Page 104 of Hot to Go

She takes a long sip of her sangria. ‘I love how the origin stories always come from men,’ she adds. ‘I’m going to start a rumour that actually it was the women who created tapas. One day, the women in Spain decided they were too bloody hot and fed up with cooking so they just said sod this, you’re all getting small plates.’

I double up laughing. ‘Can I tell my students that then?’

‘I actively encourage that,’ she says, turning to smile at me. ‘It really is bloody boiling, isn’t it?’ she says, pulling her dress away from her skin. ‘This was not my best idea. We should’ve just stayed in and lain down on the floor.’

‘Naked.’

‘Mr Shaw, we’re in public. Super inappropriate.’

I grin. ‘Well, you can lie there with your clothes on and melt. I simply want to get naked so as not to overheat.’

‘Not even underwear on?’

‘Nah,’ I say in all seriousness. ‘Possibly just a Cornetto in my hand.’

She laughs and I smile to hear that sound and the effect it has on me, the effect it’s always had on me. I love hearing her happy.

‘So if I joined you and lay down there naked too…’

‘A moment ago it was inappropriate…’ I note. ‘That’s totally fine but don’t come near me, I want to preserve my coolness. I can’t be doing anything else in this heat.’

‘I did not think that was on the cards at all. Please. You lie in your spot with your Cornetto. I’ll lie a good distance away from you. I think it’s prudent to avoid any bodily contact.’

‘Prudent indeed. It’d be far too sweaty. It’d border on indecent,’ I inform her.

‘Not good for our hydration needs in this heat.’

‘So sensible,’ I tell her.

‘You know me.’

‘Far too well.’

We sit there, both grinning giddily to ourselves.

‘We should go, shouldn’t we?’ she says. I reach for her hand under the table but as I do, I trace a finger along the edge of her thigh, lifting up her skirt slightly. She puts a hand to her mouth and takes a very long sip of drink to compose herself. I nod without saying a word, getting up from the bench, feeling the back of my thighs sticky with sweat. I look up to the sun, letting it hit every part of my face and neck, feeling it recharge every cell.

I look at my watch. ‘Sam and Brooke get home in about an hour? Will that work?’

She smiles. ‘Hun, it’s thirty-five degrees. Straight in and out, no dilly-dallying.’

I laugh. ‘But you like my dilly-dallying.’

She plants a kiss on my shiny forehead. ‘Oh, I love it. Just not today,’ she whispers into my ear.

I take her hand and we vacate our table, out from the shade of the pub garden parasol and into the blinding brightness of the London sunlight. There is something unparalleled about a British pub garden, it’s the feeling of the grass under your feet, drinking outside, when nine months of the year, we’re relegated to drinking inside, leaning on wonky tables or pressed up against other punters. When Suzie moved in with us last month, this became our local, a ritual, the tapas is a hidden extra, like a nod to Carlos, to Mallorca, to all of it. As we walk out on to the main street, a bus drives past, passengers packed on like prawns, a line of builders exit a mini-mart with cold drinks, no shirts but the all-important hi-vis vest just in case. The sun is unrelenting as Suzie slips on her sunglasses and grabs my hand. I feel her fingers wrap around mine and a thumb slowly stroke my palm. Sometimes it’s these moments I hold on to the most, the ones of silence where I can walk and be in her company and just exist. We continue walking, turning into our street when a familiar sound sings through the air.

‘YES!’ I yell a little too enthusiastically. I watch as an ice-cream van whizzes by and stops to park about fifty yards in front of us. I pull at Suzie’s arm and she follows me, an excited look in her eye too that we may be the first ones in the queue.

‘Sometimes the universe just knows…’ Suzie says.

‘It does, doesn’t it?’ I smirk.

The music of the ice-cream van winds to a stop and the woman driver comes to the window. ‘I know you…’ she says, winking at me, with a touch too much familiarity. Suzie smirks but looks mildly confused. Have I kept this a secret from her? A secret love affair with an ice-cream lady called Madame Whippy? How kinky. But at least I kept it on brand with something mildly French.

‘But not in a suit today? You disappoint me, lovely.’ She glances at Suzie and smiles broadly. ‘What can I get you two?’

‘Two 99s?’ Suzie says, looking at me. I won’t say no. I turnwatching as front doors open and people flood the street to come find her. Oh, to be the most popular person at this time of year. She gets our ice creams ready, looking down the street to see who may be coming her way. ‘Christ, it’s her again.’

---