Chapter 15 #2
Yesterday evening, Simon and I watched the Victoria Beckham documentary together.
(We both had a lot to say about it afterwards.) We were so cold (the evenings are getting chillier and the heating takes a bit of time to warm up) that we sat snuggled up together under a blanket on the sofa.
I imagine for a second snuggling up to Marcus like that and, honestly, I’m boiling immediately.
It probably isn’t Marcus himself, though, it’s any straight attractive man.
Although… Rick? No. He wouldn’t do it for me now.
Any of my other straight male friends? No.
There’s something about Marcus. Probably because he’s a new friend.
And also so gorgeous. I probably just need a bit of time to get used to his extreme handsomeness.
Marcus clears his throat and I jump.
‘The till.’ I wish my voice hadn’t come out quite so high-pitched. ‘The till.’ Gaaah, weirdly low. And, also, there was no actual need to say it twice. ‘Right. So. To open it you press here.’ Thank goodness. I’m actually sounding normal now.
Marcus moves a little to get a better look and our arms bang against each other, causing the most immense tingle to run through my whole body. I’m just staring at his forearms, which are kind of flexing, and wondering if all forearms have muscles there and if they’re always this sexy.
He clears his throat. ‘Like this?’ he asks.
I tear my gaze away from his lovely arms and look up at his equally lovely profile and cannot think at all.
‘Like what?’ I ask, my voice shaky.
‘Like…’ He looks down at me and presses his lips together for a moment, and I blink.
He says nothing at all for a long moment, while I just stare at him. To be fair to me, he’s staring right back.
‘Is it…’ His voice is very hoarse. ‘Is it easy to work?’
‘Very easy,’ I say, my own voice low and still a little shaky.
‘That’s… great, then.’
‘Yes.’ I take a deep, jerky breath, and say, ‘So… you think you can manage?’
He nods, still staring down into my eyes.
‘Great, then,’ I say eventually.
‘Yeah.’ His voice is so low it somehow catches me right inside, and, honestly, my stomach’s turning to liquid.
A beeping sound starts, and I ignore it, because I don’t want to stop looking at Marcus.
And then I suddenly remember that I put a cake in the oven earlier, and that’s the timer.
‘Cake,’ I say.
‘Cake?’ Marcus repeats, smiling at me.
‘Cake,’ I confirm.
He nods, and I find myself nodding too. I’d do anything Marcus did right now. It’s the smile. It does strange things to you.
‘Cake,’ I suddenly remember again.
Marcus’s smile quirks upwards. ‘Cake?’
‘Oven.’ I point and my finger touches his chest by mistake. ‘Sorry.’ His chest is lovely.
‘No problem.’
‘I need—’ I’m finding it really hard to focus and to explain this ‘—to get a cake out of the oven.’
‘Got it.’
Marcus shifts to one side, just as I shift to the same side, and we bump into each other.
Then we both move to the other side, and bump into each other again.
I’m struggling to breathe normally, obviously because this is just awkward.
‘I’ll…’ Marcus points to his left.
‘Perfect. I’ll…’ I point to my left too.
And then, very, very carefully, we each move in the opposite direction from the other and I go into the kitchen and take the – now slightly overdone – cake out of the oven.
‘Is the cake okay?’ Marcus asks from behind me.
‘Slightly too dark brown on top, but I can sprinkle icing sugar over it and no-one will ever know.’
‘Genius.’ He smiles at me again, and, for feck’s sake, off I go again, adoring the way his eyes crinkle and the perfect imperfection of his teeth and the way his lips move. I’m losing my mind.
‘Exactly,’ I say, very firmly, like we’re having a serious conversation about genius. I think very hard about how we came to be here in the little kitchen together.
Walk, I tell myself. He’s covering for me. I really should go. This is all feeling very odd and I should clear my head.
‘Are you still sure you’re happy to babysit the café for a few minutes?’ I check.
‘Definitely. Walk for as long as you like.’
* * *
The cooler air outside the café acts like a bucket of cold water on the seriously out of control whatever it was I was feeling in there, and by the time I’ve got to the end of the High Street, I’m back to normal and just hoping that Marcus didn’t notice that I was experiencing a very strong case of lust.
I walk around the village for about fifteen minutes, firmly pushing Marcus out of my mind and focusing on the beauty of the orange, red and brown leaves, the sunlight dappling across the lanes, the sounds of birds.
When the silence is disturbed by the sound of a lone car in the distance, I reflect that in London you never hear a lone car; instead there’s just a constant drone of vehicles.
Maybe… maybe I should think about staying here a little longer than I originally intended.
In which case, I should definitely not be having any more little moments with Marcus.
I mean, I shouldn’t be anyway.
And we weren’t really. I mean, he probably wasn’t at all. It was probably just me. And I’m an idiot.
Anyway. Time to go back. He’s already gone above and beyond holding the (extremely un-busy) fort for me.
* * *
When I get within earshot of the café, I discover that it is in fact absolute bedlam in there.
In my absence, a coachload of tourists has turned up.
We don’t usually get tourists in the village because for some (in my opinion lucky) reason it remains firmly off the beaten track, despite its beauty.
When we do get tourists, some people (Simon) are divided between joy that he’s suddenly got so much more custom (as the only café in the village, with the only other sustenance option being the pub, which does not serve cake) and horror about how busy it all suddenly feels.
Others (most people) are purely horror-stricken.
Right now, Marcus – a man who so far in my experience has basically looked in control and comfortable at all times – is wild-eyed, a tea towel flung over his shoulder, something (possibly jam?) smeared across his cheek, writing in a notebook while glancing around the room.
‘Thank God,’ he says when he sees me hurrying across the café to him. ‘Nightmare. Seriously. I took orders but I couldn’t find a pen and I didn’t think of using my phone and now I’ve forgotten all of them.’
I take a second to smile at him and say, ‘I’m sorry but that is cute.’
And then – because a lot of the tourists are very tall and they’re all speaking (Dutch) at once – I stand on a chair and holler, ‘So sorry but please could we have some quiet for a moment.’ And then I get everyone seated and take everyone’s orders (writing them down like any sensible person would) and give Marcus some paper towel to wipe his face, accept his offer to stay and help on condition that he does not use his initiative whatsoever but just does what I say, and then we get busy.
‘This is massively above and beyond,’ I say to Marcus about twenty minutes later when everything is fully under control and we’re ploughing our way through all the orders.
(The fridge and freezer stock have been massively depleted so either Simon or I will have to go to the cash and carry this evening, which is both satisfying and annoying.) ‘I so mis-sold this to you.’
‘I will say that time goes a lot more quickly when there are a million people to serve. I’ve enjoyed it. Well, I enjoyed it once you got back. I didn’t love it when I was on my own and completely out of control.’
‘You should surely go now,’ I say. ‘You’ve been here for ages.’
‘Not leaving until we’ve got these orders sorted. Start a job, you want to finish it. For satisfaction.’
‘Are you sure?’ I ask suspiciously. ‘You aren’t just saying that to be nice?’
‘Yes I’m sure.’ And then he fills a tray with three bowls of soup plus bread rolls and coffees and takes it in the direction of the wrong table.
‘Marcus,’ I hiss, indicating with my head. ‘Table seven.’
‘We are a great team,’ he says. ‘I mess up; you sort me out.’
‘I mean, usually it’s the other way round,’ I point out. ‘The big thing, our entire relationship.’
‘That just makes us an even better team. We have macro and micro covered.’
I smile and say, ‘We are great. But if you’re bored with the greatness or have stuff to do please, please don’t feel that you have to stay.’
Eventually, when everything’s quietened down and the Dutch tourists are all happily chomping away and seem fully understanding of the fact that there will be a little queue to pay because there’s only one till, Marcus agrees to go and get on with his own actual life.
I feel slightly weird when he’s gone, like I almost miss him. Well, of course I miss him. It’s a lot more fun doing this with him than without.