Page 18 of Deliah
One night, he’d kiss me so slowly it made my chest ache, then the next morning, he’d barely look up from his cereal. I didn’t know which version of him I was waking up next to. And it messed with me—because I’d told myself not to fall. Told myself this was a fling, a season, a fucking holiday romance. But it was already too late. I tried to hold on to the good bits. The way he made my coffee just how I liked it or the way he’d groan dramatically when I stole the covers. The night he left a Milka bar on my pillow because I’d moaned about craving chocolate. Little things. Thoughtful things. They were like tiny bandages over a wound I couldn’t name. We still laughed and danced in the kitchen. Still fucked like we were trying to outdo the night before. But beneath all that was a crack I couldn’t ignore. I feltlike I was walking a tightrope—never knowing if I was about to be kissed or pushed.
I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I was too embarrassed. I’d come here knowing what people had said about him, and now I was scared I’d made a mistake. Scared I’d confused chemistry with love. I kept thinking,Why would someone say they love me if they didn’t mean it?I told myself I was overthinking. That I needed to chill the fuck out and stop sabotaging the one good thing I had. But deep down, I knew something was off. However, I still wanted him to choose me. Even when he was slipping through my fingers and I wasn’t sure he ever really held me in the first place. He said he loved me, that he’d never given me a reason not to believe him, so I should just chill out.
By the time March faded into April, I started to feel the shift. The energy changing. The old life creeping back in. The season was coming. A few of the girls started flying back out. You’d see them dotted around the bars again, tanning in the afternoons, buzzing about the first weekend shift back at the club. It felt surreal—like I was watching someone else’s memories walk back into town. Jay and I went to the airport one day to pick up one of his mates, and who did we run into? Crystal. Full glam, fake lashes, luggage spilling out of the trolley. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw me and Jay holding hands.
“Deliah?” She blinked. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Jay grinned. “Living her best life with me, babe.”
She looked at me like I’d just told her I was pregnant with the Pope’s baby.
“You’re still with him?” she said, jaw basically on the floor.
I didn’t say anything for a second. Just smiled. Smug. Sure of myself in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. Because in the back of my mind, I was thinking,I fucking won.
I tamed the boy who couldn’t be tamed.
Chapter 9 –
Don’t Be Dramatic
Before I knew it, my first shift back at the club was looming. Archie messaged me while I was halfway through a bacon sandwich.
“Deliah, can you do us a favour? Pick up one of the new girls from the airport. She’s flying in alone—name’s Cherry. Staying in a hotel until we get her sorted.”
Ash and I jumped in a taxi, both of us hungover, both of us still trying to convince ourselves we weren’t doing another season of this madness. As soon as she stepped through the sliding doors at arrivals, I clocked her straight away.
“Hi, I’m Cherry!” she beamed.
Gorgeous. Long dark hair, tiny waist, perfect tits that somehow didn’t move when she walked, and massive brown eyes thatmade you want to confess all your secrets. She had this mad, effortless confidence. You could tell she wasn’t trying to impress anyone—she just was impressive. And her accent? Pure Northern gold. On the drive back, she started pointing out the window at the sea, wide-eyed and smiling.
“I can’t believe I’m actually ’ere,” she said, phone out, filming already. “Straight off t’beach, me.”
Me and Ash just looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Oh my god, not off t’beach.” I giggled, mimicking her accent so badly it sounded like I had a blocked nose.
From then on, we rinsed her for it constantly. Every time she got dressed up, it was, “Oh look at Cherry, off t’beach again.” She took it like a champ, though, always firing back some savage little one-liner that had us in stitches. We hit it off instantly.
A few weeks passed in a blur of tan lines, tequila, and new routines. Jay and I were still living together, and it honestly felt… easy. Familiar. Like we hadn’t missed a beat. But there was one change I couldn’t ignore: Aneeka wasn’t coming back. I’d known for a while, but it didn’t sink in until I was sitting on the beach scrolling through her stories. She’d landed some posh office job back in Birmingham during the winter. Something admin-y with good hours and decent pay. She messaged me a few times saying how much she loved it—how she could wear real clothes to work and didn’t have to put glitter on her tits before breakfast.
“I actually feel like I’m doing something with my life, D,” she told me. “It’s chill, it’s secure, and I’ve finally got weekends off.”
Part of me was proud of her. The other part… felt left behind. Like we’d all come here running from something, but only some of us had managed to stop running. With Aneeka gone and theclub revving back up, living arrangements became the next big thing. I’d loved last season—living with Jay, Jamie, and the rest of the chaos crew—but this time around, I wanted a bit more peace. My own room. Somewhere to take my makeup off in silence, not while ten lads were screaming FIFA insults in the next room.
Cherry felt the same. Her hotel was decent, but she was sick of dragging her case around and using a wardrobe the size of a shoebox. We were both hunting for somewhere decent, and it eventually just made sense to get a place together. She had that no-bullshit vibe I clicked with. We didn’t need to be best friends—we just needed to respect each other’s space and have a laugh.
Jay already had a new apartment lined up with one of his mates from work. When I told him that Cherry and I were moving in together, he acted cool. Said it’d be good for us both to have space with the season starting up again. And I agreed… sort of. But if I’m being honest, not living with Jay made something inside me twitch. I told myself it was normal. That we’d spent months living in each other’s pockets, and we needed that breathing room now that we were working again. But late at night, I’d lie in his bed, head on his chest, and remember the things the girls had said last year. “He’ll use you as his winter shag and drop you by spring.”
I tried to shake it off. We were solid. Different. What we had wasn’t casual. It wasn’t transactional. I wasn’t just another girl on the strip. He loved me; I knew he did. You can’t fake the way someone looks at you when you’re laughing so hard your stomach hurts. Or the way they stroke your hair when you’ve had one too many and your lashes are halfway down your face. You can’t fake the kind of sex we had—the kind that made you forget who you were, the kind that felt like a full-body exorcism. And I loved him. Not in a sweet, movie-romance kind of way. I lovedhim with every fucked-up part of me. So I told myself it would be fine. That space was healthy, and we’d still spend time together—we didn’t have to live together to love each other.
And besides, Cherry was excited. We found a place not too far from the strip. It was perfect, three double bedrooms, two balconies, and air-con. Thank the fucking lord for the air-con. It was ours, and I was happy. Genuinely happy. But when the day came to move out of Jays, I sat on the edge of the bed, folding my things into my suitcase, and I couldn’t ignore the way his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes when I said I was leaving.
“You’ll still come over, yeah?” he asked casually.
“Course,” I said, brushing it off. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
But my stomach was tight. Something about it felt final, even though it wasn’t. And when I kissed him goodbye and walked out the door, I told myself—out loud, in my head, and in the mirror back at the new flat—It’ll be fine.
