I smothered a giggle when Greg’s friend nudged him.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, mate. Everyone this is Mick. Mick, this is everyone.” Mick looked a bit perplexed for a minute.
I laughed.
“I’m Bea.” I reached over the table and shook his hand.
Mara raised her head slightly. “Mara. I promise I’m usually a bit more lively,” she said and put her head back on her pillowed arms.
Everyone else went around the table and introduced themselves, except for the Canadian whose name I had forgotten, who was still enraptured by his laptop.
Mick smiled at us all then poked Greg again.
“He’s not usually this quiet, poor bugger’s lost his voice.” Greg rubbed his arm where Mick had poked it.
We all sat around while the others finished their breakfasts. A few more backpackers trickled into the kitchen, filling up the table. Greg asked them if they wanted to come to the beach too, but they declined - they were off to Sintra for the day.
“We’re planning on doing that tomorrow,” Gemma said.
“We are?” I hadn’t heard anything about it.
“Yeah. Me and Mara decided while you were in the shower.”
“Well, okay then. Thanks for including me.”
“Don’t pout, Bea. Have you even read the guide book? Do you know what Sintra is?”
“Um. Er. No actually. What is it?” I felt slightly abashed.
“Its a bunch of old palaces, where the old Portuguese kings used to have their summer palaces. It’s super nice. You’ll love it, I promise. Right up your alley.”
“Okay then, I forgive you for not including me. I suppose.”
Mara just laughed. Then moaned and clutched her coffee cup harder.
“More?” she held it out to me. “Please?”
I sighed, and got up and poured her more coffee. I don’t know how she could drink that horrible brewed drip stuff, or whatever it was. I’d only just started being able to drink lattes without gagging.
“Okay then, once everyone’s finished breakfast, shall we get going?”
“Yeah, just give us a few minutes so we can grab our swimmers and towels.”
Gemma, Mara and I sat and waited in the common room while the other five went to get ready for a day at the beach.
Mara sank down into a beanbag and didn’t say anything. Gemma was a bit more lively and came over to browse the bookshelf with me. We flicked through the Western Europe Lonely Planet guide book, picking places to go to next. She wanted to go to Prague. I wanted to go to Tuscany. Rent a villa. Write a book. I might need a bit more money to be able to afford that part.
The renting a villa part, I meant.
“I’d like to go to Warsaw too. My grandparents still have some cousins who live in a village near there. It would be pretty cool to meet them. We don’t have many relatives on Dad’s side of the family out in Australia. There are some in the States, and some in Canada, and I think one in New Zealand, but I’ve never met them... lucky Mum’s side of the family makes up for it.”
Gemma’s mother is from an Irish-Catholic family. She’s the youngest of nine kids. One older brother was enough for me. I struggled to imagine what life would be like with eight older siblings. Definitely… different.
I heard the others out on the stairs before I saw them come into the room.
“We’re ready!” Melanie announced needlessly. She had changed into a bright orange sun dress, and I could see a hint of her blue bikini underneath.
Mara led the way, and 40 minutes later, I was laying down my towel on the white, sandy beach. It wasn’t too crowded yet, but definitely a lot more crowded than the beach near my Grandma’s house on the Great Ocean Road that we used to spend every summer at.
Gemma laid out her towel next to me, and Leo ended up on my other side. He was far too long for his towel, and most of his legs ended up buried in the sand. I poked my toe carefully in the sand. It wasn’t too hot yet. The sand on the beaches at home could get scaldingly hot. I’d learned from a young age to be careful after a few too many episodes of dancing around on the sand, running from my towel to the car, or the toilets, or wherever I was going, trying to keep my toes and feet up in the air as much as possible. Depending how hot the previous days had been, sometimes you could get away with slowly walking and burying your feet in under the hot top layer, finding the cooler sand beneath. That tactic didn’t work so well in the later stages of a heat wave. Mum had always thought we were crazy, going to the beach on a stinking hot day - she preferred to stay cool inside, in front of a fan, or later, the air conditioner, and staying as still as possible either watching a movie or reading a book. She didn’t understand mine and Lewis’s yearning for the cold ocean. I loved nothing more on a hot day than to bury myself in the surf, letting the cold waves wash over me. My Queensland cousins may pick on us for our cold, almost Antarctic water, but I never minded it too much; especially not in the heat of summer. It could be 45 degrees out of the water, but the water was still always cold. You couldn’t say that for Queensland’s beaches. Swimming up there felt more like taking a bath rather than a dip in the ocean. Plus they had to worry about jellyfish and crocodiles and more sharks. I’d take my cold, rough southern ocean any day.
Gemma sighed as she lay back on her towel.
“Are you okay?” I looked over at her, concerned.
“Huh?” she squinted up at me and removed her sunglasses.
“You okay?” I asked again.
“Yeah, I’m fantastic, actually! This is what I was talking about last week. This is what I needed. Sun on my skin. The breeze in my hair. Surrounded by cute boys.” She winked at Leo, Greg and Mick as she said the last part. She lay back down and sighed again, only this time I realised it was the sigh of contentment, not frustration.
I pulled out my bottle of sunscreen and started covering myself up. One summer I’d made the mistake of trying to get a tan. Mara was always so brown and tanned and hardly ever burned. I on the other hand burnt if I even thought about sunshine for too long without sunscreen on.
“Do you need help with that?” Leo asked. I was trying to get my back.
“Uh, yeah, sure. Thanks.” I passed the bottle of sunscreen over to him. He crouched behind me and I heard the squirt of the sunscreen come out of the bottle and hit his hand. I shivered as he gently rubbed the cream into the pale skin of my back. I hadn’t been touched by a man since Tom. It felt... odd, yet good, to be touched again. Even if it was just an innocent sunscreen application.
He patted my shoulder when he was done and handed the bottle back to me.
“There you go, hopefully you won’t look like a tomato at the end of the day.”
“Thanks, yeah, hopefully not!”
I laid down on my belly and pulled out my book, trying to find my place.
“Who wants to come in the water?” Melanie asked. Greg bounced up, as did Mick, albeit a bit slower. Mara shook her head and Gemma mumbled something I didn’t quite catch, but assumed was a negative.
“In a bit,” I said. “I want to get warmed up first.”
Leo shook his head as well, so we watched together while Melanie, Holly, Mick and Greg headed down to the water. Mick tentatively put his feet in, then relaxed, which made me wonder idly if he was from my part of Australia. Northerners tended to run straight in. Southerners expected a cold bite.
Greg ran in, then turned around and started splashing Mick and the two American girls. Holly squealed. Melanie splashed him right back, and soon it was a free for all.
Mick didn’t last too long, and soon came back to us, shivering.
“I don’t think that was the best idea,” he whispered.
“Probably not. What have you got? A cold?” I asked.
“Something like that. Maybe bronchitis.” I struggled to hear him over the breeze and the screeching coming from the water.
“No good. Getting sick while you’re travelling sucks,” I commiserated.
“All I want to
do is curl up on a couch with some DVD’s. Greg dragged me out.” He glared out at his friend.
“Well, lying in the warm sun won’t be too bad. Just stay out of the water,” I said.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
I grinned at him, and went back to my book.
Melanie, Holly and Greg came back after a little while and laid out on their towels. It took a good half hour of lying on the beach, reading my book before I felt sufficiently warmed enough to get in the water.
“Ready to get in?” I looked over at Mara and Gemma. Mara seemed to have fallen asleep. Gemma put her book down and stood up.
“Yeah! I think so.”
“Leo?” He was propped up on his arms, watching the beach around us. He looked at me with a question in his face.
“Are you coming in?” Gemma prompted.
“Oh. Yes.” He stood up and pulled his t-shirt off. I gaped for a moment; I couldn’t help it. He looked like something out of a commercial - defined chest, chiseled abs. If he was a photograph I would swear that he was photoshopped. I glanced at Gemma, and then tried to bury my grin. She had a similarly stunned look on her face that I’m sure also graced mine. We got a grip on ourselves while Leo neatly folded his shirt. I’d like to think we looked like respectable human beings by the time he stood up and faced us, and not like slack-jawed idiots. But I can’t be sure.
The water was nice. Not warm, but not cold either. Just right. Refreshing, but not too refreshing. Gemma started doing small laps, with a powerful freestyle stroke.
“Can you swim?” Leo asked me after ducking under the water.
I looked at him, startled.
“Yeah, of course. Not as good as Gemma, though.” I watched as she came back towards us. The water was rather calm, almost more like a lake than the ocean today. “We all learn to swim quite young in Australia,” I added, realising that not all countries would have our mandatory swimming lessons at school.
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. At school. We had swimming lessons every summer. I think most school’s do it...”
“That is good. I worked as a life guard when I was a teenager.”
I looked at him closely and a mental image popped into my mind of Leo in red speedos and a yellow top - the stereotypical Aussie life guard. I don’t know why, but Belgian life guards seemed like an odd concept to me, even though when I thought about it logically, of course they would have life guards at their pools.
“At a pool?” I asked.
“No, at the beach. I grew up in a beachside town. Blankenberge. Not as nice as your Australian beaches, but nice enough.”
“Aren’t you in the North Sea? Isn’t it cold?”
Leo laughed.
“Yes, a bit. But it can get quite warm in summer.”
“Oh okay. I’ll take your word for it,” I laughed.
We stood and watched Gemma swim for a moment. I wove my hands back and forth along the surface of the water and vaguely wondered what Leo’s abs would feel like under my fingers. Tom was fit, but it was more of a lean fit. He didn’t have many muscles.
“Your name,” Leo started.
“Bea.” I said. My heart sank. He’d forgotten my name?
“Yes. I know. Bea. Is it short for something?”
“Beatrix.”
“Like Beatrix Potter?”
I snorted.
“Yep. My mother is a bit obsessed with her. We have all of her books. And I think she’s watched that movie Miss Potter about a hundred times.”
“My mother has an obsession as well. But not with your Miss Potter.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Leonardo DiCaprio? No. Sorry. You’re too old. Da Vinci?”
Leo had snorted when I said DiCaprio.
“Yes. She wrote her dissertation on Leonardo Da Vinci. Then named her first born son after him. My brother and sister got a nice normal Belgian name.”
“My brother is named after Lewis Carroll,” I grinned. “Lewis isn’t exactly a common name in Australia. They’re all James, Nick, Jack or Dan there.”
“I have never met another Beatrix,” Leo admitted, smiling at me. “Although you do share your name with the previous queen of the Netherlands.”
“Oh yeah. You’re my first real-life Leo too,” I laughed. “When I started high school I hated having a different name. My class had four Rebecca’s, three Jessica’s, two Amanda’s and two Katie’s. I was definitely an odd one out.”
“It’s good to be a bit different,” Leo said slowly. “How long have you known Mara and Gemma?”
“About four years or so. I met Mara on our first day of university. I met Gem a few weeks or months later, I can’t quite remember. Gemma and Mara have known each other for years. They went to high school together.”
“Old friends are good.” Leo looked off into the horizon and I snuck another appreciative gawk at his body.
Gemma stopped swimming her laps and paddled over to us.
“What are you guys talking about?” she asked, giving me a splash.
“Names,” I said, splashing her back.
“So, I forgot to ask you last night, Leo. Do you have a girlfriend?” Gemma asked.
He paused and looked up at the sky for a moment.
“No.”
“Us too! Well, no boyfriends, fiancé’s or husbands. And as far as I know, none of us is gay… Are you gay, Bea? Did Tom put you off men forever?”
I scowled at Gemma.
“No, I don’t think so.”
We spent a few more hours at the beach. I managed not to get sunburnt. My skin tingled as Leo helped me reapply my sunscreen after a couple of hours.
“Do you girls have any plans tonight?” Leo asked, as he rubbed the goopy cream into my back. I took a moment to answer, lost in the feeling of his strong hands running over my back. Oh, it felt so good to be touched again.
“Hmmm?”
“Tonight? Do you and your friends have any plans?”
“Oh. No. I don’t think so. Is there anything on at the hostel?” I tried to remember what was on the list that Pedro had shown us earlier.
“I’m not sure. But I am meeting up with my friend Sofia for dinner. She is from Lisbon. You are more than welcome to join us.”
For some reason my heart jolted a bit at the mention of a friend named Sofia. I mentally shook myself. No need.
“That sounds nice, I’ll have to check with Mara and Gemma though.”
“Well, I hope you can come. I think you would like Sofia.”
“Yeah? How do you know her?”
“She was an exchange student at my university for a year. She used to date my best friend.”
“Used to?”
“Yeah. They broke up a few years ago. She’s engaged to a Finnish guy now.”
My traitorous imagination calmed down.
“But you kept in touch?”
“Well, I was friends with her before she started dating Nick, so it only seemed fair. No, she is a fun girl. Very smart. Lots of humour. Big heart.”
“Are you sure you want us tagging along? Don’t you want to catch up alone?”
“No… no, the more the merrier! Sofia loves to meet new people.”
Mara and Gemma came back over to where we were sitting on the towels. Mara held up her hands.
“I think I’ve had enough swimming for today!” Her fingers were all pruney.
She wrapped herself in her towel, shivering slightly despite the heat.
Gemma plonked down on her towel, then stretched out in the sun to dry off.
“Do we have any plans tonight?” I asked them.
Gemma shook her head. “Not that I am aware of.”
“Leo invited us to come for dinner with him and his Portuguese friend.”
“Oh, dinner with a local, that would be fun!” said Mara.
“Where are you going?” Gemma asked Leo, shading her eyes with her hand.
Leo stood up and stretched. A quick glance around assured me that I wasn’t the only one app
reciating the sight before us.
“I’m not sure. Sofia is the local, I let her decide. She is meeting me at the hostel at 8pm.”
“Okay, we’ll be ready.”
“Ready for what?” Greg asked. I hadn’t noticed them come back. They’d gone with the two American girls to look for a toilet.
“Dinner,” Leo said. “We are going with a Portuguese friend of mine. Would you all like to come too?”
Greg shrugged. “Why not? Sounds like fun!” He looked at the girls.
“I’m sorry, we can’t. We’ve booked a night tour, to see a fado show,” Melanie said with an apologetic frown.
“Oh, well, I’m sure that will be more fun than just dinner!”
Dinner with Sofia was very pleasant. She greeted us all delightedly, and seemed proud to show off her city. She took us to a restaurant that had tables outside on the cobbled street, and a view over the city to the castle we’d visited yesterday. Sitting in the balmy evening, surrounded by friends, and with a glass of wine in my hand I felt a measure of peace. The city looked magical, lit up in the darkness, sprawling away up to the castle. I let the conversation flow over and around me, content to just enjoy the atmosphere and food. Sofia and Greg kept up a lively conversation. I felt a little sorry for Leo. He barely got a chance to exchange more than five words with his friend, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. He had a slight smile on his face every time I glanced over at him.
I dreamed of Leo that night.
Chapter Five
Sintra
It was much more pleasant to wake up the next morning without a head throbbing, stomach churning hangover. I swore, yet again, that I wouldn’t drink so much in future. I stretched out, enjoying the feel of the cool cotton sheets on my skin, and then felt myself blush as my dream came flooding back.
I’d been running from something, running without getting tired like I only seem to be able to do when I’m unconscious. Leo had popped out of somewhere and told me to come with him. He’d save me. He had been even more muscular and intimidating than he was in real life. We’d kept running, but then the dream shifted, and suddenly it wasn’t running that we were doing… I was glad that no one was able to read my mind. It had been a pretty dirty affair. Sometimes my mind surprised even me with what it could come up with. I felt vaguely proud though; it was my first sex-dream since the Break Up that didn’t involve Tom. An accomplishment, surely?
Unexpected: A Backpacker Romance (The Backpacker Romances) Page 5
