Page 53 of The Pop-Up Cake Shop

‘Who...?’ I spun round and my heart gave a lurch of surprise. Here came trouble indeed! But how did Cheryl know Caleb?

He was with a tall, blonde woman, who I recognised as the person I’d seen him with by the building site that time. She was dressed in high-end sports gear, the sort professional runners wear that cling like a second skin and leave nothing to the imagination, although Caleb was in jeans and a T-shirt. He must just be there to support her as a spectator.

He hadn’t seen me, thank goodness, and I really didn’t want him to.

Compared to his girlfriend, or whoever she was, I felt such a frump in my old navy tracksuit and scruffy supermarket trainers.

‘How do you know Caleb?’ I asked Cheryl.

‘Caleb? Who’s Caleb? No, I meant Mo and Dot have just arrived.’ She pointed and when I glanced over, sure enough there was Dot’s little red car, and she and Mo were getting out.

Cheryl went off to do more stretches with Ray.

Dot spotted me and waved, but when I waved back, to my dismay I managed to catch Caleb’s attention. He grinned and waved back, and of course then I had to pretend that it was him I’d been waving at in the first place, otherwise he’d feel silly. So I smiled. And now he was sauntering over.

‘Hi, there.’ He shaded his eyes from the sun to look at me and my heart gave a funny little swoop in my chest. Compared to Ivan the Terrible, he was shorter. But standing in front of me now, he was taller than I’d thought. Definitely over six feet. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

I swallowed, feeling weirdly shy all of a sudden. ‘You knew I’d be here for the run,’ I reminded him. ‘I told you I was doing it.’

‘You did. I was being ironic.’

‘Right.’

Something was thrust into my hand and when I looked, Mo had given me a T-shirt to wear for the run.

‘Just pop it on over what you’re wearing, Kats,’ she ordered. ‘They’re quite baggy so they fit everyone.’

I was distracted for a moment by the message on her sweat band.

Stop Normalising Men!

I glanced down at the T-shirt she’d given me. It was pink, of course, and I was relieved to see that the message on the back was actually perfectly sensible:Running for the Women’s Refuge.

It was a definite improvement on the rather dingy once-white T-shirt I was wearing, so I pulled Mo’s offering on over my head. Then I realised it was on back to front, so I was forced to do the pulling-it-round manoeuvre while Caleb was still standing there looking at me, making me feel as jumpy as a Grand National racehorse at the starting gate. Then I couldn’t locatethe armholes and by the time it was finally on properly, I could feel my hair floating about with the static.

Caleb’s lips twitched suspiciously. Attractive creases appeared around his eyes as his face broke into a smile.

I felt an irritated blush flooding my cheeks.

Why did I always get the feeling he was enjoying a private joke at my expense?

‘Well, I just came over to wish you luck,’ he said.

‘Thank you. And thanks for sponsoring me.’

‘No problem. It’s obviously for a very worthy cause.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘I – um – like the T-shirt.’

‘What?’

‘The T-shirt. I guess it’soneway of nailing your colours to the mast.’

He walked away, back to his ridiculously slender blonde girlfriend.

I looked down but couldn’t read the rather wordy slogan upside down so I glanced at Mo’s.

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