Page 22 of Not Yet Yours

“How about over there?” I say, pointing to two loungers together with a small table between them. They are right on the poolside and in a place where we will get the sun for most of the day.

Harriet nods her agreement, and we go over to the loungers. Harriet gets the towels out of her bag and hands me one, we drape them over the loungers, and sit down. Harriet digs in her bag again and this time, she comes out with her sunscreen. She unties her wrap and begins to smooth the sunscreen over her legs and then her arms and her belly. I wish I was the one rubbing that in her. I can’t stop watching her and when she’s finished, she offers me the sunscreen. I shake my head.

“I’m ok, thanks,” I say. “But I’ll do your back if you want me to.”

“That’s ok, maybe later if I turn over,” she says and she puts the sunscreen back in her bag and lays back on the lounger.

I start to speak to her but then I see she has her eyes closed and I think she probably doesn’t want any conversation. There is definitely something going on here. I know I’m not just being paranoid, but I can’t think what could possibly have happened to make Harriet go so cold on me.

Last night we had a lovely night out, fantastic sex, and then we fell asleep in each other’s arms. Nothing happened this morning that could have upset her. It’s not like we argued or anything. I basically woke up and went in the shower and got dressed and by the time I came out of the bathroom, Harriet was awake. That’s when she said she didn’t want any breakfast.

Surely that’s not it. Was I meant to say no, I would wait and reassure her she didn’t have to rush? I mean I would have happily done that, but she’s a grown woman and when she told me she wasn’t hungry, I saw no reason to not believe her. It can’t have been that, because that was the first thing that made me think something was off. She seemed to be speaking in short, clipped sentences like she didn’t want to talk to me, but at the same time, she didn’t want to be rude.

I lean back on my own lounger and close my eyes. I’m done trying to work this one out. If something is wrong, Harriet can either tell me what I’ve done to upset her, or she can move on from it. I’m not getting anywhere sitting here trying to work it out, that’s for sure.

I think I must have dozed off because I jumped when cold water splashed over my stomach. I prop myself up on my elbows and look around. A net has been erected in the pool and people are jumping into the water. There are some of the hotel reps organizing what looks like a game of volleyball and the water that hit me was just the splashes from someone jumping in. Iglance at Harriet and see she’s sitting up looking across at the game too.

“Should we play?” I say, sitting up beside her.

She shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “But you play if you want to. I’ll be fine here.”

“It won’t be any fun without you though,” I say, trying to coax her around. She shakes her head again, and I cup her knee with one hand. “Come on, don’t be like that.”

She pushes my hand off her knee.

“I said no,” she says, loud enough that some people a few loungers down look in our direction.

I’m shocked by her reaction. I was definitely right that something is going on here.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Harriet says with a sigh. She glances at me for a second and then looks away. “I just… I don’t want to play, ok.”

“Ok,” I say.

She looks upset and I almost reach out and squeeze her shoulder and ask her what’s wrong, but the way she reacted to me touching her knee warns me not to touch her again. She jumped like my very touch was poisonous and if she does that again, I think the nosey couple who looked when she shouted will be up here demanding to know what’s going on.

The silence settles back between Harriet and me and while it’s not exactly an uncomfortable silence, it isn’t exactly comfortable either. It feels like that compromising silence where you know if you speak, you will end up arguing and you don’t want that so you both sit and pretend like there isn’t a huge amount of tension piling up between you. I hate it, but it’s better than us having a public showdown, I guess.

More than I hate the awkwardness of the moment or the embarrassment of having Harriet yell at me in public, I hate theidea that I have somehow upset Harriet. The last thing I would ever do is hurt her and if I have done something that has done that, I would rather she just tell me what happened so I could make it up to her.

We sit and watch the game of volleyball and somewhere through it, the atmosphere between us seems to thaw. The ball goes out of play and sprays water over a woman lying face down who jumps up in shock and forgets her bikini top is undone, Harriet and I look at each other and burst into laughter.

“Do you want to get some lunch?” I ask once the game has finished.

Harriet nods, and we gather up our things and head back toward the hotel. We go inside and make our way to the dining room. The meals in the hotel are buffet style and we grab a plate each and make our way around the various counters, taking scoops of the dishes that catch our eyes. We go and put our plates down at a table and I tell Harriet to sit down while I go and get us some drinks. She asks for an orange soda, and I get her a large glass of it and a large glass of Coke for myself. I take them back to the table and sit down.

We start to eat our lunch and while the atmosphere between us is nowhere near as tense as it was earlier on in the day, it still feels like something is off between us and no amount of me telling myself I’m being paranoid is going to convince me I’m wrong about this.

“The beef stew is delicious, isn’t it?” I say to test the waters.

“Yes,” Harriet agrees. “It’s really good.”

I’m definitely not imagining this over formal way of talking to me like we are two strangers making small talk with each other. I decide I have to ask her about it. If it’s something I’ve done then hopefully I can make it up to her, and if it isn’t something I’ve done, then maybe I can help her with whatever it is. Because I told myself this was going to be a good weekend, where I wouldshow Harriet a good time and let her see how much I would spoil her if she was my girl and yet here I am, barely able to get her to string a sentence together.

“Harriet, what’s wrong?” I ask.

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