Page 16 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
Chapter Six
Thea stepped outside, glanced up at the open bedroom window, then hurried across the gravel and onto the grass that sloped down towards the road. She heard a cry, and looked up to see three black birds – cormorants, maybe – flying overheard, beaks trained on the crisp, sparkling blue of the sea.
She had fled the bedroom, explaining that she needed to wash up their mugs, even though she’d had to knock back half her drink to make it seem remotely plausible, and had left Ben’s with him when she realised it was too close to his tanned arms and his strong torso and his warm, sunny smell for her to dare go near it.
She pressed the speed dial number that would connect her to Esme, and waited while it rang.
‘Thea?’ her friend said, her voice light with laughter, and Thea heard a familiar, male chuckle in the background. Not even ten o’clock on a Monday, and Esme was already with Alex. She felt a familiar pang of jealousy, then realisedshe couldn’t afford to be jealous when there was important panicking to do instead.
‘How are you?’ she asked, because it was ingrained in her to be polite.
‘I’m good! What’s happening with you? What are you up to today?’
‘Uhm, going on another walk, I think.’
‘There’sloadsof stuff on our list, and I didn’t think your walk was a huge success yesterday. Why not opt for the beach today, especially if you’ve got as much sun as we’ve got in Bristol? I’m worried our volunteers will get heatstroke if they’re working next to the window.’ Thea heard Esme turn away and say something to Alex, and she waited, pressing her flip-flopped foot into the long grass.
‘Ben’s offered to take me on a walk,’ she said when her friend was back with her. ‘No, that makes me sound like a dog. He’s offered toaccompanyme on another walk. He knows the area, so he can show me the best sights.’
Thea thought Esme had drifted into festival preoccupation land, but after a moment she said, ‘Mr Irascible Hash Browns?’
Thea laughed. ‘The very same. He’s currently fixing my bed, which broke, and I—’
‘OK, you don’t need our list any more, clearly!’
‘It’s all got a bit complicated, and I … what should I do?’
‘What do youwantto do?’
‘I … uhm.’
‘If you were totally against going, then you wouldn’t be calling me,’ Esme pointed out. ‘You want to go, but for some reason you don’t think you should.’
‘He’s too handsome,’ Thea blurted.
‘Oh, well then. Definitely don’t go with him.’ Esme’s eye-roll was almost audible.
‘He’s just … he is way out of my comfort zone,’ Thea explained, feeling a familiar churn in her stomach. Unlike Alex, who was all familiarity and kind, encouraging smiles, or her two previous boyfriends, Elias and Jon, who had been straightforward and predictable, in a way that had made her feel secure. It wasn’t just that Ben was basically a stranger, it was that he had huge pockets of unknowability, a metaphorical sign that said, ‘Don’t come closer.’ Because of that, she found that she alreadywanted to know more about him, to peel back his layers. But surely, like with so many things, where there was temptation, there was also danger.
The background of the phone call changed, and she imagined Esme moving away from the main area of the library, which would be a hive of activity in the days before the festival. There would be bunting going up; posters detailing the locations and times of the events; displays celebrating each author and their myriad books.
‘Theophania,’ Esme said, in that firm but gentle tone Thea knew so well.
‘Esmerelda,’ Thea echoed back, as she always did, even though it wasn’t Esme’s name.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because he justis,’ Thea said, already tired of the conversation, even though she’d instigated it. ‘He’s confident and attractive and he’s … there’s something really remote about him. He offered to go on a walk with me, and he’s been kind, gone out of his way to help me, but he’s also a bit … unfathomable. Like he’s at least fifty per cent secrets.’
‘But you’re still tempted?’
Thea looked back up at the bedroom window. She couldn’t see him inside: he was probably still kneeling, fixing the new piece of wood to the broken slat.
‘It’s hard being here on my own,’ she admitted, thinking of what Ben had said to her the day before, the way he had seemed to understand her contradictory feelings. ‘I’m definitely tempted.’
‘Good. And you know,’ Esme added, ‘a holiday romance wasn’t specifically on our list of things to do, but that doesn’t mean—’
‘There’s no way,’ Thea said, laughing. She pictured Ben, working in her bedroom, with his tanned arms and his hidden thoughts, and she realised that she didn’t feel threatened by him, put off by his looks or his presence in the way she had done yesterday. She still knew very little about him, but he’d come to her aid, offered her freezer items, not hesitating for a second when she’d asked him for help, and all those things had made him seem instantly softer, more approachable. She thought of how she hadn’t been able to step close and pick up his mug a moment ago. She was still having a reaction to him, but it wasn’t that she was feeling threatened – that had been something else entirely.
