Page 12 of Going Overboard

I don’t know what wakes me up, the throbbing pain in my head, the cramping in my back, or the war drums banging in my ears. I think it’s a little bit of everything and it’s a very rude awakening when you’ve got the hangover from hell.

My brain feels like it’s full of broken glass – or maybe it’s just booze and regret, but it doesn’t feel pretty at all.

I groan as I wriggle to try and get more comfortable, and then I realise all at once that the room I’m in is cold, echoey and the bed is rock-hard. Because I’m not in a bed, I’m in a bath. It’s a big Jacuzzi bath, with a duvet in it instead of water, but it’s a bath nonetheless.

I shift upright, my headache intensifying, but I can’t lie in here a second longer. Everything hurts.

Everything hurts more when my arm takes out a neat line of spa products lined up along the edge of the bath, causing them all to clatter to the tiles below.

Shit.

I freeze, caught halfway out of the tub like a raccoon with its paw in the bin.

For a moment, there’s silence. Beautiful, hopeful silence.

Maybe no one heard. Maybe I’m alone. Maybe I can pretend this didn’t happen and slink out of here without embarrassing myself any more because, frankly, I filled my quota for the year yesterday.

Then the door bangs open.

‘Jessa?’

It’s Brody, looking concerned, wearing nothing but a tight pair of boxer briefs.

Wow, I don’t mean to sound like a sleaze, I’m not meaning to look, I promise, but Brody looks like his body has been carved from a chunk of marble and designed to stand in some museum in Greece to show everyone how jacked the gods were.

No one just wakes up with a body like that (much as I’d like to – ha ha), it comes from years of crunches and planks and eating foods that are not beige or cheese.

I think I’ll always prefer having a pizza to having a butt that doesn’t jiggle when you slap it.

Not that that is a legitimate indicator of fitness, I don’t think…

Brody laughs at me, now that he knows I’m okay, mid-bath escape, limbs flailing, my hair and eye make-up probably all over the place, making me look like a haunted Victorian doll.

‘Oh,’ he says, laughing. ‘It’s just you being chaotic again. At least you fell in something dry this time.’

‘Good morning to you too,’ I mutter, climbing the rest of the way out like the creature from the black lagoon, if the black lagoon had been filled with gin. ‘So,’ I start, ‘last night was…’

‘Fun,’ he says, finishing my sentence for me.

‘Yeah. From what I remember,’ I reply.

Which, to be honest, isn’t a whole lot. I recall sitting with him.

Talking. Laughing. A few other guests drifting in and out.

Drinks multiplying mysteriously. At some point I must’ve stumbled back here, with nowhere else to go, Brody taking pity on me once again.

And then I guess I slept in the bath, in Al’s shirt (although it’s covered with booze stains now) but that’s preferable to sleeping in Brody’s bed because can you imagine if we’d slept together?

Not that he’s suggested it was on the cards, I think he thinks I’m too silly to be sexy, but that would have made an already messy situation even messier.

‘Thank you,’ I say sincerely. ‘For letting me crash in your bath. That was kind of you.’

He shrugs.

‘You seemed pretty desperate, so…’

A jibe. I expect no less now.

‘It’s okay, women are always desperate to stay in my room. Just usually in my bed,’ he jokes.

Ugh.

I can think of one who isn’t – Nikki – but I’m not mean enough to say Nikki out loud, even if he is trying to wind me up.

‘Well,’ I say instead, ‘I should get going. I promised Kelsey and Neil I’d meet them for breakfast. I think they arranged it to check I’m still alive.’

‘Like that?’ he asks, eyeing Al’s crumpled, booze-scented shirt.

‘It’s this or my stinky fountain dress,’ I remind him.

‘Yeah, you did proper stink in that,’ he confirms unnecessarily.

‘Thanks,’ I reply.

He disappears into the bedroom and reappears a moment later with a bundle of grey.

‘Here,’ he says, tossing it at me. ‘My tracksuit. Take it. I brought it in case I wanted to hit the gym but I’m knackered after last night.’

If he literally hit the gym he would punch a hole through it, hungover or not, it’s those bulging biceps.

‘Oh, are you sure?’ I check.

‘Yeah. I’ve got other stuff to put on,’ he replies .

I hold up the hoodie and spot a small emblem on the chest. Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

I raise an eyebrow.

‘Big cricket fan?’ I ask.

He shrugs.

‘Sort of.’

Ugh, men and sports, why do they have to be such a cliché? Then again, here’s me, doing the most to prove I’m Bridget Jones.

‘Thanks,’ I mumble, because honestly, it is actually kind of him.

He has these weird little flashes of decency, and I do vaguely remember having a good chat with him last night, too – about something.

Not enough to shift my general stance, which is: he’s attractive, but he annoys me.

Isn’t it always the way? If hot people had good personalities too, they’d be unstoppable. Society would collapse.

‘I’ll leave you to change,’ he says, strolling off – still strutting around in his boxers, of course. He could have grabbed himself a robe, while he was getting something for me.

Once I’m alone, I do my best to smarten up.

I use the bits of make-up from my bag, doing my best to patch up yesterday’s face, and run my mini brush through my hair.

Then I pull on the hoodie, sleeves dangling past my hands.

The joggers are massive too – I have to yank the drawstring until they’re practically cinching my organs to keep them up.

Then I head into the bedroom, adjusting my waistband to make sure it’s secure, only to find Brody lying back on the bed, his arms behind his head, flexing his biceps in a way that just has to be intentional.

‘Thanks again,’ I say, trying to sound casual. ‘I’ll give this stuff to Neil, to get back to you at some point.’

‘It suits you,’ he says, with a lazy grin, clearly enjoying the absurdity .

‘Erm, thanks, well, bye,’ I babble.

I step out, close the door behind me, and exhale.

What a night. What a wedding. What a mess.

I turn to head for the lift but before I can escape to stuff my face with breakfast, I hear a familiar voice.

‘Jessa!’

Oh, no. Not Caroline.

I can see her looking at my tracksuit, clearly trying to work out where I got it from. She’s smiling like the cat that got the cream and the hottest gossip of the wedding.

‘Oh, Jessa, hello! What a day you had yesterday!’ she coos. ‘I just feel so sorry for you. I really bloody do. After what Todd did to you. Do you think you’ll ever get over it?’

I open my mouth to form a polite – or maybe not polite, because why would she say that like that? – reply when Brody’s door opens.

He steps out. In boxers.

He’s got something in his hands that he wiggles at me.

‘You forgot your car keys,’ he tells me.

Caroline’s eyes light up, twinkling practically, as she puts the pieces of the puzzle together in the only way she can make them fit.

‘Okay, wow, well, I’ll leave you two to it,’ she says, her voice brimming with implication.

Brody looks mildly apologetic but mostly amused.

‘Sorry,’ he tells me. ‘I just didn’t want you to forget them.’

‘It’s fine,’ I reply. ‘But now everyone at breakfast is going to think we?—’

‘You’ve got to stop caring what people think,’ he says, annoyingly chill about the whole thing.

I frown at him.

‘Bye, Brody,’ I say, finally, loudly and clearly .

‘Bye, Jessa,’ he says with a smirk. ‘Until next time…’

‘Har-har,’ I call back as I head for the lift.

That’s enough of him for one morning – that’s enough of him for this lifetime, to be honest.

Plus, I’m so, so hungry. I’m edging into hangry, even. You won’t like me when I’m hangry.

Yep, I was right, Storm Caroline has blown through the breakfast room and told everyone about exactly what she saw – or thinks she saw, at least.

As I walk in, it feels like every head turns. Not in a ‘wow, who’s this beautiful woman?’ kind of way – more of a ‘that’s her, the one who fell in the fountain, spent the night with a man she just met, and is now wearing his tracksuit’ kind of way. Which, to be fair, is almost accurate.

The sleeves of Brody’s hoodie flop over my hands again so I push them back up. Chances I’m not going to dip a sleeve in my breakfast? Slim.

I spot Kelsey waving me over with a grin that is way too smug for this early in the morning.

I sit down beside her, trying to act casual (and pretending like I didn’t notice Todd and Nikki on the table behind her) like this isn’t the most theatrical walk of shame in history. Kelsey leans in immediately, barely containing herself.

‘Caroline’s already done the rounds,’ she tells me.

I blink, feigning innocence.

‘Rounds about what?’ I ask.

Kelsey tilts her head, clearly unimpressed by my performance.

‘Jessa, please. I might not have believed her, were you not currently dressed in Brody’s clothes.’

I glance down at my outfit. Yeah, fair enough, it does look exactly like what Caroline has been telling people, but I can feel Todd and Nikki behind us, probably listening in because they’re definitely within earshot.

I could tell the truth, I guess. Set the record straight that I slept in a bath because I had nowhere else to go, and Brody took double pity on me, giving me clothes to borrow…

but wouldn’t it be delicious to lean into the story?

To let Todd and Nikki think they’re old news.

That Brody and I are so over them we spent the night together, and it was the best.

And maybe, just maybe, it’ll go some way to convincing Kelsey that I am okay with all of this. That I can handle this and her wedding will go without a hitch.

So I sigh, lean a little closer, and say, ‘Okay, fine. Just between us… I spent the night with Brody.’

Kelsey’s eyes go so wide I’m briefly concerned they might never go back to how they used to be.

‘Oh my God, really?’ she squeaks.

I nod. ‘Yes,’ I confirm, because it’s technically true.

‘How was it?’ she asks curiously.

I smile, slow and cheeky.

‘So good,’ I reply. ‘I spent most of the night in his Jacuzzi.’

Also true. Technically. Deeply pathetic, sure, but semi-factual nonetheless.

Kelsey fans herself with a napkin.

‘I knew there was something between you,’ she says. ‘It’s a good sign if he’s giving you clothes to wear. Boys only do that when they really like a girl.’

Or when the girl smells like a pond. I just smile and nod instead.

‘I’m starving,’ I say, standing up. ‘Let me get some food and then I’ll give you the rest of the horny details.’

Well, my stomach is grumbling, and it will buy me some time to make some things up .

As I stand up, I notice movement from the table behind. Todd and Nikki, mid-fake conversation, turn away quickly to pretend they weren’t listening in. You can tell by their body language that they heard me though.

Good!

I saunter over to the breakfast buffet with a little spring in my step.

Okay, yes, it was petty. Absolutely. But it was so, so worth it to bring them down a peg or two.

Plus, it’s not like anyone is ever going to find out the truth, is it?