Page 136 of You Float My Boat

Oz reached out and dropped his arm around my shoulder. ‘Join the club. I’ll make badges.’

‘And then someone needs to tell Bitters that Violet’s off the market,’ muttered Brooks.

23. Charlie:

(At this rate I could put Mary Berry out of a job … but not the Poet Laureate)

‘So let me get this straight,’ Brooks swept his arm around the kitchen, ‘all these are for my sister? All of them? All?’

I put the spatula down and wiped my hands on the apron I was wearing, though as it was already covered in three days’ worth of icing sugar, chocolate, dried batter and violet frosting, it was hard to find a clean spot.

‘No,’ I replied, peering over to where Brooks was standing next to the long kitchen table, and nodded to the tray loaded up with the defects of my baking marathon. ‘Those ones you can have.’

He bent down until his nose was almost touching the piled-up cupcakes, broken pieces of cookies and the attempts at glazed doughnuts – I don’t want to talk about the glazed doughnuts – and took a long deep sniff. ‘What’s wrong with these?’

I picked up the spatula again, and ran it around the bowl of cookie dough I was mixing. ‘They’re not perfect.’

‘They look pretty perfect to me.’ He picked up the tray and moved to the kitchen island – the only surface as yet untouched by any form of baking. ‘Come on, Daddy will find you a home.’

‘Daddy?’

‘Yup,’ he replied, smiling down at the piece of cookie in his hand, in a way I hoped I’d never see him smile again, before throwing it into his mouth. He chewed for a second, then stopped.

I wish I hadn’t witnessed the way he rolled his tongue around until a lump of chewed-up cookie fell out, but I had.

‘What flavour is this?’

I peered over to where he’d picked it up from; an assorted selection of red velvet, double chocolate chip, regular chocolate chip, white chocolate chip, and peanut butter.

‘Peanut butter.’

‘Ugh. I hate peanut butter.’ He grabbed a bottle of sports drink I’d left on the side when we’d returned from training this morning and downed it in one, before picking up a tea towel and aggressively wiping his tongue.

I stood there watching the entire dramatic spectacle, my lips curled in disgust. I’d like to say it was one of the more revolting things I’d ever seen him do, but I couldn’t. Brooks, meanwhile, calmly sat back on the stool like nothing had happened, though he was eyeing the rest of the rejects tray with much more suspicion than before.

‘Are you done?’

‘Yeah, you need to warn a guy when peanut butter is involved. It’s worse than liquorice,’ he grumbled as he picked up another cookie, sniffed it, licked it, then took the tiniest bite. ‘Chocolate chip. Much better.’

I pointed to the tongue-wiped tea towel, ‘Go and put that in the laundry.’

The oven timer went off as Brooks got up, and I turned to grab the newest batch of my efforts – the original chocolate chip cupcakes. Violet’s favourite. I already had the frosting prepared on the side, and instead of shortbread letters, I’d found some little red heart decorations in a baking shop I’d passed the day before. Shifting up a batch of cookies to make space on the kitchen top, I placed them down and stood back.

There was a small chance I’d lost it.

It had been five days since Violet had gone home and left me here. Five days of not speaking to her. Five days of missing hearing her voice or seeing my phone flash with a message. Five of the longest days of my life. I’d spoken to her every day for the past two months, so to say I missed her would be an understatement.

I’d woken up the morning after she’d gone, and my chest had ached so deeply I thought I was having a heart attack.

For three elite athletes living together, who pushed their bodies to the limit on a near-daily basis, it had taken me far longer than it should have to find a box of painkillers. They hadn’t helped. It was only when Oz kept asking me why I was rubbing my chest that he told me the tight, suffocating agony that felt like my ribs were cracking was actually because of Violet.

I thought I’d experienced heartache before, but it was nothing like this constant dull ache in my chest.

That evening, after a full day’s water training, the baking started.

It began small – a batch of chocolate chip cookies – but they led to the double chocolate chip cookies, which led to white which led to red velvet, and so forth. Somewhere along the way my brain kicked into gear, while I tried to decide how I could prove my love to Violet.

I’d looked around at my baking exploits and figured as I’d asked her to be my Valentine with cupcakes, therefore I could tell her I loved her with them too. I even tried to create a violet flavour especially for her, but that was soon scrapped when I realized they’d probably end up tasting like soap.

---