Chapter 25
Elodie woke up when someone put something down, somewhere near her head. Coffee. She could smell coffee. She opened her eyes. Memory hit her in a rush. She had been waiting for Mal to come out of the shower and … oh shit. She put her hands to her face. How could she have fallen asleep? She had been so looking forward to exploring him.
The bed dipped as he sat down next to her. She parted her fingers and peered through them. ‘I’m so sorry, Mal. I don’t know what to say.’
He was wearing what looked like boxer shorts and a T-shirt. She could see his legs. He had nice legs. He lifted his mug and took a sip of his drink. Forearms were still nice too.
‘You were tired,’ he said. ‘It was probably for the best that you fell asleep then.’
She groaned. ‘But still. I’m so sorry.’
‘Could have been worse,’ he said. ‘Imagine if you’d fallen asleep during … my ego would never have recovered.’
She gave a snort of laughter and reached out to poke him in the arm. He moved away, eyes twinkling with humour.
‘What time is it?’ she said.
‘Six o’clock.’
A stab of alarm until she realised it was Sunday. She didn’t have to go in to work today. ‘It is Sunday, right?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘I can have a lie-in.’
‘It’s six o’clock,’ said Mal. ‘That is a lie-in for me. I’m usually up by four.’
‘Me too.’ Elodie yawned and stretched. Gratifyingly, Mal’s eyes widened.
‘I … made you coffee,’ he said. ‘It’s only instant, not proper coffee like at the shop.’
‘Instant works. It’s got caffeine in it.’ She hauled herself into a sitting position and took a sip. They sat together in silence for a moment. Mal’s hair was down; it was thick and probably very soft, given his love for fancy hair products. And, she noticed, he still hadn’t shaved.
The caffeine hit her nerve endings, waking her up. Parts of her that had hoped to see some action the night before woke up and demanded recompense.
‘I really am sorry about last night,’ she said.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Honestly. I got to sleep with a beautiful woman cuddling me. That was nice too.’
‘I could … make it up to you.’ She let her gaze wander lazily up from his legs to his face.
He tucked his hair behind his ear and gave her a mischievous smile. That was far sexier than it had any right to be at that time in the morning. ‘Oh yes? What did you have in mind?’
She grinned at him and put her mug on the table. He did the same.
She moved over giving him some space. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head and climbed in next to her. The sight of him climbing, hair loose and bare-chested, into bed was going to be something she would remember later.
He kissed her, an incendiary kiss that she felt right to her toes. She melted into him. It was just as arousing as their previous kisses, except now she could feel his chest hair against her arm and his hand was stroking up the back of her thigh. When he moved to trail kisses down her neck, she tipped her head back and said, ‘We’ve got a lot to make up for.’
Mal chuckled against her throat. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, kissing his way lower. ‘I will be very, very thorough.’
And he was. Very thorough indeed.
Elodie all but floated home on a cloud. Mal had taken her back to the arcade so that she could pick up her car, and then disappeared into Man Buns to do prep work for the following day. She sang along to the radio as she drove home. It was as though she had been stretched more and more and suddenly snapped, but in a good way. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been so relaxed.
She locked up the car and let herself into the house, still humming. The house was quiet, but then it always was on a Sunday. Mum would be reading the culture section of the Sunday Times and Dad would either be watching the cricket or dozing underneath the World Affairs section.
‘Hi. I’m back.’ She poked her head around the door.
Both parents turned their heads to look at her. The atmosphere was palpably tense.
‘Where,’ her mother said, carefully, ‘have you been?’
Elodie reddened. This was not the sort of thing she wanted to discuss with her parents. ‘I … stayed over at a friend’s place last night. We hung out a bit this morning. I’m home now.’
‘We were worried sick.’
A bit over dramatic. ‘Why? I texted you to tell you I was going to be out.’
‘But we didn’t know where you were!’
Elodie moved into the room properly now. What had brought this on? Granted, she rarely stayed out overnight, but she kept strange hours and they’d always been fine with that before.
‘Travis said you were hanging around with some bad sorts. He was worried about the influence they were having on you.’ Her mother stood up and peered at her. ‘They aren’t making you drink or … take drugs, are they?’
Bloody Travis. She should have known he would cause trouble. ‘What? No. And even if they were, I’m an adult, Mum. It’s none of your business.’
‘Don’t talk to your mother like that,’ said Dad, who normally stayed out of these things.
‘Travis is right. You have been acting strange ever since you started spending time with that gang from the bun shop. You have to stop spending time with them if they’re going to lead you astray.’
‘Lead me astr—’ Elodie put her hands on her hips. ‘What has Travis been saying to you?’
Her mother sighed and folded her hands on her lap. ‘We’re just worried about you, darling. You work so hard on your little project, but … I mean, it’s lovely and you do make the most beautiful cakes, but it’s hardly setting the world alight, is it? You should be seriously thinking about settling down now, at your age. How will you find a boyfriend if you’re working so hard?’
‘I have a boyfriend,’ she snapped. Did she? It felt like she did. Unless this morning was a one-off. She thought about how Mal had held her, with his arms wrapped tightly around her and his chin resting gently against her shoulder. How they’d talked. It felt like much more than a one-off.
Mum perked up. ‘You do? Who is he? What does he do? When can we meet him?’
Elodie closed her eyes and counted to five. ‘It’s … new. So, give us some time, okay?’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Mum. ‘Is this one of the boys from the bun shop? The ones Travis warned us about?’
‘Mum. You have to tell me what Travis said about them. You can’t just make vague accusations like that.’
Mum stared at her for a minute, then her face fell. ‘It is one of the boys from that bun shop.’
‘They’re your competition, Elodie,’ said her father, shaking his head sadly. ‘They’re playing with you so that you trust them and then they’re going to run you out of business.’
She had worried about that too, back in the day. ‘No, they are not,’ she said. ‘Their food is all low carb and high protein. Mostly for the health conscious. I make indulgent sugary cakes. Those are not the same market at all.’
‘Oh, my darling. You have so much to learn.’
Elodie stared.
Her mother sighed. ‘I wish you’d just give up this baking nonsense and settle down.’
There it was. ‘This baking nonsense’. All of Elodie’s good mood had gone by now. If she carried on talking to her parents, she was going to start shouting. ‘I’m going to go and have a nap,’ she said firmly, and stomped up the stairs.
By the time she had showered and put on clean clothes she was still fuming. Her parents treated her like a child, and treated her business like a hobby. If she was being honest with herself, she did need to move things up a notch. She was making enough to pay Marty a decent wage, but she hardly paid herself anything. She contributed towards the bills, but she knew that her parents still paid for most of the utilities, and she lived mostly on pasta and supermarket value sauces. She wanted to be a success so badly, but it wasn’t working out and it was frustrating.
Her phone buzzed. It was Marty asking her how things went, with some suggestive emojis.
Was it only yesterday that she’d been at the wedding, watching her world collapse? It seemed so long ago now. Mal had managed to take her mind off it completely.
Just got home, she messaged back. Had a lovely morning with Mal. She smiled. ‘Lovely morning’ didn’t even begin to describe the bliss of those early hours. Just thinking about it made her tingle.
Her phone rang in her hand, making her jump.
‘Marty?’
He answered with, ‘You and Mal! Tell me all the details.’
‘I mean … I went to his place last night. It was amazing. That’s all I can say about it, really.’
‘Amazing, huh? Are you two together now?’
They hadn’t really talked about it, but given what they’d done, it was reasonable to think that they were. ‘I … think so.’
‘Oh. I’m so happy for you, honey. He’s a nice bloke. And he believes in you. He’ll be good for you.’
‘I think so too.’ She genuinely did. He made her smile. He was unfailingly supportive and … she had a memory of him, hair tousled, looking down at her … and he was very attractive.
There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘Is everything else okay?’ Marty asked. His voice was cautious, which immediately set off alarm bells in her head.
‘Why? Mum and Dad are being weird, but that’s not unusual. Is there anything else I should know about?’
‘You … might want to look at TikTok. #Jaffron or #saffronwedding and … um … #cakeaction.’
Elodie groaned and closed her eyes. ‘Just tell me.’
‘I don’t think I can describe it adequately. Let’s just say you’ve gone viral.’
Suddenly there was a weight in her stomach. ‘When you say “gone viral”. How do you mean?’
‘Just look it up. I’ll wait.’
She put him on speakerphone and changed apps. When she started typing the hashtags they autofilled. Oh. There were quite a lot of videos … Several of them were of Leon punching Mal as he flailed around in the cake. She looked at the comments. Some were laughing, some were horrified at there being a punch-up. She scrolled through. Oh. No. She watched a video of herself, diving sideways like an action hero and getting a splat of red on her chest. Someone had put an action soundtrack over it.
‘What’s that music?’
‘That’s … Bad Boys II,’ Marty sounded apologetic. ‘It’s a great movie,’ he added. ‘You’re being compared to Will Smith.’
There was another video. Same thing, different angle. And another. She closed the apps down.
‘Marty. What does this mean?’
‘I don’t know, honey. It could be good. You’re internet famous …’ He didn’t sound terribly convinced.
Elodie felt her chest tighten. She thought of Mal’s storefront being baked-beaned. That was simply because of a comment Saffron made. These posts were getting more views than that. ‘What if someone attacks the shop?’
‘Why on earth would they do that?’
‘Someone baked-beaned Mal’s shop.’
‘That was different. They thought he was being a bastion of the patriarchy.’
‘Saffron is going to withhold the rest of my fee,’ said Elodie. ‘I just know she is. She planned this wedding to be such a brand-building opportunity. Now all she’s remembered for is a ruined cake and a caterer who dived in front of her to save her dress getting relish on it.’
‘Hey, at least you saved the dress. You’re a goddamned hero.’
‘What do I do now, Marty? What do I do?’
‘Nothing. You hang in there. It’ll blow over. Saffron will be back in no time and we’ll deal with her then.’
When she’d hung up from speaking to Marty, Elodie couldn’t sit still. She took her phone out and opened TikTok again.
The first thing Mal’s crew told him when they saw him on Sunday evening for the lunch prep was about his newfound internet fame. There were so many videos of him being punched. It was humiliating. There were also videos of the food fight and of Elodie leaping in front of Saffron. He had to make them put their phones face down to get any work done.
Archie said, ‘You should call Dilan. He’ll probably have a plan for you. He’s good at this stuff.’
That was true. So he called his nephew.
It took a good thirty seconds before Dilan stopped laughing. ‘You’re such a legend,’ he said, his voice tinny through the speakerphone.
‘It’s not my finest moment,’ said Mal. ‘I honestly wasn’t expecting … well, any of it.’
‘He attacked you,’ said Liz. ‘There’s lots of video evidence. You could report him for assault.’
‘I could,’ said Mal. ‘But I don’t want to. I just want to forget about it and get on with my life.’
‘You’re right,’ said Dilan. ‘You don’t come out particularly well. But then again, you don’t come out particularly badly either.’
He had no idea what he was supposed to do with that. ‘Okay.’
‘But Elodie. Now, she’s got something she can use there. Has anyone made the link between her and the video yet? Has anyone tagged her in the viral video?’
‘I don’t know. I can ask her.’
‘Tell her to post something along the lines of, “we go the extra mile for our customers. We’d even take a burger for them”.’
That was a good idea. ‘I’ll message her and tell her. Any suggestions for a statement for me?’
Another chuckle and a pause. ‘No,’ said Dilan. ‘You got beaten up while wallowing in cake, I think your masculinity is toast.’
Liz snorted.
Mal rolled his eyes. ‘I’m not bothered about my masculinity, you cheeky sod. I’m worried about my business.’
‘Some of the keto world is a bit … macho,’ Liz pointed out.
Which was a fair point. Mal saw enough of it through the gyms.
‘But I’m not,’ said Mal.
There was silence as they all thought about it. ‘Hmm. Maybe you could say that?’ said Dilan. ‘It’s a response. And it’s true.’
‘I could …’ Mal said. ‘Talk about how the worst bit was being worried that the cake would take me out of ketosis …’
‘Oh, did it?’ Dilan’s voice had an edge to it. To Mal, dropping out of ketosis just meant a day or two of keto flu while he got back into it. To Dilan it meant seizures.
‘No. I didn’t actually eat any of it.’
‘That would be a good angle …’ said Dilan. Mal heard keys tapping in the background. ‘That might work. Then you could use it to talk about why people might use keto, not just for weight loss or muscle gain …’
‘See,’ said Archie. ‘I told you he was good.’
Dilan made a strange sound, part huff, part laugh. ‘I’m thinking I might do Media Studies GCSE actually. But you can imagine what my parents would say to that.’
Yeah. Pubudu wouldn’t consider that to be a real subject, probably. ‘I can see that,’ said Mal. He thought of how little he really knew his brother. ‘But that’s probably a hangover from what our parents told us. Media is everything nowadays. If you can combine that with Business or Economics … I’m sure they’ll be happy.’
‘Would you … would you talk to them?’ said Dilan.
‘Of course I will, mate. And you’ve got your side hustle going, which is all social media related. I’m sure we can talk them round.’
‘Thank you.’ He suddenly sounded very young.
‘You’re welcome, mate.’ He would always have his nephew’s back. Always.
Once he’d hung up, he tried to call Elodie to tell her what Dilan had suggested, but her phone was engaged, so he messaged her instead. He added, Are you okay?
He went back to work, slicing and destoning avocados.
‘So …’ Liz said. ‘You and the cake lady … What’s going on there?’
He wasn’t ready for the world to know yet. He didn’t even know yet. Things had gone pretty well earlier, but that didn’t mean he could assume it meant as much to her as it did to him. ‘What do you mean?’ There, that wasn’t denying it, was it?
‘You clearly like her. The way you look at her, all puppy dog eyes.’ Liz was smiling wryly. For someone so young, she was pretty astute. His cheeks were getting hot.
‘Oh my god, did something happen?’ She stopped, a pot of mayo in each hand.
The café door opened, saving him from having to answer. Jake had let himself in. Mal let out a small sigh of relief. ‘Get back to work, will you?’ he said. ‘Evening, Jake. What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve just been to the bank and thought I’d pop by,’ said Jake. ‘How are you getting on?’
‘Not bad.’
Jake nodded, his manner extra casual. ‘And how did things go with Elodie?’
Mal felt his face get hot. ‘Not you as well.’
‘You guys looked pretty close yesterday,’ said Jake.
‘See. See. I told you so,’ Liz said, with glee.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Mal. ‘If you’re here, Jake, do you want to be useful?’
‘Only if you tell me what happened.’ Jake shucked off his jacket, hung it up and made his way to the sink to wash his hands. Mal always insisted that people wash and dry their hands before they put their gloves on.
‘He’s going red, I think,’ said Liz. ‘His ears have.’
Archie peered at him. ‘Yes, they have.’
Jake came close, pulling blue gloves on. ‘So they have. I take it that things went well yesterday, then.’
Mal couldn’t help himself. He grinned.
‘Oh brilliant,’ said Jake. ‘I don’t think I could have taken any more moping.’ He plonked himself on a stool. ‘Right then, Liz. What’s the most helpful thing I can do?’
She passed him the pots of mayo. ‘Every tray gets mayo. The ones marked with a red circle also get peri-peri sauce. You do those. I’ll get the chicken slices and salmon.’ She pulled up the order sheets. ‘Is the salad good to go, Mal?’
‘Nearly.’ He grabbed a handful of radishes and started slicing them. Archie and Liz took a handful of order sheets each and started assembling the lunches to fit the orders.
‘So does that mean you and the lovely Elodie are together?’ Jake persisted.
‘I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll have to talk to her. I’ll be seeing her later tonight.’
‘Oh, this is exciting,’ said Jake.
‘How long has it been since you had a girlfriend, Mal?’ said Liz.
‘Too bloody long,’ said Jake. ‘The last one was a boyfriend. Didn’t last long. That was … about four years ago? Right?’
‘No … oh, actually yes. Maybe.’ It had been a long time.
‘I hope this works out for you,’ said Liz. ‘She seems nice.’
‘She is nice,’ said Mal.
‘A little highly strung,’ said Jake. ‘But nice.’
‘She’s not highly strung. You just saw her at a very stressful time.’
‘Whatever, mate. Just … mind how you go. Only a few weeks ago, she was ready to kill you for stealing “her” shop.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I intend to take this nice and slow.’