Page 33 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
‘I want to get Ben a thank-you gift. I thought I could find him something barbecue-related. Some plates or a set of tools – though he probably has all those, so perhaps an arty dish or platter in one of the gift shops we passed? There must be something he’d like for his new kitchen.’
‘I bet we can find the perfect thing,’ Meredith said. ‘And we mustn’t forget the pasties, either. I’m not sure I’ll have room for dessert, but Finn will be ravenous because he forgets everything while he’s painting, and Ben will have burned off eight million calories with all his hefting andsawing, and seems to eat whatever he likes and still have a washboard stomach.’
‘A washboard stomach?’ Thea said faintly, trying to picture Ben – who was already too handsome for his own good – with the kind of body that would make theBaywatchcast envious. Of course, she’d already seen that he was fit, but she’d been trying very hard not to think about the bits he usually kept under wraps.
‘Yup,’ Meredith said, a note of glee in her voice. ‘When we go to the beach, it’s all on show. If I wasn’t so hook, line and sinker for Finn, I would not be immune.’
‘Right,’ Thea managed.
‘Does your Alex, at home, have a washboard stomach?’ Meredith asked, all innocence, and Thea realised that despite describing her friendship with him in what she had hoped was a measured way, she must have revealed that she was attracted to him.
She resisted the urge to hit her new friend with her paper napkin, saying instead, ‘I have no idea,’ as if she didn’t understand the dig Meredith was trying to get in. ‘He’s an operations manager at the council, so I don’t get much opportunity to see his abs.’
Meredith shrugged. ‘I bet we’ll go to the beach before your time is up,’ she said. ‘I doubt they’ll let the competitors barbecue topless on Friday, but there’ll be plenty of other opportunities.’
‘OK then,’ Thea said quietly.
She had thought, up until this holiday, that all her affection lay at home, with Alex, though she had never really allowed herself to explore her feelings for him in any great detail: the triumvirate of her, Esme and Alex wastoo precious to be complicated by anything beyond friendship. But now Meredith had forced her to make a comparison, and the thought of Alex in a pair of swimming trunks wasn’t having the same effect on her nervous system as the possibility of seeing Ben with his top off. Not at all.
Meredith must have seen something in her expression, or noticed the flush in her cheeks, because she started wafting at her with her wooden fork, her smile making her eyes sparkle. Thea was glad when a waiter came to clear their empty boxes and give them the bill, mercifully changing the subject before it got even more awkward.
