“Sticky toffee pudding with custard and cream.”
“Exactly,” I laughed.
I almost felt bad, letting him take the plates away, half feeling like this was our home, and I should be expected to wash up and wipe down the table.
Instead, I said goodnight and thanked him for the dessert, folding the paper box up and placing it carefully on the side.
I showered my worn-out body and let myself sink between the sheets.
My head couldn’t stop churning, and my hand found my cock, letting my fingers dance the familiar dance to spin my body into release.
I needed it these days, being starved of touch and intimacy. I needed anything to just make me feel.
I laughed as the spasms tore through me, my hand wet and sticky as I wiped my fingers on the sheets.
I laughed because all I could think of was Charlie, and it was the funniest thought I’d had in months. I fell asleep chuckling, and for some reason, I thought I’d be fine. I thought my life here might get better.
This thing with Charlie kept me going through the weekend, even when he wasn’t around to nurse my need for company. It wasn’t quite the same sitting down at the bar without him there. Instead, his colleague Penny quietly whizzed around the room with a polishing rag in her hand, making me dizzy with her chatter and constant predictions about the weather. I took my dinner to my room and tried to choose affordable furniture on the IKEA website, as well as reading up on local builders whom I hoped would take pity on me and secure my future front door. I obsessively looked through the uninspiring photos on the estate agent’s brief, cringing at the amount of work I would have to get done to at least get the place liveable. The kitchen was a mess, the carpets torn and dirty, and those were only the cosmetic parts I could see. Someone had installed a fairly modern bathroom, so I was hoping that showers would be the least of my worries in my new abode.
Charlie wasn’t working on Monday. I had asked Penny. He wasn’t there Tuesday either, which made my moods sink even lower than they already were after the phone call from my London solicitor, asking for more signatures, more paperwork and more time to transfer my meagre house-purchase funds.
On Thursday, Mrs Hallet berated me for my sloppy timekeeping and for not putting the biohazard waste out in the correct bin. I’d assumed that would be handled by the practice cleaners, but apparently, that job had also been allocated to... me. She then went into another frightening rant in front of her attentive waiting-room audience because Mr Patel at the pharmacy had called twice already to complain about my sloppy handwriting and unsigned prescription forms.
I promised Mrs Hallet to reissue them all and have them back to her within the hour. She laughed and said I would have to deliver them myself in my lunch hour because correcting my mistakes was not part of her job description. I wondered if the other two GPs on duty were as henpecked as I felt, hiding in their rooms and just nodding politely when we crossed paths in the hallway. I felt horribly out of place, like an unwanted cousin with inferior breeding, as I called my next patient and patiently listened to their questions and gripes.
At least I felt confident in my work, treating people with kind words and supportive advice, writing out prescriptions in my tidiest handwriting and placing copies in the correct folders on Mrs Pasankar’s desk.
Justine had called me her very own Joe Wicks. But I sure didn’t look anything like him as I jogged down the high street in my open coat and fancy shoes, trying to get to the pharmacy on time, with my perfectly filled-in reissued prescriptions, signed and double-checked by Mrs Hallet. I was red-cheeked and panting as I walked back up towards the health centre after my stern telling off from the distinguished pharmacist, and now, I was stress-eating the soggy chemical-tasting sandwich I’d picked up from the newsagent next door. I was nodding politely at shoppers with bags full of gift wrap and presents, kids wearing Santa hats, and the storefronts wishing me happiness and cheer. I felt none of it, acutely aware that I was falling back down in a slump with nothing to drag me back up, apart from the thought of spending another evening sitting around listening to Charlie tell me things that would make me smile.
I stopped outside the bakers, immediately recognising the delicate patisseries in the window. There were the raspberry meringue swirls, sat next to delicate chocolate-glazed Danish pastries alongside snow-dusted mince pies. All beautifully presented with Charlie’s touch written all over the window. Neatly folded napkins, rustic baskets and with little festive branches of holly scattered in between beautifully crafted sweet things that looked like they would make my teeth ache. I wondered in my stupidity why I hadn’t gone to see him before, why I hadn’t bothered to think outside my sheltered self-imposed box of selfishness. He’d told me where he spent his mornings, covered in flour, doing what he clearly loved to do the most. Yet, I hadn’t even thought of bringing him some well-deserved business in return. I hadn’t learned a thing about being an adult despite having been one for the last ten years. Instead, I was as lazy as the fourteen-year-old me had been and as stupid too.
I chuckled as I opened the door, being greeted by an elderly man in a crisp white apron.
“Morning!” he said cheerily, “…or is it past midday? Then good afternoon to you, sir. What can I get you?”
“Is Charlie… Is this where Charlie works?” I asked, trying to look calm and polite.
“Charles?” the man boomed towards the back, where a strange-looking Charlie appeared, wearing an apron and sticky plaster tape all over his nose and ears.
“Hey!” he called out, waving his hands about in some kind of weird greeting. “I would hug you, but I’m in the middle of a bread dough, and I don’t think you really wanna be covered in flour. Hey, Graham, this is my Daniel. Daniel, this is Graham. Best baker in Chistleworth, he is.”
The man, called Graham, laughed, looking a little embarrassed. “I don’t know about best baker, not anymore. I have arthritis in my hands, and my back can’t take the lifting anymore. But if you haven’t tried one of Charlie’s mince pies, then you haven’t lived.”
He leaned inside the display cabinet, picking out a little mini mince pie with his bare hands, which he handed me on a napkin as Charlie beamed.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as I bit into the mince pie, the crisp pastry making me swoon.
“Had to go eat humble pie in the pharmacy, over prescription slips I forgot to sign. I’m now on Mr Patel’s naughty list for the foreseeable future. He even lectured me on the importance of clear handwriting. I’m a doctor; I’m supposed to write like a headless chicken. It’s kind of a basic requirement in medical school. Sloppy handwriting for beginners; I got an A in that one.”
I spat crumbs everywhere, trying to wipe my mouth with the napkin, suddenly feeling like a fool standing in the middle of a bakery, eating stuff I hadn’t even paid for, making lame insider jokes that nobody in the real world would understand.
“I’ll take ten of those little masterpieces, please,” I said instead, thinking I could maybe bribe Mrs Hallet with a nice mince pie, and perhaps, then she wouldn’t shout at me again. Today.
“See? I like your Daniel here, already,” Graham said to a still beaming Charlie, who started pointing out the nicest ones for Graham to pick. They went in the now-familiar little cardboard box as Charlie picked out a Danish pastry that I apparently needed to have with my afternoon cup of tea. On him. Because. Yeah. Just because.