Page 44 of Harper's Holiday Romance

“Are you okay?” She smirked.

Speak, you idiot.

“Sorry.” I shook my head and made up a poor excuse, “I think I was half asleep.”

Billie was almost to the edge of the pool dragging Sarah along by the waistband of her bikini bottoms.

“I was wondering.” Julia pulled nervously at the strap on her watch. “If you’d like to go to dinner tonight?”

“Yes, I’d love to.”

“Are you sure? You seem a little hesitant.”

“I’m just a bit confused. Did you get my text?” I asked.

“No. I left my phone in the hotel room. I’ve been out canoeing with my dad this morning. Why, what did it say?”

“Erm, I asked you to dinner, well—”

“Well, what?” Julia laughed.

“Technically, Billie asked you to dinner because she stole my phone and typed out the message.”

“Oh, so you didn’t want to go to dinner?” Julia questioned.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Should I take Billie instead?” she teased.

Fat chance of that. Behind Julia’s back Billie and Sarah were wrapping their arms around each other and pretending to kiss. This was prime time mocking material for them. When Julia turned to acknowledge them, they stopped dead. I scowled, ferociously swinging my hand in front of my neck,cut it out, I mouthed. Billie started reaching for something pretend in Sarah’s hair. They were so utterly embarrassing.

“Sorryabout those two.”

“They ride you hard about stuff like this, huh?” Julia waved in their direction, they nosedived, almost in unison, into the water and swam off like a playful pair of dolphins.

“Anything to do with women is a ride hard kind of situation, yes.”

“Has there been a lot of women?” Julia raised her eyebrow.

“Are you asking me how many women I’ve been with? That’s deep for a first date, don’t you think?”

“Is this our first date? I would’ve done my hair at least, had I known.” Julia ran her fingers through the top of her hair; it wasn’t a shampoo advert, the hair was too tangled for that, but she manoeuvred it well enough that it only improved her appearance.

“I would’ve worn more clothing,” I countered.

“Oh no, don’t do that,” Julia flirted. This was a different woman. My ill-judged impression of her seemed unrealistic now. There weren’t many women, in fact, a total of four women, technically three if it was specifically narrowed down to both parties being “involved”. There were only two if mutual orgasms were a factor in the overall statistics.

“How about we call this a pre-date warm-up, and we pull out all the stops tonight for our real date?” I suggested.

“All the stops?” Julia said.

“Yes.” I shied away from her intense eye contact. The sun shining against the side of my face made it difficult not to squint. I wasn’t great at flirting. I struggled via text, and I struggled in person. My whole body was in flight or flirt mode, and the latter wasn’t promising.

“Well, look, tonight is on me. Seriously, don’t bring your purse; you won’t need it. I’ll get you all the drinks and all the food your heart desires.” Julia winked.

“I get it... because it’s all-inclusive. That’s funny.” Usually, all flirtatious banter was lost on me, but not this time. Mexico had its perks.

She pointed towards my phone. “I will text you the details.”