Sugar Secrets…& Sunburn Read online

  Sugar

  SECRETS…

  …& Sunburn

  Mel Sparke

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1 GIRLS WILL GOSSIP…

  CHAPTER 2 BOYS WILL BANTER…

  CHAPTER 3 (THAT) PERFECT MOMENT

  CHAPTER 4 GREEN-EYED MONSTER

  CHAPTER 5 JUST THE TWO OF US

  CHAPTER 6 CAT’S CONSPIRACY THEORY

  CHAPTER 7 WHEN TWO BECOME FOUR…

  CHAPTER 8 WAITING FOR TROUBLE

  CHAPTER 9 AHOY THERE, SHIPMATES…

  CHAPTER 10 CAT UNDERCOVER

  CHAPTER 11 SETTING SUN AND SINKING HEARTS

  CHAPTER 12 MATT MOANS

  CHAPTER 13 JOE MAKES A BOOB

  CHAPTER 14 FOUR MINUS TWO MAKES… THREE!

  CHAPTER 15 TWO’S COMPANY

  CHAPTER 16 LISTENING IN…

  CHAPTER 17 KERRY GOES SOLO

  CHAPTER 18 DAY TRIPPER

  CHAPTER 19 I SPY… TROUBLE

  CHAPTER 20 CAUGHT IN THE ACT

  CHAPTER 21 MATT FACES THE MUSIC

  CHAPTER 22 JOE TELLS IT LIKE IT ISN’T

  CHAPTER 23 ALL CHANGE…

  Sugar SECRETS … …& Shocks

  CAN YOU HANDLE HASSLE?

  SO, CAN YOU HANDLE HASSLE?

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  GIRLS WILL GOSSIP…

  “The sun…” Catrina Osgood murmured dreamily.

  She stared out of the big bay window of the End-of-the-Line café, where the hovering rain clouds made the so-called summer sky seem almost as grey as the pavement. Along with Maya Joshi and Sonja Harvey, she was whiling away a Friday morning, drooling with envy at the holiday their two friends were about to embark on that same day.

  “The sea…” Maya chipped in, equally dreamily.

  “Stuff the sea!” Cat suddenly brayed, staring across the window-seat table at her friend. “What’s the sea got to do with anything?”

  “You know - it’s the wet stuff that starts where the sand stops,” her cousin Sonja said sarcastically. “And when you’re on holiday, you go in it and swim and have what’s called fun.”

  “Total waste of time, if you ask me,” sniffed Cat. “Using up all those valuable sunbathing minutes…”

  “Hey, Cat, haven’t you heard about that thing with the hole in it?” Maya asked, leaning back on the red banquette and folding her arms.

  “What thing with the hole in it?” Cat frowned.

  “The ozone layer. That’s spelt O-Z-O-N-E,” Maya teased her.

  “Yeah, yeah,” shrugged Cat, flopping her elbows on to the Formica table top. She knew when she was being made fun of.

  “Mmm and the hole in this ‘ozone layer’,” Sonja joined in, making quote marks in the air with her fingers, “can cause a thing called ‘skin cancer’. That’s spelt S-K-l-N C-A-N—”

  “Enough with the lectures,” snorted Cat impatiently.

  “Well, there’s more to holidays than just lying on a beach frying like a chip!”

  “Oh, is that right, Sonja? Well, thank you for telling me. I suppose sunbathing’s too relaxed for you. I bet if it was you in Ibiza, instead of Kerry and Ollie, you’d spend your whole day playing volleyball or paragliding, or playing volleyball while you were paragliding…”

  “Para-ball! Volley-gliding! Whatever - it sounds good to me!” grinned Sonja.

  “And what about you?” said Cat, pointing an accusing finger at Maya. “If you were in Ibiza, I bet you’d want to be off photographing historical ruins and looking at ancient relics, wouldn’t you?”

  “No. That’s the sort of stuff I do with my parents. And, just for once, I’d like to be on a beach towel next to you, Cat, doing nothing more energetic than listening to my Walkman and lazing in the sun.”

  Sonja and Cat were both stumped. That wasn’t a very Maya-thing to say at all. Lazing wasn’t something that came very naturally to the hard-working, earnest Maya Joshi.

  “Covered in SPF 20, of course,” Maya added with a grin. Even in her fantasies, Maya still had to do the right thing.

  “So, Maya,” said Cat, narrowing her eyes, “when you’re lying on the beach, drowning in factor 20, do you think you’d have enough energy to check out some of the beautiful, bronzed boys strolling past?”

  “Excuse me!” said Maya, raising her eyebrows in mock outrage. “I am a happily er… dating girl! You’d never catch me ogling boys on the beach!”

  “Oooh, pardon me, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes!” said Cat wide-eyed. “Anyway, I only said look. You can have a boyfriend and still check out other blokes, you know. It’s not against the law. Is it, Son?”

  Sonja hesitated for a second and then nodded her head in agreement. It always took her by surprise when she saw things from the same point of view as her cousin. They’d spent so many years bickering as they grew up together that it had almost become second nature.

  “Well, I love Owen,” she shrugged, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t sneak the occasional peek at a good-looking bloke. It’s only natural, isn’t it?”

  “What do you think, Anna?” Cat bellowed as Anna Michaels walked past after serving another table.

  “What about?” asked Anna, using the moment to put her empty tray down and readjust the scrunchie that was working loose from her brown ponytail.

  “If you were on holiday with Matt,” Cat began, “would you still check out the totty on the beach?”

  “There’s no harm looking as long as you don’t touch!” Anna smiled. “But if you got on to this subject because of Kerry and OIlie going off today, then I’d have to say, with those two, neither of them will be looking at anybody else…”

  The other girls nodded. OIlie and Kerry had been going out for just about a year now, but were still sickeningly in love with each other.

  “That’s ‘cause this holiday is so, y’know, special to them!” Cat grinned mischievously.

  “Because it’s their first holiday together?” Maya frowned, either oblivious to Cat’s meaning or trying her hardest to ignore it.

  “Oh, it’s their first time for something all right!” giggled Cat.

  “Mmm, big step for Kez…” mutteréd” Sonja, remembering past conversations with her best friend, when Kerry had told her how she hadn’t felt ready for sex, even though she was very sure of her relationship with Ollie.

  Sonja felt a wave of guilt; she’d been so caught up in her own traumas lately, she hadn’t thought to ask Kerry how she was feeling about the holiday and, well, everything.

  “Do you really think it’ll happen? That they’ll sleep together while they’re on holiday?” Maya asked, looking around the table at her friends’ faces.

  “Come on, Maya!” snorted Cat. “Going somewhere hot and romantic with your long-term boyfriend, with not a parent in sight and one bedroom? What do you think?”

  For a second, all four girls were silent, lost in their own private thoughts.

  What do I think? pondered Maya, gazing blankly up at the cloudy sky outside. I think if I was Kerry, I’d be very nervous right now. It is a big step. And I should know… since I’ve got to make my mind up about it soon too, since me and Alex are heading that way. If only I felt 100 per cent sure that it is what I want to do…

  Sonja fidgeted at a rag nail under the table. They’re all wondering if Kerry’s all right, if she’s nervous. Sonja winced as she tore away more skin than she meant to. I wonder what they’d say if they knew what I’d gone through lately? I mean, I’m not pregnant - thank God - but what if I had been? What would they have thought then?

  Tapping her purple-painted nails on the glass salt cellar cradled in her hands, Cat allowed
herself a little smile. If only they knew. If only they knew what I told Kerry! They all think I’m this wild child who’s had more sex than school dinners. What a joke - bang would go my reputation if they knew I was still a virgin!

  Anna finished fixing her hair and picked up her tray again. So the girls think Kerry’s going to be in a tizz about the holiday and the sleeping arrangements, do they? Well, if only they’d seen what I saw last night…

  CHAPTER 2

  BOYS WILL BANTER…

  “The clubs…” Matt Ryan muttered, with a faraway look in his eyes.

  He lay stretched out on the floor of his basement den, his head and shoulders supported by a comfy black bean bag.

  “The beaches…” Andy King chipped in, with an envious sigh.

  Ollie and Kerry hadn’t even started their holiday yet - they would only just be reaching the airport about now - but the boys, lounging round at Matt’s, were already imagining the delights that Ibiza had to offer.

  “Stuff the beaches!” Matt suddenly snorted, bellowing to be heard above the drum’n’bass track that had just started up on the CD player. “If you’re doing the club scene properly, you never see daylight, apart from when you’re rolling back to your hotel room at 8 o’clock in the morning!”

  “What - you would seriously go to a place like Ibiza and spend your whole day sleeping!” laughed Billy Sanderson incredulously, ducking to one side as Joe Gladwin leant over him to turn the volume on the CD player down a little.

  “Well, it’s the nightlife that really matters in these places, isn’t it?” Matt shrugged, rustling the polystyrene beads inside his bean bag. “You wake up at teatime, have a shower, go out for some food, hit the bars, find yourself in an all-night club…”

  “Hey, Matt, these clubs…” began Andy, hunching his skinny frame on Matt’s big, squashy, second-hand sofa.

  “What about them?” Matt frowned.

  Ibiza had plenty of internationally renowned clubs: was Andy up for hearing Matt’s opinion on them? He could describe them all, from the type of dance music they played, to what the decor was like, even though he’d never been. His pride-of-place collection of dance music magazines might have ended up just a pile of charred tatters after the fire in his den a few months back, but Matt had still committed every scrap of information on the international DJing scene to memory.

  “Well, these clubs,” Andy continued, a faintly puzzled look on his face. “Don’t they have them in this country?”

  “Eh?” asked Matt, shooting a confused look at his friend.

  “Yeah, you berk!” bellowed Billy, who’d spotted what Andy was getting at, and also that his gentle teasing was way too subtle for Matt. “If you never see daylight, what’s the point in going to Ibiza? Why don’t you just stay in this country and do the same thing? It’d save you the price of an air fare and hotel!”

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” Matt tutted impatiently. “There’s a whole different vibe in the clubs over there…”

  “Yeah, like you’d know! Closest you’ve got is watching that programme on the telly following all the lads on the pull around Ibiza, same as the rest of us!” grinned Billy, aware that he was winding Matt up, but enjoying it too much to care. “And anyway, there’s more to holidays than lying in your pit all day sleeping off a hangover!”

  “Oh, yeah, Billy?” Matt glared at him, half going along with the teasing and half getting seriously annoyed. “I suppose going clubbing’s too indoors for a sport-geek like you. I bet if it was you in Ibiza, you’d be the moron waving and falling off the big stupid banana thing they drag behind speedboats. Or you’d spend your whole day bullying people on the beach to join in a five-aside tournament…”

  “Five-aside tournaments? Sounds good to me! Specially if it’s all-women teams!” Billy winked at Matt.

  “So, you’re giving me a hard time just ‘cause I’m into the music and all you’d be interested in doing is eyeing up the beach babes!” Matt countered, glaring accusingly at Billy, who was sitting slouched and relaxed against the wall.

  “A sunlounger… an ice-cold bottle of beer… gorgeous girls strolling up and down the sand in front of you…” sighed Billy happily. “Don’t you think it’s absolutely brilliant the way bikini tops went out of fashion, eh, lads?”

  “Speak for yourself,” smiled Andy, folding his arms behind his head.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry, Andy - I forgot. Boobs do nothing for you,” joked Billy.

  “Yeah, you go more for the sculpted six-packs, don’t you, Andy?” Matt joined in with a grin.

  “So, Matt,” said Billy narrowing his eyes, “if a miracle happened and you found yourself DJing out in Ibiza instead of the dodgy gaffs round Winstead, would you be able to resist temptation?”

  “What - girls, you mean?” said Matt stupidly. “But me and Anna… I mean - y’know, we’re together. I, uh… would probably take her with me!”

  Billy checked out the flustered pink tinge to Matt’s face and knew he’d hit a raw nerve. He hadn’t known Matt back in the days when Matt was a legend in the love-’em-and-leave-’em stakes, but he’d heard plenty about it from Ollie and the others.

  “Oh come on, you don’t get out of it that easily!” Billy snorted. “Nope. Let’s say you’ve been headhunted to go and work in some super-trendy club - I know it’s far-fetched, but use your imagination—”

  Matt glowered at him.

  “—but say Anna can’t go with you. You’ve got loads of girls all going crazy for you ‘cause you’re the DJ and you’re far away from home; no one will find out anything… Would you go for it?”

  Matt struggled for a smart reply, annoyed at his guilty inner feelings. He was really into Anna and had never looked at another girl since he’d first started falling for her.

  But the fact that I’ve even hesitated answering Billy’s stupid, sodding question means I would be tempted! he thought angrily to himself, irritated by his own lack of willpower.

  “It’s a stupid question,” he finally blustered. “I mean, it’s not going to happen, is it? And why are you just hassling me, Billy? Why aren’t you giving Joe the third degree too? He’s got a girlfriend as well!”

  “Good point,” said Billy cheerfully. “So, would you be tempted, Joe?”

  Joe had been quiet for ages - which wasn’t a big surprise to his friends. Joe was always more of a listener than a loudmouth. Apart from getting up to turn down the music, he’d sat flopped in the mismatching second-hand armchair, listening to his friends’ banter and occasionally glancing at his watch. He’d have to leave soon for the café -he was covering Ollie’s shifts down at the End.

  “Tempted?” he blinked, an image of his smiling, elfin-featured girlfriend vivid in his mind.

  “Nah. Not in a million years. Not when I’ve got Meg.”

  “Ah, the fair lady Megan…” Billy fooled around, striking a hammy Shakespearean pose. “Don’t blame you, mate. Meg’s cute all right, very cute indeed!”

  It was meant as a compliment, Joe knew, so he didn’t understand why he felt such a sudden, irrational dislike for Billy. But all he could picture in his mind’s eye was Meg, tanned and laughing on a beach, with Billy leching at her from the sidelines…

  Billy’s my mate! What am I doing thinking stuff like that! Joe told himself, shaking his head slightly as if to banish his negative thoughts. The idea of him being after Meg - it’s just crazy!

  But no crazier, Joe knew, than the petty jealousy that had been eating him up ever since Meg had finally got her holiday snaps developed. It had been a while since she’d got back from Greece and, at first, Joe had thought nothing of her tales of the family in the villa next door, whom her family had made friends with. It was only when he’d seen the photos that the niggling little worries had wormed their way into his head.

  The trouble was, when Meg had mentioned the names of the son and daughters of the neighbouring holidaymakers, Joe had somehow assumed they were all just young kids. But the bronzed, blond guy stan
ding next to Meg in an awful lot of the poolside snaps - looking like an extra out of an Australian soap - was no kid; he was seventeen or eighteen for sure.

  If only I had the courage to ask her if anything went on between them! Joe bit his lip, slamming his head back against Matt’s blue wall. Or maybe I’m too scared of hearing something that I seriously don’t want to hear.

  CHAPTER 3

  (THAT) PERFECT MOMENT

  “Bye, Kerry dear! Take care!”

  Trisha Bellamy gave a semi-tragic wave as she disappeared out of the airport’s automatic doors.

  “Bye, Mum!” called Kerry, waving her one free hand, while the other clung on to her heavy holdall.

  “Bye, Mrs Bellamy!” yelled Ollie, before dropping his voice. “Oh, God - your mother isn’t crying, is she?”

  “Looks like it,” Kerry mumbled, still trying to keep a cheery smile on her face as her mum’s figure turned to flutter a white paper tissue in their direction as she crossed over to the car park entrance.

  Ollie similarly kept a fixed grin on his face and gave Kerry’s mother another enthusiastic farewell wave.

  “God - you’d think you were about to enter a nunnery forever, the way she’s carrying on!”

  “Oh, I don’t think she’d be this upset if I was entering a nunnery,” Kerry grinned at him. “I think she’d be far happier with that than you whisking me off for some seedy week in the sun!”

  Ollie’s face crumpled. All about them in the busy concourse, people buzzed around, looking for check-in desks and waiting for their flights to be announced. But Ollie and Kerry stood like an oasis in the middle of the bustle, trying to read each others’ thoughts.

  “Ollie, what’s wrong?” Kerry asked, wondering how her feeble joke had ended up causing this reaction.

  “You don’t think that, do you?” he asked plaintively.

  “Think what?” Kerry blinked at him, forgetting for a moment how heavy her bag was in her sudden fluttering panic.

  “That me and you… that it’s seedy?” he said.