Seven Days: The Complete Story (7 page)

Joel and
Nicholas know each other.

They are best
friends.

I’m very
attracted to them both, which is not good.

Though if I’m
admitting stuff to myself the idea of having two boyfriends at the
same time is rather hot. The logistics maybe not so much, I’d never
get a minute’s peace, but the concept? Definitely hot. This is the
stuff they make into romantic comedy movies. It would never happen
in real life. Apart from the fact that it’s reprehensible and
morally wrong there’s no way on earth they’d knowingly date me at
the same time. Is there? Is that what the dance floor flirting was
about? Are they wanting some little dating triangle thingy?

“Would you
like something else to drink while you look at the menu?” The
waitress totally interrupts my train of thought. Over her shoulder,
I see Joel and Nicholas approaching the table. There’s a certain
swagger about them, like a couple of lions out looking for trouble.
They nod in my direction and say something to each other I can’t
hear.

“Tequila,” I
say, realising alcohol may be the only way to get through this
evening. “Bring me the biggest frozen margarita you have.”

“The biggest
one is designed for three people. It’s called a Fishbowl. It’s the
equivalent of six regular drinks.” She raises an eyebrow in
question.

“Perfect. And
hurry.”

Determined I
will not give them the satisfaction of acknowledging they’re there,
I sit and twiddle my thumbs in a ladylike fashion, wishing my drink
would arrive. I get out my phone and check my emails, finding of
course that there are none, and then my horoscope — which I’ve
never believed in but at least it makes me look busy. I contemplate
taking a selfie but settle for a picture of the view, which I post
to Instagram.

“Lonely?” Joel
is towering over me. Seeing his face from this angle makes him
appear even more attractive. His eyes are
soooo
brown.
Intensely.

No! Stop
looking at him. Ignore him, I think. Let them find another girl to
tease.

“Not in the
least. I’m quite busy, as you can see.” I waggle my phone in his
direction.

“Facebooking?
You can friend me if you like—”

Geez, I could
punch him. Seriously.

“—Though
talking in person is way more fun.”

“Mind if we
join you?” Nicholas asks.

“If you have
to.”

No! No! I
didn’t say that. Did I?

Before I can
utter I’ve made a mistake Nicholas sits himself on one side and
Joel pulls up a chair on the other. My cosy table for one has
become a table for three. They’ve even brought their own cutlery,
probably pilfered from an empty table on the way past.

What am I
going to do? I don’t think I have the strength to resist them both.
In fact I know I don’t. I hate myself for this. I do. But I can’t
say no. I’ve never been able to say no. I’m hopeless at letting
people down. I think way too much about freakin’ feelings.
Dammit.

The waitress
brings me my drink. She notices that I have not only the company of
Nicholas but also his extremely delightful sidekick. The expression
on her face changes from pleasant to looking like she’d like to
prick me with very long, very sharp pins. The vibe, as she slams my
vase full of tequila in front of me, is icier than the drink. And
twice as tart.

“You ready to
order?” She looks from Nicholas to Joel and then me, obviously
wondering how the hell I garnered the interest of not one but two
such men. It’s a pity she doesn’t know the answer. I’m rather
bemused about it myself.

“Enchiladas
please. Beef,” I say, too scared to ask if they come with salad in
case she shoves the menu up my nose.

Joel gives her
a cheeky grin and she appears to melt a little in front of my eyes.
At least it’s not only me. That charisma is seemingly unstoppable.
“I’ll have the same, thanks. Extra cheese,” he says.

“Seafood
burritos for me,” says Nicholas. “And a beer.”

“A pint?”

“Thanks.”

The waitress
leaves, mumbling to herself and I stare at our tiny table. My
fishbowl of alcohol, with three blue striped straws and a pink
paper umbrella poking from the top, is taking up most of the space.
I have no idea where we’re going to fit food and another drink the
same size. Rather poor planning really. I groan, the size of my
beverage suddenly overwhelming. “There’s no way I can drink this.
I’ll be on my ear.”

Ignoring me,
Joel chuckles, swiping the paper umbrella and tucking it behind my
ear. “Cute.”

“Very,”
Nicholas adds. “Do you want some help with your margarita before
the other drinks arrive?”

“Or anything
else?” Joel says. He waggles his eyebrows in a comic fashion.

I groan into
my drink. The ice is beginning to melt and I take a long, slow sip
letting the lemony tang linger for a minute in my mouth. This is
dire. There’s not enough tequila in the world to dampen the
feelings I’m having for these men. Both of them. At the same
time.

Oh geez.

I. So. Drunk.
Am.

Yes, I am so
drunk that my lips cannot string a sentence together in the proper
order. And I don’t think the boys are much better. Not knowing them
that well, it’s hard to tell, but if I were to go by the clues I’m
getting — such as the uproarious laughter at everything I say even
if it’s not funny and the schoolboy toilet humour — I’d say they’re
hammered too. I can’t recall the last time I was this drunk but the
giggling and hair flicking and general letting down of my hair are
a good thing.

Definitely a
good thing.

Despite my
original misgivings, we’ve had a fun night. I’ve laughed at Joel’s
jokes and felt myself flush at the subtle brand of flirting
Nicholas is doing. Every time I glance in his direction, his eyes
are on me, holding my gaze for a second longer than is necessary or
he’s running his fingers through that mass of hair which sort of
makes me want to as well. He’s definitely flirting. I’m not that
out of it I can’t see the signs.

As the night
progresses and the three of us get drunker, Joel stands and
announces. “I’m going to stretch my legs. Anyone want anything
while I’m up?”

I look fuzzily
into the remains of our last margarita. “I think I’m okay. Maybe
water?”

“And chips,”
Nicholas adds. “I could eat the leg off a rag doll.”

“You just ate
a huge plate of burritos and half my enchiladas.” I snort. “How the
hell can you… what do you…”

God, I’m
drunker than I realised. That thought has totally slipped from my
head, mid-sentence.

Nicholas
shrugs and smiles but doesn’t answer. We watch as Joel walks
sloppily to the bar. He’s doing a funny jogging sort of walk that’s
happy and jaunty and a little bit pissed. Everyone is staring but
not in the he’s-so-sad-and-pathetic way. They’re as mesmerised as
me. He’s utterly adorable.

“He could
charm the knickers off a nun,” Nicholas says, his eyes on Joel,
who’s making funny quips to other customers on his way to the
loo.

“I’ve
noticed.”

“You like
Joel, huh?” Nicholas says as the toilet door closes and Joel
disappears. His hands have appeared from under the table and are
fiddling with his coaster.

Shit. This is
awkward.

“Um yeah, he’s
cool. But I like you too, Nicholas. I really do.”

“The way you
like him?”

I know this is
the alcohol talking but I can’t believe he’s being so frank. Men
are not frank. They don’t blurt out their feelings after a couple
of outings. Well, not the guys I know. You’d be lucky to know what
most of them think after a decade.

“Yes.
Definitely, the way I like Joel. I don’t know what it is but I feel
like I’ve got a connection to you both.” My voice is uncertain. I
can’t believe I’m opening up to him. Again. I want to ask him if he
believes in love at first sight but I know he’ll think I’m crazy or
try to explain this as some sort of chemical-hormonal reaction.
Which it’s not. It’s nothing like that. “I can’t explain it.”

“And you don’t
know who to choose?”

“I didn’t know
there was a choice involved. Is there a choice?” Are we that deep
into this already that I have to choose?

Nicholas leans
across the table. His face looks more sombre than it did a second
ago. I don’t know how that happened but my eyes are having trouble
focussing so I guess it could be me. I sit still as he takes my
face in his hands. The softness of his palms on my skin triggers
something deep inside me. It’s warm and sensual and it’s spreading
through my body like hot sauce over ice cream. It feels
soooo
good. I lean my cheek into his palm. I close my eyes
and breathe him deeply into my lungs. He smells of beer and lemon
and even though I hate beer it’s wildly erotic.

Suddenly, I am
no longer drunk and neither is Nicholas. When I open my eyes he is
gazing at me like I am the most perfect thing he has ever seen. The
room around us disappears and I swallow in anticipation of what I
hope is about to happen. He leans forward. His lips are almost on
mine. The heat from his mouth is on mine. He’s studying my
eyes.

Kiss me, I
think. Geez, just freakin’ kiss me. I’m dying here.

“If you’re in
the mood for choosing, I think you should choose me,” he
whispers.

“Why?” I
whisper back. As if I need a reason. The reason has his hands on my
face. My heart is pounding, set to explode with some unexplained
feeling I’ve never felt. I don’t understand it. I can’t understand
it.

“Because.”

And then his
lips are touching mine. His tongue is in my mouth, coaxing me into
submission, giving me every reason I need. The kiss is long and
slow. It’s tantalisingly perfect. It’s promising something I don’t
think I knew existed before now. When we finally pull apart, I am
breathless. Literally breathless. And very confused.

“I’m
back
.
Miss me?
”

Shit.

Joel’s
interruption is so unexpected it makes me leap guiltily from my
seat, bashing my knee into the leg of the table as I do. This, in
turn, knocks over the remains of the margarita. I stare helplessly
at the broken glass and the margarita dripping over my knees while
Nicholas scrambles for napkins to wipe up the mess. His hands are
shaking. He’s flustered too, like we’ve done something wrong. It’s
so weird, as if we’ve cheated on Joel. I don’t know why I feel this
way. We’re not in a relationship and I
did
meet Nicholas
first. Yet, I still feel awful, like such a bitch.

“So, what’ve
you two been up to?” Joel asks, as he flops into his chair,
oblivious to the chaos around him. “We’ve reached the throwing
drinks stage, have we? I didn’t think we’d had that much.”

I open my
mouth to answer but the room has begun to spin. It’s hot; I can’t
focus on Joel’s face, I can’t make my lips say what they want to
say. My ears are ringing and I can feel myself losing
consciousness. Nicholas — or is it Joel — is calling my name. Then
the most embarrassing moment occurs. I fall to the floor in a
rather unladylike faint.

When I rouse,
some time later, I appear to have attracted the attention of a few
people. Okay. That’s not entirely true. The whole restaurant and
bar are crowded round me, including a person who looks like a chef,
a woman I don’t know who is taking my pulse and Nicholas and Joel
who are kneeling on my other side. My head is thumping and the
voices sound muffled and unintelligible.

“What
happened?” I ask.

“You
fainted.”

“Must have
been the heat and the alcohol. You went a bit weak at the knees,
that’s all.”

“Twice in one
day,” Joel says. “I always knew chicks found me irresistible but
this is ridiculous.”

I flash him an
unamused smile. “In your dreams.”

“So you’re
okay?”

“Yep. The
fainting thing happens a lot in my family. We have low blood
pressure. Guess I jumped up too quickly.” Which sounds sort of
blasé, judging by the ruckus I appear to have caused. I close my
eyes and cover them with my hand. This is
soooo
embarrassing. I wish they’d go away or be struck by a sudden bout
of amnesia at the least. I wish I could turn back time for a few
minutes and not fall on the floor. No, I wish the ground would
swallow me alive. I mean, who faints at nothing? Me, I guess. I am
such a girl.

Tentatively, I
pull myself to a sitting position. The room has stopped spinning
and I no longer feel like I’m on a merry-go-round so that’s
good.

“Take it
easy,” the woman says, as she gives me a matronly pat on the
shoulder. “You might be concussed.”

“Did I bump my
head?”

“No, but—”

“I’m fine.
It’s nothing to worry about. Honestly.”

“At least let
me listen to your heart. I’m a trained first aider.” She whips a
medical kit from out of her handbag — I’m not going there as to the
weirdness of that — and proceeds to pop a stethoscope onto my
chest. “Sounds like everything’s back to normal,” she informs
me.

“Thank you,” I
say.

“You be
careful getting home.”

“I will.”

“And you
should see your doctor about the blood pressure. They can give you
medication for that.”

“Yes. Of
course.”

By this time,
seeing that I am not dying and therefore not overly interesting,
the crowd have gone back to their evening entertainment. But
Nicholas and Joel, who have been at my side the whole time, are
watching me anxiously.

“Can we walk
you home, Sadie? I don’t like to think of you wobbling your way
along the beach alone,” Joel says, his eyes intently scrutinizing
my face. He puts a hand under my elbow and helps me to my feet. I’m
thankful for his help, yet the only thing I can think of is the
fact that I want to sleep with him. A lot. Right now. Obviously,
I’m fuzzier from the fainting episode than I realised. I mean, he’s
annoying. Really annoying. Even when he’s being nice.