It's You [H.S.]

12.3 | Forever yours

21st September 2019

After breakfast on Saturday morning, they congregate back at the pool deck, arriving in dribs and drabs, eager to make the most of the sunshine.

As they chatter, claiming sun loungers and sorting their things, with Harry hooking up some music and Ben divvying up the various inflatables that need blowing up, Elin suddenly gasps, drawing everyone's attention.

With her mouth agape, she whips her sunglasses off to reveal her wide blue eyes, locked on Eloise's side.

She'd been leaning across a sun-lounger, stretching to reach for a beach ball when she'd frozen, turning to her mum with a quizzical look on her face. "What?", she worries.

"What the bloody hell is that, young lady?", Elin seethes, eyebrows raised.

Instinctively clapping a hand to her left side, Eloise sits back on her shins, stature defensive as she braces herself for the inevitable onslaught.

Pulling her sunglasses up on to the top of her head, Eloise can't help but roll her eyes. Her mum launches into a tirade about senselessly marring her skin before belatedly looking around and tailing off, realising it's a losing battle.

Harry's obviously covered. Gem has a few; from discrete dots on her wrist, to a bird on her bicep, and a palm tree on the back of her arm, matching Harry's. Michal has a few of his own. And Lucas has the England Rugby rose high on his right arm.

But, before Eloise can snap back in defence of them all, she catches her dad out the corner of her eye, and can just tell he's trying to contain a smirk.

"What?", she sasses at him. "Nothing to add to that?".

With a quirk of his lips, he gestures to her side. "Go on, then, show us...".

Peeling her hand away, Eloise casts a look to Harry as her dad peers closer. 

Then, despite Crispin's playfully narrowed eyes, the intensity of his stare soon has Harry shifting a little sheepishly from foot to foot. 

"Hey, don't look at me... That was all her!", he protests.

Eloise rolls her eyes again at him for good measure before swatting her dad away and levelling a look at her mum. "Well, I love it and it means something very special to me, so I don't really care what you think or what you have to say about it... And it can't be that offensive if you've not spotted it in almost a year, or at any point yesterday, for that matter".

"Well, we don't see you half-naked too often", Crispin counters, taking up his usual role, trying to play peacemaker and be the voice of reason between Elin and Eloise.

"Well, neither do many other people, so I really don't see the big deal", Eloise pulls her sunglasses back down, and sits back to start blowing up the beach ball, intent on putting all that hot air to better use.

Mer, hormonal, uncomfortable and sassing at Ben, soon lands him in it... Accidentally, or possibly on purpose.

As she too settles back on a sun-lounger alongside Eloise, she scoffs quietly. "Don't tell me Ben's managed to keep his tramp stamp under wraps for over ten years now?".

Her little aside was evidently loud enough, and there's a comical synchronicity as everyone turns to gape at her in shock; Eloise yelping as she cricks her neck.

"...Well he had!", Ben hollers, face a picture as he glares at Mer, in shock at her betrayal.

They all round on him, hooting and hollering. Lucas and Ollie pin him and, despite his squirming, turn him around and tug his shorts down enough to reveal the dodgy Chinese symbols at the top of his arse cheek.