Chapter 20
The next hour or so was a blur. Elodie mostly stayed in the pantry, making sure that the warm food was put onto trays and sent out in a steady stream. There was more keto food than non-keto because Mal had expected non-keto people to try both. It had been a good call, but he’d possibly underestimated the lure of cake. Thankfully, there was still plenty left.
Mal came in with an empty tray.
Elodie pointed to a tray of mini beef burgers with tomato relish.
He shook his head. ‘It’s quietening down now. I reckon most people have had something. Travis and Jake are circulating with the drinks, they’re probably getting the most work right now.’
‘Everything’s going okay?’ she asked, hardly daring to believe that it had all worked out.
His gaze caught hers. ‘Yes. We make a pretty good team.’
For a moment, she enjoyed the warmth in his eyes. ‘We do, don’t we?’
He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.
Someone stepped in and said, ‘Oh. Am I interrupting?’ Travis stood in the doorway, with two empty bottles on his tray.
Mal dropped Elodie’s hand. ‘No. No. Elodie was just going out to check on the cake. Just to make sure everything is in order before they get to the cake-cutting bit.’
‘Yes. Right. I am.’ She glanced at her brother, whose eyes were shining. What was he up to now? She knew, absolutely knew, that he’d volunteered to help so that he could find fault with what she had done. The fact that there was nothing that he could gloat over told her more than any praise would have done.
He gave her a big smile, which chilled her to the bone. What was he pleased about? That could not be good.
‘I’ll just grab a couple more bottles and get back out there,’ he said, loudly.
Mal, who had picked up the list that Elodie had been going through, nodded distractedly.
Elodie went out, heading towards the cake. That was the most important thing right now. The cake was a beautiful four-tier thing covered in roses in the colours of Saffron’s brand and strawberries and blueberries to cover Jamie’s. The tiers alternated in the accent colours, with the top tier pulling the design together. She had been proud of that.
She weaved through the throng until she got to the cake. Almost as soon as she got there, she could see that one of the strawberries was missing. Some scamp must have nicked it. There was a small scuff mark in the icing just above too. Right. Well, she’d have to fix that.
Damn. She’d been so distracted by Travis that she’d forgotten to bring her patch-up kit of icing and spare fruit. She even had a few spare flowers. With a sigh, she headed back to the kitchen.
‘Elodie.’
It was Travis.
‘What?’ She didn’t have time for this right now. She had no idea why her brother had volunteered to moonlight as a waiter. He could probably make the money in six minutes at his day job. All she could think of was that he was starstruck by the influencers.
‘Are you and Mal dating?’ He was smirking.
‘None of your business.’
‘Ha. I knew it. Not denying it. So that’s how you got into this whole teamwork arrangement. I knew it had to be something like that. You wouldn’t have landed this on your own.’
‘We got into this teamwork arrangement, as you call it, because Saffron and Jamie both wanted to cater to their own sets of friends. Mal and I happened to have offerings that matched.’ She struggled to keep her voice steady. Travis was trying to get a reaction from her. She must not rise to the bait.
‘Offerings. Is that what we’re calling it these days? Does Mum know about this little arrangement?’ Now his expression was downright unpleasant.
If Travis told Mum that Elodie was dating some guy, there would be all kinds of interrogations. ‘For heaven’s sake, Travis!’ she snapped. ‘Grow up. We are just work colleagues.’ So much for not rising to the bait. ‘Anyway, it’s none of your business.’
‘Face it, you couldn’t have done this without Mal’s help. It’s more than just cakes.’
‘I have work to do.’ She tried to push past him. He stood his ground.
‘You’re going to get hurt,’ he said. ‘You’re in over your head, as usual.’
Elodie put her hands on her hips and raised her chin. ‘Look around you,’ she said. ‘The guests are happy. No one is complaining. Half the people here are itching for something to be wrong so that they can be snarky about it and … they’re happy. So I don’t think I’m actually in over my head, thank you. Now, kindly bugger off and let me do my job.’
Her speech seemed to have hit home, because Trav didn’t have a ready answer. She took advantage of his confusion to dodge around him and head into the kitchen.
In the kitchen, Mal was painstakingly constructing warm mini burgers. He had put on a hairnet, blue gloves and a mask as well as an apron so that he could lean over the burgers to assemble them without getting tomato relish everywhere.
‘Everything okay out there?’ he asked.
‘Cake needs touching up.’ She got the spare fruit from the fridge and gathered up a bag full of other things. ‘Things okay here?’
‘Yup. The burgers are proving very popular. So are your hot dog bites. Basically, it seems that all we needed to do was to cover things in ketchup.’
‘Fancy food is wasted on most people after a few drinks.’ She picked up the bag and tucked her box with carefully packed spare flowers against her hip. At the doorway into the pantry, she hesitated. ‘Did … Travis talk to you?’
‘Trav? No. Why?’ He didn’t look up from his work, where he was expertly placing burgers on mini buns and topping with lettuce and relish.
‘Um. Nothing. Nothing.’ Perhaps he was only being his usual dickhead self to her. He seemed to respect Mal. He wouldn’t do anything too bad.
He looked at her over his shoulder, still leaning over the tray. ‘All good.’ His eyes met hers and warmth spread inside her. She suddenly wanted to hug him. To think, just a few weeks ago, she’d thought he was the enemy. Now, she felt she wouldn’t have been able to pull off catering this wedding without him. They were a team. She’d never had anyone other than Marty on her side before. It was enough to make you feel a bit teary.
A small frown appeared between his brows. ‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her head with a smile. ‘Nothing.’ As she passed him, she put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. His hands still covered in relish, he tipped his head to the side and laid his cheek against the back of her hand. It was such an intimate gesture that it made her breath catch.
One of the guys came back to get another tray. There was work to be done. She gave Mal’s shoulder another squeeze and went back to work.
It didn’t take her long to fix the small blemishes on the cake. She stood back to admire it. She could take a photo of it. There would be formal photos soon, but … she gave a furtive glance either side. No one was paying attention to her. She sneaked her phone out of her pocket and backed up a bit to get the whole thing in shot.
‘Naughty, naughty,’ said a voice, practically in her ear. ‘I thought Saffron said no photos.’
Leon was standing next to her, champagne glass in one hand, the other hand in his trouser pocket. He looked very debonair.
‘I made it,’ she whispered. ‘I just want a photo of it before it gets cut.’
Leon made a big deal of looking around. ‘I won’t tell.’
She considered her options. She didn’t trust Leon not to use the fact that he knew something to try to push her into another date, or something else she didn’t want to do. She put her phone away. ‘I’ll ask Saffron if I can print out an official one from her channel. It’s fine.’
‘Oh? It’s only me that’s seen you. I’ll cover for you,’ Leon said.
He was standing a little too close, so Elodie stepped away. ‘It’s okay. Nothing I take will be as good as the pro photos anyway. It’s not worth the risk.’
‘So, I saved you from making a terrible mistake?’ He stepped closer again.
She forced a laugh. ‘I’d better get back to work.’
As she turned to leave, he caught her arm. ‘Elodie. You said you were too busy for romance. I assume you meant this wedding. So, once it’s over, would you consider …’
Not this again. She tugged her arm away from him. ‘I can’t.’
‘Why not? Don’t you like me?’
It was hard to tell someone you didn’t like them to their face. Especially, when their face was moving slightly around the eyes, like they were trying very hard to keep smiling and were failing. ‘Not … not that way, no. I’m sorry. I just don’t think—’
His eyes narrowed. The smile vanished. ‘Are you seeing someone else?’
Did having one red-hot snog count as seeing? Even if it did, it had nothing to do with Leon. ‘None of your business, really,’ she said and stepped around him. ‘Please excuse me. I have work to do.’ She picked up her box of stuff and set off back to the kitchen.
‘Who is it?’ He followed her.
‘Leave me alone.’
‘Is it Mal? It is. Isn’t it? That guy. He always—’
Elodie stopped. ‘Leon. I am not interested in you. Please. Go away.’
He stopped. She didn’t turn to look at his reaction, but merely hurried away as fast as she could go.
What was it with that guy? It was impossible to get him to understand that she wasn’t interested.
‘Elodie, Elodie.’ Marty came up, practically skipping with excitement. ‘You’ll never guess who I’ve seen.’
She stopped her furious march. They were just outside the kitchen gardens now. Marty had a tray of hot dog bites with him – they were small hot dogs nestled in small buns that she’d sourced especially. Mal had painted ketchup and mustard stripes on them so that they looked like tiny versions of the real thing.
‘Fairy Kim. Who does the make-up tutorials. They’re here. They took one of my hot dogs off the tray.’ Marty’s eyes were shining. ‘It’s the closest I’ve come to royalty.’
‘Royalty?’ Elodie tried not to laugh. ‘They’re famous, but royalty might be pushing it.’ The only reason she knew who Fairy Kim was, was because Marty kept showing her videos of them.
‘Close as,’ said Marty. ‘This is the most exciting wedding I’ve ever been to. I keep looking at the guests and trying to work out if I know them from social media. Saffron has some very cool friends.’
‘Don’t creep people out, okay?’
‘I would never.’ He gave her a swift once over. ‘You look harassed. I thought things were going well.’
‘They are,’ she said. ‘Everything is going according to plan so far. I’ve just touched up the cake.’
Marty sniggered at the words ‘touched up’ because he was still twelve apparently. Elodie rolled her eyes.
‘Leon’s here, by the way,’ she said.
That made Marty’s smile drop. ‘Did he give you hassle?’
‘Not as such, but he is … quite persistent. Also, he thinks something is going on with me and Mal.’
‘There is something going on with you and Mal,’ said Marty. ‘I don’t know what it is … but there’s something.’
‘Sort of,’ she said, thinking of the brush of his cheek against her hand. ‘But it’s not official yet. We were going to talk about it after all this.’ She waved her bag of stuff in a small arc to indicate the garden, the milling guests, everything.
‘You should probably warn Mal that there’s an annoyed Leon wandering around, though,’ said Marty. ‘Just in case anything kicks off.’
‘Will do,’ she said. That was probably sensible. Once the food was all dished out, Mal was going to take over one of the waiter slots because a couple of the guys had to leave early. He should be aware of potential trouble. Funny, she’d expected trouble from Travis, but so far her brother had behaved himself. Perhaps he respected Mal’s friendship more than he disliked her. That was a bag of mixed emotions right there.
She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully as she entered the kitchen garden. Travis’s voice drifted out from the pantry doorway saying something about refills. And then, he said, ‘You and Elodie. How long has that been going on?’
Elodie slowed down. Oh no. What was Travis doing? She crept cautiously towards the door. Travis was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the pantry. She couldn’t see Mal, but it seemed like he was in the pantry, just out of view.
She heard him say, ‘There isn’t really anything going on,’ in a careful tone. Which, she supposed, was technically true. They both knew they wanted each other, but they had parked it until tonight was over.
Travis glanced out of the door. Elodie took a step back, in the hope of getting back out of sight.
‘I’m just looking after my sister,’ Travis said, a little louder than before. ‘I can tell there’s something happening between you. Is it serious?’
Elodie frowned. Why was Travis pretending to be a protective older brother? He didn’t give a crap about her. She knew that for certain.
Mal must have fallen for it. ‘We’re not dating,’ he said. ‘But I’d like to.’
Travis gave a little snort. ‘Oh, come on, Mal. Stop playing around. You’re an ambitious guy. And I know that you only got this gig because you teamed up with her.’ He sniffed. ‘So tell me.’ His voice was loud and clear. ‘Are you working with Elodie because you fancy her, or are you flirting with her to charm her into working with you?’