What did these people see when they looked at me? A girl whose fiancé hadn’t been able to bear spending another single day with her, let alone a lifetime? A girl having a holiday romance? The start of something?
This is not a date.
‘So.’ Adam’s voice led me back to the present.
‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ I took another drink. Put down my glass and fiddled with the edge of my napkin. Why was I so nervous?
‘Don’t judge me, Anna, but…’ Adam took a deep breath. ‘I’ve already chosen my dessert.’
I laughed. ‘Me too. Limoncello and plum tart.’
‘Snap. I knew there was a reason why I like you. Not like like,’ he added quickly. ‘Not…’ Now he played with his napkin.
‘To friendship?’ I raised my glass and we chinked, but our eyes met and an unspoken toast passed between us, to the future versions of ourselves and even then, on some level, I knew that in the days to come, weeks, months, years, our lives would be bound together.
‘Tell me about yourself, Anna Adlington.’
The arrival of a platter of bread and dips gave me time to think. What did I want him to know? Everything and nothing.
‘I’m an English teacher.’
‘Primary?’
‘Secondary.’
‘You like a challenge then?’
I met his gaze. Is that how he saw me? Fearless? Brave?
‘I do like a challenge.’ Did I? Was I flirting? I carried on. ‘My dad is a teacher. Was. Was a teacher.’
Adam studied me. He could have assumed my dad had changed professions or retired, but somehow he just knew.
‘I’m so sorry, Anna. Do you want to talk about him?’
One thing I’ve learned is that grief makes people uncomfortable. Loss is a subject to be changed, skimmed over in case death is catching. Nobody wants to think about it. Talk about it. Question their own mortality. Yet Adam had covered my hand with his and was unflinching in his gaze. I knew he was seeing more of me than anyone else here could.
‘Thanks, but no.’ I drew my hand away but I could still feel the warmth of his skin. I coiled my fingers around the cool stem of my glass when all I really wanted to do was to thread them through Adam’s.
‘Anna,’ he said softly. ‘I—’
‘For you, señorita.’ The waiter placed a steaming plate of paella in front of me. ‘Señor.’
The tension broken, I picked up my fork. ‘I love this Mediterranean food so much.’
‘Me too.’ Adam speared a prawn. ‘Josh’s parents took us to Barcelona for a week after we’d passed our A Levels and when we got home I made paella.’
‘Was it good?’
‘I didn’t realize rice expands so I chucked in the whole packet – not just any packet, a huge one from a cash and carry. I was eating the bloody thing for about a week but by then the seafood had gone off and… It wasn’t pretty, let’s just say.’
I laughed. ‘It hasn’t put you off eating it though?’
‘Nothing would put me off my food. What’s your favourite thing to eat?’
‘Ice cream. You?’
‘Pringles. Once you pop.’
It was easy to talk about the inconsequential, ignoring the spark between us. I wasn’t sure if Adam could feel it too. He told me when he was growing up, he was obsessed with Eighties music and films.
‘I loved Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox,’ I said. ‘Was that the Eighties?’
‘Yep. Everyone loves Marty.’ Unabashed, Adam began to sing ‘The Power of Love’ from the movie. I joined in the chorus, knowing that everyone here was a stranger, probably never to be seen again.
‘So I know where you’d go if you could travel in time. Or what era anyway. The Eighties in…’ I appraised him. ‘America? Hollywood?’
‘Because I have film-star good looks?’ Adam smoothed back his hair.
‘I was thinking more about you seeing where they made movies rather than starring in them,’ I laughed.
‘No offence taken.’ Adam pretended to dab a tear with his napkin. ‘I’d like to see America. I’d like to see all the places I sell tickets to.’ He caught my expression. ‘I’m a travel agent.’
‘That sounds interesting.’
‘It’s a means to an end. I’ve been saving to see the world and working there has meant I can plan it all out properly, and get a staff discount. I leave next month.’
I fixed my smile in place. There was no reason for me to be disappointed. It’s not like I’d see him again after this holiday, but melancholy settled heavily in my stomach once I knew that we wouldn’t even be in the same country.
I stretched my mouth into a smile. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Thailand, Italy, China. India. Everywhere. I want to see it all. Everything. I’m a frustrated Christopher Columbus. Tell me something about you, Anna Adlington.’
‘I can play flute up to Grade 4.’ I watched his face for his reaction. ‘You look underwhelmed. Okay, you’ll be blown away by this one.’
Adam drummed the table with his fingertips.
‘I know the offside rule,’ I said triumphantly.
‘I am impressed!’
I knew he would be; he’d mentioned he loved football. We continued chatting about the superficial. The things that are easy to share. But even then there was something more to us. Something deeper. An affinity I was trying so hard to ignore. My rational mind kept pointing out that he was leaving in a month.
This is not a date.
‘I want to show you something,’ Adam said after we’d split the bill. We left the restaurant and headed away from our resort past various bars. Vendors attempting to entice us inside with promises of half-price pitchers and cheap cocktails.
‘Come, come. Photo. Photo.’ A man ushered us over to a lonely parrot perched inside a cage too small for him to spread his wings. A cage whose stench made my stomach roil. ‘You pay. I take picture.’
‘No.’ How could anyone use an animal this way? The bird had half of his red and green feathers missing. A chain around his ankle. He looked so miserable.
‘I’ll have a photo taken,’ Adam said.
I watched silently. Judgementally. I had thought Adam was kind. The man placed the bird on Adam’s arm and retreated, raising the camera in front of his face.
It was so quick. I barely registered what Adam was doing as his fingers worked at the chain around the bird’s ankles. There was a flapping of wings and a happy squawk as the bird rose into the darkening sky.
Adam grabbed my hand and we ran – the photographer’s angry voice chasing us.
A stitch burned in my side by the time Adam led me down a narrow walkway where I could have stretched out my hands and touched either of the whitewashed buildings that flanked us. At the end, there was a cove guarded by a chain fence. A smattering of padlocks clamped to the links.
‘Love locks!’ I rushed forward, delighted, tilting the padlocks towards the moon to read the names, the initials, the declarations of undying love. It felt good that, despite being dumped, there was still a small ember smouldering inside of me that believed in romance.