It Started With A Tweet(90)

‘I don’t know what happens where you’re from, but here, when you’re dating someone, you don’t stick your tongue down other people’s throats,’ she screams at us. I can hear her words echo around the room.

‘Um,’ I say, suddenly confused. ‘I might have written Jack letters, but my tongue has gone nowhere near him.’

‘What’s this got to do with Jack? I just saw you kissing Alexis. What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Jack walks in and we all stare at him. ‘I saw you tear off,’ he says to Jenny. ‘What’s going on?’

He looks at me and scowls as if he’s declaring me the trouble-maker.

‘Why don’t you ask your girlfriend why she’s bothered that Alexis and I were kissing?’ I snap.

‘You’ve kissed Alexis?’ he says at first, before he closes his eyes and furrows his brow. ‘And what do you mean “my girlfriend”?’

‘Yeah, what are you talking about? Jack’s not my boyfriend, I’ve been dating Alexis for the last two weeks.’

I look between Jack and Alexis, suddenly confused about what I saw.

‘But I saw you kissing Jack by the old ruins on our lane.’

‘I was kissing Alexis.’

Bloody hell. She’s not with Jack? She’s dating Alexis – whom I just kissed the hell out of.

Jenny and I both snap our heads round and look at him. I go for the confused look whereas Jenny’s going for the downright angry one.

‘So you’ve been dating Jenny?’ I say.

‘Yes, but that isn’t a problem, is it?’ says Alexis, squinting a little as if wondering why we’ve got our knickers in a twist.

‘Um, yes, usually it is,’ I say, thinking that I really do have the worst luck at the moment. I can’t even have a little fling without it going spectacularly wrong. ‘And you’ve not been dating Jenny?’ I say, pointing at Jack.

He shakes his head and keeps his scowl fixed on his face.

I’m desperately embarrassed that I’ve got it all wrong. I turn to go back into the hall and I catch Liz’s eye. She’s staring agog and mindlessly eating a bag of popcorn as if she’s sitting in a multiplex.

‘I need some air. Jenny, if you need me I’ll be outside,’ says Jack.

‘I’ll just leave you to it, too. You know, I’m going back to London tomorrow anyway. And Jenny here .?.?.’ I say not wanting to finish the sentence as she looks like she wants to stab my eyes with scissors. I want to talk to Jack, to sort things out with him, especially now I know that he’s not with Jenny.

‘Stay,’ says Alexis, holding his hand out as I walk past.

‘Really, I’m going to go.’

‘What we had, our moments, they were special,’ he says catching my hand as I go to walk away.

‘Pur-lease,’ says Jenny. ‘You said the same thing to me last night.’

‘And me,’ says another voice. We turn and see Trish the yoga teacher coming out of the hall.

‘He’s been seeing you too?’ says Jenny, the tears starting to well up in her eyes.

‘Uh-huh,’ says Trish. ‘We’ve been on a couple of dates now.’

Liz gasps, and we all glance in her direction. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she says, her eyes almost popping out of her head.

We turn our heads back to Alexis, who seems to have shrugged off the nonchalance and is now looking a little worried.

‘But he promised me he was going to take me to France, to go sailing down the Canal-du-Midi, as he loves sailing as much as I do,’ says Jenny.

‘Hah,’ says Trish, ‘he was going to take me to Burgundy to do a spirituality retreat because he’s into all that.’

The two women turn to me and I feel a bit foolish. ‘Skiing holiday in the Pyrenees,’ I admit.

All eyes go back to Alexis. ‘I wanted to go on all these trips.’

‘I thought we had such a connection, you know you loving Beyoncé as much as me,’ says Jenny.

‘Daft Punk,’ says Trish.

‘Foo Fighters,’ I say.

‘I like all these artists,’ he says.

‘But you told me how much you wanted me to meet your family,’ shrieks Jenny. ‘You said your dad would love me.’

I freeze. Up until now this whole thing has been a bit comical, but my blood starts to run cold.

‘Hold on. Your dad? But he died when you were fifteen,’ I say, desperately hoping that Jenny had got her tenses wrong.

‘But you said he was coming over to Scotland to see you next month,’ clarifies Jenny.

‘You lied to me about your dad dying? That’s sick,’ I say, wondering what other things about him aren’t true.

‘Why would you pretend your dad was dead?’ asks Jenny.

‘I .?.?. um .?.?. I .?.?.’

For the first time since first I met him, Alexis isn’t his usual confident self. Not even his sexy accent can get him out of this one.

I think back over all our conversations and all those coincidences of things we have in common. The bands we’ve both seen, the songs we both like.

I take a step back from the situation, as Jenny and Trish start to shout and argue with each other, with Alexis getting in the middle, bravely, may I add, as it’s only a matter of time before they turn on him.