Free Summer Nights at the Moonlight Hotel by Jane Costello

I sit, sharing the edge of the bed with Shafilia Masood, who is awaiting the
arrival of her mum after she vomited up the Spotted Dick on today’s menu.
    ‘Looks like both of us are in the wars, doesn’t it, Shafilia?’ She nods mournfully, her poor bewildered eyes overcome with shock and confusion. I know exactly how she
feels.

Chapter 9
    Almost a week later, Cate arrives to pick me up for salsa twenty-five minutes before she’s due – which is a record as she’s never early for anything.
    Under normal circumstances it wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m midway through applying some fake tan when the bell rings. I poke my head out of the window and see her at the door.
    ‘How come you’re so early?’ I shout down.
    ‘I’ll explain when you let me in,’ she replies. ‘Come on, Lauren, it’s raining!’
    I throw on a dressing gown and race down the stairs to open the door. ‘I needed to tell you what’s just happened,’ she blusters, heading into the living room and perching on
the edge of the sofa. ‘Robby turned up at the shop.’ It’s clear from the way she says it that her ex-boyfriend wasn’t just popping in to buy a bunch of freesias. ‘He
wants to get back with me.’
    I crumple my nose. ‘That’s hardly news.’
    ‘I know, but he was different this time. He’s . . .
pissed off
with me.’
    ‘You can’t be pissed off with someone for failing to be madly in love with you.’
    ‘Well, he is, believe me.’
    I frown. ‘What did he say? He hasn’t threatened you or anything?’
    ‘Oh, nothing like that. He just kept huffing and puffing, as if I was not grasping the logic of the situation. He always was possessive. Oh, I don’t know . . . I don’t know why
this bothered me so much, but it did. I wish he’d get out of my life, instead of having to see him all the time.’
    ‘This is the one downside to not living in a big city: you never entirely shake off your ex-boyfriends.’
    ‘Every time I see him, I get that same feeling you get when you wake up to a cold, leftover takeaway,’ she muses. ‘You know you must’ve thought it was tasty at some
point, but it’s impossible to work out why you fancied it now. Anyway, how are you feeling about Edwin’s news?’
    In the days since Edwin dropped his bombshell I have sunk deeper into a hole of depression. ‘I know I was already planning to go to Australia. And I know I’d always said I needed to
get away from him. But . . . I thought I had forever to wean myself off him. Then, when he dumped Fiona I suppose a part of me hoped something might happen between the two of us.’
    She puts her arm around me. ‘This could be for the best. If Edwin is mad enough not to have snapped you up the second Fiona was out of the picture, frankly, you don’t
want
him hanging around. As long as he’s here, you’d never have the headspace to start thinking in romantic terms about anyone else.’
    She is talking sense, but sometimes sense is the last thing you want.
    ‘He might be coming along tonight,’ I say, offering a nugget of hope.
    She perks up. ‘Ooh, really? Better get your lippy on then.’
    I throw on my clothes and Cate and I jump into her van, before tootling along the road towards Windermere until we reach Emily’s little slate-walled house, in a side road tucked away from
the shops and cafés of the village. She waves at us from the window and skips out of the door in a tulip dress that sits slightly above the knee, ballet flats and a clutch of silver bangles
that tinkle against her slim wrists.
    ‘Have you caught a bit of sun, Lauren?’ she asks.
    ‘No, I just applied a bit of fake . . . Oh God!’
    ‘What is it?’ Cate asks.
    ‘I forgot to finish applying my St Tropez. I only did my face, chest and one arm.’
    ‘Just remember to do it when you get in tonight,’ Emily sniggers. ‘Your arms will match by the morning.’
    The road to Bowness takes us past the driveway to the Moonlight Hotel, which is now blocked by a