Page 42 of The Wedding Cake
“If this is a dream then don’t you dare wake me up.”
Freya bit her lip as Tim’s fingers traced her nipple and she wondered how she would be able to resist round five. Or was it six? She’d lost count. Epic didn’t do the past few hours justice. Once they’d caught their breath in the meadow, they’d quickly dressed, raced back to a grassy patch beneath the trees at the side of the track where Salvador had left them, and waited no more than five minutes to spot him pounding toward them with a stretcher. Talk about taking risks! The journey back to the accommodation had been the most surreal of Freya’s life, her mind unable to stop replaying her brazen actions whilst enjoying furtive body language from Tim over the top of the stretcher as Salvador took the lead. She could have hobbled along and announced her remarkable recovery but after all that exercise, she really did need a lie down.
“Where do we go from here?” asked today’s Tim as he wrapped his arms tighter around her and they marvelled at how quickly the sun moved in the mountains.
“We put on our hiking boots and we sneak crafty snogs when Salvador and the rest of the group aren’t watching.”
“Sounds heavenly.”
“And, Tim?”
Freya tried not to come on too strong… but failed spectacularly. She unpeeled his arms, put his hand in hers and looked at him in earnest.
“Yes?”
“I know it sounds ridiculously premature, but it has to be said – because this isn’t like anything else I’ve ever experienced and…”
“I love you, Freya Ashcroft,” Tim cut in. “I totally and utterly, head-over-heels love you. And I don’t care how much people scoff at love at first sight. You were it for me. Youareit for me. There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.”
“Okay then. I’m just going to come out with it…” Freya’s heart skipped a beat as she replayed that little flurry of words. She felt the same but she wanted to find her own moment to announce it. “I don’t expect either of us to contemplate marriage again. And I think I should be straight about that from the start. I do believe in HEAs but I am so over the whole bridal business, including… probably… being one. FOM’s been an amazing journey, most of the time, and if I hadn’t set it up, I’d never have met you, but it’s time for a whole new adventure now. A complete life overhaul.”
“Oh?”
Tim looked a little wounded and Freya wished she could reassure him how strong her feelings were too, but she didn’t want it to sound like she was simply parroting back his words. “But I do absolutely want to build a life with you. The sooner the better. I still can’t get my head around the circumstances that brought us together… But then again, don’t most people meetthe oneat work?”
“Overlooking the time I met Piper.”
“Erm, yeah. And I’d totally like to erase the time I met Sid.”
“Anyway, what would this new life of yours entail? You live in Spain. I live in Manchester.”
“Well, that’s where it gets interesting.”
EPILOGUE
TIM
Tim moved into Freya’s Marbella apartment right after the mountain retreat and only left once; to pack up his life in Manchester and never look back. Until they both left together… for Nerja. His fitness students were made up for him that he’d managed to escape his toxic relationship with Piper. Social media had typically broken the news to them before he could. But they were gutted when he announced his relocation to a whole other country. Luckily, he quickly found somebody to take over the classes and buy all his equipment.
The glitz and glamour of Marbella had been fun for Freya for many years, and for Tim for many weeks, but the town wasn’t who they were as individuals or as a couple, and a new life together called for a totally new start. Cosmopolitan but down to earth Nerja was further east along the Spanish coast, and just what they’d both been looking for. From that pin on the map (and their blissfully cosy apartment with its terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Sea) things happened really fast, and before they knew it, they had registered their joint business, Awesome Andalucía Adventures. AAA was a tour company with a difference. It offered all the usual active tourism activities but it revved them up, throwing a little more excitement into the mix: horse trekking in the Doñana National Park complete with a churros picnic breakfast served by a chef; sherry-sipping hot air balloon flights over the city of Granada with the backing of a Spanish guitarist, and paddle board racing on Seville’s river Guadalquivir followed by a sangria-fuelled pottery session in the city’s Triana district. The latter always produced questionable works of art!
It was no wonder Tim had procrastinated forever over his Pennines pursuits. He was never meant to be there. He’d swapped those uplands for the majestic mountains of the Sierra Nevada, and he’d exchanged the lakes of the North for kayaking around Nerja’s sparkling turquoise coves. Of course one wasn’t better than the other, on paper. But his life in Spain included Freya. And it was so much easier to stop all the people-pleasing here; to start living for himself. He’d started Spanish lessons too and was learning fast so he could talk to local clients and providers. For now that was Freya’s job.
In the quiet season, Tim and Freya put on team building workshops for companies. The first stop was FOM and a tame (but wild enough for Ricky) vineyard tour, followed by a hilarious flamenco lesson. Freya was making considerably less money while Tim was making considerably more. But finally they both had the balance and opportunities they had always dreamed of. And they had found happiness.
Tim thought back to their wild behaviour in the meadow and realised how jammy he was that things in that department had definitely continued. Barely a day went by when one of them wasn’t jumping on the other. Freya’s ideas were particularly spontaneous; his favourite being the ‘secret cove’ they’d tandem-kayak to for a very steamy afternoon most weekends when the weather was good, taking a massive picnic with them so they had the energy to get back to the beach.
As for Piper, the video clips of her wedding day infiltrated every corner of the media. She even ended up making guest appearances on daytime TV.Loose Womencouldn’t get enough of her, and she graced their panel a handful of times. She could say what she wanted about Tim’s lack of get up and go, but the fact could not be disputed; this turbo boost to her career would never have happened if it hadn’t been for his moment of ingenuity on their wedding day. That said, her self-marriage had soon fizzled out. In a surprise but very fitting twist, she’d ended up dating Mervyn’s stepson, Lars. The Costa del Sol’s dodgiest wedding planner had apparently encouraged things along after a brainwave during the reception, which seemed to have coincided with nabbing a gigantic wedge of the cake and eating it on his drive to ‘retirement’. Tim had to wonder what else Hannah had put in the villa’s half of the bake. He’d not long ago read a story about a Colombian wedding where the bride and groom had laced their multi-tiered cake with cannabis, to spectacular effect!
“Look at us,” said Freya as she snapped Tim back to present-moment February. She let the instructor strap her up, ready to time-travel an hour into the past over the River Guadiana, thanks to Portugal being an hour behind Spain. This was the world’s only cross-border zip line, 720 metres long and offering speeds of up to 80kmph. “Who’d have thought that, exactly one year on from me de-icing your nose, we’d be doingthistogether.”
Today they were checking out a brand-new trip on their itinerary. Oaks and olive trees flanked the river, which was actually a former smuggling route from Africa into Europe, while little whitewashed houses flecked the landscape. Their clients would absolutely love this. Tim could totally imagine the idyllic start to married life that River and Alice had had in this beautiful countryside, as they handed Freya’s amazing traybakes out to the people who crossed their camper van’s path.
“It’s corny and it’s cliche but it’s definitely been a ride! In every sense of the word.”
Freya eye-rolled Tim. “Sometimes you’ve just got to take a riiiiiisk!” she cried as she was launched from the stage. Tim watched her fly free as a bird from one whole country to another, marvelling at how utterly perfect his life had become the moment he’d started following his heart
The Arabs, the Romans, and the Greeks had come to this land beneath his feet. And now it was Tim from Manchester’s turn. Okay, he’d actually been living here for six months and a day, but the idea was the same. Travel broadened the horizons, making life bigger and better.
Tim patted his pocket to check that the small box was still there. Hopefully Freya’s diamond solitaire engagement ring wouldn’t fall into the waters beneath him as he made his own flight along the wire to Portugal. Asking her the question he was about to pop was yet another risk, based on a certain conversation they’d had in a cosy mountain retreat bed last summer as they watched the sun rise.
But no matter what Freya’s decision was today, Tim couldn’t lose. She’d been his world since the moment he’d first set his eyes on her, three hundred and sixty-five days ago, and he would happily meet Freya Ashcroft halfway, until the end of the world.
THE END