Starving, emotionally exhausted and without a drop of booze in the entire cottage, I called the main house in search of something to eat and lots of things to drink, but instead of sending down dinner, they sent down my fairy gayfather. Fifteen minutes later, Kekipi had selected me an outfit from the clothes Paige had left, brushed my hair out into loose waves and waited patiently while I cack-handedly applied as much make-up as I knew how. If I was going to hag it up in Hawaii, I was going to do it properly. I knew I’d achieved the look we were going for when I emerged from the bedroom to a double thumbs-up from Kekipi.
‘You look like a princess,’ he confirmed, hurrying me out of the door before I could look in a full-length mirror. I did not look like a princess. I looked like someone wearing a too-tight-in-the-boobs black lace dress that was so short I was fairly certain you could see where babies came from, and enough make-up to make the average Real Housewife gasp in horror.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked, pressing my nose against the glass of the black town car he bundled me into as we cruised out of Bennett’s giant gates and onto the open road.
‘Waikiki,’ Kekipi replied. ‘My job is to keep you entertained, and I can’t think of anything more entertaining than filling you up with cocktails and seeing what happens. Especially since your fellow fashion compadres are all either AWOL or knocked out on Night Nurse.’
I made myself laugh. I didn’t care what Paige and Nick got up to. I just wished Paige had better taste in men. And I wished Nick’s penis would shrivel up and fall off.
‘So if we’re going to Waikiki, where are we now?’ I was not very clear on my Hawaiian geography and was becoming increasingly upset about leaving the beach behind for what looked suspiciously like Doncaster town centre. In the fifteen minutes we’d been in the car, we’d already passed three McDonald’s drive-thrus.
‘Hawaii 101.’ Kekipi brushed some imaginary dust from the shoulder of his impeccable navy blue polo shirt and then fanned out his hands. ‘The state is made up of hundreds of islands, but there are eight main islands. Of those, the most densely populated is Oahu, which is where you are now.’
‘You hate giving this lecture, don’t you?’ I asked, brushing some very real dust off my shoulder and fanning my hands out to check for grubby fingernails. I shouldn’t have bothered.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘The Bennett estate is in Kailua, a small town on the windward side of the island, and around twelve miles to the south of Kailua is the city of Honolulu. Waikiki is a neighbourhood in Honolulu. With me?’
I nodded.
‘Waikiki is famous for its beach. It’s where the majority of Hawaii’s tourists visit and where most of the nightlife is on the island.’
‘So it’s a good place?’ I asked, shaking out my long, loose waves. ‘It’s cool?’
‘That I did not say.’ Kekipi slapped my hands away from my hair and pulled it all over one shoulder. ‘But it’s better than going to play half-price games at Dave & Busters in the mall. Just barely. There. Now don’t touch your hair again or I will have to slap you.’
‘Yes, boss.’ I placed my hands in my lap and pressed my lips together, gnawing nervously on the bottom one. And then remembered I was wearing lipstick for the first time in eleven years and stopped. Then immediately did it again. Being a girl was hard.
‘Now, tell me everything that’s happening with Mr Miller.’ Kekipi leaned across the small, glass-topped table and opened his wide brown eyes. ‘Should I be picking my maid-of-honour dress yet?’
‘Before I start lying, can I ask whether or not there are security cameras in the cottages?’ I groaned. His big, beautiful eyes lit up and his fluffy eyelashes fluttered.
‘Two mai tais, please?’ Kekipi ordered before our waiter could even open his mouth. Instead he gave us an unconcerned shrug and headed right back to the bar. ‘They’re both for you. Now, tell me everything.’
‘I don’t really know where to start.’ I drummed my fingers against the table and looked to the heavens for an answer. They presented me with a clear, blue-black sky bedazzled with the brightest stars I’d ever seen, but they did not provide an answer. Bastards. ‘It’s all such a great big pile of bollocks.’
We were sitting at some swanky hotel pool bar by a beautiful marina in the center of Waikiki, as if Bertie Bennett, his Barbie dream house, Nick, Paige, the waterfalls, the models, all of it, didn’t exist. When you couldn’t see the mountains, the flowers and the fruit and the endless miles of beach, you could be anywhere in the world. Well, anywhere with a marina full of beautiful sailing boats and dozens of so-hip-it-hurt American tourists. I’d spent so much time with Nick and Paige that it was easy to forget I was technically in America and not on the set of a very special episode of Made in Chelsea.
Kekipi took my silence with good humour for all of seventeen seconds, letting me soak in the ambience of the bar and the marina, before he could be quiet no longer.
‘Vanessa, have you had sex with him or not?’ The words literally exploded out of him, attracting the attention of at least four neighbouring tables. ‘Because, yes, we do have security videos, but do not make me look at them. I don’t want to see anything I don’t have myself.’
‘Good news, everyone,’ I announced to my new friends at the other tables. ‘I have had sex with him.’
‘Is he hot?’ an Australian girl with short blonde hair sitting two tables away asked loudly.
‘He’s so hot,’ Kekipi replied before I could, ‘that I’ve thought about drugging his coffee, just so I can sneak in and take a peek. If you know what I mean.’
‘Everyone knows what you mean,’ I hissed before turning to offer the Australian girl an awkward, all-teeth smile. ‘He is quite hot.’
‘Good on you, girly.’ She held up her drink in a toast. ‘Give him one for me.’
Where were my mai tais? I really wanted a drink.
‘OK, so you’ve hit that.’ Kekipi slapped the table to regain my attention. ‘And while I will be needing each and every dirty detail, it seems as though you’re conflicted, young grasshopper. For what reason I cannot even possibly begin to imagine. What’s going on?’
Even though Kekipi was a thirty-something gay Hawaiian man sitting here waiting for cocktails and sharing boy banter, it almost felt as though I was back on the sofa at home with Amy. He had an amazing ability to make me feel comfortable, despite the fact that half the bar was still discussing my recent shag action, and so, for no good reason, I told him everything. Everything about Nick, anyway.
‘It’s so weird,’ I said, gratefully accepting my drink, immediately inhaling the wedge of pineapple off the side and gulping down half the glass. I could not get drunk. I had to take photos of models in twelve hours. But one or two would be good – calm my nerves, help me sleep. ‘I genuinely wasn’t interested. That first night at dinner, I was like, yeah, he’s handsome, but he’s such a twat, and twat has never really been something that’s done it for me.’
‘I wish it didn’t do it for me,’ he replied, sipping his drink at half the speed I was making my way through mine. ‘Something of a flaw of mine. It’s not my fault, though – I’m gay.’
‘Does being gay mean you only fancy arseholes?’ I asked, pushing my drink ever so slightly away. Kekipi pushed it right back.
‘Drink. And yes, of course it does. Now carry on.’
‘Well, yeah, I didn’t fancy him.’ I sucked on the straw and peeked out at my date from under heavily made-up lids and lashes. ‘Right, OK, I fancied him. Objectively, I knew he was fanciable, but I didn’t have designs on him.’
I felt myself making air quotes around the word ‘designs’ and stopped myself right away. It was an Old Tess thing to do.
‘Clearly at some point you developed designs,’ he said, copying my air quotes. ‘What changed?’
‘I’ve had a load of really shitty stuff happening at home,’ I said. I felt that covered losing my job, shagging my best friend, telling him I loved him, him telling me he didn’t love me, finding out he’d shagged my awful flatmate and then assuming her identity and stealing her job. No need to go into specifics. ‘And, I don’t know – he got under my skin. And when I snapped, he was there. So I kissed him.’
‘You kissed him?’ Kekipi squealed. He was a man secure enough in his homosexuality that he had no interest in not reinforcing gay stereotypes. ‘Just like that? Just kissed him?’
‘Yes?’ It clearly sounded just as unlikely to me as it did to him. Probably more so. Here was a man who had met a woman three days ago, and the only solid facts he had to go on while weighing her up was that she had shagged a complete stranger she was supposed to be working with and she really liked eating Cheetos. I was actually doing a much better job of being Vanessa than I could have anticipated.
‘And then what? Why is it a problem? Or rather, why is it a great big pile of bollocks?’
‘Because it’s just sex.’ I could barely say the words. It really was a miracle that I’d actually been able to do it in the first place. ‘It is a press trip fling. It is purely physical.’
‘But you like him,’ Kekipi said.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, being as honest as I could possibly be. ‘Because I love someone else.’
‘Ah.’ He winced. ‘I see.’
‘And I’m fairly sure –’ I sighed heavily and downed the rest of my drink. It was practically just juice. I could barely taste any alcohol at all – ‘he’s shagging Paige as well.’
‘What makes you think that?’ He made the same concerned face as Amy. Half, Tess, I’m listening, and half, Tess, are you being a paranoid psycho again? ‘Just because they’re not home doesn’t mean they’re shagging.’
‘No, but she basically told me she was planning to shag him, and then I saw them getting into the boat together, and I’m fairly certain he’d shag you if you were the only willing partner around. No offence.’
‘None taken,’ he said with conviction. ‘So Paige likes Mr Miller? That doesn’t mean Mr Miller likes Paige. I’m sure they were just … doing something.’
‘Doing something?’ I quirked an eyebrow so high I heard it ping off the moon.
‘Something else,’ he qualified. ‘Work related. But more importantly, you saw them together and you were jealous?’
I half shook my head, half shrugged, and picked a great big glob of mascara out of the corner of my eye. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Oh, you were.’ He purred the last word as though he was the cat that had caught the canary. Or got the cream. Or eaten the canary and then had some cream for afters. ‘So even though it’s just sex and you are in love with someone else, you don’t like the idea of him being with someone else. Interesting.’
‘No it isn’t,’ I said, even though it clearly was.
‘We’ll put a pin in that.’ He pinched his shoulders and moved on. ‘What exactly did Paige tell you about Mr Miller?’
‘That she likes him, that he’s a professional shagger, that I’m a horrible person for sleeping with him when she likes him,’ I replied. ‘I added that last part.’
The waiter sauntered back towards our table, yawned loudly and picked up my empty glass.
‘Could I have another, please? When you’ve got a minute?’ I asked as politely as possible.
He looked at me, looked at Kekipi, and walked away without answering.
‘Everyone here is an asshole,’ Kekipi said, just loudly enough for the waiter to hear. Not that he reacted. I assumed he was either really high, really rude or semi-lobotomized. ‘But they really do have the best cocktails. When we’re smashed, we’ll go across the street to the horrible dive bar and sing karaoke.’
‘I can’t get smashed,’ I said with a tiny hiccup that hardly supported my argument. ‘I’ve got the shoot tomorrow.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ he promised. ‘I won’t let you get too wasted. But back to the story – tell me more about this man at home.’
‘You don’t think I’m horrible for sleeping with Nick when I knew Paige liked him?’
‘I don’t think we’re in tenth grade, so I don’t think it matters. They’re not together, he didn’t cheat, you didn’t cheat.’ He rapped his knuckles against my forehead. ‘And I think if a man that hot was coming on to me – and make no mistake about it, Vanessa, he was coming on to you at dinner on Monday night; I was there, I saw – then I think someone would have to hit me with a truck to stop me sleeping with him.’
But I still couldn’t shake the thought that I had cheated on Paige. I knew she’d be pissed, especially after the real Vanessa had boffed her ex. I was becoming altogether too good at playing my part.
‘Tell me more about this man you’re in love with. I’m assuming it’s not a happily-ever-after-type affair?’ Kekipi drank the last dregs of his cocktails as the waiter wandered back over with our fresh drinks and held out the empty glass without a word. The waiter took it and stood beside us, silent, staring.
‘Is everything OK?’ I asked. He looked like someone had just run over his cat.
‘I need, like, a credit card or something?’ He blinked at me once and held out a hand. ‘And, uh, do you want food?’
‘We do not want food, and here is a credit card.’ Kekipi handed him a black American Express card and waved him along. ‘Honestly, I hate being rude to wait staff – I have been wait staff – but I’m really worried he’s off his medication.’
I laughed, wondering how many waiters on Oahu had black Amexes, but nodded along all the same.
‘So, man at home, wiki wiki.’ He clapped his hands again. ‘On a scale of one to Nick, how hot? And what’s the relationship status?’
‘Definitely Nick hot. Just, different. Just, not Nick.’ I found it really hard to compare the two in my mind. Nick was all fire and physical and total frustration. Charlie was … Charlie was everything. ‘He’s my best friend, I’ve been in love with him since uni – since college – and we finally did the deed a week ago and then I told him I loved him and then he said he didn’t love me. Oh, and I found out he’s been shagging one of my mates.’
Once again skipping over the details on anything Vanessa-related.
‘Hmm, tough one.’ He leaned back in his chair and pursed his full lips. ‘But I’m going to say your friend is a douchebag and you should probably fake a pregnancy to make Nick marry you.’
‘Considered, practical advice,’ I said, nodding slowly, a smile on my face. ‘My friend is a douchebag.’ It felt so good to say it. ‘But I think Nick probably is a douchebag too.’
‘Nick is definitely a douchebag. If he met the douchebag tribe out in the jungle, they would worship him and make him their king. But, and I say this with love –’ he gestured at me to drink my drink. I didn’t need telling twice – ‘it sounds to me like your baby box is lonely. It’s sad and it’s lonely. It needs a friend and I think you should let him be that friend.’
‘You remind me so much of my Amy,’ I laughed. Second hiccup. What was in these drinks? ‘She would agree with you.’
Speak of the devil and she showed her horns. I peered inside my bag to see my phone lit up with two missed calls and a voicemail from my best friend. I wanted to call her back right away, but I didn’t want to be rude to Kekipi. One day my mind was going to explode from trying to make everyone happy. Placing my bag back on the table, I decided to concentrate on the gay at hand and call Amy first thing in the morning. She would totally understand.
‘Amy’s not the best friend, right? I’m not missing something very important here, am I?’ he asked, a look of concern on his handsome face.
‘Nope, she’s the other best friend. The only best friend now, I suppose.’ I was starting to feel very strongly about everything I said. These cocktails were the best. ‘She’s amazing. I love her.’
‘You love everyone.’ Kekipi flapped a hand at me. ‘You’ll be proposing to me next.’
‘One more of these and I will,’ I agreed. ‘So, tell me more about this karaoke bar.’
‘What are you going to sing?’ I shouted as loudly as I possibly could over a group of three Japanese tourists merrily murdering an Adele song. The karaoke bar was everything Kekipi had promised. Dark, dingy and, most importantly, attached to a twenty-four-hour diner. While I was fine with my frozen pineapple daiquiri for the time being, it was good to know that I was never more than seven minutes away from some bacon.
‘I don’t know,’ Kekipi wailed back. ‘I don’t want to be a cliché.’
‘What do you want to be?’ I asked.
‘Fabulous?’ he suggested, complete with jazz hands. ‘Obviously.’
‘You’re such a cliché,’ I said with a half-hug. ‘Just bust out some Cher and be done with it.’
I left him poring over the song book and took myself for a wander around the bar. Not that there was that much bar to wander around. Sipping on a neon-pink straw and bobbing my head to the music, such as it was, I tiptoed through the groups of sunburned American tourists chugging beers and the not-at-all-sunburned Australians chatting away to some happy-looking locals while a group of Japanese men in suits and loosened ties studied another copy of the massive song book. Other than the professional karaoke-goers, I saw so many men in Hawaiian shirts. And there was me thinking that was just on the telly. Pulling at my hem and pawing at my hair, I found an empty bar stool and decided it was time for a sit-down. Nana was tired. And a bit tipsy.
‘But only a bit,’ I said out loud to a passing cocktail waitress with a pretty blue flower behind her ear. What had Nick said about flowers? I couldn’t remember. Not that it mattered. ‘What does Nick know?’
‘Sorry?’ An exceptionally tall, exceptionally blond and, if you liked the square-jawed six-pack surfer type, exceptionally good-looking man sat down on the bar stool next to me. ‘Nick?’
‘He thinks –’ I poked the icy bits left in the bottom of my glass with my straw – ‘that he is so clever. He thinks he knows everything.’
‘Right.’ The guy laughed. I eyed him carefully and tried to decide whether I had heard an Australian accent or whether he just looked so much like Vinnie from Home and Away that I was adding one into the hot mix. ‘That Nick, eh?’
Nope, he was definitely Australian. I had always had a soft spot for an Aussie. Most of the Australian men I met in London were tall. I liked tall. Most of them were gorgeous. I liked gorgeous. Most of them weren’t interested. I didn’t like that as much.
‘He’s a complete cock,’ I confided in my new friend. ‘But you know, whatever.’
‘I believe you.’ He held out his big, strong hand and I shook it, trying very hard not to giggle. ‘I’m Owen.’
‘I’m …’ I paused and looked off to the left. ‘Vanessa?’
‘Is that a made-up name?’ Owen asked, signalling to the bartender. ‘You don’t sound so sure about it.’
‘It’s not made up.’ I shook my head vehemently and almost immediately fell off my stool. I covered up with a cough and casually slipped back up onto the pleather upholstery. ‘It’s definitely my name.’
‘All right then.’ He shifted his whole body to face me and leaned one very brown elbow on the bar. ‘What’s that you’re drinking?’
‘It’s delicious,’ I replied, slurping the last little bit through my straw. ‘But I do not remember what it is called.’
Owen took the glass from me and knocked back the icy remains, never once breaking eye contact. All of a sudden, I was all of a fluster. I wasn’t good at talking to boys and I was even worse at talking to men. Where was Amy when I needed her? In stupid England, that was where. She was so selfish.
‘Pineapple daiquiri, delicious. Can I buy you another?’ Owen asked, interrupting my chain of thought. He had very pretty blue eyes. Like Nick. Only not, because he wasn’t a knob. Probably. He could be. Most of them were …
‘Vanessa?’ He leaned in a little closer.
‘That,’ I poked him gently in the shoulder, ‘is my name.’
‘OK then.’ Despite the slightly troubled look on his face, he turned to the bartender and ordered two more daiquiris and then turned back to me. ‘What brings you to Hawaii, Vanessa?’
For a reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on, hearing this great big strapping surfer address me with Vanessa’s name really made me chuckle. It took me a moment to choke down a laugh and compose myself well enough to answer.
‘I am a photographer,’ I replied with a winning smile. Or at least I hoped it was a winning smile – there was a chance I had lipstick all over my teeth. ‘And I’m taking pictures for a magazine.’
‘That’s interesting,’ he said, paying the bartender for our grown-up Slush Puppies and brushing his hair behind his ears. He had sexy ears. ‘You’re not a surfer, then?’
‘I am not,’ I confirmed.
‘Right, right.’ He took a deep breath in through his nose and exhaled slowly. ‘I’m a surfer, myself. Chasing the waves. Waikiki has the best waves in the world.’
‘Isn’t the best surf up on the north shore?’ I asked, not exactly sure how I knew that. ‘And isn’t it better in winter?’
‘Uh, nah, definitely down here.’ Owen pushed my drink towards me and held his up in a toast. ‘To Hawaii.’
‘Hawaii,’ I repeated, searching my memory banks for the source of my stellar surfing knowledge. Was it from Point Break? Charlie loved Point Break. Actually, I loved Point Break. But no …
‘And to new friends,’ he added before taking a massive swig of yellow slush. ‘Christ, that’s cold.’
‘Oh, that’s my friend.’ I buzzed into life and pointed at the stage with teenage-girl excitment as Kekipi took the mic. ‘I came with him.’
‘Came with him, came with him?’ Owen raised a concerned eyebrow. Also blond. Pierced. Again, very sexy.
‘Well, no.’ I looked at him like he was very stupid. Which I was starting to realize in all likelihood he was. ‘Obvs.’
‘Obvs?’ He didn’t seem to understand until Kekipi screamed out, ‘Whitney Houston, gone but never forgotten,’ before giving what was actually a surprisingly good performance of ‘I’m Every Woman’.
‘Oh, obvs.’ Owen seemed to get it quite quickly once Kekipi started dancing. Very well. ‘He’s gay?’
‘He’s gay as a goose,’ I nodded.
He seemed confused. Again. ‘Are geese gay?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’ I looked into my lurid yellow drink and was suddenly overcome with the intense desire to not be drinking it any more. ‘It seemed right when I said it.’
‘Yeah, I guess like you thought you knew about surfing,’ he said with an extraordinarily patronizing laugh. Before I could decide how I felt about it, I watched him place his large, tanned hand on my thigh. My eyes travelled slowly from said hand, up his muscular arm, across his broad, tight-T-shirt-covered chest and up to his handsome face. ‘Am I right, Vanessa?’
I stopped and breathed for a moment. It shouldn’t have been so hard to think clearly – I’d barely had anything to drink. Or at least I couldn’t remember having had that much to drink. Maybe I’d lost track once me and Kekipi had started the boy talk. And we did have those shots while he was telling me all about his ex, the male burlesque dancer.
‘Vanessa.’ Owen squeezed my thigh a little bit higher up than I was entirely comfortable with. ‘How about we finish these drinks and get out of here? I reckon your mate can do without you, don’t you think?’
I was torn. Tess would make an awkward excuse, go to the bathroom and try to sneak off home without him seeing her. Vanessa would have gone to the bathroom as well but only to take off her knickers and save him a job in the taxi.
‘I don’t feel very well,’ I replied, slipping off the stool with all the grace of a drugged monkey and pushing people out of the way until I got to the ladies’ loos. I dug through my handbag, spilling lip balms and old receipts and sticks of chewing gum all over the floor, trying to find my phone. After poking everything in the bottom of the bag and breaking an already manky nail into the bargain, I bashed something that lit up and pulled it out. I had four missed calls from Amy. Backing into a stall and flapping at the lock at the same time, I sat down on the toilet seat and pressed redial. I needed to hear her voice.
‘Thank fuck for that,’ she yelled. ‘I thought you were dead!’
Maybe I didn’t need to hear her voice.
‘What are you doing? You were supposed to call me every day?’ She didn’t even pause for breath. ‘What’s going on? Are you in prison?’
‘I’m in a karaoke bar,’ I whispered as loudly as I dared. I was suddenly gripped with the fear that Owen would come into the toilets looking for me. ‘Why would I be in prison? Are you OK?’
‘Why can’t I hear karaoke then?’ Amy wanted her own questions answered before she got to mine. ‘Hmm?’
‘Because I’m in the lav?’ I offered.
‘Tess Brookes, if you are having a slash while you’re on the phone to me, we’re going to fall out.’ Once again, she was using a volume and a pitch that a pre-puberty Justin Bieber would have found difficult to emulate. ‘Call me back, you filthy mare.’
‘I’m not having a …’ I couldn’t bring myself to say it. ‘I’m just in the toilet. I’m hiding from a man. My friend is singing Whitney.’
‘Friend?’ She was immediately suspicious. ‘Is this the hot guy?’
‘He’s gay,’ I replied.
‘The hot guy is gay?’ she asked.
‘No, not my hot guy guy.’ I answered. ‘But the gay guy is hot.’
‘And where is your hot guy?’
‘He’s not my hot guy. I’m with the gay.’
‘So you’re out with a hot gay guy and not the hot guy who isn’t gay?’
Now I was confused.
‘Why would I be in prison?’ I pressed my entire face against the cold metal of the toilet stall and sighed. It felt lovely. And then I remembered I was in a toilet stall and that was disgusting. I rubbed at my cheek with toilet paper and made a very unattractive face. I was almost definitely going to throw up.
‘Um, the whole identity theft thing?’ she reminded me.
‘I don’t think you can go to prison for that,’ I said, a hot feeling flushing across my face, followed by a very unpleasant cold sweat. Bleurgh. ‘I haven’t, like, taken out credit cards in her name or anything.’
‘No, you’ve just stolen loads of her stuff and are using her name to get a job,’ Amy reasoned. ‘Totally legal. Anyway, tell me everything. I need an update.’
‘Aims, I’ve got to go,’ I said, now desperate to puke and convinced that Interpol would be outside with a warrant for my arrest. Oh, to go back in time by five minutes when the only thing I had to worry about was a vaguely rapey Australian who knew nothing about surfing. ‘I’ll call you later.’
‘You won’t, though,’ she wailed. ‘Talk to me now. I miss you.’
‘Amy, seriously.’ I retched as delicately as possible and crashed forward, kneeling on the floor and trying to wheel around in the tiny cubicle. It was like trying to get a Chieftain tank to do a three-point turn in a phone box. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later. I love you.’
I just managed to get my phone back in my bag and pull my hair up behind my head before I let out a spectacular technicoloured yawn into the toilet bowl. Sitting back against the metal partition, I panted, dabbing delicately at my mouth with toilet paper. I was such a lady. Even my puke was neon yellow.
‘Nick told me about the surf,’ I told the little white toilet paper dispenser, my voice full of awe. ‘He told me this afternoon at the waterfall.’
‘Of course he did,’ the toilet dispenser said back to me in a squeaky, judgemental voice, ‘because Nick knows everything.’
‘Nick does know everything,’ I agreed, hoping the toilet dispenser was taking the piss, like I was. I would be so mad if the inanimate object I was talking to was Team Knobhead. But it didn’t have another answer. And so I leaned over the toilet, threw up once more, rinsed out my mouth at the tap and gave a very confused-looking Hawaiian woman a very serious nod on my way out.
‘Mahalo,’ I whispered.
Back in the bar, Kekipi was still on stage. The crowd didn’t seem terribly enthused with his performance, which as far as I could tell was quite good. Then I realized I’d been in the toilets for fifteen minutes and he was singing a different song. Kekipi had taken the stage and he was not giving it back.
‘Hey, Vanessa.’
Someone reached out and grabbed my arm. That someone was Owen.
‘I wondered where you’d gone.’ He loosened his grip slightly but did not let go. I did not like it. ‘Where were you?’
‘Throwing up,’ I answered. Owen let go of my arm. ‘I think I should go home.’
It was fascinating to watch whatever internal drama was going on inside his head play out on his handsome, simple face. Still sitting on the bar stool, I saw him weigh up his options. It was late, there weren’t really any other girls in the bar, he had already bought me a drink and, to be fair, I’d been quite flirty. But I had also vomited. What would he do?
‘Fuck it, let’s go back to mine.’ He tightened his grip again and hopped off his stool. ‘Come on.’
‘I don’t want to go to yours,’ I said, shaking my arm loose. ‘Get off.’
‘The lady said get off,’ a voice boomed across the room, backed by a Casio keyboard version of ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him’. ‘Don’t make me come over there.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Owen said with a wildly unattractive snigger. ‘Gay as a goose.’
‘What did you just call me?’ Kekipi tossed the mic down on the stage and was across the bar in a heartbeat. Before six-foot-something Owen could react in any way, the five-foot-five estate manager had him bent backwards over the bar with a fistful of T-shirt in one hand and a fistful of punches in the other.
‘Actually, that’s my bad.’ I flapped around, trying to insert myself in between the two men before any fisticuffs were actually thrown. ‘I said it first. I may have got it from my nana. I am sorry.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, doll, it’s adorable.’ Kekipi released his grip on Owen and let him crumple to the floor. He slipped his arm through mine and, with the entire bar watching in complete silence, minus the Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtrack, we moseyed on out of the bar. ‘How does the word McDonald’s make you feel right now? I’m fricking starving.’
‘I did a sick.’ I tried to whisper but didn’t seem to have a lot of control over my volume. ‘But that sounds very nice.’
‘Fucking fag and his hag,’ I heard Owen mutter from the floor as we walked away. Pressing my hands down on Kekipi’s shoulders to calm him, I held up one finger, turned back into the bar, and delivered one very firm, very direct kick straight to Owen’s balls. The entire bar winced in unison.
‘That’s from the hag. Think yourself lucky the fag isn’t going to knock you out,’ I said before scrabbling to pull my hair over one shoulder and returning to an admiring look from Kekipi. ‘So, you were saying something about McDonald’s?’