Chapter 19
19
Boathouse Cottage, St Aidan
Starfish and Caribbean cruises
Thursday
T he best lessons in life are learned the hard way. Let’s face it, if anything can teach me to take better care of my key, Monday afternoon is already up there with the stuff of nightmares, even without the view of Miles halfway into his jeans, that pops into my head approximately sixty times a minute.
In the end it’s Thursday before I hear from Miles about the baking, which is fine by me, because in the meantime I send off my piece about Zofia’s garden to Fenna, who likes it so much that she’s up for more.
This morning I’ve been up to see Edie at the barnyard first thing, to take some ‘before’ photos of some bits of furniture that she’s about to paint, which will make ideal pieces for DIY furniture transformation projects, then I come straight back and do a beach walk with Pumpkin. We’ve got as far as the harbourside when I get a text from Miles.
First batch of baking red when you are
I’ve noticed Miles talks into his phone a lot– annoying habit number five hundred and forty-three– and I assume his voice app wrote this and that he actually means baking is ready, not red.
We’d actually done a bit of a detour to walk past the Net Loft. My brutally honest inner self must have decided that me mentally undressing my housemate three thousand times an hour is not a healthy way to coexist. At least Miles’s text means I’m saved the embarrassment of standing outside the empty studio with my nose pressed against the glass.
I give Pumpkin a firm nudge away from the harbourside window boxes and lead him back towards the sand. ‘Sorry to cut your walk short today, but this is our cue to hurry home, okay?’
It obviously isn’t. The sun has come out, and there are groups of people settling in for a day along the beach, and I have to coax Pumpkin into a trot to get him past them. By the time I put him into his field, I’m swiping the sweat off my forehead, and flapping the open front of my button-through dress to fan my midriff.
Since Monday I’ve made a point of leaving the French windows by the sofa unlocked as a precaution, and when I slip into the living room a wall of hot pastry scent hits my nose.
I blink away the image of Miles’s naked six-pack and focus on him pushing his dark brown curls off his forehead behind the island unit.
‘Betty Bradwell, ravenous and reporting for duty, what have you got for me, Miles?’
He laughs. ‘I came across a Cornish palm tree yesterday along by the beach huts, so I thought we’d go tropical. Hot banana, hot banana with chocolate, and banoffee.’
‘You know banoffee pie was invented in Essex not the Caribbean?’ I am terrible at pub quizzes, but this is my star useless-knowledge fact, and I’m not going to waste it.
Miles raises an eyebrow. ‘I’m all about the taste, not the geography, Betsy Bets.’
I take the plates and knives that are waiting and spread them out. ‘I haven’t had any breakfast, so let’s try first, and argue the details later.’ As he turns to load up his platter I can’t help adding, ‘Squirty cream might work with this.’
I can’t believe I’ve been here almost three weeks without buying any, but now I mention it, it’s not the kind of thing Scarlett would have in her cupboards. It’s more the kind of item she’d ban from the house.
Miles laughs. ‘Great minds! I’ve made my own.’ He opens the fridge and pulls out a bulging piping bag and puts it in front of me on the island next to his baking. ‘Go ahead, dive in!’
I push up my sleeves. ‘Right, I’ll start with the plain banana and work my way up. And stuff messing about, I’m going for the full buns.’
As I close my teeth on the crust it snaps and crumbles, then gives way to the soft chewy dough in the centre, all still warm with strips of hot banana.
I wave the bun in the air. ‘I have to give it to you, Milo-pie, this pastry couldn’t be better.’ I sink my teeth in for the second bite and sigh. ‘Cooked banana is an inspired idea.’
Miles looks like he’s holding his breath when I go in for the next. ‘This one has a swirl of chocolate spread in the dough spiral and chocolate chips in with the banana.’
I take my time to chew. ‘If this were the only one you’d given me, I’d be deliriously happy.’
‘And now for your favourite.’ He takes a breath. ‘This is a croissant swirl, with cooked banana strips and caramel in a hollowed-out centre, topped with grated chocolate spirals. In the real world, it would be sold with a swirl of cream on top, but for now, I’ll let you help yourself.’
I pick up a banoffee bun, squeeze on a dollop of cream, take a taste and let out a groan. ‘That is orgasmic!’ I choke as it hits me what I’ve said. ‘It’s delectable. Luscious. Heavenly even. And very moreish.’ I squirt on more cream and demolish the rest.
His smile widens. ‘No one’s ever compared my baking to sex before, but that ultimate pleasure explosion is what I was aiming for. So thanks for that.’
I’m kicking myself for being so careless with my compliments. ‘I’ll finish these, and we’ll see if St Aidan agrees with me.’
Miles has his finger in the air. ‘For the record…’
‘Yes?’
He gives a cough. ‘The kitchen and I already have a five-star local authority hygiene rating.’
‘When did you get that?’
He shrugs. ‘As soon as I got here. A few weeks before you arrived.’
His timeline at Boathouse Cottage is getting longer and longer.
He carries on. ‘And I’ve sorted out a street trading permit, too, with permissions to make sales on all the nearby beaches.’ He nods. ‘If you were worried about everything being legal and above board– now it is.’
‘Well, thanks for looking out for me. I’d probably have winged it for a bit longer myself, but that’s just me.’ This is so typically Miles. If selling buns is this official, all the joy goes out of it.
He rubs his hands together. ‘The rest of the buns are in bags, whenever you’re ready.’
I’m thinking how I can make this fun again. ‘I might bring Pumpkin. If we’re short of custom, he’ll pull in a crowd.’
‘Oka-a-a-y.’
I can tell by Miles’s tone that it isn’t. ‘If you’re worried about his dirty look, I’m sure he’s moved on.’
‘It’s not that.’
While I’m waiting for Miles to come out with objection number six hundred and forty-eight, I’m testing myself. I want to see if the mesmerising attraction I feel towards him reduces when he’s being a complete tool. Are his super-charged testosterone levels easier to block out when he’s boring the pants off me with his obsession with rules and red tape? Nope, there’s no change at all. I could still happily rip the T-shirt off his disgustingly honed pecs, morning, noon and all bloody night.
Miles gives a cough. ‘Now we’re operating within the law, it would be a shame to wreck that with an animal running amok on the beach.’
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘ Pumpkin doesn’t run wild !’
Miles is rolling his eyes harder than me. ‘It’s entirely possible he could stamp on peoples’ sandcastles. Or their children. Or even them . I’d rather not pick up the tab for that.’
What the actual eff? ‘Pumpkin has his own insurance. It covers vet’s bills, and public liability. Scarlett looks after the direct debit, but I’ve got the paperwork.’
Miles’s eyebrows go up. ‘If he’s insured, that’s different.’
I’m shaking my head in despair. ‘He needs to be well covered the way he looks at those quayside window boxes. The plants in there could run to thousands.’
I look at Miles again, to see how I feel when he’s being mean about Pumpkin, and– no surprise– when he turns, his bum is still as delectable as his pecan toffee croissants.
I’ve never experienced feelings like this around a man before. With the guys before Mason the catastrophes were each very different, but they all followed a reassuringly similar pattern. We’d start with friendly banter. If we made it as far as bed and the sex was okay, it was game on. And then sometime later it would all unravel– usually spectacularly.
There was the guy who hit on me when he really wanted my flatmate instead, and the one who was still so hung up on his ex he rang her every evening, and the gay vet who wanted to parade me for his mum.
But my skin feeling like it’s scorching when someone’s in the room, or my stomach doing cartwheels when someone appears is a whole new ball game. And however much I’m zoning out what happened with Mason, the vestiges of that should be enough to block my nerve pathways forever. I shouldn’t be feeling like this– end of story.
I turn to Miles. ‘So Pumpkin’s allowed to come?’ I take his eye roll as a ‘yes’.
Even though I look up at the living room ceiling all the way to the top of the roof, my own eye roll still isn’t enough to express my despair.