‘Bram!’ I want to be mad at him but it’s impossible to stop smiling. ‘I hate it when you do that!’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he repeats, that familiar mischievous glint in his eyes again. We both know that’s exactly why he does it.
He holds the tulip out to me and my fingers brush against his as I take it. His hand lingers just a moment too long against mine and it sends a little shiver up my arm when he pulls away, and I fight the urge to chase after it and catch hold of it again.
I twirl the stalk between my fingers. I don’t know where he got it from; the tulip planters are at the bottom of the steps and I’d have seen it if it was already here. I let my fingers stroke over the pinky-white satiny petals. I know I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t stop myself. ‘Did you have a screwed-up childhood?’
I can feel his eyes on me but I keep my focus intently on the tulip, because if I look at him, I’m not entirely sure I won’t hug him.
It takes him a long time to answer. He’s obviously considering his words carefully and probably weighing up how much he wants to share, and I’m moments away from standing up and pretending I didn’t say anything before he speaks again.
‘Things cut deep in young children, and the way to mess a kid up is to constantly question why he’s like he is. I spent my childhood being dragged around to a steady stream of child psychiatrists and psychologists while my father insisted that they needed to diagnose me with something, anything, because he wanted to know there was really something “wrong” with me, but I never fitted into any of their parameters. None of their tests defined me.’ His voice is barely above a whisper and I’m certain he’s never told anyone this before. ‘I was shy, I didn’t like being told what to do, and I never wanted to be anything like my father. That wasn’t an acceptable life choice in his eyes, and he needed to believe that there was a label to explain it, rather than put up with me being…’ he shrugs, at a loss for how to finish the sentence.
I reach over and push his half-up hood the rest of the way down. ‘A spectacular nut.’
My hand trails over his shoulder and he reaches up to cover it and give it a quick squeeze. He mouths a ‘thank you’ but no sound comes out.
His hand stays on mine and his eyes close and he lets out a long sigh, looking like he’s enjoying the sun on his face, and I take a breath too, force myself to exhale and loosen my shoulders for what seems like the first time all day. ‘It’s so beautiful here.’
‘Yeah, it is. I don’t always remember that.’ He looks at me and his lips tip up slowly into a gentle, vulnerable smile and I can’t help smiling back because this feels so peaceful and like we could sit here for the rest of the evening and that would be absolutely fine with us both.
A distant car horn breaks the reverie and Bram sits upright, blinking as the sun glints down on us.
‘What did your father mean about someone else being offered the tearoom?’ I’ve got so relaxed that my muscles protest at being used again when I push myself upright.
‘I don’t know anything about that. First I’ve heard of it.’
‘Oh come on, you know everything about everything that goes on at that council.’ I look at him expectantly but his face remains blank. ‘Was it Tabby? Is that what she’s doing – extending the olive branch, so to speak? Showing your father that she can play nice so she’s first in line when I inevitably fail?’
‘You’re not going to fail,’ he says, and although I appreciate the boost of his confidence in me, it’s also a display of his ability to swerve a conversation subject.
‘Come on, Cleopold.’ He reaches across and slides his hand over my knee, the heat of his palm lingering through my leggings. ‘We’ve got a wedding to cater.’
With a squeeze, he lets go and vaults to his feet and holds out a hand to pull me up.
‘No, we haven’t.’
‘’Course we have.’ He pushes his hand closer to me when I ignore it the first time.
‘Bram, I made that Battenberg three times in one afternoon to get it right-ish!’
‘Then it’s a good thing we’ve got plenty of time to practice.’ He’s still holding his hand out and I reluctantly take it and let him pull me to my feet. ‘Because my father is a bully and we’re not going to let him win. Between us, we are going to provide Laura with everything she wants for this wedding. I’m not going to let you lose The Wonderland Teapot because of me.’
‘It’s not really your fault, you know,’ I say as I follow him into the house, even though I’ve been roundaboutly blaming him for most of the day. ‘No one could’ve known that would happen today. The caterer pulling out, your father happening to be in the tearoom when Laura found out…’
‘Her happening to try an amazing slice of Battenberg,’ he adds, and I give him a scathing look.
‘It was like the fates aligning in a really, really bad way.’
‘So let’s kill two stones with one bird and actually do it. See this as a crash-course in baking. All the practice pieces can be sold in the tearoom, and by the end, you will be a master of the flour, queen of the stand mixer, and I will knight you with whisks as Cleo Jordan, owner of The Wonderland Teapot on Ever After Street. Because, between us, we’ve got this.’
It makes me think of the thing he always says – that we’re in this together.
Just like we have been from the very beginning.
‘Laura said you know what she likes.’
‘She likes what most people like.’ Bram is standing in the doorway of the pantry in his kitchen, looking at well-stocked shelves. ‘She likes Nutella.’ He gets a jar out and plonks it on the unit.
‘Jaffa Cakes.’ A box of them follows.
‘Cherry Bakewells.’ He adds a box of them to the ever-growing pile on the kitchen countertop. ‘Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and just about everything in the chocolate aisle of any supermarket. We just need to make that into wedding food. Any suggestions better than Cherry Bakewells smeared with Nutella and garnished with a Jaffa Cake? Because I’d totally eat that, and as a bonus, no one will ever have had it at a wedding before, or ever again.’
His sense of humour cuts through the panic I’m feeling and the much-needed laugh makes me relax a bit and actually look at the pile of things in front of us. ‘What about chocolate-hazelnut muffins made with Nutella?’
‘My mum used to do that when we were little, that’s perfect.’ He scribbles it down on a list and adds something else. ‘Macarons. She loves macarons and they’re hard to find round here.’
‘I can’t make macarons! They’re delicate little patisserie things! You saw me trying to wrap that Battenberg in marzipan the other day, it was like trying to hit a Highland cow’s backside with a banjo.’
‘Macarons are surprisingly easy – you just need to be good at piping, and you are excellent at piping.’
I go to protest again, but I decide to listen to him instead. If he believes in me… maybe I can embrace this rather than running away from it. I’ve hidden away enough in the past couple of years, and I don’t want to let Mr Hastings chase me away from the one thing that’s made it worthwhile getting back out into the world. My spark in the kitchen has been coming back lately, and if I could really make macarons… ‘We could do them in stacks of pink and purple and put a rice paper Cheshire Cat head on the top and a tail on the bottom. On theme for the tearoom and something Laura loves.’
‘See?’ He nudges his elbow against my arm and looks down at me with a bright grin. ‘You were made for this. Don’t let my father destroy your creativity, because that’s your strong point. That’s what made your application stand out from the crowd. Combine that with our joint baking ability, and that’s how we win – with imagination and a sunny spring in our can-do step.’
No one has ever made me feel more can-do than he does. ‘Okay, what do you suggest we make with this?’ I wave a hand towards the pile of stuff he’s put on the kitchen unit.
