Chapter 25 Rosie
ROSIE
The car ride was thick with something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Wesley was white-knuckling the steering wheel to the point that I was concerned for the well-being of the wheel.
I was grimacing, wondering what exactly would happen if it broke in half.
Can it break in half? No. No way, right?
“Wes…”
“It’s Wesley. And did you change your perfume?” His voice sounded angry, like he was barely able to contain it.
“My, uh…My what?”
“Your perfume,” he asked again.
“I don’t wear any,” I said softly, still mildly concerned over the steering wheel. “It’s probably just my shampoo…Saturdays are hair wash days.”
I heard a whoosh of breath leave Wesley, and I was pretty sure I heard a fuck in there, but I couldn’t be sure. “It’s the same shampoo I’ve always had.”
I only got a grunt in response this time.
Thankfully, we were at the corner bakery in minutes, and I felt gratitude at living in a small town; the air in the car had definitely been starting to run out.
I all but threw my door open before a low growling from next to me had me spinning around, temporarily forgetting that I was suffocating.
“Stay,” Wesley said in a deadly low tone, and reached over to shut the door I had opened.
He lingered as he did, and this time, I heard exactly what he said under his breath.
“Shampoo.” Yeah, I need air. I almost kicked open the door again to get out.
There had never been tension like that between Wesley and me.
Never. I mean, sure, I drooled when his back was turned, but it had never felt like that.
I was terrified and turned on at the same time, and I mentally smacked myself. Girlfriend—almost live-in girlfriend. Get it together, Rosie. Thankfully, Wesley had exited the vehicle, so I had a few moments to do what I had been telling myself. Get it together.
He all but ripped open the passenger side door, but instead of moving to the side, like any sane person would, he stayed standing right there; perfectly in my way, so if I tried to climb out, we would be chest to chest.
“Wesley, you need to move,” I informed him. It is the door debacle all over again.
Instead of going back and forth, he moved to the side, but I swore it was in slow motion. Or maybe it was the wind that molded the shirt he was wearing to his torso. And I absolutely noticed the way it clung to him. I could almost make out the V that I knew would be leading to his…
“Rosie?” Wesley’s amused voice had me shaking my head and jumping out of the car in about two seconds flat, not bothering to look back to see if he was following me.
It was strange. The energy around us felt weird, and I was getting ready to bolt.
Why has it been hot everywhere lately? It is winter.
It shouldn’t be this hot anywhere in winter, I thought as I yanked open the door to Bread and Bloom, the smell of freshly ground coffee immediately calming me.
It was one of the reasons I loved my Sunday morning open shifts at Orla’s.
The quiet with coffee, opening the place in a peaceful rhythm.
The definition of the calm before the storm.
“Well, if it isn’t my two best friends, one of whom I never see anymore,” Megan called over to us.
She was standing behind the counter, and I felt guilt roll over me.
I knew I had been silly, thinking I couldn’t still be friends with Megan and Lake.
They were my friends, too, and we weren’t five. I could share.
“Blame my new job,” I tried to play it off, attempting to make light of the situation. Megan, being who she was, thankfully let it go, and gave it back to me with ease and joy written all over her face, no hint of anything else in her words.
“If you needed a part time job, chicka, you could have just asked.” She winked at me, knowing that us working together would have been a disaster—especially now that I knew what an awful waitress I really was.
Orla really should have fired me, but she never would, and I knew she valued how I was with the customers over a few broken plates and wrongly placed orders… I think.
“Another job?” Wesley’s eyes furrowed together in confusion.
“Yeah, this traitor works part-time at Orla’s. Can you believe it?”
I felt Wesley’s gaze as it bore into the side of my head, that annoying prickling of awareness that had been so potent running rampant. I was concerned I was going to break out into goose bumps from that alone.
“Is everything okay?” Concern laced in his words, and I felt my resolve falter. “Do you need money? I have some, or I can get a loan. It’s not…” His rambling and jumbled words threatened to be my undoing. I put a finger to his mouth in an effort to get him to calm down and stop talking.
“Wes…” He started to growl around my finger.
There was the physical reaction to him that I’d been doing my best to avoid.
Chills felt like they were stemming straight from my bones, rocking through me, and I yanked my finger away and stumbled backward.
I cursed myself mentally again, which caused Wesley to shoot his arm around me and pull me close to him to steady me.
I was in a such a state of fluster from the chain of events, and I was debating fleeing and walking back to my car at the library. But Wesley still had his arm wrapped around me, and with the way his fingers were digging into my sides, I didn’t think I would make it very far, if anywhere at all.
“I’m good.”
I just got a grunt in response as he spun me around and walked with his chest against my back. I felt like there were little tiny bolts of electricity firing off where his chest rubbed against me. He firmly deposited me into a seat.
“Sit. I’ll be right back,” he all but ordered, and I hated the way I squeezed my thighs together at the way he said sit.
I needed to find a way to exit the situation immediately.
I had always been able to get a grip on my emotions and feelings for Wesley to almost an unnatural degree, but suddenly, it was like they were simmering in a pot.
And every word—even something as basic as sit—was seconds away from causing them to boil over.
Get it together.
Before I could pull my thoughts together long enough to come up with a reasonable escape plan, Wesley had returned with my favorite; I could smell the spice already.
“Chai with marshmallow syrup.” He held it out to me, like an olive branch. I debated not taking it, but the smells reminded me so much of Christmas and happiness in a cup that I begrudgingly plucked it from his hand and took a sip, a hum of appreciation in my throat.
I set it down and finally looked across from me. He looked like he was covered in a sheen of sweat and rather pale. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I inquired.
“I’m sure.” He watched me take another sip of my drink, and the silence was becoming unbearable.
“So, book club?” he asked, and a stupid look crossed my face, because those ladies were something else.
“Book club,” I confirmed.
“Contenders,” he said.
“That’s a new development.”
“Sure.”
“Where’s Caitlin?” I felt petty at that moment, but I couldn’t take back the words.
“It’s over.”
“That’s also a new development,” I repeated my statement again, unsure of what it meant.
My thoughts started to trip over themselves in a symphony of something akin to panic.
Is that why things feel weird? Oh, god, did they break up because of something I did?
I tried. I really tried my best to be nice.
Is that what this is about? Is that why everything feels weird? Wesley blames me?
“It was necessary.”
The heck does that mean?
“Why is this weird, Wes?”
“I swear, if you call me Wes, not Wesley, one more time, I might actually lose it.” He seethed, and he reminded me of a bull.
At that moment, the only thing missing was the steam coming from his nostrils.
If we were outside, he might have actually had steam billowing from them.
I snorted out a laugh, because what else could I do? I was so uncomfortable.
Wesley’s eyebrows shot up in confusion before his lips tilted, and he also started to laugh with me—the kind that settled in between uncomfortable and awkward lines, where neither one could stop because stopping meant facing the uncomfortable conversation we had yet to have.
Tears were streaming down my face, and my belly started to cramp in pain. I’ve missed this.
“Good grief, you two okay over here?” Megan sauntered over, effectively breaking the spell that had Wesley and me trapped. I started to wipe away the tears that had fallen and waved her off to the best of my ability. “We’re fine,” I told her, almost lamely. Wesley just nodded in agreement.
Megan gave us a parting look that told us she didn’t believe what we were trying to sell. She moved on to talk to another table without saying another word. The silence that had been filling the gaps between us returned, and it was uncomfortable and stifling.
Wesley was the one to break it. “I miss you, Rosie. This…I don’t really—uh, I don’t know what to say.
I just miss you. It feels like things have shifted, and I feel it here.
” He pointed to the spot in his chest where his heart was.
“And it’s really fucking unsettling. I feel unsettled.
” As he spoke the words, it seemed like he was coming to his own realization about how he felt.
“I miss my friend.” The words froze whatever had seemed to be seeping in.
What had started the second I saw him at the library, to the car ride, to now, stuttered and froze.
“Friend,” I said back at him.
“Yeah. Best friend.” He said the words best friend like that mattered.
The realization that he missed me now that he and Caitlin had ended washed over me, and my cup wavered in my hand as it started to shake. I needed to get out of there before I said something I would regret. “Rosie?”
“Oh. Uh, sure. Friends.” Vague. I kept it vague.
“I mean, it’s weird. I keep expecting to see you cursing out Ted, or a text, asking me what takeout I want for a video game night.
I’m not sure what I did, but I’d like to get that back…
I know I was a dick to you. I shouldn’t have said those things.
I want us to go back to the way things were.
Without any of that other stuff between us. ”
I just stared at him. Back to the way things were. A small giggle escaped my lips, and he smiled back at me, clearly thinking that it meant I was about to forgive him.
“Wesley, have I always just been a friend to you?” I asked him point-blank. His eyes squinted in confusion at my question before he turned his head slightly to the left, as if appraising me before choosing his next words carefully.
“What else would you be, Rosie?” He had this floundering look about him—utter confusion.
“I’ve just been chasing after your silhouette for about a decade, and I just…need to breathe. Without you, for now.”
“What does that even mean?” He tried to reach across the table for me, but I flinched away from his touch and went to grab my purse from underneath my feet.
“It means I need time to not be your best friend anymore, Wesley. I just…need a life without you for a while.”
“No,” he rasped. I flew out of my seat as he tried to reach for me again, this time just catching the air of where I used to be.
“Give me space,” I told him quietly before I moved out of Bread and Bloom, unable to spare one single glance back.
The ladies are right. I need to date. I need to be something to someone.
Something that isn’t just a best friend.