Nicky went quiet, and I had to ask: ‘He’s back on with Gemma again, isn’t he?’ She nodded. ‘Yeah, he is; he was on the phone to her last night when he was round here. Think about it though, Linz – if he was crazy about her why would he want to go on holiday with you?’
‘He’s going on holiday with you, Nicky; you’re his family. I’m just someone who happens to be there. I’m all right for a kiss and a cuddle, but not good enough for him to dump Gemma properly.’ I sounded a bit bitter, which was exactly how I felt. The cheek of him, I thought. He’d been trying to get me to sleep with him and yet he was back again with his girlfriend.
‘I think he has tried to break it off with her, but he’s finding it really hard. Gemma isn’t one to give up easily. If it’s any consolation, babes, we think he’s mad and he should go for you,’ she said, supportively.
It seemed to me that even though Paul and I kissed every now and again, and although I did think he was interested, that was that. I felt a bit angry with him. Did he think I was going to be some little holiday fling? Did he think we would sleep together out there and then he would come back to Gemma? If he did, he didn’t know me very well at all. When I went home that night, I made a decision.
I was sure that I would have a great time with Nicky.
I was even more sure that I wouldn’t let Paul Hunter ruin my holiday.
I didn’t see Paul again before we left, so it was only when my dad dropped me off at the airport to meet the others that I had a chance to reflect on my decision. I may have decided that I wouldn’t let him affect me, but I hadn’t been prepared for how he seemed more good-looking every time I saw him. Paul wasn’t one to hold a grudge either. As soon as I walked into the terminal pulling my little case on wheels, he ran over, took it out of my hand and gave me a cuddle. ‘All right, Lindsey?’ he asked. ‘Ready to show Spain what having a good time looks like?’ I just laughed, glad that he had such an easy way about him. I never wanted us to fall out and, to be honest, we hadn’t (it would take a lot to make Paul fall out with anyone), but I had been worried that there might have been a bit of bad feeling between us after I’d brought up the subject of Gemma.
On the holiday, it was Nicky, Paul, her mum and me. We’d rented an apartment only a few minutes from the beach. It had three bedrooms, one for Nicky and me, one for her mum, and one for Paul. I think the arrangement was meant to give us some privacy but we didn’t need it – we all knew each other so well by now that we were happy to spend a whole week together. It wasn’t as if we needed separate bedrooms for bringing anyone back either – Nicky wasn’t exactly on the pull with her mum there, and I had no intention of letting Paul break down my defences.
The holiday was an absolute blast. We all knew that we only had seven days to enjoy ourselves and we were ready to make every minute count. From the first day, it was obvious that Paul and Gemma were back on again. He kept going off to call her every few hours, which I thought was a bit odd. It wasn’t like a lad to be so worried, and I felt that it was further proof that he just wasn’t interested in me any more. Nicky soon put another idea in my head, though. ‘It’s not him who’s worried about Gemma,’ she said. ‘It’s her who’s worried about you being here. She’ll be sitting at home thinking of you in a bikini and Paul seeing you every minute. I bet she’s asked him to check in every so often every day.’
We fell into a pattern straight away. Nicky’s mum got friendly with some other women in the apartment complex, so the three of us would all go clubbing until about 3am or 4am every night. We’d stagger back to our rooms, and fall out of bed quite early so that we could sleep off the hangovers on the beach the next day. Paul was still calling Gemma a lot but it didn’t really bother me. I felt I understood the situation better, that they were obviously quite solid together, so I concentrated on enjoying myself.
After a few days, we started chatting to another group of holidaymakers from Manchester who were staying near us. There were a few lads who weren’t attached to any of the girls in their group, and they were a good laugh. Paul didn’t make it down to the beach one day as he was so drunk from the night before, and, by the time he did, Nicky and I were mucking about with the Manchester boys. As Paul came down the steps to the beach, he looked furious. He sat beside all of us on a deckchair but he didn’t join in any of the laughs. After a while, he got up, went back to the apartment and didn’t come back.
Nicky went to check on him at one point. When she came back, she said, ‘He’s really pissed off that you’re talking to these boys, Linz. When I asked him to come back, he said he didn’t want to watch you flirting and flaunting yourself at strangers all day!’
‘Is he joking?’ I asked her. ‘He’s not my boyfriend – he’s the one mucking me about, so why should he get a say in how I behave?’ Nicky ran back to the apartment again to speak to Paul, and I shouted after her, ‘And tell him I am not flirting … or flaunting!’
When Nicky returned, she said that he was pretending to sleep but she reckoned he was probably watching us all from the apartment window. I cranked it up a notch then and laughed as loud as I could as one of the boys threw me into the little kiddie pool on the beach. If Paul was watching, that would give him something to think about – this was exactly the sort of mucking around we had done together before we started kissing and cuddling earlier in the year.
I wasn’t prepared for the effect it would have.
The next person to come down the steps to the beach was Nicky’s mum. She’d gone back to the apartment after doing a bit of shopping and when she saw him, she asked Paul why he was looking so miserable. He must have laid it on thick because she obviously felt sorry for him. ‘That poor boy!’ she said. ‘Do you know that our Paul is trying to get an early plane home, Lindsey, because he’s so upset at you looking to get another boyfriend right under his nose? He can’t stand seeing you with other boys, love.’
I was speechless! Almost.
‘What?’ I said, really offended that I was being portrayed as the villain here. ‘He’s the one with a girlfriend! He’s either seeing me or he’s not – and I thought he wasn’t.’
It turned out that Paul couldn’t get an early flight back to Leeds anyway, but he still acted as if there was a huge drama going on – he locked himself in his room for the rest of the day in a huff. I didn’t know what to make of all this. We hadn’t spoken about ‘us’ all holiday, we’d just had a laugh. Anyway – was there an ‘us’? I had no idea.
He didn’t come out clubbing with us that night but Nicky had told him where we were going. Paul showed up after an hour or so and we all danced and drank as if nothing had happened. On the way back to the apartment, he pulled me behind and took my hand without saying anything. We just walked together in silence for a while. My heart was fluttering even though I was still angry with him for putting the blame on me. We fell further and further behind Nicky, and then Paul stopped. He pulled me towards him, and I thought my heart was going to fly out of my chest.
‘Lindsey,’ he said softly into my ear, ‘I don’t know what’s going on. Do you?’
‘I’ve got even less of a clue than you, Paul,’ I told him. ‘I’m not attached to anyone else. I’m a free agent. You’re the one who has to make a decision.’
‘When I’m with you, everything else goes away. I can be myself. When it’s just us, it’s fantastic – but when I see Gemma, I get confused.’
‘It doesn’t have to be confusing, Paul,’ I told him. ‘It’s pretty straightforward. Just decide. Make your own