Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ruby
“Ruby, I need to do this before we go.” He yawns again. Something is off, but I can’t put my finger on it. He moves around the cookery school like a man on a mission, grabbing different things, but with his back to me, I can’t see what.
“Sure,” I reply, forcing an airy sound as if I couldn’t care less, but I do, and that annoys me more. He grabs his demonstration cakes and pops them into a tin. He adds another cake tin to the pile. “Who are the cakes for, Garett?”
“No one.”
A realisation has me gnashing my teeth behind his back. They’re for Chantelle at the wine merchants. He wouldn’t do that, but I fist my hands like I’m making dough anyway.
“Are we going, then?” I ask a couple of minutes later. All his jobs are done, and he’s wearing his coat, but we’re still in the cookery school. He checks his phone before sliding it into his pocket.
“In a minute.” He drums his fingers against a countertop before reaching for his phone again.
He checks it before sliding it back into his pocket. “Right. Let’s go,” he replies casually but won’t look at me.
“Okay.”
Maybe he’s ready to end our agreement that we never really started because of how difficult things are. It’s all rules without sex. A flashback so heady that it makes my stomach roll over with arousal hits me. I glance at his lips and instantly regret it. He licks them slowly as if he knows what I’m thinking, and I have a vision of him lifting me onto the countertop. I want his hand in my hair and my legs wrapped around his waist and–-
“Rubes?” I shake my head as if it’s an Etch A Sketch where one shake will delete the sexy thoughts from it for good. “We should go.”
He’s standing by the door, tapping his foot repeatedly against the tiling.
He rechecks his phone, his face pales.
“You okay?”
“Yep,” he stutters, but his eyes widen as he looks back at me. “We’d best go. Are you ready?”
“Yeah, sure.” The sooner we’re back and I can get home to my vibrator, the better.
◆◆◆
As we drive to the merchants, the cakes resting in my lap, I consider asking him who they’re for. He won’t look at me. I flip down the visor, but it’s too dark to check my make-up.
He signals left.
“This isn’t the way to the wine merchants.”
“I know,” he replies.
He’s guarded and keeps yawning. I grip the tins and squeeze my lips tight to stop shouting. The scent of chocolate orange buttercream fills the van.
I stare out the window. Garett’s reflection looks at his watch and then at me, but by the time I turn, his focus has returned to the road.
We cross roundabouts that signal we’re nearing the small town where Amber and I live. “Are you taking me home?”
When we stop at traffic lights, the cake bangs in the tin. He glances over at me. The whites of his eyes glow in the semi-darkness of the van. The sudden terror that he wants to end what we nearly had because of my behaviour in class today makes bile rise in my throat.
That doesn’t explain why he brought me home without my car. I turn towards him, my eyes tight in interrogation mode. “Do you need something from Amber? Are the cakes for her?”
“Huh?” He taps his hands against the steering wheel as we wait for the light to change. It’s barely green before he takes off.
“We’re nearly at my house.”
He pauses too long. “Oh yeah.” He brought the cake because I’m going to need comfort food after he dumps me, although we’re not even dating. “I thought I’d give her cake and go over kitchen stuff. You know?”
“What sort of kitchen stuff?”
He mumbles incoherently as he pulls up to my sister’s house. The top cake tin topples out of my hands when he breaks hard. It flips onto the floor. “Shit.”
He rechecks his phone. Many cars are squeezed into my sister’s driveway, but all the lights in the house are off.
My parents’ car pulls up beside us. “What’s going on, Garett? Is my sister okay?” She told me she was spending the day with my parents, buying things for the nursery.
“Come on, Ruby,” Garett says. “And don’t forget the…” His words trail off when he sees the cake tin upside down on the floor. “…delicious mess.”
We leave the van, and I find myself standing next to Amber, who’s exited Mum and Dad’s car.
“You okay?” I ask her under my breath.
“Yeah, but what’s happening? Who do all these cars belong to, and why are you here with Garett and cake tins?”
I shrug. “I thought we were going to the wine merchants.”
“Ladies,” Mum says, “come with me.”
We stumble behind her like two awkward teenagers heading to a posh restaurant.
“Close your eyes,” Garett says.
We step through the front door with Amber leading the charge, wobbling with her huge pregnancy belly and hands over her eyes.
“Close your eyes,” he repeats. I glare at him, and he stares back until I close them.
My body shakes as Garett grips my hips and helps me walk straight. I wet my lips and embrace his scent.
Suddenly, a crowd shouts, “Surprise!” and lights flash on. My eyes open wide. There’s a giant green banner above the fireplace. Amber’s Baby Shower is decorated in bright orange.
I recognise a couple of her friends who used to hang around before I left with Neil. Wicksy stands with Kath and a couple of strangers. In the corner, Flora beams. Jem stands to the side, looking like he’s turned up at what he thought was a slash metal concert, only to find it’s the Spice Girl reunion.
“This is amazing,” I say, laughing. “You did this for Amber?”
He blushes. “It was your parents’ idea. Flora helped a lot.”
The space is decorated in every colour but pink and blue. My sister will love it. The room is filled with some of the fanciest food I’ve seen. A range of hors d’oeuvres, patisserie-style desserts, and gourmet pies and appetisers leave my mouth watering and my belly rumbling. My brows furrow as I stare at Garett.
“Did you?”
“Something little for you and to say thank you to Amber.” His words are cut short by a scream that silences the crowd instantly.
Fear fills my heart like ice has been dropped down my back, but as I look back, Kalen, my brother-in-law, walks across the room and takes my sister in his arms. He holds her close as she weeps. He covers her with kisses, and she sobs between words. “You came home. Please tell me you’re home now.”
“I’m home, baby. Now let’s get you looked after and rested because you deserve it.”
The outpouring of love is so dazzling that we divert our eyes so they can have their reunion. My parents beckon everyone to the kitchen to get a plate, and Flora walks around the group, asking who needs a top-up of Cloudy mocktail.
Garett takes my hand and leads me to the garden.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped.”
I see the reason as he pushes open the door to my cabin: a Welcome Home Ruby banner drapes across my room. My cabin is full of candles and special toiletries. I walk around the space, gasping as I reach for icing nozzles that create shapes I’ve never seen before.
“Custom-made Ruby nozzles,” he says, leaning against the wall with a beaming smile.
Sitting on the bed is a bowl that looks exactly like the one my cheating ex smashed.
“How?”
“I interrogated your sister and had one made. You’ve had a shit time, Rubes, and as much as this party is for Amber, I wanted to make sure you were treated, too. I was a dick when you joined the school, but you’ve made every day fun, and I wanted to say thank you. It’s a thank you from all of us.”
On the edge of the bed are my favourite cookery books and some clothes I didn’t pack when I left Neil’s. As if reading my mind, Garett fills me in. “Kath told me there were nice things back at your ex-boyfriend’s that you wished you’d kept, so Jem got some back.”
I whip around. “Was everything okay?”
He nods but doesn’t add anything else. I start leafing through all the stuff in my cabin but freeze when out of my clothes falls the box where I kept my sex toys. If my brother saw my sex toys, they’re going straight in the bin. “Did Jem go there alone?”
“I helped. He hasn’t had anything to do with what’s in that box,” Garett says.
“Cool.” I can’t stop swallowing.
“Shall we get back to the party? I expect you’ll want to eat one of those cakes I made you drop.”
He leads me back to the party. Suddenly, he whispers in my ear, making my shivers less about the frosty atmosphere and more about his seductive growl, “And that purple vibrator in your box looks especially powerful. I’ve charged it because I hoped to watch you use it later.”
My eyes are wide as I stare at a chuckling Garett walking away. The sooner this party finishes, the better, because all I want is for him to instruct me and call me his good girl again as I put on a show for him.