Hayley got up to go to the loo, so Dev lifted his earphones to pop them back in his ears, then changed his mind and dug his phone out of the seat-front pocket. There was a notification on the screen telling him that a text had come in from Lizzy just thirty seconds ago. It was spooky how that happened. He would be thinking about calling her and the phone would ring. Or he’d call her, and she’d pick up the phone with a ‘Stop freaking me out! I’d just picked up my phone to call you, you scary bastard.’ Then she’d laugh and say something about psychic synergies and nuns in a convent all having their periods at the same time.
Hey Romeo, how’s it going? Have you changed your mind yet? Or fallen in love at first sight again on the plane? If so, bring her home immediately and save hotel bills. Love ya x
He laughed under his breath as he typed back…
Shut it, Juliet. You’re becoming really cynical in your old age. Still following my love at first sight. Also fell in love on plane. Lovely lady called Bernadette. Gutted to say she’s not into younger men.
She answered back immediately.
I’m seriously concerned about you. Are you on one of those dodgy teas that enhances your virility?
Dev’s fingers flew across the keyboard on the screen.
Yep, Tetley. I’m a sex God in any bingo hall.
He could almost hear her laughing as she read that.
Yeah, that’ll be us when we’re older. In the bingo hall, I’ll be thumping my dabber (not a metaphor) and you’ll be on your third divorce. We’ll live happily ever after.
He could already picture them. It would be like the Essex version of Last of The Summer Wine.
We’d already be living happily ever after if you’d accepted my proposal. And I’d have saved a fortune on air fares.
He threw that one in regularly. It was a standing joke between them because…
You were six. I wasn’t sure about your prospects. That hasn’t changed.
You might have a point. By the way, there’s a guy on this flight that you would love. Just your type.
Photos! I need to see pics.
I can’t take a picture of him. He’ll think I’m weird.
You’re spending your life savings hunting down a woman you shagged once. You are fricking weird.
Fair point. Anyway, I don’t need to take a pic. I heard him say he’s in a band called HOME.
I’m googling… googling… still googling… HOLY FUCK he is gorgeous!!!!!!!!
How do you know which guy it is – there’s more than one of them in the band.
Doesn’t matter, cos HOLY FUCK THEY’RE ALL GORGEOUS!!!!! Bring him home for me. Gift wrapped.
He might object. Anyway, think he’s on his way to get married. Doesn’t look very happy about it though.
THAT’S COS HE’S NOT MARRYING ME!!!!
You’re right. That must be it. I’ll let him know.
Smashing. I’ll find a white frock.
Before you do that, can you check under the couch. Just realised there might still be some mess there from my rapid clear up last weekend.
Yep, Romeo, I’ll clear up your mess. Bring this woman back if she likes cleaning. Anyway, need to go, LYLB xxx
Miss ya, LYLB xxx
The acronym LYLB stood for Love Ya Loser, Bye and they’d been signing off their texts to each other like that for a lifetime. Couldn’t beat a token word insult to brighten the day.
Okay, what to do now? Another episode of Friends? Or another movie where a Hemsworth made him feel like an inadequate member of the male species?
He briefly thought about switching the TV off and using the next few hours to work on his book. He could do background bios for the characters, start on a synopsis, plot out the storyline… Or he could watch a couple of romcoms and call it research.
Yeah, that’s what he’d do. A bit of his favourite escapism. Completely unrealistic, but gave him all the feels. Although, as he and Lizzy had discussed countless times, usually over therapeutic hangover-curing Bloody Marys on a Sunday morning, if his life was a romantic comedy, he’d already have married Lizzy, because nine times out of ten, the leading lady always ended up tossing aside the good-looking lust-fest for the quirky best pal, and if Dev was born to be anything, it was the quirky best pal.
However – woe – despite proposing to Lizzy when they were six, and then one of them proposing to the other at least a dozen or so other times over the years (usually due to alcohol, and invariably when one of them was lying on the pieces of their latest broken relationship), the romcom ending had eluded them. They’d even had sex once. Just once. They were eighteen, drunk on cider, and they were in Benidorm on an end-of-school trip with all their mates before they all went their separate ways. Somehow, Lizzy had gone AWOL, and he'd searched the bars for her for hours. When he’d eventually found her, she was dancing the Macarena with three French guys and an Austrian bodybuilder. Yep, it was random, even for her. Anyway, he’d joined in, they’d drank some more, danced some more and then made it back to the apartment, where their mates had already claimed all the beds and the sofas. They’d ended up out on the balcony (thankfully it was a stone one, so anyone walking past wouldn’t get flashed if they happened to gaze skywards), two people on a lilo for one. Sometimes, in their nightmares, they could both still hear the squeak of plastic against drunken flesh. The next morning, they’d woken with the sun blinding them on one side, and on the other, at least ten of their mates had their faces pressed up against the door, checking out what was going on. Fortunately, they were both fully clothed and there was absolutely no evidence of the previous night’s encounter. Lizzy had given their mates the finger, then rolled over and raised herself up on one elbow, so that her face was only a few inches from his.
‘Eh, did we have sex last night?’ she’d asked warily.
‘We did,’ Dev had admitted, then waited as the full ramifications of that set in. ‘Oh shit, we did! I… I… I don’t know what to say about that.’ His head was exploding, and not just because it was already 80 degrees at 7 a.m. and he was so dehydrated he was pretty sure that his kidneys were the size of walnuts. He’d slept with Lizzy. No, not just slept. They’d done that a thousand times. They’d. Had. Sex. Real sex. The kind that they’d always sworn they’d never have because they were too close to mess up their friendship. And now… He'd groaned again. What had they been thinking? And worse, had it even been any good? As far as he could remember, it was great, but he only had a vague memory of it because they’d been way too drunk to make an informed judgement.
Lizzy had sighed, slumped back down, then reached for a packet of Marlboro lights and a lighter that were on the floor where she’d dropped them the night before. She’d lit up a cig – he’d never picked up the habit because he liked his football too much – while he’d tried desperately to rewind the sequence of events in his head.
They’d come back from the club. There were no beds. Alfie, their rugby pal, was on the manky sofa with the wooden arms and snoring like a moose, so they were down to two choices: the bath or the balcony. And they could still hear Alfie snoring from the bath. Balcony it was. They’d come out, spent at least ten hilarious drunken minutes trying to fit both of them on the lilo, then somehow, like some teenage game of drunken Twister, they’d got tangled up in each other and…
‘I think you sang the Macarena while we were having sex,’ he’d blurted.
Lizzy had stubbed her cigarette out in one of Alfie’s Reeboks and groaned as she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her forehead on them. ‘I think I did. I can still hear it now. Oh God, shoot me.’
Even then, as a teenager who’d had sex approximately three and a half times (he wasn’t sure if the fourth one counted because it was his first time, it was done standing up and he wasn’t convinced all the bits had ended up in the right place), he knew that ‘Shoot me now’ wasn’t the ideal comment to hear from the woman you slept with the night before.
He’d been too busy panicking to even process how he felt about it. He’d slept with Lizzy. His best mate his whole life. On a lilo. And now Lizzy and lilos were probably wrecked for him for eternity.
‘Lizzy, I’m sorry…’
‘Don’t be,’ she’d snapped. ‘From what I remember, I was the one who thought it would be hilarious to see if sex on a lilo was even possible.’
Now that she’d said that, a little tug of recall backed up her claim. It had taken them several attempts, at her insistence, to get the whole way through it without falling off. All Dev could remember was finding the whole thing absolutely hilarious and when they were done, telling her… telling her… Oh fuck, he’d told her he loved her. Which was nothing completely unusual, because they said they loved each other all the time, but not right after his penis had been doing the Macarena anywhere near her bits. And that one had definitely counted because they’d done it lying down and he was pretty much, 100 per cent certain that everything had ended up in the right place.
‘Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,’ Lizzy had said, with such gravity that he’d been half expecting to be left in Benidorm to survive on nothing but cheap beer and chips. ‘We’re never going to talk about this again. We’re just going to pretend it never happened. We’re going to forget about it. Deny it until our dying days. That way, it won’t be weird or awkward between us because… well, because it never happened. We’ll just carry on being best mates and wipe it from our minds. Agreed?’
It was so simple. So brilliant. And it didn’t involve being abandoned in a foreign country or losing the person he loved most in the world. Done deal.
‘Agreed.’
‘Excellent. Now get up, let’s go find bacon sandwiches before I faint.’
And that’s how it happened. That’s how they got over it. Bacon sandwiches, amnesia, and it all stayed completely in the past, unless he saw an inflatable bed or heard the Macarena. It was as good an outcome as he could have hoped for.
And no, it was never repeated, because, well, they both knew that they just weren’t a romantic fit. He wasn’t her type, and she wasn’t his. She liked edgy, cool guys, the kind who were a challenge and who never quite let you know where you stood. Extra points if they liked country music and looked like Tim McGraw. He liked… he liked… Actually, he’d never really sussed that out. He liked women who made him laugh. Who were funny. Chilled. Happy to just be in the moment and enjoy life.
Christ, he sounded like one of those Instagram banners about living for today and smelling the coffee. Problem was, he just wanted someone to smell the coffee with him.
And Cheryl would smell the coffee. Hadn’t she already proved she was a ‘live in the moment’ kind of girl? Hadn’t they had the most incredible night together, with mind-blowing sex and laughs that made his face hurt? And had she requested that he shoot her in the morning? Definitely not. Although, granted, she left before he woke up, but her note had contained no homicidal requests. They were made for each other. She just hadn’t realised it yet.
Hayley returned from the bathroom and climbed back into her seat.
‘You’re smiling,’ she teased. ‘And the TV is on pause, so I know it’s not because you’re watching something funny. I meant to ask you – how are you going to find her when you get there?’
Dev’s grin got wider. ‘She mentioned the name of the resort she’s going to. The Sands.’
‘Oh. Small world. That’s where Tadgh, the bloke on the other side of me, is getting married.’
‘Maybe we’ll all get an invite,’ he joked, thinking that would be highly impressive. Meeting Cheryl again and taking her to a rock band wedding.
‘Maybe we will. Don’t think my husband will be up for it though. It’s hard enough to get him to come to the weddings of people we know.’
‘Don’t worry – you can come with me and Cheryl. I’m pretty sure she won’t mind.’
He was joking. Completely. Just going along with the laugh. But Hayley suddenly frowned as if he’d said something wrong. Maybe she was touchy about her husband’s reluctance to mingle.
‘Cheryl? I just remembered you said earlier that was her name.’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’
That now seemed to perplex her. Dev had no idea why. Unless…
‘Don’t tell me you think you might know her? That would be like the smallest world moment ever.’
Hayley shrugged. ‘Erm, no, I don’t know her. I definitely don’t know her at all.’