober, they’re … a lot – all Lynx Africa and sticky sun cream, mixed with Malibu and Coke. My heels stick a little to the floor, as drinks gets spilled while people dance, but nobody cares.

I stop, letting a girl trying to take a selfie pass. She repositions, spinning, trying to catch the light on the best side of her face.

‘I actually don’t think I like the party scenes in this film,’ Jake shouts behind me. ‘Why is everyone so jacked?’

I turn as he reaches out and tries to touch the bicep of some hench lad who is standing next to us, wearing nothing more than Speedos and a gold chain around his neck. More men are stationed nearby in groups, gripping beer bottles by the necks, peeling off labels to distract themselves from conversation.

‘No one looks like they’re actually having fun?’ He shrugs. ‘Fuck, if this were me and I was alive …’ He shakes his head, doesn’t finish the thought. Something across the pool has grabbed his attention – a man whose tan abruptly ends at his collar and the tops of his arms, like he’s wearing a pasty T-shirt somehow embedded with chest hair.

Jakes stares for a long moment, squinting. ‘Why is his head a different colour to his body?’

‘If you were partying here, you probably would have hated it,’ I say. ‘Too loud, too many people doing this …’ I mime someone checking their reflection in their phone screen, pouting.

He laughs, nodding. ‘Yeah, exactly.’

I don’t point out to him that he’d been doing the exact same thing moments ago, checking out and mentally comparing himself to every guy at this bar.

‘Come on, we’re just over here.’ I wave him forward.

We stop once we reach the balcony. It’s hard to miss us.

As the sun sets golden amber over the sea, us girls are wild and free. Arms outstretched, jumping to the beat, spinning each other around, Cheshire Cat grins on our faces. We are truly alive and living every minute of it. The surrounding crowd watches jealously, too in their own heads and aware of their appearance to fully let go, heads bowed towards black screens, taking posed group pics, making small talk with the opposite sex.