As the dessert plates were cleared away, Dani lifted her glass. “I’d like to propose a toast. To my new friends—if it wasn’t for you, this day would totally suck. So, thank you for being here with me, thank you for the endless supply of tissues, and thank you for being such awesome company. Salut.”
A chorus of “Salut” erupted as we clinked together cheap glasses filled with cheap house wine—drinkable, but hardly memorable.
“You’ve handled it really well, Dani,” said Lou as she scooped up some breadcrumbs from the table and deposited them in the breadbasket. “If my best friend pulled a stunt like that, I’d probably have flown down there anyway.”
“I definitely would have,” I added.
“Yep. Me too.” Jaelee rounded out our supportive indignation. Craig stayed quiet.
Dani’s eye revealed instant panic. “What? You would have? Should I have? Oh, no! I should have gone to Mexico!” She was half out of her seat when Jaelee grabbed her hand and pulled her back down.
“No, that’s not what we meant. Right?” she looked to us for support.
“Right,” said Lou.
“Of course,” I added.
“That would have been wrong,” Jaelee clarified.
“Terrible.”
“A disaster,” I agreed.
“You did the right thing. You respected her wishes, no matter how hard it was to do,” said Lou. We watched as Dani slowly nodded, her brow uncreasing. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I mean, I would totally tell Nathalie exactly where to stick her elopement if I ever—” I threw Jae a silencing look, cutting her off, even though I agreed with her. Nathalie could fuck right off.
***
“Oh, my God, I’m stuffed.” Dani seemed to be in finer spirits when we rolled out onto the street a little while later.
“Did you enjoy dinner?” I asked Craig, falling in step alongside him. He’d been rather quiet, and I wondered if he was overwhelmed by us, or maybe his mum was still on his mind.
“Oh, for sure. That was incredible. I’ve got to make that French-style casserole for my mom when I get home.”
“You cook?” I asked incredulously. Could I be any more sexist? Or ageist? “Sorry.”
He laughed it off. “It’s fine. I know most guys my age don’t cook. But it’s just the two of us and my mom works long hours, so I’ve been responsible for dinner since I was fifteen. I got sick of frozen pizza and Lean Cuisine pretty quick, so I started reading recipe books and trying out stuff.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. At first, I got a bit of ribbing from my buddies. But then I made brisket for them this one weekend—they shut up about it after that. Of course, now they bug me to cook for them all the time.”
“So, you’re good at it.”
“No, I’m great at it.” He grinned down at me. “I was even thinking of maybe skipping college and going to culinary school.” I caught a look of consternation.
“Is that a possibility?”
He shrugged. “Not sure. How do you tell your mom you want to be a chef when you got into Stanford?”
“Wait,” I stopped and tugged at his arm. He stopped walking, a sheepish look on his face. “Stanford?”
“Yep.” He started walking again, and I hurried to catch up with him.
“Studying what?”
“Biochemical engineering.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s … congratulations. I mean, it’s good, right?”
He smiled. “It’s good. It’s not like I don’t love that too—I do. I’ve been interested in bio-hacking for a while now—it’s essentially knowing exactly how to get your body working optimally—diet, supplements, hormone balancing, activity—that sort of thing.”
This explained why he was so fit. I mean, not that I’d been perving on our baby brother, but Craig was obviously into health and fitness. Whereas my approach to the whole “optimal body” thing was to eat what I liked, drag myself to the gym a couple of times a week, and send frequent silent thanks to my paternal grandmother for the “naturally slim” genes. Thanks, Grandma.
I didn’t want to burden Craig with my miscreant ways, however, so I omitted the gory details and replied, “Sounds interesting.”
“Yeah, I mean, it totally is—but food.” His fists pumped his chest over his heart. “I love cooking. So, you see? Conundrum.”
“Hah! Good word. So, you haven’t told your mum?”
“Uh, no. I haven’t.”
“Look, I know I don’t know you very well, but it seems like you’re close to your mum. Can’t you tell her just like you told me? I mean, your passion is obvious. She might surprise you.”
“I got a full ride.”
“Well, bollocks.”
“Yeah. And we’re not poor or anything, but there’s no way she could afford Stanford. How do I turn it down? I’d be an idiot to turn it down.”
“Mmm.” My brain went into noodling mode; it was chewing on something. “Hey! What if you studied both and became the world’s first bio-hacking chef?”
He laughed. Out loud. At my brilliant idea.
I backhanded him in the chest, which for a short gal like me was literally a stretch. “I’m serious. Anyway—maybe think about it.”
“C’mon. The others are way ahead.” I hadn’t noticed we’d got so far behind. I also had no idea where we were going. We caught up as Dani pulled out her phone.
“Where are we heading?” I asked.
“Good question,” replied Lou.
“I was following you guys,” said Jae.
Dani threw her hands up in the air. “I have no idea where we even are. We all just started walking.”
“Seriously?” I asked. We shared a round of looks and burst out laughing.
“Now, we all agree that we must never speak of this again, right?” asked Lou, which was followed by smirks, head-shaking and heart-crossing.
When all that died down, Jae looked around as though she was searching for something. “There,” she said, pointing to a man walking towards us. I’d barely clocked he was there, let alone how attractive he was, when Jae stood directly in his path, stuck her hand on his chest—What the actual fuck?—and said, “Excuse me, do you speak English?”
I never knew it was possible to die from embarrassment until that moment.
The man stopped, smiled, and replied, “Yes, of course,” right as Dani started protesting that she spoke French. Jae silenced her with a curt “Shh” thrown over her shoulder.
I removed my hand from my mortified face and looked at him properly, taking in his outfit in a matter of seconds—a white T-shirt under a battered denim jacket, and slim-fit—but not too tight—tan trousers rolled up at the ankle, and suede sneakers in navy blue. The whole look sat easily on his six-foot-something, trim-but-not-skinny frame. If I’d been a modelling scout, I would have signed him on the spot. Even his hands were beautiful.
My eyes returned to his face, which was framed by longish medium-brown hair falling over one eye. His smile—full lips, which were far redder than a man’s lips had a right to be—stretched across white teeth, a front one ever-so-slightly crooked. His nose would have been too big on someone else, but fit his wide face and high cheekbones perfectly, and his large eyes twinkled with amusement at Jaelee, crinkling at the edges. Oh, I love an eye crinkle.