Chapter Seventeen
Alfie
I was starting to wonder what the hell I was doing with my life.
Every single minute of my day was filled with ice cream, and in the rare moments it wasn’t, then accounts took its place. I was even starting to have dreams about serving customers.
Darcy had given me Tuesdays off, but I was so tired that all I’d done for the first one was lie on my sofa and stare at the ceiling while trying to find the energy to do something.
We hadn’t even reached the school summer holidays yet, and I was starting to view the end of term with dread. I knew having a good summer was essential to secure Lick It!’s future, and would mean we could afford to partially shut down over the winter, but that didn’t make it any more appealing.
I was starting to feel like we were preparing for battle, and the feeling wasn’t helped by Darcy giving motivational speeches every morning, like he was expecting us to face an angry horde as soon as we opened the door.
Thank God we had Owen and Ellie to help us out, otherwise we’d have been well and truly fucked. They’d both taken to their roles like ducks to water, or maybe like seagulls to Milo, but either way we couldn’t have hired more perfect staff and I was truly grateful to both of them.
Owen seemed to have a calming effect on Darcy, and after two weeks they were like a well-oiled machine in the kitchen, turning out more ice cream than I’d ever thought possible.
Ellie was a sweet ray of sunshine, who lit up the front of the shop with her enthusiasm and dedication.
It was her first job, and she clearly wanted to do it well, so she often had to be reminded to take her breaks and let us know when she was struggling.
But while I loved working with both of them, I really did miss Jonathan.
We’d hardly been able to see each other in the last few weeks and the guilt was starting to eat away at my insides.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him, I was just struggling to find the energy to do anything but collapse in a heap every night.
We were still messaging, but that wasn’t the same as talking to him face to face, seeing him smile… or kissing him.
God, I missed kissing him.
I needed to tell him that.
And then I needed to figure out when I could see him again and make it a reality.
“Have we got any more of the gin and tonic sorbet?” Milo asked, lifting his head out of the counter and looking between me and Ellie. “We’re nearly out.”
“Not sure,” I said, as I finished tapping an order into the iPad so the customer I was serving could pay. “I’ll go and ask.”
“Tell Darcy we need more of the raspberry too, and the lemon curd ice cream,” Milo said, surveying the counter and frowning as he totted up things on his fingers.
It was only Friday lunchtime, and if we were already running low that was a bad sign.
Or maybe I was catastrophizing and we had plenty.
We probably needed to figure out a more reliable way to know what we had than simply scribbling it on a bit of paper, as well as a better system for refilling the counter.
That would go to the top of my to-do list.
“Anything else?”
“The strawberry and cream is running low too.”
I nodded and looked at Ellie. “What about for drinks? Need me to grab anything out of the big chiller?”
“Er, some cream would be great please,” she said. “I’ve got a few in the little chiller, but I could do with some more. Oh, and if you have enough arm space to grab some more milk, that would be fab. If not, I can grab it in a minute.”
“Milk, cream, two sorbets, and two ice creams,” I said with a nod as I stepped away from the counter, allowing Ellie to take my place behind the iPad.
Business was slow and steady at the moment, since the weather was fairly grey and cloudy, but the last time I’d checked, the sun was due to come out in the afternoon and that would make things pick up.
I ducked into the kitchen, where Owen was making cones with such speed I was worried he was going to burn his fingers, and Darcy was swirling homemade caramel through a vanilla base.
“I’m coming to raid the freezer,” I said when Darcy spotted me.
“And to talk to you about how we keep tabs on what stock we have each day. I think I need to make us a proper checklist we can have out front.”
“That should be simple enough,” Darcy said. “We can make sure it’s on the iPad. I’m sure I can do something on my phone that syncs up with what you can see.”
I sighed and rubbed my face. Why hadn’t I thought of that? It was such a simple solution. “Sounds perfect,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t stress,” Darcy said. “I can see you stressing from here.”
“I’m not stressed, just tired.” I walked over to the freezer and pulled it open, the chill biting my skin. No matter how hot it was, I doubted I’d ever get used to walking into sub-zero temperatures.
Darcy’s labelling was incredibly neat and clear, which made it very easy to see what we had.
I grabbed a container of gin and tonic, and another of raspberry sorbet, taking them out of the freezer and putting them on a nearby worktable while I went back in to grab the lemon curd and strawberry and cream ice creams. We had a small freezer behind the counter to put ready-to-put-out stock in to save going back and forward to the kitchen, and we needed to make more use of it.
“Alfie,” Milo called as I walked back into the freezer. “Come here a second.”
“Hang on, I’m just grabbing your ice cream.”
“It doesn’t take this long!”
I bit my lip because I wasn’t going to argue with him.
If he was going to rush me then next time, he could come and get things himself.
If I’d been feeling petty, I’d have moved even slower.
But that would mean spending more time in the freezer, and I wasn’t prepared to suffer the cold simply to annoy Milo.
When I walked back into the kitchen, ice creams in hand, Milo was standing by the table holding the tubs of sorbet. “Come on, let’s go!”
“Why? What’s the rush? Did the book club suddenly descend?”
“Something like that,” Milo said, shooing me towards the shop with his head. “Now go before I get frostbite in my fingers from your dithering. I’ll shut the freezer.”
I had no idea why he’d suddenly gotten such a bee in his bonnet, because even if the shop had been overrun, we could only serve so many customers at once.
It made no sense, and I wanted to ask him what on earth was going on, but as soon as I stepped through from the kitchen, my protestations died on my tongue.
Jonathan was stood off to one side holding a cool bag patterned with little ghosts in one hand, a black satchel slung over his other shoulder.
His loose, dark hair shone like a raven’s wing in the sunlight, and I wanted to run my fingers through it as I pulled him against me.
His expression brightened when he saw me, and my stomach suddenly felt like it had dropped through the floor.
“Hey,” I said, quickly putting the ice cream down in the vague vicinity of Ellie before stepping around the counter. I wanted to say something more but everything seemed so reductive, and asking him what he was doing here felt almost accusatory.
“Hello,” he said, a shy smile on his lips as he held out the cool bag. “I know you’re working, so you can say no, but I wondered if you might like to have lunch together.”
“The answer’s yes,” Milo said loudly before I could even open my mouth. “Take him away for an hour.”
“An hour? I can’t be gone that long.”
“Yes, you can,” Milo said. “We’re not drowning here. Go away. I don’t want to see you until at least half-two.”
“Go!” Ellie said. “We’re on it. Remember, breaks are important.”
I huffed out a laugh under my breath. Using my own logic against me meant I didn’t really have a leg to stand on. “Okay, fine. I’ll see you in a bit.” I turned to Jonathan and smiled. “Just let me grab my fleece and my wallet.”
“Okay,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t mind me dropping in?”
“Not at all. I’m glad you did.”
I ducked back into the kitchen to grab my wallet and fleece, which had seen better days, and was back out to meet Jonathan in less than two minutes. I slipped my fingers into his, and let out a deep, slow breath at the feel of his skin against mine. I’d really missed this.
I’d really missed him.
“Are you okay?” Jonathan asked as we stepped out into the warm, but overcast, afternoon. It looked like we were more likely to get rain than sunshine.
“Yeah, better now you’re here,” I said, squeezing his hand. “I’ve missed you. And I’m so sorry I haven’t seen you lately.”
“It’s okay, you’ve been incredibly busy. And we’ve been messaging.”
“I know but seeing you in person is different.” I pulled him to a stop on the cobbled street, drawing him gently towards me. “Thank you for this… for making the effort. You shouldn’t have to. I’ll make it up to you.”
Jonathan shook his head. “It’s not a competition. We’re not scoring points against each other or keeping track of who does what.”
“Yeah but, I don’t want you to feel like you do everything.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow, and I could feel the judgement radiating out of him in spades. It was so cute I wanted to kiss every inch of his face. “Alfie, it’s one lunch. It’s not like I’ve suddenly produced a perfectly painted Master of Companies miniature for you.”
“I’d hope not, the kit is like seventy-five quid.”
“And you’re getting a new, seasonal business off the ground and it’s your peak trading period, of course you’re going to be busy.”
“I know, I just… I feel bad. This is all so new, and I feel like I’m abandoning you. I don’t want you to feel like I don’t want you, because I do, but I’m still figuring out how to make everything work. And I hate even saying that out loud.”
“I’m glad you did,” he said. “I’d rather know how you’re feeling and what you’re struggling with than be kept in the dark.” He tilted his head up and kissed me, the slow press of his lips draining the stress out of my chest. “We can figure this out, I promise.”
“Are you sure?” I wanted to believe that we could, but we hadn’t even hit the school holidays, and I was already so tired and frazzled I could barely function.
I knew some of it was my own anxieties getting the best of me, but knowing that, and stopping it from happening, were two very different things.
What I had with Jonathan was special, and I couldn’t stand the thought of losing it, and every day we hadn’t seen each other felt like a countdown to the end. After all, was he really going to want to be with someone who always made him feel like second best?
“Positive. It might just take some work,” he said, kissing me again.
“Let’s go and have some lunch and we can talk.
I thought maybe we could try and figure out one day a week to see each other, even if all we do is lie on the sofa and watch TV together.
I have a very good documentary on the Romans recorded if you’re interested. ”
“That sounds good.” One night a week didn’t sound difficult, at least on paper. And neither did lying on the sofa together. But would that really be enough for him? I wanted Jonathan to have the world, and I was so scared I wouldn’t be able to give it to him.
“Come on,” he said as he started walking again, leading me down towards the beach. “Laurie gave me the key to his and Theo’s beach hut so we can sit in there and eat. He was worried it might start raining and didn’t want us to get wet.”
“That’s kind of him.”
“I thought so too,” Jonathan said with a smile. “Although, I have to ask you something before we get there.”
I frowned in confusion. “What’s that?”
“How do you feel about taxidermy?”