Unexpected
Marin Harlock
Contents
1. Escape from London
2. Olá Lisboa
3. New friends
4. Carcavelos
5. Sintra
6. To market, to market
7. Back in London
8. A certain Belgian comes to London
9. To go or not to go
10. Destination: Ghent
11. In Bruges
12. Blankenberge: The meet the family edition
13. Back in London: again
14. Old Comforts and Familiar Habits
15. Ultimatums
16. Decisions
17. Ripping off the band-aid
Epilogue
Also by Marin Harlock
About the Author
Copyright © 2016 by Marin Harlock
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For Gertrude, my writing companion!
Chapter One
Escape from London
I had to get out of there. As big as London was, right then, it wasn’t big enough. At every corner I was afraid I would turn, and there he would be. At every tube stop I anxiously scanned the faces of the crowd piling onto the train. My traitorous feet would start to lead me towards his house, his school, his favourite pub. Just that afternoon, on my way home from work, I’d found myself standing outside the school he taught at. I hadn’t even realised I’d been walking that way. Classes had long finished for the day, and there was no one there, and so no way he would have seen me. I could be grateful for small mercies.
“Oh man, I need to get out of here!”
I jumped. I hadn’t even noticed Gemma come into the room. She dropped her bag on the floor and flopped down on the couch opposite me.
“You read my mind,” I said dryly.
“I need some sunshine. All this rain and gloom is getting to me.”
“Mmm. Sun would be nice.” I looked wistfully out the window. The weather had certainly been matching my mood lately.
“I’ve forgotten what sunshine feels like on my skin,” moaned Gemma, pulling up her sleeve to stare morosely at her pale arm. I smiled. Getting out of here would be lovely. It sometimes slipped my mind, how close everything in Europe was, at least compared to what I was used to growing up in Melbourne, Australia. The closest country I could get to was New Zealand, and that was still a three hour flight away, and not exactly an exotic location unless you really liked hobbits.
They’d been in London for about five months now - my three best friends, Gemma, Mara, and Annie. They had come over around the same time Tom had. I’d been in London for three months; the first two months in bliss with Tom. He’d come over before me to start working, while I finished off my degree. We’d taken a couple of little trips together after I’d first arrived - a weekend in Paris, another in Amsterdam and a blissful week in Prague.
I’d only seen him once since the break-up. He’d completely blindsided me. I was in a foreign country, and the only reason I was there was for him. And then he dumped me. Just like that.
Thank whatever gods there are that my best friends were also in London. I don’t know what I would have done without them. Just got on a plane and gone home, probably. I’d called Mara, and she assured me that I was more than welcome to come live with her, Gemma and Annie in their rented townhouse. They had a spare bedroom. Well, calling it a bedroom was a bit of a stretch; shoebox would be more accurate. But it could fit a single bed in it, and a little bedside table, and that was enough for me. I was single so it goes to follow that all I needed was a single bed, right?
“Let’s go somewhere warm. And soon,” I said.
“Yes please. When do you want to go?”
“Is tomorrow too soon?” I wasn’t really joking, but Gemma laughed.
“Yeah, just a bit! I don’t have to work this weekend though, let’s look at flights.”
Gemma grabbed my laptop off the coffee table and flipped it open.
“Oh, look at this,” she said after a few minutes. “Flights to Lisbon are on sale. Only £20!”
“Sweet! I wonder if the other girls are free? Mara’s been there before, but she loved it. She’d probably want to go back,” I said.
“Go back where?” Mara said from the doorway. She was dressed in her waitressing uniform. It was covered in what looked like coffee. Some of it even seemed to be in her long blonde hair.
“What happened to you?” Gemma and I asked at the same time.
“Ugh. Our new barista, as good looking as he may be, really can’t make decent coffee. At least, according to Mr Jerkface-In-A-Suit, who let me know just how bad the coffee was by throwing it all over me. He might be onto something though - I’d just brought it over to him and it didn’t even burn me.”
“Jeez. Well, at least it wasn’t hot? But still, you don’t go throwing coffee on people! You didn’t even make it!”
Mara shrugged at my outrage.
“The perks of working in hospitality. My manager actually apologised to HIM!”
“I can’t decide whose the bigger douche-bag. Your manager or Jerkface-In-A-Suit,” said Gemma, still shaking her head in disgust.
“Me either. So where are we going?”
“Portugal. Flights to Lisbon are on sale,” Gemma said before I could open my mouth.
“Sweet! Lisbon is awesome. When are we going?”
“As soon as possible!” I said.
“Well, let me get cleaned up and then let’s talk logistics!”
An hour later the tickets were bought and the accommodation was booked. We were leaving in four days. We’d called Annie to see if she wanted to come as well, but she couldn’t get the time off work. Neither could Mara, but she told her manager what she’d been holding in for the past month and quit.
“I didn’t come all the way to London to get treated like crap, paid bugger all and hate my job. I came here to have fun, so let’s have some fun!” Mara said to me when I questioned the wisdom of quitting her job for a small vacation.
“Fair enough.”
“Good on you!” said Annie. “I wish I had the guts to do the same thing. Actually my job’s not that bad… but I’m definitely coming with you girls next time!”
The next three days dragged by. My boss, Rosemarie, had been surprisingly fine with me taking off for a week with very little notice. Looking around the empty bookshop though, I wasn’t all that surprised. I was frankly surprised I even had a job. Business hadn’t exactly been booming.
Finally, there was only one more sleep to go until I could escape. After my last shift I met up with Annie at a nearby supermarket to grab some ingredients for dinner. We split up to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. I was concentrating on selecting the best looking mushrooms when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Bea? Hi.”
I dropped the mushrooms. It was Tom.
“Sorry,” Tom mumbled as he bent down to pick up the runaway fungus. I just stood there gaping at him like an idiot.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out.
“Er… shopping.”
“Right. Sorry. Yeah. That’s usually what people do in supermarkets.” I cringed. I’d been dreading this for a month. I hadn’t seen him since I’d gone back, Mara at my side, to pick up all the things that I’d forgotten or missed
in my first hasty pack when he’d told me he thought we should take a break, that he didn’t think it was working, and that he didn’t see a future together. Now he was here in front of me, smiling tentatively, looking as cute as ever. Why did I have to bump into him now, when I was all frazzled after a long day of work, hadn’t showered since the night before and why oh why couldn’t I be in the company of some hot guy? Preferably foreign?
“Good. I’m good. How are you?” Tom handed the mushrooms back to me. I hated the look of concern on his too-familiar face.
“Me? Oh, great. Never been better. I’m off to Portugal tomorrow. Get some sun… practise my Portuguese…” I forced my arms to stop swinging at my side.
“Sounds lovely.” Tom paused and looked at me intently. I squirmed and looked around. Where on earth was Annie?
“You never replied to my emails. Or my texts…” Tom said.
“Oh. Well. Yeah. I changed my number. And I blocked your email address. Sorry about that. I just…” I took a deep breath in attempt to steady my rapidly beating heart. Wow. He actually looked a bit hurt. I felt sorry for him for all of about three seconds. You broke up with me, I wanted to say. I can’t just leap into being mates with you and pretending like I don’t still have feelings for you. You might not be in love with me anymore, but I don’t have a switch I can just flick off. I need a break from all this, from you, before I can even think about being actual friends with you.
I wished I had the guts to say that to his face. Instead I just looked at him, tongue tied up in knots in my mouth.
Tom kept staring at me. My damn heart was beating a million-miles a minute and my mouth felt dry. I stared back at him. It felt like an eternity, the two of us just staring at each other, but it was probably only a few moments. I glanced nervously away and saw Annie over the other side of the produce department, making a bee-line for me.
“I have to go. Take care, Tom.”
“You too, Bea. Call me if you ever want to talk. I mean it about being friends one day. When you’re ready.”
“Yeah. Okay. Bye.” I forced myself not to look back while I walked away. I met Annie in front of the melons.
“Was that Tom?” Annie asked as she placed the pasta and cream in my basket and peered over my shoulder.
“Yep.”
“He’s still staring at you.” Annie switched her gaze from Tom to my face. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. No. I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting to bump into him. That’s only the second time I’ve seen him since… you know.”
Annie winced.
“He somehow expects me to go from being in love with him to being best buddies like nothing happened. What’s he thinking? Why is it so easy for him?”
Annie shrugged. “Wine?”
“Yeah, definitely. I can’t wait to get out of here.”
“Yeah, you need a change of scenery. I wish I was coming too!”
We all got up early the next morning. After some last minute scrambling, and some confusion over which purple toothbrush was whose (turns out Mara and Gemma had been using the same toothbrush for the past month without realising it), we all assembled in the hallway with our backpacks on. Annie leaned against her doorway and looked at us wistfully.
“Have fun,” she said. “Bring me back an awesome present.”
“Will do,” Mara said.
We each gave Annie a quick hug, then started our trek out to Heathrow. My mind drifted back to when I’d first arrived in London. Tom had met me, waiting for me to come through Customs. We hadn’t seen each other for three months, and I’d felt a nervous anticipation building up in me the whole flight. Saying goodbye to Mum and my brother, Lewis, at Melbourne Airport hadn’t been as hard as I’d thought it would be - Tom was waiting for me on the other side after all. I’d always wanted to have one of those romantic airport reunions, and I’d finally got one. He’d picked me up in his arms and swung me around, and looked at me in a way that made me forget that I hadn’t showered or slept for 30 hours. Had he already decided to break up with me then? I sighed and shook my head and tried to concentrate on what Gemma was saying about her cousin Rosie’s latest escapades. That girl had even worse luck than me when it came to men.
I stood silently in line while we waited to check-in. The departures board showed a mind boggling array of destinations. It was really quite amazing how easy it was to travel to unimaginable (to me) places. I was in the line to go to Lisbon, but I could so easily go to Jeddah, or Ahmedabad, or Stavanger, wherever the hell they were.
The line inched forward and we finally checked in. Getting through security and passport control didn’t take too long, and we got to our gate with plenty of time to spare. Gemma had missed her flight once, years ago, and was now ultra-paranoid and made sure she, and all her companions, were always at the gate way earlier than necessary. I’d cursed her when she’d banged on my door at 5am, knowing how marvellous and possible an extra hour of sleep would be, but getting there early and not stressing had its plusses as well. Why they couldn’t make the seats at the gates more comfortable though, I’ll never know.
Mara pulled out her iPod and stuck the ear buds in her ears. She closed her eyes and awkwardly curled up in her chair, trying to get comfortable. Her long legs made it hard. Even with no make-up and yesterday’s pony-tail, she still looked like the stereotypical Aussie surfer girl, straight out of a tourism commercial.
Gemma pulled out a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice and buried herself behind its pages after a quick apologetic glance at me. I looked around me for a minute. I didn’t like wearing headphones in public places – I liked to know what was going on around me too much, so I decided to take a leaf out of Gemma’s book (ha ha) and pulled out my own book.
The gate gradually filled up, and at last we were let on the plane. The three off us played rock paper scissors to decide who got the middle seat. Mara lost. Gemma and I squared off to see who got the window seat. Gemma won that one. We settled ourselves in.
Mara nudged me and I quickly looked up from the inflight magazine. She was gazing slack-jawed at the front of the plane. I turned and looked and felt my jaw drop open as well. The most unimaginably good looking man was standing there, chatting with one of the other flight attendants. Gemma snorted and leaned over, closing both of our mouths.
“Hold it in, girls. You’ll embarrass yourselves.”
I found myself staring as the Adonis flight attendant worked his way up the aisle.
“Are all the guys in Portugal like this?” I whispered to Mara. Gemma giggled and shook her head.
Mara smirked. “Quite a few, although this is a particularly fine specimen.”
“Did you see his hickey?” Gemma giggled after he walked past us.
“What? No!” Mara groaned.
“Yeah, on his neck. He’s probably getting it on with one of the other flight attendants.”
“Bugger and balls.”
Chapter Two
Olá Lisboa
It had been eight degrees celsius when we left London. It was twenty-seven degrees when we landed in Lisbon. I fanned myself with my arrivals form as we climbed down from the plane onto the tarmac. As an Aussie I should be used to the heat, but the last three months of England’s dreary winter weather had softened me. I couldn’t wait to change into something a bit more appropriate; I was melting in my jeans.
Mara looked positively euphoric as she stripped off her jacket. I thought she’d stop there, but she started unzipping her pants as well. I glanced around. A couple of men and a disapproving old lady were watching her too. Thankfully she had shorts on underneath and hadn’t gone temporarily insane.
An hour later, we were through passport control and I had a nice new pretty Lisboa stamp in my passport. We stood outside the terminal, looking around. Gemma and I both looked to Mara for directions. She just stared back at us with a quizzical look on her face.
“What?”
“Lead the way,” I said. “You’re the one whose been h
ere before, right?”
“Oh.” She frowned and looked down at her shoes. “Yeah, but we came up on the bus from Lagos… I’ve never been to the airport before.”
I just blinked at her.
“It’s okay,” Gemma said and started rummaging through her handbag before I could say anything. “I printed off directions, just in case.”
Gemma pulled out a wad of paper and studied it for a moment.
“All right. I think if we catch that bus over there, it should take us to the Rossio Plaza and our hostel is right near there.”
“Yay for Gemma! Let’s go.” I hoisted my backpack on, mentally shaking my head. Travelling with other people made me lazy. It hadn’t even occurred to me to look up our accommodation or directions or anything. Mara had booked the hostel and I’d just assumed she knew how to get there. I wasn’t sure what Mara’s excuse was…
I stared out the window of the bus, watching the streets roll by. I’d never been to Portugal before. The different styles of architecture and all the people out going about their daily lives fascinated me. It was so different from the suburban Melbourne I’d grown up in and the London I currently called home.
“We’re here!” Mara cried out. She jumped up and Gemma and I quickly followed. I looked around us as I adjusted the pack on my back to a more comfortable position. We were in a large, rectangular plaza bustling with people. There were two fountains at either end, and a large monument in the middle that dwarfed all of the surrounding buildings. I craned my neck to look at the man on top of the monument and wondered who he was. Probably some old king or explorer, I supposed. The tiles at my feet were waves spreading out across the plaza. It was all very pretty. I looked over at Gemma who was studying her map with a concentrated frown.
Unexpected: A Backpacker Romance (The Backpacker Romances) Page 1
