Chapter 20
The cooking festival began in a wave of nervous excitement for Theo and Milly.
As events were being held all over the city, every district felt like it was buzzing with even more people who’d come to experience the foodie scene.
Milly hadn’t realised how many people travelled to Copenhagen just to be here for the renowned event, or how everyone seemed to take part.
The first event at the café hadn’t booked out quite as much as they’d hoped, but there were still more people than it had previously held at any one time before, and Milly hoped that by the time their first breakfast ended, and people had shared it on socials or talked about it, the other events would soon fill up.
Milly knew the key thing was making sure people knew exactly where the café was and were walking all the way down the busy thoroughfare to reach them.
She’d spoken to some of the restaurant owners further up the street who’d agreed to her placing a small sign outside and were happy to direct any customers they couldn’t accommodate down to them.
As they waited to open, Theo put the finishing touches to his pastries.
Today was the hint of spice and he’d taken several traditional recipes and combined them with new, more fiery flavours.
Tasting Theo’s attempts hadn’t been the hardest job she’d ever had, and it was one she could quite happily get used to.
‘Ready?’ Milly asked as she fiddled with the table settings.
‘As I’ll ever be.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose, worry lines covering his forehead.
Milly went to him and kissed him. ‘It’s going to be great. You’ll see.’
She opened the doors and began welcoming everyone in with the little Danish she’d managed to pick up.
Theo did the same, encouraging people to take whatever seat they fancied.
Lots of people commented on what a beautiful place it was, meaning both the café and the canal location and when Theo began taking orders and making coffee, they then started raving about how delicious the pastries were.
Seeing Theo’s pride warmed Milly’s heart and on her prompting, Theo explained why he’d chosen those flavour combinations and what the element of spice did to enhance the pastry and put a unique twist on each recipe.
Milly hung back, taking videos and photos, planning to flood social media over the next few days.
With the place so busy, other customers began to stop in, filling the seats outside and, thankfully, Theo had baked enough food that no one went without.
After an hour, with three different pastries eaten and a huge round of applause given to Theo, Milly declared the event a success.
As people left, she handed out little cards with their social media handles on them, asking everyone to follow and share, and to post about the event they’d been to that day to help spread the word.
‘Well that went amazingly well,’ Milly declared, falling into a seat, the adrenalin still pumping around her system. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘I do,’ Theo replied, still wiping the counter and tidying his workspace. ‘Do you want a coffee?’
‘I’m not sure I should drink any more caffeine, I’m jittery enough as it is.’
‘What about a decaf iced latte? I don’t know about you, but I’m a little hot and sweaty from that.’
She was, and it was another beautiful day, which had definitely helped. ‘That sounds like a great idea.’
‘I’ll make one then start on some sm?rrebr?d and some cardamom buns to see us through the rest of the day.’
Once he’d made the coffees, he sat opposite her, reaching out and taking her hand.
‘I can’t thank you enough, Milly. I would never have entered the cooking festival if it wasn’t for you and I – I really enjoyed that.
Not so much the talking in front of people.
I sort of hate that. But I enjoyed talking about the food and sharing my knowledge.
And people seemed to really enjoy it too. ’
‘They definitely did. And look—’ She held her phone screen up. ‘We have more followers already and people are posting and tagging us saying lovely things. This is great exposure and the start of building a loyal community both online and in person for the café, which is what you wanted.’
‘It is. Let’s hope the rest go as well.’
And they did.
For the next week, the other events went just as smoothly and because of the promotion from the cooking festival itself and happy customers sharing, the numbers for each booking grew and the café was busier than ever.
The lunchtime event with Middle Eastern-flavoured open sandwiches was a hit and Milly was sure a food critic even stopped by from the way they were photographing the food and making notes on their phone.
The bittersweet breakfast pastries went down just as well as the spicy ones and they even saw a couple of the customers who’d come to the first one.
They were tourists and hadn’t found anywhere they liked as much as Theo’s café.
When she passed on the compliment to Theo, he was too shocked to know what to do with himself and as a faint red blush rose up his neck, he’d turned and begun cleaning the tables in an adorably vulnerable way.
It was almost as if he couldn’t believe this was actually happening.
Each night they went home exhausted but happy at the success of the festival, and the improvement in the number of customers on the non-event days.
As she sat on the deck, the evening sun setting slowly, and damp from another swim where there’d been more kissing than swimming, Milly felt the breeze grow stronger.
She wrapped the towel tighter around her and lifted her eyes to the sky, removing her sunglasses and changing them for her normal ones so she could see the colours clearly.
‘Those dark clouds look pretty ominous,’ she said, catching Theo’s eye as he swam to the deck.
He pulled himself out and she allowed herself to admire the view. She was looking forward to resting her head on his shoulder tonight as they lay in bed together. Theo wrapped one towel around his waist and used another to dry his hair before following her gaze to the sky.
‘There’ll be a storm tonight, but hopefully it’ll be gone by morning.’
‘I hope so too. We’ve got the American-flavoured sm?rrebr?d tomorrow and bookings have picked up, so it should be a full house. I don’t want people to have any reason not to attend.’
‘You can’t control the weather, my love.
’ He kissed her lips gently, but she could barely feel it as the word ‘love’ fluttered around her brain.
He hadn’t seemed to realise he’d said it as he acted as he always did.
‘But it is getting colder.’ He backed away, holding out his hand. ‘Let’s go inside.’
Too dumbstruck to respond, Milly followed without speaking.
She thought about telling him she was falling in love with him too, but as he hadn’t actually said it like that, and she worried it had just been a slip of the tongue, an affectionate name, she didn’t.
Maybe he hadn’t meant the word as fully as she did.
No, she would stick to her plan and tell him after the festival.
For now, she would enjoy being wrapped in his arms and spending the evening with him.
It wouldn’t be long till dinner, and they both knew what would be for dessert.
The next day, Milly awoke to such heavy rainfall she could barely hear her alarm.
Theo lay next to her, sleeping through both the buzzing of her phone and the rain battering the canal surface outside or pounding on the roof.
He hadn’t stopped for the last few days and was exhausted, but today was just as important, and Milly couldn’t help the sinking feeling the weather was causing.
She leapt out of bed and ran to the window, pulling back the curtain to reveal a sky laden with grey clouds, and rain so dense it was like someone had turned on a tap.
Normally, she loved a thunderstorm. She loved being snuggled inside while rain battered the windows and wind whistled through the trees, but today was too essential.
This was their last one before the big brunch, and she wanted it to be a success.
The café’s followers had grown by almost another thousand thanks to the events held so far, the positive comments were flooding in, and daily customer numbers were rising.
She didn’t know if it would continue past the cooking festival, but she knew for certain it definitely wouldn’t if they didn’t squeeze every ounce of opportunity and coverage from it.
Milly ran back to bed and pulled the covers over her as cool air crept over her skin. ‘Theo! Theo, wake up!’ She gently shook his shoulder, and he sleepily opened his eyes.
‘Hmm? No! Why are you doing that? I much prefer it when you wake me up with a kiss.’ He lay his arm over his eyes to shield them from the pale light.
‘Theo, wake up. Look.’
With a sigh, he manoeuvred onto his elbows. ‘What?’
‘It’s raining. In fact, it’s not just raining, it’s absolutely chucking it down.’
‘So? There’s nothing we can do about it.’ He lay back down, rolling over and pulling the duvet up around his shoulders.
Milly rolled her eyes in annoyance. ‘But what about the event?’
‘It’ll be fine.’ He waved a hand sleepily in her direction.
‘Will it?’
Hearing her sharp tone, Theo fully opened his eyes and rolled onto his side to face her. He looked so adorable with his hair dishevelled, his eyes half-closed. ‘Doesn’t it rain in England?’
‘Of course it does. Like, most of the time.’
‘And what do you do then?’
‘We … well, nothing. We just—’
‘You just go about your day as normal?’
She could see where he was going and felt suddenly silly.
She hadn’t meant to overreact. It was just that this mattered.
It mattered a lot. It was almost as if its success was the determining factor on if she stayed or not.
A small part of her worried that if the cooking festival was a failure, she and Theo would fall apart too.