I never meant for things to get so out of hand.
I’d lost my job. I’d lost the love of my life. My mum wasn’t talking to me. My best friend was epically pissed off. My flatmate probably had a hit out on me by now, and in twenty-four hours I would likely be homeless.
But, you know, swings and roundabouts.
Considering how incredibly cocked up my life was, I felt surprisingly chipper. Happy even. Stretching out as far as I could, I curled the tips of my fingers around the headboard and scrunched my toes up in the crisp white cotton sheets that had found their way to the foot of the bed. Everything was still, everything was calm, and I was smiling. Somewhere across the room, I heard a phone beep. Instead of jumping up to see who needed what and just how quickly I could get it for them, I concentrated on the sound of the shower running in the bathroom and pressed my lips together to refresh the tingling sensation before it faded away. The stubble burn that tickled my cheeks was altogether more stubborn. I was so happy.
My best friend had been wrong. Everything was going to be OK. Probably. Not that there hadn’t been some sketchy moments over the past week. Not that I hadn’t considered having myself committed. More than once. But now it was almost over. I’d survived. This afternoon I would get on a plane back home. I would call everyone who needed calling, and instead of behaving like a jabbering shell of a human, I would be cool, calm and collected and make things right. If I could get through this past week, I could get through anything.
Seven days ago, if anyone had even given me a hint of what was ahead, I would have crawled underneath my desk and refused to come out. But as I had learned from every television show I had ever watched and every book I had thought about reading, you never knew how strong you were until you had to find out. I was definitely stronger than anyone had reckoned. Either that or I was clinically insane. It was a fine line.
The phone beeped again.
It was all going to work out. The photos were taken; the photos were great. Paige was going to be very happy. Mr Bennett was happy. Kekipi didn’t seem too bothered either way, but you can’t have everything. All I had to do now was spend the rest of the morning lying in this bed reliving all the terrible things I had just done with a terrible man, and by this time tomorrow I’d be practically home.
Rolling onto my stomach, I was very, very glad I couldn’t see the state of myself. My too long hair was all tangles, my carefully applied make-up was now carefully applied all over the pillowcases, and, let’s face it, post-orgasmic smugness isn’t a good look on anyone. If I had seen me right now, I might have wanted to punch me. Not that post-orgasmic anything was a look I was terribly familiar with. Well, the bad hair and terrible make-up, yes, but the smug ‘I just got shagged rotten by a very handsome man’ part? Not so much. There had to be a way to do post-coital with an air of class, surely. This was something they really did need to start teaching in schools. Maybe at the same time the nurse took the girls away to explain all about the wonderful world of tampons she could give you a rundown on what to pack in the morning-after kit. If there was one thing women needed to know, it was how to get thoroughly seen to without your gentleman friend sandpapering the top three layers of your skin completely off your face in the process.
Three more beeps.
No matter how hard I tried to ignore it, my phone wasn’t giving up. With a tiny, sad sniff I realized I was going to have to answer the bloody thing. Only it wasn’t on the nightstand where I always left it. Because this wasn’t my nightstand. And I had no idea where it was hiding. My beautiful red silk Valentino dress was on one side of the room, my bra on the other. Somewhere in the middle, there was a white shirt and a beach towel. And from deep inside a pile of carelessly discarded man clothes, another iPhone started chiming along in time with mine. It was a veritable chorus of communication. Together, they sounded a bit like a One Direction song. I gave up. Screw you, Vodafone.
‘Vanessa?’
I watched the huge bamboo fan on the ceiling spinning round and round and round and tapped out the rhythm of the phones, making no effort to answer either them or the man in the bathroom.
‘Vanessa?’
Oh, right. That was me. Sort of.
‘Yeah?’ I called back, scanning the room for my knickers. The biggest problem with crazy, tear-your-clothes-off sex was that once you’d torn off your clothes and had the crazy sex, the clothes were hard to locate in a dignified fashion. It was impossible not to feel a bit slutty scrabbling around on the floor looking for your pants. It was all well and good if you were one of those girls who slinks around starkers after sexytimes, but I wasn’t really a naked person. I was very much an ‘always sleep in a nightie in case the house burns down’ person. I mean, I still called it ‘sexytimes’, for God’s sake, and as we all know, if you can’t say it, you shouldn’t be doing it.
‘Is that me? Can you answer it?’
‘It is. I can.’
And I could, in theory. Although I was very upset at having to get out of bed. Shuffling down the mattress and trying to ignore the streaks of mascara all down the backs of both my hands, I anchored my hair behind my ears and hung over the edge of the bed to comb through the pile of cast-off cotton and silk like a hungry badger. A slutty hungry badger.
The slinky black iPhone was peeking out of my bra, flashing up a private number. I slid off the bed and dived into the middle of the pile of clothes. Classy. ‘Nick Miller’s phone,’ I answered as I clambered back onto the bed. ‘Not Nick speaking, obviously.’
‘Who is this?’
An unfamiliar and unpleasantly accusatory female voice echoed down the line. Hawaii might be beautiful, but the mobile phone reception was shit.
‘This is Tess. I mean Vanessa. Um, yeah, Vanessa.’ Damn it, I couldn’t even think straight when I was tired, let alone lie straight.
‘I’m trying to reach Nick Miller?’
‘This is Nick’s phone,’ I yawned. ‘Can I ask who’s calling?’
‘Sorry, who am I speaking to? And why do you have Nick’s phone?’
‘He’s in the shower.’ I couldn’t help feeling that I might be talking myself into a very deep hole. ‘I’m Tess. Vanessa! Shit, I’m Vanessa.’
‘Put Nick on the phone,’ the woman demanded. ‘Right now.’
I did not put Nick on the phone. Instead, I did the only thing I could think to do. I pressed the end call button and dropped the very expensive piece of technology into a glass of water at the side of the bed. Because that was bound to help matters. Launching myself off the bed, I scuttled around on the floor searching for my phone. Maybe there was something I could do. Maybe there was still time. Maybe—
‘Hey, who was it?’
A very handsome, very naked man appeared in the doorway, rubbing his ash-blond hair with a white towel. I silently begged him to cover up. It was very difficult to concentrate on digging yourself out of the world’s biggest metaphorical hole when there was a visible penis in the room.
‘No one,’ I chirped. ‘Wrong number.’
‘No one has had a wrong number since 1997.’ Nick strode across the room, dropping the towel as he went. I couldn’t help but feel this was disrespectful to both the housekeeping staff and the environment. That was a fresh towel. ‘Pass me the phone.’
‘Um, I dropped it.’ I looked up from my slovenly spot on the floor and hoped my naked charms would distract him from the extreme act of iPhone violence I had ‘accidentally’ committed.
They didn’t.
‘What the fuck, Vanessa?’ He grabbed the glass and choked back a sob, staring at the phone as if it was a tony Damian Hirst exhibit. iPhone in Water, a dead cert for the Turner Prize. ‘My fucking phone. It’s broken. What am I supposed to do without a phone?’
Hot or not, whining was never attractive. After finding them hiding inside one of Nick’s shoes, I pulled on my knickers, hoping that the less naked I was, the clearer I’d be able to think.
‘It slipped.’ I held my hands up in defence, attempting to squish my boobs together at the same time. Misdirection was a magician’s best weapon and I was definitely going to need a magic trick to get out of this one. Possibly a miracle. Where was Jesus when you needed him? Or at least Derren Brown. But preferably Jesus. ‘I’m sorry.’
Nick carried on pawing his waterlogged lifeline and making heartbroken chuntering noises under his breath, while I continued my search for my ever-beeping, completely annoying phone. I still couldn’t believe I’d broken the screen. Maybe it was in my bag? I spotted the slouchy, pretty black silk clutch bag that had come with my dress over by the door where I’d tossed it as soon as we had crashed through it last night. MAC make-up, Chanel perfume, spare batteries and dozens upon dozens of pens spilled out all over the floor. I was a strange creature sometimes. Didn’t like to be without a pen.
‘Hello?’ I answered after finally retrieving it from inside Nick’s abandoned boxer shorts. Eww. I fought the urge to hang up and give it a rub down with a wet wipe. This was not the time to relapse into my OCD issues.
‘Tess, it’s Paige. Where are you? I’ve called, like, ten times. I’ve been looking all over for you.’
Brilliant. Paige. Couldn’t a girl get five minutes, post-shag peace and quiet?
‘I’m in my cottage,’ I hedged. ‘What’s up?’
‘No, you aren’t. I’ve just been there.’ She paused for a second. ‘Are you with Nick?’
‘God, yeah, that’s what I meant. Nick’s cottage,’ I looked up at Nick, who seemed to have got over the untimely death of his iPhone thanks to the comforting charms of my tits. ‘We were just going over the photos.’
Nick raised an eyebrow and tossed his phone onto the floor. It was amazing how quickly a man could recover from a painful loss if he thought there was even a tiny chance he could put his penis in someone.
‘OK, I’m coming over. You need to do something. Stephanie called – she’s mega, mega pissed off. I’m going to get fired. What the fuck, Tess – what do we do?’
‘OK, don’t panic, but don’t come here,’ I said, trapping the phone between my cheek and my shoulder while slapping Nick’s hands away from my newly acquired knickers. ‘I’ve got loads of stuff to show you from yesterday – I left you messages. Seriously, calm down. I’ll come to you. Nick’s busy, but—’
‘Nick is busy,’ he said, thumbs hooking around the delicate silk I’d only just managed to get halfway round my arse. ‘And so are you.’
He snatched the phone and threw it across the room. I watched it skitter across the shiny wooden floor and vanish underneath the bed, taking Paige’s panic attack with it.
‘You know, you are an incredibly sexy woman,’ he said, running his fingertips up and down my spine and pressing his face against my neck. ‘You cannot even begin to know how much I want you right now.’
‘I really want to play along with this,’ I whispered with my eyes closed and brow furrowed. I wasn’t used to being called sexy. Or a woman. Most men didn’t actually seem to notice I had a discernible gender at all and so hearing these things from such a ridiculously attractive man was very difficult to resist. ‘But this is just about the worst timing ever.’
‘Vanessa.’ He took my tiny fists and covered them with his huge hands. ‘You broke my phone. You owe me. Now shut up and do as you’re told.’
Just as it had been since I’d first laid eyes on him, every word out of Nick’s mouth went straight to my vagina, but this time I had to resist. I could be strong. As long as I kept my knickers on.
‘I’m sorry, but I’ve really, really got to go,’ I insisted, swooping out of his arms and grabbing my bra from the floor in one surprisingly graceful move. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry.’ He gave me a dark look and grabbed my wrist. ‘Just don’t go.’
Before I could come back with an intelligent argument, there was a very loud knock at the door.
‘I am sorry and I do have to go.’ I shook off his hand and tried to discern what bits, in the tangled pile of material on the floor, had started out last night as my outfit. ‘Don’t answer it. It’s Paige.’
Really, I was impossibly stupid. I had just told Nick Miller not to do something and then expected him not to do it.
‘What if it is?’ he asked, eyebrows raised. ‘We’re adults.’
‘Oh, don’t start!’ I had no time for this. He could be such a cock sometimes. Most of the time. In fact, any time when he wasn’t actually using his penis, he was behaving like one. ‘Just please don’t open that door.’
And so, naked as the day he was born, Nick strode over to the door and flung it wide open. A very shocked blonde girl stood on the step and gaped.
‘Paige,’ Nick nodded. ‘Vanessa and I were just going over the plans for tomorrow.’
The tiny blonde girl tried desperately to avert her eyes from Nick in all his naked glory. As it was, the only other thing for her to concentrate on was me in my knickers, and that was doing nothing to improve the situation.
As she recovered herself and put two and two together to make a filthy four, Paige’s face fell. I took an ill-advised step forward and got my foot caught in Nick’s boxer shorts.
‘Paige.’ I looked at her.
‘Nick?’ She looked at him.
Nick just looked very pleased with himself.
‘Oh, Tess.’ Paige started to laugh and it wasn’t very nice. ‘Tess, Tess, Tess.’
‘Paige, don’t,’ I begged. I was fully aware that pleading with women didn’t usually go very well when they caught you hanging out in your underwear with the man they had designs on. Especially when that man was naked. ‘Please.’
‘Tess?’ Despite how very clever he claimed to be, Nick wasn’t always the sharpest knife in the drawer. ‘Who’s Tess?’
‘She is,’ Paige said, nodding towards me. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Vanessa?’ Nick placed a hand over his manparts, not looking nearly as smug as he had five minutes ago. If I hadn’t been ready for the ground to open up and swallow me whole, it might have been funny. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nick, I can explain,’ I started, entirely unsure how I was going to do that. ‘It’s a long story. It’s a funny story. It’s, um, well. I don’t know where to start.’
‘I do,’ Paige chipped in. ‘This is Tess. She’s an irresponsible, selfish, evil, lying bitchface who’s been faking everything to everyone, and I didn’t grass her up because I’m an idiot.’
Bit harsh, I thought. A bit harsh, but ultimately accurate. All of a sudden, my knees weren’t feeling terribly steady. Nick looked very confused. And also still very naked. Unfortunately, his supreme manliness wasn’t enough to slow Paige down now she’d started.
‘Long story short, her name isn’t Vanessa,’ my friend, mentor and confidante stated. She was on a roll. ‘Her name is Tess Brookes and she’s full of shit.’
Well.
It was a much more concise version of events than I had to offer.