Chapter 21
BEN
‘You alright there, Ben? That’s some kneading technique,’ Flo says as she watches me cook via FaceTime.
I’m kneading bread. I’m kneading it hard, feeling my muscles tighten in my shoulders because about an hour ago, I had sex in a stone shepherd’s hut with one of my retreat guests.
It was the sort of sweaty, intuitive, satisfying sex where every sinew, every part of me wanted her, to feel her, to give her pleasure.
One hour ago. Now it’s replaying in very vivid flashbacks.
The scent of her, the sound of her moans, the slight worry in the back of my mind that we were on Renata’s land and she had a gun.
But it was everything. Like a dream becoming reality.
I want you, she said. I loved it but now I’m nervously kneading bread and trying to work it all out.
Trying to sublimate all that energy into this dough.
This is the third day of the retreat. Was it too soon to be so impulsive?
Did that actually just happen? I normally wait for things like that to come to the boil.
Instead, I’m being left to stew on the other side of it.
We both walked back to the villa and agreed not to say a word to the others.
It’s not that sort of retreat. I’m the host. She’s the guest. We have four more days left.
I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about either of us. I am still a gentleman.
‘I think I’m just overtired,’ I tell Flo.
‘Leave the bread alone, Ben. What’s wrong? And footnotes, I’m about to set up for lunch.’
I see her sitting down in the restaurant and I glance over her shoulder to check the place is still standing.
‘Something happened,’ I say.
‘Something?’ Flo says. ‘You only call me to talk about your restaurant or your love life so I’m going to assume something has happened with one of the guests. The pretty one.’
I half grimace, half smile at being so easy to read
‘What exactly has Norah told you?’
‘Ben, we’re sharing a kitchen at the moment. Nothing is sacred,’ she says, laughing. ‘So, I did picture it might go this way…’ she explains.
‘What exactly did you picture?’ I ask.
‘It’s Ibiza and you’re all staying in Lorenzo’s villa. Norah was convinced it’d be some grown-up foodie retreat where you’d be picking wild mushrooms and cooking over campfires, but I knew it’d turn into some epic orgy. Please tell me you used protection.’
‘Phoebe said this whole retreat thing was yours and Norah’s idea,’ I tell Flo. ‘And what exactly do you take me for? Some holiday Romeo?’
She laughs so hard that her phone falls from its standing position. She readjusts it so I come back into focus. ‘Was it drunken sex by the pool? In the pool?’
‘No, it was in the day. I think it was deeper than that.’
Flo laughs as she interprets this all as innuendo.
The reason I called you, dear sister, is because I didn’t want that. I wanted the sister who doesn’t always laugh at me: the one in the middle who I can usually turn to.
‘I’m sorry, Ben,’ Flo says, studying my expression. ‘I know that face. It tells me you like her.’
‘Maybe. But it’s happened fast. There were trust issues in the beginning but then that changed. I do like her but then I hardly know her, right?’
Flo laughs at how nonsensical I am. ‘Sometimes you just know. I knew Samuel was the one for me because he used to buy me doughnuts as gifts. No flowers. Just doughnuts. It’s like he knew the key to my sugar-driven heart.’
‘I just don’t know what to do from here. We had sex but we’re keeping it from the other guests. It feels very clandestine.’
She looks confused by my manic energy. ‘You’d like to have sex with her again?’
‘Definitely. Without it looking like I only want to have sex with her. Without it appearing like rando holiday sex. I want to get to know her. I want to look after her and find out if she likes doughnuts or not.’
‘Everyone likes doughnuts. If she doesn’t then I’d have to have serious words with you over the viability of this relationship,’ Flo jokes. ‘What does she do?’
‘She’s an architect. She likes to draw. She has mousey brown hair with a slight curl, hazel eyes and two piercings in her left ear.
She likes to click her fingers while she talks like she needs a backing track.
Something tells me she’s really smart and thoughtful; I see something in her, something I don’t think she sees in herself. ’
Flo smiles, looking at me on the screen and shaking her head.
‘You think I’m a fool,’ I say.
‘I think you’re Ben,’ she replies, beaming.
‘So how do I play this? How do I show her I’d like this to be more than sex?’ I ask.
‘Now you have to bring the romance, kiddo. What’s on the menu tonight?’ she asks.
‘Pollo al ajillo,’ I tell her.
‘Garlic breath for later… sexy, sexy. I know you. Go easy.’
‘Also with fresh bay and thyme from the garden, the garlic is amazing – really sweet if you cook it down. I’ve baked some bread to go with it and I’m making a pear and frangipane tart for after.’
‘Have you started the tart yet? Put the pears with chocolate… trust me,’ Flo tells me. ‘Make that crust with the hazelnuts too, you’re excellent at that.’
I have some paper next to me and I write down notes.
‘Are you writing down your playbook of smooth moves for her?’ she jokes.
‘No,’ I say, putting down my pen. Maybe.
‘What you don’t realise is that you’ll be fine. You’re annoyingly loveable.’
‘That sounds like a veiled compliment,’ I say.
‘It’s mostly down to the good work us sisters have done but you are a bit magic, kiddo. Show her your magic.’
‘Is that innuendo? Because she’s seen that sort of magic already.’
Flo laughs. ‘Do you need any other sisterly wisdom?’ she says.
‘Is Phoebe cleaning the coffee machine?’ I ask.
‘Of course,’ she says.
‘Liar,’ I say, smirking. ‘Also, don’t tell Norah about this. She’ll tell me off and Phoebe will—’
‘Announce it on social media and make it a thing. Which is why you called your favourite sister.’
‘You’re all my favourites,’ I tell her.
‘And he calls me the liar. Love you, kiddo. Remember. Magic.’
I get back to work. But as I knead, I look up at the wall, at the old photos of this place, and at one in particular of Uncle Lorenzo, his shirt undone, sitting in the garden with a look of mischief on his face. The garden. And a memory slowly emerges. One from my childhood. Magic.