Page 38 of The Custard Tart Cafe by the Sea
I’m so happy for my friend. I am hoping she will overcome the inevitable challenges of a long-distance relationship, should the pair of them decide that this is more than a holiday fling. I’m also going to admit it: I’m more than a little envious too. Tiago didn’t shy away from announcing he had fallen for me, an affirmation which totally got my pulse racing and blood pumping, but the compromise is too gargantuan. Being with Tiago in any shape or form would be nothing but a risk. Love shouldn’t feel that way and I am DONE with anyone trying to thwart my creativity. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just another life lesson, in what has turned into a very long line of people and scenarios trying to stop me from doing what I was born to do.
Jumping into the backseat of Santi’s hiking company minibus with Kelly, the happy couple in the front, I vow to stop living in the past and keep myself rooted in the present, eking out every last rustic quinta pleasure from this holiday so that I can return to The Custard Tart Café refreshed and reinvigorated, ready to take on the summer season with my team.
Bring it on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I’ve been anervous wreck all morning and I am properly forwallowed– yep, another Reggie word– that is to say, exhausted from tossing and turning all night. So much for those last couple of days of sun, pool, and cake feasting in the quinta’s little bakery restoring my balance. We never got around to chatting about what day and time he’d be flying back when we hooked up unexpectedly mid-week, but it’s pretty obvious Tiago will be on the very same flight as me this morning. Never mind those recurring dreams about being back at school, now I’m having recurring dreams about our night of passion together. Pfft. They are heaven and they are hell.
I’m dreading looking into those eyes again, reliving their burning intensity as Tiago undressed me at his leisure, taking in every inch of me– curves and stretch marks included– evidently liking all that he saw. Try as I might, I can’t forget how turned on he was. Which means I am now a walking advertisement for blusher. Nobody would need to talk me into a makeover at Faro airport’s cosmetics counters today. These thoughts seem deeply inappropriate in such a public place. I run my hand through the length of my knotted half-up half-down hairstyle (which I promise is hair art, and more elegant than it sounds) in a quest to distract myself from my shame.
Radhika and I wait patiently in the check-in queue in the airport terminal for Kelly to drop off the rental car and sort out the paperwork, saving her a space much to the annoyance of our fellow passengers. Then the three of us make our way through to Departures, thankfully minus the repacking drama this time. Keen to stock up on yet more Portuguese foodie inspiration for her future ice cream ventures, Kelly leaves us again to hit the small selection of over-priced shops. Please let her refrain from getting any Heston Blumenthal ideas about sardine ice cream…
“How are you feeling?” I ask Radhika, to take my mind off the constant urge to look over my shoulder. Initial signs are good: there is NO trace of my holiday fling. And who’s to say he hasn’t booked to be here for eight, nine, ten or eleven days? With flights heading to Bristol daily, nobody needs to restrict themselves to a mere seven-day break nowadays.
“I won’t know until I’m back in Bath, I guess.” She shrugs. “Something will give. It always does. He’s a too-good-to-be-true package. That much is for sure.”
“In my humble experience, there’s no such thing, my friend,” I try my utmost to reassure her, despite having no real track record to go on myself. “Santi’s sure to reveal annoying habits, in time. Stinky socks lying around, the toilet seat left up, farts and burps… if you two decide to keep seeing one another, that is,” I add tentatively.
“If.How I bloody hate that word. It needs to be banished from the dictionary,” says Radhika. “He insists he’ll be visiting once the summer season is over, though. And I’ve already booked flights for a trip out to see him in August, albeit I will have to do a lot of walking in crazy temps as it’s peak tourist season so he’ll be fully booked with his hiking trails. I guess that gives us hope, gives this thing– whatever it is– some legs?”
“Are you kidding? Of course it does! That’s fantastic, and totally worth the sacrifice of wilting in the woods again for.” I grab my friend by her shoulders and twirl her round with me, making both of us laugh like idiots.
On the third spin my giggles slow right down until they come to a very abrupt stop. I sidestep slowly until I am facing the café again.No way!Why does the universe have to test me like this? Goddesses of fate, I thought you were on my side?
“Willow, what’s up?” Radhika frowns deeply, following my line of vision. “Ohhhhh,” she says.
Yeah. Oh, indeed. Tiago is standing at a tall chrome table, leisurely tucking into a mass-producedpastel de nata.
“Somebody’s lowering their standards,” I snipe. “How can anything from an airport café possibly live up to Grannie’s golden touch?”
And then I stop myself. Grannie Elsa is a diamond, my heart reminds me. She has to be a gem to put up with her grandson! It’s no wonder he’s protective of her baking in return. Then my head cuts in–well, yes, to a degree.
“I still can’t believe both of us got laid on this holiday,” says Radhika in such a casual manner, it’s as if we’re talking about the weather. “You’ve got to feel sorry for Kelly and the banality of marriage…”
“Matt and I are still newlyweds, I’ll have you know,” Kelly sneaks up on us out of nowhere, making us both jump. “There’s nothing to worry about in that department, I can assure you. We may not follow the Kama Sutra to the letter but we do like a little role play and fantasy dress up from time to—”
“Enough!” I scream, covering my ears. I don’t want to imagine either of the friends who make up this happy couple in a cop costume and accessories, or anything more unconventional, thanks very much.
“But the same person, forever and ever… until one of you dies?” Radhika lets that thought hang a little uncomfortably in the air.
If myeventualsame person forever and ever (who clearly hasn’t come into my life yet) made me feel the way Tiago did the other night (minus the accompanying fiasco) I’m sure I could live with that. I give in to the daydream and park myself on a chair in a bank of plastic seats facing away from him. The gates are in the opposite direction to us and with any luck he’ll head straight for them anyway, meaning I can cocoon myself here for as long as possible until the final stragglers are boarding the flight, then run like the clappers to do the same. Or, so I thought.
“You’re here!” a familiar male voice cuts through the daydream he’s currently appearing in, taking me right back to the way he greeted me in his family’spasteleria.
Sugar, sugar,sugar!
My heart almost flies out of my ribcage at his sudden appearance and I swear somebody’s cranked up a thermostat. Why didn’t I plump for a vest top? I know it’ll be at least ten degrees cooler in Blighty, but, well, we’re not there yet, are we? Kelly and Radhika had better not have anything to do with this set up. I turned my back for literally all of half a minute. Now I find an incredulous-at-discovering-me Tiago blocking my view of the departures screen. He looks down at me with his warm chocolate eyes and my belly completely flips. I pull my legs up onto the seat and instinctively hug them to my chest like a child. Meanwhile Tiago just stands there, a huge smile lighting up his face, suggesting fate has brought us together again, when really it’s the simple matter of an easyJet timetable.
“Unfortunately, so are you,” I mutter under my breath, looking sideways out of the giant window to catch a plane taking off on the runway beyond.
“Willow, look, I’m sorry. Really I am. You have to believe me. I’ve been racking my brains as to where in São Brás you could’ve been staying. You never did tell me. I’ve knocked on the doors of all the hotels, bed and breakfasts, and even the Airbnbs, trying to find you.”
Wow, okay. Now this is starting to sound like the Cinderella fairy tale– well, if you overlook the fact that it was the king’s herald who did the dirty work of rapping at the doors with his trumpeters in tow… and this version of the story is decidedly more Birkenstock, less glass slipper.
“I realised as soon as you left the other morning that I was wrong. I should have come clean immediately about the petition being fake.” Ha, more than likely only after Elsa gave you yet another stern talking to. “I’ve hardly been able to relax wondering how to get hold of you to apologise, to try and put things right between us so we might try to—”
“Well, now you don’t have to,” Kelly cuts in, her sickly sweet voice floating over the back of the chair so that I’m in no doubt it was she who alerted Tiago to my whereabouts. “We’ll leave you two lovebirds to it.” She takes Radhika by the arm and they march toward the boarding gates.
