Page 4 of Shipwrecked

“I forgot my hairband. Do you have a spare?” Willow asks Mary.

“Here.” Jules pulls a hairband from…I miss where. His blond hair is trimmed on the sides and long on top, but nowhere near long enough to need one for himself. A mesh UV shirt hugs his lean frame, and there are streaks of white where he liberally applied sun cream to his face.

Mathieu is hemming and hawing between fins, Darren ineffectually trying to help him find a pair that fits.

“What size are you?” Jules swoops in.

“Forty-one in France, but these are marked with… I don’t think these are even UK sizes?”

Jules presses his foot side by side with Mathieu’s, whose attention lingers where their calves touch. Jules digs through the box. “These should work.” He walks off, Mathieu staring after him. Darren stuffs his feet into flippers, his jaw tight.

I rub my mouth.

“What’s funny?” Seán asks as he comes up from below deck. He sips from a zero-zero beer, his eyes alert as he scans the group. I told him since I’m here, resolutely sober, he’s welcome to have an actual beer if he wants. He took out his phone and played a safety video about guides drinking on the job. He made me watch the entire thing too, the bastard. I didn’t get to finish my episode of Home and Away.

He leans against the railing beside me.

“Darren’s date seems more interested in his ex-boyfriend.”

Seán’s brows rise. Across the deck, Mathieu is still gazing after Jules, despite Darren trying to draw him into conversation.

“Serves him right, bringing a date.”

I grunt in agreement. Truthfully, I know everyone in the group decently well bar Darren and Jules, but after that stunt Darren pulled earlier, I’ve formed an opinion.

“Though,” Seán continues, “Jules did specifically request you for ‘eye candy’. I don’t think he’s too hung up about their breakup.”

“Did he actually say that? He barely said a word to me the last time I met up with your friends, never mind check me out.” Unless I missed it, but Jules doesn’t strike me as subtle. Waxed and bleached. What does that look like? My gaze slides over his blue trunks. His thighs are lean, with either hair too pale to stand out against his skin, or none at all.

“Looking for a rebound, maybe?” Seán casts me a long look. I tear my gaze from Jules’s shorts and wave it off.

“I’m in a relationship.”

“You got dumped last month.”

“Ah.” That’s right. Kara had thrown several things at me when kicking me out of our Dublin flat. It’s becoming a worrying pattern. I fall into a relationship, things go well, and then, predictable as the rising sun, I fuck up in bed. “Either way, I’ve just ended a relationship with a woman.”

Luckily, all Seán wants in exchange for his couch is that I work for his business. I grew up joining Seán for most of his outdoor extracurriculars, taking instructor exams as we went. The adventure centre where I work in Wicklow gets annoyed when I take off for the odd week, but given that they trained Seán since he was a kid, it softens them up that I’m leaving to help him with his business.

“Fair.”

Jules slips his feet into fins, rights his goggles and confidently dives into the water, leading the way.

“How much of this trip was planned by you and how much was planned by Jules?”

“Aside from the nightclub, it’s all me. He’s not a control freak. Or maybe he is, but he’s learned how to delegate.” Seán pushes off the railing. “You good with me drinking later? I don’t mind—”

I wave him away. “Drink away.”

◆◆◆

The nightclub is nestled into the back of the resort, tucked into the tree cover and far from the open-air beach bars out the front and the rooms above.

We’re stuffed into a small, squat room. Hanging yellow bulbs illuminate tables crowded with paint tubs and brushes. Colourful streaks across the walls and floor indicate it’s been used as an art room several times before us. I’m leaning against a clean stretch of one of the tables, sipping a Coke.

Seán has stepped out to speak with the resort manager. Mary is turning Willow into a piece of art, while their boyfriends are going to be walking beacons of light the second they step beneath the UV lights. They’re slapping paint all over each other caveman-style. Mathieu is painting Darren’s face, looking only half-interested in the job.

“Are you good with your hands?” Jules asks me. His cheeks are flushed. His eyes are glazed, mostly pupil bar a thin ring of blue.