Page 60 of Taste

He looked so worried that I patted him on the back and said, “Tell Mrs Winter I’ll write it off for you.”

He stared at me like I had two heads. I suppose people weren’t used to this new me. The one who was trying hard to care, to be human. But I liked the new me. I liked that I was now someone other people greeted with a smile rather than a worried glance. That people spoke to me when I walked past them instead of scurrying into a corner. Even my own staff had laughed at me this morning when I’d turned up with my hair in a mess and a smile on my face.

“Dude,” Seth had said, crossing his arms and giving me a knowing once-over.

“What?” I wasn’t innocent, and I was tired of pretending I was.

“You know what that Oliver said earlier? He said that nobody working here could take the piss anymore, because you and Quinton were taking…like, all of it.”

“Joking, I hope,” I’d snipped, swallowing a giggle.

“Dead serious, mate, but Oliver can talk. Did you know our head chef is shagging that woman who supplies all our temps? Heard you just cut their contract. She’ll have his bloody head on a plate.”

“I did nothing of the sort. I’m working on a proposal, and that’s all it is. And who is this woman, anyway?”

“Well, you didn’t hear it from me.” He’d backed away, holding his hands up. “Ask Ben if you want the low-down.”

I just shook my head, and took up position on the reception desk, smiling as a flash of red moved around in the restaurant across the lobby. I smiled, because…well. I was happy. I was strangely and carelessly happy.

“Good afternoon, madam.” A woman approached the desk with a tiny creature in her grip. We had a strict no-pet policy, but who was I to argue when the sun was shining, and the world was such a pleasant place?

“Checking in,” she said. “Serena Ward-Ackers, and this is Choo-Choo. We have a reservation.”

“Certainly. Two nights in the Prince George Suite? Welcome. We’re delighted that you and Choo-Choo have chosen the Clouds Westminster Hotel today. How was your journey? Isn’t London just glorious today?”

Shewasglorious, this city of mine. Never gave you an easy ride, but boy when she showed her good side, it was magnificent to behold. So maybe I’d started bending more of my rules, shedding some of that baggage I’d carried around for far too long. Right now, standing here daydreaming about my boyfriend as I punched out Mrs Ward-Ackers’ key card, I had to smile.

“Here you go, Mrs Ward-Ackers and Choo-Choo.” I handed over the key card and patted the dog on the head. This was insane, so insane Seth was coughing behind me as our two newest guests headed for the lift across the lobby.

“Boss, that was, like, a dog?”

“Yup.”

When you learned how to let go, life became what you wanted it to be. And mine—well, perhaps mine was a crazy little fairy tale after all.

FINN

Summer; 18 months later

I recognised the feeling now; it was something I was becoming frighteningly familiar with. Not just a singular occurrence, but it had happened a few times. It still scared the shit out of me, when the palpitations came on, when my chest started to constrict, but I was beginning to understand and could read myself well enough to step back when I was getting overwhelmed.

I could calm myself down even faster if Mark was with me. Always my rock in times like these, he would talk me down from whatever cliff edge I was dangling from. Mostly, it had been the same recurring nightmare that woke me screaming into the void in the middle of the night. Sometimes it was small triggers, someone moving an arm too fast, a raised voice, the sound of breaking glass. Ordinary acts of life that would have me cowering in a corner wondering what the hell had gone wrong with this Finn Christensen person. I’d aimed for him to be a robot, and by God, had he malfunctioned lately. I wasn’t a robot. I was frighteningly human these days, and that was okay.

Mark still ran our food-and-beverage department with his own brand of charm. Mabel was still our maître d’hôtel, and the staff turnover was at a reasonable level. Our last batch of international management trainees were now retained in our new cross-department scheme, yet we still didn’t have a single application confirmed for next year. I kept saying we needed to pay better, but trying to get the budget to match up to our expectations was a hard bargain to sell to our tight-fisted management board. I didn’t blame them when I was usually one of those denying funds to anyone who had the bravery to ask.

I was seeing a therapist through our occupational health department, and for once, I wasn’t ashamed that I’d asked for help. If I was going to become a fully functioning human being, I had to figure out how to forgive myself for things that hadn’t been my fault in the first place. I needed to learn that I wasn’t immune to my past and that I could learn to live and be happy. Most of all I needed to go easy on myself and accept that the world wouldn’t end if I bent my own rigid rules.

But this insane idea of a road trip was something I had fought Mark over for months. First, it was the crippling anxiety over his suggestion that we jointly buy a car. I got past that. Next came his utterly bloody insane idea that we wave a white flag of peace in front of my parents.

Yeah. His lunacy knew no boundaries. He kept laughing, saying that buying a car together did not equal marriage, so it wasn’t as if we were taking the first steps towards our inevitable breakup over a shiny second-hand Fiat that we could afford to buy outright. But he said he understood and offered to buy the car himself. I couldn’t let him do that. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted in. He was my boyfriend, and what kind of boyfriend didn’t want to jointly own a car? So I transferred my half of the funds to his account, and the damn thing now sat on the street outside my flat, mocking me in its shiny second-hand Fiat glory.

With our transport secured, we’d spent weeks planning, scouring maps and booking accommodation. Mark had restaurants he wanted to visit, old friends from his chef days who sent us generous invites to come and sample their fare and hospitality. We agreed we’d visit his parents on our way back and he’d show me around his childhood haunts, enjoy garden barbecues with his sister’s family, perhaps even join his cousin’s graduation party. I wasn’t overly keen on either of those activities, especially with the threat of the impending tour around the Yorkshire dales I had once called home.

The thought of it made me crazy. I hadn’t slept properly for days, grinding my teeth to bits during restless nights as Mark rubbed my back and assured me everything would be fine. I doubted that somehow. These things didn’t mend overnight, and I’d spent the last twenty years trying to forget I even had a family. I didn’t want them back. I just wanted my sanity, but apparently, the two of them went hand in hand.

So that was the reason that my beloved was slinging another holdall over his shoulder and telling me to lock up the door to my flat. We still had our own separate homes, and that was something I wanted to change next, assuming we both survived this nightmare trip intact. This was no holiday. This was my worst-case, horror-movie scenario, even though it involved spending the next eight hours in a car with the most wonderful man on earth.

I didn’t need to change. I didn’t need to be anyone else but myself. I knew that. Nobody expected miracles to happen, least of all me. Mark had calculated that I had a 0.11 per cent chance of feeling a tiny bit better about my past if this trip went to plan, and that chance made the whole thing worth it. I’d argued the other 99.89 per cent was the likelihood of my life becoming a living hell, but he just kissed me and said he’d never let that happen. He would be with me, and as long as I had my hand in his, we could overcome nuclear fallouts. And I’d believed him because I’d become precisely the kind of person I used to mock.

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