things had changed. Supposedly, Adam had told his brother he was going to propose in Mexico, then his brother had told his wife, who just so happened to be my best friend. Of course, everyone knew Cass couldn’t keep a secret and it only took half a bottle of Pinot Grigio before she was bursting to tell me everything, and now here I was at the end of our trip, still unengaged. I had been told there was a ring, I had been told the ring was coming in Mexico – and now I wanted the bloody ring. I was Gollum, only with slightly better hair.
‘Ready?’ Adam re-emerged from the bedroom, best trousers replaced by regular jeans, paired with a nice, but hardly special, shirt.
I looked at him and wondered. Why would you tell someone you were going to propose to your girlfriend and then not do it?
‘Ready,’ I replied with a curtsey, dropping my phone in my bag, out of sight and hopefully out of mind.
He frowned for a moment, giving my ensemble the once-over before fastening and then unfastening his top button. ‘Is that what you’re wearing?’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ I stood up and let my long, floaty white dress drift down to the floor. ‘I love this dress.’
It was a great dress. It was loose around my backside, tight around my boobs and, most importantly, I could eat in it without feeling like I was wearing my nana’s girdle. It had also cost an obscene amount of money but Cassie had assured me it was The Dress and I’d put it on my credit card without thinking about the damage. That was until the bill came. He had better propose – I needed a joint income to pay for this bugger.
‘Makes me feel a bit of a scruff, that’s all. Are you sure you’re all right to walk in those shoes?’
‘I could run a marathon in these shoes.’ I picked up a foot to inspect my three-inch heels. Maybe a marathon was pushing it. ‘We’re not walking that far, are we?’
‘Google Maps says it’s ten minutes,’ he replied, patting himself down then sticking his thumbs in his jeans pockets like a Topman-clad cowboy and all the while his eyes were still on my sandals. ‘You can do ten minutes?’
I nodded and made a disgusted noise in the back of my throat. Of course ten minutes were doable. Generally I was of the opinion that no good could come of strapping tiny stilts to your feet after a particularly nasty incident involving a spiral staircase in a club called Oceana during Freshers’ Week. More than a decade may have passed but if you’d spent your first semester of university on crutches, you’d be wary of anything higher than a kitten heel as well.
‘I really do like that dress,’ Adam said, crossing the room to rest his arms on my shoulders. I shuffled my feet apart and pulled him in closer until we were nose to nose. ‘Is it new?’
‘Quite new,’ I replied, hoping there were no follow up questions. Adam hated spending a lot of money on clothes, hence only one pair of Nice Trousers.
‘It’s like a proper lady dress.’ He nuzzled his face into my hair, pressing his lips against the nook where my neck met my shoulder. I shivered from head to toe. ‘It might be the nicest thing I’ve ever seen you wear.’
‘Just checking that’s a compliment,’ I whispered as he slid his hands around my waist and a flush bloomed in my cheeks. Adam was no slouch in the bedroom department at the best of times but on holiday it wasn’t just the bedroom that got him going. The living room, the bathroom, the beach, the toilets at a restaurant we could never go back to … Not that I was complaining. The restaurant manager maybe, but not me.
I ran my hands down his broad back and rested them on his hips. ‘Perhaps we should stay in tonight?’
‘No, we’re going to the restaurant.’ Adam checked his watch then dropped me like a bag of burning dog shit and backed away, jostling the front of his jeans to dispel the beginnings of a boner. ‘And we need to leave now or we’re going to be late.’
‘Adam, we’re in Mexico. Nothing has happened at the time it was supposed to happen since we got here,’ I said, brushing my blonde hair forward to cover the stubble rash on my throat and delicately draping my dress back down over my thighs. ‘What’s the rush?’
‘They were really funny about it when I made the reservation. It’s supposed to be dead fancy,’ he insisted as he checked his reflection and smoothed down his eyebrows. What a weirdo. ‘Plenty of time for doing it when we get back.’
My boyfriend was such a romantic.
‘Dead fancy,’ I repeated. Dead fancy sounded like the kind of place where you would propose to your girlfriend, or at least the kind of place that would have proper toilets and honestly, either of those things would have been welcomed at this point in the trip.
Following him outside, I nabbed a quick glance in the mirror as we went. Hair looked good, make-up looked good, but nothing I could do about my sunburned nose except filter it into oblivion. I was as ready as I’d ever be.
The next time we walked through that door, we would be engaged.
Or I’d have stabbed Adam through the heart with a spatula. Or a teaspoon. Or whatever was handy, really; I was a resourceful girl.
‘Do we really have to go home tomorrow?’ Liv skipped along beside me as I tried to slow down.
‘Aren’t you ready?’ I squeezed her hand and smiled, hoping that my palm wasn’t as sweaty as I imagined it was. ‘I’m gagging for a proper cup of tea.’
‘Yeah, this is just awful,’ she replied, waving at the white sand and screensaver-worthy sunset. ‘I’d trade it all for a cup of Tetley.’
‘You know what I mean,’ I said, looking at the time on my watch. We were definitely going to be late. ‘Come on, let’s pick up the pace.’
‘We have definitely been walking for more than ten minutes,’ she said in a tight voice, a few minutes later. ‘How much further is it?’
‘Not far?’
A dark look crossed her face as she gripped my hand hard and attempted to match my long stride. A word of advice: if you’re over six feet tall and you end up going out with someone under five-five, you will never not be frustrated with how slowly they walk.
‘I will miss the sunsets,’ I admitted as she walked on beside me in silence. I wrapped my right arm around her red shoulders, keeping one eye on the time. ‘The sunsets are good.’
‘The sunsets are good?’ Liv repeated, one eyebrow raised. ‘If it weren’t for the cat, I wouldn’t be going back at all. We’ve got everything we need right here. Sun, sea, sand and surprisingly good internet service? I’m in no rush to go home.’
As casual as possible, I ran a hand over my hip, checking for the telltale bump in the tiny pocket. I was certain she’d found it back in the cottage when she was packing up my clothes, but if she had, she was doing a fine job of pretending and there was no way she could fake something like that: she was a terrible liar.
‘Loads going on when we get back though …’ She carried on talking, twisting the ends of her hair in her fingers. ‘Are you excited to get started on the bar?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Nervous?’
‘Nah.’
