I’m certainly having my eyes opened here, but I suspect he is too, and not in a good way.
I push my sinking heart to one side. ‘On the bright side, if all these Saturdays go to plan, at least you’ll get your one-way ticket out of Cornwall.’
He bites his lip. ‘How about you? Are you pleased with how the shop is going?’
There’s not often the time, but when I do stop to think about it, I’m astonished at what’s come out of nothing in a very short time.
‘We have a name, we’re on Facebook and Insta, we have tag lines, an ever-expanding WhatsApp group, and after tonight we have aprons, too. We also have money rolling in so fast, I’m surprised you aren’t scouring the coast for more places to pop up.’ I laugh. ‘All we need now is for Fudge to come back when we call him, and we’ll have nailed it.’
He blinks at me. ‘Say that again?’
I need to keep this real. ‘I’m being ironic. Realistically it could be years before Fudge can run free on the beach.’
He frowns. ‘Not Fudge, the bit about the pop-ups?’
I laugh again. ‘Shops all along the coast, staffed by Zofia’s relations and builders’ wife friends. It was a joke, Miles.’ The look in his eye tells me I need to move on and fast. ‘Do you ever dance in the kitchen? It could be time to try. While the buns are baking. Have they risen yet?’
I’m waiting to see his reaction, but he’s looking past me and out to the sofa.
‘Fudge is eating something. Did you give him bone biscuits?’ He jumps down from his stool, clears the barricades, and a nanosecond later, he’s at the sofa’s end holding something high in the air. ‘Bad boy, Fudge! It’s a pink jelly shoe, and it’s totally demolished. That’s why he’s been so silent.’
I don’t have any jelly shoes, so I don’t rush.
Miles is staring at something in his hand. ‘All that’s left of the top is a gold badge with an orb with a cross on.’
My chest contracts and I feel sick. ‘Those aren’t jelly, they’re my Vivienne Westwood pumps.’ I hate making a fuss. I don’t put a lot of value on material possessions, but these were very precious. My throat is so dry my voice is a whisper. ‘They were a gift from Scarlett when I graduated.’ As suggested by mum before she died.
Miles is shaking his head. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s unforgivable. They’re irreplaceable.’
I blow out a breath. ‘They were under the sofa. I should have put them away.’ I’m trying to work out what’s gone wrong here. ‘I’ve never seen Fudge do destructive chewing or I’d have taken more care.’
Miles’s face is white. ‘He doesn’t. Hardly ever. He once put teeth marks in my mum’s best leopard loafers when she got a new boyfriend. But nothing before or since.’
I sniff. ‘A dog who senses the most heartfelt shoes.’ I’m on my hands and knees, my hand sweeping around under the couch. When I find the other one, I pull it out and hold it up. ‘At least I still have one.’
Miles drops the first one into my open hand. ‘I can never put this right.’ He tilts his head on one side. ‘Dinner, jewellery, more shoes, weekends away in a spa hotel– I respect you enough to know my usual go-tos aren’t going to work here.’
I can’t help hearing Tate cheering in the background, but I need to be firm here. ‘I don’t want anything, Miles. It was an accident.’
His voice is very low. ‘Whatever I do won’t be enough, but leave it with me.’
Which is worse than nothing at all, because now it’s going to hang over me, and I’ll never know what he’s going to spring on me.
‘What about the pastries? Will they be ready?’
His eyes come back into focus. ‘I’ll check now. We need to brush them with an egg and milk glaze, and then they’ll go into the oven, which I’ve already pre-heated.’
I zip my pumps into the side pocket of the nearest rucksack, and push my flip flops in there too, just in case.
I sigh. ‘You may as well put your music on.’
He watches me as he walks to the proving drawer. ‘Are you sure?’
I pull a face. ‘Why not? My head is shot to pieces anyway.’ All these weeks I’ve fought against Miles’s noise, but tonight it feels like it would be blissful to have a wall of sound that pulses through my body and blasts into my ears so there isn’t room for anything else.
He brings the baking trays across to the island. ‘We could play yours?’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘For once Taylor Swift isn’t going to cut it. Just obliterate me with the best you’ve got.’
