The Harder They Fall (43 page)

“Jess was in a foul mood this morning,” he said.

“I noticed. Has she said anything else?”

“Not since we got here.”

Shaunna watched, as Kris took another pine cone from Casper, then off he went again.

“Neither has Andy,” she said.

“It’s depressing, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“So,” Kris rubbed his hands together, mostly to remove the mud transferred from the pine cone, “here’s the plan.”

Shaunna leaned in conspiratorially.

“I’m going to get Jess talking again,” he said, “get the low-down on the Rob situation.”

“OK.”

“And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out how Andy’s feeling.”

“That should be easy enough. A couple of beers and he’ll be at it for hours.”

“Challenge accepted?” Kris held out his hand and Shaunna shook it.

“Accepted.”

After the third attempt at trying to unlock the lid of the hot tub, Adele relented and passed the key to Dan, who spent several minutes struggling on, whilst she repeatedly reminded him that she’d told him the lock was jammed, before he passed the key to Andy. He tried turning it upside down, rattling the lid to see if it was misaligned, indeed, all the tricks his brother had just tried, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Looks like you’ll have to do without,” he informed Adele.

“I’ll get it open,” Shaunna said, heading back inside the cabin. Dan and Andy looked at each other smugly, then stood with their arms folded, watching as Shaunna came back out, squirted some oil into the lock and lifted the lid clear of the hot tub.

“There you go, hun.” She smiled at Adele, flipped the oil can, caught it and blew the nozzle as if it were a pistol, then sauntered back past Dan and Andy, who both swooned and coughed nervously. Adele was too engrossed in trying to make sense of the controls to even notice. She pressed one button and nothing happened. She pressed another button and the number on the LED increased. She pressed it again, figured out it was the temperature setting, and that two of the buttons were marked with arrows, reset the temperature to what it was originally and pressed the final button. Success! A motor whirred to life and the water erupted in a bubbly mass.

“Yay!” she said excitedly. Josh and George had just arrived, and were helping Dan to set out chairs, while Andy was loading beer into the fridge.

“Hope you’ve got your trunks on,” Adele said to George. He pulled a flap of red fabric from the top of his jeans to show he had. She was already out of her clothes and about to step into the hot tub. “And you too, Josh.”

“Err, no, thanks. I’ll sit this one out, if it’s all the same to you,” he smiled. The lights around the edge of the veranda suddenly illuminated and Shaunna appeared a moment later, armed with a bottle of red wine and two glasses.

“That’s better,” she said, inspecting the golden glow she had instigated. She poured the wine and placed the glasses on the ledge alongside the hot tub, then stepped out of her bathrobe and climbed in, scooping her hair into a large clip as she sat down next to Adele. This time, Dan had his back turned, but Andy didn’t and he busied himself with passing bottles around. George and Josh took their beers and settled into their seats.

“Is it me,” George whispered, “or is Shaunna being a dreadful flirt?”

“The second one,” Josh whispered back. It was as if she’d reverted back to her old ways, and she was clearly enjoying every second of it, as were the Jeffries brothers, it would seem. Luckily, Adele remained oblivious to all of this, sipping her wine and letting her legs float up on the air bubbles rising through the wonderfully warm water.

Eleanor and James arrived and left Toby in his carrycot just inside the door. Oliver had been permitted to stay up late, and immediately went off to play with little Shaunna, who had napped for a short while earlier, but was wide awake now and no doubt would stay that way for most of the evening. James positioned his chair so he could keep an eye on his sons at the same time as enjoying the evening. Jess and Kris arrived soon after, and everyone stopped talking, anticipating trouble.

“Andy,” Jess acknowledged with a nod.

“Hi,” he said airily. “Want a beer?”

“Thanks.”

He took the lids off two bottles and handed them to her. She passed one to Kris and followed him outside, where things were gradually returning to normal. Dan brought out his speakers and set his MP3 player to a low volume, the music providing an inconspicuous backdrop to the interactions between the friends as they flitted in and out of each other’s conversations. The last time they had properly been together like this was when they went en masse to visit George on his ranch, a fact that had not been lost on Josh, but he waited for someone else to point it out first.

“At least there was plenty of space to spread out,” George was justifying, having taken yet another round of jibes about the warm beer he’d served them. Looking back on it now, he wondered how he’d coped for so long without a fridge, or any form of heating (he never did master lighting the wood burner). It was easy to forget that he had gone from living at home in a draughty tower block, to sharing a house at uni with three others who all came from farming backgrounds and tended to prioritise food and alcohol over heat and light, with the end result often being that the meter would be out of money for days at a time. Only since he’d come back to the UK had he really enjoyed the luxury of reliable refrigeration, central heating and constant, running hot water.

“Look at us,” Josh said, sensing George’s discomfort. “We’re sitting on a balcony, drinking beer and watching the sun set over the mountains.”

“We are too,” George grinned, “although I always imagined we’d be doing it on our own.”

“There’s plenty of time for that,” Josh assured him. “We’ve got the rest of our lives.”

George was momentarily stunned by the realisation. He and Josh were
together
.

“Come on, George, get your kit off!” Shaunna shouted through the cloud of steam hanging over the hot tub. Adele whooped.

“Oh, all right then,” he said, only partially affecting a reluctant tone. “If you insist.” He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it open, receiving a wolf whistle from one of the girls (he couldn’t see which one because of the steam, but had a pretty good idea), and unzipped his trousers, stamping his way out of them and his socks at the same time. He turned to put his clothes on the chair and winked at Josh.

“Are you sure you won’t join us?”

“You’re making me cold just watching!” Josh said, pulling his sleeves down over his hands. George shrugged and climbed in between Shaunna and Adele. Eleanor didn’t skip a beat and made a beeline for Josh, lifting George’s clothes onto the table and sitting down.

“So, as you were saying,” she said. Josh kept his eyes fixed straight ahead.

“What was I saying?”

“About telling George how you feel.”

“Oh that.”

“Yes that.”

Josh swigged at his beer and said nothing. Conversations were trailing off all around them, as the others started to pay attention.

“Come on, Joshua, spill it. Are you together, or not?”

“Perhaps we could do this some other time?” he said, raising his voice slightly, “when there aren’t seven other people trying to listen in!”

All eyes were on him, except George’s, and he was too far away to be of any help in getting him off the hook.

“What’s this?” Dan asked.

“Did I hear right?” Andy looked to Eleanor for confirmation.

Shaunna and Adele both turned to George and he raised his arms in surrender.

“Don’t look at me!”

“I hate you, Eleanor Brown,” Josh said, screwing up his eyes and glaring at her, pretending to be angry. She’d put him on the spot, and now he had no choice in the matter, but he actually felt really good about that.

“So?” she prompted.

“Agh. All right then. George and I are officially together, in a relationship,” he announced.

“About bloody time,” Andy said.

“Agreed,” Dan seconded.

“You waited long enough, hey George,” Eleanor called across.

“Yes,” Josh replied for him. He found his face through the dense steam and looked deep into his eyes. “And I’m so very, very glad he did.”

If it hadn’t been for Shaunna and Adele ambushing him, George would probably have started blubbering there and then, but instead he was being squashed by two scantily clad, very slippery women, who were rubbing his hair and kissing his cheeks.

“That’s where we’ve been going wrong all these years, bro,” Dan said.

“Ha, yeah.” Andy had finished his beer and took orders from anyone else who needed another drink before he went back inside, and found Jess, standing on her own, watching the rest of them from a distance.

“You heard Josh’s announcement?” he asked her. She nodded. “I’m really happy for them, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” she snapped.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No. I know. I’m sorry.” She wanted to look at him, but couldn’t.

“We can’t go on like this, Jess. It’s not fair on everybody else.”

“That’s what I was trying to say at the service station, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“You were trying to justify what you’d done, and I don’t want to hear it. I’m too angry to even try, but we have to put this aside and make a good show of getting on, for their sake.” He looked out to the others, all laughing and drinking and sharing stories. Jess watched them too. She was missing her friends so much.

“They’re all on your side,” she said.

“Yeah. And much as I’m enjoying their support and hate you for what you’ve done, I don’t like to see you being left out like this.”

“I deserve it.”

“Maybe you do. It’s not my place to say. But we’re going back out there, together, and we’re going to act like everything’s OK between us.” He wasn’t asking for her permission. He was telling her how it was going to be. He picked up as many drinks as he could carry and left her to bring the rest.

“Jess! Go put your bikini on!” Kris shouted. He had joined the others in the hot tub. She looked at Andy and raised an eyebrow.

“Best do as the man says.”

“OK. I’ll be right back,” she shouted to Kris and returned to their cabin. Andy circulated, handing out the drinks.

“What did you say to her?” Dan asked, taking a beer from him.

“Basically to stop being selfish, but not in those words, obviously.”

“Seems to have done the trick.”

Andy shrugged. “We’ll see.” He didn’t want to talk about her anymore and made his way over to sit with Josh and Eleanor. Dan stood next to James, looking in on their children, both curled up on the sofa and watching cartoons on Dan’s tablet, which was propped against a cushion on the armchair. Their eyelids were drooping and little Shaunna had her thumb in her mouth.

“Sorry about missing your wedding, by the way,” Dan said.

“Don’t worry. It’s perfectly understandable. Are you recovered now?”

“Almost. As soon as we get back we’ll have to rearrange the meeting with Jason.”

“Yes. I spoke to him briefly on Saturday. He is keen to get things in motion.”

“A bit too keen for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been known to jump in without looking myself a few times. Well, most of the time. But this is a bit different.”

“I think he understands that, which is why he’s asked for our support. I still miss Alistair terribly, but if I can help Jason to do this, then at least his death won’t have been a total waste.”

“Absolutely. I miss him too, although I wasn’t as close to him as you were, of course. Has Jason said anything about Alice?”

“Nothing.”

“Hmm. I ask only because she’s mentioned him a couple of times. I think she’s considering getting in touch,” Dan explained. “We’ll just have to play it by ear on that one.” James nodded his agreement.

“What’re you two scheming?” Eleanor asked, coming up behind James and putting her arms around him.

“Boring business matters,” James said. Dan excused himself and went to talk to Kris, who was sitting on the rim of the hot tub. It was a bit too warm for him and was making him feel sick.

“I need to have a chat with you, in private, at some point,” Dan told him. “It’s not urgent.”

Kris stepped out and wrapped a towel around his waist. He followed Dan inside.

“We’ve been in here too long,” George said, holding up his wrinkled fingers. Adele and Shaunna followed his lead and giggled. “Seriously, you’re not supposed to stay in these things this long. Let’s get out for a while. We can always come back later.” He tried to stand up and they kept pulling him back down, but eventually he managed to fight his way over the edge, and back to Josh, leaving a trail of wet footprints across the decking.

“Having fun?” Josh asked, handing him a towel.

“Definitely. You?”

“Ah. You know.” Josh shrugged. George play-slapped his arm and he mouthed an ‘ouch’.

“Don’t be such a baby.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Josh mocked. George put his finger on Josh’s lips to shush him, and he tried to bite it, then grabbed his hand and pulled him closer, water dripping from George’s nose onto his chin. Their lips were mere millimetres apart.

“I’m wearing Speedos,” George implored, holding the towel in front of his groin.

“Yes. I can see why that might be a problem.” Josh smiled teasingly. He tilted his face upwards, until their lips were just touching, and gazed into George’s eyes, lingering a moment longer before he released him.

“I, err…I’m just going to sit here for a while,” George said, shivering as he fell into the cold chair, unable to use the towel.

“Good idea,” Josh agreed, then leaned in and whispered: “Thank God I’m wearing clothes.”

Dan took Kris through to the bedroom and checked they could not be overheard; he closed the door.

“Is it true? What Adele said?”

Kris frowned. “Depends what she said.”

“That you had an affair?”

“Ah. Yeah,” Kris nodded sadly. He’d forgotten that Dan hadn’t heard directly from him about the marriage break-up. “Yes, it’s true.”