Page 67 of The Layover
When the phone loads, there’s a notification on the screen waiting for me. Kayleigh has added me to a new group chat called ‘THE WEDDING!’
Hey, ladies! Couldn’t stick all the notifications and stuff in the other chat so deleted it and making this new one for the wedding weekend. Updates only please, no gossip or silliness!@Gemma, let us know when you land and are on the way to the hotel, keeping EVERYTHING crossed you make it in time! Looking forward to sharing my big day with you all tomorrow, best bridesmaids ever! Xxxxx
I snort. And I thought I could be two-faced …
Of course, when I look, the old group chat for all the wedding planning stuff with us and the bridesmaids has vanished without a trace. I wonder how long it’ll take them to notice they left my other number in, that I might’ve seen.
I swipe out of WhatsApp and call up my photo album.
‘What’s going on, Gem?’ Leon is asking. ‘If this is about the group chat … what Kay said …’
‘This is aboutwaymore than that,’ I tell him. I find the video and lay my phone down for them. And I click ‘play’.
Chapter Thirty-two
Leon
The camera swings around, showing a club. Dark, with flashing lights in shades of purple and pink. There’s Kay’s group of mates squashed into leather armchairs and sofas, arranged around a couple of low tables that are covered in drinks. There’s a fishbowl with straws sticking out of it – the straws are pink, the ends shaped like penises. The girls are all in their party get-up, black dresses and high heels, with pink sashes that say things like ‘BRIDESMAID’ or ‘HEN PARTY’. They’re shrieking – a mix of laughter and excitement and some singing along to the music that’s blaring. It’s something slow and dramatic with crude lyrics.
The view shifts. This time, it shows a stage with two obscenely buff men – all muscle, all over, and I know it’sall overbecause one of them is wearing nothing but a waistcoat with a plastic sheriff’s badge and some tiny gold underwear so tight there’s nothing left to the imagination, and the other is in the process of ripping off some assless chaps as he gyrates and holds a cowboy hat to cover his dick.
Next to me, Francesca gives a little squeak. Out of the corner of my eye I see her turning bright red and bring a hand up to her face. I’m not totally sure if the reaction is embarrassment at watching the footage of a strip club or …
Well, the alternative makes me feel weirdly insecure, despite the fact that manscaping to this extreme degree has never been me.
Gemma bites her thumbnail, watching us rather than the video.
The camera moves again, all the way around to the other side now, and there’s a noisy whoop. The girls are shouting things like, ‘Yaaas!’ and ‘Get in there, Kayleigh!’ and, ‘Last night of freedom, whooo!’
In the chair next to the person filming is something I wouldvery much like to never have to see, and I cringe away, pulling a face at Gemma.
‘Seriously?’ I say, but she shakes her head.
‘Just watch.’
In the video, Kay is wearing a white dress and white heels, and a white sash that reads in bright pink ‘BRIDE TO BE’. There’s a cheap veil and a plastic tiara in her hair, and a drink in her hand with yet another penis straw sticking out of it.
She’s getting a lap dance from one of the strippers. He’s all rippling, glistening muscles with a scanty little silver waistcoat for decoration and tiny, tight silver shorts that, again, leave nothing to the imagination. We can’t see his face well, but he throws a silver cowboy-booted foot up onto the table next to Kay to thrust into her face and the whole entourage of the hen party screams in delight at that. He’s covered in glitter and holds his cowboy hat above his head, whirling his arm around in time with his hips like he’s at the rodeo.
‘Oh, my,’ Francesca whispers, both hands pressed over her mouth now.
Is this where I’m going wrong in my dating life?Is this really what girls like?I have to wonder. The veiny outline of a dick in their face and all those muscles and—
And that is absolutely beside the point.
Because in the video, Kayleigh grabs the stripper’s waistcoat and uses it as leverage to haul herself up, and kisses him.
With tongue, which I also absolutely could’ve gone without seeing, thanks Gemma. It’s one of those sloppy, drunk snogs given with absolutely no regard for how public it is. The stripper drops his hat in favour of grabbing Kay to pick her up. She grins, cupping his cheek, still holding her drink in her other hand.
There’s got to be an explanation, though, right? Kay’s not the kind of girl who goes around snogging strippers at her own hen party, a mere three weeks before she gets married.
Is she?
I look at the phone again, a sinking feeling in my stomach, because all evidence would suggest, yet again, that I am wrong, and do not know my sister at all. She is not the person we thought.
There’s a sharp, stern male voice that’s drowned out by squealing laughter. The stripper moves off-camera sharpish, and the bouncer is kicking the girls out of the club to loud, whiny protests. The camera judders, moves, swings around, keeps recording.
Gemma reaches to turn it off, but then in the video, someone says, ‘Oh, boo, total spoilsport! That’s not what your boring family are going to be like at the wedding is it, Kayleigh?’
