Chapter Forty-Eight
Garett
What is it about wearing sweats and eating cookie dough ice cream out of a cardboard tub that screams break-up?
But we weren’t dating, so I can’t call it a break-up.
I should be packing, but I’m watching Love Actually because a kitchen assistant I slept with and then didn’t want to date once told me that I needed to watch this film at least ten times. She said that if I were to understand the level of heartbreak I cause in all the women I’ve never wanted a relationship with, then Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson would do it. So far, I’ve learnt that Martine McCutcheon is bloody gorgeous and that the early 2000s had offensive views on curvy women. Oh, and that Hugh Grant will always be the most attractive English man. After me, of course.
A sob builds in my chest as Colin Firth declares his love for a woman with whom he’s never had a proper conversation. For all he knows, she could have a collection of dead men’s toenails, but sure, she looks good when she jumps into a lake semi-nude to rescue his book, so of course, he wants to give up everything he knows.
Ruby would say it’s love, and so, of course, he gives everything up. No, Ruby would say that she’d prefer Hugh Grant. She has good taste and likes her men funny.
I laugh as a tear springs free and runs down my face. My ice cream–covered spoon slips out of my fingers and into my lap. I scoop the spilt ice cream up with my fingers and toss what hasn’t melted into my mouth. I look like I’m wearing cum joggers.
Several bangs on my front door have me jumping up. Everyone should be at Clive’s Christmas Eve competition watching Ruby smash it..
The door bangs again. It’s like an entire police force is at my door.
I peek through the peephole.
“I know you’re staring at me,” Flora shouts. “Open the door. I need you, and Ruby needs you.”
I yank open the door.
“What do—”
“Shit, Garett. Are you crying and wanking over Love Actually ?” She looks between my ice cream–covered crotch and the television.
“No,” I grunt with my hands in surrender, but she’s winking at me. “What do you want, Flora? I’m packing.”
She grabs my ice cream tub and inspects it. It’s nearly empty. “Busy as a bee, aren’t ya?”
I huff my response as I take the tub from her and finish it before tossing the spoon in the sink. At least I won’t need to live in this awful bedsit. I’ll earn money in Ireland and live above the restaurant.
Flora pokes me in the back. “Hey, Earth to Garett.”
I round on her. “Whatever this is, hurry up. I’ve already walked and wept as I said goodbye to Cookie.” I also left the house keys with a thank you card on the table of the empty house. There’s been too many tears today. “But I still need to pack and then drop the van off at the cookery school before the family comes back from the competition. I don’t want to see them.”
“You don’t want to see Ruby,” she says as I pretend to pack. She follows me around the room. I don’t have enough to fill two suitcases and a couple of extra bags. Before the Cloud family came along, I worked until I dropped, and that’s precisely what I’ll do when I get to Ireland. It’s the only way to stop replaying every moment I spent with Ruby. “Admit it.”
I pick up one of the wooden spoons Ruby gave me. Her grandad handcrafted it. It sits next to a present she left in the van when the family set up for the Cloudburst Christmas Meal. It says not to open until Ireland.
“Sure, whatever. It doesn’t matter anyway. She doesn’t want me near her because of my lies. I can’t change that, so the sooner I’m out of here, the better.” I turn the wrapped box over in my hand.
“She needs you right now.”
I ignore Flora as I shake the box. I turn it over. The words “fragile” cover one side. Whoops. In the movie, a kid runs through an airport. Someone should be arresting him. I rip open the wrapping. I blame the kid for making me angry.
“What is it?” Flora asks, but I’m busy opening the box and pushing the tissue paper to the sides. Flora looks over my shoulder. “It’s a bowl.”
But it’s not any bowl. It’s nearly identical to the one I decorated and gave to Ruby at her sister’s party. It has the Ruby artistic flare that mine didn’t. There’s a reason why she was always better at decorating cakes. A note sits inside the bowl. I gently place the bowl on the countertop, fearing it will explode like my never-happened relationship.
Garett, you weren’t meant to open this until Ireland. You cheated and did it early.
I chuckle. I’m a control freak like every chef, and I don’t like surprises.
It was meant to be a Christmas present, but you can take it to Ireland now. I know we couldn’t be together because of circumstances, including my need to protect my family—like Romeo and Juliet without the ridiculous and unnecessary deaths. I want you to have this so that wherever you are, you’ll remember me every day that you eat breakfast and when you remember to put ice cream in a bowl rather than eat it from the tub.
I glance over my shoulder as if she’s behind me, but it’s Flora peeking at the note.
You gave me happiness I didn’t know I deserved. You think you’re grumpy and that no one wants to be around you, but every second I’ve spent with you, except the first day we met when you were a dick, has proved that you’re a baked Alaska—hard on the outside and soft and squidgy on the inside, and everyone loves ice cream and meringue. I’m sorry we don’t have a future, but don’t forget we had a past. It was the best two and a half months of my life. Now don’t break this bowl, or I’ll come over to Ireland and kick your ass. You know I can.
Lots of love, your Rubes.
P.S. My grandparents would have loved you, and they were the best judges of character.
The note leaves me numb. I wanted her to tell me that she was in love with me. Even now, I’m trying to control her emotions. Isn’t that what got us into this situation in the first place, me trying to control her? I shake my head.
“Don’t you dare act like that message meant nothing,” Flora says, poking me again.
I step back, knocking the bowl. It rocks and nearly falls off the countertop, but I grab it and hold it tight.
“That was close,” I gasp, holding the bowl against my chest. “I thought it was a goner.”
“The bowl is not Ruby,” Flora says with a roll of her eyes.
“I know that.”
“Good. Her note was lovely.” I glare at Flora. She shouldn’t have read it. “And she wants to be with you and loves you.”
“It didn’t say either of those things,” I snap, walking to the other side of the room with the bowl still clutched against my chest.
“It said you’re not grumpy, and I’m struggling to believe that right now.”
“What are you doing here, Flora? I have to get on, and forcing me to confront my failures isn’t helping.”
She starts grabbing my keys and my jacket. “You need to come with me. I overheard Clive say he’d do something to Ruby and her family at the competition. They’re livestreaming it. He said he’s certain the family helped with Cookie and he was livid that they ignored him and employed you. He told someone on the phone that he’d destroy Ruby’s reputation in the cookery world and steal her ideas. He aims to terminate the cookery school and take the whole family down. And before you argue, the family asked me to get you, so you’re not really going against Ruby’s wishes.”
“Why didn’t you say?”
I got her into this mess, and I’m the only one who can save her. Not that I know how. I shove my feet in my boots and grab my phone and wallet as I head for the door.
“You’re not going in cum trousers,” Flora says, riffling through my stuff and throwing a pair of jeans at me. “You can change in the car. I’m driving.”
Credits roll on Love Actually as I turn the television off. I bet Hugh Grant’s never changed in a car or been caught in cum trousers. Actually, if anyone has, then it’s him. And he’d try and rescue his woman, too, even if it made her angry.
I will not let anything happen to Ruby or the cookery school.
No one hurts my family.