Chapter 5 #3
Flick was sitting up on the roof terrace, looking out on the incredible view of the town.
It was late and she’d spent hours coming up with ideas of how to help the studios and lost track of time so her dinner of a ham and cheese toastie was more like a late supper.
Luke suddenly climbed up the steps to join her.
He was wearing his glasses again tonight and there was something so sexy about them.
She tried to push that thought away, she didn’t need to be thinking things like that.
‘Hey,’ Flick said, offering out the triangles of ham and cheese toastie.
Luke picked one up and took a bite of the cheesy gooeyness. ‘Mmm, thank you. I haven’t had a chance to eat anything yet, it’s been a busy day.’
‘Yeah, sorry, I feel like you’ve picked up a lot of the workload.’
‘We’re a team, you can’t do it all on your own.
And I know tradesmen around here, a lot of them are friends so I can get some of the work done very quickly.
In fact the painting will be done tomorrow.
Well some of it, the flowers and bees will have to wait until I can get a mural artist, unless I can persuade Rose to paint them. ’
Polly had decided to continue her bumblebee theme in the café with yellow walls painted with bees and flowers, just like her van.
The tables were going to be black or some kind of iridescent resin to represent the bees’ wings.
It was going to look good when it was finished.
And with the huge list of shiny new appliances that Polly had insisted she needed, it was going to be the best-stocked café in the town, possibly the world.
‘I worry about you spending too much money on this. Polly’s renovations and new equipment are going to cost thousands and I don’t know how big this kitty is but it’s not bottomless. I know you said you had some money in your savings, I worry you’re subsidising this with your own money.’
Luke smiled. ‘You really don’t need to be worried.’
‘Of course I do. If you’re paying out for this, that’s not fair.’
‘Look, I know people, I can get a lot of the kitchen things cheap so you don’t need to worry about the kitty running out of money.’
‘How cheap, like fallen-off-the-back-of-a-lorry cheap?’
He laughed. ‘One of my friends remodels kitchens for businesses: cafés, restaurants, hotels. When a company remodels their kitchen they have stuff they want to get rid of. They don’t care what happens to it, as long as it’s gone.
My friend stores them, sometimes does them up if need be and sells them on. ’
‘OK, but some of the gadgets and machines Polly wants sound really fancy. She’s not going to be happy with second-hand goods.’
‘Let me worry about that.’
Flick scowled, not convinced that Luke knowing a few people was going to help with this. She didn’t know a lot about kitchen equipment but she’d seen the prices of a few of the items Polly wanted and some of them were crazy expensive. The money had to be coming from somewhere.
‘Maybe we should put a pin in the gift shop until the café is up and running. We can’t just keep spending money with no money coming in and I don’t want you or the kitty to be short.’
‘We have to spend money to make money. The café will look great and people will come here to see it. As you said, getting people through the door is half the problem. If the artists don’t want to capitalise on the extra footfall, then there’s no helping them.
And no, you’re not backing out of the gift shop. That will be an attraction as well.’
‘But where is the money coming from? I promised to look after the studios for my nan and I can’t let her come back to find that we’re fifty thousand pounds in debt.
And let’s face it, if she had that kind of money just lying around, she wouldn’t be in such financial difficulty that she was thinking of selling the place. ’
‘There won’t be any debt, I promise. Consider the kitty a gift from a fairy godmother.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You see, fairy godmothers normally want something in return like your first-born child, or a pound of flesh.’
‘That was The Merchant of Venice , and Shylock was not so much a cute, whimsical godmother with a magic wand and more a vengeful, greedy man obsessed with wealth, power and revenge.’
She smiled that of course he would know his Shakespeare. The books on his bookshelf were clearly not just there for show.
‘I promise you that your first-born and all body parts are perfectly safe,’ Luke said.
She looked at him and knew she could trust him, at least in that regard.
He wasn’t going to lead her down some dodgy rabbit hole with loan sharks or the mafia chasing them for money.
And maybe she’d watched too many movies and was seeing shadows when there was only light.
This was a good thing. They really couldn’t save the studios without some kind of outlay.
She just wished it wasn’t quite so much.
‘I just feel that if this is going to be my business, I need to contribute towards it, not freeload off the kitty. I don’t have any money in my savings but I do have an antique sapphire necklace my aunt left me in her will.
The sapphire is quite small but it’s very pretty.
I might get a hundred or so for that.’ She bit her lip. ‘I could sell my car.’
‘There’s no need to do that. The gift shop will benefit the studios too so it’s only right it’s fully funded by the kitty.’
‘I don’t feel right about it.’
‘Well, we can always work out some kind of repayment. A percentage of all sales goes back into the kitty. The rest, after paying you a wage, can go to buying more stock.’
‘I’d feel better if I can repay something.’
‘That’s fine. We can sort something out that’s fair but I don’t want you to worry about this.’
She nodded, feeling a little bit better about it, and carried on eating her toastie.
‘You still haven’t told me why you aren’t interested in Natalia or the other women in your fan club. Natalia is very pretty.’
‘Oh… they’re not my type.’
‘Oh.’ Flick chewed her lip for a moment as she prepared herself to rip off the sticking plaster. ‘Is Polly your type?’
‘Polly? No, she’s nice, I think she’ll be a great asset to the team over here but I haven’t thought about her in that way. She’s a bit young for me and I think she’s probably just like the others in many ways.’
Flick didn’t know what he meant by that; Polly and Natalia were nothing alike.
She was also desperate to know if she was his type but she couldn’t ask that.
And what would be the point, she didn’t want to start something with him when he was leaving.
She’d never been the sort of person to just have a casual fling.
She watched him sigh sadly about the unwanted attention from Natalia.
‘You know, the easiest way to get Natalia, or any of the others who keep following you around, to leave you alone would be to tell them you have a girlfriend.’
‘I don’t think they’ll believe it.’
‘Why? You’re a good-looking man, lovely, kind. Why is it so hard to believe you have a girlfriend?’
‘I’m just not known for a successful romantic history. I’m a nerd. Nerds don’t get the women.’
‘That’s not true. And you’re not a nerd.’
‘I have a million useless facts stored away in my brain, my career before wood carving was playing with computers. I’ll watch nature programmes and find them fascinating, I have a telescope to look at the stars.
You’ve seen the books I read, I could talk for hours about my love of Pratchett.
At the pirate festival I will be going in full pirate regalia and I often go to comic cons dressed as Aragorn from Lord of the Rings . ’
She smiled at that. None of that put her off, she found it all very endearing.
‘And you’ve never found anyone to be your Arwen?’ she asked, referring to Aragorn’s soul mate.
‘Never been that lucky.’
‘Well, I could be your girlfriend.’
He stared at her. ‘What?’
‘We can pretend to be together.’
‘Pretend. Right, yes, of course.’
‘When Natalia comes up here, you tell her you have a girlfriend and we can pretend to be a loving couple. She’ll soon give up once she sees how happy and in love you are.’
‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable with lying. Or be any good at it.’
‘So you’d rather keep hiding in the cupboard every time she visits?’
‘Well no.’
‘And I take it you don’t just want to tell her a firm no and to leave you alone?’
‘No, I don’t particularly like confrontation.’
‘Don’t you think this could be worth a go, just to get some peace and quiet?’
‘I suppose.’
Luke looked really uncomfortable with the idea and Flick wondered if it wasn’t just the idea of lying to people but the horror of having to pretend he was her boyfriend.
‘Or just keep hiding in a cupboard, it’s no skin off my nose.
It was just a suggestion. I don’t mind holding your hand and looking at you adoringly.
But if you don’t want to do that, I’m sure avoiding her will continue to work just as well.
Or find the courage of Aragorn and tell her to sling her hook. ’
‘Will we kiss?’ Luke asked.
Flick felt her eyebrows shoot up. She hadn’t thought about that.
‘Well, I guess we could, if you want, just to be completely convincing. It’s just a kiss, it doesn’t mean anything.
It’s not like you’ll be making love to me in the middle of your studio just to show we’re in love, but a kiss…
’ She shrugged to show it was nothing when all sh e could think about was how much she’d wanted that when they were standing in the secret cupboard earlier.
This was turning out to be not quite so selfless as she’d first thought.
‘OK, let’s give it a go,’ Luke said.
‘The kiss?’ Flick almost squeaked.
‘No, us, together. At least the pretence of it.’
‘OK,’ Flick said, suddenly wondering if this wasn’t such a great idea after all. Could she really kiss him and not feel anything at all?
‘Right, I’m going to bed,’ Luke said, standing up.
‘Night, lover boy,’ Flick teased.
He paused and even in the darkness she could see him blush.
‘Night Flick,’ he said, softly.
He disappeared down the ladder and Flick couldn’t help smiling. This was going to be fun.