Chapter 10 #2
We return to the cottage and he shuts himself away in the bathroom.
I breathe in deeply and look around, taking in our accommodation.
I was so angry earlier that I didn’t appreciate how cute it is with its mix of stone and white walls and the exposed-beam ceilings.
A queen-sized bed sits under a window that overlooks the private garden full of potted plants, purple geraniums and blue delphiniums, and a small picnic table for two.
There’s a TV on the chest of drawers we battled over, and beside that, tucked in the corner, is a small desk.
I open the doors to the garden and let the fresh, moss-tinged air fill the room. I sit on one of the chairs outside, prop my feet on the table and savour the quiet as Adam turns on the shower.
The anger I’ve felt since spotting Adam on the plane continues to simmer in my veins.
I still can’t believe he let himself get talked into this.
And for what? To sit in a cottage and write his book?
He has a whole apartment at home that he can do that in.
And a cafe across the road that is now free of the owner he despises.
Instead he’s followed her across the globe.
I get up and open the complimentary bottle of wine chilling in the fridge and pour myself a glass before settling back outside. I sip slowly, the crisp chardonnay soothing the resentment in a way that only chardonnay can.
The door to the bathroom opens and I tilt my head to the side, catching a glimpse of Adam’s reflection in the mirror above the sofa and almost choke on my wine. He rummages in the drawer, a towel draped around his hips. He takes out a T-shirt, stares at it, returns it, and grabs another one.
While he stands there, torn between which one to wear, all I can do is stare at him and try to remember how to breathe.
A simple task, one that I typically manage quite successfully and yet the ability to do so now feels utterly out of reach.
The broad shoulders, the smattering of hair that begins on his chest, trails over the faint definition of abs and down his glistening, wet skin to the edge of the white towel.
Heat floods my cheeks and winds its way through me to settle in my belly.
Adam clears his throat and my eyes snap up, meeting his in the mirror. One beat. Two beats. Three beats.
I want to look away, but I have now lost control over everything.
I can’t move. Can’t think. Can’t tear myself away from his eyes.
I am drowning and sinking deep into thoughts of lips and soft touches and tongues.
I gulp and try to remember how much I loathe this man who is watching me with a perplexed expression on his face.
Then he disappears back into the bathroom.
I chug my wine, letting the cool liquid smother the flames creeping along my skin.
He stays in there for an eternity and I worry that it’s because I ogled him through the mirror and made him feel super uncomfortable.
When I finally hear him leave and pad across the floorboards, I turn to face him, fixing a smile on my face like he hadn’t caught me checking him out. ‘I opened the wine. Help yourself.’
‘Oh,’ he says and stares at the bottle. ‘It’s—’
‘You’re on holiday. Lighten up.’
‘I don’t need alcohol to enjoy myself.’ His lips form a thin line as he folds the clothes he’s changed out of.
‘No, you just need to remove the stick that’s up your arse,’ I murmur and kick myself for thinking about those lips of his bringing any form of pleasure.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I call back and join him inside. ‘We should probably get our story straight. You know, our relationship story, so that when we get asked questions we’re ready to answer them.’
He passed the dinner in Melbourne with my parents with flying colours, but my sister will be a whole other battle.
Gabi treats all my boyfriends like they’re witnesses on the stand and she loves nothing more than to find fault in their answers and trip them up so she can turn to my parents with that superior twinkle in her eye to further prove to them that she is the perfect child and I am the perennial screw-up.
‘Sure.’ He puts his folded clothes away and sits on the sofa, hands clasped on his lap. His wet hair glistens in the low afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows.
I sit down on the bed, keeping a safe distance between us. I kick my feet back and forth and drain the last drops of chardonnay from my glass. ‘We met in our apartment building and you asked me out.’
‘Was that before or after you threw up on me?’
I glare at him and kick my feet faster, the bed shaking with each thud of my heels against it.
‘That never happened. In this story we bumped into each other in the elevator and you were so taken by my charm that you asked me to dinner.’ I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and stare wistfully at the bottle of chardonnay on the coffee table.
His eyebrows rise.
‘And things are going really well for us,’ I say.
‘Because we play boardgames and watch old movies and go on long walks together?’
‘Right,’ I stammer, shocked he remembers that.
‘And do we have time between all that to do what I enjoy?’
‘Like what?’
He leans back on the sofa and drapes an arm along the back of it, his T-shirt straining with the motion. It sculpts to his body so perfectly that my eyes have a mind of their own and trail over every curve. His foot jiggles as it rests on his knee. ‘I like to play Scrabble. And I enjoy running.’
My nose scrunches at that.
‘And I paint.’
‘Like houses?’
Adam’s lips twitch and he shakes his head. ‘No, not like houses. Like paintings,’ he adds with a pointed look at the framed artwork adorning our walls.
‘I don’t run or paint.’ Both activities sound awful. It’s no wonder he’s single.
‘And I don’t watch old movies, go on long walks or play boardgames apart from Scrabble.’
‘But my mum thinks you do.’
‘Because you lied to her about me.’
‘I may have lied, but you crashed my family holiday and that’s worse.’
‘How is that worse than you lying to your family?’
‘It just is.’
I stare at him. He stares back. Silence stretches between us as we both refuse to budge. Personally, I think he should. My family doesn’t know him, except for what I’ve told them. But they know me. And they know that I don’t run. They also know that I do not have an artistic bone in my body.
My phone beeps. We have to go meet the family. Like now.
I break. ‘Fine,’ I sigh. ‘I occasionally go jogging with you.’
‘Running.’
Like there’s a difference. I grit my teeth with a forced smile and squeeze the stem of my wine glass.
‘Running. And you took me along to a painting class once. And we play Scrabble together.’ I stare again at the open bottle of wine, wondering if I can squeeze in another glass but know that if we’re even a minute late, Dad will be sent over here to get us.
‘It’s time to meet the rest of the family,’ I say.