Marbella Truth

by Shel Stone

  “So I had this girl get in touch about working at Shine,” Adelaide said. “She sent a little video and everything.”

  “Nice. You think Jesus might go for her?”

  “She’s hell cute, so I don’t see why he would object. You know, I’m actually enjoying this,” Adelaide said as if she was surprised. “We should actually set up a real social media presence, start talking to people.”

  “No!” Trish yelled, and Solraya looked over at her staring past them. “Do not come over here without a bottle,” she said with her finger pointed.

  Felix rolled his eyes. “You’re such a tart. Why does anyone put up with you? Hey, Adelaide, Solraya,” he said, squeezing in on the daybed. “I’ll get you a fucking bottle, just hold your horses, you lush.”

  “Where’s your better half?” Trish asked curtly. She really had it in for Felix, which Solraya could fully understand. And she took no shit for him. That much was apparent.

  “She’s gone back to America. Her mum’s sick.”

  “Really? I’m sorry to hear that.”

  With the exception of her and Adelaide, the others knew this American girl well, and apparently she was a bigger bitch to him than Trish was. Felix thrived on it, it seemed. During her time here, drama followed Felix wherever he went, mostly because he couldn’t help creating messes. After getting her fingers burnt, Solraya had never stuck around to deal with messes. Then again, Felix seemed to have mellowed.

  But there was a mess brewing with Ricky. She hadn’t picked him for being so sensitive and prickly. Something was definitely going on with him. Obviously, he’d mentioned he was growing up a bit and looking for something meaningful. She hadn’t expected he would do so with her, with someone who was so clearly not suited to what he was looking for.

  Maybe it had been a mistake getting involved with him. She just hadn’t realised he was so sensitive. Then again, him wanting more than simple hookups with her was unreasonable under the circumstances. Not only was she leaving, but having someone else’s baby.

  It wasn’t that this pissed her off. She just didn’t deal with messes. Life was too short. And Ricky should be released into the wild again, to find a girlfriend if that was what he really wanted.

  “We’re starting a recruitment company,” Trish said.

  “For real?” Felix asked.

  Adelaide was set to argue, but it was almost as if she thought better of it.

  “Yep,” Trish asked.

  “Does Quentin know about this?” Felix asked.

  “He’s not invited. Us girls only. Adelaide knows all the yachting people,” Trish continued. Adelaide looked at her like she was mad. “We know the clubs. Solraya can deal with people back in Australia, before they come over. We’re all set. The ‘do your overseas experience in Marbella.’”

  This wasn’t something they had talked about, and Trish was pulling his leg, but between them, they knew a lot of people in this town.

  “With your charm, it couldn’t possibly fail,” Felix said tartly.

  They were all silent for a moment, and Trish, Adelaide and Solraya exchanged looks. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea. Except her being needed in Australia. Obviously if they needed her to help out in any way, she would, but this would have to be Trish and Adelaide. And maybe Amber, who seemed quite keen to try something new.

  “I’m still studying,” Adelaide said.

  “And you’re studying business. You’re smart. You can do both. My drink is dry,” Trish said, giving Felix a deeply disappointed look.

  “Fine,” Felix said and rose. “I don’t know why I hang out with you.”

  “You don’t. You don’t like us, remember.”

  “I like her,” Felix said, pointing to Adelaide. “She’s nice. You two tarts are just mean.”

  “Yeah, off you go,” Trish said with a wave.

  “You two seem to get on well,” Adelaide said with a curious look.

  “Eh,” Trish said with a shrug. “Should we get an office or something?”

  It took Solraya a moment to get the change in conversation. “Offices are superfluous. Just work online,” she said. “But if you do this, you’re going to go hungry for a bit. Businesses take a bit of time to get on their feet.”

  They all looked at Trish, because it wasn’t a problem for Adelaide, who lived in Quentin’s house.

  “No pain, no gain, right?” Trish said.

  Solraya smiled. This was quite exciting. It may even be worth sticking around for a few months. Then again, as things were turning awkward with Ricky, it might be time to skip town. Drama just wasn’t her thing.

  Chapter 56

  EVEN THOUGH THINGS WERE an utter mess, Inns felt like he could breathe. Ensconced in Esme’s bedroom, they hadn’t really left. They didn’t go out, and no one had come over.

  It felt like he was on vacation from his life, and it was a strange feeling. In truth, he hadn’t a fucking clue what he was doing. The feeling had started even before he’d graduated, and things were just sliding more and more into uncertainty. He was questioning everything.

  Obviously some things weren’t going to change. He’d inherit Bennington Hall, which was probably decades away. Everything else he’d seen for himself had just dissipated.

  When he’d first met Esme’s, he’d thought she was such a flake, but she knew what she wanted. Being where she was, running her business. Saying that, she had shit taste in men, which apparently included him, and it was hard to argue at that point. He’d worked so hard to be where he was supposed to be, and now it had all dissipated in his hands. His friends were insufferable arseholes. The career everyone wanted him to set out in bored him to tears. And his girlfriend was a manipulative, grasping snob. Ex-girlfriend now.

  Across the room, Esme was reading emails by the table. She sat with her knee up, pinching her lower lip. Her hair was messy, and she looked gorgeous. Seemed she was perfectly happy to hide away from the world too.

  A beep sounded and she looked over at her phone. “Bugger, Aggie’s on her way over.”

  Could they bar the door? The last thing he wanted was to deal with his bitchy cousin. They had never gotten on, and he couldn’t see that changing because he was having some version of break down.

  “We better get dressed. She’s going to want to talk,”

  Turning his eyes to the ceiling, Inns stared at it. The last thing he wanted was to talk to Aggie. “I’m pretty sure it’s not me she wants to talk to.”

  “Come on, get up,” she said, standing up and throwing his trousers to him. “I’ll take you to lunch after.”

  “Wonderful,” Inns said sarcastically. What he really wanted less than anything was to go sit in some restaurant. It just didn’t appeal to him. Then he wondered what he’d rather do instead, and had no answer. Maybe he should go be an arctic explorer. Except it was mostly explored by now. Not by him, though. Or maybe go search for ruins in some jungle somewhere. As a youngster, that had been his ultimate dream, but he’d parked those dreams at around age six.

  “Hey,” they heard Aggie calling from downstairs, and then some distant mumbling, which suggested she wasn’t alone. For fuck’s sake, Inns thought in a panic. It wasn’t fucking Annabel, was it?

  Grabbing the trousers, he shoved them on and… Fuck it, he was descent enough.

  Esme had already left the room and Inns followed, almost faltering as he saw his father downstairs. Aggie, the damned traitor.

  This should be fun.

  At least she hadn’t brought Annabel, as far as he could see.

  Ahead of him, they walked outside to the covered seating group. His father looked uncomfortable, which was reassuring.

  “Son,” he said curtly as Inns took a seat on the opposite side of the table. “Thought perhaps we should have a chat, particularly after what you’ve done to that poor girl.”

  “There’s nothing poor about her, Father. We broke up for a reason.”

  His father’s quick flick to Esme told him that he thought he knew
exactly why they’d broken up.

  “Who wants a drink?” Aggie said cheerily. “Esme, why don’t we make some drinks.” Not a single ounce of genuineness in her voice. They were being left to ‘talk’. Further proof came when neither of them were asked what they wanted.

  “It has nothing to do with Esme,” Inns said while his father tried to carefully pick words. “My issues with Annabel are entirely related to Annabel.”

  “She’s a lovely girl. Good family.”

  “No, she appears to be a lovely girl. There is a world of difference in there. But it doesn’t matter. I am not getting back with Annabel. Things are irretrievably broken, and if all and sundry wish to blame that on me, then that’s utterly fine. So you can save your breath.”

  His father sighed deeply as he considered him. “It’s a shame to throw away a relationship based on some wobble.”

  Whatever Inns said right now, his father would disagree with him. Sometimes it served no purpose fighting his corner with his father, because he was invariably wrong.

  The silence was obviously irking his father. “Your mother and I feel you completely lack direction.”

  As he listened, he could imagine them and the Fellworths sitting around and analysing his deficiencies. “That is because I do.”

  “Well, in instances like that, it is best not to throw away the only stability you have. Disagreements can be overcome. And it isn’t always the end of the world if one disagrees.”

  Again, whatever he said, his father would have some way of mitigating. Most likely by stating that his perception was plain wrong.

  “I’m not getting back together with Annabel, so there is no point in this discussion.”

  Inns knew he was coming across as petulant and arrogant, but there wasn’t any other way of dealing with this.

  “The girl has gone back to England in tears. You should go make amends. Go home, apologise and make it better.”

  Inns snorted and stroked across his chin with his palm. Within this message was the confirmation that Esme was not an option. She simply wasn’t the right kind of girl.

  There was something a little disconcerting about hearing his ingrained values parroted back by his father. It made it all seem so… indoctrinated. Nasty, grasping Annabel was the preferred option to Esme, who was just lovely in all respects. There was something fundamentally screwy there.

  “You really need to sort yourself out, Inns. It’s one thing having problems when you’re a teenager, but you’re really getting a bit old for acting like this.”

  His father rose and straightened his trousers, as if he wished he could straighten out his wayward son as easily.

  “Noted,” Inns said.

  It looked like his father wanted to continue berating him, but couldn’t be bothered.

  Chapter 57

  “I TAKE IT THAT WAS BRUTAL,” Esme said as she walked outside to where Inns still sat after his father’s departure. The curt smile the man gave her showed exactly what he thought of her—a grasping little home wrecker.

  Maybe at some point that man’s opinion would have shocked and hurt her, but she didn’t give a toss. Because people were dumb and nasty. Alright maybe she needed to check herself on her diminishing opinion of people in general. So much of her life had been led by other people’s opinions. Her parents, her friends, Darius.

  It could have been that there was something comforting in Inns’ rejection, because it was completely out of her control, and nothing she did was going to make her what he knew she wasn’t, so why bother worrying about it. Completely counter-intuitive, but that was how it was. It had definitely hurt on a personal level, but she had never felt tempted to change anything about herself. She just was what she was, and she was never going to be what he was looking for.

  “You want a drink?”

  “It’s not even ten.”

  “Good point.” There had been times when Esme had drunk in response to the stresses in her life. Because having impaired judgement had for some reason seemed like a good way of tackling the stresses in her life. “Then let’s go for a ride and have lunch somewhere.” Inns was about to throw her a telling off look. “Or you can sit here and mope. Or you can go back to England and completely hand over your pride to that girl. Your choice,” she said and rose.

  It felt as though Inns had come to a critical juncture in his life—yet again. Maybe if life keeps bringing you back to the same decision again and again, it is time to make a different choice. Advise she probably needed to take herself, because too many times, she’d run shit aground. The problem was that she didn’t know how to make different choices.

  Could be that she needed to stop fully throwing herself into things that came her way. A relationship would start and it was all in for her. A new group of less than stable friends and it was all in too. And now her best friends were Aggie and Shania, effectively her brother’s friend and girlfriend.

  Inns’ soft steps were heard behind her. “You know,” she said. “You shouldn’t listen to anything I say with regards to how you should live your life, because I have no fucking idea what I’m doing.”

  “I knew that when I first met you. When every other person in the world gave me a wide birth, you had sex with me in a crowded auditorium.”

  “I wanted you, I had you,” she said with a shrug. Was this a renewed rejection attack forming? Really, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough for another attack right now. Inns life was a mess, but so was hers. She couldn’t be the crutch he leaned on, or the one he took his ire out on. If it went that way right now, she would have to cut her losses. Cutting someone out of her life was a hard-won skill.

  “Well then,” he said. “Let’s go for a ride somewhere. I still have Aggie’s car, but she didn’t say anything about it when she was here. Where do you want to go?”

  Esme hadn’t really expected the change in direction.” Alright.” It would be good to get out of the house. They’d been ensconced in her room for days, and now she was wondering if she was jumping all in into another thing she shouldn’t. It was just that she liked being with him. She liked who she was with him. He didn’t, but then he always ended up in her bed. “Ever been to Fuengirola?”

  “No.”

  “There’s an old castle. Or the zoo. I haven’t been there in years.” The last time she’d gone had been on a school trip. Or it might have been a holiday programme. She couldn’t quite recall.

  “You want to go to the zoo?” Inns asked questioningly.

  “I want to get out of the house. I don’t really care where we go.”

  “Alright, let’s go to the fucking zoo.”

  They took Aggie’s car, and it felt weird being in her car without her. They drove along the coast and stopped at a restaurant along the way. It had a nice view, but wasn’t of the standard you had in Marbella. Fried sardines, calamari and salad. it was nice and simple.

  Why didn’t they do the local restaurants more often? Probably because the high rents in Marbella had driven them out.

  “So what are you going to do?” Esme asked, picking the meat off a small fish. The flavour was strong and filled her senses.

  Inns was silent for a moment. “I just...” he started. “Maybe I should take a job in the foreign office.”

  “That sounds suitably soul destroying.”

  “What good are souls anyway?”

  “Yeah, speaking of souls, I can’t really have you messing me around. I’m just not...” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. “You get what I’m trying to say.”

  “You think I need to fuck off and leave you alone.”

  Her instinct was to rush to say ‘no, of course not,’ but it was kind of what she was saying. What were they doing anyway? Well, Inns was in trouble and she was helping him out—oh, and they were sleeping together. How did she get herself into these situations? “I think it’s fair to say we’re both complete messes. I probably shouldn’t be in a relationship at all, and you don’t want to be in a relationship wit
h me.”

  “I’ll leave you alone,” Inns said and started to rise. There was always something about him that was too sensitive.

  “Inns,” she said. “Maybe we could finish lunch first. It’s not like you have to flee in the middle of it.”

  “I’ve already done that once this week. It’s getting old.” Grudgingly, he took his seat again. Rejecting her was something he was fairly good at, but he couldn’t handle it well in return.

  Chapter 58

  RICKY WORKED UNTIL DAWN because his replacement for the late shift hadn’t turned up. Technically it wasn’t his problem, but he hadn’t minded. The alternative was to go home and feel like shit. Because not much felt good about how he’d left it with Solraya, and she hadn’t called.

  It wasn’t as if she had a monster hangover, she just hadn’t called, had chosen not to call. Truth was also the fact that he didn’t want to feel this gutted about a girl, but he did. He wanted more, and she didn’t.

  It wasn’t logical. Everything she said about them was true, but he couldn’t help how he felt.

  Shoving his things in his bag, he left the club as the sedate morning crew was taking over. There were only the addled and the strung out left in the club. A surprising number of them, but some people didn’t go on holiday to sleep.

  The sun was coming up, and it had that coolness of the morning when dew covered everything. Wandering down to the marina, he sat down and looked through his social feeds. Looking for Solraya, if he was honest. The little indicator by her photo told him she was awake, so he sent her a message asking if she wanted to do breakfast.

  Alright, she texted back. Can you meet me at the cafe down the road from me?

  After agreeing, he went in search of his car, which he’d parked along one of the back roads, then drove over to her neighbourhood. She wasn’t there when he got to the cafe, so he took a seat and waited. A few more minutes and she turned up wearing shorts and a loose jumper. Her arms were tanned and her hair roughly tied up in a bun. It was as casual as she could be, but he thought she looked elegant.