She wanted to be more than this. She really, really did.
She just didn’t know how.
“Don’t worry,” she said sharply. “I’ve listened to everything you’ve said, and I’m taking it very seriously. I don’t need you to baby me anymore. I will deal with this on my own, and I will try not to disappoint or—or embarrass you in the process.” But now I need to go before I completely undermine myself by bursting into tears. She turned her back on her stricken parents and bolted.
Chapter Two
It had taken Eve seven attempts to pass her driving test. Apparently, she had serious spatial awareness problems that took four years of weekly lessons to overcome. But driving was one of the few things Eve had refused to give up on, because earning a license meant earning freedom.
For example: the freedom to drive fast and aimless down abandoned country roads while blasting a playlist that started with Stormzy’s “Big for Your Boots” at full volume. Her mood had taken a sharp dip, and Barbra would no longer do.
As she sped past turn after turn that would take her back to the main road—to the city, to her sisters—Eve debated the pros and cons of running to Chloe or Dani for help. What, exactly, would she say? Help, Mum and Dad have cruelly demanded I hold down a job and take on some adult responsibilities? Ha. Chloe was hideously blunt, and Dani was addicted to hard work. They were both intimidatingly no-nonsense and had a shocking tendency to tell Eve the absolute truth, without even the accompaniment of a soothing cup of tea or a nice bit of chocolate. They’d eye-roll her into oblivion, and she would absolutely deserve it.
Eve had told her parents she’d handle things herself, and she would keep that promise. As soon as she finished undoing the instinctive panic caused by this morning’s conversation, that is.
She turned up the endless music and drove. The sun faded behind gray clouds, and pre-rain mist soaked into her skin through the open windows, and well over two hours passed without her even noticing. Just when she was beginning to feel the first pangs of hunger, she caught sight of a sign that read SKYBRIAR: FIFTEEN MILES.
“Skybriar,” she murmured over the thrum of cleopatrick’s “hometown.” It sounded like a fairy tale. Fairy tales meant happily ever after.
She took the turn.
Skybriar looked like a fairy tale, too. Its main road unraveled down a gigantic hill, the kind usually found in books or Welsh travel brochures. Mysterious woodland stood tall on either side of the pavement, likely containing pixies and unicorns and other fabulous things. The air through Eve’s open window tasted fresh and earthy and clean as she drove deeper into the town, past adorable, old-fashioned, stone-built houses and people in wellies walking well-behaved little dogs. She spotted a sign among the green, a gleaming blue board with white lace effect around the edges that read PEMBERTON GINGERBREAD FESTIVAL: SATURDAY, 31ST AUGUST. How absolutely darling, and how potentially delicious. Oh—but it wasn’t the thirty-first yet. Never mind.
Another turn, taken at random, and she struck gold. Up ahead, guarded by a grand oak tree and fenced in by a low, moss-covered wall, sat an impressive redbrick Victorian with a burgundy sign outside that read CASTELL COTTAGE. EXCELLENT ACCOMMODATION, DELICIOUS CUISINE.
She was feeling better already.
(Actually, that was a categorical lie. But she would feel better, once she ate, and took a moment to think, and generally stopped her drama queen behavior. Eve was quite certain of that.)
She threw her car into the nearest sort-of parking space—well, it was an empty spot by the pavement, so it would do—and cut off the radio. Then she slipped in an AirPod, chose a new song—“Shut Up and Groove,” Masego—to match her determinedly positive mood, and pressed Play. Flipping down the car’s mirror, she dabbed at her red eyes and stared disapprovingly at her bare mouth. Boring, boring, boring. Even her waist-length braids, lavender and brown, were still tied back in a bedtime knot. She set them free to spill over her shoulders, then rifled through her glove box and found a glittery, orange Chanel lip gloss.
“There,” she smiled at her reflection. “Much better.” When in doubt, throw some color at it. Satisfied, she got out of the car and approached the cute little countryside restaurant thingy through softly falling drizzle. Only when she reached the grand front door, above which sat yet another burgundy sign, did she notice what she’d missed the first time.
CASTELL COTTAGE
BED-AND-BREAKFAST
Eve checked her watch and discovered that it was now far from breakfast time.
“Gabriel’s burning bollocks, you have got to be kidding me.” She glared at her warped reflection in the front door’s stained-glass window. “Has the trauma of the morning’s events killed off your last remaining brain cells, Eve? Is that it?”
Her reflection did not reply.
She let out a hangry little growl and started to turn—when a laminated notice pinned up beside the door caught her eye.
CHEF INTERVIEWS: FIRST DOOR ON THE RIGHT
Well, now. That was rather interesting. So interesting, in fact, that Eve’s witchy sister, Dani, would likely call this literal sign . . . a sign.
Of course, Eve wasn’t Dani, so she simply called it a coincidence.
“Or an opportunity,” she murmured slowly.
Eve, after all, could cook. She was forced to do so every day in order to live, and she was also quite good at it, having entertained brief fantasies of opening a Michelin-starred restaurant before watching an episode of Hell’s Kitchen and developing a Gordon Ramsay phobia. Of course, despite her private efforts, she had never actually cooked professionally before—unless one considered her ill-advised foray into 3D genital cakes cooking. It was certainly baking, which amounted to much the same thing. Kind of.
The more she thought about it, the more perfect this seemed. Wedding planning had been too exhilarating—the kind of career she could easily fall in love with. The kind where true failure could break her. But cooking at some small-town bed-and-breakfast? She certainly couldn’t fall in love with that.
Your father and I would like you to hold down a job for at least a year before we restart your trust fund payments.
Her parents didn’t think she could get a job on her own and clearly doubted her ability to keep one. They thought she needed supervision for every little thing, and if she was honest with herself, Eve understood why. But that didn’t stop their doubt from biting like too-small leather boots. So, securing her own job the day she left home? And also, quite conveniently, not having to return with her tail between her legs after this morning’s tantrum-like disappearance? That all sounded ideal, actually.
One year to prove herself. Surely, she could manage that?
She opened the door.
* * *
Contrary to popular belief, Jacob Wayne did not create awkward situations on purpose. Take right now, for example: he didn’t mean to subject his latest interviewee to a long, glacial pause that left the other man pale and jittery. But Simon Fairweather was a certified prick and his answers to Jacob’s carefully considered interview questions were nothing less than a shit show. With each meaningless response, Jacob felt himself growing even colder and more distant than usual. Perfect conditions for the birth of an accidental awkward pause.
Simon stared at Jacob. Jacob, more pissed off by the second, stared at Simon. Simon began to fidget. Jacob reflected on how bloody irritating he found this man and did nothing to control the derisive curl of his lip. Simon started, disturbingly, to sweat. Jacob was horrified, both by the rogue DNA rolling down Simon’s temples and by his obvious lack of guts.
Then Jacob’s best friend (all right, only friend) Montrose heaved out a sigh and leapt into the breach. “Cheers, Simon,” he said. “That’ll be all, mate. We’ll get back to you.”
“That’s true,” Jacob allowed calmly, because it was. He watched in silence as Simon scrambled up from his chair and exited the room, nodding and stuttering all the while.
“Pitiful,” Jacob muttered.
As the dining room door swung shut, he wrote two careful words on his notepad: FUCK. EVERYTHING.
Not his most adult choice, granted, but it seemed more mature than flipping the goddamn table.
Beside him, Montrose cleared his throat. “All right. Don’t know why I’m bothering to ask, but . . . Thoughts on Simon?”
Jacob sighed. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Probably not.” Montrose rolled his eyes and tapped his pen against his own notepad. He, Jacob noticed, had written a load of intelligent, sensible shit about today’s applicants, complete with bullet points. Once upon a time, Jacob had been capable of intelligence and bullet points, too. Just last week, in fact. But then he’d been forced to sit through the seven-day-straight parade of incompetence these interviews had become, and his brain had melted out of his fucking ears.
“Well,” Mont went on, “here’s what I put: Simon’s got a lot of experience, but he doesn’t seem the sharpest tool. Bit cocky, but that means he’ll eventually be confident enough to handle that thing you do.”
Jacob narrowed his eyes and turned, very slowly, to glare at his friend. “And what thing is that, Montrose?”
“That thing, Bitchy McBitcherson,” Mont said cheerfully. “You’re a nightmare when you’re panicking.”
“I’m a nightmare all the time. This is my ordinary nightmare behavior. Panic,” Jacob scowled, “is for the underprepared, the out-of-control, and the fatally inconsistent.”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard. From you. Every time you’re panicking.”
Jacob wondered if today would be the day he murdered his best friend and decided, after a moment, that it was entirely possible. The hospitality industry had been known to drive men to far worse. Like plastic shower curtains and brown carpets.
To lessen the risk of imminent homicide, Jacob pushed the fine frames of his glasses up his nose, rose to his feet, and began to pace the B&B’s spacious dining room, circling the antique table that took up its center. “Whatever. And you’re wrong about Simon—he isn’t right for Castell Cottage.”
“You don’t think anyone’s right for Castell Cottage,” Mont said dryly. “That’s kind of why I’m here. Voice of reason, and all that.”
“Actually, you’re here because you’re a respected local business owner, and proper interviews need more than one perspective, and—”
“What’s wrong with Simon?” Montrose interrupted.
“He’s a creep.”
Mont, who had a habit of leaning everywhere—probably something to do with his ridiculous height and the natural effects of gravity—sat up straight for once. “Who told you that? The twins?”
A reasonable assumption, since Mont’s sisters were some of the only women in town who actually spoke to Jacob—aside from Aunt Lucy, of course. “No one told me. Just watch the man sometime. Women bend over backward to avoid being alone with him.”
“Christ,” Mont muttered and ripped a page out of his notepad. “All right. I know you hated the first two, and you’ve written off all the previous candidates.” He paused significantly. If he was waiting for Jacob to feel bad, or something, he’d be waiting a long fucking time. “So that leaves us with Claire Penny.”
“Nope,” Jacob said flatly. “Don’t want her.” He stopped midpace, noticing that one of the paintings on the aubergine wall—a landscape commissioned from a local artist—was slightly crooked. Scowling, he stalked over and adjusted it. Bloody doors banging all day, knocking things out of whack, that was the reason. “Can’t have a chef who slams my doors,” he muttered darkly. “Doesn’t create a restful atmosphere. Bastards.”
“Is that the issue with Claire?”
“What? Oh.” Jacob shook his head and went back to his pacing. “Claire knows how to shut a door properly, so far as I can tell. But she smiles too much. No one smiles that much. Pretty sure she’s on drugs.”
Mont gave Jacob the dirty look to end all dirty looks, which was a natural skill of his. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m always serious.”
“She’s sixty-four years old.”
Jacob rolled his eyes. “You think people stop making bad decisions when they hit sixty? Nope. Anyway, you remember before I moved to the city, she used to work at Betty’s? I ordered a slice of her apple pie once, and there was a hair in it.”
“That’s why you don’t want to invite her back?”
Jacob frowned at his friend. “Why are you using your Jacob’s being unreasonable voice? I don’t want hairy pie, Montrose. Do you want hairy pie? Because if you’re that hot for hairy pie, I will make you a hairy pie.”
“You couldn’t pay me to eat your cooking, which is kind of why we’re here.” Mont scrubbed a hand over his face and screwed his eyes shut for a second. “Come on, man. You moved years ago. You think she hasn’t learned how to wear a hairnet in five years? Call her back, let her cook for us, give her a chance.”
“No.” Jacob knew he sounded like a dick. He knew even Mont, who got him better than everyone, probably thought he was being a dick. But sometimes it was easier to keep his thought processes to himself because other people had trouble following them or thought they were unnecessarily blunt.
Bluntness was never unnecessary.
In the case of one Claire Penny: she was cheerful, she was gentle, and then there was that fucking pie. Jacob didn’t like poor cooking hygiene, he didn’t like working with nice people—too easy to accidentally hurt their feelings—and he didn’t like compromising at a time when he needed the absolute best. He had plans. Carefully laid, highly detailed, suddenly derailed because sod’s-bloody-law, plans. Plans that involved the upcoming Pemberton Gingerbread Festival, high-quality cooking, and a shit-ton of professional success. Entertaining a candidate who didn’t meet the criteria to fit those plans would be a waste of time, and he did not have time to waste.
“So what the hell are we going to do?” Mont demanded. “Because the festival is in four weeks, and—shit, isn’t there a meeting next week? If you don’t show up with a chef, you’re going to lose the opportunity.”
“I know,” Jacob gritted out. It was all he could think about. How typical that the one time he managed to wrangle something useful out of someone, his chef ruined it all by pissing off to Scotland.
“Aside from which,” Mont said, “you’re fully booked for the next five days, and I can’t keep—”
“I know you can’t keep cooking for me. I know.” Jacob collapsed back into his chair, dragged off his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“If you don’t loosen up and hire someone, you’re screwed.”
“I don’t need to hear that kind of negativity.” Jacob Wayne was never screwed. Well, not like that—obviously he was sometimes screwed in other, better ways. Although not as often as he’d like, but—you know—ah, fuck it, never mind. “Look, failure is—it’s not an option.” Not when he’d spent years working at the best hotels to learn everything he’d need to make this work. Not when he’d sunk all his savings into this fledgling business. It couldn’t be.
A sharp knock at the door interrupted their depressing conversation. Jacob frowned, sat up straighter in his chair, and called, “Who is it?”
The door opened a crack, which was fucking annoying, since he’d said Who is it? not Sure, help yourself, come in. But they weren’t expecting any more interview candidates today—Skybriar, while it had grown in recent years, was still a small town, and unemployed chefs weren’t exactly rolling through the hills like stray acorns. Which meant this could be a guest, come looking for him. So Jacob arranged his expression into something neutral (Mont had suggested he try friendly, but Jacob didn’t see the point of that with people who weren’t his friends) and waited.
After a moment’s hesitation, an unfamiliar face popped itself through the gap in the door. Jacob assumed the face was attached to a body, but all he could see right now was a head, a little bit of neck, and a whole lot of purple braids.
“Hello,” t
he floating head said. “I’m here for the interview.”
Assertive and straight to the point: good. Complete stranger, unscheduled: bad. The kind of crisp accent Jacob usually heard from the guests themselves: potential issue. Hovering in the door like a supernatural creature: undecided.
Since she wanted a job, Jacob started cataloging visible details. Big, dark, Disney princess eyes, purple braids, chubby cheeks, and smooth brown skin. She was young, which suggested unreliability. Orange lip gloss, which clashed with the purple hair, but since chefs weren’t front of house, he’d let it slide. She was smiling at him, which Jacob found infinitely suspicious, but then Mont kicked him under the table, and he remembered he was supposed to relax. Maybe her inane expression was a good thing: someone in this place needed to look approachable for guests, and clearly it wouldn’t be Jacob.
“Hi,” Mont said. “You want to come in?”
“Yes, thank you.” The head and neck became a complete person. She stepped into the room, shut the door behind her, and assaulted Jacob with her T-shirt. Bright orange like the lip gloss, with words written across her chest in turquoise block capitals: SORRY, BORED NOW.
Ironic clothing. Rude ironic clothing. Apathetic, rude ironic clothing. Bad, bad, bad. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was like a car crash. Even worse, it must be raining outside, because the T-shirt was wet. All of her was wet, her soft, bare arms gleaming obnoxiously. What, she’d gone out in the rain without a bloody coat? Ridiculous. Even more ridiculous, he could see the outline of her bra under the T-shirt. No one should let themselves get wet like that. She could catch her death. Then Mont kicked him again, and Jacob realized it probably looked like he was staring at an interviewee’s tits right now. Jesus Christ. He looked down at his notepad, cleared his throat, and scrawled down three Os and an X. Three positives, one negative. He’d given her an extra positive to make up for the chest-staring.
Act Your Age, Eve Brown Page 2