Sunlounger - the Ultimate Beach Read (Sunlounger Stories Book 1)

by Belinda Jones

  There were now two proposals left and my torment would be over.

  He stood next to me, texting on his phone.

  ‘Have you heard from Kate?’ I asked. Kate was his latest girlfriend, one of many.

  ‘We broke up.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  He shoved his phone in his pocket and looked at me. ‘I’m not.’

  He had been quiet since the day before, was this the reason why?

  ‘It is a bit weird, you taking me on holiday to the most beautiful places in the world, proposing to me, sleeping in the same bed as me. I think if I was your girlfriend I’d get a bit jealous too.’

  ‘What’s there to be jealous about? It makes sense to sleep in the same bedroom to reduce the costs. We can’t always get twin beds. Nothing has happened between us. It’s just work. Sourcing out new locations, coming up with new proposal ideas, it’s just a job.’

  I somehow felt hurt by this trivialisation of our friendship, of what we had been through together over the last three months.

  ‘It’s not even a job I’m particularly good at.’

  I felt my mouth fall open. ‘What do you mean? You come up with the most wonderful ideas! I could never create proposals that were half as inventive or as original as yours.’

  ‘None of them are good enough for you though.’

  ‘That’s not true—’

  ‘Ninety-eight times I’ve proposed to you Suzie, and each time there is always something missing.’ He flung the remains of a sandwich he’d been eating overboard with such venom that I found myself taking a step back. ‘What is it exactly that you’re looking for?’

  I stared at him. I had never seen him angry before. He always thought everything was so amusing.

  I touched his arm. ‘Are you okay?’

  He sighed, almost in defeat. ‘You better go to the back of the boat or you’ll miss number ninety-nine.’

  He turned and walked back inside.

  A message was announced over the loud speakers.

  ‘We have a sighting out the rear of the boat, it seems like a humpback is following us.’

  I felt the boat pitch as everyone ran towards the rear. I stared at the door that Harry had gone through and then followed the throngs.

  People were laughing and clapping and I hurried to see the great humpback myself. As I fought my way through the crowd, I saw what it was that everyone was laughing at. The humpback sighting was in fact a large inflatable whale being towed by the boat. Out of the top was a blue ribbon, supposedly representing a spray of water and emblazoned onto the material were the words ‘Marry me.’ I smiled. The whale was cute and dorky with googly eyes that rolled in its head as it bounced along in our wake. I quickly pulled my camera out and started firing off shots.

  Just as people were turning away to head back inside, a huge real-life humpback whale breached the surface as it leapt out of the wake, twisted in the air and flopped back into the waves, sending a deluge of water over the deck of the boat.

  There were shouts of excitement as everyone rushed to the barrier to take pictures. But although the whale followed us for a while, giving the passengers ample time to take some shots through the waves, he didn’t breach again.

  A quick check on my camera revealed I had taken two winning shots. My proposal endorsed by a real humpback whale. I turned to go back inside to show Harry the pictures but he was already standing there watching me.

  ‘You can’t get any more perfect than that,’ I said, pulling my sunglasses on so he wouldn’t see the lie in my eyes.

  He smiled briefly. ‘So that’s the winning one?’

  ‘Yep.’

  He watched me and the smile faded. ‘You’re a terrible liar.’

  ‘Harry…’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He shook his head and walked back inside.

  Tangalooma was like stepping into a Bounty advert. The long strip of golden sand nestled into the sea of emerald palm trees was a tropical paradise. The only thing missing was the beautiful girl shipwrecked on the island with her incredible non-melting bar of chocolate. If that had been me, the chocolate would have melted all over me before I’d managed to take the first bite.

  Our hotel room looked straight out onto the beach. From the open window I could see the fat pelicans waddling up the shore, flapping their great wings as the sun set into the rosy waters beyond.

  The only dark cloud was in the room with us.

  Once the hundredth proposal was out the way we could just go back to how things were before. I didn’t know what he wanted from me, but then he didn’t know what I wanted either.

  He stood up, deliberately not looking at me. ‘I have some things I need to sort out so I’ll see you down the beach in an hour.’

  I watched him go, unsure of what I had done wrong.

  The dolphin feeding was one of the main attractions in Tangalooma. A wild bottlenose dolphin pod visited the shores every evening to be hand-fed by the tourists. There were strict conditions to protect the dolphins. I had to make sure I didn’t enter the water wearing any deodorants or perfumes. In the heat of the day I was conscious that I might start to whiff a bit. Thankfully it had got a lot cooler, a storm was on its way in. The waves were getting slightly choppy and we had been told that the dolphins might not stay for long.

  Standing in the shallows next to Harry, I wanted to say something to ease the tension between us, but all thoughts of that almost vanished when the dolphins arrived. The marine biologists in the water with us easily recognised which dolphins had visited that night, and as they drew closer they introduced them to us as Echo, Silhouette, Rani, Zephyr and Bella.

  I was so excited. It was the weirdest feeling of wanting to do this all over again and I hadn’t even done it yet.

  We watched as the dolphins swam around us. Some of them, we were told, were hunting food for themselves as the fish we provided only gave them a small percentage of their daily diet. Their sleek bodies cut through the water like flashes of silver. Some were rolling on their backs, or poking their heads out of the water. As a few got closer some of them started blowing air from their holes, spraying water over us.

  We were told to hold the fish in the water and let the dolphins take them. As a fish was gently pulled from my hand by Silhouette I glanced across at Harry who was grinning inanely at the wonder of it. It truly was one of the most exhilarating and moving experiences of my life.

  But all too soon the fish were gone and the dolphins started to drift away. I watched them until I could no longer see them. It was getting dark now and the wind was getting up. I became aware that Harry was no longer with me.

  I glanced around and then turned to look back at the beach. Hundreds of candles lined the shore, flickering in jam jars. The candles had been used to spell out the letters for the now familiar, ‘Marry me’. I felt tears prick my eyes as this was my final proposal. I hadn’t been prepared for this now; I’d expected it to come tomorrow. I’d wanted it to end but now that it had I felt a sense of loss.

  Harry was standing at the end of the message, looking like an oversized exclamation mark.

  I stepped towards him, determined to make this the perfect proposal that he had been searching for.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Is it perfect?’

  ‘Yes. The dolphins, the location, the candles…’ I trailed off before I said the perfect groom.

  Though he knew I’d deliberately left something out of that list. He rolled his eyes. ‘A hundred proposals, a hundred fails.’

  My carefully reigned-in emotions finally snapped.

  ‘What is it you want from me Harry? None of this is real. I didn’t turn down greasy kebab boy because he proposed to me over a greasy kebab in a vandalised bus shelter, I turned him down because I didn’t love him, because he certainly didn’t love me. I know I shouldn’t be saying this considering the line of business we’re in, but there’s really only one thing that gets women excited about proposals. It isn’t th
e ring, the location, the fireworks or flowers, it isn’t even the words the men find to ask the big question. It’s the man they love wanting to spend the rest of their life with them. Because after the proposal comes marriage, the happy ever after. And that’s what’s been missing from every single one of your proposals. You could have asked me to marry you on the back seat of the number thirty-seven bus on a rainy day sharing a bag of chips and I would have said yes.’ I dashed angry tears from my eyes and Harry’s face went all blurry. ‘Every single one of your proposals was perfect because it was you doing the asking. Perfect apart from one tiny detail. The man I love, the man asking me to marry him, doesn’t actually love me.’

  I turned and walked past the candles. When he called after me the walk turned into a run.

  *

  I stood on the beach as the rain lashed around me. I was soaked to the skin, my hair clinging to my head, but it was a warm rain so I didn’t really mind. Dark clouds rolled above me, lit up periodically by flashes of electric blue. Forks of lightning ripped apart the sky with foreboding cracks and rumbles of thunder. Wind roared across the sea, throwing white-crested waves onto the sand.

  I loved a good storm. I much preferred the beauty and power of a storm than a sunset or sunrise.

  How was I going to face Harry again? I’d wanted things to get back to normal for us, to be two best friends working alongside each other in our cramped, little office. But things could never be normal again. I’d told him I loved him. We could never get past that now. It would always be at the back of his mind in every conversation we had.

  Surprisingly, given the noise of the storm, I knew he was suddenly there behind me. I turned to look at him.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, stepping closer. He was wearing his big coat. I loved that coat, especially as he had given it me to wear on countless chilly occasions. I doubted he would be chivalrously handing it over today, he hated the rain. Though I supposed that him coming to look for me in this weather rather than waiting in the warm and dry of our hotel room spoke for something.

  ‘You’re soaked.’

  ‘It’s raining.’ Wow, this was awkward.

  To my surprise, he suddenly started unbuttoning his coat and then held it open like he was a flasher.

  One step better than giving me the coat was sharing it with me. I hesitated for a moment then stepped up against his warm body, leaning my head against his chest as he fastened the coat around my back. Did I mention that I loved this coat?

  I closed my eyes as I felt his heart beating against my ear. If we could do this, maybe we would be okay after all.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’

  ‘Watching the storm.’

  ‘Don’t your eyes have to be open for that?’

  My eyes snapped open and I realised he was looking at me.

  ‘So we need to clear a few things up.’

  ‘No we don’t, we can just pretend that my little outburst back there never happened.’

  ‘I liked it, finally one of my proposals caused some kind of reaction. Though you shouting at me wasn’t really the reaction I was hoping for.’

  ‘What were you hoping for? I couldn’t let myself get excited about them—’

  ‘I was hoping you would say yes.’

  My heart leapt and Harry must have felt it because he was suddenly smiling down at me. He wrapped his arms round my back and pulled me tighter against him.

  ‘I realise I’ve gone about this arse about face. I should have told you I loved you before, that I’ve been in love with you since the first day I walked into your house and you were wearing that stained dressing gown and those big hippo slippers.’

  I flushed at the memory. ‘But… you had a girlfriend. There’ve been lots of girlfriends.’

  ‘We were friends, you clearly didn’t see me that way. I asked you out once.’

  ‘As a joke, you said it like a joke.’ My voice was unnaturally high.

  ‘I’ve not been very good at expressing my feelings, have I? I thought if I was to show you the world, go to all that trouble for you, give you the perfect proposal, you would see how much you meant to me.’

  I stared at him in shock. ‘You thought I wanted all of that? I just wanted you.’

  ‘I know. I bought you a ring, I thought if you were to say yes I’d give it to you.’

  ‘I was never going to say yes. How humiliating would that have been to throw myself into your arms in our office, on the first day of this charade, pepper you with kisses, and shout yes from the top of my lungs. I had no clue you felt that way for me.’

  ‘Yes, I realise that now.’

  The sky lit up around us and thunder filled the sky.

  He pushed a wet tendril of hair out of my face and my heart roared in my chest.

  ‘So, I have no gimmicks or flowers, the ring is in the hotel room and I don’t even have a bag of chips to sweeten the deal, but…will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no hesitation. This is what I wanted all along.

  He smiled, his whole face lit up momentarily by another fork of lightning. The rain lashed down on us harder but as he kissed me all thoughts of the storm vanished.

  Finally we parted.

  ‘Shall we get out of this storm?’ I said, my hands still round his neck.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  He released me from the protection of his coat, shuffled me round to his side and we walked up the beach.

  I slipped my hand into the back pocket of his shorts and gave his bum a little squeeze. I could do that now, I was his fiancé after all. A delicious thrill ran through me at all the missed opportunities and all that was still to come. I didn’t want to wait any longer.

  ‘I know we’re not married yet, but maybe tonight could be our honeymoon.’

  He stared down at me for a second, then swung me up into his arms and started running back towards the hotel.

  I laughed. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I think I’ve just found my perfect proposal, the one that ends in sex.’

  ‘Oh, I’m pretty sure all proposals end that way.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got a hundred proposals to make up for then.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  I laughed again as he ran even faster.

  Proposer’s Blog

  After ninety nine days, sixteen different countries and a hundred and one different proposals, Suzie McKenzie finally said yes. I’m not allowed to say what it was that happened in that last proposal. Suzie thinks it might damage our business if people knew she succumbed without so much as a bag of chips or a greasy kebab. But I can give all you would-be proposers one piece of advice. Tell her you love her, tell her every day until she knows it and believes it. Then tell her every day anyway. If you’re incredibly lucky she’ll love you back. I wish every single one of you reading this a very happy ever after.

  And if words are not enough, then you know where we are.

  About the Author

  Holly Martin lives in sunny Bedfordshire in a house with round windows. She studied Media at university which led to a very glitzy career as a hotel receptionist followed by an even more glamorous two years working in a bank. The moment one of her colleagues received the much-coveted carriage clock for fifteen years’ service was the moment when she knew she had to escape. She quit her job and returned to university to train to be a teacher. Three years later, she emerged wide-eyed and terrified that she now had responsibility for the development of thirty young minds. She taught for four years before History Off The Page came to her school to do a Tudor day. She now drives round the country in her little white van, dressing up as a Viking one day and an Egyptian High Priestess the next. Holly has been writing for four years now, in every spare second she gets. ONE HUNDRED PROPOSALS is her first published work.

  Twitter: @hollymartin00

  Visit the Sunlounger website at www.va-va-vacation.com/holly-martin

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  SIDEBAR OF SHAME

  ***

  Martel Maxwell

  Destination: Koh Samui, Thailand

  Within seconds of sex, he is snoring. Quiet rhythmic snorts that build to a crescendo.

  I don’t feel cheated after the few minutes of thrashing perfunctoriness; I’m just relieved.

  Slowly, I inch away from the flung arm, which traps me across my chest as he lies unconscious.

  I pull on my white bikini and cotton dress.

  In bare feet so as not to make a sound, I creep on ivory marble mottled with grey, flip-flops looped over my finger, as I smell the sun and anticipate it soaking into my bones.

  By the infinity pool that stretches to the sparkling silvers and blues of the Indian Ocean, they are there, the group of girls who are always having fun.

  The one I like most, with brunette bob, freckles and fringe, cocks her head quizzically when she catches my eye and I smile before quickly looking away, cheeks aflame.

  One of the group suggests making a list of pros and cons about an ex – she saw it in a movie and it’s ‘cafartic’.

  ‘I ‘aint facking Bridget Jones,’ the girl with freckles replies in an East London accent and they laugh some more.

  You know that girl you see on holiday – on the beach, by the pool, at the bar – and envy?

  You’ll always find her on the Sidebar of Shame.

  You know the sidebar I mean – the popular newspaper websites all have one. On the right hand side, a neat column of women showcased for your viewing pleasure.

  Each one makes you feel a certain way.

  The bikini-clad star ‘showing off her curves’/‘letting it all hang out’/’looking healthy’, when the writer always means ‘fat’.