It's interesting how much you can have communicated to you when you don't understand a word being said.

Addy is speaking in rapid fire Spanish to some guy named Pedro. I understand maybe ten words of what's been said, and since most of those were 'no' and 'Pedro' they don't really count. I still know exactly what's going on here. I saw this really pretty coloured glass vase that I knew my mother would go nuts for - I have no idea how they do it, but it's this really intricate swirl of blues and greens that reminds me of ocean waves. He wanted me to hand over sixty euros for it and I was about to when Addy started shaking her head, grabbed my wrist to stop me and started bargaining with him. He's gesticulating between her and the vase with his hands and constantly groaning like she's trying to cheat him or depriving his kids of their college fund. She's standing firm, raising her eyebrow and folding her arms in a definite 'I am not backing down' stance. It's fascinating.

Finally he sighs, takes a sideways glance at me and shakes his head as if to say 'women' and makes a mock bow which I know is a concession. Addy swipes a note out of my hands and tells me to hand over the rest - she somehow just bargained him down to thirty five, which is nearly a fifty percent discount. Pedro's tanned and weather beaten hands wrap the glass up with the greatest of care, and as he mutters to himself I can just imagine he's complaining about how he's just been denied the right price for his quality goods. He hands it to me and I say thank you to him - one thing I do know the Spanish for.

Addy tucks her arm back through mine, where it's been for most of the afternoon, and I just have to ask. "So how'd you beat him down?"

"Ugh, did you hear him call this Murano glass?"

"Uhh, hello, no speak-a el lingo?" I mock her. "You think I have a clue what either of you were saying?"

I get a teasing glare for my insolence. It gives her this sultry European look when she does that. "Murano glass comes from this little town somewhere near Venice, my parents took us there on holiday one time. I was telling him he was full of shit calling this Murano glass when neither he nor it is Italian."

"So does that mean if I buy Chinese food when not in China it's not real Chinese?" I ask teasingly.

"I'm sorry, is it a problem that I just saved you twenty five euros you ungrateful brat?"

She pretends to put me in a headlock, and I laugh as she struggles to reach that high. I won't remind her that I'm a millionaire and that I don't really care, a few euros over the odds isn't going to hurt me too much. My new and improved plan of attack is to never allow the subject of my career to come up ever again and to only let her be reminded of my bank balance if it's unavoidable. It's a little more comfortable for me now she knows that, feels a little less like I'm a dirty big liar, but I figure that omission of information from now on is a far better tactic than telling tall tales.

"My apologies, oh glorious one, You are the Queen Bargainer."

"Bargainer isn't a word."

"Yes it is."

"You just made it up."

"You just nit pick too much, that's your problem." I sling an arm around her shoulders and plant a joking kiss on her forehead with a flamboyant smacking of my lips and the stupidest noise I can get out of my mouth. "I thought you said you Adorans liked it laid back and hakuna matata or whatever?"

"Hak-a-what-now?"

"You never saw The Lion King? Were you deprived as a child?"

"I was busy being outside and doing actual activity rather than enslaving myself to the television. It melts brain cells you know."

If I hadn't been already warned that her way of showing ease and companionship with someone is to relentlessly make fun of them, I would think this chick was downright abusive. Luckily for her she had enough presence of mind to warn me and now I find it oddly charming, in an exasperating sort of way. "Hakuna matata. It's some African phrase meaning no worries. Swahili, maybe? I don't know; it's from a Disney film anyway."

"Oh. The only film anybody could get me to pay any attention to as a kid was Grease. Oh, and Pretty In Pink."

I resist the urge to ask how two such wholesome films (well, okay, Grease is a little dirty once you're old enough to understand the Rizzo and Kenickie condom conversation) managed to influence a young mind so it grew into this sarcastic little madam. Or maybe that's just natural and there was nothing pop culture could have done to stop it anyway.

"I liked The Breakfast Club better."

"You shouldn't have mentioned breakfast. Now I want food," she groans.

I'm not unsympathetic, that bike ride was glorious but harder work than I thought it would be; there were a few nasty inclines. Oh well, speeding back down them on the way back should be a hoot. The scenery is amazing. "Is there any place worth eating around here?"

"Not really," she says with a shrug. "Though unless you were needing to buy yet more stuff we could just get on the bikes and head back, I think I have enough stuff in the cupboards to rustle up some paella."

"That's a good point… how am I getting all this stuff on the bikes?" I ask doubtfully.

"I'm disappointed, Mr Timberlake, did you think I'd come unprepared?"

She reaches into her rucksack and I see that it wasn't stuffed with crap as I believed it to be - there's another rucksack cunningly folded in there. Clearly she's done this before.

"I'm sorry, I'll never doubt you again," I say with a squeeze of her shoulders.

When we first got here I was a little reticent with arms around waists or shoulders or anywhere else, but I subsequently decided to take the Adoran attitude and lose the drama. We got a few funny looks from some of the locals who know Addy and from some of those idiot guys who are getting territorial over a woman none of them are even dating. For a moment my face got all red and I was thinking they somehow knew, but then I remembered that I'm not acting any differently with her than I was prior to last night and they cannot possibly tell. So, I mentally called myself an idiot and gave that right up.

Thankfully I was a little more collected this morning when it counted. If Addy had seen through my façade she would have realised that my reaction was closer to hers than to the one I pretended to have, but thankfully I made like a cucumber and remained cool.

It wasn't like she was freaking out or anything - thank God, I hate that drama - but she more openly acknowledged the fact that things were a little uncertain and that she was naturally uncertain with them. Sex doesn't have to be a big deal, but whether people admit it or not it does change things at least a little. I was being a little guarded, I guess. There was no lie, I honestly was cool with it (won't be the first or last time I drunkenly hook up with a friend), but she's made her feelings on holiday romances or flings with tourists very clear. I'll admit, I expected her to outright tell me it was never happening again or for her to assume that I couldn't hack the no strings deal.

So I put up just a little bit of a front. The thinking was that it would either convince her that I could hack it or that at the very least we'd still be friends out of it and I didn't mind, whichever way she wanted to take it. While she was washing up, I had a little time to think about how I wanted this to go and what I wanted to say to her about it. She's a great girl and we have chemistry. Some light adult fun in the sun wouldn't go amiss for me right now - so I'll admit I was keener on the 'fling' option - but I decided I'd let her make the call. For one thing I can't be bothered to chase after her if she resists, it's too much effort for the sake of a two week fling, but for another she has more experience with this whole schtick than me. I wager she can probably sniff out potential over-attachment or awkwardness better than I can in this situation.

Either way I would have kept hanging out with her, but I figured the best thing I could do this morning was my level best to convince her I was unlikely to overreact or declare my undying love out of it. She needed to know that I wouldn't make it awkward or heavy, so I let her know. Where we go from here… I assume we just go as normal and if anything happens it happens. It's cool if it does and it's cool if it doesn't, so long as I keep her for a surfing buddy either way.

Damn, thinking of sex and surfing makes me think of physical activity, which reminds me that I'm hungry and that there's a bike ride home to get done before I can have any food. Damn, my stomach's rumbling.

***

"So how long has he been MIA now?" I ask with a sip of wine. Addy must have the tallest wine glasses ever, the stems on these things are long as hell and I keep thinking I'm going to break mine.

"A few days. I thought he was supposed to be organising this trip to England but it seems like he's more concerned with his hook up. Either that or Tanya's finally done him in and buried him in a quarry somewhere."

I laugh at the unconcerned look on her face. "You seem fairly calm about that possibility."

"He died without a will, I'm sure I could get my hands on all his assets."

"What a loving, supportive sister. So how'd you think she finally killed him?"

"Well…" Addy muses, her head tipping thoughtfully to one side and mock contemplation creasing her brow. "I see it as a crime of passion so I'm thinking she clubbed him over the head with a vase. Though a frying pan would be funnier."

Don't even ask me how we got onto this conversation. We ate and we talked and gradually the light went away and now, just after sunset, we're sitting on her balcony in these great cushioned wicker chairs. Usually I hate wicker chairs, they're uncomfortable and leave imprints on your ass, but these are nicely padded and you can sink right into them. I have Addy's left foot still propped in my lap from the foot rub that finished about ten minutes ago. We've nearly drained a bottle of a good Bordeaux and I like this. By 'this' I don't mean the wine - it's decent and all but I'm not some alcoholic or great wine connoisseur - but just the sitting and chilling through a sunset. I like sunsets, they're all pink and orange. Those aren't usually my favourite colours but sunsets are cool. I like to kind of see the day off, like a farewell or something. Also, it's nice to sit and chill with some lazy conversation.

"But if you want all his money won't you need to have him declared dead first? Maybe you should call him just to check that he doesn't pick up the phone. That might point to him being alive."

"Eh, he'll answer his texts when he's ready," Addy says dismissively in one of her more normal moments. "I got a vague 'sorry, be back soon' message from him a couple of days ago so I'm assuming he knows what he's doing. And if worst comes to worst I'll tell Tanya that there's a spider in the bath so she needs to untie him and send him home."

I really did not need some kinky mental image of her brother being shackled to a bed or whatever. "You're afraid of spiders?"

"No, but she doesn't need to know that. It's a very cunning plan."

"It's a cunning plan?" I ask in the kind of tone that says I'm deeply unconvinced.

"Yes, it's as cunning as a fox who's Professor of Cunning at Oxford University."

That was a really lame joke. It was a very un-Addison joke too; she doesn't usually say things like that. "Say what now?"

"Oh I forgot, you're American - quoting Blackadder is probably lost on you."

"Black what now?"

She lets out a sigh, one that says I'm one of those stupid colonials who have no appreciation for English culture. "It was a BBC comedy."

"Fine." I shrug, making an exaggerated pretence at being pissed off. "Next time an opportunity presents itself I'll make some obscure Days of Our Lives reference and then look at you like you're a moron for not getting it."

"Wasn't Joey on Friends supposed to be in Days of Our Lives?"

"Yeah," I answer, glad to hear that at least some quality American programming makes it over here.

"Isn't it a soap opera?"

"Yes."

"So you just admitted to watching soap operas?"

Fuck, she's good. "Uhh…"

Addy breaks out into sunny peals of laughter, probably because of the 'I'm so busted' look that just passed over my face. I'm sorry, I spend a lot of time cooling my heels in hotel rooms and sometimes daytime television is the only option. There are only so many hours I can spend parked in front of Guitar Hero. She's got one hand grabbing at her stomach to subdue the chuckles and the way the other hand is shaking with the effort, the liquid in her glass is swirling and threatening to spill over at any point. Hey, it may not be very manly but watching soap operas is better than being bored out of your skull.

She may be poking huge amounts of fun at me all the time, but this is really nice. It's the mental equivalent of a broken record, I keep thinking it over and over again, but I guess that anything being nice is a novelty after everything that's been going on. Much as I hate to keep mentally harping on at myself about this, I really have been a wretched bastard for the past few months. The more time I spend out here relaxing the better I seem to feel, so I'm starting to wonder if maybe this terrible thing going so wrong in my life was just me stretching myself too thin. After all the worry it seems almost too simple to be the answer, but then Mom always says that things are usually simpler than we build them up to be.

There was me panicking that my life or career or something huge was going to have to be cut, but maybe I just didn't learn the lesson that I thought I did after I made Justified. I promoted that album too much and ran myself ragged and got sick of the sound of my own voice. I saw myself everywhere and I was even fed up of my own reflection in the mirror because my face was already plastered over everything else, so I swore I'd learn to stop and smell the roses. Between albums and tours and movies and businesses, maybe I haven't done that. Maybe I shouldn't just learn to do something other than music so I can keep music fresh; maybe I should learn how to do nothing once in a while so I can keep myself fresh. The 'workaholic' accusation isn't exactly unfair when it comes to me.

Huh. After all that gloom and introspection and self doubt, if this is the big epiphany then it's a little anti-climatic.

"Hey. Where'd you go?" She pokes at my stomach with the foot that's still in my lap.

"Oh, sorry." I give her ankle a squeeze by way of apology. "I zoned out."

"We've probably been slouched out here for too long. These chairs will put you to sleep."

"The wine probably doesn't help," I tell her with a yawn. "Wine always makes me sleepy."

"Yeah, it's weird," she replies. As she yawns and stretches I see a sliver of her stomach poking out from under her camisole. "Beer chills me out, spirits make me rowdy but wine puts me to sleep."

"Beer and spirits work pretty much the same for me," I shrug. "It's all good for the party."

"Do you do a lot of partying back home?" Addy asks curiously as she drains the last dregs of her glass. "It's kind of weird that you see me in my natural setting but I have no idea what you're like when you're back on the clock."

She can say that a-fucking-gain. She has no fucking idea who I am or what I'm like on the clock. She still thinks I'm the finance man. It's an interesting point, though - I guess that's another reason why she's wary of tourists. What they see is always what they get, but she has no idea if these folk are even remotely the same person when they let loose their holiday inhibitions as they are back home in the daily grind. Hell, I'm not sure that if she'd seen me in LA knowing even vaguely who I really was she would have paid any attention to me at all, apart from the usual 'celebrity at four o' clock' kind.

"Well…" It takes me a few moments of screwing my face up and mental straining to think of how to answer this question honestly. "Yes and no. In my industry I'm expected to put on a lot of show, and a big part of that is showing up to the right events and schmoozing. And I like to relax on my own time too, do the more chilled kind of partying where you're not worried about networking."

"The type that's actually fun instead of another work chore?"

"Exactly," I nod. "But it's not like I'm out every night. I still need enough energy to get on with doing what I do and I ain't twenty one any more. I've grown out of it; I'm a lot more selective about where I turn up now."

"This is kind of the bonus to moving up the ladder I suppose. Not that I as a teacher have much of a ladder to be climbing since I have no desire to ever be a head teacher. I might manage head of department but that's about it."

"You're not ambitious, then?" I ask curiously. I've been so ambitious since I was knee high to a grasshopper that I can't even imagine being anything less.

The darker it gets, the more her hair kind of fades into the night sky. It's almost like there's a mass of shadow blending her in, like she's being drawn back out of the world or something. Clearly I watch too many sci-fi and fantasy movies if I'm spouting shit like that, but it's interesting. I don't think Addy quite understands how pretty she is. The fact that she's so make-up and fashion free all the time is a welcome change to the hyper-grooming of Los Angeles and celebrity circles in general. Most of the time back home I'm wishing I could see women without all the war paint on, but here I actually wonder what she'd look like if she suddenly decided to make herself up more. She manages to be gorgeous as hell bare faced in flip flops and shorts, she might give a few guys a heart attack if she started trying much harder.

"No." Addy shrugs delicately, hugging her free leg to her chest and propping her chin on her knee. "I was always a fairly chilled out person anyway, but living so well here on relatively little I know that I'm already content as it is and I don't need to go constantly searching for some grand goal to make life good."

"Wow. Wish I could take that attitude, probably be a lot less stressed out." I'm only half joking by that.

"Eh." Her lips purse slightly. "Sometimes I think I get a little too complacent. I like being content but at the same time I don't want to just coast by and not achieve anything."

"Maybe that exchange thing would be a good idea then," I suggest. "Mix it up a little and give you a new experience without you suddenly trying to revolutionise the profession or anything."

"The more this London thing with Mike moves on, the more I think about that," she confides. Her nails scratch lightly at the back of her head, and I wonder if she's like me and gets itchy when uncomfortable. "I've pretty much decided that if I do it I'll go to NYC, but I'm still umm-ing and aah-ing. New York would be like going to another planet, it's so fast paced."

"True. But maybe that's what you need, if only for a little while. If you like it you could probably get a visa and stick around but if you don't then it's only one school year and you could run home and vow never to leave again."

Addy chuckles at that; it's a lower and more subtle sound than the ringing laughter of the 'Justin's a little housewife who watches soap operas' revelation.

"I don't know. You're the one who's changed pace most recently, how's it working out for you?"

"Good," I answer honestly and with a smile. "I feel a little better, I actually have a tan for once in my life, and I even got laid. It's been a pretty successful trip."

Yep, that's the ringing laughter again.