“What do you need caster sugar for?” I asked, noticing a bowl and flour, eggs and milk sitting on the bench. “Are you baking?”
She pouted prettily, pushing her hair off her face. “We didn’t have wedding cake yesterday … so I was going to bake a cake for us … you know, since we’re all about tradition in this marriage.”
“Very traditional,” I deadpanned. “I picked you for a trad wife the second I laid eyes on you.”
She smirked in my direction. “What, when you found me in your bedroom with no panties on? Yes, that’s how every trad wife gets her husband.”
I opened my mouth to explain that the first time I’d laid eyes on her she was pleasuring herself on camera … but I thought better of it. “Can I let you in on a secret?” I said instead.
Irina leaned her elbows on the counter, rested her chin in her hands and smirked at me. “I want to know all my new husband’s secrets.”
I fought the blush … and lost. Her grin widened.
“I don’t like cake,” I confessed.
Irina’s shocked gasp pulled a bark of laughter out of me. “You cannot be serious! Who doesn’t like cake?”
I raised my hand sheepishly. “Cakes come in such a wide variety of textures and flavours, and then there’s frosting—which is entirely too sickly sweet for me—and don’t even get me started on fondant.” I almost gagged just saying the word.
Irina’s brow creased. “So … what did you have on your birthdays then, when you were a kid?”
She might have joked that she wanted to know all my secrets, but some of them were just too sad to say out loud. Like the fact that no one had ever cared enough to celebrate my birthday with anything more festive than a Vegemite sandwich.
“Fairy bread. I used to devour the stuff like it was going out of fashion as a child.” It was true enough. It had been a staple in my lunch boxes for most of primary school. Until one kid in year six decided I was a giant pussy for still eating fairy bread, snatched my lunch box and beat me over the head with it. He got a suspension. I gota concussion and a rant from my father about learning to eat like a ‘normal’ kid … and I never ate fairy bread at school again.
Her confused expression deepened. “What the actual fuck is fairy bread?”
“It’s a classic Australian dish. Here, let me see if we have everything to make it.” I rounded the bench, squeezing past her in the small kitchen. There was two-day old bread in the bread bin. Although it wasn’t the soft, pillowy perfection that fairy bread deserved, it wasn’t mouldy, which was really the only test someone with a past like mine bothered with. There had been times in my childhood when bread had been deemed ‘still good’ if the mould was able to be scraped off the crust.
“Ideally we’d start with fresh bread, but beggars can’t be choosers,” I explained, setting the loaf on the counter. Irina peered at me, her expression perplexing.
“Henry, you’re a literal billionaire … you’re thinking of buying an island for fuck’s sake! If you want to make this fairy bread stuff with fresh bread, I’m pretty sure we can make that happen.”
She slid her phone off the counter and pulled up Uber Eats. Nibbling on her lip, she tapped at the screen. “What’s the address here … that’s something your wife should probably know off the top of her head, right?” Her eyes darted up to mine, a hint of a challenge in them. “Especially if she’s expected to move in with you. But we’ll discussthatlater. Right now, we just need fresh bread for the rich yacht man.”
I rattled off the berth number and the street address in a daze, and with a flourish, she announced that a loaf of fresh white bread would arrive within twenty minutes.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” I mumbled, running fingers through my messy hair. “As you said, I’m a literal billionaire. I should be buying my own bread.”
She shrugged. “This fairy bread stuff, that’s my wedding gift to you. Now, what other ingredients do we need?”
I headed for the cupboard where I was sure I’d packed away the sprinkles when we moved in. I could just make them out, right up the back of the cupboard behind the coffee and tea bags and Lucian’s protein powder. I stretched for them, and when I finally snagged themand turned triumphantly to Irina, I found her rubbing her lips, eyes fixated on my low-slung pyjama pants.
“I think I’m going to enjoy being married,” she murmured, letting her gaze rove over my bare torso. I flushed, like I always did, and quickly turned for the fridge and the margarine. I didn’t want to admit how much I was already enjoying having her in my kitchen.
Setting both ingredients down on the bench, I dusted my hands. “And now we wait for the bread to arrive.”
“You’re kidding.” Irina gestured at the items. “Three ingredients? What do we do with them?”
“Well, you spread the margarine on the bread—it has to be margarine. Butter’s just too fancy.”
“Right.” She sounded dubious. “And then …”
“Then we cover the margarine with sprinkles and cut the bread into triangles.”
“That’s it?”
I nodded. “That’s it.”
