Struan glanced between them, looking as perplexed as she felt while sipping the homemade wine that Gran had chosen to serve. The overpoweringly syrupy strawberries didn’t pair well with the spiced marinade at all, but Rae didn’t dare say so. Cooking was her forte, where wine was supposedly Gran’s. She’d still rather enjoy the tingling tartness of a homemade wine than anything shop-bought.
‘Well, I think it’s delicious, coriander excluded,’ he said, fingers hovering between his cutlery and his lamb like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to eat with his hands. He followed her dad’s lead and decided, eventually, he was, shredding the tender meat from the bone.
‘Hm,’ grunted Dad, which Rae chose to believe was code for,yes, dearest daughter, this is exceptionally tasty. She’d served critics easier to impress than the people at this table, but she swallowed down her irritation along with her couscous, the mouth-watering Mediterranean spices and sweet, earthy veggies reminding her of her month in Morocco during her first year abroad. Working in stuffy kitchens during humid seasons hadn’t always been pleasant, but discovering new flavours and techniques that gave her insight into the history and culture of a place had left her excited to wake up each day.
Her fingers tightened around her cutlery. That excitement was gone now, and though she’d tried for months to rediscover it, by the end of her time in Australia, her days in Sydney had started and ended the same way: tired, dread filled. With the oppressive heat inescapable outside as well as in, everything had bled together: memories, recipes, even faces. She’d spent nights fretting about how tomorrow would go, then show up to the kitchen on three hours’ sleep. A carousel she hadn’t been able to step off.
‘I saw your restaurant won a Michelin star,’ Struan prodded, eyes meeting hers over the vase of pink dahlias plucked from the garden.
Rae forced a smile. ‘Not my restaurant. I was just the saucier.’
‘Is that where you’re headed back to after summer?’
Dad’s head snapped to her. ‘Aftersummer? I thought you were only here for a couple of weeks.’
She shrugged. ‘I haven’t decided, really.’
‘Well, shouldn’t you soon? Are they going to keep your position open all summer – or winter, or whatever it is over there?’
The crunch of Struan’s teeth biting through the carrots didn’t help Rae’s rising anxiety. At least there was one positive: she was beginning to remember why she’d never been attracted to him before. He was, after all, just Martha’s annoying older brother, currently sporting greasy fingers, with a grain of couscous stuck to his moustache. At leastsomenormality had been restored into the world tonight.
She took a deep breath, fighting not to shrink in her chair. ‘My position at Lapis has already been filled. I resigned.’
‘Resigned?’ Dad’s face reddened, which she supposed was better than the sickly white of before. ‘Why on earth did you resign?’
Rae dipped her head, pretending to be interested in a toasted almond. With her jitteriness over her career came a brief sting: Dad didn’t seem as happy about her return as she’d hoped. Had she been wrong to expect a warm welcome?
‘It was too far from home,’ she said.
‘Like Spider-Man,’ said Struan. When all three of them turned to him in puzzlement, he continued, ‘Y’know. The Marvel movie.Far From Home. I’m not helping, am I?’
‘No, not really,’ Rae retorted.
Clearly a glutton for punishment, he turned to her gran. ‘Who’s your favourite Spider-Man, Audrey? I’m an Andrew Garfield man, myself, though nothing quite comes close to the comics.’
Rae lifted her brows. Gran looked like he’d spoken to her in a foreign language. Still a bit of a nerd then, which she’d always found endearing. When Martha had gotten bored of Rae’s sci-fi movies, Struan had been there to argue her case.
He sucked the marinade off his thumb as he finished talking. Gross. Yet Rae lingered on his puckered lips, the soft pop that came when he was done seeming to ricochet into her. Imaginings of her own finger sinking into the warm wetness of his mouth had her leaping from the table. Everybody jumped in alarm, and she blushed as she stammered to explain, ‘I sucked a peppercorn. I mean, bit into one. Not sucked. No sucking.’
Again, Struan sported that crooked grin. She could do nothing but return to folding her napkin a fourth, fifth, sixth time. What on earth was wrong with her?
She could blame her lack of sex life. She hadn’t been near anyone attractive who wasn’t also thirty years older than her or a raging misogynist – or both – in a while. Her hormones must just be protesting against her extended spell of celibacy.
‘Who is this scruffy lad again?’ Gran questioned, wiping her mouth after fervently devouring herundercookedlamb.
‘Struan is Martha’s brother, Gran,’ answered Rae, grateful for the opportunity to change the subject. ‘You remember Martha, don’t you? My best friend?’
‘The wee troublemaker who massacred my beautiful oak tree?’
That had been sixteen years ago, and still Gran hadn’t let Rae forget it. Or Martha. She’d been banned from the farm for a short time after the two of them had carved their initials into a trunk down by the orchard,BFFs 4 Lyfcontained by a wobbly heart.Martha had been blamed for every misdemeanour after, whether it was because Rae had stayed out too late or performed poorly on a maths test.That delinquent pal of yours is corrupting our precious lass!
Dad pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Rae, I’m going to need a wee bit more information. Have you found a new job?’
Rae sucked in a ragged breath. She probably should have thought of a better way to break the news – preferably, one that didn’t involve Spider-Man. Or Struan. Or Gran. Or, even Dad. Announcing the news to an empty room would have been ideal. ‘Can we talk about this tomorrow?’
‘No,now.’ He still had the ability to cast a bucket of ice over Rae with that stern glower of his.
She sat back in her chair, the old wooden legs creaking, and crossed one leg over the other. Under three watchful stares, her sinuses began to sting, but she’d become an expert in shoving it all down.No time to breakhad become her mantra.Cry about it later, when the job’s done.She’d set a timer after her restaurant shifts: fifteen minutes before her shower to let it all out, no more, no less. After that, she needed to keep going. With her time already limited, she couldn’t afford to waste an extra moment on getting upset.
