Page 51 of Just for the Season

‘Cake,’ I confirm.

He nods, and I find myself nodding too. I’d do anything Marcus did right now. It’s the smile. It does strange things to you.

‘Cake,’ I suddenly remember again.

Marcus’s smile quirks upwards. ‘Cake?’

‘Oven.’ I point and my finger touches his chest by mistake. ‘Sorry.’ His chest is lovely.

‘No problem.’

‘I need—’ I’m finding it really hard to focus and to explain this ‘—to get a cake out of the oven.’

‘Got it.’

Marcus shifts to one side, just as I shift to the same side, and we bump into each other.

Then we both move to the other side, and bump into each other again.

I’m struggling to breathe normally, obviously because this is just awkward.

‘I’ll…’ Marcus points to his left.

‘Perfect. I’ll…’ I point to my left too.

And then, very, very carefully, we each move in the opposite direction from the other and I go into the kitchen and take the – now slightly overdone – cake out of the oven.

‘Is the cake okay?’ Marcus asks from behind me.

‘Slightly too dark brown on top, but I can sprinkle icing sugar over it and no-one will ever know.’

‘Genius.’ He smiles at me again, and, for feck’s sake, off I go again, adoring the way his eyes crinkle and the perfect imperfection of his teeth and the way his lips move. I’m losing my mind.

‘Exactly,’ I say, very firmly, like we’re having a serious conversation about genius. I think very hard about how we came to be here in the little kitchen together.

Walk, I tell myself. He’s covering for me. I really should go. This is all feeling very odd and I should clear my head.

‘Are you still sure you’re happy to babysit the café for a few minutes?’ I check.

‘Definitely. Walk for as long as you like.’

* * *

The cooler air outside the café acts like a bucket of cold water on the seriously out of control whatever it was I was feeling in there, and by the time I’ve got to the end of the High Street, I’m back to normal and just hoping that Marcus didn’t notice that I was experiencing a very strong case of lust.

I walk around the village for about fifteen minutes, firmly pushing Marcus out of my mind and focusing on the beauty of the orange, red and brown leaves, the sunlight dappling across the lanes, the sounds of birds. When the silence is disturbed by the sound of a lone car in the distance, I reflect that in London you never hear a lone car; instead there’s just a constant drone of vehicles. Maybe… maybe I should think about staying here a little longer than I originally intended. In which case, I should definitely not be having any more little moments with Marcus.

I mean, I shouldn’t be anyway.

And we weren’t really. I mean, he probably wasn’t at all. It was probably just me. And I’m an idiot.

Anyway. Time to go back. He’s already gone above and beyond holding the (extremely un-busy) fort for me.

* * *

When I get within earshot of the café, I discover that it is in fact absolute bedlam in there. In my absence, a coachload of tourists has turned up. We don’t usually get tourists in the village because for some (in my opinion lucky) reason it remains firmly off the beaten track, despite its beauty. When we do get tourists, some people (Simon) are divided between joy that he’s suddenly got so much more custom (as the only café in the village, with the only other sustenance option being the pub, which does not serve cake) and horror about how busy it all suddenly feels. Others (most people) are purely horror-stricken.

Right now, Marcus – a man who so far in my experience has basically looked in control and comfortable at all times – is wild-eyed, a tea towel flung over his shoulder, something (possibly jam?) smeared across his cheek, writing in a notebook while glancing around the room.