Page 3 of Enemies to Lovers

‘Like you wouldn’t believe,’ she replies with a sigh. ‘I don’t know what she’s going to do, now she’s not working. A woman as brilliant as her …’

I scramble out of my seat to go and help Laurie withthe food – if you don’t move fast in this family, you only get crumbs.

‘Hmmm,’ I say, waving a hand. ‘Fine. I’ll choose my ignorant bliss.’

But I have to push down a voice that quietly squeaks,If I’m not on that email chain, what else doesn’t my family include me in?

The sun begins to lower in the late-afternoon sky, light shifting from bright white to mellow yellow. Our resident caveman, Jamie, makes a fire in preparation for when it gets dark, like we can’t all just put on more clothes and use candles for ambience. He creates a little circle with pebbles and stones, somehow manages to acquire driftwood … and genuinely gets it going by rubbing two sticks together, like a regular Robinson Crusoe. We’ve still not spoken properly. Imagine crashing somebody’s family holiday and not speaking to them. The audacity! Not that Iwantto speak to him. I wish Jamie was deserted on an island – an island far away from us. He’s all massive hands and concentrated effort, and it’s infuriating that he’s already tanned and stubbled after his work on the boats, his hair all grown out, but the rest of us are so pale we practically reflect the sun. It’s like the Cullen family fromTwilightand their one mortal (and very bronzed) friend. Jamie thinks he’s so cool, making fires and opening beers with his bare hands, but his beach shorts are so small they’relaughable. Nobody needs to see all that. He looks absurd.

‘Dare I ask how you’ve been passing your evenings, then?’ Laurie is asking him. ‘Sounds like you’ve not been short of company this year …’

‘Laurie,’ Mum warns. ‘Don’t slut-shame the boy. It’s only right he should sow his wild oats.’ She adds, ‘As long as you’re careful, of course. It’s not enough simply to wear a condom – you need to get checked twice a year. Condoms don’t protect you from everything, you know.’

‘Mum! Jesus.’

‘Oh come on, Laurie,’ Mum says. ‘I was always very sure to say exactly the same to you all, when you left for university. If you’re old enough to do it, you’re old enough to be smart about it.’

‘I’mmarried, Mum,’ Laurie says.

‘Jamie isn’t,’ Mum points out.

‘Well, don’t you worry about me,’ Jamie tells her. ‘I promise I’m a very good boy.’

‘My arse,’ says Laurie.

We busy ourselves dishing out Greek salad and an array of crusty breads, olives and cheeses, eating off plates on our laps, the tinny notes of a summer beach playlist coming from the Bluetooth speaker Alex has thought to bring. All in, it’s not a bad little set-up – Jamie aside. Idefinitelydo not look in his direction. I can’t control when he’s around, but I sure as hell can control how much of my energy I give him. And, after carefulconsideration, I have concluded he gets: absolutely zero. None.Nada. JAMIE WHO?

‘Cor,’ says Dad, helping himself to some more of the Greek wine we’ve been gifted. ‘It’s all right, this, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll say,’ says Alex. ‘I keep wanting to check my phone for urgent alerts that mean I’ve got to run down to A&E and put out another fire. But I don’t. I can’t believe I’m actually on holiday.’

‘Same,’ says Laurie. ‘I don’t remember the last time I’ve done less than a fifty-hour week.’

I sigh contentedly, in agreement, which Laurie deliberately misreads.

‘All this a bit too much like hard work for you, Flo?’ he teases. ‘Bit more activity than you’re used to, I’d imagine.’

I roll my eyes. Laurie thinks it’s hilarious that not only did I get a degree in English and then a Master’s, but as part of my PhD I’ve been teaching some undergraduate classes, too, and I’m now going to stay on as an associate lecturer. He thinks his being a law student was ‘real’ studying; and me paying thousands to read books and ‘wank off’ about them is not only a joke, but that helping others to do the same – now I’m going to be official staff – is downright hilarious.

‘Laurie …’ Mum warns, like I’m six and might cry. What is it about family holidays that makes you revert to your childhood roles: Laurie teasing his silly little sister?

‘It’s okay, Mum,’ I say. ‘I know Laurie continues to be intimidated by anyone capable of the empathy it takes to put themselves in somebody else’s shoes long enough to enjoy eighty thousand words. Speaking of which, how is it going with that book on the history of football that you got in your stocking? You were, what, twelve pages in on the plane? That must be a whole two words a day since Christmas …’

‘I’ve been saving it, for your information,’ Laurie bats back. ‘I just needed a break from work. Work is a thing that grown-ups do, where—’

Suddenly Jamie leaps up.

‘Anyone want to play volleyball?’ he interjects, stuffing the last of the food from his plate into his mouth and patting his bare eight-pack of a stomach, a satisfied barbarian. Because of his easy charisma, we all look at him, our attention his, and his alone – the brewing fight between Laurie and me vanishing like vapour. ‘I’ve got some energy to burn.’

Alex lets out an enormous beery belch.

‘So that’s a yes from Alex,’ Dad chuckles, because for some reason Alex is allowed to be an absolute heathen and call it a laugh, whereas the rest of us get bound to a normal standard of manners.

‘You in, old man?’ Jamie asks, arching an eyebrow in Dad’s direction.

‘Who are you calling an old man?’ Dad counters, a glimmer in his eye. ‘I could run circles around you and your … your …’ He wafts a hand up and down atJamie’s stomach. ‘Abs. With age comes experience, remember.’ He drains his glass and gets up, all lithe limbs and pot-belly. He’s not in bad nick, Dad, for a sixty-something. He’s got salt-and-pepper hair and is genuinely friendly and kind, which I think keeps men very youthful-seeming. God, there was a lecturer at uni who looked like Brad Pitt – as in Brad in his fifties, as he is now, which is stillverybuff – but he was so stand-offish and abrupt that as soon as you found that out about him, he became almost ugly. I can see how people like Dad, because he’s kind. It makes me value that as a quality, above all else. ‘And there’s a six-pack hidden under here somewhere,’ Dad adds, grinning and patting his own tum. ‘Hidden deep, like, but definitely there.’

Jamie smiles. He’s never given me smiles freely, on account of being an arse, but with everyone else he’s charming. His teeth are pearly white and in the three seconds I forget to be obtuse and look right at him, his tongue darts out over his lips and back again. I quickly look away. He’s soawareof himself. Urgh.

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