Page 32 of Road Trip to the Riviera
I feel suddenly self-conscious in my bikini and pull a towel over my lap as I watch them approach.
‘Hello!’ Hal calls out as they get a little closer.
I lift a hand slightly, regarding the pair of them. Yes, it seems they are both coming to join me. I shift my body up so that I’m sitting rather than half-lying, and my leg gives a scream of protest.
‘This is Sébastien,’ Hal says, gesturing at his new friend. He pronounces it with as much of a French accent as he can muster. ‘We met on the trail.’
‘Enchanté.’ Sébastien reaches for my hand and brings it to his bristly face before I have a chance to react. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you.’ He looks at me with admittedly gorgeous blue eyes, but with the kind of confidence that I find off-putting. The confidence of a man who has decided he is so fricking sexy that all the women he meets must be overcome with desire at his touch.
‘Hello,’ I say primly. ‘Are you camping here?’
‘Non, I prefer to be more free. I don’t like these organised, corporate sites.’ He gestures around the rather basic plot that we have. ‘I have been camping in the woods for many days.’ Without asking, he plonks himself in the spare chair and I’m treated to a rather woody, musty smell that obviously backs up his point.
‘Right.’ I look at Hal, hoping to meet his gaze and share an eye-widening of disbelief. But he’s grinning at Sébastien.
‘Sébastien’s hoping to go to Nice too.’ Hal looks at me pointedly.
‘Well, that’s a coincidence. How are you… I mean, do you have plans about how you’ll get there?’ I say, and almost instantly something inside me drops. Because I suddenly know what’s coming next.
Sébastien throws a quick glance at Hal who briefly nods his head. ‘Your wonderful husband has said that I can travel withyou for a time. So we will be getting to know each other very well!’
‘He’s not my husband.’ What I’d actually like to say is ‘if he were, he’d be one step closer to divorce after this.’Because how exactly is this going to work? Is Sébastien going to top and tail with us in bed? Where’s he going to sit while we’re driving? And why on earth would Hal think that I’d be OK with this?
Sébastien takes my comment as a come-on. ‘Oh, I see,’ he says, his eyebrows performing some sort of elaborate dance. ‘Your boyfriend?’
‘No.’
He nods at my response then gives me a suggestive wink,and I cringe inwardly. I turn towards Hal, hoping he’ll see my face and realise that this is Not A Good Idea, but he seems completely smitten, smiling at his new woodland playmate.
After sitting with us and telling us far too many details about how he manages to keep his hygiene up to scratch while dwelling in a forest, Sébastien decides that, now he’s part of our gang and can use the campsite facilities, he’s going to take a shower. He strolls off, T-shirt already removed in readiness, one of Hal’s towels slung over his shoulder.
Admittedly, the man has a great body. And it’s clearly a view shared by most of the other women at the site, as everyone he passes seems to turn around for a second peek. But something about his sense of entitlement makes me bristle.
I know women are meant to go crazy for ripped, muscle-bound hunks. And I can see why someone would think that a toned bod is attractive. But in all honesty, when I see a man carefully honed and toned, all I can think of is the vanity that got him there.
Give me a dad bod any day, and a man who doesn’t take himself too seriously.
‘He’s quite a guy,’ Hal says, stepping out of Betty and smiling down on me.
I turn to him, my polite mask now fully removed, and his face literally falls when he sees my expression. ‘Oh,’ he says.
‘Yes. Oh,’ I tell him, simmering. ‘Hal, what were you thinking?’
‘I… I mean, the guy seems nice and…’
‘We don’t know the first thing about the guy! The “guy” could be an axe-murderer?—’
‘To be fair, I think we’d notice the axe if—’ But Hal’s feeble attempt to diffuse the situation with humour just makes me more livid.
‘I’m serious, Hal. Where is he going to sleep? What about when we drive? There isn’t a spare seat, and he can hardly just rattle around in the back. Have you actually thought about any of this?’
Hal takes a step back, as if trying to retreat from a scary predator. ‘I just thought we’d… muddle along,’ he says.
‘Muddle along! Hal, your whole life seems to be about muddling along. This whole trip is evidence that you can’t do anything the normal way, can’t take anything seriously. And you know what, I was starting to think you might have a point. That I ought to slow down a little, enjoy the scenery. But now? Bringing that man along with us?’ I channel my inner Vivian and give him what I hope is a stern look. It seems to work.
‘I thought you wouldn’t mind,’ Hal says, his voice more of a whimper than anything else.
‘And you didn’t think toaskme? You didn’t think that maybe I was tolerating just about all I could already?’ My leg gives an enormous throb as if to emphasise this fact and I can’t help but let out a small cry.
