Drenched | ✓

dos

The first thing I smelt when I woke up was clean sheets, followed shortly by the smell of cooking. My mouth almost started watering as I remembered suddenly grandma's renowned cooking skills.

I hurriedly got up and shrugged off my clothes, before dashing into the shower. It felt a slice of heaven when the warm water fell all over me, easing the aching I didn't know I had.

I picked up the towel on the side and wrapped it around me. Once patted dry, I shifted through my clothes, which must have been put away last night and pulled out a bikini.

"For fûck sakes, Elise," I muttered to myself as I found the swimwear she'd loaded me with. I'd let her pick some out, sure, but only because I was of the mind that I could use my other ones and wouldn't actually have to wear them. But no, she'd taken those out, too.

Throwing muttered obscenities at her, I yanked it on a little more forcefully than necessary, and went forward to the mirror. It definitely didn't leave much to the imagination, the black material hugging every inch of the non-exposed skin... not that there was an awful lot of that.

Tim's not going to like this, I thought to myself, turning round to see the back. He's not here though, is he? A voice in my head said.

I took one last look at myself in the mirror, before tying up my hair. There was no way I'd be able to tolerate having my hair on my shoulders all day, not in this head anyway.

Walking over to my sliding door, I eased it open and relished in the heat I was hit with. It wasn't even eight o'clock and it was already like this. I moved further out onto the balcony, just about able to see a tall figure cleaning the pool: Nicolás. I knew it was risky staring at him from my window— hello, I could be seen and worse, I had a boyfriend— but I was all for the look, not touch. I dragged my eyes away from him, and looked out onto the villages down the hill from us.

As I'd imagined when I smelt the godly food, grandma was by the stove, moving around whatever was in the pan with a wooden spoon. I caught sight of Rosa, the maid, sitting off to the left.

"Ah," she said when she saw me, immediately lifting herself onto her arthritic knees and coming over to me. She tackled me in a hug, squeezing me tightly. "It's been too long. We've missed you."

"I've missed you, too," I said, a huge smile on my face.

"Now that you're here," she said, pushing a piece of hair behind my ear. She pointed behind me. "You can tell her to stop working so hard."

Gran was already turned toward us, leaning against the counter. She held her arms out, so I walked into them. "How have you been, my darling?"

"Not too bad," I told her, adding in that Elise would be coming in a week. "You've got to listen to Rosa, you know, though. The whole point of living in Spain is you're meant to relax."

"Yeah, yeah," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, then looking toward the still spitting pan. "I made your favourite: a full English."

"You really didn't have t—"

"Shush, shush I'm not in my grave yet." I rolled my eyes, good humouredly. "I can't believe how much you've changed, Jules. You look more and more like your father each day." She picked up a piece of my dark brown hair escaping from the confines of the bun and put it over my shoulder. "Absolutely gorgeous."

"You trying to get something out of me?"

She rolled her eyes at me, patting me on the shoulder. "Honestly," she sighed. "Can I not just give you a compliment?"

"Not without wanting something."

Another eye roll. "Why don't you go ask Nicolás if he wants anything to eat?"