What Goes Around...

Part Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Seven

                "Oh my God!" Patricia covered her mouth with her hand as she chewed for a moment. "This is...word's fail me."

Freya smiled, "you like it?"

She had been so nervous at her very first attempt at a sponge cake. She hadn't slept the previous night, too much going on in her brain, so she'd finished her investigations into sponge cake. A whole different concept to bread.

                "Like it?" She asked with incredulity, "it's a masterpiece; I don't think you need that baking course."

Freya rolled her eyes, "hardly. And I have a concern about my oven...it's not the best."

                "So this could get better?"

She laughed, "who knows? Though I am really looking forward to this introduction course next week."

Patricia smiled, "well I'll consider buying anything you bake, if it's as good as this it'll sell like wild fire."

Freya beamed, happy with the praise, and glad to be with her new friend. It had been a lonely place in the dark of night lying awake alone.

She topped up her tea and stretched out her legs as the older woman returned to serve customers, and Freya smiled, closing her eyes to relax. She'd finally found something that interested her, and her brain was whirling.

But once the conversation ceased, it meant that Mitchell Cooper wasn't far away from her thoughts. He'd looked so pale the previous day; she could tell that his time in Canada hadn't been easy after she left. She shouldn't care, but she did. Despite him cutting her off as he had, so dramatically, she was still concerned. She knew she shouldn't be, but she was.  She was glad to hear that his father was alive, and home of course. But that was only scratching the surface. She wondered if they spoke, if they buried the hatchet, his career choices seemed such a stupid thing to cause a rift, but they were both apparently stubborn men.

                "Shit...hi..."

She opened her eyes at the voice, pulling herself rapidly from her dream world to see the man she was thinking about stood in front of her. She ignored the frisson of excitement that travelled up her spine as she drunk him in. He was flushed, his hair hanging in damp tendrils, and the shorts and t-shirt he wore were soaked. He told her he ran regularly, but this was the first time she'd seem him in the process.

                "Mitchell Cooper. What are you doing here?" Needing to say SOMETHING to ease the silence.

He shrugged, throwing an arm over his head to stretch his triceps, "just out for a run, I do most days...before the trip anyway."

She nodded, "it's warm for that." It was all she could think of to say.

                "Hence me sweating like I don't know what." There was as awkwardness to the words.

                "You want a drink?"

She could see the deliberation in his eyes for a moment, so she instead shrugged and reached for her tea.

                "Will you get me something? I haven't got any money on me."

                "That's why I offered." She had NO real idea why she'd offered as she didn't want to spend time with him anymore, he was right; they had drastically changed their friendship.