Page 52 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

Gladys stood up from the back of the room. ‘It’s true. And he’s only forty-five. Can you imagine? Martha’s nearly seventy.’

‘Good for her!’ someone shouted, and Archer lost the room again. The debate this time ranged in topic from what was an appropriate age gap in a relationship to the safety of helicopter travel to whether or not fruit had any place in a pancake.

Archer was helpless to intervene.

He found Iris in the crowd. She was laughing, her face lit up in amusement. He felt his own lips tip up. It was all just too absurd not to laugh at. And compared to the pressure of plating the perfect dish, of impressing the critics, of keeping the kitchen running night after night, it was kinda nice for things to be … silly … for a while. It was like the lid had been lifted off the pressure cooker that was his life and the steam was slowly seeping out. He felt the tension leaving his body with every absurd comment and joke from the audience.

Eventually, the chatter about Martha’s love life and cell reception died down and Archer did get some suggestions for the recipe. Most residents agreed that the pancakes should be more dense than fluffy, probably cooked in butter not oil, and definitely didn’t contain Greek yogurt, ricotta cheese, or anything fancier (not his word) than buttermilk. Apparently, the closest he’d come was the batch he’d made last Tuesday, so he’d have to check his notes on what he’d done that day.

By the time he’d walked back to his seat, the crowd was mostly filled with smiles and nods in his direction. Even if he never found the recipe, maybe this wasn’t a bad idea. At least everyone had gotten a chance to have their pancake-related feelings heard. Something Archer had never thought he would care about.

But here he was. In his new life, in his new town. And for the first time since arriving, he didn’t feel totally devastated about that. As a chef, it was his job to feed people and these people wanted pancakes.

He slid into his seat next to Iris and she gave him a big smile.

‘Good job,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve appeased the mob. They’ll probably be nicer to you now.’

‘Probably?’ he whispered back, taking the opportunity to lean closer to her.

‘I can’t make any promises. If you serve those buckwheat pancakes again, they’ll string you up in the town square.’

He laughed louder than he meant to, but luckily he was drowned out by whatever the crowd was debating now, something about a Strawberry Queen and whether or not beauty pageants were empowering or a relic from a highly patriarchal past and if they needed one for the Strawberry Festival. Iris smiled at him, her eyes dancing.

‘You should come out for drinks with us,’ she said, still holding his gaze.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘I won’t tell HR, I promise.’ Her smile was all teasing mischief and he wanted to kiss it. How did she do that? How did she make everything a game?

‘Iris…’

‘Archer, come on. You’ve been living the dad life for three whole weeks now.’

‘Four, actually. Since I moved here.’

‘Four! That’s a whole month. See, you deserve a night out.’

‘We can’t go out together, Iris. That’s just going to confuse things even more.’

She shook her head, her braid slipping over her shoulder. He wanted to pull out the elastic and run his fingers through the rose-gold waves, wrap them around his hands and tug her close. Which was exactly why he should go straight home and take a cold shower.

‘No, this is fine,’ she insisted. ‘There will be a bunch of us going. It’s just a night out with some friends. Don’t you want friends here, Archer?’

Did he want friends here? Did he have friends in Paris? He’d worked such long hours, the only people he ever saw were staff from the restaurant. Sure, plenty of nights they’d go out for drinks after work and that was why so many of them ended up sleeping together, but that was what made it all a bit toxic, too.

What would it be like to have regular friends? Friends he just hung out with when he wanted to, not people he was forced to be in a hot kitchen with for fourteen hours a day and then drank with because there was literally no one else in his life?

Might be nice.

‘Fine,’ he agreed and Iris whisper-squealed.

Kira craned her neck around Iris and grinned at him. ‘This is going to be fun,’ Kira said and Bennett just shook his head.

It was possible he’d made a mistake.

ChapterTwenty

Mac’s was slammed. Which was typical for a town meeting night. After those things, everyone needed a drink.