Page 24 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
‘Well, this was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be,’ Posy said as she put a hand to the small of her back. ‘While we’re talking about Christmas and because I had to drag my aching carcass all the way here, will you please do a Christmas-themed cupcake? For me? Have I mentioned that I’m growing an actual human being inside me? That should get me a free pass and it should definitely get me one Christmas-themed cupcake.’
When Posy put it like that, Mattie felt like she could hardly refuse her. Only kicking kittens and punching puppies was worse than denying a woman suffering a very difficult pregnancy one measly Christmas-themed cupcake.
But.
It wouldn’t be just the one Christmas-themed cupcake. Then it would be ‘But you made a cupcake for Christmas, why can’t you make one for Valentine’s Day? And Easter? And Mother’s Day? And because it’s raining outside and because the whole bloody world loves cupcakes.’
‘No, Posy! For the final time, no! I hate cupcakes,’ Mattie insisted vehemently. ‘I absolutely hate them and I hate Christmas and oh God, how I hate Paris!’
‘What’s Paris got to do with the price of eggs?’ asked a male voice, and there was Tom.
For the last half hour, with all this talk of reindeer and cupcakes, at least Mattie had been spared from thoughts of Tom and his obsession with phallic imagery. Mattie looked down at the counter, so she wouldn’t have to look at Tom, caught sight of the cucumber she’d been chopping up for sandwiches before all this Christmas nonsense, and blushed.
‘Forget I said anything about Paris and let’s just focus on the bit where I’m never, ever going to serve a cupcake on these premises,’ Mattie said, and Posy’s bottom lip trembled and she blinked rapidly, and how Mattie missed the days before Posy got pregnant, when she didn’t burst into tears every time someone even looked at her funny. ‘But I will make you a lovely raspberry-leaf tea to ease your backache, Posy, and I’ll bring it through to the shop with a piece of cinder toffee and apple cake.’
‘All right.’ Posy sniffed and tucked her wobbly lip away as Tom hoisted her to her feet with a very ungentlemanly grunt.
‘Can I have cake too?’ Nina asked.
‘No, you can’t.’ Tom fixed Nina with a disapproving look. ‘We’re meant to be on our way to that ghastly-sounding place with all the Christmas tat, or, as I prefer to think of it, my own personal ninth circle of hell.’
‘You and Mattie, with your Christmas-hating vibes.’ Nina shot them both an arch look. ‘Maybe you should spend Christmas together.’
Mattie and Tom both winced at the idea, although Mattie also blushed to boot. Don’t think about sausage plaits, or Yule logs, or any other Christmas phallic-shaped food, she told herself as she fanned her face with the laminated drinks menu.
‘And maybe you should move your arse in the direction of the van you insisted on renting,’ Tom said, making shooing motions with his hands at Nina, who stuck her pierced tongue out at him. But miracle of miracles, she moved away from the counter and, thank God, towards the glass doors that led back into Happy Ever After.
Mattie was just finishing her evening prep when she heard a tap at the tearooms’ door and nearly sliced off the tip of her finger with her paring knife. It was after eight, the bookshop and tearooms were now closed, and Tom and Nina still hadn’t returned. She poked her head round the kitchen door and saw a shadowy figure waving at her through the glass of the front door. It had to be a friend, because foes didn’t have the code to the electronic gate (now recovered from its recent ordeal).
Probably Tom had forgotten his key, though he was somewhere between friend and foe, she decided as she hurried to unlock the door. But it wasn’t Tom. Standing there with a cheesy smile was the Archbishop of Banterbury.
For the life of her, Mattie couldn’t remember his real name.
‘Hi,’ she said, with a bright smile to disguise her embarrassment. ‘Tom’s not back yet.’
‘Mattie, you’re even more beautiful than when we first met,’ he gushed, which wasn’t true because Mattie had very recently had a mishap with a bag of icing sugar and looked as if she’d gone prematurely grey. ‘Tom texted me. Said he was going to be late. He and the also very beautiful Nina were stopping at Beigel Bake.’
Why was it that Tom wanted to eat everyone else’s baked goods but Mattie’s? Although even she could admit, Beigel Bake did the best bagels in London and also rye bread, which was studded with caraway seeds and was perfect with smoked salmon and cream cheese. Mattie pulled her phone out of her apron pocket to text Nina with an order.
‘So, Tom said I could wait upstairs for him, but,’ he dropped the cheesy grin and banter in a flash, ‘I … if it would be weird … ’cause you hardly know me … I’ll go and find a pub, shall I?’
‘You can wait upstairs, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘In fact, I was just heading up there. Do you want a cup of tea …?’ She left a pause and he took the hint.
‘That’d be lovely, thanks, and it’s Philip, or Phil,’ he said, as Mattie let him through the door.
Fifteen minutes later, Phil was sat at the little kitchen table in the flat upstairs and doing his best to crack on to Mattie, in between sips of tea so strong that it was practically black.
‘Your dad must have been a drug dealer,’ Phil said, looking deep into Mattie’s eyes as she sat opposite him. ‘Because you’re dope!’
Mattie couldn’t help but snort.
Phil wasn’t going to give up that easily. ‘All right then, I bet your dad was a weapons dealer because … you’re the bomb!’
Usually if a man was trying to chat her up in the face of absolutely zero encouragement, Mattie would bristle and take offence and say something cutting.
But she was more amused than furious. If you took away the overworked pecs and biceps and the really ill-advised low-cut top (it was December, after all, and he was going to catch his death), Phil wasn’t bad looking. He had an open, friendly face and the most startling blue eyes, which compensated for the fact that his sandy-coloured hair was starting to recede and he was quite short.
‘Actually, Phil, my dad ran off with our next-door neighbour when I was six and he’s now on his fourth wife and they run a small bed and breakfast in St Ives,’ she said calmly. She was quite fond of her father, despite his many failings, but it was definitely a case of absence making her heart fond, rather than anything that her father had actually done to get into her good books. ‘So, do any of your chat-up lines ever work?’
