Chapter 34
CALLUM
And I’m trapped again. I should accept that this is going to be my fate for the foreseeable future, but at least Asha looks comfortable.
She’s got her nose tucked into my side like a wee sleepy puppy.
I half expect her to twitch her foot, dreaming about chasing a squirrel.
Which, upon further reflection, seems like something human Asha would dream about too, but not for dog-chewing related reasons.
She would want to snuggle the squirrel.
I didn’t think I would be charmed by how adorable she is, after the sexually charged night we shared, but here we are.
Arm asleep, aroused, protective, and whatever the word is for the state where I find something cute, I have a lot going on. Which is probably why Asha chooses this emotionally fraught moment to wake up.
Inconvenient ray of sunshine.
“Hi,” she whispers as she blinks sleepily. Again, like that wee puppy. But sexier.
“Good morning.”
She stays there, smiling up at me, and then I shift my arm and the sharp pins and needles almost make me black out in pain. I slide my arm out from under her, hoping I don’t hurt her, and clutch it to my body while I try to breathe through the pain.
“Why do you keep letting me do this to you? Just roll me over, dude. I am a very heavy sleeper; I will not notice.”
“But you were comfortable,” I say through gritted teeth.
Asha looks around like there’s something in this room that will make it better. “Oh, I have pain meds!”
“It’s fine.” I wave away the bottle she gets from her wee, whimsical bag.
“The blood just needs to flow again.” It’s already happening, and I move my arm to hasten the process, which unfortunately also increases the pain.
“Did you just call me ‘dude’?” I don’t think a woman has ever called me dude before, but that might be more a function of geography, me being an ocean away from the surfers of Southern California.
“Maybe. Who can recall what was said in the past? You can’t go around expecting me to remember things.”
“The past thirty seconds?”
“The past, nonetheless.”
Always an adventure with this one. One that I’m enjoying despite my best efforts to not be charmed by her. Despite how I shouldn’t be getting close to a coworker, especially one that I’m competing with.
Not that she acts like we’re competing. With her optimistic disposition, she hasn’t treated me any differently at the revelation that one of us is going to be out of a job.
The high of last night gets me through the morning, with a refreshed group ready to explore the Swiss Alps. No inane questions, no snappy tourists, no being blamed for the weather. Much better.
Luckily for us, the day is mostly free, even though we gather in the morning to give everyone their options. It boils down to hiking, waterfalls, the highest train station in Europe, or museums.
“Most people are going to go for the train ride to the Top of Europe,” Asha whispers to me. A spot that is, despite its name, not the highest point in Europe. But it is nice.
“With those prices?”
“Everyone is tired, and they want the most touring with the least effort.”
I shake my head at her, certain my group will pull through and pick a nice hike to a waterfall. Or a hike to a museum. Or even a hike to take a selfie with a bloody cow. They’re in the most beautiful place to hike; they wouldn’t want to spend most of their time in a train. A very expensive train.
But spending time with Asha has made me soft, and too optimistic, because the train is what most people choose.
“All right, I’ll hand out ticket info for those training.” Asha throws me a superior look that I roll my eyes at. “There’s a cheese-making demonstration and tasting later today. Rumor is, you may get to pet some cute cows. So enjoy your morning and we’ll see you later.”
We wave them off, and I turn to Asha. “Want to take a hike with me?”
She lights up. “To a waterfall?”
“Of course.” I glower at her at the thought that I would pick a hike without a waterfall in Lauterbrunnen.
“Great. I’ll just change my shoes. Be right back.”
I sit in the lobby, waiting for Asha to come back.
I see Roshni sitting alone in the lobby near me, and I hesitate.
Asha would say that I need to check on her.
Even though she and Camila have been a lot closer since the Parisian dinner, there’s still distance between them.
And lingering looks that even I notice. And I pride myself on not noticing anything personal about my group.
Out of respect for their privacy, of course.
“Good morning. You all right?” I ask before I think too much about approaching her.
Roshni starts, clearly in her own world before I walked over. “Oh. Yes, thank you.”
“Good.” There’s an awkward silence for a second, me standing next to her couch. “It’s just that, you mentioned earlier how Camila had been working a lot. Have you talked to her about that?”
“No. There never seems to be a good time. And we were doing better, but she got a work call this morning so I’m waiting for her now. What I spend most of my time doing.”
“Well, there probably won’t be a good time to have a hard discussion, but you’ll feel better when it’s done and it doesn’t weigh on you.
” And that’s all the meddling I’m doing.
Asha would know exactly what to say to fix this relationship, but I’m very new to not minding my own business, so I’ll take wee baby steps.
“I hope you have a good day. We’ll see you later, at the cheese demonstration. ”
“Bye.” She waves at me and I cross the lobby, so I’m as far as I can physically be from the interpersonal drama.
Asha comes back down and sees Roshni sitting alone. She’s about to do what I just did, and I wish I had just waited and let her do it, but I wave her over so Roshni doesn’t get overwhelmed by nosy tour guides.
“Roshni’s looking lonely…”
“I spoke to her,” I whisper in her ear as I guide her out the hotel doors.
“What?” She stops and stares at me in shock.
“I can people.”
“I know you can. You just so rarely choose to.”
“Well, I am here to be more like you, so I asked myself, ‘What would Asha do?’”
“And what would Asha do?”
“Meddle. More than anyone has ever meddled. So I tried.”
“You care about our babies. You love them. You want them to be happy in fulfilling relationships,” Asha taunts me in song as we start off into the mountain trails.
“Not my babies. My babies would respect a historical lecture a lot more.”
Asha takes my hand as we hike, and I give her a look implying I’m only letting her hold it because she wants to, but I like the feel of her wee hand in my mine. Protecting her. She might let the tourists get away with bloody murder, but I can be here to tell them to stop messing about.
We enjoy the time without anyone to babysit, taking pictures with multiple waterfalls (even ones that she demands I’m in). I pretend to comply begrudgingly, but then steal her phone to send myself the ones with both of us. And some of just her.
I don’t think my protests are coming across as genuine, or my theft subtle, if Asha’s laughing face is anything to go by. It’s still important to keep up appearances.
But soon the reason we’re here rears its ugly head, and we’re back in the lobby, making idle chitchat with the group as they assemble for the cheese tasting.
Then Laura saves us by bringing the bus back around, and we drive to the farm.
“How is sharing a room?” Laura asks. Too loudly in my opinion, because the first few rows of the bus get very quiet. Suspiciously quiet. The quiet that is listening for gossip.
“The room you made us share because they ran out of rooms and the driver needs to be well rested?” Asha says just as loudly, trying to undo the damage. But it’s already done, bless her for trying. “It’s fine. Very professional. For the sake of professionalism.”
She does not lie well under pressure. Good to know for the future. Not that we’re going to have a future. I suppose we’ll have a future if future means the Italian portion of the tour.
The silence in the first few seats is quickly replaced by whispers. By the end of this short bus trip, everyone is going to know what happened last night. Or they’ll know part of it and speculate, correctly as it turns out, about the rest of it.
“Thanks, Laura,” I mumble at her. Darkly, so she knows what she did. Little chance of us bringing her back cheese from the demonstration now.
But knowing how kind (tender-hearted, soft, naive) Asha is, she’ll fold and bring Laura some anyway, but I won’t be. I’ll even pretend to take some for her and eat it myself.
We usher the group into an outdoor theater area and stay in the back to watch the presentation we’ve seen dozens of times before. A woman dressed in the traditional Swiss outfit of a dirndl, hair in braids with a friendly cow behind her, takes over the group’s attention.
“I’m definitely going to be taking a selfie with that cow later. She’s going to be great on the social media,” Asha whispers to me when the Swiss woman is talking about the pressing stage of cheese making.
“You have a problem,” I whisper back, knowing I’m going to be taking that photo. Or in it semi-against my will.
“And then I’m going to eat all the delicious cheese that cow probably produced. I love this demonstration.”
“I think you’re going to have to fight nineteen hungry tourists. I heard a lot of them skipped lunch.”
“Damn it.”
“Come on, you know you want to shove them out of the way, maybe step on a few, so you get the cheese and they get a lesson in not skipping meals.”
“Are you inviting me to the dark side with the promise of cheese rewards?”
“I guess I am.”
“It’s a good attempt; if anything was going to get me over to the dark side of beating up our babies, it was going to be cheese.”
“The demonstration is wrapping up, you better get to that cheese before it’s gone.”
Asha turns and fast walks after the group into the farm building, stopping to take an unnecessary selfie with a cow that has a bow on its head, and one with me in it as well. It’s a good thing they always keep some cheese separate for us.
“You and Callum are sharing a room?” By the time I catch up to the group, Asha has cheese in hand and is being harassed by Kevin. I glare at him since the tone is a little more judgmental than I need to be hearing from him.
“No rooms left,” Asha says with a full mouth. “All part of the job.”
“Nice job.” Thomas leers at me.
This is why I stick to families. “It’s not as nice a job as you’d think.” Especially when I have to deal with people like this. I keep the glare up until Asha steps on my foot. Probably for chastising her obnoxious babies.
Thomas shrugs and gets distracted by the barristers. Both men wander over to the other women while I steal some cheese off Asha’s plate.
Asha lets me, unusually subdued. Maybe her mind is on other things.
“They’re all semi-rested and high off that clean Alpine air. And there’s a bar-slash-club in the chalet we’re staying at. Tonight is going to be rough,” I say.