Susie has been asked to make the wedding cake. She doesn’t want to make the wedding cake, but she’s never been good at saying no, and it was especially hard to say when faced with Annabel’s literal trilling.

‘But Maxie wants you to have a role, darling! He wants you to feel included!’

Susie disagrees. If Max had really wanted her to feel included, he’d have married her, rather than dumping her for Annabel in their second year of university. Still, she doesn’t say as much to Annabel. She just says ‘I guess I could do that.’

She’s not a professional baker, but she does bake, y’know, regularly. Her colleagues love her cakes. Max used to love her cakes. She’s got this, much as she’d rather not have.

Annabel is the type to want white and traditional, Susie knows that, but also, if Annabel wanted something specific, she should have bloody said, shouldn’t she? Susie is not really the traditional, three tier, fondant-iced type. She prefers things that are more modern, cooler.

And so she bakes Annabel and Max the cake that she would have wanted, if she’d been the one marrying him. It has the three tiers, sure, but not the white sugarpaste – in fact there is no sugarpaste at all. She bakes her signature ‘naked’ cake – three layers of vanilla sponge sandwiched together with lemon buttercream, the whole thing decorated with fresh fruit.

‘I hope you like it,’ she says to Annabel on morning of the wedding, all smiles.

Annabel is too polite to say otherwise. ‘I … yes, it’s lovely.’

‘I’m so glad,’ Susie replies. ‘After all, I know Max prefers things plain.’