I was grateful to her for holding back her laughter when I pulled the cake from the oven.
“I have no idea what happened. I followed the instructions perfectly.” Together we inspect the cake as if the answer to the disaster is that obvious.
“I don’t know, love. Maybe the recipe is wrong. We’ll jack it up with some whipped cream and ice it and no one will ever know the difference.” I loved this woman, for her unwavering optimism and fierce loyalty to her family.
Dad and Drew come through the door in a wave of chatter. One look at the disaster zone of a kitchen and they both take a step back. “Was there a flour explosion in here?”
Dad looks from me to mum and back again. “Yeah, something like that. I was thinking pizza for dinner.” Not fazed by dad’s reaction to the mess we’d created, she steps forward to grab her purse. “Ollie, maybe you could go and pick them up?”
I welcome the opportunity to escape on my own for a while, even if it is only to run pick up for the pizza.
“Yeah, sure.”
* * *
The weather had broken up now and the air outside was around ten degrees cooler. The rain washed the streets clean as if the sun was going to bring a fresh start. As if it was just that easy.
Cutting the engine in front of the pizza place, I tug my jacket over my head for a little protection from the driving rain. Pausing briefly as the automatic door whirled and slide to the side.
“Oliver Coxen, is that you?” Bertie called for me over the counter as I had entered the shop.
“Yes, sir.”
“How long has it been Ollie?” I used to be Bertie’s delivery driver, it had been my first real job when I was in college, although there wasn’t a huge demand in our small town of Fosford for pizza deliveries. Most of the time I had hung out with Bertie in the kitchen watching him flip pizza dough and creating the most mouth-watering pizza’s known to mankind. Bertie was a pizza wizard.
Rubbing the back of my neck I answer him. “It’s been a few years.”
He comes around to the front of the counter to shake my hand. “You’re looking good, the City agrees with you.”
“Thanks, Bertie.”
“I’ll grab your order, son. So good to see you.”
* * *
It was raining harder now, it was a completely miserable night to be out, thankfully there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the road to contend with on the drive back home, because of the lack of traffic the car ahead with the hazard lights flashing stood out like a teenage boy at the convenience store with the munchies.
Slowing my ute, I pull in behind the stranded car and turn on my own set of hazard lights. Cursing as the wind whips up around me, the jacket pulled over my head again offers little to no protection now. It was soaked and dripping down over my shirt.
Lightly I rap on the driver’s window. “Do you need some help?”
The woman behind the glass shouts back. “What?”
My frustrations were beginning to grow, I was standing in the pouring rain, in the dark and frigid wind and this woman couldn’t even lower her window and inch to talk to me.
“Are you stuck? Do you need some help?” The glass began to budge a little, as it slid down the doorframe.
“Yes, my car seems to have just died.” Seeing her eyes stole the breath from my lungs. Those eyes had kept me awake many nights over the last few years. They were burnt into my memory as if I were looking at my own set in the mirror. It took for another car to pass and light us up in the head lights for me to be revealed to her.
“Oliver?”
“Hi, Daisy Blossom.”
4
daisy
* * *
I shove the door back into him as he stands smirking at my window. Climbing out I brace for the biting wind and rain to hit me. The chill would be a welcome relief to the shock and anger that was beginning to manifest itself just from seeing his smug face.
It pissed me off that he called me by the nickname he’d used when we were together. It pissed me off so much I wanted to knee him right in his balls.
“You don’t get to call me that anymore, Oliver.”
“Yeah, sorry. Old habit.” He shuffled from one foot to the other, I enjoyed that he was feeling a little uncomfortable because I was too but I refused to let him see that. “So you’re car died?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.” I couldn’t help the bitterness invading my words. The bastard laughs at me. A deep throaty chuckle that I once loved, I knew the edges of his eyes crinkled when he laughed like that, I used to love the way he laughed, now I just hated him.
“I’ll call Dad for a tow. You can take a seat in my car while we wait if you like, the heaters are running.” Looking from him to his car and back, I ripped open the door on my own, there was no way I was going to let him do me any favours, he didn’t get to turn up after all this time and save the day. That isn’t how this story goes. Of all the people who lived in this small town, it had to be Oliver who came along and found me broken down and stranded. Just my freaking luck. He held the door open so I was unable to close him out. My blood began to boil.
“Dase, come on, you’ll freeze in there soaking wet without any heating.”
“I’ll be fine. It isn’t any of your concern.” Pride held me in the seat, I knew I was being unreasonably stubborn but I refused to budge. “Please just call your dad and then you can leave.”
“Fine.” He snaps at me before turning on his heal. But he doesn’t leave, he just sits in his car waiting for the tow truck to arrive. I couldn’t see his face through the darkness but the hairs prickling on the back of my neck and the tingling running down my spine told me that he was watching me. I hated how my body still reacted to him, betraying me after all these years.
By the time the tow truck comes into view, around ten minutes later I was victim to the cold, chills wracked my body causing me to shiver uncontrollably. Drew manoeuvres the truck to be sitting in front of my car and I had never been happier to see someone in my life.
I practically leap from the car when he climbed down from the cab. Oliver had also climbed out of his car to greet his brother, the smug look on his face seemingly permanent.
“Dase, what’s happened?”
“It just died, the lights flickered on the dash and then nothing. Everything was dark.”
Drew attaches the winch to the front of my car before going back to the control box. Without a word, Oliver reaches in to release the handbrake and shifts it into neutral.
“I’m going to take it over to the shop, Ollie can give you a ride home, okay?” Drew calls as he slowly winches my car onto the bed of the truck.
“Can’t you?” I turn to Drew in the hopes he’ll take pity on me and not force me to hitch a ride with Oliver.
“Dase, you’re soaked to the bone and it’s going to be at least another hour before I can drop you off. Your teeth are already chattering. You need to get home where it’s warm and dry so Ollie will give you a lift. Won’t you Ollie?”
Turning, I glare at him and then back at Drew. “It’s fine. I’ll get a taxi.”