Chapter 3
I’m moving in with Booker Harris. I’m moving in with Booker Harris! I’m…moving in with Booker Harris. I sing the last bit in my head because then the statement seems to resonate a bit longer.
It still sounds peculiar, even in a B-flat.
I was prepared to take my time moving back to London when my lease started in July. But one good job offer later and here I am. In Booker’s building. With his brothers. Like nothing’s changed.
Booker’s offer was awfully sweet and incredibly unexpected, especially considering the last time we saw each other was six years ago and it wasn’t the best of goodbyes.
But commuting would have been a nightmare, and his flat is very close to the school I’ll be working at. It was silly of me to try and refuse.
Right?
Right.
That’s totally it. Booker’s my best friend and I haven’t seen him since I was nineteen. What better way to reconnect with an old friend than to move in with him for an extended period of time when there’s nowhere to run and hide?
Never mind that I’ll have to share a bathroom with him.
So what if I find bonk juice on the shower wall because he has to tug one out after a stressful match.
It’s no biggie if he catches me arse over tit as I’m attempting to shave my poop chute.
Speaking of which, what happens when I have to poo?
Or when he has to poo? We’re mates, right?
Totally cool! I won’t mind a bit if he can hear the ploop, ploop of me backing a couple out.
Good God, how do couples do this?
How do they decide to cohabitate with each other?
Booker and I aren’t even in a relationship!
But here we are, blazing right into this without a care in the world like it’s a normal Sunday.
Don’t mind me. I’m only moving in with my best mate from childhood who happens to swing a penis between his thighs.
I’m going to have to hide my tampons.
This is easily the maddest thing I’ve done since I left London for University in Frankfurt for reasons I don’t care to revisit.
But there is a silver lining: I became fluent in German and earned my Master’s in education.
Now I’m able to help mould young minds and teach them the language of the country that birthed the Brothers Grimm, Beethoven, Mercedes-Benz, and Oktoberfest!
Those reasons alone were totally worth flying across the English Channel.
I digress.
I’m back in London! This is what I’ve needed. Germany—while lovely and perfect for broadening my horizons—never felt like home. The French have a word for that feeling: Dépayser. To feel displaced from one’s native land or familiar routine. I missed my home country.
And, despite myself, I missed Booker. He is still my best friend and losing him was really hard. So I’m going to take this time with him to reconnect. To help feel right again. He’s convinced that living together will be like old times.
After one brief hug where I wrapped my arms around a large, twenty-five-year-old version of Booker—where I could feel the warmth of him, the firmness of his muscles, remember his scent and how he always hugged me whenever I was sad—I’m convinced that I can do this.
I’m no longer in love with Booker. We’re best friends and nothing more, which is a relief because my eighteen-year-old self was a deluded cow.
I almost ruined everything by sharing those silly feelings I thought I had.
It was all so foolish. I was such an imaginative child that I had warped basic acts of friendship into acts of true love.
Thank goodness I now know the difference.
12 Years Old
“You there.” I turn when a voice from somewhere in the night nearly scares the piss out of me. I see a tall, beautiful brunette with legs up to her armpits striding through the garden right for me. “What are you doing here?”
I quickly swipe away my tears and wipe my nose on my sleeve as she steps out of the darkness and under the motion light streaming over me.
I’ve been standing at the backside of the grand Harris house for the past ten minutes, waiting for the painful ache in my chest to stop.
Then I was going to climb the twenty-foot trellis into my best mate, Booker’s room.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. What’s she doing here?
She peers down at me like I’m a hobbit and she’s Gandalf the Grey. Her eyes follow the paths my residual tears left on my cheeks. I’m still rendered speechless. God, her hair is cool. It’s cut into a short bob at her chin and makes her big boobs stand out like round dough balls.
Okay, that’s a lie. Her hair has nothing to do with her boobies. But those are two very nice qualities she has, along with those spider legs of hers.
She laughs and it sounds like Christmas. “Do you speak?”
I push my blonde hair out of my face. I’ve been telling Mum for ages that I want to cut it. “Sometimes,” I mutter, trying to sound cool. I think she buys it.
“Well, can you tell me why you’re out here?” Her eye-lined eyes pierce me with judgement. Mum won’t let me wear makeup either.
I point up to the window. “Erm…Booker is…erm…my mate.”
She laughs again—that glorious peal of church bells. “Why didn’t he tell you where the key is hidden?”
She bends over and lifts the rug in front of the door.
Why didn’t I think to look there? When she stands, she shows it to me with a grin, like we’re sharing a special secret.
I move over, and she inserts the key and turns the knob.
She pauses on the threshold and looks back over her shoulder with her gaze narrowed. “How old are you?”
I consider lying and telling her I’m sixteen because that seems like the age when cool things start to happen to people. Instead, I blurt out the truth. “Twelve.” I’m such an amateur.
She shakes her head. “A little young to be sneaking into a boy’s room in the middle of the night, don’t you think?”
Well, this would be a first. I consider telling her the real reason I’m here, but then the pain comes back in my throat and I think I might cry. So I change directions and ask, “Who are you here to see?”
“Tanner, though I’d happily visit Gareth or Camden if they were an option. Booker’s a bit too young for me.” She winks and giggles, so I giggle back. It seems like the polite thing to do.
“What about Vi?” Booker’s sister is so nice. If I were older, I’d want to be her mate.
The girl smirks and whispers, “I’m not here for girl talk.”
I whisper back, “Then what are you here for?”
She puckers her mouth and licks her lips like a serpent. “Never mind that. After you.” She gestures for me to walk in and follows close behind me.
We pass through the dark conservatory and into the long marble-floored hallway that leads to the front door.
I’ve been in this house a million times, but it feels a bit different in the middle of the night.
The Harris house isn’t known for its warmth and comfort.
Really, Booker comes to my house more than I come to his.
But things have been different lately. Booker and his brothers are all practicing with the football club their dad manages, so I’ve been seeing less and less of him. I miss him.
I take a sharp left to climb the grand staircase. There’s a dim lamp at the top of the stairs illuminating our path.
The girl whispers in my ear, “Stay to the right side on the steps. The rest of it creaks like Granny’s rocking chair.”
“Booker doesn’t have a grandma.” At least not one that I’ve ever seen.
The girl begins laughing in hushed tones, so I do as she says, only tripping twice because I activate my perfected James Bond MI6 stealth walk. I’ve tested it out with Booker in the park many times, and I know I look cool doing it.
When the girl and I complete the long climb, I watch her as she passes me, stopping at the first door on the right. “Toodles,” she says with a wink and opens the door. I catch a peek of a shirtless Tanner laying on his bed with a lamp on. He looks up with a grin, obviously expecting her.
I shrug and tiptoe to the end of the hallway to Booker’s room. I’ve been in his before, but for some reason, this plan seems so much scarier than it did a moment ago. But then the pain in my chest returns and all I want is my best friend.
Quietly, I open the door and catch a faint outline of Booker’s bed as my eyes adjust to the lack of lighting in his room. “Booker,” I whisper. He shoots up like a gun went off. He’s always been a light sleeper.
“What is it? Who’s there?” He ruffles the top of his dark mess of hair and shakes his head to wake himself up.
“Shhh! It’s me, Poppy.”
“Poppy?” he asks and swings his legs off the bed. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“I was going to climb up to your window like a brave white knight, but a girl was here to see Tanner. She showed me where you guys hide the key, so I…walked in with her.” Man that seems so much less dramatic than my original plan.
“Oh, okay,” he states with little feeling. “What’s up?”
He says the same welcoming phrase he says to me on any regular day, but after the night I’ve had, that simple question brings a quiver to my chin. “Book…” My voice cracks. “Pink died.”
“Oh no, Poppy! How?” He rises up out of the bed and pads barefoot over to me in the dark. My arms are hugging myself as tightly around my middle as I can stand, but he manages to wrap me up even tighter. “What happened to him?”
I sniffle into his shirt. “I came home from piano lessons and Pink was going crazy, growling and nipping at me and my sister…It was like he didn’t know us!
” I stop talking to let out a few soft cries, and Booker begins rubbing my back in slow circles.
I bury my face in his smooth, soft chest and have a proper cry before I tell him the rest. “Dad took him into his clinic and did some tests. He says it was a brain tumor and that Pink didn’t know what he was doing.
We had to put him to sleep, Booker. I watched the entire thing. ”