Nadia watched Thomas pick up his spoon by the tip of the handle and stir his oily soup. A chicken foot floated to the surface. The spoon dropped, clattering, and he nudged the bowl away, his face blanched.
Nadia sniggered, relieved to have something to take her attention from the heaviness in her heart.
They sat in a small restaurant, not far from the central bus terminal in Lima, in a long, narrow white-washed room. The brown clay tiles were worn, and the red-moulded plastic chairs wobbled with each movement. Salsa music blared from a small, black stereo and the sizzle of pans and clanking of kitchen implements came from a doorway outlined in a dark-yellow smudge — suspiciously reminiscent of a layer of greasy dust. Nadia pushed that thought aside.
The set menu was a bargain. Soup, chicken, rice, and dessert for a couple of dollars — and so tasty. Savouring a mouthful of the liquid, she thought she would never grow tired of the meal, even having eaten the staple countless times. She regarded Thomas as he picked his spoon up again and took a tentative sip of broth. Thick brows lifted.
Despite their agreement, he'd been reticent about eating here. The problem had been resolved by a young woman who grabbed his arm, pulled him inside, and deposited him in an unstable chair.
Nadia found his presence reassuring, even though her head still pounded, and her heart keened. This unsettled her. She swept the realisation into the pile of other unwanted abstractions. The mound had grown exponentially since her arrival in Latin America. It could wait a little longer.
An impish thought darted in to fill the vacant space. Would he gross-out if she ate one of the chicken feet? She always put them on the table — no doubt only to end up back in the pot. But why not try one? When in Rome and all that. They couldn't be too bad if they were so popular over here.
Still a little drunk, she told herself to use the remains of her courage before it evaporated.
Biting down on her bottom lip, she dipped her fingers in the lukewarm liquid and plucked one out. Thomas' eyes rounded as she popped the pink, wrinkled toe into her mouth and chewed. The meat was tender, succulent and full of a rich flavour. "Mmm."
Thomas swallowed heavily, his chest expanding and contracting in a wave-like motion. He didn't look good. Teeth clenched, lips curled back and nose wrinkled. The bone crunched between her teeth. She could have sworn his face turned a shade of green before he turned away to rummage for something in his bag.
Laughter bubbled out of her. She couldn't help it — it was too funny. The waitress shot her a look as if she were mad, but she didn't care.
"I don't see what is so amusing."
"You! You're so easy to wind up!" Nadia wiped her eyes. "So bloody predictable."
His eyes pinched together. "I am not."
"Pfft! You wanna bet?"
He crossed his arms. "You're on."
"Your loss." Nadia's mouth quirked and she leaned in close to fix his gaze. The thin piece of toilet paper in his hand, serving as his napkin, disintegrated. "Eat your feet."
Thomas' face turned a verdant colour. He peered down at his bowl, then back at her, fidgeting with the decimated scraps between his fingers.
"And if I don't?"
She took her time to consider, pursing her lips, resting her chin between thumb and forefinger and looking up while he sipped from his can of Coca-Cola. "Hmm, I think you can wash my socks."
Thomas almost spat out his drink. "You want me to wash your socks? For goodness sake, woman, why?"
Her body felt light, and her mouth stretched out. This game was fun. "Because they're dirty and I'm almost out of clean ones."
"Surely that's what a laundromat is for."
"If you keep this up, you can do it in your underwear."
One side of his mouth lifted, and his bright-blue eyes darkened. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, holding her frozen.
Shit! Nadia was no mind reader, but she was pretty sure he liked that idea.
An image of Thomas in underwear popped into her mind's eye, and her heart started to hammer. Then she remembered Khai and pain jabbed in her abdomen. What would Khai think?
Khai can go to fucking hell.
"And if I do, what do I get?" Thomas prompted.
She shrugged, hoping to gloss over his side of the wager. It didn't work.
Thomas straightened. "I want a neck and shoulder massage."
No way. That was too intimate. She shook her head.
His smile extended to the other side of his mouth. "Keep that up, and you can be in your underwear at the time."
Touché, Mr Moneybags.
The urge to wriggle came over her. She repressed it with a glare. "Fine!" The word came as a hiss as she thrust his bowl towards him, picked up another foot from her own and proceeded to suck the flesh off as loudly as she could.
This time Thomas' face turned puce. He delicately extracted a foot by a claw, dangling it between his thumb and forefinger, and examined it without breathing. A string of wobbling flesh caught her attention and her throat clenched. She closed her eyes a moment, trying to clear the image. When she opened them, she pretended it was a root of ginger — just a slightly different colour, covered in goosebumps and ... scales. Her guts started to curdle.
Thomas met her eyes. The knobbly appendage rose in front of his mouth. He gulped, then his expression became determined. In a quick movement, he opened his mouth, gripped a toe between his teeth and pulled, scraping off the meat.
His eyebrows raised higher this time. "Mmm ..." A trickle of juice ran down his chin. He wiped it away with a new piece of toilet paper. "This is superb!"
Nadia blinked as Thomas devoured the rest and moved on to the next one. In no time, a little stack of bones had gathered next to his bowl. Nausea grew within her as she absently stirred her dish, occasionally taking a spoonful. From time to time, a foot bobbed up, and she looked away.
"Are you going to eat the rest of those?" Thomas asked, pointing at the two floating about.
She shook her head and indicated with her hand. "Go for it."
He beamed and reached out his hand to pluck them out, then stopped. "Oh, fingers ... please excuse me."
"Don't mind me." She held up her hands.
He paused a moment longer, as if deciding whether to continue with the faux pas, then took them.
Nadia fished around with her spoon for the rest of the feet. "Now I know the way to your heart."
Thomas smiled at her lopsidedly. "And what is the way to yours?"
"Oh − um ... I guess back home that would be a nice cup of black tea. A good English Breakfast mind you. No Lipton or the weak crap they try to pass off here. But these days I'll settle for real coffee."
He contemplated her and nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."
This time she did squirm.
They continued with their meal, devouring the plates until they had no room left for dessert. Finished, they still had a few hours left, so they ordered some longnecks of Cusqueña beer and Nadia pulled out her deck of cards and taught him how to play Shit Head.
He trumped her at that too.
In case of reverse 'Latin American Time' and an early departure, they returned to the bus terminal well before the scheduled hour. They needn't have bothered. The double-decker bus wheezed into the station hours late and spluttered its last gasp when the driver attempted to restart the engine. Everyone disembarked to wait on hard steel chairs.
Nadia tried to read her Kindle, but she sat in an uncomfortable state between exhaustion and restlessness, unable to concentrate. She squirmed again.
"You seem full of nerves."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you're huffing and puffing."
"Am not." Her voice came out petulant, which irritated her further. There had been too many hours to kill since they left the hostel. She wanted to get on the road. Needed to feel like she was doing something.
"I know what you can do. You can give me my prize."
She turned to look at him incredulously, taking in the way he leaned back in the seat and how one long leg rested over the other. "Your prize?"
Thomas raked his hand through his hair and looked at her sideways. "Er, my neck and shoulder massage?"
She stared, mouth hanging open, following the path of his fingers through thick, dark-blonde strands, with a kink across his forehead, and licked her suddenly dry lips.
"Well, at least this way you won't be in your underwear."
She coughed and burst out laughing. People stared. Thomas flushed.
A day ago, she wouldn't. But this evening her treacherous fingers itched with minds of their own. She wanted to. But damned if she'd let him realise it.
"If you must." She let out a sigh as she unhooked her foot and calf from underneath her thigh, grimacing at the pins and needles as blood rushed down. When she made to push herself up off the seat, Thomas stopped her.
"I said I wanted a massage." He smiled, his aquamarine eyes trapping hers. "Not that you should give it."
She opened her mouth, but he spoke first. "All your twitching is putting me on edge."
Hands settled on her shoulders and twisted her torso, so her back faced him. Before she could object, deft fingers moved her hair from her neck, tickling her skin and causing a shiver to whisper from her nape down to her ... Oh fuck. Shit, fuck, shit. This needed to stop.
Warm breath whispered across her flesh. He smelled of spicy cologne and beer and his voice hummed in her ears. "Besides, I wouldn't mind having something to occupy myself."
Her heart started to race as she sat catatonic. Would he be able to tell? It seemed impossible that he — and the rest of the people in the depot for that matter — could hear anything else. Blood pounded in her ears. The ability to speak had flown out the sliding doors and into the cooling city air as, again and again, she swallowed and opened her mouth to protest. No words came out.
Skillful fingers moved, digging into the knots like expert prospectors.
She needed to stop this. Things were weird enough; they didn't need to throw sexual tension into the mix. She resisted the thought. You're not attracted to Thomas — it's just the shock. Her body disagreed ardently. Against her better judgement, and her will, she shuffled closer to him.
His fingers paused a moment to brush away a rogue strand and resumed their task. There was no way he could have missed the quivering of her body.
"Relax," he breathed into her ear.
His words did the exact opposite. Who the hell was this man? And what had happened to the shy, socially awkward guy from the hostel?
Nadia quickly reassessed her opinion of Thomas Waterhouse. He was dangerous. He was —
His thumb found a particularly tight gnarl and the thought melted away into the strange night. She took a deep breath, let out a silent moan and let herself liquefy.
Image by Reformation Acres, sourced on Pinterest.