‘Of course, whatever you need.’
Polly looked around and this time she wasn’t able to hide her excitement.
Luke smiled. ‘Is that a yes?’
Polly nodded, the smile growing on her own face. Luke let out a small sigh of relief.
‘Let’s get started then.’ Luke gestured for her to go back out the kitchen and followed her to a table and chairs. They all sat down and Polly immediately pulled up a webpage showing various different kitchen appliances and utensils.
They started talking about what Polly wanted to do with the place, the colours, the tables, the layout of the counter and the kitchen, and Luke nodded and wrote everything down while Polly compiled a shopping list and then sent him a link to it. Flick watched the two of them chatting animatedly about Polly’s plans and Polly getting more and more passionate and Luke seemingly falling in love with Polly because of it. She could see it on his face, this look of wonder that Polly knew exactly what she wanted to make her dreams come true. Flick wondered if that was the reason Luke wanted Polly to come and work there – because he’d had feelings for her all along. Although it was a bit late for him to do anything now, he was leaving in a few weeks.
It didn’t matter. Let them have fun for a few weeks. If Polly could run the café half as well as she could run her catering van, then the café would be a big successand that was the only thing that did matter. And it wasn’t like Flick had any claim over Luke, she’d known him for a day. Just because her silly, impulsive heart had started having feelings for him, it didn’t mean anything. And this way was better because if anything did happen between her and Luke she could fall for him very easily and then he’d leave and she’d get her heart broken. So she would be happy for him and ignore the ache in her heart that said otherwise.
Flick was sitting up on the roof terrace, looking out on the incredible view of the town. It was late and she’d spent hours coming up with ideas of how to help the studios and lost track of time so her dinner of a ham and cheese toastie was more like a late supper. Luke suddenly climbed up the steps to join her. He was wearing his glasses again tonight and there was something so sexy about them. She tried to push that thought away, she didn’t need to be thinking things like that.
‘Hey,’ Flick said, offering out the triangles of ham and cheese toastie.
Luke picked one up and took a bite of the cheesy gooeyness. ‘Mmm, thank you. I haven’t had a chance to eat anything yet, it’s been a busy day.’
‘Yeah, sorry, I feel like you’ve picked up a lot of the workload.’
‘We’re a team, you can’t do it all on your own. And I know tradesmen around here, a lot of them are friendsso I can get some of the work done very quickly. In fact the painting will be done tomorrow. Well some of it, the flowers and bees will have to wait until I can get a mural artist, unless I can persuade Rose to paint them.’
Polly had decided to continue her bumblebee theme in the café with yellow walls painted with bees and flowers, just like her van. The tables were going to be black or some kind of iridescent resin to represent the bees’ wings. It was going to look good when it was finished. And with the huge list of shiny new appliances that Polly had insisted she needed, it was going to be the best-stocked café in the town, possibly the world.
‘I worry about you spending too much money on this. Polly’s renovations and new equipment are going to cost thousands and I don’t know how big this kitty is but it’s not bottomless. I know you said you had some money in your savings, I worry you’re subsidising this with your own money.’
Luke smiled. ‘You really don’t need to be worried.’
‘Of course I do. If you’re paying out for this, that’s not fair.’
‘Look, I know people, I can get a lot of the kitchen things cheap so you don’t need to worry about the kitty running out of money.’
‘How cheap, like fallen-off-the-back-of-a-lorry cheap?’
He laughed. ‘One of my friends remodels kitchens for businesses: cafés, restaurants, hotels. When a company remodels their kitchen they have stuff they want to get rid of. They don’t care what happens to it, aslong as it’s gone. My friend stores them, sometimes does them up if need be and sells them on.’
‘OK, but some of the gadgets and machines Polly wants sound really fancy. She’s not going to be happy with second-hand goods.’
‘Let me worry about that.’
Flick scowled, not convinced that Luke knowing a few people was going to help with this. She didn’t know a lot about kitchen equipment but she’d seen the prices of a few of the items Polly wanted and some of them were crazy expensive. The money had to be coming from somewhere.
‘Maybe we should put a pin in the gift shop until the café is up and running. We can’t just keep spending money with no money coming in and I don’t want you or the kitty to be short.’
‘We have to spend money to make money. The café will look great and people will come here to see it. As you said, getting people through the door is half the problem. If the artists don’t want to capitalise on the extra footfall, then there’s no helping them. And no, you’re not backing out of the gift shop. That will be an attraction as well.’
‘But where is the money coming from? I promised to look after the studios for my nan and I can’t let her come back to find that we’re fifty thousand pounds in debt. And let’s face it, if she had that kind of money just lying around, she wouldn’t be in such financial difficulty that she was thinking of selling the place.’
‘There won’t be any debt, I promise. Consider the kitty a gift from a fairy godmother.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You see, fairy godmothers normally want something in return like your first-born child, or a pound of flesh.’
‘That wasThe Merchant of Venice, and Shylock was not so much a cute, whimsical godmother with a magic wand and more a vengeful, greedy man obsessed with wealth, power and revenge.’
She smiled that of course he would know his Shakespeare. The books on his bookshelf were clearly not just there for show.
‘I promise you that your first-born and all body parts are perfectly safe,’ Luke said.
