‘Bonjour! What would you like?’
Cat ordered for herself, Ginny and Paul. Then looked across at Tristan. He set the blackboard back on the table. ‘I’ll have the tartiflette, too. And we need four large beers.’ He grinned at the waitress. ‘Merci beaucoup.’
Ginny scoffed as the waitress hurried away with their order. ‘Listen to you, fancy-pants. “Thank you very much!” She’s not going to shag you, you know.’
Tristan rolled his eyes and took a sip of the water that Cat had poured. ‘How you feeling, Cat?’ He leaned over to the side and undid his boots, sliding his feet out then shoving his boots under the table. There was a slight waft of sweat, then it was gone.
Cat took another drink. ‘A lot better now. I’ll be better still after I get some food. I should’ve eaten more at breakfast. Or brought some more snacks—’
Paul picked up a glass. ‘To be fair, we thought we’d be having lunch about three hours ago—’
‘To be fair,’ Tristan cut in, ‘some of us didn’t exactly do much to help with the planning of this trip, and if everyone hadn’t been walking at snail’s pace, we would’ve been here ages ago.’
‘Except you got us lost, Trissy, didn’t you?’ Ginny laughed, just as the waitress arrived, depositing the beers and a basket of bread on the table. She looked at them, bemused, then hurried off again.
Ginny looked down at her placemat, tracing a finger around the map, and Cat caught the look that Tristan gave her when she wasn’t looking. There was pure venom in there, and it made Cat’s stomach somersault. Then Tristan turned to her and winked. He picked up his beer and downed half of it, before slamming it down on the table. ‘Salut!’ The cutlery rattled, and Cat noticed a couple of the men from the bar eyeing them with interest.
‘We’re here now,’ Cat said. ‘I’m sure Tristan had the best intentions when he led us down that path.’ She picked up a piece of bread and gnawed the hard crust. ‘Right, so do we know the rest of the route? How long will it take us to get back?’
Tristan took another drink of his beer before replying. ‘It looked like a decent shortcut. We don’t want to be scrabbling around this mountain all bloody day, do we? Anyway, we’re back on track now. You can all stop stressing.’
‘I thought we were going to try and get a lift back down to the car park?’ Paul said. ‘You were in a bad way earlier, Cat. I think we should call it quits and enjoy our evening back in the village.’
‘Quits? You’re good at that, Pauly. Better at quitting than you were at your job, that’s for sure.’
Tristan’s voice was like ice. Cat’s stomach did another loop-the-loop. Why was he being so antagonistic? He needed to keep it together, like she was trying her best to do. ‘Tristan—’ she started.
Paul cut her off. ‘For god’s sake, Tristan. Give it a rest, will you? Why do you care so much that I left? Plenty more filthy lucre for you now that the team is one man down, eh? I’m perfectly happy with my decision . . .’ He let his sentence trail off. The waitress was standing by the table, three steaming dishes on a tray.
‘Tartiflette?’
Cat pointed to her place, then Tristan’s opposite, and Ginny’s next to his. She gave the waitress a ‘sorry about them’ smile. But she felt anger bubbling hard in her chest. This wasn’t meant to happen. They were all supposed to be having a good time. She was going to have to pull Tristan aside and rein him in a bit before he ruined the whole thing.
‘Steak sandwich will be here in one minute.’ The waitress scurried off again, and Cat could hear her mutter something under her breath about annoying tourists, and some swear words that Cat remembered from her time in France. The French didn’t have many swear words, but depending on the inflection, one particular word could be used in a variety of ways. She felt like swearing herself. Tristan’s needling was becoming physically painful.
She dipped her bread into the sauce in her dish, swirling it around, then blew on it before she took a bite. She recalled from past experience that the sauce had a tendency to be radioactive, and she didn’t fancy burning the roof of her mouth. She hadn’t warned the others, though, and a moment later, Tristan was cursing under his breath and downing more of his beer. She tried not to smirk at him and instead side-eyed Paul, and saw that he’d noticed too. He looked pleased. This was good. Best for Paul to believe that she was still on his side, and it stopped Tristan upsetting everyone for a minute.