“Just think about it.” Alain moved on top of her, dispelling the need for Rosaline to think seriously about her future. “You’re a remarkable woman, Rosaline-um-Palmer.”
She smiled up at him. “Eh, you’re not so bad yourself.”
His eyes glinted. “I think I might be able to do better than that.”
“Oh can you?”
He kissed her slowly and deeply, the taste of his mouth already becoming familiar, and almost comforting. And then his fingers were pressing against her, stirring her to fresh arousal. “Rosaline,” he murmured.
There was something in his tone. A nervy excitement. “Yes?”
“Why don’t you turn over for me? I’d love to see your butterflies while I’m inside you.”
Saturday
ROSALINE’S SOURDOUGH HAD come out fine. Again. Which was, y’know—Oh for God’s sake, she was sick of fine.
It didn’t help that tomorrow they’d be tasked with constructing a baketactular bread sculpture and her kitchen—even when the boiler was working and the electricity was staying on—was not the kind of place you could practise building the Taj Mahal out of ciabatta.
No surprises that Josie had done well this round—Rosaline had consciously avoided speaking to her since the first week, but she probably had a wood-fired oven, to go with her wood-fired husband and three wood-fired children—except it was Nora who had come out on top. Which was equally unsurprising because Britain was not ready for a granny who couldn’t make bread. Slightly more surprising was that Harry got an honourable mention, which made him blush and rub the back of his neck in a way the camera would probably love. And if she was being honest, Rosaline didn’t find totally unadorable either.
This was one of the pitfalls of the show. In an ideal world everyone would be either wrenchingly awful like Dave or misguidedly difficult like Josie so you wouldn’t have to feel bad about hoping they failed. Instead everybody seemed so fundamentally nice that when someone like Harry did better than expected it was hard not to be—as he might put it—well made up for him.
After the exit interviews, Rosaline was looking around for Alain, hoping for an opportunity to work out her baking-related frustrations through the medium of horniness when Anvita pounced from the shadow of a gardenia bush and dragged her into the bar.
“So,” she said. “Something you want to tell me, Rosaline?”
Rosaline made a thinking face. “You might have put too much water in your starter?”
“Come on, I had a bad round, and I’m probably going to have another bad round tomorrow because I fucking hate bread. Take me to the sexscapades.”
“That sounds like you’re hitting on me.”
“Stop being coy.” Anvita claimed a barstool. “I’m right next door. If I have to hear it, I should get to hear about it.”
“Oh God, you heard?”
“It wasn’t like I was up against the wall with a glass. But you were either reading a very rhythmic book or you were totally doing it.”
Sighing, Rosaline flumped onto the next seat. “Look, I get you’re bored, and there’s nothing to do here except drink and talk, but . . . suppose I’d slept with you. Would you want me to go around bragging about it the next day?”
“Hell yeah, I’d want you to be telling everyone what a brilliant lay I am.”
“I’m not sure”—Rosaline gave her a quizzical look—“but that might just be a you thing.”
“I’m not looking for, like, details,” protested Anvita. “You don’t have to tell me how big his dick was or, I don’t know, how squishy her boobs were.”
“How squishy her boobs were? What do you think lesbians do?”
“Honestly, not given it much thought.” There was a pause that, while not quite pregnant, was definitely pissing on a stick. “At least tell me who it was.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already worked it out like some kind of bespectacled sex detective.”
“If I hadn’t spent so long training for my current job, I’d so be thinking about a career change now. But based on the assumption that nobody here would be having an affair on live TV, it could only be Ricky, Harry, Alain, or Claudia. And you think Ricky’s too young, and I’ve never seen you speak to Claudia once—”
“Hey, who said I needed her to talk.”
Anvita gasped. “That’s . . . is that sexist? That would be sexist if you were a man.”
“I’m not sleeping with Claudia.”
“Please say it’s Harry.” Her face fell. “It’s not Harry, is it? Oh come on, you should have gone with Harry. You’ve seen his arms. He’s even stopped calling you ‘love.’ And besides, the quiet ones always go like a train.”
“I’m not totally convinced I want a train in my vagina.”
“I said like a train. Meaning powerful and enduring.”
“You don’t use public transport much, do you?” asked Rosaline, laughing. “You say train to me, and I think overcrowded, endlessly delayed, and subject to constant technical failures.”
“Look, leave my fantasies out of this. I just don’t get why you’d pick Alain over Harry.”
“I wasn’t aware picking was an option.”
“Of course it’s an option.” Anvita nearly knocked her G&T off the bar. “They both blatantly fancy you, and Harry keeps giving you those big soulful eyes. You have noticed the big soulful eyes, right?”
“He does not,” lied Rosaline, “have big soulful eyes.”
“What are you on? He completely does. They say I can mend a dripping tap, but if I found a bird with a broken wing, I would tenderly nurse it back to health.”
“I’m not a bird with a broken wing. And nothing about me is dripping.”
“I’m just saying, there are choices here and you went with the man who picks his own mint.”
“As opposed to the man who barely talks.”
“Hey”—Anvita put her hands in the air, smirking—“I never said I needed him to talk.”
Rosaline gave up. “I see what you did there.”
“Yeah, I said the thing that you said earlier in the conversation, in a different context. Because I am amazing and hilarious. Boom.”
On some level, Rosaline felt she shouldn’t need to explain herself to Anvita. But they were sort of friends and it was nice to talk about it. “The truth is, I’m not sure I’m looking for . . . well . . . a short ride on a train. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be fun. But I think I have a real connection with Alain.”
“How?”
That was obvious, wasn’t it? Except when Rosaline opened her mouth to reply, it was suddenly very hard to put into words. “I just feel we’re . . . similar people who are coming from similar places and who want similar things.”
“Like what?” asked Anvita, with irritating to-the-pointness.
“I don’t know. Like he’s . . . he’s got a very good career and I could have had a very good career, and he’s actually encouraging me to think about going back to it. And, you know, it’s nice to have someone who believes in you like that.”