Chapter 10
T he official announcement of the Whisked Away contestants came a week before the first round was due to be filmed in May.
Lucas was on his break at the Muddy Paws Café, sitting out in the back, where wooden picnic tables and taller seats and barrel-tables with giant yellow umbrellas were framed by trees and bracken.
It had been a busy day – it was sunny, bright, and the weather was warming up nicely, spools of sunlight flecking the tables like pirate’s gold, and lots of families, tourists, and local workers had been out taking full advantage of the balmy weather.
Now, with it being school pick-up time, it was much quieter: an elderly couple were sitting in the shade with their snoozing Dalmatian resting at their feet while they sipped iced teas, and a young couple drinking coffee had their heads pressed together over a hiking trail map.
Lucas had been checking his phone all day when he could, and the announcement was finally live.
His and Dwayne’s headshots were splashed under the words Muddy Paws Café .
His stomach leaped in excitement and he grinned at the prospect of the prize money, and what he could do with it – how much easier life could be for his parents.
He had to win.
He glugged some of his mocha, scanning the rest of the contestants.
There would be five groups of two, with one group being voted off each round until the final, where three groups would go up against one another to win.
The other contestants outside of Muddy Paws included a family-run cake business, a breakfast bakery known for their pies, and a quaint little farm shop he’d heard hikers rave about.
And then there was Catpurrcino. His thumb traced Clem’s headshot.
Beside her, in Sylvie’s headshot, she looked confident and smiley, standing at the counter, a paw-shaped clip scraping her hair into place.
But Clem’s smile looked a little nervous, hesitant, and she was tipping her head, as if to try and hide behind her silky black hair.
He took another sip of his mocha and opened up the comments on the announcement. The more he scrolled through them, the more the smile edged from his face. Because most of Ronan’s loyal fanbase were interested in one thing: Lucas and Clem.
Did you see the clip they shared from the audition?
Oh my God, it was SO cute, I can’t stand it.
He swallowed. They’d shared clips? He’d been so busy working, and looking for the announcement specifically, he hadn’t noticed.
He’s such a green flag. They better get together by the end of this!
The way he looked after her! I’m here for it!
They better not get voted off. I want to see what happens.
He couldn’t stop scrolling, even though every other similar comment made him feel uneasy. He chucked the rest of his mocha in the nearby bin without standing up, almost missing. The elderly couple grinned at him when the cup met its mark. He smiled absently.
There were a few comments about the other contestants, wishing them good luck, or people mentioning if they’d had cakes or pastries from them before. They were overwhelmed by the comments about him and Clem, though.
He scrolled the Whisked Away social media accounts and looked for the clip from the audition. Sure enough, they’d shared clips of everyone who’d got through, including the moment where Reina had come barrelling into the conference room at Clem, and the aftermath.
The clip played out. He understood why they were doing this – it was good publicity for the contest. Spinning a storyline could ensure people stayed invested and kept coming back to watch more. If it were just him, he’d be fine with that. It was business.
His thumb tracked across the screen until he’d frozen the video on Clem, her head bowed down, face not visible beneath a curtain of dark hair. She looked fragile, like a flower coiling in on itself and withering beneath the rain.
Lucas’s chest twisted. It wasn’t just him. She’d been thrust into this spotlight too. Had he made it worse, by helping?
His mind argued with itself. She’d signed up; this was to be expected. And yet she hadn’t wanted this extra attention. Lucas and Reina had made it worse for her.
Suddenly, he got to his feet, pulling up the cat café on his phone. He only had another hour left at Muddy Paws. The cat café was open for a while longer. He fired off a text to Clem.
Are you at work? Can I talk to you after your shift? Heading to see my parents then driving back your way.
As he shoved his phone into his pocket and hurried inside Muddy Paws, he told himself this was business – an excuse for him to discuss the contest and what they would do about this attention – even if the reasoning was as flimsy as paper. Because really, he wanted to make sure she was okay.
*
Clem had agreed that Lucas could come to the café, which he was relieved about.
She said she’d be there until closing because she was batch-prepping some more cat doughnuts.
When he arrived, the sun was sinking lower and casting the roads into shade.
Thick grey clouds were moving across the sky now, blowing in on the breeze.
He messaged Clem to say he was here. The café sign was already switched to closed, but when he tapped on the door, she opened it at once, ushering him inside and shutting it behind him.
Her hair was scooped up under a hairnet, pulling her fringe out of her face and exposing its heart shape, and she was wearing a pink apron decorated with little cartoon cats, all rolling around, sleeping, or playing with balls of string.
He wasn’t prepared for the whooshing sensation in his stomach: he’d still had the image of her from the audition in his head, hair concealing her face.
She looked more dainty and beautiful with it pulled back, highlighting her dewy skin and hazel eyes.
‘You saw, didn’t you?’ she said. Her forehead was creased with dismay, her bottom lip pouty, and he wanted, madly, to kiss away the worry in her features.
Stop it , he scolded himself internally. Focus.
‘The announcement? Yes—’
‘And the clip!’ she said shrilly. ‘They posted that just after. I can’t believe it . . . I think they said they might use audition footage but I thought it was unlikely . . .’
She was talking extremely quickly, making it difficult to keep up.
‘I haven’t been able to focus. I completely wrecked a batch of doughnuts. Sylvie and the others have gone; Emmie’s at Jared’s and I said I’d close up. I just can’t stop thinking about—’
‘Slow down,’ said Lucas softly, bringing her to a halt.
His words seemed to have encouraged her to assess him. Clem took a step back, drinking him in. The way she was looking at him made his skin surge with electricity, and she hadn’t even touched him.
‘Sorry,’ she said, quietly.
‘You don’t have to apologise.’
‘Why . . . why are you here?’ she asked tentatively.
They were still hovering in the entrance, where a huge poster of the cat café’s rules looked down on them, beneath a big green pair of cat’s eyes.
An alcove looked in on the reception area and the gift shop.
A woman was sitting at the reception desk, headphones dangling from her ears as she stared down at her phone.
‘I . . .’ He trailed off. It had seemed urgent that he come here to see if she was alright but he couldn’t say so, could he?
Not without burrowing deeper into his feelings about her.
And if he went down that route . . . No, not a good idea.
He had wanted to make sure she was alright, nothing more.
‘I thought we could discuss strategies. For dealing with this,’ he said.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again, looking confused.
‘But we’re going against each other in the contest.’ Clem looked upset all over again, her brows knitting together, and she cast an anxious look at the receptionist behind her.
‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘But they seem to have singled us out.’
‘I know.’ She was pouting and all he wanted to do was run his finger over her mouth, brush the frown into something happier. ‘I don’t understand why.’
‘It’s probably the cats and dogs thing,’ he replied. ‘It’s a good angle, for the show . . .’
‘You better come inside . . .’ she said, waving at him to follow her. ‘Sylvie won’t mind if we chat somewhere.’
She led him through the gift shop and reception. The woman in headphones glanced up but when she saw Clem, she simply said hello and waved Lucas onward. They headed through the door and the latched gate, until they were in the main café.
A cat was immediately visible on one of the chairs at the nearest table.
It was huge, with black-and-white markings, and only just about fitted into the seat, its tail dangling off as it snoozed softly.
Its head was buried beneath its black paws.
Clem took Lucas behind the counter, where she said hello to another woman, fair-haired and smiling at them, before they walked down a narrow hallway and into a staffroom.
‘It’s quieter here,’ she said.
The room was painted in a mixture of bright ivory and off-white, with brightly coloured chairs set around a break table.
There were framed photos of the café’s cats on the walls – as if these cats were the staff, rather than the humans.
A kitchenette with tea- and coffee-making facilities and a small sink was set against the wall near the door.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I appreciate you coming here but I don’t think there’s much we can do . . .’
‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘If this is the angle they’re going to spin, we’ll have to deal with it. But are you prepared?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It might get harder from here.’
Clem grasped her elbow tightly. ‘I know it might. I can’t back out now . . . Sylvie is counting on me . . . What are your strategies?’
In truth, he didn’t know. But he’d studied film; maybe he could at least give her some advice?