Except that I can’t concentrate.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s just that these people are right in my eyeline. And they’re doing some extremely intense making out.’
Seb turns to look. The couple is about our age - maybe a bit older, even - preppy and professional looking. They are sitting at a table just outside the cafe’s vast plate glass windows and they are joyously inhaling each other’s mouths like teenagers who have just discovered sex. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and it’s sort of loving and torrid and very, very awkward.
‘Whoa,’ says Seb. He stands up, beckons the barista. ‘Have you seen these people?’ he says.
‘What?’ she says, coming out from behind the counter. ‘Who? Where? Oh.’
Silent, sedate, the only other customer in the shop - a sixty-something man working at a laptop - gets up from his place and joins us. We stand. We gawp. It is a Tuesday afternoon and we are strangers united, a temporary community in this moment of voyeurism.
The snoggers continue their passionate embrace. We giggle.
‘We have to go,’ says Seb.
‘Don’t leave me with them,’ says the barista.
The other man says nothing.
Seb and I leave the cafe.
‘I know how it feels,’ he says. ‘When all you can see is the backs of your eyelids and the face of the person you’re kissing. It’s really sweet and tender.’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘It’s just a shame,’ he continues, ‘that it’s just so horrible to watch.’
