Never Really Over

Chapter 6

"I thought Double and Twin were the same thing?!" Ross looks woefully at the group standing in front of him. He was in charge of booking the villa, something that had left Beth completely mystified as she wasn't sure Ross Barkley was capable of arranging a piss up in a brewery, and now here they are, with three double beds between six of them.

"I'll sleep on the sofa, you can have the bed," John tells Beth whilst the other boys argue over who is sleeping with who.

She eyes the three two-seater sofas that surround a coffee table in the living room, John's far too tall to sleep comfortably on one of them. "It's fine, we can share. We'll put pillows down the middle."

"Will you two give it a rest?!" Luke rolls his eyes. "We all know you're shagging."

"Fuck off, I've got a girlfriend," John reminds him; a girlfriend who isn't massively thrilled that his summer now consists of a lads' holiday, a trip to Turkey for the U20s World Cup, and then potentially a family holiday before he's back for pre-season. The likelihood of him having any time to get home to Barnsley is slim to none, plus there's his new flat, that he picked the keys up for yesterday and is full of unpacked boxes and furniture waiting to be built.

"Must be some lass," Chris snorts with laughter. "Happy for you to go on holiday with another bird."

"Yeh, she's the best," John smiles smugly. "We're having the room with the balcony by the way."

"Nah mate, that's mine," Ross insists. "I booked the place."

Whilst the boys argue amongst themselves Beth explores each of the three bedrooms. The smallest one has a view of the ocean, whilst the one with the balcony looks over a road. "John, we're having this one," she calls to him. He appears in the doorway, and studies the room before shaking his head, "It's tiny."

"It's nice," Beth likes the turquoise colour scheme, it's pretty.

"If you say so," he shrugs. "We're going for a drink, you coming?" It isn't even lunchtime yet; their flight was at the crack of dawn. "You don't wanna unpack first?"

John shrugs, their holiday has been cut short by a week because all of the boys have been long listed for the World Cup squad. There's no time to be worrying about mundane things like unpacking. "Can I at least get changed?" Beth looks down at the maxi dress she travelled in, she feels a sticky mess already, a wall of humidity hit her the moment they stepped off the plane.

"You look fine, let's go," he grabs her hand and pulls her towards the door.

Twelve hours and too many drinks to count later they are in a bar; a very loud, very crowded bar that is giving Beth a headache, she switched to water hours ago, but the boys are still knocking them back. They haven't eaten since the airport breakfast and Beth is starving.

Ross is telling anyone who will listen that they are footballers and girls are swarming around them like flies on shit. John Lundstram has already disappeared off into the night with one of them, and Beth isn't sure coming along on this holiday was such a great idea after all because the boys seem to have forgotten she exists. Even John is fawning over a girl perched on a bar stool. Beth watches them whispering in the other's ear, John's hand on the girl's thigh, and can't take it anymore. She stands up from the booth they took up residency in hours ago and starts to push her way through a crowd of people to get to the bar, but then she feels a hand wrap around her wrist, and Ross hissing in her ear, "Leave him, he's having fun."

"He's drunk and he's gonna regret this tomorrow," Beth pulls her arm back from Ross. "I'm taking him home."

"You're jealous." Ross smirks.