Page 32 of The Gingerbread Cafe
Gretel gulped. She knew none of this looked good. So why was it that every time he blew in like a cold wind, she still felt so inexplicably hot?
‘We need to talk,’ he said, closing the door to the rest of the world behind him.
Chapter 27
‘Nice backpack.’ Gretel signalled to the bag Lukas still had slung over one shoulder as he stood just inside the doorway of the café. It was the first time she’d seen him since the Christmas nearly kiss and she had no idea what else she was meant to say. The awkwardness sizzled between them.
Lukas nodded, as though acknowledging that in their tricky situation, it was as good a place to start as any.
‘So are you going to tell me what this mess is about? Please say you sorted out extra insurance to cover this.’ His eyes moved around the room, the café tables still bearing witness to an evening of broken glass and semi-dangerous tools.
‘I’ll look into it,’ Gretel muttered as she scanned the floor for Angel Gabriel.
‘It’s just easier if we don’t have customers suing us for slicing off their fingers with a cutting tool. That’s if Environmental Health don’t shut us down first.’
Gretel could tell Lukas was scanning the floor for her ferret as he rubbed his temples and exhaled. For all his lecturing, he didn’t have his usual fight. He seemed different. Deflated, almost.
‘Are you OK?’ she couldn’t help asking.
‘Rough shift at the restaurant. Some days the place gives me a headache.’ He rolled his shoulders. ‘I left early.’
‘Oh.’ That didn’t sound like him at all.
‘And … things have been playing on my mind. I behaved badly on Christmas Day. I’m sorry. That time of year is never easy for me, but …’ He was rubbing his head again, as though it might get his thoughts in order. ‘That’s no excuse,’ he concluded, simply.
Gretel felt some of the pressure lifting. She sensed there was more to be said, but it was kinder to wait until he was ready. As though he had no time for getting serious either, Angel Gabriel popped his head up from behind the counter and made his adorable squeaky toy noise – meaning it was play time. Gretel winced. She may have got away with him sleeping unobtrusively in a bag, but a ferret behind the counter was pushing it. She dared a look towards Lukas, but his face was surprisingly soft.
‘I should knit him a candy-striped apron so he can serve coffee,’ he said. And then registering the look of surprise on her face, added quietly, ‘Nell taught me to knit.’
So hedidhave a soft side. Imagining him trying to master a pair of knitting needles amid a sea of colourful wool, she couldn’t help but smile.
Though it wasn’t time to discuss knitting patterns. Gretel moved to the rear of the counter and picked up her delinquent ferret. ‘I know this looks bad.’ She nodded towards the various piles of tools and glass dust that the class had been in the middle of tidying before Lukas interrupted. ‘But it was a really enlightening evening. It was surprisingly good to meet some of the other shop owners and I feel inspired to attempt a few different things.’ She held her chin up, determined to try and stay brave. If she was braver still, she might suggest he had a go at some stained-glass crafting to ease his tension. No. She shook her head.
‘New things? I’m intrigued,’ said Lukas, nudging his bag under a table with his funny chef-clogged foot. He crossed the café and joined Gretel behind the counter, searching for a cloth.Gretel felt her skin tingle as his shoulder brushed against hers, but before she could settle into the fizzy sensation he was off around the café with his cloth and spray.
‘Please don’t tidy away my demonstration table,’ she warned. ‘Those are my special tools.’ She didn’t need to tell him she might need the comfort of quietly creating something later, after her first daunting experience of running a class. She would clean up her mess.
He considered it for a moment and then shrugged, as though he understood the importance of some things being sacred.
She watched as he cleared and cleaned each table with military precision, as if he found the restoration of cleanliness and order cathartic. There was something mesmerising about the efficient way he moved, not to mention how endearing it was to see him mucking in. When he froze mid-wipe to look up at her with those magnetic grey eyes, Gretel’s heart skipped a beat. Well, that would be the embarrassment of being caught gawping. She cleared her throat and busied herself fussing with Angel Gabriel, who did look particularly cute in his sprout Christmas jumper.
‘So are you going to tell me?’ Lukas asked.
Oops. What had he been saying before all the staring? ‘Erm.’ She must rein in her unruly thoughts. Even if they’d once almost kissed, he’d pulled away and walked out on her, and he still hadn’t properly explained himself. And he hated everything she lived for. He’d ruined her Christmas Day. And yet …
‘Gretel?’
She dared to look up from her lengthy inspection of her ferret’s sprout jumper to see Lukas’s quizzical face. She shook her head. ‘Sorry. I mean … I’m just surprised at you helping out, that’s all. I know you’re a fancy head chef or whatever.’ Her oddly bouncing heart suggested that wasn’t all, but he didn’t need to know everything.
‘A head chef doesn’t just float around the kitchen tasting things with a shiny spoon.’ He pulled his double-headed spoon from his back pocket and waved it. ‘We have to work our way up the ranks. And even when you get to be in charge, the buck stops with you for a whole lot of things. Staffing, supplies, costings. Quality, safety, regulations. Complaints.’ He clunked the spoon down on the table in front of him and rubbed his temples again. ‘And that’s before you’ve pulled some creatively spectacular menu out of your magical arse, and made sure the whole damned restaurant is running like clockwork in the vain hope of securing a Michelin star. It’s no wonder a guy gets a headache.’
Gretel blinked in surprise. ‘Oh.’ So that’s what was eating him. That and turning up to find the café he didn’t even want was causing him an entire list of extra troubles. ‘Hot chocolate?’
Lukas sank down into a chair and exhaled. ‘I’m sorry. I actually stopped by to apologise, but seeing the place happy and bustling caught me off guard. Now I’ve done nothing but moan. I’m getting this all wrong, huh?’
Gretel placed Angel Gabriel tentatively down on a chair next to Lukas, willing them to make friends whilst she went to grab drinks. When she joined him at one of the wooden café tables she brought a freshly lit candle, remembering the cosy flicker always cheered her up. She waited for him to speak.
‘About Christmas Day,’ he finally said, as he poked around at the marshmallows on his hot chocolate in a way that was strangely endearing. ‘I shouldn’t have ruined a nice moment by getting arsey with you about being late for my shift. And I absolutely shouldn’t have bolted and avoided you for most of January. It was dickish of me.’ His gaze drifted up to meet hers. ‘Which you may think is my standard behaviour. But it wasn’t always.’
