Chapter 38
Isla
“You’ve been practising,” I said, watching Alistair chop the apples with a focused dexterity. Each slice of the knife sharp and confident.
He didn’t glance up, didn’t even pause, just replied, “Impressed?”
“Yes, actually,” I whispered giddily in his ear, my body sliding against his, barely aware of the onlookers as I grabbed the pie dish and started tucking in chilled dough.
The clock showed thirty minutes had already passed.
I couldn’t believe how much fun I was having. Last summer, I couldn’t stop looking at the crowd or the judges milling about with clipboards, my hands shaking so badly I’d dropped an entire bag of flour.
Now, my hands were steady as they moved through the motions I’d repeated a thousand times before.
I couldn’t get Jess’s words out of my mind. I was growing my own tree, proving myself in front of the entire village. Even if we lost, it would take nothing away from my skills as a baker.
Alistair and I waved at Teddy before she and Callum went off to try out some rides with the rest of the Macabe clan. I’d insisted they’d be bored standing around to watch the entire three-hour contest. They’d promised to return in time for the judging.
Without instruction, Alistair tossed the filling ingredients into a bowl. Apples, sugar, cornflour, lemon, vanilla. For all his pre-game nerves, he hadn’t wobbled once. His determined expression was the hottest thing I’d ever seen in my life.
We still had so much to talk about, yet it was almost impossible to not get caught up in the vision of us in my kitchen in Croft Cottages. A lazy Sunday, Teddy sitting on the counter, licking sugar from her fingers.
Almost.
“No, Cam – that’s the salt! No, not that one—” Annabelle’s sharp voice cut across the stage, bringing me back to the moment. A crash rang out and—
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Cameron snarled.
“May I remind all contestants that this is a family event.” Duncan’s voice came through the microphone, and the crowd tittered.
For the first time, I glanced at the bench beside ours.
Through a plume of flour, I could see Annabelle and Cameron looked harried and intensely pissed off.
Flour stuck to their hair and eyelashes.
Coating their aprons too. Their bench wasn’t any better.
Fruit dotted the counter, a pan was boiling over and a jar of treacle lay on its side, dripping onto the floor.
“You didn’t label anything, how was I supposed to know?” Cameron spat in a harried tone so unlike him.
“It shouldn’t matter.” Annabelle sounded moments from losing it. “We agreed you wouldn’t touch anything, remember? Because you didn’t carve out any time to practise.” There was a long streak of red berry juice across Annabelle’s white shirt.
This must be how it felt to experience personal growth, because I didn’t even feel smug. Just relieved. That could have been me. A year ago, it was.
Alistair clearly felt the opposite as he called across the bench, “Shouldn’t a chef know the difference between salt and sugar, Cam?”
Cameron’s expression was pure venom. “Eat shit, Macabe.”
Annabelle gasped at the same time as the crowd.
“Cameron!” she admonished him over the gasps and pantomime-style boos coming from the audience.
Alistair laughed and shot me a wink. I felt it all the way to my toes. “Nah,” he called back. “I think I’ll leave that to the judges when they get a taste of that pie you’re making.”
“You’re a real smug prick, Macabe.”
“Language!” Duncan’s voice raised several octaves.
Annabelle’s gaze flicked our way, her hand circling around Cameron’s bicep. She narrowed her eyes, and I knew whatever was coming wouldn’t disappoint. “Things appear to be going a little too smoothly over there. Perhaps the judges should be on the lookout for store-bought pastry.”
More laughter rang out from the crowd, and I knew this contest would be one for the history books.
“Now, now, any formal accusations should be addressed to—”
“Maybe.” I cut Duncan off, tossing one last look their way. “I was always good at faking things.”
Alistair dropped his spoon, a loud laugh ripping from his chest.
I felt a little bad when poor Duncan spluttered, banging his hand against a workstation, “Eyes on your own pies, people! This is your final warning. I will not stand for any more foul language or insinuation on this esteemed stage. One more word from any of you, and you will be disqualified. Am I understood?”
There was too much being silently shared between me and Alistair to pay attention to anything else.
Heat and promise and joy for this shared experience.
His expression held a disbelief that screamed, Can you believe that we are actually doing this?
And I couldn’t but I could. It felt too right.
Too perfect. Not in a scary way, but one that lingered in my bones, confirming what I already knew.
There was no one else I’d rather be on this stage with.
Win or lose, there was no one else I wanted by my side.
For the next five years or fifty. However long it lasted.
We still had so much to talk about, so much unsaid.
But I reached for his hand, and his sticky fingers immediately accepted and tangled with my flour-coated ones.
“I love you,” I said. His face slackened with shock – maybe wonder.
“And I’m sorry . . . about the other morning.
For not trusting you when you were trying to tell me what you wanted.
” His eyes pinged all over my face. “I probably should have waited, but I needed you to know now—”
I watched him swallow thickly. His eyes shone an impossible blue behind his glasses, and he squeezed my fingers, his features softer than I’d ever seen them. “Tell me again once we’ve won this fucking thing, Lang.”