Firestarter Read Online Free Page B

pizza. How about I get us all a take-away from Luigi's, my treat?' he said.
    Alice decided it wouldn't hurt to let him have his own way this once and the others, including Kate, were clearly in favour too.
    'Thanks, lad,' Alice's dad said. 'While you're doing that I'll open up some of the beetroot wine I made last summer. Should be maturing nicely now.'
    'That sounds nice, but unfortunately I'm driving,' Tony said, just before Alice could utter the same sentence.
    'Oh what a shame,' Kate said. 'Let me know when you're coming next and I'll pick you up so can have lots.'
    'So kind, but I'd really hate you to miss out on a single drop.'
    Alice hastily asked everyone what they wanted to eat before her dad realised they were all more keen to ensure other people got to sample his wine than they were to drink it themselves. He was so proud of making it and so not wasting any of the fruit and vegetables he grew and really it didn't taste too bad if you added enough lemonade.
     
    Tony frequently encouraged Alice to stay with him and suggested cooking meals for her parents would be easier in his large kitchen than with her two gas rings and tiny grill. That was very true and as he even made an effort to make Kate welcome, Alice spent quite a lot of time playing house at his place.
    One afternoon Tony took her to get supplies for Sunday roast for the five of them.
    'I need to phone Rachel, I'll meet you back here in an hour,' he said.
    Alice rushed round the supermarket so as not to keep him waiting. She was outside and out of breath, with a pile of bags at her feet, forty minutes later.
    'Alice?'
    She turned to see Hamish. She felt her heart bump in a way she knew it wouldn't have if it had been Tony saying her name.
     

 
    Chapter 3
     
    'Can I offer you a lift?' Hamish asked.
    'Thanks but I'm being picked up... by my boyfriend.'
    'Ah well, can't win them all.'
    'No.' She thought of the supermarket carrier bags at her feet and the message they might be sending. Unaccountably it seemed important that Hamish didn't think her relationship with Tony was more serious than was actually the case. 'I'm cooking Sunday lunch at his place for a few people.'
    'Lucky them, I seem to remember you're a good cook.'
    'You do?' One term her home economics teacher had the bright idea of allowing pupils to cook for staff, family members or friends who would come and share the food in the lunch break. Alice had teamed up with another girl who was going out with a member of the rugby team and they'd arranged that her boyfriend come and bring Hamish. Alice didn't say a word, partly because her friend Melanie was a chatterbox and partly because being so close to Hamish their knees occasionally touched under the table had made it hard for her to breathe normally.
    'Yep. Well sort of. To be honest your friend's cooking made more of an impression. It went badly wrong, didn't it?'
    'Oh, that's right! Melanie accidentally put mint flavouring in her lemon drizzle and it tasted really strange.'
    'It looked a bit odd too.'
    'Yeah.'
    'And was weirdly crunchy.'
    'She wasn't good at cracking eggs.' Nor weighing ingredients, or reading labels or instructions actually, but Hamish had probably worked that out at the time. 'Maybe just as well she didn't do cooking as a GCSE subject.'
    'Did you?'
    'Um hmm. Got an A.' Her one and only.
    They continued to talk about school until Alice remembered Tony would be back soon. She glanced at her watch; he wasn't due for ten minutes.
    'I'd better get on,' Hamish said. 'See you around.'
    Tony pulled up just as he was walking away. 'Who was that?'
    'Just someone asking where the nearest cash point is.' She knew she was in the wrong for lying to him and that there was a problem with their relationship if she felt she must do that to prevent a row. She also felt bad that Hamish might have thought she was bored talking to him and looked at her watch as a hint for him to go. He was a nice, friendly man and she didn't want him thinking