Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
Beth had burned the onions. Again. The air smelled rancid, the extractor fan failing to eliminate the stench.
She stared at the blackened pan and sighed. For someone supposedly good at cooking, she’d had some spectacular fails in the past few days.
‘You’re thinking about snogging, not sautéing.’
She didn’t jump this time. Gigi’s presence was both infuriating and comforting. Right now, it was the former.
‘Go away,’ she muttered under her breath.
‘I am away. Technically, spiritually and emotionally.’ Gigi lounged against the industrial oven, dressed like a low-budget 1940s film star with a paisley-patterned silk scarf round his neck. ‘I’m just … observing.’
‘You’re haunting my kitchen.’
‘I prefer the term supervising.’
Beth scooped out the onions and started afresh. Butter, this time, with a sprinkle of sugar. Gentler. Kinder. She needed gentle and kind today.
Her phone buzzed on the side. She wiped her hands and flipped it over. Diana. She read the message.
Morning, oh enigmatic one. Did you ask him out? Slip your tongue down his throat? Blink twice if yes xx
Beth huffed and typed back: Might have. I’m wrangling burnt onions right now. Later xx
A second later: The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Not sure burnt offerings count.
Beth smiled despite herself.
The pub kitchen warmed as the lunch crowd began to turn up. Steak and ale pies slid into the oven. Soup simmered. Pastry cases lined up like obedient little soldiers. This was her rhythm: this was safe. And yet…
Her thoughts kept drifting.
Kieran’s hesitant smile in the doorway. The way his hands had hovered, as if he was afraid to touch her and afraid not to. The warmth of him, solid and careful.
It scared her. Not because it felt wrong. Because it felt right.
‘You’re doing that thing,’ Gigi said, leaning over the prep table. ‘The frowny thing. The “I like him, but the universe will punish me” thing.’
‘He’s real,’ Beth said quietly. ‘This is real. But you’re not. That’s the problem.’
‘Rude.’
‘You’re magic, Gigi. And he isn’t.’ She brushed pastry edges with beaten egg. ‘I don’t know where you end and life begins anymore.’
He tilted his head, oddly thoughtful. ‘That’s because you’ve never allowed yourself good things without paying a price for them.’
The lunch rush hit with relentless force. Ed shouting orders, Rose clattering plates, Jo popping her head in to ask if she could ‘borrow’ a batch of sausage rolls.
Beth moved on instinct. Knife flashing, pastry folding, taste, stir, season.
Life felt normal again, almost.
Until she felt that faint vibration in the air. That prickle at the back of her neck.
Gigi drifted closer.
‘Oh no,’ she said quietly.
‘Oh yes,’ he whispered back. ‘He’s starting to feel it.’
‘Feel what?’
‘The edges of me. The corners of the truth. The bit you’ve been standing in all this time.’
Beth’s hands stilled. ‘What happens when he figures it out?’
Gigi looked gentle. ‘People run,’ he said. ‘Or they stay.’
Beth slid a tray of pies into the oven, leaned against the counter. Wondered which kind Kieran would be.
Upstairs, wood creaked. Footsteps.
Not his: not now. But she felt him anyway.
Like a loose thread pulling, slowly, at her heart.