Page 31 of Only Ever You

Faye sniffled as they drew apart. “I can’t believe you still wanted to be friends with me after I stole your toast in our first week of uni.”

“We were living together,” Maisie said, “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Gee thanks.” Faye laughed a shallow breath.

“And I got my revenge. I just don’t think you ever found out about it or figured it out.”

Faye’s jaw dropped. “What did you do?”

Taking interest in one of the two long braids cascading over her chest, Maisie winced, and Faye prepared herself for the worst.

“I swapped the sugar for salt in the blueberry muffins you made that week.”

“That wasyou?” Faye practically exclaimed. Switching her ingredients was so much worse than anything she could have imagined. “No wonder that batch had been a diabolical disaster!”

Maisie gave her a wicked smile that made Faye’s eyes narrow in response.

“You’re so cruel.”

10

FAYE

They hadn’t mentionedthe morning glory incident since it happened. Not in their texts to arrange this morning of travel, nor since Bash turned up on Faye’s street two minutes ago.

Out of the two of them, he was the only one with a car that would last for longer than five minutes up the motorway, so it was that hatchback that Bash hurled her weekend bag into the boot of alongside his own, lining the tops with their heavy duty coats.

Faye’d also made sure to pack the seldom used walking boots she’d been instructed to bring. As impulsive as he was, Bash wasn’t ever really firm with insisting upon anything, but suitable footwear wasn’t apparentlyoptionalon this trip.

The warmth of the air conditioning engulfed her as she slid into the passenger side.

“Everything locked up?” Bash’s gaze flowed over her like he checked if she’d forgotten anything himself.

Keys?Check.Purse?Check.Phone?Check.Brain? … Debatable.

“Yep.” Faye smiled. “Ready to go.”

Four hours plus one stop at motorway services later, and they were where they needed to be, peeling out of main traffic ontoroads which branched narrower and narrower, surrounded by more fields and hedgerows as they went.

It’d been a while since they’d driven anywhere together for so long. In last year’s summer, they’d taken a long weekend with Maisie, Freddy, and Sienna and crossed the Channel for the south of France where relatives of Bash’s owned a holiday home they’d borrowed for cheap. Still, one car with five of them crammed together had been something Faye didn’t particularly plan on doing again soon, and a small price to pay for a delicious few days of basking like a lizard by a pool.

It was early afternoon. Bash hadn’t needed a map and so Faye didn’t know they were only five minutes away from his parents’ house until they passed through a village twisted into the grey, wintry landscape and he said, “We’re nearly there.”

She’d been fine until that moment, and then a ball of anxiety bounced around inside Faye’s stomach as though its walls were the pins of a pinball machine. There was no backing out now. She couldn’t ask Bash to turn the car around and abandon these plans.

She tapped her phone in her palm in her lap over and over.

This was the first day off whereBakedwas still open for business that she’d taken all year. Ellie had strong-willed her into taking the early leave, and Chandra had chomped at the bit to get her to go (on accompaniment of a promise of a cushiony new year’s bonus).

Unable to switch it off, Faye’s mind drifted to the bakery every five minutes between singing – a term used loosely – along to Bash’s driving playlist on the aux. He didn’t say anything about her fidgeting or her wandering mind, distracting her with filling in the gaps of recent family events she hadn’t heard about.

The new desserts they’d sold at the Christmas market had all sold out, which only left Faye with the dilemma of deciding to let them stay as a one-off, or to make a plan to integrate them intoBaked’s menu along with the move to Manchester.

MaybeBaked By The Dozendidn’t just need to only selldoughnuts anymore? Maybe she could turn the brand into something bigger? Knowing that her additional creations had been a hit gave her the confidence to consider the idea more seriously, but it was her own fault that she couldn’t ask the opinion of the one person she wanted it from most.

The car crawled through an even smaller village and similarly down a lane shaded by overhanging trees. Faye expected for the houses they passed to be on the larger side – she wasn’t oblivious to the lives that Bash’s parents had worked commendably hard for. Nor was she intimidated by these mis-matched, brown-brick properties at the ends of long driveways.

She was proud of her bakery and her business. No one could take that away from her or make her wish she’d had a more luxurious life growing up, instead of hopping from one house to another every Friday night, never quite certain of where she was supposed to be or what was happening.

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