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Week Three - Patisserie
By ralst
Emma Scribbins lounged back in her chair and waited to be served one of the never ending treats her partner had so painstakingly produced. It was petit fours this week, not Emma's favourites but still utterly delicious, and bound to do terrible things to her waist line. Something called an opera cake was on the cards for later in the day and even though she wasn't entirely sure what that was Emma knew she'd be gorging herself on giant slices by tea time.
"So what are they really like?" she asked, as Kate handed over a plate of three very different mini cakes the likes of which Emma hadn't seen since a school trip to France when she was twelve.
Kate ignored the question until the first of the petit fours had been consumed and she heard a satisfactory amount of near-orgasmic pleasure issue from Emma's chocolate smeared lips. "Who?"
Emma held up a finger to pause the conversation as she rinsed her mouth with the prescribed amount of ice water, less her partner think her foolish enough to disregard step three of her food tasting rules. "The other contestants." She had grilled Kate about judges and presenters the first week and had been pleased to discover that the ladies were as charming and funny as they appeared on telly and Paul wasn't nearly as terrifying as the serial killer they'd arrested the year before.
"They're all very nice." Kate stared at the plate in Emma's lap until the second of the petit fours was hastily consumed and happiness hums started reverberating from her partner's throat. "I think Saddiq has a bit of a crush on me."
The happy humming ceased and Emma wiped the pink frosting from her face with the back of her hand. "Saddiq, the tall good looking one who helped Maureen with her broken pie crust last week?"
"Yes, that's the one." Kate again looked pointedly at Emma's plate but for the first time since she'd started her Bake Off preparations the visual instruction failed to elicit the expected result. "Is there something wrong with my Baileys infused mini chocolate and salted caramel tart?"
"I thought he was married?"
"Who?"
"Saddiq."
Kate's lips pursed as the petit four remained untouched on Emma's plate. "Jeremy, Brian and Oz are married." Her brow joined in her lips' displeasure and ruffled over her darkening eyes. "Saddiq, Alex and Tomas are single."
"And do they fancy you too?"
Kate wiped her hands slowly on a tea towel and tried not to obsess over the forgotten mini tart languishing on Emma's plate. "I don't think so." She had spent hours on the internet researching the perfect flavour combinations and even instructed her father on the correct shape of decorative mini pie dish to create in his workshop. "Alex is in her seventies and Tomas is gay." The tea towel was on the verge of being squeezed so tightly into a ball that it ceased to exist in normal space. "What's wrong with my tart!"
"What?" Emma had jumped at the sudden exclamation and almost dropped the tart in question on the floor. "I never said you were a tart!" She stood, placed the uneaten petit four on the side table, and began pacing the small breakfast nook. "We never said we were exclusive and if this knight in shining apron floats your biscuit who am I to interfere?"
Kate's gaze finally left the forlorn petit four to take in her partner's agitated pacing. "What?" The misuse and mangling of metaphors had been number seventeen on Kate's list of unacceptable conversational faux pas but she decided to momentarily put that issue to one side. "Are you jealous?"
"No." The answer was obviously instinctual rather than factual. "Like I said, if he floats your -"
"Scribbs!" Floating biscuits and forgotten tarts were too much. "I am trying to prepare for week three of the Great British Bake Off and the last thing I need is you turning into some cliché of a jealous wife." Kate picked up the mini chocolate and salted caramel tart and advanced threateningly on her partner. "I made this for you, you imbecile, because three years ago while on surveillance you bored me to death talking about some school trip to Paris and these wonderful little tarty things you'd gobbled by the thousands." She thrust the tart into Emma's suddenly gaping mouth. "And because I love you, you moron, and bakes made with love are the best bakes!" She advanced closer. "And I want to win!"
"You -" Emma's words of encouragement were cut off before they'd been formed as Kate finished her advance in a breath-stealing kiss that mixed passion with chocolate and banished all thought of Saddiq and his very understandable crush.
The End