A little dazed, Rosie peeled off her sodden coat and hung it over the pub’s vast, Victorian-style radiator. What hadthatbeen about?
Was it possible he liked her? The idea seemed absurd.
Then again, she couldn’t imagine that Aled of all people would go around touching random women’s faces for no reason. Everything about him was deliberate, thoughtful and intense. For a moment, she let herself imagine not just kissing him, but being kissedbyhim. She had no doubt the experience would be world-altering: deep and urgent and insistent. It would be the kind of kiss that involved clashing hips, fingers stroking up and underneath t-shirt hems to find bare skin, and lips caught teasingly between teeth. The sort of kiss that happened in books and on film, and maybe in real life – but never to her.
Rosie exhaled heavily, then made herself confront the painful truth she’d been avoiding all afternoon. Just as she’d intended, James’s am-dram performance of penitence felt like it had happened a thousand years ago – not merely this morning. His unexpected appearance had paled into insignificance beside the fulfilment of a long-forgotten childhood wish … but mainly beside the euphoric feeling of Aled’s hand closing around hers.
Niamh had warned Rosie it would be impossible to live with such a gorgeous man and not end up smitten. What she hadn’t foreseen was how much Aled would start tomatterto Rosie – that whatever physical attraction he inspired would give way to genuine attachment.
Rosie wasn’t sure how or when this had happened. Perhaps there’d been a tipping point she missed – some key moment that tilted her in a direction it now seemed impossible to change. Either way, it hit her that the feeling she’d been staving off for weeks was now flooding her, filling her from top to toe in the brief minutes it took Aled to buy her a drink. The dam had burst, and she thought of a phrase that had struck her when she’d studiedThe Sun Also Risesat school. Asked how he went bankrupt, one of Hemingway’s characters replied:gradually, then suddenly.
Aled reappeared, all enigmatic face-touching forgotten. More inscrutable than he’d been in weeks, he set a pint of Aspall cider down in front of her, then produced a packet of Scampi Fries from his coat pocket. ‘The Marmite of pub snacks,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘Thought I should find out: are you a lover or a hater?’
‘A lover,’ Rosie answered, feigning composure she wasn’t anywhere close to feeling.
‘Damn it – me too,’ he said, with a tight smile. ‘I should have bought two packets.’
As they ate and drank in companionable silence, Rosie took fries from the torn-open bag at rare intervals – an act of self-preservation, lest her skin brush against Aled’s and cause her to spontaneously combust.
After a second drink and a drizzly potter around Primrose Hill, they were both ready to head home. Neither of them fancied a long, cold walk in the dark that was falling, so they ordered an Uber.
It stopped at the end of their street, and their breath misted in the evening cold as they got out of the cab. Rosie felt consumed by the need to say something –dosomething.
This was the best ‘date’ – and actually one of the bestdays– she had ever had, but she had no idea what any of it meant. Aled seemed to have shut down, retreating into himself in a way that reminded her of how he’d been when they first met. Yet what she’d felt when his fingertip met her cheek earlier had been real.Electric.
Yes, Rosie was generally short of self-confidence – but she couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t felt it, too. And there was tenderness in the way he treated her. There had been from the start. There was understanding between them: a sense that each recognised the other, could see qualities that most people would miss.
The air between them was dense – thick with things unsaid. Rosie longed to reach for his hand: to lace her fingers through his as they strolled towards home. Somehow, on some elemental level, she felt sure that if she did so, he’d know why.
Just as she resolved to act, he stopped walking abruptly. ‘Rosie,’ he said, turning to her. His voice was low. Urgent. ‘There’s something I need to say. Something I have to tell you.’ He sounded almost nervous.
‘OK …?’ Rosie said, feeling like her heart had just tripped over itself. ‘What is it?’
‘I … um. When I first moved in with you … Argh.No. What I mean to say is—’
‘Aled? Al, is that you?’
The voice that cut through the twilight was female. Accented. The figure that went with it was tall, slender and dark-haired.
The woman wore a black, belted coat, high-heeled boots and indigo skinny jeans. Her hair was threaded with tiny beads of moisture that glimmered in the light from the street lamp above. She was beautiful, as Rosie had guessed she’d be: large blue eyes were set above a slender nose and a pretty, petal-pink mouth. Even from several metres away, Rosie could tell her cheeks were flushed with cold. She guessed this meant their visitor had been outdoors for a while. Waiting.
‘Ceri?’ Aled said, his tone surprised but not displeased. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to see you,’ she said. ‘I hope it’s OK.’
‘Er … sure,’ Aled replied, running a hand through his damp hair, tugging at it in the way he always did when he felt awkward. He turned to Rosie. ‘I didn’t know she was coming,’ he said helplessly. Confidentially. ‘We’ll go round the corner to the pub and catch up there.’
‘Who’s your friend?’ Ceri said. She’d walked towards them and was close enough to look Rosie up and down in a way that reminded her of her mother. In the split second it took Ceri to conduct this assessment, Rosie authentically hated her.
‘This is Rosie,’ Aled said. ‘She’s my flatmate.’
Not even a friend, then?Rosie thought.Or not enough of one for you to admit it.
Ceri’s perfectly threaded eyebrows briefly pulled together. ‘Ah. I see.’
What do you see? Rosie wondered. What do youwant?
Reluctantly, Rosie remembered what Aled had said earlier: that he’d grown tired of travelling, but wasn’t sure about accepting a permanent role at school. ‘Rhianne’s here,’ he’d said – and she’d assumed he meant ‘in London’, but maybe he meant ‘in the UK’. It could be that the homesickness he’d said Rhianne occasionally suffered had hit him, too. He certainly had plenty to miss: a mother who adored him, a supportive stepfather, and two half-siblings he doted on.
