Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ruby
I look at Garett. “Shit.”
He gazes at the car park. His dark-eyed stare takes in every lump and bump of snow. “I couldn’t agree more, Rubes. What do you want to do?”
Cold settles in my bones. I’m not warm enough to be out here in my skirt and heels, especially in the hold ups I wore for him, even though he wasn’t meant to see them. It was like I was my own worst enemy when I put them on this morning—wearing something sexy for a man I can’t be with. “My parents might know someone who can get us out.”
“But…” He senses my hesitation. It will take more than a local guy with a Land Rover to get us home.
“But no one can get us out right now, and if they could, their time would be better spent off the roads. I don’t need anyone to get into an accident to help us.” I don’t know if I’m only making an excuse so I can spend more time with Garett. “We could stay in the cosy mezzanine area. There’s lots of blankets and cushions as well as the sofa.”
Garett’s stare lingers on the van. He lets out a puff of air. “Okay.”
“I’ll let my sister know I’m safe and that I’ll be staying here,” I reply as if the prospect of one night in his company won’t destroy me. We walk back inside. “Can you sort out the heating while I contact her? We should keep the heating low to not waste money but to stop pipes freezing. The blankets should be enough to keep us warm.”
“Cool, cool.” Garett clenches his jaw, his eyes dart all over the place.
The call to my sister is brief. Everyone is safe. I manage to allay her fears yet fail to mention that I’m not alone. She doesn’t need to know, and from what she says, the snow should be gone by lunchtime tomorrow due to the rain and rising temperatures first thing.
I shake my head as I reach the hideaway. The last thing she said won’t leave my consciousness. The sofa is a sofa bed. I don’t know how to tell Garett that without sounding like I’m propositioning him, because that’s exactly what I want to do.
Again, I remember what my brother said as we sat on plastic garden chairs.
I second-guess every decision as I turn on the fairy lights and prepare the space for sleeping. I unfold the blankets before pushing them to one side.
“No, we need blankets,” I grumble before laying them out. But it’s the sofa that holds my attention. If Garett comes up in the next minute, I won’t mention anything. I take off my shoes before putting them back on again. I can’t look like I’m seducing him.
Don’t be stupid, Ruby. You can’t sleep with your shoes on.
I remember how I teased Garett today. It wasn’t about annoying him. It was about turning him on. I want him. I need my Garett itch scratched, and whenever I’m around him, I need to know if he fancies me. Even if we can’t be together.
I look down the stairs, but he’s not there. I tap my foot restlessly against the floor and clatter my teeth together. Maybe I should test the bed. It’s probably too old to fold out, anyway. We can sleep on the sofas, but they aren’t big enough for us both. What if we end up cuddling on one, and I’m grinding on his— stop, Ruby! You’ve read too many of Amber’s spicy books. All one-bed tropes and hard cocks.
I test the bed, attempting to yank at the bottom even though it’s a bad idea.
It comes out quickly.
“Fuck,” I grumble. I pull at my eyebrows.
It looks like a proposition. I can’t leave it like this. Garett’s footsteps hit the stairs. I flap around, pushing and pulling different parts of it, but where it came out quickly, it won’t go back. He’s getting closer. I yank one of the sides and trip over it.
I land face first on the sofa, my ass in the air, a chill on my thighs as my skirt rides up.
“And I thought I was preparing dinner,” Garett says. He sounds cocky, but the choked way his words come out suggests this situation has unnerved him too.
I jump up, unable to make eye contact, yet my betraying gaze flicks to his face. One of his hands covers his eyes, and his cheeks are redder than a sunset on a frosty evening.
“You averted your eyes?”
“Eventually,” he grunts. “I’ve brought a snack.”
He’s balancing a cheese board precariously on his free hand. I yank my skirt back into place.
“I’m all decent,” I announce.
“Are you sure? Because I’d hate to see that again,” he replies, peeking between his fingers. His cheeky grin makes me want to smack him on the shoulder, but I resist.
“You’re such an arsehole,” I grumble, eventually testing my wobbly legs and taking the cheese board from him. I gasp. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Brie, fondue, Wensleydale, cheddar, and loads more cheeses cover the board. He’s added grapes and different types of crackers, olives, pepper, hummus, and cherry tomatoes and made roses from slices of cured meats. He’s even decorated the board with nuts, berries, small orange segments, and more meats.
His smile spreads as I pop a grape in my mouth. I sink my teeth into it, and the taste explodes against my tongue. “How did you do this so quickly, and where did you get all the food?” I eventually ask.
“I rustled it up from the things for the wreath making workshop. I’ll replace it all before the first one on Monday.” He says it like it doesn’t mean anything, but it does. Even on my lowest days, Neil wouldn’t make me a crisp sandwich. “I found a bottle of red that will go well with it. Are you up for it?”
I nod eagerly, too nervous to share my thoughts. I can’t date Garett, but as he runs down the stairs to fetch the wine and glasses, I press my fingers to my lips, remembering our pub kiss.
His footsteps hit the stairs. I bite the inside of my mouth.
Nothing can happen tonight.
◆◆◆
We spend the next hour laughing as we share the cheese board. We stick to the one bottle of wine. I don’t want my inhibitions lowered any more than necessary. But being with him is fun and a little like an evening with a great friend. A friend you want naked, but I’m pretending I’m not fantasising about him even though I remember how hard his thighs were beneath my fingertips. I wish he wouldn’t waggle those forearms when he talks.
He tells me stories of growing up in a family that knew nothing about cooking, and I share moments of the trouble I used to get into at the old Cloud Cookery School and some of the clients my family put up with.
“My mum once burnt our ready meal pasta dinner,” he explained. “It wasn’t a bad smell. A bit like roasted fennel.”
“Weird. But sometimes people get distracted when cooking, so—”
“She was heating it in the microwave. She decided that less than a couple of minutes wouldn’t kill the fridge germs.” I raise my eyebrows. “Don’t ask. Anyway, she put it in the microwave for twenty minutes. That’s not the worst one. She once tried to cook raw chicken in the microwave in a foil tray.”
My eyes are going to pop out of my head.
“I know. It was lucky I saw it because we’d have needed the fire brigade. I did all the cooking from about eight years old, so as soon as I heard the microwave go, I was on high alert.”
“You were so young.”
Maybe he senses I have more questions because he diverts me with a request. “Tell me more stories about your grandparents and their wars.”
“One day, Grandad convinced Grandma that there was a new spice he’d learnt about called tamagotchi. He explained that it was electrifying. She asked everyone about it and how to add it to her cooking. When one of the participants in the school explained it was a toy from the nineties, it kicked off.”
“What happened?” He sits close to me on the sofa bed as we grab the last bits from the cheese board.
“They went to war.” I giggled. “Initially, it was salt in his tea rather than sugar, but it escalated to things like bread dough in his hair until Kath stepped in and stopped their fight.”
“Kath is wise.”
“We should have listened to her today, and I shouldn’t have stayed to bake.” Our hands linger on the last cracker. “You have it.”
“No, you,” he replies quickly.
“Share?”
He nods as I break the cracker. His fingertips brush mine, bringing tingles all the way to my neck.
“So why did you stay? I thought you were going home.”
“I wanted to learn this new technique and needed time out. Amber is at Mum and Dad’s tonight, and I didn’t want to be sat in her house on my own after a difficult week. She’s secretly crying about Kalen. She doesn’t want me to know. Last night, I stayed up until the early hours to make her some treats.”
“You’re a good sister.” I shrug and lower my eyes, but he brushes his fingertips across my cheek, and I look back at him. “Rubes, you’re a good sister.”
“I wasn’t always. That’s why this thing between us can’t happen.”
He pulls his fingers back quickly and sits on them. I hold back a sigh. “Is that what Jem was talking about in the pub?”
I sigh loudly. “Yes. When I got with Neil, I became a different person. I went from being completely invested in my family and the cookery school to acting like a stranger. I moved away, immersed myself in my relationship with Neil, and kept that life going. It wasn’t always a healthy relationship. He didn’t want to spend time with my family, and it got weird if I went to visit. He also didn’t pay for anything.”
I pause for way too long.
“But you stuck with him anyway.” There’s no judgment in his voice.
“Yep,” I confirm. Garett tips his head to the side, and for once, I’m genuinely listened to about Neil. No one understood why I distanced myself. “He made me feel loved. I was searching for what my parents and grandparents had even from such a young age, and I thought I could have that from this random guy who said all the right things and gave me these emotions I’d never experienced before. I couldn’t think straight when it came to decisions. I was into him.”
“I get that.” Maybe it was the same with his dog-stealing ex.
“But over time, I realised he was an arsehole. He wasn’t the devil or anything, but he was a bit of a shit, and I didn’t like him that much. The relationship got toxic,” I admit. “But I’d given up everything to be with him, and I couldn’t go back on that, or rather, I was too ashamed to go back on it.”
“And then he cheated on you.”
I nod as we turn to sit facing each other. He’s got his legs crossed, and mine are to the side. Due to my tight pencil skirt, it’s like I’m at a sleepover with my best friend, although the temptation to kiss him never goes away. His hands lightly tap his thighs.
“I ignored my parents when they offered me a third of the cookery school. I wasn’t there when my grandparents died and only came home briefly for the funeral, alone,” I add. “I regret it all, and if something happens with us and it affects the cookery school, they’ll be devastated. Jem said that I nearly ruined the family before, including breaking my grandparents’ hearts. I can’t do that again.”
I share a little more of what Jem said, and Garett sighs his understanding. “I’ve never had a family like yours. My parents were the type to ignore me or clip me around the ear when they were angry about something and I got in the way. They didn’t hit me often.” He points to the scar on his chin, and I touch the famous, never explained mark. He shivers slightly. “This was on my sixteenth birthday when I shouted at them. They’d forgotten my birthday, so caught up in their arguments.”
“You’ve never mentioned them in your interviews.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” He shrugs. “They never contact me except when they want money, which I won’t give them. I gave them an agreed-upon one-off payment a couple of years ago.”
He talks like a robot, and against my better judgment, I take his hands. They’re cold to the touch, so I wrap them between mine to warm them. “That’s it? No other contact?”
“No. I did offer them a chance to visit me last year, but they asked if it came with spending money. I cut ties that day. I nearly got them arrested a while back for some of their fraudulent behaviour, but I couldn’t do it.” He squeezes his lips tight as if resigned to pain. Then, he quickly shakes his head. “But that’s enough about me. We’re supposed to be talking about you.”
Surrounded by thick snow, the cookery school is cut off from everyone. It’s like we’re in another country where no one can get close. The fairy lights highlight his dark eyes, and it's getting cold with the heating on low.
I don’t know I’m shivering until he drags one of the blankets closer and drapes me in it. “Your family, and by that I mean everyone at the cookery school, have done more than anyone has for me in years, except Flora. I owe them so much, and I don’t want to do anything that hurts them. I can’t promise how long I’ll be around, probably not more than a couple of months. I want to run a kitchen again. I love this place, but it’s not my forever kitchen.” He laughs half-heartedly, but it’s not enough to make me forget our impossible situation.
It’s my turn to squeeze my lips together and nod my head.
“But more than all of this,” he adds, scooting closer. My tight blouse and pencil skirt with hold ups underneath aren’t suitable for a sleepover with a bestie, but I can’t remove them, especially not in front of Garett, the man who makes my heart thunder and the space between my thighs burn. His voice drops, and I lean in as he takes my hands. “More than anything, I don’t want to hurt you. I can’t give you a relationship or a future. I can’t promise that anything between us won’t cause problems for the cookery school or your next steps. We can’t date.”
I take a breath. I’m about to say something stupid. Maybe it’s the wine or that, here, nothing can be said because we’re stuck in this place together, but I fix his eyes with mine and say, “But we could have no-strings sex.”
And that’s when he starts choking.