A Wedding in the Sun

Chapter 9

‘I’m sorry, Jo.’ His muttered words were nowhere near enough to make up for the current situation, but there was nothing else he could do.

‘“Thank you” will do better,’ she said gently, her brow furrowed as she concentrated on the task at hand, which was unfortunately dressing him. Pulling an enormous black T-shirt bearing the words ‘I’m not perfect, but I am French’ out of a shopping bag, she snapped off the tag with her bare hands and held it up critically.

‘Is that what size you think I am?’ he asked mildly. ‘And I’m not French.’

‘No, I didn’t think you were size XL, but I didn’t like the idea of squeezing you into size M with your arm in a sling.’

‘Ah. You’re right.’

‘Sometimes that does happen.’ She helped him undo the Velcro of the sling and take it off so she could slide the sleeve of the T-shirt up his arm. With one sleeve in place, she tugged the rest of the shirt gently over his head and he could slip his other arm in – all without moving his shoulder.

‘Did the nurses teach you how to do that?’ he asked.

‘The nurses at King’s College Hospital in London,’ she said with a nod. ‘Liss broke her arm when she was ten.’

‘Well, I thank them, then. And you.’

She gave a shrug in response. ‘I also didn’t miss the fact that you’re not French,’ she said drily as she carefully closed the Velcro on the sling. The nurses in Tarbes had given them both instructions on that. ‘But I didn’t have much time and you needed underwear, too.’

‘I hope you didn’t choose extra-large for those as well.’ He choked when he picked up the unintended implication of that. ‘I mean… not tiny either.’

Her gaze flitted to the ceiling. ‘Yes, I bought you tiny-penis-sized underwear. Mini-aubergine was the brand name. For goodness’ sake, I guessed probably medium, but I didn’t want them to be too small so I went with large. The size of your penis is probably the only thing I don’t know about you now.’

‘Hmm?’

She gestured to his shoulder bag. ‘There were a lot of forms to fill in. It’s nice to meet you, Juan Adrián Rivera Morales, birthday 15 February, forty-two years old, birthplace Madrid, Spain, resident of 21 Acreage Road, London, SE27 2HP. I can’t believe your name is actually Juan.’

‘The first part of my name. And you’re all ready to steal my identity.’

Instead of laughing at his stupid joke, she gave a withering sigh. ‘I liked you better when you were high on painkillers.’

Something in her tone triggered a distant memory. ‘Did I… was I an idiot? I remember screaming a lot. Did I say something?’

She shook her head lightly, patting his chest with a faint smile. There were hollows under her eyes, her hair was limp and messy, but she was somehow more beautiful every time he looked at her.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Does it hurt? The hard stuff they gave you might be wearing off already.’ She settled a hand on his good shoulder and peered at him. Her eyes were so lovely – shades of blue, with pale lashes and— Perhaps he was still feeling the effects of the drugs.

‘The pain is okay,’ he assured her.

It was disorienting to step out of the hospital into the evening light of a place he’d never seen in his life. After crossing a busy road, Jo led him up a suburban street, checking the directions on her phone.

‘Let me know if you need a rest. The hotel is quite far, but there was nothing around here.’

‘Jo, you’ve bought me clothes and dressed me, called my ex-wife, dealt with all the French bureaucracy and now you’re leading me to a hotel. You can’t do anything wrong right now. I will play Santa this year, if that’s what you want. I owe you – probably more than I’ll ever have the chance to repay.’

‘I’ll have to think of something,’ she said, but there was a tightness around her mouth that made him think he’d touched a nerve. She seemed tense.

The walk to the hotel took over twenty minutes and when they passed a little fast-food van on a green with tables set out under two bushy horse chestnuts, a shared look was enough to confirm that they both wanted frites for dinner and they made a beeline for it.

‘I know fine French restaurants are supposed to be the ultimate dining experience,’ Jo said, licking a spot of burger sauce off her thumb, ‘but these snack places are heaven.’

He had to agree, especially when he could almost see the stresses of the day falling from her shoulders. ‘I don’t want to eat a burger again if it’s not a goat’s cheese and honey burger,’ he joked, laboriously lifting the bun one-handed and dipping his head to grab a bite before something fell out. ‘Although I can’t seem to eat it without embarrassing myself.’

She nabbed a morsel of goat’s cheese from his paper plate and brought it to her lips. Ouch. Strange things happened to him when a woman had held his head in her lap while he was delirious with pain. His heart had migrated to his eyes.

‘Adrián, you’re looking at me weirdly again.’

He cleared his throat and tried to snap out of it. ‘Sorry, I must be tired.’

‘I’ve never seen you eat so slowly. The painkillers haven’t upset your stomach?’

‘No, it’s just difficult with one hand,’ he said dismissively, noticing that she’d finished her burger. His stomach was upset, but not from the painkillers. He was a bit green from the embarrassment of mooning over Jo on the night that his ex-wife was celebrating her upcoming marriage to someone else, while also making a mess at the table like a toddler.

‘You’ve never heard of asking for help?’

‘You’ve done so much already—’ When she held his burger up, his words petered out and he had no choice but to take a careful bite. Jo snorted a laugh that almost made the tension bearable. He ended up with honey in his beard and a smear of goat’s cheese on his nose, but he got through the burger much more quickly, finally batting her hand away and taking the last chunk when it was small enough to manage.

When he mopped up his face with a serviette and ran his fingers over his beard, he felt her eyes on him, but she looked away before he could begin to guess why.

The rest of the walk to the hotel was quiet. The suburban houses gave way to low-rise historic terraces with slate roofs and mansard windows, the streets lined with palms that gave him a stab of nostalgia.

But all he could think about was holding Jo’s hand.

Arriving at the hotel, he said pointedly, ‘I’ll fill in the form,’ when they walked up to the reception desk in the drab foyer. ‘I’m right-handed and you’ve filled in enough forms today.’ But he quickly realised he didn’t know any of her personal information, whereas she knew all of his.

She picked up the pen to fill in her section and he peered over her shoulder to note her birthdate: 18 April. She was four years older than him. He hadn’t thought it was quite so much, but that was because it obviously didn’t matter whether she was older or younger.

‘If I steal your identity, you’ll at least have mine to fall back on?’ she asked casually when she caught him looking.

‘Just checking when I need to send you a singing card next year,’ he joked, heading off in the direction of the rooms.

She eyed him. ‘Are you trying to remind me about the PTA thing with the choir? I’ve been very good about the truce, you might have noticed, but I am still angry on behalf of the softball team. The choir had, what, five members? The softball team was the best in the county!’

‘The choir would have had even fewer members if it was up to you and the PTA mafia. If they hadn’t done well at that competition – that we paid for – the school might have cancelled them!’

‘Like you cancelled Santa?’

Adrián couldn’t tell if they were fighting or flirting, but his skin prickled. It was a nice prickle, a pleasant ripple of life over his nerve endings. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t support the choir! You’re a singer!’ he said, suddenly making the connection.

‘I was a singer.’

‘Maybe because there wasn’t a decent choir on offer at your primary school.’

‘Are you breaking the truce? After I nursed you back to health?’

His lips twitched. They’d stopped walking. The number of their hotel room glinted silver behind her in the light of the kitschy wall sconces.

‘Thank you for nursing me back to health,’ he murmured, feeling lightheaded from the combination of banter, earnestness and the uncertainty in her eyes.

‘You’ve already thanked me too many times,’ she said in reply. ‘I’m not a nurse. I’m not good at that stuff.’

‘Which is exactly why I keep wanting to kiss you— I mean, thank you.’ Phew, close call. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.

Of course she’d noticed. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, just enough for his thoughts to run away with themselves. ‘You what?’ She shook her head to clear it, which only swung her hair onto her cheek. He wanted his hand there.

‘Eh, forget?—’

Whoosh, his stomach dropped and then soared. Jo’s lips. That was everything. Jo’s lips – on his. Wow. She kissed him softly, gently, pulling away again quickly, but it was too fleeting. He lifted his good hand to her head and swept his mouth against hers. That was much better.

Sparks went off inside his brain. He couldn’t have said how it happened, but her tongue nudged his and he was a second away from some kind of meltdown. Stepping closer – a move that pressed her into the door of their cheap hotel room – he tilted his head with a groan and came back for more – and more.

She fumbled for the key without tearing her mouth from his, contorting her arm to stick it into the reader, and then they tumbled into the room. He caught a glimpse of her closed eyes, felt her hand fist in his oversized shirt and marvelled that he felt rather drunk with all of these feelings roaring to life in him.

Then the heavy door fell shut with a click and threw the cramped entryway into complete darkness. The sound of their lips breaking apart was audible in the empty silence, as were the shared gasps of breath.

He couldn’t see her, but he could feel that she was there, only a foot away. ‘What are we going to do about what just happened?’ she asked in a whisper.

His thoughts flashed with a thousand terrible answers: forget everything else and tumble onto the bed; find out what the skin of your waist looks like; me on top; you on top; something wild and creative with nobody on top.

‘Adrián? Are you still there or have you buggered off?’

‘I’m still here,’ he choked out. ‘I’m just struggling to find an answer that’s not “Let’s just do it again”.’

‘Because it was probably a fluke, right, an amazing kiss? We don’t really know each other. We were just teasing each other and emotional about… God, so much to be emotional about.’

At least she admitted it had been amazing. The rest he didn’t like so much. ‘I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a fluke,’ he said drily. ‘But we can always test that theory.’

She gave him a playful shove, but it caught him on the shoulder and he yelped, whacking into a hard, poky object to his left and then jumping backwards into the door with a bang when he tried to extricate himself.

‘Argh!’ The throbbing in his shoulder flared up like a distress signal. She grabbed his shirt and for a second he wondered if she was trying to give him a hug and his hopeful other arm came around her.

But with a little click the lights in the room came on, glaring white to suit the generic hotel room. Adrián froze, realising his hand had landed on the little concave spot above her bottom and was rather happy there.

She’d just lifted her face to his, her eyes clouded – unfortunately not with unfettered desire – when the shrill sound of her ringtone sliced through the silence.