Delinquent Daisy (Book 5)

Chapter 9:

            “Nice,” I muttered. “Liam, Niall and Bella were in a love triangle.”

They all started laughing. “False!” Louis called out.

            “Bella and Liam are just friends,” Jade confirmed and I nodded.

The rest of the day was spent talking and swimming and sitting in the sun and I couldn’t remember a time when I’d had more fun but the ending of the day at the beach just topped the entire day off.

            “People are going to be joining us,” Hope announced putting her phone away.

            “Who?” Harry asked.

            “Niall, Bella, Perry, Andrew and Helena,” Hope rattled off and they all nodded except me. Who the hell were Perry, Andrew and Helena?

            “Andrew, Helena and Perry are from Australia,” Jade explained.

            “But Perry lives in London now, he plays football,” Louis added.

I nodded my head, “How’d you guys meet them?”

            “Bella lived with Andrew and Helena for a couple months when she moved to Australia and Perry is Andrew’s brother and Perry and Bella become really close friends in that time and then he moved to London and she moved back to London and we’ve all just become friends,” Harry answered me.

I shrugged, “I’m going for a swim,” I announced as I got up and proceeded to walk to the water. My skin was prickling with heat from the sun and I was starting to sweat so I thought it was time to cool down. I walked into the water ignoring the cool sensation on my calves and once I was in hip deep I dived under the water, my tummy brimming the soft sand on the ocean floor. It’s funny out of water it’s just sand but as soon as water touches the sand it’s the ocean’s floor no matter how shallow the water is.

I surfaced and then faced the beach. Everyone was sitting around beach umbrellas or chairs or both. Parents were putting sun screen on young children, a group of teenagers had a volleyball game going and a family of around five had a cricket game going – I had never played cricket, it seemed like such a tedious game, I’ve no idea why the Aussies loved it so much. Young couple were strewn about the beach giving each other pecks or just laying down together on a towel.

I looked back at our group and smiled longingly. Louis and Hope were digging a hole with Sophie and Connor and getting sand everywhere but you could see just by looking at them that they were happy. The way Louis looked at them – it was like they were his whole world. Louis went to kiss Hope and she held her hat on her head as she laughed at the kids scrunched up faces of disgust at the public display of affection. They were definitely still in that ‘the opposite sex has cooties’ phase – Noah was still in that phase too.

I moved my line of vision over to Jade and Harry and they were happy too. Jade was sitting between Harry’s legs and leaning on his torso as he whispered stuff in her ears and played with her hair, twirling a piece of it around his finger. Jade’s smile could light up a thousand worlds. It was one of those smiles that said ‘here and now in this moment is when I’ve been the most happiest’.

I don’t think I’ve ever had that kind of smile even when I go to visit Noah because even though he is my favourite person in the whole entire world, my parents are always there to ruin it. I can barely spend a week there because in seven days I’d have twenty fights with them about everything and anything. My family didn’t radiate with happiness and it never had and it never will. My family was loveless, I realised with a pang of disappointment.