Love from Scratch

Chapter Nine

The minute the girls spotted Ethan he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. The weather was perfect, and the sunny morning had brought the crowds out to the farmers’ market Hazel had guilted him into going to. The place was teeming with people. He thought he was being low-key in his sunglasses and cap, but clearly he’d been wrong, because he’d already taken at least half a dozen selfies with fans, and signed just as many random objects, including a pumpkin. A busy market might not have been the best idea, he realised, especially when the media kept reminding everyone he was in town to make a movie.

He attempted to change direction, looking around for an escape route, turning right, then left, then right again, before standing still like a deer caught in headlights as the girls advanced. Before he knew what had happened, they’d expertly herded him away from the crowds and backed him up against a fence. It was as if he was being separated from the pack for slaughter.

‘Can we get a photo?’ girl number one asked, holding up her phone.

‘Sure.’ Ethan took off his sunnies and hooked them over the neck of his T-shirt. The girl flung herself at him with such force he stumbled backwards. She wrapped her arms around his waist and he tried to smile, but she was squeezing so tight, all he could manage was a toothy grimace. Several photos and a video for one of their mums later, he’d discovered they were all fourteen, on school holidays from Melbourne, and they were massive Harry Styles fans, who they assumed he must know. He shifted his stance, his fingers aching from the heavy shopping bags clenched in his fist.

‘You really don’t know him?’ girl number one asked. The look of utter contempt on her face was matched by the disappointment in her voice. ‘But he’s a big star.’ The way she emphasised big made it clear where Ethan sat in her hierarchy of stars.

‘I’m not friends with all the stars,’ Ethan said politely, nodding at a young couple who were pointing at him and whispering. ‘I like Harry’s music, though.’ He gave the girls his best wide and dimply, if slightly anxious, smile.

‘You should do a movie with him,’ girl number one said. ‘That would be fire.’

‘You’d slay,’ girl number two added. ‘And he could make you really famous.’

‘Real clout,’ girl number three echoed. ‘And you could sing together.’

Ethan blinked. It was like watching a tennis match – one where the ball kept smacking him in the face. ‘I don’t sing,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ all three girls answered simultaneously, their bottom lips jutting.

‘Harry doesn’t sing in his movies, though,’ girl number one said to her friends. ‘They could still do a movie together.’

They all nodded their agreement.

‘But I don’t know…’ She turned back to Ethan, her nose wrinkling as she looked him up and down. ‘You might be too much of a zaddy.’

Ethan’s eyelids fluttered. Zaddy? He wobbled on his feet. What the fuck?

‘Girls,’ he said harshly, ‘I’m only thirty-three.’ It was bad enough that they thought he needed Harry Styles to make him famous, now they were calling him old?

‘My mum’s thirty-four,’ one of the girls said, completely guileless.

‘My dad’s thirty-five,’ another girl said.

They all stared, as if seeing him anew. Ethan’s shoulders sagged.

Hazel peered around the shoppers blocking the market stalls and sighed. She’d planned to be at the market a lot earlier, before it got crowded and before the day’s best produce was picked through. But she’d spent half the morning chasing Kevin around the house as he tormented a poor, now dead, cicada. She’d nearly squished the poor thing when she got out of bed – Kevin had had left it right in the middle of her bedroom doorway. She’d missed it by a centimetre, bashing her knee into the wall as she stumbled over the doomed creature. Then Kevin had grabbed it and the chase was on. It took close to half an hour, but once the cicada stopped fluttering and chirping Kevin lost interest, and she’d put the giant bug out of its misery. By the end of the whole thing, Hazel had been a frustrated, sweaty mess in need of a second shower.

She put a paper bag filled with mushrooms into her string carryall. There was a pan-roasted mushroom recipe she wanted to try, and she was thrilled to find a stall that carried wild Adelaide porcini. It was hard to believe she’d barely cooked in the last six weeks. Now, she could hardly think about anything else. The thought of returning to a commercial kitchen still made her stomach churn, but she’d decided to take it slow, working her way back to the confidence she’d once exuded.

She carefully added six heirloom tomatoes to her bag, along with the mushrooms, a large bunch of Italian parsley, some baby brown onions and the artichokes she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with yet. She was just trying to work out the best route through the crowds to the food trucks when she spotted Ethan. He was leaning against a fence, towering over three young girls. His sunglasses were hooked on his body-hugging white T-shirt, his tanned, toned legs on display in black shorts, and he was wearing a baseball cap – turned around so that the peak was at the back. He looked almost boyish, effortlessly beautiful, and utterly trapped.

Shit. If she’d been at the market first thing as planned, she could have avoided this. Bloody Kevin. It was all his fault.

She stepped back into the shadows of the stalls, planning to make a dash for it. She didn’t need another accidental encounter with Ethan James. But then he looked up, glancing around as if somehow aware that she was there, and their eyes locked.

That’s when Hazel’s stomach did something completely unexpected. It flipped.

Ethan’s heart skittered as his gaze slammed into Hazel’s. She was glowing again, bathed in the sun’s sparkling rays, a purple and pink tartan dress stopping high on her long, long legs. He lifted a hand in a single wave and she mirrored the motion, her sexy brows becoming a deep frown. His lips curved into a grin and he mouthed, ‘help’. With a nod, she pushed her shoulders back and began to move determinedly towards him.

‘Is everything okay here?’ she asked, elbowing her way past the girls. They stared up at her with wide eyes. Hazel froze for a moment, as if not sure what to do, then gathered herself and said, ‘We should probably go, Mr James. You have that meeting.’

Relief flooded every tensed muscle in his body. ‘Right. The meeting. Can’t be late for that meeting.’ He smiled down at the three teens. ‘Sorry, ladies. I have a meeting.’ He set his dimples to high-beam. ‘But thanks for keeping me company.’

‘She’s really tall,’ girl number one said, staring up at Hazel.

‘Is she your bodyguard?’ girl number two asked.

Ethan’s smile widened, his eyes still locked with Hazel’s.

‘She sure is,’ he said. ‘How lucky am I?’

They weaved their way through the crowded market stalls towards the car park, Hazel clearing a path.

‘Where’s Harry?’ she asked over her shoulder.

‘At home, relaxed and cool.’ Two things Ethan wasn’t.

A woman stepped in front of Ethan, blocking his way, phone poised for a photo. Hazel grabbed his hand, her fingers gripping him tightly as she yanked him forward.

‘Sorry,’ he called back as he stumbled past the woman. ‘I’m in a rush. Got a meeting. Next time.’

It was the first time, possibly ever, that he hadn’t stopped for a fan. Lena was constantly going on about giving himself space and not having to please everyone all the time. ‘They’ll get over it,’ she always said. But he worried that they wouldn’t. He worried that he’d get labelled egotistical or difficult, or that social media would cancel him for upsetting someone by saying no to an autograph. But being hauled along by Hazel made him worry less. Being hauled along by Hazel launched a whole lot of other emotions. Ones that probably should make him worry, but somehow didn’t.

He glanced down at their hands grasped tightly together. She was warm, a bit sweaty actually, but he didn’t mind. He liked the sensation of her hand wrapped around his and even when they broke through the lines of stalls, he held on until she let go.

‘Wow,’ he said through a laugh. ‘I might have to hire you as my actual bodyguard.’

‘Doesn’t it piss you off, the way they step in front of you like that as if you owe them something?’ she said.

‘Well, I kind of do – I mean, I owe them my career.’ She stared at him, a deep line forming between her eyes. ‘Isn’t that the same as cooking? Unless people like your food—’

‘Whether or not someone likes the thing you do doesn’t define whether you’re good at it.’

‘I might have to get that on a T-shirt.’ He lifted his brows and smiled. She nibbled on her bottom lip, frowning.

‘You think that woman was bad?’ he said. ‘It gets much worse. The girls you rescued me from called me a zaddy.’

A laugh burst from Hazel. A big, full-body laugh. It lit her up. It lit him up.

‘Do you need a minute?’ he asked, laughing too. ‘You know they were calling me old, right?’

‘Well, to them, you are.’

‘Oh, great, thanks.’

She laughed again. ‘You’re not a zaddy though, are you? Isn’t a zaddy forty-something? You’ve got a few years left in you yet. You’re pre-zaddy.’ Her lips were pressed together, squishing a smirk.

‘Pre-zaddy? Hilarious. I didn’t know you were a comedian and a chef.’ He pulled his cap down lower, moving quickly towards the car park. ‘Thanks for the save, though. Those girls were disturbingly relentless, and obviously I’m too old to move fast enough to escape them.’ He arched a brow and she shrugged at him, a grin twitching at the corners of her full lips. ‘I felt like one of those baby wildebeests in an Attenborough doco,’ he said. ‘Alone and cut off, surrounded by lions baying for blood.’ He shuddered. ‘I was having such a nice time too, buying the fruit and vegetables you guilted me into with your comments about my fridge.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘I’m kidding.’

‘How do you handle it, though?’ Hazel asked. ‘Having strangers in your face like that? I don’t think I could deal with it.’

‘It takes some practice, but it’s usually okay. Folks mostly just want to say hi and take a photo. If you’re having a shitty day and then someone yells out that they love your movie, that feels pretty good. Today was a bit uncomfortable, though. Those girls had seen all my movies. The Throne of Kings movies are pretty violent, and I’m virtually naked in at least one of them.’ Hazel stared at him with a look of complete bewilderment. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen those either?’ He laughed at her slow head shake. ‘To be honest,’ he said, ‘I kind of like that you haven’t.’

He beeped the locks on a brand-new, glossy black Jeep Wrangler. ‘This is me.’ Her eyebrows lifted as if to say, Of course it is.

‘Yeah I know, I’m a big cliché,’ he said. ‘But I like nice cars. I have an Audi back home in Sydney. Red. Gorgeous. Fast. This one’s a rental though, like the house.’ He shrugged.

‘Well, I’m over there.’ She nodded towards a line of trees. ‘Are you going to be okay now, or do you need me to check the back seat of your car to make sure there are no more wild teens out to get you?’

‘Would you mind?’ He grinned cheekily. She smiled back, but with a roll of her eyes.

‘Hey, what are you doing now?’ he asked. ‘Do you have time for a coffee?’ He didn’t want her to go. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to her, to thank her again for the muffins, ask how Harry was going, tell her she looked amazing in purple and pink with legs forever. She stared at him, her eyes flitting to his. She appeared torn for a moment, and then said, ‘Sure.’

Hazel rubbed her brow, her gaze drifting over Ethan’s broad back. He was leaning against the counter, all long legs and tight arse – a tight arse that was apparently naked in more than one of his movies. She really should make an effort to watch at least one. Though he’d said he liked the fact that she hadn’t seen his movies. Still, it must have been a hit to his ego.

He glanced over his shoulder and tossed her a smile before turning back to laugh at something the person serving him said, his head tilting backwards. Hazel sat back in her seat, biting her lip again as he removed his cap and ran a hand through his hair. He slipped in beside the woman at the counter and smiled as they took a photo together, then squatted for a photo with a young boy, who he high-fived, and then he signed the back of a young woman’s phone, all while sorting out their order.

She had no idea why she’d said yes to coffee with Ethan. She’d made other plans. Plans that involved cooking and eating and sitting on the couch and reading her new book on Italian desserts. But something about his smile and the way he’d asked her had caught in her chest. She had no problem going home to an empty house, but she sensed that Ethan might. So here she was, apparently hanging out with him again. She could almost hear Meredith laughing.

‘I ordered us a couple of friands,’ he said, placing their number in the middle of the table. He dropped into the seat opposite her and pulled his cap back on. ‘They won’t be as good as your muffins, of course.’ He leaned back in his chair, his T-shirt stretching across the expanse of his chest, the sunlight catching ginger highlights in his stubble that Hazel hadn’t noticed before.

‘What were you doing at the market?’ he asked.

She stared at him.

‘Okay, dumb question. How about, what did you get at the market?’

‘A few vegetables,’ she said. ‘Some mushrooms I’m pretty excited about.’

‘Exciting mushrooms, huh? Didn’t know you could get those at the farmer’s market.’ His tongue poked between his teeth as he grinned.

That grin. She found it so annoying. She fidgeted with the cutlery on the table.

‘Yes, they’re exciting because I can try out a new recipe with them.’ He laughed, and she looked up, catching another wave of attack dimples. She folded and unfolded her paper napkin.

‘I actually should have been home ages ago,’ she said, ‘but Kevin and I had a battle over a cicada this morning, which he won, so I was running late.’

‘Ah, so a loss for the cicada meant a win for me. I’ll have to thank Kev next time I see him.’

Frowning, she dragged her gaze away from his twinkling eyes and realised that nearly everyone in the cafe was watching him. One person had their phone pointed in their direction.

‘I think someone is taking a photo of you,’ she said.

Ethan leaned forward. ‘Maybe they’re taking a photo of you.’

‘I doubt it,’ she said, moving the spoon to the other side of the fork.

‘I don’t,’ he responded.

Before she could challenge him, their server arrived with their coffees.

Ethan leaned back, a smile still aimed right at her, then he looked up at the guy serving them and said, ‘Thanks. It’s Jack, right?’ He smiled a mega-watt smile, wide and all teeth, his blue eyes holding the young man enthralled.

‘Yeah,’ the young man said, smiling back shyly, his already pink blush deepening to fuchsia.

‘See, I told you I’d remember,’ Ethan said, smooth as silk.

The young man smiled sheepishly, his cheeks now scarlet, and then hurried away with his head down.

Hazel was flooded with second-hand embarrassment for the awkward young man.

‘Are you always so casually flirty with everyone?’ Hazel asked.

‘Was I flirting?’ Ethan asked innocently.

‘You can’t tell?’

He chuckled. ‘Honestly, sometimes no. It’s habit, and people expect it.’

‘I don’t expect it, so please don’t do it with me.’

‘When was I flirting with you?’ He leaned an elbow on the table, his chin resting on his fist.

She shuffled in her seat. Hadn’t he been flirting with her, too? Wasn’t that what he’d been doing since the minute they met? She was a bit out of practice, but surely all that smiling and intense eye contact was flirting.

‘I didn’t mean you were,’ she quickly backpedalled. ‘I was only saying you don’t have to.’

‘I won’t. When I like someone, I’m just…’ He leaned forward, his eyes locking on hers. ‘Me.’

The young man was back with their friands. Ethan thanked him, stunning the guy with a wink. The server put their food on the table, the scarlet in his cheeks spreading to his neck, and, essentially, ran away.

‘I think you’ve embarrassed him,’ Hazel said. ‘You need to be more careful with those winks and careless smiles of yours.’

‘Careless smiles?’ His careless smile dropped. ‘I don’t think I embarrassed him. I’m pretty sure that’s not what was going on. But I’ll leave him a good tip.’

‘Oh sure, because money fixes everything.’

‘I’m just leaving the guy a tip. And I was only being nice to him, Hazel, that’s all. I can’t help it if…’ His cheeks puffed. ‘Have I done something to offend you? Because I definitely get the vibe that you don’t like me much.’ He pinned her with his blue gaze. Her chest tightened, and she glanced away.

‘I don’t dislike you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know you well enough to like or dislike you.’

‘See, I liked you from the day of your interview. I liked you even more after our dinner together.’ Hazel’s gaze moved back to his face. ‘And I thought we were having a nice time getting to know each other. I guess that was my mistake.’

‘You’re not mistaken. We are getting to know each other. I just…’ She shifted her seat and cringed as the metal feet screeched against the hard tiles.

‘You just don’t like what you’re getting to know,’ he said.

‘No. I mean… It’s just, I think you use your looks and position, your smiles and dimples, to get what you want – which is for people to like you.’ His brows flicked up. She squared her shoulders and met his eyes.

‘See, I don’t think you know me well enough to say that.’ He took off his cap and raked a hand through his hair. ‘And by the way, you also use your looks to get what you want.’

She blinked. ‘I don’t.’

‘Yeah, you do. You do it with that Eddie guy. He’s obviously into you, and you’re playing on that so that he’ll help you get another job.’

‘No I’m not. He’s a friend.’

‘A friend who has a thing for you.’ He dragged a knife through the centre of one of the friands, cutting it in two, then pushed the plate towards her with a surly look. ‘Hazel, I can’t actually do anything about the way I look, or how people see me. So if that’s the problem…’ He shrugged. ‘Or is it my job? Is that why you don’t like me – because I’m an actor? A celebrity? Help me out here. I’m trying to figure out what I’ve done other than be… nice.’

Heat burned in Hazel’s chest. She should have just drunk her coffee, eaten her friand and gone home. Now he was pissed off and asking questions she didn’t want to answer.

‘Let’s just say I’ve not had the greatest experience with celebrities,’ she said, as vaguely as she could.

‘In what way?’ His gaze intensified.

‘In a none-of-your-business way.’ She wished she was at home with her cat, who never paid any attention to anything she said or did.

‘Well, I feel like you made it my business. If I’m being judged for something someone else has done, it would be nice to know what that something is.’

She took a frustrated slurp of her coffee, scalding the roof of her mouth and putting the cup down hastily.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I honestly didn’t mean to offend you. I was uncomfortable for that guy, and—’

‘I’m pretty sure he was experiencing something other than discomfort,’ Ethan muttered.

‘And I can’t tell if you’re “on” or if this is what you are.’

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘What I am?’ He rubbed his brow. ‘I’m “on”, as you call it, when I need to be “on”, and I don’t need to be “on” unless I’m doing publicity or something, which I’m not doing right now. This is me, for better or worse. Worse, I’m guessing.’ He stirred his coffee, staring into his cup, his usually open face now closed.

Hazel wanted a do-over. She’d basically accused him of being a shallow dickhead, which she could already tell he probably wasn’t. And she’d been lying when she’d said she didn’t know him well enough to like or dislike him. He’d allowed her to know him from the first day they’d met, and she kind of did like him, sort of, she realised, and that was alarming, because how could she, when he represented so many things she hated?

‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ she said.

‘No, I’m glad you did,’ he said. ‘I’ll remember to keep my careless smiles in check around you.’