It Happened at Cafe Nix

Angry Birds and Turtle Doves

Angry Birds and Turtle Doves

Lily Malone

Sydney’s hot. Adelaide’s hot. And it’s getting hot down under the tablecloth.

A story based one year after Seth and Remy solve the problems of love and the universe in So Far Into You, published in 2015 by Escape Publishing.

Strange, the difference a year makes.

Last time Seth Lasrey sat his backside in Cafe Nix, he’d flirted with the waitress, Tamsin, because she reminded him of Remy. It was something in the way she moved. That same willowy walk. Not exactly like Remy. No one moved like Remy. Remy’s walk was easy as water sliding over glass.

That was February last year, when he’d met with Max Montgomery and Montgomery’s accountant. They’d all been in Sydney for the Sydney Wine Show where he and Max had signed the deal for Lasrey to buy Montgomery Wines, over a lunch of the best pork belly Seth had ever tasted.

“You always like to see the wine list first, Mr Lasrey, I remember,” Tamsin said now, materialising beside him.

“I do, and thank you, but I already know what I want.”

She paused, fixing him with green eyes that had probably seen every come-on known to woman or waitress and anticipated one right now: “And what would that be?”

“Pork belly and a bottle of Bowen Estate Cabernet.”

“Ah,” and her eyes crinkled into a smile that held genuine warmth. “Good for you. Nice choice.”

Tamsin eased her way back toward the bar and Seth pulled his phone and earpieces from his satchel. It was just after eight, Cafe Nix gearing up for another busy night. Most of the tables held couples. Some were groups, business meetings he suspected, or tourists. A stuffed koala poked out of an older lady’s handbag and the young boy with her had an Australian flag tucked across his thighs.

It would be 7.30pm in Adelaide. They were in the middle of a heatwave there. Remy said last night it was expected to last another two days and she almost sounded disappointed. She loved the heat.

He’d bet she was wearing her shorts right about now. Her shortest shorts. The Jessica Simpson/Daisy Duke denim ones that showed the curve of her arse when she bent over in the garden. Probably in tandem with her purple tank top: the one with material that could have hugged a pencil it clung so damn tight. If she’d been digging or pruning—and she was always digging or slashing at something, or getting him digging or slashing at the tougher stuff—there’d be a darkened purple vee in that sweet valley between her breasts. She’d be hot. Drippy. Sweaty. Remy.

He let his thoughts rest there for a few pleasurable seconds. Then he thought about her boots.

He couldn’t picture Remy any other way. He’d lost count of the times in the last year he’d told her she should appear in adverts for Blundstone. It would have solved all her money problems in a heartbeat. Bugger the bank.

A junior waitress, not Tamsin, brought him a bottle of iced water. Seth loosened his tie, tugged it out of his collar, undid the top button, started to feel human.

He put the first of his earpieces in, watching Tamsin pick her way through the tables with his bottle of Bowen. She poured without stopping to let him test it. Another testament to her good memory. He’d never been one for testing wine in a restaurant. There were so many screw caps nowadays, the odds of finding a corked wine were pretty much zero. He didn’t like the wank value of it either.

Red wine flowed. Tamsin put the bottle in a Cafe Nix holder, smiled at him, and kept moving.

Seth swirled the liquid, buried his nose in the glass.