Gut Feeling (14 page)

‘I wonder what Dave is doing now.’

‘It’s Friday night, Ash, he’s probably already drunk… Oh and missing you obviously.’

Ash glanced over at her with wide eyes. ‘I hope Issi behaves herself. Hope she doesn’t introduce some hot single friend to him while I’m away.’ Ash looked uneasy as she sipped from her glass.

‘Do you think he would cheat on you?’

‘Don’t know. I was going to ask you that question.’ Ash put down the glass and walked over to the end of the balcony.

Rachel picked up Ash’s cigarette case, joining her and looking out over to the sea.

‘Here.’ She passed Ash the cigarette case. ‘Ash, you know him better than any of us. What does your gut tell you?’

Ash passed a cigarette to Rachel then laughed. ‘Like I can trust what my gut tells me! Look what happened last time I trusted my gut feelings.’

‘Last time you knew Lee was a twat, you just didn’t listen to them,’ Rachel walked back to the table, toped up their glasses and handed Ash’s glass back to her, ‘Ash. You must always go with what you feel. Gut instincts, they’re never wrong. But listen to them this time.’

They both looked down to the pool where three young girls were chatting up a waiter behind the bar. Over to the far right some men were setting up a karaoke and what looked like a stage for the evening entertainment. Ash turned to look at Rachel.

‘What about you? When are you going to settle down?’

Rachel rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not ready just yet; I’m having too much fun on my own. No doubt the time will come. But not any time soon.’ She smiled, turning her head away.

Both girls jumped as Gemma turned on the stereo in the lounge.

‘Come on,’ Ash said laughing putting out her cigarette, ‘let’s go get ready to have some fun. It’s going to be a mega night.’

* * *

Wandsworth, London, 8.45 pm

‘Dave. Come on bruv. The girls will be waiting for us.’ Peter banged on the bathroom door. The door opened and Dave stepped past his brother, half dry with a black bath towel wrapped around his waist. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

‘Dave. What the hell are you doing? We have to leave now.’ Peter looked panicky, walking down the hall after him.

‘I told you I ain’t coming.’

‘No, you said you did not
think
you were going to come. It’s not the same thing.’ Peter paused for a reaction. ‘Dave!’ he called after him, ‘Dave. Come on. It will be so good. You’ll love it. Lots of girls, drink, more girls. I’ll even buy you a kebab on the way home.’ Peter pushed open his brother’s bedroom door, walking in.

‘Pete, mate, I’m getting dressed, and no I ain’t coming.’

Dave dropped the bath towel from around his waist, then bent over to pick up his tracksuit bottoms lying in a heap on the floor. Peter jerked his head looking away.

‘I gonna watch a DVD and get a takeaway,’ Dave added.

‘What is up with you? OK… Fine, well you know where we are if you wanna stop dwelling on the fact that your new girlfriend is in the clubbing capital of the world with three other sexy women and you aren’t.’

‘Funny, Pete mate, funny… Enjoy yourself.’

‘Will do… oh I apologise if Issi screams too much later as I roger her. We may wake you up.’

‘Yeah, yeah…’

Five minutes later Dave heard the front door close. He walked out of his room to a calm quiet household. Picking up his phone he tapped in Ash’s number, wondering if he should call her or if he should wait and let her call him when she was ready. His finger hovered over the call button; finally he decided to wait for Ash to ring him. He opened the kitchen drawer and pulled out a handful of take away menus.

* * *

Ibiza, 9.45 pm

All the girls were dressed to impress, ready to party. Their spirits were high as they danced around the room, drinking wine, filling the hotel room with the scent of perfume, make-up and body lotions. Rachel looked round to see where Ash had disappeared to, then catching sight of her pacing the balcony with her mobile phone against her ear, she ran out to see if Ash was OK.

Mouthing the words, ‘What’s up? Are you OK?’ Rachel was relieved when Ash smiled, nodding her head, then mouthing back, ‘It’s Dave,’ and pointing to her phone. Rachel winked and walked back inside.

‘Sorry if I disturbed you, I just thought I should call you before you went out,’ Ash apologised.

‘No, you’re not disturbing me, babe. I’m going to stay in tonight, and I’ll go for a beer with them tomorrow or something.’

‘We’re all off out in a minute.’

‘Where—to Ibiza town?’ Dave suddenly felt jealous, and hoped she couldn’t hear it in his voice.

‘Not tonight. We met some local boys and girls on the beach today. I got on really well with a girl called Gina. They’re taking us to a bar they hang out in up the road.’

‘Sounds good, babe. Well, have fun. I’ll let you get off, and I’ll see you when you’re home.’ Dave thought it best not to ask her about the boys. But deep down he had a burning desire to know how many boys they had met, were any of them good looking and did she fancy any of them? But how could he ask without sounding possessive or jealous?

‘OK, bye, see you when I’m back, babe.’ Ash hung up, looking down at the phone as the screen faded.

Why
hadn’t
he
asked
about
the
boys
they
had
met?
Didn’t
he
care?
Wasn’t
he
at
all
jealous?

Tightening her lips she felt the skin between her eyebrows fold together.
Maybe
he
doesn’t
care
or
it’s
because
he
has
another
girl
coming
around
while
I’m
away.
Maybe
he
doesn’t
like
me
enough
to
be
jealous,
or
maybe
. . .

She pondered for a moment.
Maybe
he
just
respects
me
enough
not
to
ask.
Yes
that’s
it,
he
trusts
me,
a
decent
man
that
respects
and
trusts
me
enough
not
to
pry.

Happy with this final thought, she moved to join the others, but still under her skin wished Dave had quizzed her just a little, just so she knew he cared.

* * *

At ten o’clock, they all excitedly waited outside Antonio’s restaurant for the others to arrive. The sea was calm, the yachts in the distance looked like palaces on water, their lights glittering in the twilight. The party was well underway on one of them. The girls looked out towards the boat, wishing that they were all on board drinking champagne with wealthy, good-looking young men.

Sitting down on a cobbled stone wall they looked over at Antonio’s restaurant. It was full to the brim with tourists waiting patiently for food to arrive at their tables. They could see Antonio behind the bar talking to a man who looked very angry; he was waving his hands around, pointing at the customers in the restaurant. Antonio looked as if he were trying to calm him down. He turned and pointed out of the open-fronted restaurant to where the girls were sitting. Ash jumped, turning to look at the others.

‘That doesn’t look good, maybe we should run.’ The others didn’t reply, hoping the man didn’t come out to shout at them as well.

‘
Ola
.’

A voice distracted the girl’s attention away from the angry restaurateur. Zane walked over to Rachel, kissing her on each cheek, and then walked along kissing all of them in turn. He swung round to see the end of the row that previously the girls had been watching. Antonio walked out of the restaurant storming towards everyone. Ash thought he was going to loss his temper, but once he was in front of them, he changed his frown to a welcoming smile.

‘
Ola
, everyone.’

‘Antonio, where iz Tony?’ Zane asked his cousin.

‘My uncle needz him to work in da kitchen—’e he is not listening to me.’

Ash looked around puzzled. ‘Where are Gina and Gabriella?’

‘Ah… They will come later. Let’s go.’

They walked out past the resort to where Zane’s jeep was parked. Gemma climbed in the front while Rachel, Jules and Ash climbed in to the back seat, and Zane sat on the edge of the boot, legs hanging over the back of the old black dusty jeep, holding the bars above to steady him. They drove down country roads with small villas on either side. There were fields that ran for miles, looking like vineyards, though they couldn’t see well in the evening light.

San José was the next town up. The bar was quietly tucked back from the tourist resorts down a small road with a few villas. The jeep neared the end of the undeveloped road. Zane pulled up right outside, and they all jumped out, excited to see what the place was like inside. They jumped down on to the sand and grit, looking up; there was a large, dimly lit orange sign over the entrance with what looked like the word ‘Paradox’, but both ‘a’s and the ‘o’ were not illuminated.

Rachel was the first through the doors. A rustic bar stood to the left; to the right were four round tables in a row, and a large high-backed bench spread the length of all four tables where local people sat drinking. She looked down, noticing sand or fine grit scattered on the floor that had obviously been walked in from outside. It was like the bar in the movie,
Coyote
Ugly
, she thought, pleasantly surprised. The girls lined up along the bar to order tequila. The barman laughed, gesturing to a row of many different types of tequila; he reached for a golden bottle, saying something about a worm, but the music was loud and his accent was strong so they all just smiled, nodding their heads as he held up the bottle for approval.

Antonio laughed with the Spanish locals at the bar, while Zane brought a round of beers for everyone. Antonio then led them to the back of the bar. Rachel nudged Ash as she realised there was no more to the bar apart from the toilets to the left, and the dimly lit stone stairs they were walking up.

As they got to the top they came out to an open roof terrace. It was a large square with concrete stone tables, wicker chairs and candles lit on each stone table top. To the front of the terrace was a large, concrete raised platform on to which Antonio and Zane had jumped, beckoning the girls to come and sit down. Ash sat elegantly perched on the edge with Jules next to her, but Rachel and Gemma jumped up on to the platform with the boys sitting crossed legged, facing in a semi-circle to each other. Something orange in colour caught the corner of Rachel’s eye and she realised they were sitting at the top of the building above the partly illuminated sign.

‘
Wow
, how cool is this.’ She peered over the top. ‘Hey, there’s Gabriela and Gina.
Ola
, up here,’ Rachel waved down to them.

The stars above glittered in the dark, twinkling with the candles around as they drank the night away. It was late. They listened to music playing from the bar below. Ash straightened as she heard the music stop, and the downstairs door to the bar being locked for the night. She looked over at Antonio for reassurance; he pointed out some external stone steps on the side of the building.

‘The locals use then to leave with no need to worry about closing time,’ he explained.

Zane and Gemma had sat at another table talking for the best part of an hour whilst the others played drinking games without them.

‘I have an idea. Let’s go to the fisherman’s beach. Go skinny dipping,’ Antonia suggested.

‘Yeah, let’s go. Where is this beach?’ Rachel was up, rearing to go.

‘Just over dere, you can see it from up ‘ere if you stand.’ Antonio pointed into the distance. They could just see the Moonlight on the sea behind some rocks over the other side of the road. With a mad rush everyone got up, running down the steps with bottles of beer in their hands.

As they approached the sand there was a stampede to take off their clothes, leaving them on the dark beach as they ran down to the sea. The only light was from the moon. Gemma and Zane ran as fast as they could, passing the others, stripping off as they ran, leaving a trail of clothes scattered down the beach as they went.

Rachel and Antonio watched as they splashed into the sea, Zane in all his glory and Gemma wearing just a small black thong laughing loudly. Gemma gasped as the lukewarm water soaked her naked torso; she jumped up and down waist-deep in the sea, holding her size D breasts, as Zane stood next to her, mesmerised at how large they were but how small and perfect the rest of her body was. She let go to reveal her naked body and turned to face him; the water splashed over the large mounds of flesh and her nipples hardened.

‘So what do you want to do now?’

Zane felt his cock harden as he looked at her naked body. He reached out, pulling her close. His hand gently slid up her back while the other arm held her tight against him, pressing her breasts on to his smooth-toned chest. He kissed her for the first time under the cover of darkness. Cool water gently moved around them. They were oblivious to everything but each other.

On the beach, Gina tried to convince Ash to strip off. Antonio, Rachel, Gabriella and Jules were all naked, running down the beach, and laughing as they splashed into the sea.

‘Come on, you keep knickers on—it is fun,’ said Gina as she stepped out of her jeans, quickly pulling off her small vest top, revealing two small mounds of springy flesh.