20. Faye
20
FAYE
Faye did indeed get that hot chocolate once they’d found their torchlit way back to the house, as well as two hours to mix all of the ingredients for the doughnuts she’d suggested they bake to replace the ruined Yule log for the Christmas Eve party, with less than a day to go until then.
After the nightmare that was Uncle Mortimer, Michèle had visibly relaxed when they’d mixed those doughs before leaving them to prove in what little space was spare in the fridge overnight.
Faye hadn’t taught many people to bake before, much less her own doughnuts to someone so excellent in the kitchen as Michèle. The woman was in no short supply of knowledge on how to keep her family with full, happy stomachs. And she was determined she wouldn’t be intimidated by the fact that this was Bash’s mother .
Not having her hands on dough for a second day in a row had felt weird, and she’d been a little more excited than she expected herself to be. Michèle had all of the utensils and equipment necessary, most importantly a mixer with a dough hook Faye might’ve squealed inside to see.
The kilo of dough had proved just right, nice and smooth and elastic when she poked it, and this morning it had cut up nicely into balls she lef t on the counter for a few hours before frying. Such a short turnaround meant there was just enough time this afternoon to decorate them, which was, let’s be honest, more fun and festive than simply coring out a hole and filling them in.
Uncle Mortimer had been banished from the kitchen for the foreseeable future; barred from entering at the door by Michèle’s folded arms and a glare that made Faye glad to be on this side of her. She’d glanced at Arthur quietly saying he'd take Mortimer to the pub to keep him out of the way. By all accounts, Matt went too, and Bash had hijacked Michèle’s drawer of gift wrapping supplies to wrap the two toys he’d sneakily bought from the supermarket yesterday. Given that Faye spotted Saira going upstairs with a book in her hand, she guessed that she’d be cherishing the time alone.
In the kitchen, Faye was completely in her element. She’d prepared everything: different colours of icing ready to be piped out, bowls of different chocolate treats for snowman buttons or reindeer antlers – ladies , of course, according to Bash. The Phillips-Dumont Christmas Eve soirée was tonight and there was a lot, though comparatively less than she was used to, to get done.
She’d been so prepared to steam roll ahead and finish all thirty of the doughnuts by herself that she’d forgotten about Maya and Imara. The professional part of her needing all decorations to be clean and identical had put up a fight when two pairs of dark brown eyes peered over the edge of the kitchen island.
What was it Ellie always told her to do? Let go of the reins? Relax?
Usually she didn’t pay attention, but seeing those excited eyes … Faye accepted that today wasn’t about being professional. Today was about enjoying the moment and forgetting about perfectionism. And so the two little eager beavers hopped up onto stools and helped. Clearly, if the mess of icing which got absolutely everywhere was any indication, they enjoyed themselves.
Michèle flittered in and out of the kitchen every now and then in between adding even more festive decorations around the house and tidying up wha t she considered was “mess” before any guests arrived.
“I can’t do it.” Maya dropped the piping bag of red icing onto the counter.
“Can’t do it, yet ,” Faye emphasised, keeping up her optimism in the vein of her old school teachers. Upsetting a four year old the day before Christmas wasn’t really what she wanted to be doing.
“Here, let’s see … ” She thought for a moment, studying the icing, the un-decorated doughnut, and Maya. “What if you balance the bag on your arm and point the nozzle with your hand, and I can roll down the top and squeeze?”
Maya’s eyes came up on the brink of tears. The last thing Faye wanted for her to feel was that her differences would stop her from doing this how she wanted. Which wasn’t true at all. Baking was for everyone. There was a whole TV show she religiously watched which was about just that.
“You’ll do all of the drawing,” she added, “just tell me when to stop.”
“Okay!” Maya didn’t think about it for a second and reached for the icing straight away.
Thankfully their method worked, even if it was a bit messy, and no one was more relieved than Faye. Maya made her designs, most of which looked like a cross between elephants and unicorns, and Faye paid strict attention to her instructions. Even if they were a little— No . Today wasn’t about being perfect. Though she did purposefully set aside a third of the bare doughnuts for herself to decorate after the girls were done.
Imara had sat across the island in her own corner, quietly piping out what was definitely a Christmas stocking for a while, dancing in her seat to each of the songs filling the kitchen. Faye was still yet to have found where the speakers were hidden, but they produced song after song of children’s movie soundtracks in a welcomed break from the Christmas jazz .
She didn’t want to only give one girl her attention, an impulse that was perfectly timed when Bash strolled in.
“How’s it going in here?” The white T-shirt hugging his body tightly enough for just a hint of definition caught Faye’s attention first. Not for his physique, no, though that was lovely. More than adequate. But for the fact that this situation was absolutely not the place to wear white.
Faye unclogged her throat and tore her eyes away from him long enough to flusteredly answer, “Good.” She still hadn’t recovered from his admission yesterday that she was his favourite woman, whether he meant it or not.
“Look what I made!” Maya held up a doughnut and the icing began to slide, layered on so thick that some unfortunate soul would have the biggest sugar rush tonight.
“ Ooo that looks lovely.” Bash squeezed her shoulder and dutifully stroked over her hair that, in hindsight, should’ve been tied away.
It seemed like the right time to sneak off and see how Imara was doing.
Faye slid off of her stool and held out the cone-like bag of green icing to Bash who, by the way his body froze, had absolutely no idea what to do with it.
“Maya, why don’t you tell uncle Bash how to help you? I’m going to sit with your sister for a minute.”
“Okay.” Maya looked up at her uncle with stars in her eyes and Faye got the message she wasn’t needed anymore.
Imara appeared to be doing alright decorating by herself, so Faye grabbed a couple of the doughnuts she’d set aside and sat with her anyway.
Maya’s instructions to Bash were delivered like she’d tripled in size and become a drill sergeant. Bash, bless him, actually looked frightened by how she bossed him around. When he did something wrong, he certainly knew about it.
“Your boyfriend isn’t very good at this,” Imara announced .
Faye cut off her chuckle at the latest of Maya’s admonishments.
“He’s trying his best,” she said. “And he’s not my boyfriend.” Was it too late to have added that in?
“You look like his girlfriend,” Imara decided to point out. “You sleep in the same bedroom.”
“There aren’t any other bedrooms available.” Let’s hope that the girl didn’t understand the concept of sleeping on a couch.
“My mamma and papa sleep in the same bedroom.”
This was going to go in circles. The seven year old was too astute.
“Uncle Bash and I are friends.” Faye found herself protesting and unable to concentrate on her doughnut anymore, unlike Imara. “I’m sure you have friends that are boys.”
“No. They smell.” Fair point. “Uncle Bash doesn’t smell.”
Uncle Bash wasn’t listening either, making Maya laugh with an icing moustache on the finger he held above his lips. Do not lower your eyes to his— too late.
“No.” Faye exhaled as her gaze wandered over his mouth. “He doesn’t.”
“So he’s your boyfriend.”
“Hey! What are you whispering about over there?” Bash crowed, rubbernecking to see down the length of the island.
“Faye says you don’t smell, which means you’re her boyfriend,” Imara answered for them. Faye could swear this little one knew what she did with mixing the truth like that.
“Am I now?” The flitter of confusion in Bash’s eyes swept to her.
“Boy. Friend. Separate words.” Faye’s face heated up just from the cocky raise of his eyebrow.
“And the part about how I smell?”
“Not as bad as a seven year old, apparently.”
The corner of Bash’s mouth danced. “And the correlation?”
Faye shrugged.
Half an hour later, it was three p.m and thirty decorated doughnuts sat on the counter to dry; a range of Santa faces, Christmas wreaths, some baubles, a gingerbread person, lady reindeer, three unicorns, and an elephant.
Faye was surprisingly pleased. She’d underestimated the girls before they’d begun, when she never should have done. In her defence, this scenario on a larger scale was her livelihood – she couldn’t be blamed for naturally wishing things would turn out perfectly.
Which reminded her that she’d been so busy, she hadn’t checked her phone at all. It was Christmas Eve but Baked had still been open until one p.m to provide for those last minute shoppers.
Surveying their collective work, Bash wiped off his hands on a tea towel. “I think we’re all done here.”
“Can we eat them now?” Maya asked, bouncing on her toes. Faye didn’t miss how Bash moved his hand to cover the hard edge of the counter top where she teetered.
“Not yet, mon chou ? * ,” he said. “They’re for the party tonight.”
It wasn’t a surprise that Maya whined when she had chocolate on the edge of her mouth and a few sprinkles in her hair. They’d tried to ration the taste testing of their decorating ingredients but it hadn’t entirely gone to plan.
“Hello!” Matt’s voice rang through the house, bookended by the open and close of the front door.
“They must be back from the pub,” Faye said. The girls ran out of the kitchen covered in half of what they’d made, which left just her and Bash.
Guests would begin to arrive in three hours, and if Faye’d learned anything about Michèle, it was that she was going to prepare a banquet feast .
“I need to tidy everything up.” The island was a mess of icing, chocolate and sweets, so she began scooping up empty piping bags and paper plates.
“Hey, Faye?”
“Yeah?” Damn Bash for designing this kitchen with white marble countertops, because a streak of chocolate that had set solid didn’t want to come off – she’d need to wipe everything down.
Faye half listened as he asked, “Why did the doughnut go to the dentist?”
“What—?”
“To get a filling.” Bash burst into wheezy laughter at his own joke, eyes screwing shut as he leant back.
“Ha ha,” Faye lamented drolly. “Do you really think I haven’t heard all of them before?” She didn’t give him time to answer. He was still wheezing. “Could you help me, please?”
“Have you ever heard of French doughnuts?”
She raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh someone help me.”
“They’re the beignet of my existence.” More wheezing. Was he crying?
Faye propped her hand on her hip. “How long have you been holding that one in?”
“About two hours.” Bash wiped a finger under his teary eye. “I didn’t think either of the girls would get it.”
“You should be proud.”
“Ugh. Yeah. By the way—” Coming down from his high, he moved to her side. “You have icing on your cheek.”
“Oh, do I?” She tried to blindly rub the back of her hand against her jaw but?—
“Here, let me,” Bash interrupted.
Heat rose up Faye’s neck, all the way to where his thumb swiped her cheek. She inhaled with the upward spread of a fluttery sensation through her chest which she definitely shouldn’t have felt because of him.
Her heart leapt eleven years into their past to the first minute when they ’d met. She could see nineteen-year-old Bash as he was then – the youthful mischief in his eyes, the smudge of charcoal on his shirt as he touched her just like he did just then. She watched his thumb press between his lips and his cheeks hollow as he sucked the icing off.
“Thanks,” Faye somehow managed to say around all of those feelings which had come rushing back, really, really wanting to tip up on her toes and?—
Bash turned away and picked up a couple of bowls to be washed, glancing at the doughnuts. “These all look incredible.”
“I hope no one asks what I do for a living, tonight.” The taunt in Faye’s voice was thin, but there.
“If the girls made them, then everyone will love them,” he said, running the hot water for the sink. “That’s more endearing than perfection.”
Faye looked at him over her shoulder from where she peeled the metal nozzles out of the various piping bags, getting icing all over her fingers. “That’s a really nice way of saying it’s the effort that counts.”
“As I said, they’re endearing.” Bash tossed her a smile. “You didn’t have to do all of this, Peanut. Thank you.”
“I did it for Michèle. She was going to blow a fuse in here yesterday when we found your uncle.”
Bash was by her side in a second and lifted his arm around her shoulder, jostling her and pulling her closer. “You absolutely smashed it.”
“ We . It was a team effort.”
“Maybe. But this is all you.” Faye didn’t expect the quick kiss he pressed to her temple, and it made her chest feel like it was full of air. “Everything you do is incredible.”
She was sure to have turned scarlet like the elephant doughnut Maya had designed. Compliments and she did not get along at all, which is why she wiggled out from the hug she very much would’ve loved to stay in .
“Stop, you’re being all mushy.”
“Just telling you how proud I am.”
Faye felt Bash’s pride all the way to her core, amazed by how he just said his feelings out loud as they were, all of the time. She wished she could do that. Any therapist would tell her that she blamed her parents, their divorce, and how she learned to hold her tongue from saying nice things about one parent to the other’s family. It’s something she never should’ve had to feel sorry for – not at the age of five.
She wished that she had the courage to tell Bash she’ll be leaving London, too, before it was too late.
When she’d gone to view potential properties the first time in Manchester, he’d thought she was on a marketing course. And when she’d travelled again to sign papers, she’d claimed that Ellie had insisted upon a spa day with her, when she was in fact walking through the property which would very soon be hers and adding her signature to at least a dozen pieces of paper.
She’d lied to him. And the lie had her by the throat with claws as sharp as the dagger she would lance him with when the truth eventually came out. Every day that she didn’t confess, another brick of guilt stacked up on top of her tower. Another inch was dug out of this well she’d put herself in.
Her stomach rose up into her throat, constricting and knotting and tightening until she couldn’t breathe every time she thought to tell him.
And now there were only a few weeks left. The moving day had crept up and it was almost here; January sixteenth. She was at the point where she didn’t know what to do anymore. Half of her heart didn’t want to leave, but in her head, she knew she must.
Bash’s phone bleeped from his pocket and when he checked it, his features flattened.
She glanced over the stiffness in his shoulders. “Everything okay?”
He slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Just something from work. Nothing to worry about.” Faye knew all of Bash’s smiles and the one that he gave her wasn’t genuine at all.
“Okay.” She’d give him a little time and then ask him about it, hoping that in the meantime he’d decide to tell her anyway.
As they tidied up, the girls pulled Michèle into the kitchen by a hand each. “Oh! Look at all of these!” She grinned from ear to ear at the sight of the doughnuts. “ Ils sont superbes! ? * ”
“Stunning,” Bash translated for Faye with a whisper.
Maya and Imara battled between them to show off which of the doughnuts they’d individually made and poor Michèle didn’t have enough eyes to look between them all.
“Careful, please.” Faye felt the urge to interrupt. Haunted by an image of when an errant child had somehow made their way behind the counter at Baked , slid open the display casing door, and simultaneously pulled two entire trays of doughnuts to the floor. The sound of the clatter and the etched memory of all of those ruined doughnuts still made her twitchy to this day.
“Thank you for organising this, Faye.” Michèle moved around the island and brought her into a hug once the girls’ needs for attention were satiated and they’d disappeared off again.
“It’s the least I could do for you letting me stay here.”
“Ahem.” They both swivelled to Bash who waved up his hand like a shy schoolboy. “I helped too.”
“Oui!” Michèle cupped his cheeks and squished them until his lips puckered like a trout and his eyes went wild. Faye shook her head when those eyes pleaded with her to save him. “ Quel bon garcon d’avoir aidé la femme que tu ? — ? * ”
“ D’accord, Maman. D’accord. ? * ” Bash peeled her hands away from his face with an urgency that made Faye want to know why he’d cu t his mother off so quickly. She really should’ve paid more attention in French lessons as a child.
Whatever look was on Michèle’s face made dots of red appear on Bash’s cheeks, emphasised on the one where his bruise faded to green.
“Sébastien, why don’t you take Faye out for the mistletoe?” Michèle suggested next.
Bash’s forehead creased. “Huh?”
Faye watched between them both, feeling the same confusion as Bash’s face portrayed.
“I forgot to pick any for the party.” Making herself busy, Michèle barely glanced their way. “You both could go and fetch some.”
There’s so much to clean up, was Faye’s first thought, before the idea of venturing outside set in. Sneaking a glance out of the patio doors, the weather didn’t look too great for a walk.
Bash passed a glance at the clock on the wall. “ Maman , I think that anywhere selling mistletoe might be closing by now, it’s nearly four o’clock.”
His mother wafted the dishcloth in her hand. “No, no. There’s some of it growing on the hawthorn down the lane.”
They both went, “Ohhh.”
Bash turned to Faye. “Shall we?”
She took in a breath and grimaced at the chocolate and icing stains on the counter. “I should probably get this mess all tidied up.”
“Ah, no—” Michèle came up behind her and nudged her towards the door. “You have done enough, Faye, thank you. I will see to the mess. And I need to begin preparing for tonight anyway.”
It really was rude to not help even a little, given that she’d caused all of this mess in the last few hours. But Faye saw in Michèle what she often felt in herself: the need to do things her own way .
“Okay.” Relenting regretfully, she looked down at her inadequate clothes between glances at Bash. “Let me go and get changed?”
He nodded. “I’ll meet you by the front door in ten minutes.”
* ? Sweetie
* ? They are stunning!
* ? What a good boy for helping the woman you?—
* ? Alright, mum. Alright