Seven Days: The Complete Story (10 page)

That’s saying
something. Emily wears trademark black almost everywhere. It’s like
her thing.

“You’re here?
How can you be here?”

“I thought I’d
surprise you. Come up and spend the weekend, have some girlie time,
then give you a lift back to town. I swapped my shifts at the
café.”

Suddenly, I
have this sinking feeling like the blood has drained from my body.
There’s a distinct chance I might actually be going to vomit for
real. There are two men waiting for me in the bar. My best friend
is waiting for me at home. I cannot introduce them. I cannot. They
must not meet because Emily must not know. She’d be appalled. She
thinks I’m so straight, so under the radar that me doing something
so out of the ordinary might tip her over the edge. Because no
matter what she says or how she acts, Emily is the monogamous type.
She’s fragile. She abhors people who have affairs, no matter what
the situation. Seeing me with two men would knock our friendship
into the bay. Either that or she’ll try to chat up Joel. He’s
definitely her type. A stab of jealousy twists at my insides as I
contemplate
that
idea.

“I’m at a
club,” I say, “But I’ll come home. Give me five minutes. It’s not
far.”

“You’re at a
club?”

“That’s what I
said.”

“Alone?”

“Not exactly.
There’s about two hundred people here. It’s packed to the
gills.”

Not to mention
the two guys I’m with.

“Awesome. I’m
so glad you’re getting out again. You haven’t been yourself for a
long time. Give me directions and I’ll meet you there.”

“Um, er, um.”
This is not good. I should have said I was at the library. Emily
never goes there. I don’t think she even knows what a library
is.

“What’s wrong?
Don’t you want me to come?”

Oh geez.

“Of course I
do.”

“But—”

How can I say
‘but I don’t want to share my two boyfriends without offending her?
She’ll be awfully upset and I wouldn’t hurt her for the world. An
elongated sigh escapes my lips. “But nothing,” I say in the
perkiest, most enthused voice I can muster, “Get your butt down
here this second.”

“Hashtag,
magic!”

“And no more
hashtags. You’re not an Instagram celebrity.”

“Yet.”

I tell Emily
the address and hang up my phone, which I slip back into my bag. My
nerves appear to have subsided, along with my need for the toilet,
so I rush back to the bar hoping to at least get a chance to speak
to Nicholas and Joel before Emily arrives. I have to tell them I’m
sorry, that I didn’t plan for this to happen, that this is not some
scenario I’ve concocted to tease or worse still get out of the
threesome. And it’s certainly not because I’m keen to engage in
some sort of sex-party-slash-orgy thing between the lot of us. More
importantly, I have to warn them about Emily. She’ll be like a bee
to honey when she sees these two.

*****

The music is
ripping when I get back from the toilet. Strobe lights are bouncing
around the room making everyone look like they’re doing strange
robot dancing. The crowd has increased but it’s easy to see the
boys. They have this presence that makes the rest of the crowd pale
into insignificance. Plus, there’s a group of five or so girls
about my age in the corner tittering in their direction. Their
giggles are like a beacon pointing straight toward my men.

My men?

Hmm
.
Not yet. Probably never if Emily gets wind of it.

Nicholas hands
me a drink and I take it, downing the entire glass in one go.

“There you
are,” he says. “Joel and I were worried we’d have to brave the
depths of the ladies’ loo to look for you. Thirsty work waiting in
the toilet line, huh?”

I put my glass
on the bar. “Not really. Listen, I’ve got something to tell you and
I don’t know how you’re going to react.”

Joel, who’s
been eyeing off the dance floor, swivels to face me. “You’ve
changed your mind. No biggie. We’ll cope.”

I hate that
he’s being so blasé about this when I know he likes me, more than
likes me. What’s the deal with that?

“No. No,” I
answer. I’m practically screeching and it’s then I realise that I
haven’t changed my mind at all. It was simply my nerves getting the
better of me and making my mind think silly things. “But there
could be a problem. There
is
a problem. While I was in the
toilet, my best friend Emily rang. She’s here. She wanted to
surprise me. She’s on her way over. She can’t ever know I was
considering a threesome. She just can’t.”

Nicholas runs
a hand through his hair. I feel myself dissolve into a little lust
puddle beside him. “We can call it off,” he says.

“It was fairly
obvious you were shitting yourself when we got here,” Joel
adds.

And here I was
thinking I was all calm and relaxed. Not.

“I don’t want
to call it off. I want to go through with it.” I sound like I’m
about to have my entire body tattooed in one sitting.

“Me too.”

“I’ve always
been in.” Nicholas smiles and wraps his arm round my shoulder.
“Maybe we can get Emily so pissed she passes out.”

Ha, ha.

“Fat chance.
Emily could drink an alcoholic under the table.”

“Don’t sweat
it. If it’s meant to happen it’s meant to happen.”

I’m well aware
of that but now there’s a possibility it mightn’t, I feel extremely
upset.

*****

It only takes
five or so minutes before we see Emily making her way through the
crowd towards us. It never ceases to amaze me how she can jump the
queue when other people have to wait for hours; she has this knack
of being able to talk her way around the gruffest of bouncers. It
doesn’t surprise me either, that she’s wearing black. A gorgeous
black, sheath dress with long sleeves and a high neckline. It fits
her slim body like a glove showing off her curves. Emily’s got a
great body, one that I freely admit to being covetous of.
Frequently.

“
Saaaaadie
,” she squeals, running toward me with her arms
outstretched. She swipes my drink from my hand, finishing it for me
before swallowing me in a huge, tight hug. As she releases me, her
eyes narrow. “My, my, aren’t you the picture of health and
happiness. Positively glowing, which is good to see. It feels like
a decade since I’ve seen you, honeybubble.”

“I’ve missed
you too. Have you got everything organised for Uni?”

Emily snorts.
We both know she’ll be dashing frantically about the place on the
last day trying to hook herself up with textbooks she should have
ordered two months ago. “Whatever. Hey, is that door bitch a cow or
what? She wanted to check in my shoes for drugs. I mean, come on.
As if I’d hide them there. That’s what padded bras are for. Well,
that and giving the boobs a shelf to sit on.”

She laughs at
the look on Joel’s face and hugs me again before pausing to
appraise the two men standing beside me. Her attention focuses
quickly on Nicholas who is regarding her with the wariness one
regards a man-eating shark when in the water. “Well,
heeeelloooo
there.”

“This is
Nicholas,” I say. “We met on the beach a few days back when my hat
blew away in the wind.”

“Who said
chivalry was dead?” She gives Nicholas her most perfect smile, the
one she reserves for men she’s especially interested in. “So you’re
the one she’s been going on about—”

And cue
embarrassing redness of cheeks. Geez, I hate it when she drops me
in it like that.

“And this is
his friend, Joel,” I say.

Emily gives me
a nudge in the side. “Hashtag, hottie,” she whispers before turning
back to the boys.

“—I’m Emily.
Sadie’s best friend and general bad influence. She tries to keep me
on the straight and narrow but I’m a lost cause. I’ve never gotten
over the fact that my parents neglected to tell me they’re not my
parents, so I’m rebelling by spending as much of their money as I
can before they realise and give it to the natural born siblings.
They hate me with a passion this week, so it’s all perfectly
fine.”

Behind my
redness, I smile. “Emily’s also quite verbose and a dreadful liar.
Her parents adore her. She’d never do anything to hurt them.”

“Don’t tell
him that,” Emily scoffs, “You’ll ruin my reputation.”

“The only
reputation you have is in your mind.”

“But I’d like
to have one. Emily Matthews — ‘It’ girl. You know, like Gigi Hadid
with hundreds of thousands of men drooling over my Instagram
account.”

“Who?”
Nicholas asks, clearly confused by this conversation. I don’t
imagine rapid fire talking is something he comes in contact with a
lot.

“Gigi Hadid’s
a model,” I answer. “Absolutely gorgeous and in a league that’s not
even on a planet with the rest of us mortals.” I turn to Emily.
“Why would you want millions of men looking at you in your
underwear, anyway?”

“Why not?
Honestly, Sadie you’re such dag for someone so young. You need to
live a little. Put yourself out there.”

“Sadie’s been
doing a fair bit of that already —” Joel sniggers.

“I went
sailing!” I interrupt him, not wanting him to regale the story of
my naked bum and his surfboard.

Emily’s look
is incredulous. “What, on a yacht? Like an actual boat with
sails?”

“I know.
Amazing, right?”

Emily stares
at the boys. “Wow. Which one of you was responsible for this?
Sadie’s never left land in her life. She doesn’t even go swimming
unless she can touch the bottom.”

A little fact
I’d rather she not have shared. Besides, I did go swimming. And I
was really far out.

“I took Sadie
on my yacht,” Nicholas says. “She was pretty good for a newbie.
Fast learner.”

“It was fun,”
I say.

Emily nods her
head approvingly at me. “Go Sadie. I told you you’d enjoy these
things if you’d only give them a chance. You can’t spend your
entire life doing the same thing every day.
Sooo
boring.”

“But I like
boring. It makes me feel safe.”

Emily rolls
her eyes and turns to Joel. “See what I have to deal with?
Hopeless.”

“Hey! I’m not
hopeless,” I laugh.

“Topless
maybe,” Joel murmurs.

“You’ve been
sunbaking topless, too?”

“Well, not
sunbaking exactly.” I didn’t have bottoms on at the time. “I tried
skinny-dipping. That’s how I met Joel.”

“Sadie was
doing her impersonation of a drowning naked person. I saved
her.”

Emily’s
eyebrows rise slowly into her hairline. She swallows in disbelief.
“I leave you alone for a week and you turn into freaking Bear
Grylls. Next you’ll be eating fried cockroaches and hiking up the
Himalayas. What the hell’s come over you? I love it! And I
definitely love you boys. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever
imagine Sadie Cooper would suddenly develop such an interest in
water sports. Well, any sports really. She’s mostly a little
homebody. This deserves drinks all round.” She shoulders Joel from
his perch and orders a bottle of the best champagne in the
club.

Imagine how
she’d react if she knew I was considering a threesome.

*****

The night
wears on, and I begin to despair that we will ever lose my friend.
Not that I want to ‘lose’ her, I just want her to get super tired
so she has to go home and fall asleep, not realising I’m not there
with her. We’ve had fun though. We’ve laughed and gotten to know
each other more. Emily has flirted with Joel — much to my thinly
veiled disgust — and we’ve swapped dance partners and even danced
as a foursome. We’ve drunk loads and yet there’s still no sign of
Emily wanting to go home.

At sometime
after midnight, Emily asks me to go to the loos with her. I know
this is code for girltalk time and it takes a grand total of about
twenty seconds before she brings up the subject I’m trying to
avoid.

“So what’s the
deal with Nicholas and Joel?”

“There is no
deal. I met them both separately. I didn’t know they were friends
until the other night.”

“But you’re
into Nicholas?”

I can see why
she’d assume this; he is the quieter one of the two. Joel would
never have been my type in the ‘real’ world.

“I like him a
lot. He’s sweet. I can talk to him.”

“So Joel’s
single too?”

Oh no, I think
I know where this is heading.

“Well, um,
yeah.”

“And you
wouldn’t find it creepy or breaking the girl code if I hooked up
with him. I mean, I know you met him first and you have this friend
thing going on but you’re into Nicholas right? I wouldn’t be
hurting you, would I?”

What do I say
to that? Yes, you would be hurting me? Yes, I like Joel the same as
I like Nicholas? You need to back off because I’m going to have it
off with both of them and I have no intention of sharing?

“Um, it might
not be a good idea. It could be awkward.”

“Why? If we
were going out it would be great. We’d be friends and couples.”

“Joel’s gay.”
I’ve blurted it without even considering the ramifications of what
I just said but honestly, it’s the only thing I can think of that
will throw her off. God. I’m such a bitch. I should let my best
friend have the boy I want. I mean, there are two of them. It’s
very selfish of me to want them both.

But I do. I
do.

“Gay?” Emily’s
face is a picture. I don’t know what of. “You’re kidding,
right?”

“Nope.
Nicholas told me. Camp as a row of tents.”

“Maybe he told
you that because he wants you for himself and sees Joel as a
threat?”

This lie has
suddenly grown legs and is sprinting down the track.

“I doubt it.
They’re best friends and Nicholas isn’t the type to sabotage a
possible relationship. If he thought I liked Joel more than I liked
him he’d bow out. I’m sure of it. It has to be true.”