He nods. ‘Very…’
‘Just…’ There’s something wrong, a proviso, a problem? Maybe he doesn’t want this? Maybe it’s too soon, too quick? ‘Viraj is right. We need aircon. It’s too hot to be doing that for the next three days.’
‘Three days?’
‘Yeah,’ he says smiling at me.
Charlie
‘Whoa, someone is thirsty…’ Mark says as he watches me down my Coke on the rooftop terrace of the hostel, a beautiful spot draped in fairy lights that lets us drink in the view of the spires of old churches and brightly coloured terraced houses, neighbouring rooftops draped in plants and terracotta plant pots. The sun sits low for five o’clock and the students all sit there, lounging around on white plastic chairs, posing for selfies and posting it all on their IG. We’ve just dragged them round the largest Gothic cathedral in Europe and filled them to the brim with churros so with the early start, the hope is that they’re going to pass out really quickly and we can start hydrating properly with Estrella. This is all very thirsty work. I notice Suzie laughing with the students in the corner of that rooftop. Incredibly thirsty work.
‘I’m going to have to go down the pharmacy and get some talc for my bits,’ Mark announces to the teacher group that involves a very confused Jorge, our tour leader.
‘Mi cojones are very sweaty,’ Mark explains to him. ‘Mucho caliente.’
We all need that image removed from our heads, immediately. Jackie shakes her head. ‘Because we all wanted to know that, love,’ she says, burning with embarrassment.
‘You love it, it’s romance, all that intimacy,’ he says, winking at her.
‘Romance is flowers, chocolates, you buffoon,’ she says, blowing him a kiss.
I smile at both of them, headed over to grab another drink, taking two tins and walking over to Suzie. I can do that now. I think. There have been times in the last few weeks when I would see her in the staffroom and walk away, going to sit in my car during lunch sometimes to avoid bumping into her. I was confused, embarrassed. But what just happened in that hostel room? It was Mallorca again. It was balancing on the edge of that bed and watching her legs straighten as she came, her body giving in to the moment, beads of sweat resting in her decolletage. It was so incredibly intense. After that happened, there was another knock on the door. We had to go through the fire drills, so we redressed, splashed water on our faces and tried to look like we hadn’t had the most ridiculous orgasms within ten minutes of stepping into this place.
After that, we headed out almost immediately, surrounded by teens; the only eye contact we had was over Christopher Columbus’ grave. None of the kids knew who he was, which is fine because history is not my department, but Suzie knew, I knew. We both knew. And maybe the most ridiculous thing is that all this tension has been built without even touching each other. It feels like lightning in a bottle, electric – if I were to touch her, I’d implode. Or to put it simply, my cojones would not cope.
‘Un coca para la señora?’ I ask as I approach her, sitting on a white stool surrounded by all the students.
One of the boys giggles because he is a child and I give him a look as I thought I was being quite smooth. ‘You thought I was offering Miss something else?’ I ask him.
‘Nah, Sir. I heard Coca-Cola, definitely,’ he jests.
Suzie narrows her eyes at me and takes the drink, putting the cold tin next to her forehead. The heat here is different to Mallorca. Over there, you have the sea and mountain breezes but in Seville, the air is thick, it’s balmy and it sits there like syrup. I look over at Suzie’s shoulder, the way the strap of her top rests on her collarbone. She changed before into a white sundress. I watched as she stripped and rolled it over her body before posing for me, cheekily. I lean against the ledge of the roof, still keeping my distance, loving being able to just watch her.
‘There’s a lot of laughter coming from this corner?’ I ask the group.
‘We’ve been filling Miss in on the school gossip. Do you know Miss Swift in maths?’ one of them asks.
‘I think I do, we’re in the same house,’ I say.
‘Well, last year she got it on with one of the cover teachers and he was a bit younger than her, you know. One of the Year 11s reckons he saw them copping off by the bike sheds,’ he continues, eyes wide open.
‘I like stories like this, tell me more!’ Suzie says, her arms propped up on her knees. Don’t look at her knees.
‘Do you know Mr Rogers in science?’ a girl asks.
‘Ed?’ I say. There’s an inhalation of air as I say his real name to the crowd. These kids do think we just live at the school and have no identity, don’t they?
‘Well, before Ed married Miss Johnson…’ they all look at me expectantly to reveal her name.
‘Her name is Mia,’ Suzie interjects.
‘Ed was with some maths teacher who did the dirty on him. Now she’s at another school and we heard she gotfired for having an online sex sesh with someone’s dad when she was supposed to be doing a parents’ evening,’ this boy speaks at about seventy miles per hour and Suzie and I laugh to hear him so enthused by all the hearsay.
‘So what’s your goss?’ a voice pipes in. It’s Lola who seems to be in her element now her clothes don’t look so out of place. ‘You’re both super new, I bet you both have stories.’
I glance over at Suzie. I don’t think those stories are suitable for this young audience.
‘Ooh, two truths and a lie!’ one kid suggests.