“Yes, but,” Rosaline protested, “I don’t want you to go home either.”
“What? You going to miss my sunny face and sparkling conversation?”
She squirmed. And did not blush. Or maybe she blushed a bit. “You’ve been . . . a really good friend to me. Even though I’ve been shit sometimes.”
“You ain’t been shit, mate. It’s been good getting to know you, and when I’m sixty I can tell me grandkids about this classy girl—I mean, young woman—I met once what was named after a bird in a Shakespeare play what weren’t in a Shakespeare play.”
“You think you’ll tell your grandchildren about me?” She weirdly liked the idea and couldn’t say why.
“I’m going to tell my grandchildren my whole bloody life story. That time Terry broke his leg falling into a hole outside a pub. That time I found a potato looked exactly like Jeremy Corbyn. That time I let a bloke take me up the Arsenal.”
“Well, I’m glad I mean as much to you as a humorously shaped vegetable and a man you’ve told me several times is a knob.”
“That’s gender socialisation for you.” He shrugged. “Can’t talk about feelings, so it’s all knobheads and funny potatoes.”
Rosaline laughed, and then—
“This is a lot less quiet,” said Alain, “than I was imagining when you said you were going for a quiet drink.”
She wasn’t sure how long he’d been there or how much he’d heard—not that they’d been talking about anything he could object to, but she still felt weird about him overhearing. “Shit. Sorry. Lost track of time.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
Harry threw Rosaline a Shall I get out of here glance, to which she half shrugged, half shook her head, not sure what outcome she was hoping for. “Ain’t nothing to it, mate.” He nudged a barstool in Alain’s direction. “Get you a drink?”
“Yes”—Alain’s attention was fully and coldly on Harry—“I’ll have half a pint of get-the-fuck-away-from-my-girlfriend.”
Harry got up, unhurriedly finished his beer, and then stepped away from the bar. “Not trying to start nothing. Have a good evening, Rosaline.”
And oh God, this was awkward. Technically she had promised to come and see Alain so she could see why he was angry, but this felt really not-about-her in a way that made her, if anything, even more uncomfortable. She made brief “you too” noises at Harry to be polite, then turned back to Alain.
“Look, I didn’t mean to mess you about. But it’s been a long day—”
“And that’s all you needed to say.” With a slightly showy gesture, Alain checked his phone. “Perhaps you were right the first time. We’d have all been better off this evening if we’d called it a night.”
Which left Rosaline sitting looking up at Alain, still not entirely sure who the arsehole was in this situation. “I promise I didn’t mean to—”
“Let’s leave it there. Have a good evening, Rosaline.”
Honestly, it seemed unlikely she would. “You too.”
Sunday
“FOR THIS WEEK’S baketacular,” Grace Forsythe was saying, “we have a first for Bake Expectations. It’s been the bane of many a baker and the shame of many a chef. It’s something many cooks have cocked-up.” She paused for what would surely be ominous incidental music. “For your final challenge, you’ll be making a self-saucing pudding. It can be sumptuously sticky or silkily smooth, as long as when you slide your spoon inside, it drenches itself in a rich, delicious sauce. And to make it that little bit harder, you have to serve it with a homemade ice-cream. You have four hours from the count of three. Three, darlings.”
Right. Rosaline surveyed her bench of ingredients.
This was what she was here for. Well, not self-saucing puddings specifically. But baking, rather than feeling fretful, guilty, and messed up because she might have upset the man who only called her his girlfriend as part of a pissing contest with another guy.
The problem was, while the arsehole question was still a little bit up in the air, she was drifting ever closer to the conclusion it was her. It was flat-out rude to say you’d come and meet someone, and then . . . not do that. And instead, have a drink with someone else. Of course, if she hadn’t had a drink with Harry, she would still be feeling fretful, guilty, and messed up because she’d upset him on Tuesday. So all she’d really done was put her list of self-recriminations in a slightly different order.
Also, she was increasingly wondering if she hadn’t at least partly been using Harry as an excuse to avoid sex. Which was unfair on Harry and on Alain, and on, well, her. Because it had, in fact, been a crappy week. And she should have been able to say, “Sorry, I’m not up for it tonight,” and she knew Alain wasn’t the kind of guy who’d be pushy. It was just there were few things that made you feel less like a dynamic liberated woman who was in control of her sexuality than not wanting to have sex on one of the rare opportunities you might get to.
Fuck, what was she doing? She made the mistake of looking at the clock. While she’d started making ice-cream in an angsty cooking trance, she could not at all swear she’d done it right. And it didn’t help that a glance around the ballroom confirmed that everyone else, even Alain—who was always incredibly meticulous—was way ahead of her.
Oh God. This was her week. This was the week she fucked everything up, and her ice-cream exploded, and her self-saucing pudding didn’t self-sauce, and then she’d have to stand in front of the camera and say, Yeah, I got distracted because I was sad about a boy. And wasn’t that a great message to send to Amelie: Remember, darling, you can do anything you put your mind to. But if you have a minor disagreement with someone you fancy, it’ll all go out the window.
“So what have you got planned for us this week, Alain?” Marianne Wolvercote asked from the back of the room.
Rosaline, zesting an orange as if her life, or at least her position in a television baking competition, depended on it, did her best to ignore their conversation.
“Well”—Alain sounded charmingly self-deprecating as always—“as you can see, I’ve taken a step back from the herb garden.”
There came the slight clink of Marianne Wolvercote picking up a bottle. “A step back by way of an eighteen-year matured Highland single malt, I see.”
He laughed. “Yes, it would be rather a waste to cook with. But I’m serving a glass of it beside my whisky, caramel, and banana pudding.”
“You know,” said Grace Forsythe, “it’s against the rules to bribe the judges.”
“A drink isn’t a bribe,” drawled out Marianne Wolvercote by way of a reply. “It’s a courtesy.”
Her orange thoroughly zested, Rosaline juiced it along with two of its companions and began dissolving icing sugar into the mixture. She hadn’t exactly patented the idea of exploiting Marianne Wolvercote’s notorious fondness for spirits, but it did sting a bit that he’d nicked the move she’d nicked from at least two competitors in every season.
“What are you doing?” asked Colin Thrimp.