Page 42 of Just Date and See

‘But I think it wasmewho passed you the wrong bowl, or left the wrong one near you, at least,’ I insist.

‘Let’s just say neither of us checked it,’ Rocco reasons. ‘No point assigning blame – we’ve both got previous, this was never going to go well.’

I roll my eyes as I nod in acknowledgement.

‘Obviously,’ I say. ‘Can we quickly make some more?’

‘Just ten minutes to go,’ Margarita calls out.

Ten minutes is about the time left on the oven.

‘I guess not,’ Rocco says. Eventually he laughs. ‘We’re so bad at everything. I thought you said I was a real grown-up?’

‘You said I was one too,’ I playfully protest.

‘You’re a teacher, so it’s maybe worse that you’re so bad at these things,’ he jokes.

‘Says the man responsible for keeping buildingsstanding,’ I reply. ‘Are we just going to have to take this one on the chin? Ugh, but they’re so smug, look at them.’

Leila and Tobias are whipping their cream, ready for serving with their scones. Now that the hard part is over, they look like they’re having a joyful time.

‘We’re tasting each other’s scones, right?’ Rocco asks.

‘Correct,’ I reply. ‘And as much as Leila is getting on my nerves right now, I wouldn’t feed her a scone laced with salt. Why, do you have an idea?’

He has a look on his face like he does.

‘We’re not going to win, that’s a given,’ he starts. ‘But I would rather they didn’t know that we had messed up. They’ll be smug if they’ve won but they will be ten times worse if they know we messed up so badly they’re the winners without any competition.’

‘You’re right,’ I reply. I chew my lip as I wonder how we get ourselves out of this mess. ‘But what can we do?’

‘If we can swap our scones with theirs then they will eat their own and we’ll have ours,’ he suggests. ‘I’m not suggesting we cheat to win. We can just pretend we tried them and rave about how good they were.’

‘Ah, so we get to save face, maybe seem like they only won because we laid it on really thick, going on about how amazing theirs are,’ I reply, nodding along with my words.

‘Exactly… but we need to swap those scones first.’

Rocco looks around for inspiration, so I join him. My eyes eventually land on the worktop.

‘We need a distraction,’ I tell him.

‘We do, but what?’ he replies.

‘Anything goes?’ I ask him quickly, because we’re running out of time.

‘Why not?’ he replies. ‘Do you have something in mind?’

I grab the bowl of cream from the worktop, followed by the electric mixer, which I promptly turn up to full blast. As cream sprays everywhere, I angle the bowl so that Rocco bears the brunt of it. Then I let out a girly squeak, so that all eyes are on us.

‘Okay, stand back, people, we’ve got a cream incident,’ Margarita announces.

‘Oh, my God, Rocco, it’s all over your shirt,’ I point out, and while I won’t be winning any Academy Awards for my seriously wooden delivery, it does seem to get everyone’s eyes on him.

‘Quick, take your shirt off,’ I say loudly, which definitely ensures all eyes – including Leila and Tobias’s – are on him.

‘In slow motion, if you can,’ I whisper playfully.

With all eyes on the cream incident, and the impromptu striptease, I grab an oven glove and crouch down at the end of the counter, swapping our scones with Leila and Tobias’s, before quickly standing up, grabbing a tea towel, and heading back to Rocco.