Page 77 of Cakes for the Grump

In what way does he mean? At Abbot Industries?

Sistine goes up to Luke and pokes him in the chest. “Don’t try to convince me. I don’t even care anymore.”

He shakes off her finger. “Liar.”

Sistine steps back and plugs her ears with her hands. “La-la-la-la-la.”

I’ve lost the chance to glean real information from their interaction since Sistine is a picture of grace and maturity.

Luke crosses his arms and waits her out. When she finally drops her hands, he continues. “Stay as long as you need, but don’t threaten Rita again. Be nice.”

His sister looks at me like I’m an alley cat brought in from the dump. My back instinctively straightens. The expression behind her blue eyes is pointed. Will I be stabbed in the middle of the night? Gutted and left to bleed out in the middle of my—thekitchen? Should I demonstrate my own knife skills as a deterrent to my own violent and gruesome death?

“How long,” asks Sistine again, “is she here for?”

My tea cup clatters on the table, and I almost let it drop completely. Luke doesn’t turn to the noise or look at me.

“I told you, she lives with me now.”

He can’t mean…with no end in sight…with no deadline…?

People don’t do that. This doesn’t happen to me. I’m a self-trained cook who hails from a poor-ish neighborhood in Mumbai, still figuring out my career, flailing at what I really want to do.

He’s—he’s Luke Abbot.

Filthy rich. Aggressively hot. Recognized, detested, and applauded in the business world.

We are not supposed to live together as roommates. Actually, that’s not even accurate. I haven’t been paying any rent.

Is it—maybe—his plan is not to say anything until the conference is over? That’s a good strategy. Understandable even. In his place, I might be using it, too. Don’t stress the person you need a favor from.

I chug down my tea, as Sistine and Luke talk some more about things I don’t understand.

I tell myself if the conference is my obvious deadline, that means I have this window where he lets me use his kitchen whenever, and live here with no rules or regulations or expectations.

And alongside this window, is the competition that can change my life.

Luke finally looks at me. His eyebrow raises in confusion when I smile sweetly. Got to be polite to the keeper of your shelter. At least, until I make something of myself within these next few months. No pressure. My deadline is the conference. And by my estimation, the contest will be close to wrapping up by then too. I just have to make it all the way, then I’ll be free.

Sistine swipes another cupcake from the island counter. She eats it slowly in front of me.

Right. I have to make sure we also get along because I don’t want to give Luke any reason to kick me out.

Especially since later that night I find out I’ve made it to the next round of the CUM competition!

My solution to keep practicing in this kitchen? I must bribe Sistine with sweets.

TWENTY-ONE

The next fewdays have me so exhausted with meal kit practicing, that I stop answering my friends’ texts. They notice and, on a late Saturday night, call me.

I briefly catch them up on how I lost my apartment (“to renovations”) and that my employer offered me a room to stay while I have no place to go. It takes a bit of convincing, but they finally agree Luke is not a nefarious pervert trying to sleep with me by forcing me to stay with him. I tell them my focus is on winning the meal kit competition and that’s why I have been so busy.

(Very largely true).

While on the phone with them, I narrate what Luke’s penthouse looks like (“copious amount of marble for no reason”) and come across a party invitation left behind on the kitchen counter.

“It’s for tonight,” I say out loud. “This is where Luke’s sister, Sistine, went. She mentioned something about going to a party to network.”