Like most streets in the central commercial section of Easton, this street is grey, with shop windows filled with colourful merchandise and faded posters. There's a bin on the side of the path, overflowing with fast-food wrappers. We pass by a kebab shop, an Asian grocery, and a news agency that looks like no one has entered since 1983 before finally arriving at the pizza shop.
It's old-fashioned with exposed brick walls and a gelato selection by the counter. We slide into burgundy-red leather booths, gathering around a white circular table. Jude sits on the end, me beside him, with Lily on the other side of me.
The menus are A3 sheets of laminated paper, and my friends decide on a meat lovers, a hot and spicy, and a capricosa without much discussion.
“Oh, sorry,” I say to Jude after the waiter takes our order and whisks away with the menus. “We should have consulted you. Are those flavours okay with you?”
“Sure,” Jude says. “I’ll eat anything.”
“So,” Ricky says, resting one arm on the top of the booth seat. “Leftover lasagna for dinner, huh?”
“That was the plan,” Jude says. “I’m lucky to be avoiding it.”
“Wouldn't have guessed Ms Seymour was a terrible cook,” Ethan says, earning some laughter from Mimi and Ricky.
Lily smiles gently at Jude as if to reassure him that they’re not laughing at him.
He doesn't blink. “How do you know my mum's the cook?”
Ethan raises one brow.“So it's your dad's cooking?”
Something flickers over Jude's face, too quick for me to read it, but his hands fold into a tight ball under the table.
“No,” Jude admits. "You guessed right: it is my mum's cooking.”
His voice is robotic, like before, and I feel torn. On one hand, I don't want him to feel uncomfortable, but on the other, he's being purposely stand-offish.
“But hey,” he continues, and the corner of his mouth lifts. If it wasn't for his hands clenched under the table, he would look almost easygoing. “Who’s lucky enough to have a good cook for a parent?”
“Me,” Lily announces. “My dad makes birthday cakes, and they’re even better than the stuff you can buy from bakeries.”
“Really?” Jude asks, sounding genuinely interested, and I relax because even if he is just my three-week co-worker and the person I sit next to in math class, I still want my friends to like him.
“He's been making me cakes since I was little, like fairy-themed and princess-themed and all that, and he would make cakes for my friends.”
“Out of fondant and icing?” Jude asks.
“Yeah.”
“I remember the cake he made for your birthday last year,” Ricky says to Lily. “It looked like one of those rocks when you cut it open, full of glittery crystals.”
“A geode?” Jude says.
“Yeah, that was the inspiration,” Lily says. “Dad used candy for the crystals.”
“It was so yum. I’m craving some right now,” Ricky says.
“We all know about Lily's dad's famous cakes,” Mimi tells Jude. “He's actually making one for my birthday. I got a special discount since I'm Lily's BFF and all that. It’s going to be three-tiered.”
“When’s your birthday?” Jude asks.
“19thof August, so in a few weeks,” Mimi says. “I’m turning 18, so I told my parents it's totally fine if I splurge a little on the party.”
Afterwards, we talk about the birthday parties we had as a kid. Everyone except Lily had a rainbow Freddo frog ice cream cake that was sold at the supermarket, with tiny chocolate Freddo faces littered throughout, and played the game where whoever found the most Freddos was the winner. I notice Jude laughing, looking relaxed, which makes me sag in relief.
Soon, the pizzas arrive on huge circular trays, the delicious stone-oven baked smell wafting into the air. We have plates, andthere’s cutlery as well, but all of us ignore it and pick up a slice with our hands and dig in.
Well, everyone except Jude, whose hands hover over a fork and knife.
