You’ve never had a day like mine. I guarantee it.

“Happy six-year anniversary to you and Neil, baby sis,” Amber says. I tuck the phone between my chin and shoulder as I shove the key in the door of my tiny rented house.  “Are you doing anything nice for it?”

Music blares from the television, but there’s no sign of the remote as usual. Bloody Neil.

“Oh, you know. The usual,” I stutter. The five new Xbox games covering the floor distract me from asking if all couples stop celebrating their anniversaries early on, as Neil told me. I hold in my sigh. No present for me and I’ll pay rent for both of us again this month.

I yank my hairband out of my ponytail and shake my blond hair free, cracking my neck as I do. “Yuck. Do you always smell of yeast after working in the cookery school, or is it just because I’m in a bakery?”

A cooperative bakery where I work all the hours I can to earn capital to make a success of my business, Naughty Treats. Fuck my life.

“No, I don’t. Speaking of which, have you thought any more about my earlier message about coming home to run our family’s cookery school?”

“Yes, but Amber—”

“You’d work with Chef Garett, your second favourite chef of all time and number one on your list of chefs you’d happily cook naked with… platonically, of course, with no sexual feelings.”

I roll my eyes as I chuckle. “I said that one time.”

“Just think what you could learn from him.”

As Amber continues her sales pitch, huffing and puffing sounds from my kitchen. Maybe Neil decided to cook something special for our anniversary after all. I can’t remember when he’s cooked for me before.

“I’ll think about it. But I have a life here with Neil.” I force a smile so she can hear happiness down the phone. “And there’s the business with Viv. They’re important.”

“But are you happy running Naughty Treats with her?”

“Sure,” I lie.

I feel a pull to return home. As my relationship has soured, I’ve thought more about the little cookery school in the Cotswolds and the troublesome family I left to move with Neil.

“Although, I bet there’s lots of things I could do at the school.” Ideas of cooking events we could run, especially with a chef as experienced as Garett, bake in my head. Halloween is at the end of the month. We could cook—

Something clatters in the kitchen, but it barely registers over the music channel playing something I don’t recognise.

“What about seasonal events? I’ve always wanted to do more of them, but I haven’t got your creativity. You could make it your own.” Amber’s cajoling displays the sales and organisational skills my younger brother, Jem, and I missed out on, but I can’t go.

“But I’m not qualified to run a cookery school. I’d spend all day catastrophising and probably burn the place down in the first twenty-four hours.”

Amber laughs. “You’re not still the teenager who left her recipe on the gas hob and set it alight, causing all of us to scream and run around the kitchen like it was the end of days.”

“Thank goodness Kath popped it in a metal bowl and ran it under a tap.” I giggle. “Is she still as calm as ever?”

“Yes, and she’s still the cookery school kitchen assistant. With her skills, you wouldn’t need to worry about being unqualified.”

“But—”

“Do you remember when I Facetimed you with a tour of the place four years ago when we moved premises to a new barn?”

I drop to the berry loveseat sofa—the one I picked out with Neil during happier times—finding the remote shoved down the side. “Yes…”

“You loved it. You suggested things about décor that made the place even more special. You could make this work.”

“I know—”

“So it’s a maybe?” Amber presses.

I sigh even as I smile. I have to save face for deciding to move here in the first place. I must stick things out, and maybe I can make Naughty Treats a success so we can finally turn a profit.

My fingers tap the remote.

“I can’t up and leave my life now. Neil wouldn’t cope without me. And—” A smash drags me to the kitchen. It’s going to be a mess. Cleaning up my kitchen and no present. Happy anniversary to me. I mute the music channel and toss the remote on the sofa. “I’ll call you later. But think about finding someone else. Love you,” I add before hanging up.

The huffing and puffing with added grunts are louder now that I’ve stopped the music.

“What is going—”

My phone nearly slips out of my sweaty palm at the sight of Neil and Viv banging on my kitchen counter, his blotchy pink bum bouncing in front of my eyes.

My prized handcrafted bowl, which Amber had gifted me on the day I started Naughty Treats, is in fragments on the kitchen floor.

“You pair of cheating, bowl-smashing bastards!”

Neil’s pumping stops. He’s still huffing and puffing as he does when I ask him to fix the front door so I don’t have to throw myself at it to open it when it’s damp outside.

“Ruby,” he shouts. Viv falls to the floor because Neil’s no longer pinning her to my worktop with his awkward thrusts.

“Amber offered me a job, but I wasn’t going to take it because I cared too much about you and the business.” I’m still talking. This must be shock. “But you both seem to be doing okay without me.”

Neil’s mouth gapes.

I stumble to the doorway.

“Ruby, it didn’t mean anything,” Neil whines. His voice used to make me lick my lips. Years ago, his moans would echo through me when he tasted my signature chocolate orange liqueur frosting, but those days are long gone.

“Ruby,” Viv croaks from the sticky kitchen floor.

Ice snakes through my veins. She’s nothing to me now.

“Babe!” Neil reaches for his trousers surprisingly quickly for a guy who can’t get out of bed before lunchtime. His sorry excuse for an erection sinks before my eyes as a wide-eyed Viv pulls down her dress.

“Don’t babe me. Don’t talk to me.”

I hide my eyes with my hands as if that will make me disappear. At least I don’t need to plug away at this sexless, emotionless relationship that reached its sell-by date a couple of years ago.

“It was an accident,” Viv stutters.

“Sure. Neil tripped, and his dick fell in you when he smashed my favourite bowl.” My body shakes, and vomit climbs up my throat. “I’m done with everything. I’m leaving.”

I swivel on my heel like I’ve practised the move a thousand times before, but remember I’m not done and turn and point at Neil. Thankfully he’s not waggling his penis anymore but struggling with his zipper. Even at my five-foot-three height, I’m a force to be reckoned with. Projectile vomit threatens to destroy the surge of confidence this catastrophe has given me.

“You can deal with the rent, which you’ve never contributed to, alone. And I’m taking your Xbox.”

“Wait,” he bellows before a guttural scream explodes from his mouth. My mouth drops open, and I cover it quickly, swallowing down bile. Neil bursts into tears, not because of our dead relationship or because I’m taking the game console that I’m fed up with tripping over every day. He’s caught his dick in his zipper.

“Karma’s a bitch,” I mumble.

I freeze in the doorway. Should I stay and help? No. I’m not such a doormat that I’ll rescue the man I caught cheating on me.

I throw the first aid box from the shelf at Viv. “He’s your problem now.”

I stumble to the bathroom in time to vomit into the toilet before hastily filling a bag. The things that matter—my cooking equipment—are still in the car. My family’s cookery school owns the best stuff anyway.

The items significant to me have more than monetary value. In the boot of my car are the hand-carved spoons my grandad made for me and my grandma’s favourite spatula, which she bought the month she set up the original Cloud Cookery School.

“Babe, don’t leave me. Viv was just sex,” Neil says as Viv dabs at his flaccid and bleeding penis. I modelled my first Naughty Treat cookies on that pathetic excuse for a penis.

I sigh, shove my hair into a bun before yanking the Xbox’s cables from the wall, and tuck the game console under my arm.

“I don’t care anymore. You don’t deserve me.” I don’t know if I believe that, but I want to hurt him as he hurt me. I swipe at the tears that brim my eyes and snap, “The sex wasn’t great when we met, and then it got worse. I’m done.”

I stumble over Neil’s five pairs of expensive trainers before losing my shit and throwing them out of the front door and onto the front lawn.

“You didn’t even mow the lawn,” I yell over my shoulder as if it matters.

I slam the door hard to make a dramatic exit, which is pointless, as my last words were about mowing the damn lawn. I speed-dial my sister as I throw my bag and the Xbox into my rusty tin bucket of a car.

I have no money, no partner, and no friends, and I’m about to make a ridiculous decision that will put me into the orbit of one of the sexiest chefs ever to hand-roll pasta.

Amber answers on the second ring. “I know you’ll say you can’t come, but please consider my offer again. The doctor told me I have to go on maternity leave early and–”

“I’m on my way. I’ll be with you in about four hours,” I announce loud enough for the nosey cow at number five to hear. I point at her net curtains, which suddenly flop down. She could’ve told me my boyfriend was sleeping with my business partner. She’s mentioned the lawn often enough.

From the driver’s seat, I close my eyes and fist and stretch my hands as if making biscuit dough. My pulse beats out of control.

I remember all the times Neil encouraged me to work late because we needed the money and the times Viv checked when I was coming home so we could “discuss the business.” I flip down my visor and stare at my wild-eyed appearance. My bun is already a shaggy mess, and the dark circles under my eyes remind me that I’ve strained under the relationship and trying to make the business a success for too long.

“But you said your business and life were too important,” Amber fumbles through her words. I bet she’s rubbing her baby bump. This pregnancy and the fact that her naval officer husband is away on a submarine for some secret mission have got to her. Another reason why I must go home. I need to be with her and run that school.

But she’s a confident and skilled cookery school manager, and you’re not. I glare at myself. Suck it up, buttercup. You’re going home and learning cooking skills from a hot chef, which will help you develop a better dirty treats business.

“I’m coming, and I have an Xbox for you to play on until the baby comes. So you can put your feet up and—”

“But what about Neil?” Amber crows.

“I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.” I grip the steering wheel as I run through all the reasons why staying would be a bigger mistake than going to the cookery school.

“Good. I hated that guy. He was lazy, selfish, and never supported your dreams.”

“And he broke the bowl you gave me when I started Naughty Treats.”

And he slept with my friend and business partner in my kitchen. But I’ll wait until we’re sharing cookie dough ice cream to tell her that.

“The bastard. I’ll break him if I get the chance.”

I laugh long and loud. It was what I needed my sister to say. Once the twins are born, Neil’s a goner. Pregnant with twins and without her husband, she must have been struggling for months. My true best friend and sister, who’s always there for me, needed me.

“I’m sorry for not coming home sooner. I’ve wasted all this time in an ugly city with a crappy boyfriend—”

“Ruby, you can beat yourself up when you get here. Just come home so I can cuddle you.”

“I am sorry, though. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you.”

“I’ll put you through the wringer, don’t you worry,” she jokes. “Can you start tomorrow?”

“Yep. I can’t wait.” My reflection tells me off for lying, and I stick my tongue out at my brown eyes and freckled nose. “I’ll be at yours in four hours and then start tomorrow morning at the cookery school.”

“Fantastic. See you soon, baby sister,” Amber adds. “Love you to the sky and back.”

“And even further,” I say softly before hanging up.

I glance through the window of my former house, where a weeping Neil holds himself while Viv throws rolls of bandages at him. I start the car, which splutters.

“Come on, girl.” Quickly, she starts revving like she’s about to pass out. “It’s now or never.”

My tyres squeal my goodbye as I shout, “Go fuck yourself,” to my old life.