Rosie nodded her agreement and walked with him, then found herself unable to resist asking: ‘So why would it happen? You choosing to stick around somewhere, I mean. What sort of …extraordinarythingwould need to occur?’
She’d been aiming for jocular, but her tone came off anxious – too eager for the information.
‘I’ll know it when I see it,’ he said, evasive under pressure.
‘Surely there’s a poem for such a moment,’ Rosie teased, a little giddier than she’d realised from quaffing champagne on an empty stomach. ‘Some line you can quote.’
‘There is,’ Aled said, mock-scowling at her. ‘But I’m not going to tell you if you’re taking the piss.’
‘Oh, go on, I promise not to be an arsehole about it. Pretty please? I’ll buy the drinks!’
‘Fine.’
After giving the bartender their order, she looked back at him expectantly. ‘Hit me.’
He rolled his eyes, then cleared his throat. ‘The poem you’re looking for is “The Confirmation” by Edwin Muir.’
Rosie frowned up at him, eyes lit with outrage and amusement. ‘You massive cheat! You’re not going to recite it for me?’
‘Absolutely not – nothere, anyway.’ His cheeks had turned pink. ‘You can google it.’
Grumbling, Rosie fished her phone out of her clutch and did as he suggested. A lump formed in her throat as she took in the opening line:Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face. It was a poem about finding a home after seemingly endless travel – about stumbling upon a soulmate.
‘Aled! Aledandguest! Get your arses over here!’ a voice boomed from the nearby dance floor. Trying to swallow away the emotion that was making it difficult to breathe, Rosie looked up to see a gaggle of semi-inebriated teachers, none of whom looked likely to take no for an answer.
‘I do love this song …’ Rosie said, feigning composure and shimmying her shoulders to Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’. ‘Come on. A bit of bopping won’t kill you.’
Seemingly unable to resist her enthusiasm, Aled allowed himself to be pulled onto the dance floor. Within seconds the song changed, and the opening bars of ‘Sea of Love’ by Cat Power filtered softly through the overhead speakers.
Rosie prepared herself to step away, but before she could move Aled had pulled her closer, his hands soft against the smooth fabric at her waist. One slid up her back, meeting the bare skin of her shoulder and settling there. Holding her. ‘I thought you wanted to dance.’
After a second’s deliberation, Rosie let her body go loose in the way it had been longing to. She allowed him to turn her in slow circles, to sway with her. She revelled in the sensation of being pressed against him – her soft flesh against his broad, muscular frame. Her blood felt hot, like it was moving through her too fast, kindling fires in all the places where she wasn’t supposed to need him. It was intolerable, and she never wanted it to end.
She didn’t know she’d laid her head against his chest until, with infinite tenderness, he nestled a hand in her hair. She breathed deep, pulling air that smelled of him, ofhome, down into the bottom of her lungs. She wanted to drown in it.
Rosie had never felt like this – never been so aware of another body, another soul. She’d never felt like that other was some missing part of herself: fundamental, undeniable, necessary.
She remembered what Rhianne had said about her cousin, her eyes rolling in indulgent amusement as she iced a freshly made carrot cake. She’d called himintensely romantic– and she’d meant that he was someone for whom love was all-consuming, a riot in the heart, the reason for existing. Wrapped in his arms, Rosie found she felt the same. With James, she’d obsessed about the milestones they should have been reaching: the boxes they should have been ticking, the events and experiences that signified successful adulting. Now, she saw that none of it mattered. What were rigid life plans and her parents’ expectations, set against the profound, unruly joy of feeling known and whole?
The song ended, and they drifted apart as if awaking from a dream.
Rosie knew Aled wouldn’t kiss her, so she didn’t gaze up at him, lean forward or part her lips in readiness, even though everything in her wanted to. She kept her eyes down until the roaring inside her had quieted, until she’d swallowed away words like ‘I want you’ and ‘kiss me’ and ‘take me home’.
As the glow between them faded, they resumed talking, drinking and socialising – chatted as though it had never been. But Rosie could see it now: the shining, delicate thread that joined them. She could hear the refrain that powered her steadying heartbeat.It’s us. We fit. We’re right.
She knew what this was, and she wasn’t afraid of it.
Because for the first time, she felt sure that Aled knew it, too.
December
Chapter 23
Things between Rosie and Aled weren’t so much uncomfortable asstrainedafter the wedding reception. They were scrupulously nice to one another, neither mentioning the moment of fierce attraction they’d experienced on the dance floor – but its after-effects were palpable in the low thrum of need that pulsed between them.
Accidental touches started small fires on Rosie’s skin, and both she and Aled avoided prolonged eye contact. She lost count of the times she conversed with him while staring determinedly at the cat.
Rosie didn’t know what scruple or fear was holding him back from her, and she didn’t dare ask – but the wall between them felt shaky and insubstantial. She wondered what it would take to break it, and what might happen when it did.
