Page 22 of An Island in the Sun

‘I have a fair few drinks I can’t stomach any longer.’ Tabitha swirled the clear liquid around the shot glass.

‘Yup, me too. I remember at school me and my mates sneaking bottles of WKD Blue into the dorm. I was seriously sick that night and seriously bollocked by the Housemaster the next day.’

‘You went to boarding school?’

‘Uh-huh.’ He downed the third shot. ‘What can’t you stomach?’

‘More like what can I?’ Tabitha downed her shot too. She grimaced and stuck her tongue out. ‘Quite a few things: cider and vodka among others. All due to a fair bit of late-night partying when I toured with One Love. Massive stadium tours back in the day, the UK and European leg.’

‘Seriously? You toured with them? I mean, they’re not my kinda music, but I bet it was pretty mental.’

‘Yeah, it was a big deal. A whirlwind couple of years. Playing to a hundred thousand screaming fans – even if they weren’t my fans – was such a buzz. There’s nothing quite like it. I co-wrote a few songs with them too.’

‘Shit; that’s serious.’

‘Yeah, I think back on the places I went, the people I met, the things we got up to…’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘I was in my twenties, having the time of my life. It was easy to say yes to things and that whole lifestyle, you know being a part of a mega machine like that: the parties, the craziness, the gigs. It was epic, if unsustainable.’

‘What made you stop?’

Tabitha reached for the tequila bottle and topped up their glasses. She downed hers and turned to Raff. ‘The conversation is getting serious again.’

His eyes traced her face before locking on hers. ‘I’m still up for strip poker.’

Tabitha snorted. ‘Not a chance.’

Even though she was definitely feeling the effect of the tequila, she still wasn’t prepared to play that with him.

‘Fair enough.’ He shrugged. ‘But if serious conversation and strip poker are ruled out, this’ll make you giggle.’ He lifted up his T-shirt and pulled down the top of his jeans, revealing his toned abs. ‘I lost a bet at uni.’

She sat upright and leant forward, squinting at the area he was showing. ‘Is that a Smurf?’

‘Yep.’

‘Is it doing what I think it’s doing?’

‘Yep.’

Tabitha ran her fingers over the ink, tracing the contours of his firm stomach as much as the regrettably bad tattoo of a Smurf mooning.

She laughed and looked up into Raff’s face just a heartbeat away. Her fingers remained against his hot skin. Tequila-scented breath, come-to-bed eyes and exceedingly kissable lips made her heart thud.

Things were moving fast, making her wonder how the rest of the night might play out…

‘You know what we need,’ she said, removing her fingers, ‘more tequila!’ She turned away a little too fast, the few tequila shots making her head spin. At least concentrating on pouring took her attention away from his abs and the thought of kissing him.

After another couple of shots, Tabitha’s worries about the neighbours overhearing and thinking she was having a party evaporated. Raff stressed that they were far enough away and even if they did hear something, neither of them was likely to go blabbing to his parents – they weren’t that sort of people.

She hadn’t laughed this much in a long time. Raff was surprisingly easy to get along with and, as they got increasingly drunk, they chatted about everything, bar their personal lives, from politics and city living to travelling and food, putting the world to rights over excessive amounts of tequila.

Over the last year, she’d strongly believed that she didn’t want company, but after the last day with Raff, it wasn’t so much company she’d been avoiding, as the fear of committing to someone again and feeling as trapped and uncertain as she had done with Lewis.

The conversation moved on from the jobs they’d had over the years – from how Raff had travelled the world and ended up doing a stint in the marines before getting into video game design, to their most drunken mishaps, including Tabitha toppling off stage with her guitar at a London gig. Tabitha began to relax, opening up a little about how studying music at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff and playing guitar in a band with Ollie, who’d been studying drama, led her to working as a session musician when she and Ollie had moved to London. She left out much about Ollie, though, focusing instead on her work in the recording studio with One Love, which was how she had ended up touring with them, rather than Ollie’s path of singing with two short-lived bands before getting his big break onThe Star.

As they laughed and joked together, the idea that it was irresponsible to be in someone else’s house getting this drunk on their booze kept hijacking her thoughts. Even if she was with their son. The son they’d never mentioned. The son who wasn’t supposed to be here… Although it was just as well he was staying another night; she would hardly have been able to kick him out while he was wasted.

Wasted… In her head, it sounded incredibly high-pitched. She giggled.

‘What’s so funny?’

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