There’s a lapse in conversation as we eat. It’s the quietest I’ve ever heard Jules. “Feel the food coma coming on. The telltale sign of a successful meal,” she says happily when all our plates are scraped clean after third helpings. “Need ter get some kip before the pumpkin pie.”
She plops down on the sofa for a nap. Nina joins her, sliding in at Jules’s side, like they were shaped to fit together just so. They look to be out cold within thirty seconds.
Rory helps clear the table and load the leftovers into Tupperware. He starts washing all the dishes in the sink. “I really don’t mind,” he says, when I tell him he doesn’t have to do that. “I like to feel useful.”
We’ve each only had one beer, and the huge meal has negated any effects. Still, there seems to be a buzz in the room, like the light is filtered by not being filtered at all. By being completely natural and normal.
I’m not fumbling around for something interesting to say. I’m not pouring drinks or turning on music or checking the emails onmy computer. We’re just there together, washing and drying dishes at the sink, not needing to fill the space because it’s not empty in the first place.
Rory’s phone rings from its spot on the counter. A blonde woman’s face lights up the screen. She’s mid-laugh, wearing a floppy sunhat, and looking like she doesn’t have a care in the world.Emily.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“You want to take that?” I ask, passing the phone to Rory, who’s drying his sudsy hands on the dishtowel.
A shadow flits across his face, but it’s gone before I can be sure it was ever there. “I’ll call her back later,” he says, stashing the phone in his pocket as he resumes scrubbing.
“So you’re still talking?” I ask as casually as I can.
“She’s been calling a bit more often. Things have been good.” He looks cautiously hopeful, and it triggers a certain protectiveness in me.
“But she still doesn’t want to put a label on it?” I press.
“Not yet. We’ll talk over Christmas, she says. But I think we’re headed in the same direction.”
I try to hide my distrust, but I don’t try that hard, and Rory picks up on it. “What?” he asks. “You don’t like her?”
“It’s not that,” I say, and then elaborate because I can’t help myself, but maybe I can help him. “I just … I worry she’s trying tohave her cake and eat it too. She’s not willing to commit to you, but she’s not willing to let you go either.”
At least I broke up with Mateo in one fell swoop. I didn’t keep him hanging around in case I changed my mind. Though maybe that was because I knew I wasn’t going to.
“It’s not like that,” Rory says. “She’s not trying to play games. She’s just making sure she’s fully able to commit before making a lifelong decision like marriage. I respect that she’s taking it seriously.”
It makes me wish someone would defend me that way, even when, like Emily, I might not deserve it. “Okay,” I say, not wanting to probe into the areas Rory doesn’t want to go.
“Hey, Kat?” he says, voice quiet, cradling my name with care. I wonder if he’s going to ask about my dating life and the kind of person I’m looking for. It would be nice to rattle off my nonnegotiables—someone who’s princely and romantic and preferably European—so I can remind myself that’s what I’m holding out for, and nothing less.
His question isn’t about love, though.
“I’ve been wanting to ask,” he goes on. “Any update with the HR investigation?”
“Nope,” I say, chapped lips pursed as the weight of it all lands on me again. “Radio silence.”
“I’m losing patience with them,” Rory says, and I see the wheels turning in his head, trying to find alternative paths to justice. I know there’s nothing he can do, but it still feels good to have someone on my side. Like I’m not shouldering it all by myself.
“Let’s talk about it another time,” I murmur, nodding to the couch at Jules and Nina. I don’t want them to hear, not that Jules would probably remember in the morning.
“Top me up, top me up,” Jules bleats in her sleep, then flips over on her back and keeps snoring.
Soon after, Nina wakes up and tries to rouse Jules. She doesn’t budge, only burrows further into the couch. “Reckon I need to get this one into bed,” Nina says. “The punch has finally caught up with her.”
Looking more than a little dizzy herself, she attempts to heave Jules off the couch, but physics aren’t on her side. Rory jumps in to help, easily lifting Jules and carrying her next door. It seems he’s stronger than he looks. As Nina hugs me goodnight, she whispers in my ear. “He’s a keeper, that one is.”
You can’t keep something that’s not yoursis what I think to myself but don’t say aloud.
Alone in my flat, Rory and I return to our dish washing and drying routine. “I should probably get home soon,” he says once we’ve finished. “Said I’d Facetime my family.”
“Yeah,” I say, thinking of Emily and how vivacious she looked in that photo on his phone. So unlike someone who’s consumed by her corporate job. “I should call mine too.” I wonder if they even feel my absence around the table. Between work deadlines and trips with Mateo, I’ve been absent for more than a few Thanksgivings over the years, and it’s started to feel like the norm rather than the exception.
