Page 24 of Go Cook Yourself

Ruby and I stare at each other. Ruby’s eyes are like little black beads. My jaw hurts from how hard I grit my teeth as I glare back.

Kath claps her hands like a teacher trying to harangue naughty kids. “Now that’s agreed, I’ll see you both soon. I’m going to finish the tidying and get away. Good luck.”

“I’ll be in the van,” I grunt in Ruby’s direction.

“I’ll be there when I’m ready,” Ruby snaps back.

The following two hours will be agony, and I won’t do anything to make them more manageable.

“Don’t keep me waiting all night. Some of us have lives.”

Her guffaw winds me up further. Yes, my plans include sitting in my bedsit, eating whatever I can rustle up from my cupboards, while watching anything I can find on the television, but Ruby doesn’t know that.

I hope she’s not a mind reader either, because aside from that, I’d planned to think about Ruby in a maid’s outfit tonight.

Chapter Thirteen

Ruby

I throw my bag into the footwell of the passenger seat.

“Do you need help getting in?” Garett asks. That had better not be a height dig. I grind my teeth together and scowl. “Because you’re clumsy, not because of anything else.”

“I can do it myself.” I grab the handle and yank myself up, slipping on the step and nearly face-planting into the seat. At his chuckle, I give him my best death stare. He sucks his cheeks in and clears his throat. His gaze flicks to the windscreen. “Come on, then. Let’s go. Neither of us wants to be together in this van.”

“Not until you click your seatbelt in. We don’t want to have an accident before we’ve left the car park.”

I’m so close to getting out of the van and telling him he can go to the wine merchants alone. Amber doesn’t need me after Christmas, so I don’t need to learn this.

I count to ten slowly. Our argument isn’t the only thing making me twitch. I suspect Chantelle, my childhood nemesis—well, the nemesis before Neil and Viv jumped to the top of the list—works there.

I click my belt loudly into its holder while staring at Garett, and he starts the van and drives us through the countryside to the wine merchants. It’s nearly the end of British Summer Time when the clocks change. It heralds the coming of winter. It will be getting darker and colder soon. I usually love thistime of year, the run-up to Christmas, when you wear your pyjamas as soon as you get home and make your house cosy with gingerbread wax melts and low lamps. And I’m addicted to Netflix Christmas romance movies. I don’t care how many they make of someone moving to a small town and falling in love with the local Christmas tree farm owner. I’m here for every single one.

I already have plans for the cookery school this Christmas, too. We’ll have wreath making nights, children’s festive baking events, work team-building parties, and more.

Last Christmas, when I wasn’t breaking my back preparing our special Naughty Treats Christmas treats—boob cookies with baubles on the nipples and Christmas tree cupcakes with dicks popping out of them—Viv, Neil, and I spent Christmas Day with Neil’s family. My parents phoned and messaged me daily, asking if I wanted to join them, but I didn’t return their calls. My relationship with Neil was flailing even then, but I was too invested to end it. I couldn’t share that with Mum and Dad without them expecting action, so I avoided everyone, including my younger brother, Jem.

Garett side-eyes me. My pulse has slowed from its peak after Kath stopped me from ripping his head off, but I’m not ready to dignify his existence with conversation. How dare he tell me not to enter the competition? I presume he doesn’t think I’m good enough, or maybe he thinks I will ask him to put in a good word for me, as he and Clive are former colleagues and he’s still in contact with Flora.

I need to enter that competition. I can’t spend the rest of my life hoping that I’ll succeed. I already forfeited my chance to be part of the cookery school long-term when I chose Neil above my family. I’m a failure now. This competition would be the chance to show my family that I’m back and can achieve something. I need it, and my sister needs the money.

I press my nails into my palms as I prepare to face Chantelle. Her bullying and snide digs from the other side of the classroom were relentless and one of the reasons why I was glad to move out of the area. And now I might be face-to-face with her the same month I caught my boyfriend cheating with my best friend and business partner.

Fuck.

“It’s weird that Americans call a manual car a ‘stick shift.’” Garett’s words creep into the headspace that I’m reserving for self-flagellation. “So why can’t you drive a manual? Is it the clutch you can’t do?”

“What?” His gaze flicks between the road and my face, although when he glances at me, there’s a wince in his stare. “Why are you talking to me? Don’t you know ‘what’s good for you’?”

I tip my head and glare as I reference his comment earlier about me not entering Clive Macdonald’s competition.

He puffs out his cheeks and releases a blast of air. “Never mind.”

I pick at a fresh plaster from where I nicked my finger while chopping, remembering the bandage that Garett carefully redressed the other week.

I study him out of the corner of my eye. His shirt grips his muscles in a way I’ve secretly admired all day. His full lips are pressed in a tight line, and his short dark curls are a little messier than usual, probably from running his long fingers through them. He was number one on my sexiest chefs list for a reason, but I can’t get past his attitude.

What should be a thirty-minute drive is over in twenty. Thank fuck.

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