Watching Audrey and Parker together, there is nothing but music.
It’s a sharp contrast to the tension that permeated my and Maggie’s moments with Parker, which is not a fair comparison, of course. Audrey and I haven’t been through the split of the finances. We haven’t spent years nursing each other through stressful work deadlines or interest rate rises or viruses. There hasn’t been time to build up a loathing of the way the other stacks the dishwasher or reverses into a car park. This isn’t that sort of relationship, which puts it at a distinct advantage from the start.
I tell myself not to conflate the two, the way I’ve been ordering myself, ever since the night she moved in, not to think about her in the next bedroom. This is nothing more than the short-term, mutually beneficial rental solution we negotiated. No matter how comfortable it’s all becoming.
No sooner do I allow myself this glimmer of contentment than it’s chased by that familiar pang in my chest. The one I routinely ignore, because I am the parent here. A single one, at that. I cannot afford to feel anything less than strong and stable.
Parker looks at Audrey and says, ‘“Cruel Summer” and “Love Story”?’
Audrey catches my eye.Look at me! Hitting it off with your daughter when I said I’m not good with kids!
‘Why not, Parker? What’s the worst that could happen?’ she says.
They throw themselves at the goal, stumbling and laughing through the duet until the melodies slot into place and float through our house, and I catch a starstruck expression on Parker’s face that I fear is mirrored on my own.
The worst that could happen? We’re only a few weeks in and that’s already becoming obvious.
Parker and I could get used to this. Worse, we could fall in love with this woman.
She could pull her life together.
And she’d leave.
11
AUDREY
‘Are yousurewe’re not going to distract you?’ I ask Fraser for the second time, several months after I’ve moved in. He’s sitting at the kitchen table in jeans and a long-sleeved white tee, settled in for a night of grading, a glass of red wine and a pile of student papers beside his laptop.
He considers me over the frames of his glasses. ‘It’s a book club, Audrey. How riotous could it get?’
But other than Rach, he hasn’t met my friends. He has no idea how nervous I am about hosting the Bookies here, worried the event will devolve into a soft launch of the dashingly eligible man with whom I have been secretly and temporarily living and I’ll never hear the end of it.
They know that I’m house-sharing for a while, but I left out the bit about living with science’s answer to Anthony Bridgerton. Two nights ago, after Parker went to bed, we had a meandering late-night conversation about Shakespeare, standing beside his bookshelves. I can barely recall a word of it, because he reached behind me at one stage and produced a volume of sonnets, his face so close I couldn’t tell if I was intoxicated from the wine on my own lips or his, or by the string of articulate sentences flowing from his mouth while I fell further under his spell.
I’ve kept him a secret because I’m in real trouble here. Madly applying for jobs I don’t want so I can liberate myself from this accommodation-of-convenience arrangement while my heart is still vaguely intact.
He’s newly divorced, Sara would point out.Statistically, you’ll only ever be the rebound.
Technically, even that’s getting ahead of things, casting myself as the lead in his potential rebound fling when he hasn’t made a single move in my direction. It’s all academic. And unrequited. And endless tossing and turning in the next bedroom …imagining…wondering… and having him look at me like that over his bloody glasses (whydoes my stomach flip?) as if he can read my mind!
Sure enough, as the first three book-club members bustle through the front door minutes later, arms bursting with bottles of alcohol and wheels of cheese, they make their way into the kitchen and are silenced by the unexpected sight of my handsome housemate.
‘Fraser, meet the Bookies. This is April and Clair and Jess …’
They’re quite simply gobsmacked.
‘This is Fraser.’How do I explain him?‘My, um—’
All four of them turn to me now, very keen for this explanation, and I have to restrain myself from babbling all sorts of nonsense into the growing pause:He’s my flatmate. And my ex-musical-soulmate’s younger brother. A former client from that job where I was sacked—you know, over the Antichrist and whatnot? Oh, also, briefly, Rach’s fake fiancé …
I don’t end up saying any of that, because, watching me struggle, he gets up from the table and places his hand fleetingly, but significantly, on the small of my back as he steps past me, unburdens my friends of their provisions, and says, ‘Audrey’s told me all about you.’
The three of them are like those open-mouthed clowns in sideshow alley, heads turning in unison from him to me. April, dressed per usual to the nines in tailored black pants, boots, a crisp white shirt, a black vest, and a deep red Windsor knot at her throat, steps towards him with her CEO energy, pulls him into a hearty and unexpected hug, and proclaims, ‘She’s told usscandalously littleabout you!’
That’s when he offers everyone a drink, because I appear to have lost all my social graces. I’m still back at the part where he touched me, skin alight from the gentle pressure of his fingertips through my dress. There he is, pouring cabernet sauvignon and making small talk with the Bookies while I wrangle visions of Shakespeare and candlelight and being properly backed up against his bookshelves next time, while he—
There’s a sound at the door before Rach breezes into the kitchen, all flowing blonde hair in a cloud of sky-blue linen, and says, ‘Fabulous! You’ve all met!’ Then she sweeps me aside and whispers, hopefully not loudly enough for anyone else’s hearing, ‘Why do you look like you’ve just had sex?’
