She was thinking of Marco again.

Nike sighed. Leaning forward in her seat, she tried to engage in the buzzing restaurant table conversation but her mind kept wandering. She felt restless and exhausted all at once. She hadn’t slept properly for weeks; suffering from the kind of insomnia she’d usually get during the first few days of a vacation. But she wasn’t on vacation. Not anymore. Monaco had been almost a month ago but if she closed her eyes, it felt like she was right there, right in the middle of the glittering heat of excess.

It had been Dean’s idea. Everything was always his idea, she realised, and wondered if it should anger her. It didn’t. She cast a sideways glance at him as he laughed with her brother. She felt more detached than anything.

Dean was the decision maker. Ideas. Plans. Excitement. Let’s go away. Let’s take a break. Let’s throw a party. And then the most marvellous idea of them all; let’s have an open relationship. Nike agreed like she agreed with everything. She was beginning to realise she was just a very agreeable person. It didn’t seem to matter that the whole idea was one-sided; they both knew she didn’t have the personality for casual sex but it didn’t matter. The option was equal. So what if Dean exercised his a hundred times over while hers lay unutilised? It didn’t matter.

Nike shifted in her seat. She listened to him tell the same story he’d told the last four times they’d been out in public. She didn’t hate him. She didn’t love him either. She wasn’t quite sure whether or not she even liked him anymore. He started it. He started it. It was his idea. She tried to find solace in blame and then wondered why she even felt guilty anyway.

Maybe because Marco was more. More than just a one night hook-up. She’d known it from the second his voice had drifted into her ear and since then, the night had come back on relentless replay. She thought of him every day, every night, her mind constantly flickering with vivid, desperate memories.

“So did you guys enjoy Monaco?” her father asked across the table.

“Yeah,” Dean cut across to take the question. “The weather was great. And there’s so much to see. It’s like the ideal getaway. We spent every second together.”

Except for the night you decided to fuck Julia, Nike wanted to say. But she didn’t. Sometimes she wondered what would happen if the words came out without permission. She had so many lines inside, and maybe by some terrible accident one day she’d screw up and her mouth would move before her brain could stop it. And then what? She almost liked the idea.

“Nike?” Her brother eyed her. “Did you enjoy it?”

She tried to look animated.

“Monaco? I loved it. It was unbelievably hot.”

***

“She is unbelievably hot,” Dean’s voice was awestruck. “God, look at her.”

Nike looked across the marble-walled hotel lobby at the object of his attention and felt her heart sink. He’d been talking about Julia all day but seeing her in the flesh made everything real. She didn’t know any of the other women Dean hooked up with. She didn’t have to see them. There was no way to compare herself to any of them. But Julia was right in front of her. Blonde and golden and a sparkling haze of manicured perfection. She must have been forty but she looked like a supermodel.

Dean was infatuated. It might have been funny if it didn’t make Nike’s stomach turn. Julia. She and her husband were staying at the same hotel as them and Dean had met her on the last day of their stay. He spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to approach her and when he finally worked up the courage, Nike felt sick. She watched from across the lobby as they flirted. The bellboy eyed her sympathetically.

Nike went shopping. She read a trashy romance novel. She walked on the beach. The day finally wound down into evening and Dean reappeared long enough for them to eat dinner together at the hotel restaurant. Everything seemed suddenly lifeless and withdrawn. The entire vacation had been idyllic until Julia had arrived. Now Dean seemed preoccupied and all the things Nike wanted to say to him seemed too blunt, too argumentative. They were sitting at the bar when he dropped the bombshell.

“I’m seeing Julia tonight,” he said it very casually like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. Maybe in his mind it was.

Nike looked at him.

“What, just like that? You don’t even know her.”

“I feel like I do,” Dean frowned. He looked at her. “Hey, you’re not jealous are you? This isn’t one way you know.”

But it was. He knew it. She knew it. They were wired differently, different circuits, different switches, different diodes and his lit up to something infinitely brighter and more dazzling.

He knocked back his shot of vodka and exhaled. He was turned on in a way Nike couldn’t remember. He could barely sit still. She gazed at him both transfixed and appalled. He didn’t look at her. His eyes were on the door, impatiently scanning the people exiting and entering until Julia appeared, in conversation with a taller man.

“That’s them,” Dean caught Julia’s attention and signalled her over.

“What, she’s just gonna come over here?” Nike asked, panic-stricken. “Isn’t that weird?”

“Is it?” Dean asked vaguely.

“Is that her husband? Does he know?”

“Yeah. He’s called Marco.”

They watched silently as the couple approached. Nike felt supremely mortified. She wanted to go home and curl into a ball and hide forever. But home was a taxi, a plane, a train and 650 miles away. She could hardly believe Dean was acting so normal. As though they were doing a normal, decent thing. As though he wasn’t about to fuck a married woman. Nike couldn’t take it.

“I have to run to the bathroom,” she said and she got up and quickly headed out before Dean could stop her. It took her a few minutes to find the restroom but when she got there it was thankfully vacant. She locked the door and leaned against it.

Everything seemed surreal. The bathroom was lit with yellow sconce lights and the walls glowed surreally. Her head spun a little. She walked carefully to the sink and turned on the water. She washed her hands. Her eyes flicked to the mirror. She looked different. Paler.

Nike sighed. She leaned her palms on the cold marble counter and closed her eyes. Breathed in the smell of bleach and hand sanitizer. Is this my life? It seemed implausible that after all the years of dreaming she should end up here. He was going to fuck Julia. It was a fact. She shouldn’t have been so affected by it. It wasn’t the first time but this time it was right in front of her.

Nike looked into the eyes of her reflection. Her irises looked darker, more brown than green. She blinked. They didn’t change. Is this my life? Is this really my fucking life? She felt insufficient. Why else would he want to fuck other women? She wasn’t enough. She’d spent so many years fighting the thought that it was almost a relief to let it through. I’m not enough. I’m not good enough. I’m not pretty enough or smart enough or interesting enough or hot enough. She pressed her lips together hard.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was home in the cool safety of her tiny Camden bathroom with burnt out candles and the crack in the window. But she wasn’t. She was in the bathroom of a Monaco bar and her boyfriend was about to fuck a stranger.

The age thing hit her hardest. Age was the only thing she had. Maybe she wasn’t beautiful or brilliant but she was young. Wasn’t youth what people loved? How could Dean want someone older? It didn’t make any sense.

Nike sighed. She shook out her hair and reapplied lip gloss, steeling herself to return to the bar.

“They went upstairs already,” Marco said when she finally got back. He was sitting where Dean had been sitting and watching a sports match on the cracked screen of his phone.

“Couldn’t wait, right?” The words didn’t come out lightly enough and Marco glanced up, surprised. Nike tried to think of something to soften the effect but it was too late. Besides, why should she care what he thought? It was his stupid, perfect wife who’d started everything. He seemed amazingly unaffected. She narrowed her eyes. They were all a bunch of freaks.

“Do you want a drink?” Marco asked after a beat. “You look like you could use it.”

Nike didn’t look at him.

“I think I’ll go upstairs,” she said.

He caught her wrist.

“You can’t,” he said and then, a little awkwardly, “They’re in your room.”

“Oh.” Nike flushed. She pulled her hand away. “Right.”

The time on her phone read 21:12. What was she meant to do for however-many hours? She sat down beside Marco. Her vodka from earlier was still waiting. She frowned at it.

He’d be touching her by now. His hands would be all over her. Nike frowned hard. She breathed in slowly, trying to calm the heat behind her eyes. Was this jealousy? She couldn’t bear it. She didn’t know what to do about it. She wanted to hate him and she almost did but there was something stopping her. Something about him that always made her fall all over again. It’d be the same lines. I don’t love her. I only love you. It’s just sex, Nike. And he said them so many times she’d even started to believe them.

Nike picked up her shot glass and swallowed the vodka in a single burning gulp. She considered going up to the room and wondered if she’d be able to hear them fucking from outside the door. Maybe. It seemed like an outrageous thing to do but she felt perversely tempted. What would it achieve? To see if he made more noise with other women? To hear what they were doing? To find out what he wanted? What more could he want?

She couldn’t understand him and the more she tried to, the more irritated she became. He was selfish. Was that it? She felt guilty for thinking badly of him. Nothing was ever his fault. All she ever did was try to hate him and wind up hating herself. She’d become sick of how desperate she felt, how desperate she must look. He must find her pathetic. Weak. Easy. Did he even like her at all or was she just an object, the neat, presentable girlfriend reserved for work parties and family dinners?

***

Family dinners. Granted it was her family and not his for once. Nike wondered idly whether he’d pick up the bill and figured he’d probably try if only to make a point. Nobody would notice but her. Everybody loved him. It was easy to love the side of him he sold. He seemed funny, charming, generous. If she broke up with him, no one would understand why. But going along with the pretence seemed insane.

She felt so detached. Before Monaco, she’d become adept at writing off his flaws and blinding them out with all the good things he did. But it wasn’t easy anymore. Marco had changed everything. Every time she closed her eyes she thought of him. The way he felt. The way he spoke. The way he touched her. Nike swallowed hard. She tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear and pressed her legs together hard.

She picked up her wine and sipped.

***

She picked up her fourth cuba libre and eyed Marco over the rim of the glass.

He caught her eye and smiled, his eyes creasing at the corners. He seemed effortlessly good-looking, unshaven and uncaring. His t-shirt was smudged with clay from the tennis court and his arms were tanned and strong. Idly, she imagined touching them. He looked more warm than anything. Warm and attentive and heart-stoppingly gorgeous.

“Why should your boyfriend have all the fun?” he was asking. “I can’t believe you’ve never done this. Pick someone. Anyone.”

He moved closer to her, his arm bumped up against hers. Nike scanned the bar crowd without enthusiasm.

“I don’t know,”

“C’mon, Nike. You could fuck any one of these guys and you don’t know?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. They all look drunk.”

He laughed.

“Anyone,” His mouth was so close to her ear, she could feel the warmth of his breath. It felt like his voice was inside her head. “Don’t you deserve this?” he asked.

Did she? Nike felt too hot. She thought about Dean without wanting to and frowned, setting her glass down.

“Stop. Thinking.” Marco said. She looked at his arm beside hers, tanned and strong, warm and alive. Skin to skin. She looked at his face, inches from hers. He was still assessing the crowd, his eyes quick and alive and when he looked at her, her stomach hurt.

“What?” he said but it wasn’t a real question. His eyes went to her mouth and he swallowed. Understanding seemed to hover between them before an idea had even formed in Nike’s head.

“You know I’m twice your age, right?” There was a faint strain of humour beneath the question. She looked at the line of his mouth and bit her lip hard.

“Would it be weird?” she asked and she couldn’t even look him in the eye.

“It already is,” Marco said and he leaned in and kissed her, open mouthed and aggressive. She gasped into his mouth as his tongue found hers. He caught her ponytail and tugged, pulling her head further back so he could kiss her properly. He tasted like whisky. She tried to steady herself but ended up spilling off the stool and leaning into him.

He kissed wonderfully, deep and long enough to make her head spin. She pulled back for breath but he didn’t let go of her, the tip of his nose touching hers. His eyes were like liquid gold. He didn’t stop looking at her as his hand moved to press against the small of her back, holding her close to him.

She was suddenly aware of the hem of her skirt skimming the back of her legs. It felt shorter than she remembered. She blinked. She pulled back a little further and looked at the line of his jaw, the dark stubble, the way his t-shirt fit his broad shoulders.

“You wanna get out of here?” he asked.

Nike swallowed hard. No one was watching them. Nobody cared.

“C’mon,” Marco said. His voice was like warm, dazing sunshine. “Why not?”

***

“Why not?” Dean frowned. “You’ve always loved dessert.”

Everyone was too slow. The restaurant was alive and buzzing with conversations and Nike couldn’t focus. All she wanted to do was go home and pretend nobody existed. Outside, rain was pouring, hammering relentlessly against the windows. Dean’s hand was resting on her leg beneath the table.

“I’ve already eaten way too much,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “I really can’t.”

“Oh, come on,” Dean coaxed. “You love cake.”

“I really don’t feel like it,” she protested but he was looking expectantly past her. And it was too late, far too late; everything was happening in sick, slow motion and the waiters were bringing out a birthday cake with goddamn candles and everyone was looking at her and singing and the rest of the restaurant was staring and she tried to look surprised and pleased but all she wanted was to escape.

It was torture. Her face felt frozen into a parody smile. They finally stopped singing. The cake was an exorbitant frenzy of whipped cream and strawberries. Nike tried not to look at it. Her brother smirked at her like he knew exactly how she was feeling and it gave her enough of a grateful rush to blow out the candles.

“This is crazy,” It was like someone else was speaking. “I can’t believe you did this!”

Drew laughed. “Do you like it? We should have champagne, shouldn’t we? You want champagne?”

“Uh,” Nike stared at the cake. She didn’t think she could bear to eat it. “Champagne? Uh – I – I don’t know.”

***

“I don’t know,” Her hands were flat against the cool wood of the hotel room door and Marco’s hand was already under her skirt and trying to push between her legs. “I really don’t know if this is such a good idea.”

“You don’t?” His voice was perfectly cool. Calm and patient. “He’s fucking her right now, Nike. And what? You don’t deserve this? You don’t want me to make you come?” His foot moved to the inside of her ankle and pushed, widening her legs so he could press his fingers against the heat of her snatch.

“I just – I never do this kind of thing.” Nike said and she had to close her eyes because his fingers were already moving against her in a way that made her knees feel weak.

“You came up here,” Marco’s voice was almost playful. “You wanted it, Nike. You still do. Look how fucking wet you are. Stop being so uptight.”

His fingers slid inside the lace of her underwear and touched roughly. Nike’s hands clenched into fists. She tried to turn but he was leaning into her, his weight holding her in place against the door. His free hand caught hold of her ponytail and tugged hard so he could kiss her neck, his mouth wet and hungry.

“Marco, we really shouldn’t,” She didn’t know why she was protesting. It felt good. She wanted to disappear into the wonderful weight and warmth of him; to know nothing but the drug of his voice for the rest of her life. It was so good. Too good. Things couldn’t be too good. There was always a backlash – a hangover, a crash, or even just living with the realisation that the good time was over and never coming back. The grounding grey reality after a whirling rollercoaster high.

“Turn around,” Marco said and...