Page 81 of The Little Board Game Café

‘I’m sure they’re delicious.’ Emily took one. ‘Thanks.’

He smiled. It had only been a few days since she’d seen him, but she looked at him as if for the first time. His dark, curly hair. Long eyelashes. The t-shirt he was wearing wasn’t quite as tight as the one he’d worn at the running club, but she could still see the outline of his pecs. And that smile! He was gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

But for some reason, he didn’t want her.

Suddenly she decided that she’d rather not know what that reason was. It was humiliating enough that she’d flung herself at him like that. It would be even more humiliating to ask him to explain why their kiss was a mistake.

He’d turned her down and perhaps that was a good thing. She ran Essendale’s only board game café. He ran Essendale’s only board games group. And his group played in her café every week. It would be far simpler if the two of them were just good friends. If they had embarked on a relationship and then it didn’t work out… Well, it could get awkward. Messy. It was awkward enough now after just one kiss.

‘I wanted to apologise,’ she said, ‘for the way I behaved on Saturday night. I shouldn’t have thrown myself on you. It was just a heat of the moment thing. It’s probably better if we forget all about it. Don’t you think?’

She picked up her mug of tea and dunked the chocolate biscuit in, before lifting it to her lips and licking off the melted chocolate. That was the good thing about deciding you were just going to be friends with a man; you could risk getting a chocolate moustache in front of him.

Ludek paused as if he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure he should.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Let’s forget it ever happened.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It’s probably better if we forget all about it.

Why the hell had she said that? She couldn’t forget all about it.

As she crossed through the park on the way to the café, she remembered the first time she’d seen him, running along, dark curls bouncing with every step, how Clipboard Woman had melted before their eyes, instantly forgiving his tardiness. Kate had said he was a charmer, but that wasn’t quite true. Men who were charmers, in Emily’s experience, tended to use their charms to impress or manipulate others. Ludek wasn’t like that; he was just kind and smiley and people warmed to him easily.

As she unlocked the café door, she remembered the fall when she’d twisted her ankle, how quickly he’d come to her aid and how reassuring he’d been. The first time his skin had touched hers as he assessed what the damage was. The scent of him as he’d put his arms around her and helped her to his car.

Images of Ludek seemed to flood her brain, whatever she did. Flicking the coffee machine on – him chatting away to Mr B in Polish as she made him a latte. Writing the soup of the day on the blackboard above the counter – him asking if she planned to pare down the menu and confessing that he watched Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Packing the leftovers in Tupperwares and putting them into the fridge at the end of the day – him fastidiously packing away his games.

Was he struggling to put her out of his mind too? she wondered. Was he sitting in his consulting room, picturing her with a ring stuck on her finger and her arm in the air? Was he reminded of her every time a patient came in with a twisted ankle?

Probably not. She sighed. Men had that famous ability to compartmentalise, didn’t they? How did they do that?

The best course of action, she decided, was to distract herself. She would keep busy, throw herself more than ever into the business.

Emily took photos of the café from every conceivable angle. She took photos of every dish she made. Between customers, she uploaded these to Instagram and Twitter, with strings of appropriate hashtags. She cleaned until the worktops shone and you could practically have eaten your dinner off the floor; even Kate would have been impressed by how spotless the place was. She worked late in the evenings, experimenting with new recipes, costing out every ingredient to work out the margins.

Ludek. That was what he’d suggested, back when she’d first bought the café.

It was no good; she couldn’t not think about him.

But whilst her strategy was unsuccessful at distracting her from thoughts of Ludek, it worked wonders for her business. There was a steady stream of new customers through the door. Two men in dark-grey suits who looked slightly incongruous in her quirky café, but later peered at the board games shelves on their way up to the counter to pay. A family with two sticky-looking children who played a game of Snakes and Ladders as they waited for their early lunch of soup and sandwiches. Emily made a mental note to wash the dice and counters. A woman who sat in the corner breast-feeding. She looked exhausted. She only ordered a coffee, but Emily took her a free slice of cake.

The regulars came too, of course, and Emily could now count the workmen amongst them as they arrived every morning for their breakfasts.

It wasn’t until Friday when they visited her little café for the fifth time that Emily realised that the man on the keto diet was the sweaty, overweight man from the running club, the one Kate had so rudely dismissed. No wonder she hadn’t recognised him initially; he was now completely transformed.

‘Rob, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘I knew you’d remember me eventually.’

‘Sorry. You look so different.’

‘No need to apologise. The running club’s worked wonders,’ he said, ‘plus getting this job. Lots of lifting. And the diet.’

*

A little later, Mr B arrived with Marjory and spent an hour trying to figure out the rules to Carcassonne. Emily would have explained them, but she had far too many other customers waiting for her to take their orders, and a backlog of coffees to make.