I was about to ask Addison if she feels pushed out when everyone around her starts speaking Spanish, but then I remembered that she's fluent. So it'll just be me, then.

It's not that people have been excluding me - everybody's been insanely nice but in a beautifully disinterested way. It might sound weird that I'm enjoying the fact that they're just making polite conversation and aren't especially interested in more than a 'oh, new person' way, but this is fucking awesome. Nobody here is kissing up to me, nobody. This is it; this is what it's like to be a regular person of no special interest. I like it. They all speak pretty good English and I've chatted with everybody over the last three hours, it's just hard to find an opening into a conversation with anybody different than Mike or Addy if they've lapsed into Spanish.

Umm… I hope this isn't me just being an egotistical bastard, but before everybody else arrived I had wondered if maybe… Lord, I'm such a dumb ass. I almost wondered if maybe I would somehow dislike the feeling. From the age of twelve I've had people who don't know me know my name and what I do, I've had the spotlight on me in a pretty intense way. I've spent most of my life being famous and having that adulation from complete strangers; it's been over a decade since I could walk into a room anonymously. I admit it, sometimes I like that - you can't live this long under that kind of attention without your ego growing at least a little. It's flattering in a lot of ways, so I kind of worried that maybe when people didn't pay so much attention to me tonight I might not like it as much as I thought I would. There are definitely aspects of fame I don't like as much as I thought I would, so I figured the same might be true of anonymity.

Thankfully, my fears were unfounded. Tonight has been awesome. There have been a few awkward lapses in conversation but that also happens when people are kissing your ass because you're famous, that I'm used to.

"Hit me," Addy says, interrupting my mental monologue.

"Uhh… you've got twenty," Mike says raising his eyebrow.

"And you're got an Ace there so that works fine. Hit me."

He duly gives her the hit and it's the ten of spades, so not an Ace then - so much for the power of positive thinking. On the bright side, I just won the princely sum of two Euros. She kind of sucks at this, it's like the woman can't count. Or more accurately, she can count but hasn't quite realised that the laws of probability cannot be bent by sheer determination. Oh well, more for me. Heaven knows I haven't got enough millions in the bank, two Euros will be a big help.

"Woman, you need to start quitting while you're ahead."

"Oh shut your gob, arse."

I love it when she gets British. It's funny, it's like her accent becomes just a little bit stronger - I think living so long with Spanish has changed it from the one she was brought up with slightly but when she speaks British she gets real British. People usually look at me funny when I say things like 'talking British,' but it's true. Americans and Brits may all speak English but there are some things only a British person would say and some things only an American would say. So, very logically I feel, I refer to them as British and American respectively. There're also subsets of US states and UK countries and whatever but that gets far too complicated so I stick to the generics.

I assume 'gob' means mouth, right?

"I'm going for some more beer, try not to lose too much money before I get back," he says rolling his eyes at her. "Justin?"

"Oh, no thanks, still working on this one." I pick up my half full bottle and wave it at him in demonstration.

"Addy?"

"You could get me some more of the same, thank you."

She hands a long stemmed wine glass to him and I think it has the dregs of either sangria or straight red wine in it. Either way, I'm impressed by how sober everyone here seems to be. They're all drinking like fish and they barely seem tipsy; does that mean they do this a lot? I've heard Europeans are very relaxed about alcohol but I thought that was just France.

Mike disappears and she picks up the cards, but she makes no move to start dealing any. It's kind of funny how they and I have seemed to drift off from the rest of the crowd. Not intentionally at all, I had a really good conversation with Antonio earlier about guitars and with Dante and his cousin about surfing, but it just seems to have worked out this way. We're on the balcony while everybody else is crawling all over the kitchen and living room. Nobody seems offended by it all, it's almost like they all live here. I now see what Addy meant about this place being the base of operations, nobody needs to ask where anything is and they definitely walk around like they all live here.

"Sooo, Mr Timberlake…" She draws out my name longer than I thought possible. I sense a question coming.

"Yes?" I reply warily.

"Umm… no, it's gone. I had a question and it's just gone."

I give a low chuckle, still giving her a cautious eye. The wine's brought a flush to her cheeks. She was pretty laid back to begin with but now she's even mellower. They all are actually, I can't imagine what any of them would think if they had to live my usual schedule.

"Well if it's that important you'll remember it."

"I could just ask you lots of random other ones," she shrugs.

"So long as I have the right to pass on as many as I want, shoot." It's so sad that even in real life away from the industry I still have to use that caveat. Of course, the big stinking lie about my occupation hasn't helped with that.

Addy drums the cards against the table, pushing a strand of dark hair out of her face. She's got a fringe that's growing out and is that touch too long, it's getting in her eyes. Man, compared to her tan I look like Casper, I need to lay out on the beach for a while tomorrow.

"Alright then, number one, where do you come from?"

"Memphis," I answer easily. That was a nice easy one.

"Brothers and sisters?"

"Two half brothers, parents are divorced." Again, not a very taxing question.

"How'd you get into banking?"

Shit. "My Dad - well, step dad but I call him Dad, he's a banker." Technically, nothing I said there is false. It's just that in the context of the question it infers an agreement that I am in fact a banker - which I'm really not.

"Girlfriend, friends, pets?" She jumbles them all in together. She's got a nice smile on her face, is just being friendly and asking out of interest, but already she's making me uncomfortable. I may have to turn this little conversation around.

"Single, lots of friends, two dogs."

"A man of few words," she smirks. "Okay, umm…"

"What about you?" I'll interrupt and make this all about her. This saves me from any more questions and as a bonus makes me look really attentive and interested in what she has to say. Chicks like that.

"What specifically about me?" She says with a laugh. "Narrow it down a bit."

"Where do you come from?"

"Berkshire, Windsor specifically."

"How'd you get into teaching?"

"Can't stand tourists or what my Dad does, it was my only other option."

It was the face she pulled, it was just funny and I laughed a little harder than I should. It was all crossed eyes and scrunched up nose. "Boyfriend, friends, pets?"

"No boyfriend, you've met most of my friends except the ones who live in England or on Playa del Sol, and no pets."

"Bet you score a lot of tourists, huh?" I waggle my eyebrows at her and get a scowl back that's mostly joking but I suspect has a more serious edge to it. It's the way she set her lip.

"I just told you I hate tourists. Besides, unless you just want a quick fling there's zero point."

"Why?" I ask, settling back into my chair and taking a slug of my beer. She's probably sick of me asking inane questions, I was throwing them at her all this afternoon too, but I like hearing about her life. It's so utterly different from mine.

"Because they leave and forget all about you," she snorts. "We all learned that pretty quickly. Never mind all these Women's Weekly stories about true love surviving the distance, ninety nine times out of a hundred they bugger off home, probably to their girlfriends or boyfriends, and forget all about you. You might get letters of e-mails for all of two weeks and then that's it."

"Doesn't sound too bad," I muse out loud. "If you're aware of that before you start." I've had a few no strings flings in my time, I have to admit. Not on vacation, I can't really do that in my position - really have to be careful who I hook up with - but it's gone okay for me.

"It's never just no strings though," she shakes her head at me. "People come on holiday and the sun and booze goes to their heads and they have these overly histrionic, intense romances that they're convinced are the real thing. That's fine if you're both tourists, you just go back to your real lives and it's easy to remove yourself from it because you were somewhere foreign, but the problem for us is that this is our real life. We don't get to leave our broken hearts on vacation and go back home and forget it, because this is home. Also, some of these tourists just look like they've been through a few folk on the island before they got to you and that's just a health risk."

Ah ha! Inane chatter aside, I think I just caught a full on glimpse of Miss Addy Elliott. She makes a cheap joke at the end to deflect from the fact she just opened up a little - I do that too, especially in interviews - but she's also just let me know that some guy at some point came to this island on vacation and broke her heart. That sucks for her. What she said about not being able to leave it behind kind of struck a chord though; it's not exactly the same, but the media never likes to leave my break ups alone so I can't escape them either. It's weird, but even though that whole situation she just described is totally alien to me I now feel like our lives actually have something in common.

Fuck, I must be drunk. I never get this philosophical when I'm sober.

"So no tourists, gotcha." I nod. "Well, for you anyway, I'm a tourist myself so I can still go home and leave it here."

She rolls her eyes at me with one of those head shakes like she wants to laugh but doesn't think she should encourage me by doing so. "Have at it, mate. Just try not to pick up anything nasty."

"No problem. If I need to I can just ask you what the Spanish is for condom."

"How can you guarantee I won't give you the Spanish for haemorrhoid cream just to get the laugh?"

I clutch my hand to my heart. "You'd do that to me? And here I thought we were getting to be friends."

"Haven't you heard? I'm evil to my friends. It's how I show affection."

"Fuck," I chuckle before slugging yet more beer. "If that's how you show affection remind me not to piss you off."

Is it just me or is Mike taking forever with those drinks? I peer in through the open door, but there's a mass of people blocking my view and I can't see him. Addy doesn't seem too bothered though. By this point she's slung the cards down and has pulled her knees up to her chest, curling up into her chair. She looks very small like that, very doll like.

"So what's Memphis like?" She asks. "I've never been anywhere except Orlando."

"It's… Memphis." That wasn't a helpful answer to the question. "I'm more LA based these days."

"I was actually thinking about applying for an exchange program in LA, go teach Spanish out there," she mentions casually.

"That'd be cool. Be totally different from here though, you'd have to be prepared," I smirk. "Probably like dealing with all those tourists you hate so much."

"Way to recommend the place." Is it me or does she roll her eyes at me a lot? Am I saying that much stupid crap or is this an extension of the 'I'm evil because I like you' thing? I haven't dealt with that since third grade when we hit the girls we like. "So is Memphis just a complete shrine to Elvis or what else is there?"

"Well you got Sun Studios and everything, but it's not just Elvis. The whole town is the birthplace of all this great rhythm and blues, you know?" I pause, licking my lips as I think how to explain it. "Not just Elvis, but Al Green lives near me and you have B.B Kings... I mean, you just think who was on the Sun label and it's people like Johnny Cash, and there's so much history in the town and that blues atmosphere is still live and kicking, you know? There's so many great horn players and guitarists still floating around the joint, the live music scene is awesome. You go there and it's still just this amazing town for blues and soul and…"

I stop when I realise that I'm rambling and she's sitting there with this small little grin on her face, kind of like a wistful sideways smile. It's cute, but I'm now kind of worried about what I said to cause it.

"So I'm guessing you like music, huh?"

Damnation and fuck - I really should not have got onto that subject. She still thinks I'm a finance man. Well, I got one lame comeback and I'm going to have to stick to it.

"I grew up in Memphis. It's required."

"Nah, it's cool." She smiles at me a little wider, just enough for a flash of teeth. "We're so technologically behind on this island that I get pretty much zero new music; I pretty much live off of my Dad's albums and whatever me or Mike can pick up when we go back to England. It gets awkward though because when you have zero connection to the music scene you have no idea who's any good, so my music taste is pretty much stuck where I left it in England with lots of Queen and David Bowie mixed in."

"You could do worse than Mercury and Bowie," I smile. I listened to fuck loads of Bowie before I made my second album… wait, best not think about such things because if I do they're more likely to fall out of my mouth without me thinking. Bankers do not have musical influences for their albums because they don't make albums.

Why the hell did I tell her I was a banker again?

"I have a favourite guitarist and it's Brian May," she shrugs. "So what do you do on your off time?"

"I like surfing, golf, basketball… I like movies," I say neglecting to mention I've been in a few, "obviously I like music… I don't know. Normal stuff. I like travelling."

"I haven't done a lot of travelling," Addy replies. "That's kind of why the exchange program appealed, I'd like to do some more of it… but then I just kind of never want to leave this beach."

"Why would you leave?" I snort. It's so peaceful here. The scenery and weather are beautiful, the people are nice. I've eaten better here than I have in months back home - it's all fresh fruit for breakfast and they do all these great fresh vegetables and they actually catch the fish around here and cook it fresh and practically still swimming. I no longer believe any US food that claims to be organic because I have now tasted the real thing and it's awesome. My mom would love it…

Oh. Yeah, I have that whole other life and career back home. That would be why I'll be leaving. At some point, anyway, there's no rush. With a guilty twang I now realise I haven't answered a single message or e-mail, haven't even checked my Blackberry in a week.

"Eh, I hear there're other good beaches in the world. At some point I should see some of them."

She meets my eye with a wry twinkle in hers and I have to say, this girl is cool. I've thought it before and I'll think it again, it's so tremendously fantastic to hang out with somebody who doesn't have a clue who I am and who isn't interested in my name or bank account. There's no pressure of any kind, no romance, nothing. I'm footloose and fancy free and it's intoxicating to hang out with somebody on that level where who you are doesn't matter and you're just good company for each other.

This vacation may be the best idea I ever had. Now if only I spoke a little Spanish…