Free Three's a Crowd by Sophie McKenzie Page A

Dad and how he would feel about the baby, I sent an email back to Mum saying how pleased Chloe and I were that everything was okay.
    See? I’m not completely insensitive.
    I ploughed on with the next load of maths, a series of immensely complicated and incredibly boring equations. My head grew heavy. In fact, I was almost asleep on the keyboard when Ryan and Marco barged in.
    “Brought you some lunch.” Ryan shoved a slice of dried-up pizza under my nose.
    I showed Marco and Ryan the baby scan.
    “Can you work out where its head is?” I said, my mouth full of pizza.
    Ryan pointed to a dark curve in the bottom left of the picture. “Maybe that?” he said.
    “I thought that was its bum,” I said.
    “No. That it pee-pee place,” Marco said.
    We all laughed.
    Ryan and Marco stayed for about ten minutes. I was half listening to their conversation, half working on my equations, when the sound of girls giggling nearby drifted in from outside.
    Our heads turned together to look out through the window.
    Most of the female staff seemed to be gathered on the grass at the near end of the pool, along with a smattering of teenage-girl hotel guests. A lone male, dressed only in swimming trunks, stood in their midst.
    “That’s Alejandro,” Ryan said, delightedly.
    I peered at him. The sulky drummer of last night had gone. In his place was a tall, smiling guy with a tan and a six-pack.
    I grimaced. “Looks a bit full of himself.”
    “That’s the funny thing,” Ryan said. “He looks the way he does and he’s loaded and yet he’s totally sound.”
    “Is true,” Marco said. “I know Alejandro only since few weeks. He is . . . how you say . . . a baby magnet.”
    “Babe magnet,” Ryan corrected him.
    “ Si . Babe magnet. But he very respectful with girls. Nice guy. Everyone like him.”
    “Has he got a girlfriend?” I asked.
    Marco shrugged. “ No se . I don’t know. But he never push with girls. And they all like it. I think even my Catalina like him.”
    I caught Ryan’s eye and felt myself reddening. My phone rang and I bent over the text. It was from Eve, saying she was going to have to spend the afternoon rehearsing with the band.
    “Great.”
    Ryan peered at the text over my shoulder. “Well, why don’t you go and watch?” he said.
    I looked through the window to where the band’s good-looking and apparently unattached drummer was still chatting and joking with the girls outside.
    Forgetting my promise to Eve not to be jealous any more, I decided that watching her rehearsal was the best way of keeping an eye on both her and Alejandro.
    “Good idea,” I said, flipping shut my phone. “I think I will.”

 
11
Rehearsal
    The rehearsal was not going well. Eve had spent hours practising the first two songs on the list Jonno had given her, but the pianist – the grey-haired leader of the band – was not satisfied. He kept exploding into rapid-fire Spanish and stomping round the stage waving his arms theatrically in Eve’s direction.
    “He says you must look at the audience more,” Alejandro said.
    Alejandro.
    It was horribly clear to me that, without him, Eve would be having a far worse time than she was. For a start, he translated everything the irate pianist said into perfect English for her. On top of that, he repeatedly told her she sounded good and he appeared to be the main reason why the rest of the band didn’t get bored with the constant stoppages. He laughed and joked with them in Spanish whenever the pianist brought the music to a standstill.
    None of this, of course, made me like him.
    The rehearsals took place in the nightclub. This looked rather drab and dirty by daylight, all scuffed wooden floor and stained, brown sofas. The air con made it feel even bleaker. I was sitting at a scratched metal table near the back. Without its white tablecloth and candles, it looked like a camping table.
    “Or like Lola without her make-up,” Eve said, bitterly, in one of the short breaks the