The PINKY PACT

It was their first holiday together, but Ava began to wonder if the whole idea was a terrible mistake

Ava sat up to adjust her bikini straps, just as something cold and slimy landed on her bare midriff. 

‘Sorry!’ yelled a voice insincerely, and Liam hopped into view, looking at her with a mixture of contempt and triumph.

She flicked the strip of rubbery seaweed into the sand and suggested, as non-committally as possible, ‘More lotion, Liam?’

The twin peaks of his shoulder blades looked prickly and raw, but only a real mother could insist instead of suggest, of course...

He shook his head and pelted into the sea with his snorkel and goggles, splashing smaller children. There was a huge swimming pool back at the hotel, but Mark had suggested the beach instead.

‘As long as you stay where Ava and I can see you, young man,’ he’d told Liam sternly.

Liam now patrolled the shoreline, kicking up wavelets and staring at some children who were further out in the sea, screaming with delight as they clung to each other on the back of an inflatable banana.

Ava wished Mark would hurry up with those ice creams he’d gone to fetch.

She also wanted a cigarette, which was ironic, as she’d ditched the habit a few years before meeting Mark. But she wasn’t a plaster saint, and it had struck her, the deeper in she got as Mark’s girlfriend, that she’d taken too much for granted, blithely assuming love would find a way.