The Artful Bite was every bit as wanky as I’d expected. Old shipping pallets were repurposed as tables, with upturned milk crates to perch on. My backside already smarted just from looking at them.

Noise bounced off the concrete floors and exposed brick walls. Most of the noise being the clatter of cutlery, which kept falling through the gaps in the pallets.

My eyes traversed the abstract art on the walls, and the swirling, bold colours sent my nerves jangling.

“Jemma!”

I blinked, and my anxiety spiked for another reason. Joe beckoned me over to a table in the corner, his laptop balanced on the pallet table. He barely looked up from the screen.

Wonderful. Dismissive Joe was my favourite.

I wound my way through the tables, wrinkling my nose at the variety of overtly healthy, artistic-looking meals that I just knew were going to taste like boiled garbage.

“Sit,” Joe commanded, tapping away at his keyboard.

“Morning, big brother,” I muttered, plonking onto the supremely uncomfortable stool, whisking out my lip gloss and swiping some over my lips. It gave me something to do while he answered emails, or transferred giant sums of money, or whatever it was he did in his banking job.

I’d worked out long ago that making me wait while he worked was just another hidden barb that career should take precedence over family. I tried to let it roll off me.

It wasn’t working so well today, not with the unnamed worries about whatever it was Ezra wanted to ‘talk’ to me about rattling around inside my brain.

I picked up the menu, discounting meal after meal. ‘Oven baked egg with a smoked trout and charred corn salad’ … they lost me at smoked trout … ‘breakfast couscous with muddled berries and charred coconut’ … muddled berries—what exactly did they have to be confused about? … ‘baked French toast with almond sprinkle and blueberry maple sauce’ … that actually sounded half decent … until I looked closer, and it didn’t come in a gluten-free option.

I sighed. Joe continued to tap away.

“Can I get you a coffee to start?” a server asked. She was wearing baggy jeans, Doc Marten boots, and a tiny, cropped, jade-coloured cardigan.

“Cute outfit!” I commented, meeting her eyes with a smile. She returned my gaze, her eyes widening for a second before she schooled her expression into something neutral.

What was that all about?

“Uh, thanks,” she mumbled, studiously avoiding looking at me. “Do you … can I get you a drink?”

I hitched my smile up higher, even as my nerves buzzed under my skin. “I’ll have a latte, please.”

“Green Goddess, Kayla,” Joe interjected, still not looking away from his screen. “And I’ll have the spiced cauliflower egg white omelette.”

The girl tapped away at the tablet in her hand. “And for you?” she asked, not so much as glancing up at me.