I shook my head. “That fizzled out ages ago. What about you? Single still?” Carter had liaisons and dates, sometimes repeats, but I’d not learned the name of any girlfriend in the last few years.
“It’s complicated. I can’t believe you’re single.” He looked perplexed. “Not that I think you need to be with someone – I’m not saying that.”
“I don’t consider myself to have been left on the shelf.” My look was disdainful. “I like being single.”
“No consultants sniffing around?”
“Nope. Or if they are, I haven’t noticed.”
“You’re not looking to start seeing anyone?”
I shrugged, curious about his questions. “I’m not on any dating apps. If I meet someone, I meet someone.”
“So Rory didn’t make a reappearance then?”
I stiffened, glad that the waiter appeared with our drinks. I still didn’t react well to hearing Rory’s name. I’d had a patient on the ward also called Rory, and I’d hoped that would’ve recontextualised the name, but it didn’t.
“I don’t even know what he’s doing now.” I made no attempt to find out either. Rory was fixed in my past, along with a lot of heartache that I didn’t want to relive. I felt stupid for wasting mytime on him, but my therapist head told me I’d benefit from the experience going forward.
“I keep an eye on him.” Carter looked away from me, his expression stony. He’d never liked Rory, at one point distancing himself because he told me he was afraid I’d never forgive him if he told Rory exactly what he thought of him.
I’d been too smitten to explore it then, keeping in touch with Carter via text and through other people. In the year or so after Rory and I had split, Carter and I had become close again, picking our friendship up where we’d left off with noI told you sosor interrogation. We just moved on and didn’t talk about how I’d been heartbroken.
“You stalk his socials?” I tried to sound light-hearted.
He nodded. “Something like that. What do you fancy ordering? I think the waiter’s on his way.”
We discussed food choices, the weather in London and what was on at the theatres, and we fell straight back into a familiar rhythm where we could talk about almost anything and nothing at all.
I’d missed him, felt better knowing he was back living close by as if my jigsaw was finally complete, and I wondered what that meant.
“Do you think you’ll have dessert?” He put the menu down and looked serious.
“Will you?”
Carter shook his head. “Such a psychotherapist – answering a question with a question. We both know I’m not going to order dessert.” He patted his stomach, which I suspected would still be ribbed with muscle, like it had since he’d been nineteen.
“Which means I need to order one of the large ones so you can share. Then it doesn’t count.” It was the most ridiculous way around things.
“That would make me happy, Rose.”
We both burst out laughing, the words exactly what a creepy boy in Carter’s year had used to say to me to try and get in my pants.
Note: they never worked.
We ate, shared dessert, and had a glass of champagne before Carter picked the up bill with a promise from me to get it next time.
“I’ll go home via yours,” he said as we exited.
“Why? You live five minutes from here.” And it was numbingly cold, the sort of chill that didn’t usually take over London. Snow was forecast in the next couple of days, which again, was unusual.
“I’m wide awake and I feel like looking round London. I’ve missed it. I didn’t realise how much until I got back.”
We walked by the Thames for a bit, my place a good hour and half walk from Borough Market, but twenty or so minutes on the Tube. A few people were out running or dog walking, one or two crowds of huddled kids and tourists, braving the cold night.
We took the clipper, the taxi boats that run along the Thames, at London Bridge, Carter wanting to sit outside for a better view than through streaked windows. I squashed myself close to him, wanting the warmth, feeling like I did when I was nineteen and we were on our way back from watching Twelfth Night, Carter the only person I could persuade to go with me, as the rest of my friends and family were heathens.
Which I obviously told them.
