Thursday
The problem, and this was a very specific problem—with being on a televised baking show was that it spilled into life in every possible direction.
There were weeks of preparation before, weeks of actually doing it in the middle, and then weeks—well, a week and a half so far—of readjusting afterwards.
It helped, of course, if you obsessively pursued something only tangentially baking show related that everyone around you kept telling you not to pursue.
But you still had evenings where you were suddenly a whole lot freer than you’d planned for.
If she’d been in London, the hours would have filled up anyway.
With work, with Natalie, or with the endless parade of going out that twentysomething Londoners needed to do to prove they existed.
Here in Bridgnorth, though, the time was hers. To do whatever she wanted.
Which, Natalie reminded her, is apparently nothing.
Peering through the oven door at her lemon and blueberry cupcakes, Audrey was pleased to see that they’d risen nicely and were just the right shade of golden splodged with just the right shade of…
blueberry. She slipped on her oven gloves, which because they’d been a not-so-secret Santa gift from Eddie a Christmas back, were printed with photorealistic manatees and was just mid-bend-down-door-open-tray-lift-don’t-drop-anything-or-burn-yourself when the intercom buzzed.
Then, as she was telling herself it was fine and she should put her cupcakes down carefully and close the oven properly because there was no rush, it buzzed again. And again.
Audrey did not get many urgently buzzing Thursday night visitors.
Nor did she have anybody in her life who would be an urgently buzzing Thursday night visitor.
If there’d been a family emergency her parents would have rung, texted, and emailed all at the same time and they’d done none of them.
If it had been Natalie—and it wouldn’t be, it couldn’t be—but if it had been Natalie, suddenly contrite and coming to say, “I’m sorry, Audrey, I fucked up, what will it take to get you back?
” she’d still have only buzzed once. She was the sort of person who wouldn’t even press the call lift button if somebody else had already pressed it.
Balancing her cupcakes awkwardly, Audrey manatee-handled the intercom handset to her ear and got as far as “He—”
“Open the fucking door,” said Jennifer Hallet.
“What? Why?”
“Because I don’t want to stand on the fucking street in fucking Shropshire for the rest of the fucking evening.”
“Why are you on the fucking street in fucking Shropshire?”
“Why do you fucking think?”
Honestly, Audrey had no idea. “You know,” she said, “I’m rather enjoying being on the inside of the door for once.”
“Yes, yes.” Jennifer Hallet orally eye-rolled. “This is a terribly ironic role reversal. Now let me the fuck in.”
The sensible thing to do—actually there probably wasn’t a sensible thing to do.
This wasn’t a sensible situation. So Audrey did the thing she wanted instead and buzzed Jennifer up, taking advantage of the seventeen-second window between unlocking the front door and Jennifer Hallet bursting in to put down her cupcakes.
“What the fuck is wrong with your hands?” asked Jennifer.
“You make a baking show. You must know what oven gloves are.”
“Why have they got ugly dolphins on them?”
“They’re manatees,” Audrey explained. “And they were a gift.”
“Was it a gift from somebody who hates you?”
“Sorry, did you come here exclusively to swear at me and insult my cookwear?”
“No, I came to fuck you. But I got distracted by the vortex of quirk and cushions that is your life.”
Militantly, Audrey stripped off her manatees. “So, what? We should just sit on spikes?”
“Whatever you’re into, darling.”
“Shall I tell you what I’m not into?” said Audrey, actually wagging an actual finger as she marched, newly de-manateed, from the kitchen to the living area.
“I’m not into people showing up on my doorstep unannounced—at…
whatever time of the evening this is—while I’m trying to make cupcakes and having a go at my soft furnishings less than a week after they doinked me then told me to fuck off, then gave me mixed signals, then told me to fuck off again. ”
Audrey’s wagging and marching had brought her what would have been chest to chest with Jennifer Hallet had one of them been substantially shorter, the other substantially taller, or there’d been a box involved. As it was, they were more boobs to upper abdomen.
“Are you sure about that, Lane?” asked Jennifer Hallet.
And it turned out Audrey was not sure about it at all.
Because while she was pretty certain it was Jennifer who started the kissing—mouths coming together in a hot, frantic whirlwind that felt on just the right side of angry—it was definitely Audrey who slammed into Jennifer so passionately that her satchel slipped from her shoulder, exploding papers everywhere.
And then they were both on the floor, kissing and struggling in that reckless desperate way when you were so determined to get close to someone you kept bouncing off them.
“Jesus, woman.” Jennifer Hallet sounded completely approving. “You’re a fucking animal.”
Audrey had both hands buried in Jennifer’s hair. “And you’re unreasonable, high-handed and…and…really annoying.”
Jennifer just laughed, her face—and occasionally her teeth—against Audrey’s neck. “You smell like lemons.”
“That’s because I’ve been cooking with lemons, you dick. Also…” Wriggling a hand up Jennifer’s shirt, Audrey tried to do something sexy and sophisticated, and ended up palming Jennifer’s left breast like a horny teenager. “What happened to not talking?”
“I’m not talking. I made one fucking observation.”
Jennifer pushed Audrey aside for a brief moment neither of them had the patience for, tearing open her top and dragging Audrey back down on top of her. This did not help the horny teenager situation because Audrey found herself grinding as well as palming.
“Fuck,” observed Jennifer, wrapping her legs—those long, long legs—around Audrey and arching up to meet her.
“Fuck,” agreed Audrey.
It was probably the least dignified five to ten minutes of Audrey’s life and, given how Audrey’s life went in general, it was up against some stiff competition.
Her glasses kept slipping down her nose.
Jennifer’s trousers were too tight. Somehow Audrey’s apron ended up over her face.
One of Jennifer’s shoes flew off and did fortunately irreparable damage to the godawful Tiffany-style lamp Audrey had been given by an aunt and always hated.
And, really, Jennifer should have been grateful for all Audrey’s cushions.
Because otherwise the whole enterprise would have been hell on elbows, knees, and both their backs.
But it was…it was also kind of amazing. Everything messy and slick and bitey and sweet.
The sort of sex you spent your twenties thinking other people were having.
Where it didn’t matter what you looked like, or what you said, only that your fingers were there and her fingers were there and her tongue was there and now you both smelled of lemons and when you came it was almost defiant.
Like you didn’t need to be comfortable. Who cared if the angle was bad and your mouth was full of your own hair?
It was perfect and lovely and yours and hers.
“You know something,” said Jennifer Hallet when they were done. “I could really go for a cupcake.”
Audrey’s head was still resting on Jennifer’s chest. Her hand was still down her pants. “They’re not iced yet.”
“Is this the face of a woman who gives a fuck?”
“It should be. You run a baking show.”
“So what? The Game of Thrones guys didn’t know how to sword fight.” Jennifer’s determination not to do anything even remotely resembling cuddling apparently got the best of her. Rising like a sweaty Venus, she strode into Audrey’s kitchenette and ate three lemon and blueberry cupcakes.
“Make yourself at home,” said Audrey. “Have something to eat if you like.”
Jennifer swept up a fourth cupcake and propped herself louchely in the doorway. “These are good. They’d get you to at least week three.”
“Fuck off.” Audrey’s attempt to throw a cushion across the room was stymied by post-orgasmic weakness and a general lack of coordination.
Apparently, Jennifer Hallet could actually mellow. But only immediately after sex. Only if you fed her cakes. Only for about thirty seconds. And only about two percent. “No, really.” She sounded oddly sincere. “They’re all right.”
“But?”
“But nothing. They’re all right.”
For some reason, the words weren’t quite going in. “Huh,” said Audrey.
“Help me out, Lane. Which line of bullshit is this? Is it Big, bad Jennifer never says anything nice? Or Poor ickle Audrey can’t believe she made a decent cake? ”
“Neither actually, thanks.” Audrey rotated her apron back into its non-fucking position and sat up, with her legs tucked under her. “It’s just been a while since I’ve baked for someone. Not that I technically baked for you. I was baking for the office, and you ran interference.”
“Oh, come on. You must do this sort of thing all the time. I bet you show up on dates with a tin of muffins and a dildo.”
“I do not show up on dates with a tin of muffins and a dildo.”
“Okay, but I bet you made welcome cookies for your neighbours.”
She’d thought about it, and then wussed out, and she wasn’t sure whether the thinking or the wussing reflected worse on her. “I probably would have at some point in my life—”
“Hah,” said Jennifer. “Knew it.”
“But I kind of got out the habit.”
“What happened? Did you move to London and decide you’d rather be snorting cocaine off an art student’s taint with some prick who works for Morgan Stanley?”
Audrey boggled and goggled at the contortions required to do any of those things. “How would you even do that? Like, logistically?”
“It’s easy.” Jennifer shrugged. “London’s full of investment bankers.”
“Well, no.” Probably best to leave the taints and bankers in the city where they belonged. “None of that really. I mean, I did cocaine once because it seemed rude not to. But just off, you know, a table?”
“Audrey Lane, are you really telling me you did a Class A drug out of politeness?”
“I think politeness and wanting to fit in?”
Jennifer was laughing. “Oh my God, you got peer pressured like you’re a needlessly didactic subplot in Grange Hill.”
“Shut up. I’m sorry my cocaine use wasn’t cool enough for you.”
“And that’s why you stopped baking for people?”
“What?” Audrey’s head was spinning slightly. Too much sex and too much Jennifer. “Because I did cocaine once?”
“Wanting to fit in.”
“Mmm…a little bit. But more…” It was surprisingly difficult to talk about. Maybe because Audrey hadn’t realised there was something to talk about. She hugged her knees. “My girlfriend wasn’t into it.”
“And she made you stop?”
“She didn’t make me. We were just very busy. And it didn’t feel very productive. And it wasn’t worth the—the…” Audrey ran aground, trying to describe the quiet wasteland that was Natalie’s disapproval. “The hassle?”
There was a long silence. Jennifer looked typically glowery but atypically solemn.
And, for once, she seemed to be glowering at something that wasn’t Audrey.
“So you stopped baking because of your ex. And then you decided the best way to get back into baking was to go on the nation’s biggest, most successful, and most competitive amateur baking programme? ”
Put like that, it sounded bonkers. “I mean I was drunk when I applied.”
There was another long silence. Then Jennifer crossed the room in two long steps, dropped to her knees on the cushions, and kissed Audrey’s very surprised mouth. “You are a bizarrely impressive woman, Audrey Lane.”
“Thanks?” said Audrey.
“Anyway,” continued Jennifer, setting some kind of kissing to dismissing speed record. “I should be off.”
“You could…not,” suggested Audrey.
“Aye. But I’m going to.” Jennifer was already stuffing her thoroughly scattered and somewhat rolled on papers back into her bag. “And we should really stop doing this.”
“We won’t though, will we?”
“No. Probably not.” Throwing her satchel over her shoulder, Jennifer retrieved her shoes and snatched one last cake from the kitchen. “See you around, Lane.”
Then she vanished into the night like hot, sweary mist.