by Jane Frances
“Admit it.” Mark knocked his shoulder against hers as they walked. “You love her.”
“Shut up.” Morgan hurried her step, determined to be the first to reach Ally. Mark also lengthened his stride.
The bastard overtook her in the last five meters. Despite her high heels, Morgan broke into a run. Ally, who had by now seen them, laughed a hello to them both, amused by their speedy arrival. If she was disappointed that Morgan was not alone, she did not show it, smiling broadly and accepting kisses on the cheek from the both of them.
“Damn. You’re a sight for sore eyes.” Mark took hold of her hands and held her at arm’s length. “How are you, Ally?”
“Much better for having seen you again.” Ally glanced at Morgan, briefly meeting her gaze before looking back to Mark. “Are you coming to have a drink with us?”
“That’s the plan.” Mark grinned.
“Excellent.” Ally glanced quickly at Morgan again. Her expression was unreadable. But if Morgan was asked to choose whether it was irritation or relief, she would lean toward relief.
Was Ally a little afraid of her? she wondered. If she was, then it appeared her knight in shining armor had arrived. Mark manoeuvred between them, crooking both his arms and inviting them to take one each.
“Come, ladies.” He steered them in the direction of the Rambla. “Let’s go see how the Spanish beer measures up to the Australian.”
An hour later they were sipping on their second drinks while seated in an open-air café on the Rambla. It was near the section where all manner of birds were on sale, from day-old chicks to canaries and quail, exotic parrots, love birds and even a toucan. Combined, their various chatter and screeches and songs were loud to the point of piercing. Personally, Morgan found the din rather irritating. Or maybe she was just annoyed that Mark had well and truly muscled in on her evening. Morgan stabbed at the ice in her vodka and cranberry with her straw while she listened to Mark tell yet another tale of their travels. Or, more accurately, another tale that made her appear a fool. This time he was recounting the “spider episode” in Malaysia. They’d been traipsing through the rainforest in the Taman Negara National Park on a guided tour. Morgan was being filmed talking with the guide about the value of the eco-tourist to the park when a spider dropped from the trees into her hair. She’d nearly knocked Nick flat as she ran down the trail, thrashing at her hair and screaming, “Get it off me! Get it off me!”
“It was a huge spider,” she said sulkily in her own defense, shuddering just at the memory of it. She’d had spider-related nightmares for a week afterward.
Mark scoffed and rolled his eyes in Ally’s direction. “It was a teeny little thing.”
“Actually, I would have done the same thing,” Ally admitted. “I hate spiders. Almost as much as I hate flying.”
Morgan, infinitely pleased that Ally had rallied to her defense, jumped onto the change in topic before Mark could. He was busy lighting up another cigarette. “How was your flight over here?”
“Ask the poor people I got stuck next to on each of the three legs. I think they suffered almost as much as me.”
“You should take a sleeping tablet,” Mark suggested in between puffs.
“I do. But it doesn’t kick in until well after takeoff. And by then the person sitting next to me has almost lost their hand from having it squeezed so hard.”
If Mark hadn’t been there, Morgan would have said something about not minding if she was the one having her hand squeezed by Ally. But he was there, so she didn’t.
“Anyway,” Ally continued, “even the tablets don’t work very well. I sleep badly for a few hours then that’s it.” She pointed to her eyes, which had faint lines of fatigue around them. “As you can see.”
This time Morgan didn’t stop to think about Mark’s presence. “I think you look fantastic.”
In the next second Morgan was wishing she had openly complimented Ally long before now. Mark stubbed out his cigarette and sculled the remains of his beer. He stood and hoisted up his faded jeans. “Me too. But I’ve a date with Nick and Kitty over a plate of paella.” His cigarette packet was popped into a shirt pocket and he leaned down to kiss Ally on the cheek. “Great to catch up with you again.” Morgan got a punch on the arm. “Mogs, I’ll see your ugly mug tomorrow morning.”
Morgan nodded, stealing a glance at Ally, who was looking a little startled at Mark’s abrupt departure. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Ally also said, her gaze following him as he weaved between the tables out to the street. He was out of sight before she returned her attention to Morgan. She smiled, albeit a little nervously. “Hello.”
“Hello.” Morgan hoped her smile and her tone conveyed how pleased she was that they were finally alone. She also hoped it conveyed there was no need for Ally to be afraid of being alone with her. “Are you hungry?”
Ally nodded convincingly, rolling her empty wineglass between her palms. “I’m half starved. Why on earth the Spanish eat so late I’ll never know.”
Morgan laughed. “Tell me about it. Last trip here, when we were in Madrid, we were invited to dinner by some bigwigs trying to curry favor and have us promote their hotel chain. The restaurant booking was for eleven p.m., and so by the time our first course arrived it was close to midnight. I tell you, I was almost ready to start chewing on my arm.” She nodded to the menu board leaning against a pillar. “We can eat here, if you like.”
Ally screwed up her nose at the menu. “I wouldn’t mind some tapas actually. If the concierge at the hotel is to be believed, there’s supposed to be a good place not too far from here. Apparently the locals eat there too, so it’s not too touristy.”
Morgan downed the last of her drink and stood. “Lead the way.”
“So did they manage to curry your favor?” Ally asked as they walked down the Rambla in the direction of the harbor.
“The bigwigs?” Morgan stopped at one of the bird stalls. “No. We don’t work that way. We’re more of a video guidebook than a paid advertisement.” She pointed to a cage sitting directly on the pavement. “Are they baby emus?”
Ally nodded. “I saw these when I walked the Rambla on Sunday. Poor buggers. Look”—she pointed to a sign above the cage—“they’re promoting them as good eating. Goodness knows where they got hold of emus over here.”
“Maybe brought over from the U.K. or somewhere. They farm them there now.”
“Really?” Ally exclaimed. “I didn’t know that.” She peered sadly into the cage then turned and pulled Morgan away. “I hate seeing birds in cages. Even the ones smart enough not to fly.” She guided Morgan off the Rambla and into a side street, all the while talking about the pet budgerigar she’d been given on her fifteenth birthday and had for the next eight years. “Axel had free run of the house and then my first apartment when I went to uni. His cage door was always open, except at night when I covered it over, and he hopped in and out as he pleased. He used to love having baths and would often sit in a corner of the shower stall when I was taking a shower.”
“Lucky bird,” Morgan said, thinking more of the Ally shower-sharing aspect than its liberated lifestyle. “Do you have any pets now?”
“When Axel died I decided it was too hard. Emotionally, that is. I think I cried more for him than when my grandma passed away.”
“The bond with a pet is a very special one.” Morgan understood completely what Ally was saying. She’d gone to pieces for days when the family cat died. Tom had been eighteen and around for longer than she had herself.
“Do you have any pets now?” Ally asked, pointing them down another side street.
“Goodness, no. With my schedule even the houseplants are in constant threat of extinction. It’s a bit of a shame though,” Morgan said almost wistfully. “It would be nice to come home to a friendly greeting instead of an echo.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of the traveling?” Ally asked, shuddering. “I know I’m about the only person on the planet who’d
say this—but I don’t envy your job at all. In and out of planes. It’s nightmare material.”
Morgan laughed. “I do think you’re about the only person who hasn’t fallen into a jealous swoon over my job. I do love it, even though it’s not all glamor and chic hotel rooms like most people think. But sometimes I get jacked with the whole thing— especially all the hours spent in airports and planes—and wish I had a ‘normal’ nine-to-five job. Probably I’ll have a serious rethink of my position when my contract’s up in three years. If the show’s still going then, of course. If there’s one thing certain in television, it’s that nothing’s ever certain.”
Ally glanced up to check the street name on the side of a building at a three-way junction. She hesitated a moment then pointed to the right, to a street even narrower than the last. Morgan hoped Ally knew where she was going. Although, come to think of it, she didn’t really care. She couldn’t think of a single person she’d rather get lost with.
“I watched your show last Thursday,” Ally said a little shyly. “I don’t think there’s too much chance of a cancellation anytime soon. You’re very good at what you do.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me today,” Morgan admitted, unaccountably pleased that Ally had seen the show. Given that Ally hardly ever watched television she doubted she had just caught it by accident. “I really sucked. Kept stuffing up my lines, forgetting place names. And I kept calling Gaudi gaudy.”
“His work was a bit on the wild side of architectural design.” Ally laughed. “Maybe your mouth just kept popping out what your brain was really thinking.”
“Maybe.” Morgan would have liked nothing better than for her mouth to pop out what her brain was thinking right now. But it would likely send Ally scurrying away in fright. It was almost enough to make Morgan scurry away herself. Because her brain was telling her what her heart—and Mark—already knew. It was telling her there was no point trying to deny it: she was in love with this woman. “But I think it was more because I was distracted by something other than work today.”
Morgan knew that Ally knew exactly what she was talking about. She watched for the reaction and waited for her to ask the obvious question: what distracted you?
After Ally had asked it she’d smile knowingly in her direction and say simply, “You.”
It would be a gentle easement into intimacy that would hopefully not freak Ally out.
But she was disappointed. It seemed Ally was not ready to take the conversation to a more personal level. She just shrugged and said, “We all get days like that.” Then she pointed a little farther down the street, to a building with a brightly painted façade and the words Casa de los Tapas daubed across a varnished wooden shingle hanging from a cast iron bracket. “That’s the place. The House of Tapas.” She turned to Morgan. “Totally unoriginal name but the food’s supposed to be good.”
“Who cares about originality? I’m just impressed you managed to find this place at all.” Morgan looked around her. “I’ve got no idea where we are.”
Ally put her hands on her hips and set her feet apart. “Then you’d better not say anything to upset me tonight, or I’ll leave you here to forever wander the back streets of Barcelona.”
God, the woman was just so damned cute when she was trying to be tough. Especially in that dress and those heels. “I’ll consider myself warned.” Morgan held back a smile as she headed for the entrance.
“Maybe the place isn’t that great after all,” Ally whispered a bit dubiously once they were inside. “It’s not exactly full.”
Morgan shrugged, scanning the premises and pinpointing where she wanted to sit. There was a cozy little table tucked into the far corner. It was pleasantly out of range of the bar and the toilets. And all the other diners—all seven of them—were clustered toward the front. “It’s Spain, remember. Only we tourists eat so early. All the locals are still digesting lunch.”
Once settled at the tucked-away table, they studied the menu card. Thankfully there was an English translation under the Catalan. Morgan spoke a smattering of Spanish, but her Catalan was nonexistent.
“What grabs your fancy?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Everything sounds good. Except for the beef tripe.” Ally put the menu card down. “Let’s be bad and get one of everything else.”
Morgan laughed. There were dozens of choices. “We’ll be here all night if we do that.”
“I’ve got all night.”
So do I, but I hope not all of it will be spent eating. Morgan’s gaze strayed to Ally’s lips. Her greatest wish right now was to taste them again. She put her menu card on the table. “I’ll let you decide what we have. Just make sure you include some chicken croquettes. They’re my favorite.”
Ally settled on a selection of ten different dishes and a jug of sangria.
“Oh, my God,” Ally said when the waiter quickly returned with their drink. “I didn’t realize the jug would be so big.” She tipped it toward Morgan’s glass. “I hope it’s good ’cause there’s plenty of it.”
“There’s no rule that says we have to finish it.” Morgan touched her glass to Ally’s. “Here’s to . . . tapas in Barcelona.”
“And to us being together eating tapas in Barcelona.”
Morgan’s stomach started doing its flippy-floppy thing. She smiled into Ally’s eyes. “A happy coincidence.”
Ally nodded and took her glass to her lips. But she put it back on the table before taking a sip. “I left James,” she said quickly, as if wanting to get the words out as fast as she could.
Morgan put her own glass back on the table, her heart leaping at this admission. She wasn’t too surprised at the news—Ally had already hinted around the edges of the subject when they talked on the phone on Monday. But since it was only minutes ago she had skated over her attempt to up the gears, she hadn’t been expecting this sudden turn in this conversation. “I kind of guessed that was the case when you told me not everyone had been given your new mobile number. Since you’d already said you were trying to get back in contact with me, it didn’t take too long to figure who you were talking about.”
“I didn’t leave him for you. I mean”—the glass of sangria was lifted but again it never made it to Ally’s mouth—“you were part of the reason but not the whole reason. It was something I had to do for myself.”
Morgan watched as Ally’s glass finally made it to her lips. In the moment it took for her to take a large swallow she managed to fit in an “I understand.” But the rest of what she wanted to say would have to remain unsaid. Ally was obviously not yet finished speaking.
“I just wanted you to know in case it was something that would stop you from . . .” She looked as if she were searching for the correct words.
“The reasons you left James are yours alone,” Morgan said gently. “They’re not for me to judge.” Ally glanced at her sharply, which made her realize she was interrupting again. “Sorry.” She made the motion of zipping her lip and throwing away the key.
Ally smiled wanly and took a deep breath. She held it, as if using the moment to organize her thoughts. “I wanted you to know I had left James because I wanted you to know I’m now single. I don’t know how you feel about affairs, but I’ve never had one and I might be old-fashioned but I don’t really think they’re right. But maybe that’s just me being self-righteous because I never actually met anyone who I wanted to have an affair with, so it was easy enough to say I didn’t believe in them.”
Morgan opened her eyes wide at her understanding at where this rush of words was leading. But she kept quiet. Ally was still not finished.
“But I’m single now and for me that’s good. Because right now I’m sitting here knowing that even if I wasn’t and you asked me to your hotel room that I’d say yes and then I’d have to eat my words and admit I am the kind to have an affair. But since I am single, now all I have to worry about is that you don’t ask me to your hotel room. And I really don’t think I could deal with
that because I’ve been thinking about what might happen tonight from the moment you called me. Even though I didn’t know exactly what to think because I’ve never been with—”
Ally stopped as abruptly as she’d started, interrupted by the waiter who’d just arrived with their tapas selection.
They sat in silence while the waiter pulled up another little table hard to theirs and painstakingly organized the ten dishes around the jug of sangria.
Morgan took a long look at the feast, then an even longer look at Ally. “Would you like to stay here and have this, or would you prefer room service?”
Ally also looked at the food before settling her gaze on Morgan. Morgan didn’t know which of them received the hungrier stare. “Why don’t we ask them to package it up? Then we can have this . . . in our room.”
Ally shivered a little as she and Morgan stood together in the elevator. They were on their way to the fifth floor. To her room, in her hotel, at her request. “It’s closer,” she had said as they finally exited the restaurant, each toting a bag containing five foil-wrapped packages. It actually wasn’t closer at all. But if Morgan knew that she didn’t argue, instead just smiling and telling Ally to “lead the way.” Maybe she’d sensed her need to be in surrounds that were just a little bit familiar while she plunged into otherwise unknown territory.
Or maybe she was just lost.
“Are you cold?” Morgan asked her now, obviously having seen her shiver.
“A little.” Ally cast a glance to the digital control panel as she spoke the lie. She was a lot of things right now. But cold was not one of them. Especially not now that Morgan had moved to stand a little closer. Close enough she could feel her body heat. Level four. One more to go. She shivered again as the digital display changed and the elevator ground to a halt on the fifth floor. This time a sudden rush of nerves was the primary cause. “Here we are,” she squeaked, stepping out and heading quickly in the direction of her door. Twice the electronic entry system flashed red when she swiped her card. “I’m not very good at this tonight.” She felt the heat of embarrassment spread up her neck as she handed the card to Morgan. “You try.”
