19. NINETEEN
Roscoe’s idea of comfortable turned out to be soft grey sweatpants and a plain white T-shirt that gripped the bulge of his biceps in the sort of loving embrace Poppy could very much empathise with.
It ought to come with a health warning.
She was in her tatty leggings and a long-sleeved top, already tucked up into a corner of the sofa when he walked into the room. He smiled, but the doorbell rang with their food.
Roscoe brought it in, together with some plates and cutlery from the kitchen. There was a four-pack of bottled craft beers balanced on the plates. He put it all down on the coffee table.
“Beer?” he offered. “Or there’s wine.”
“No, beer is great, thank you.”
They piled their plates.
Poppy said things like: “Mmm, this smells good.”
Roscoe said things like: “Do you want any more of this rice?”
Then they settled into their opposite corners of the sofa and pretended this whole situation was all completely normal.
It was a very big sofa, but Roscoe was a very large man, broad in the shoulder, and sitting with one foot tucked up, knee reaching halfway to her, and it didn’t feel like a big sofa at all. In fact, the whole room felt very, very small.
Poppy drank some beer. Coughed on the bubbles.
Roscoe gave his beer and plate an amused, squinting examination. “I’ve heard rumours of this.”
“Relaxing?”
“Ah, is that what it’s called?”
Smiling, Poppy picked up the remote. “I was going to say we should watch a film, but I don’t think you’ll stay awake that long.”
“Hey. I can stay up all night.”
She snorted.
Roscoe winced. “I did not mean that to sound the way it sounded.”
Fiercely suppressing memories of “All night, Poppy…” she busied herself looking through the on-screen listings. “Let’s just watch a TV show. You might be able to handle thirty minutes.”
He gave her a flat look, then had to suppress a yawn, which made them both laugh. “Busted,” he muttered.
“Any shows you’re watching?” she asked, still flicking through their options.
“I started that new sci-fi one a while back. You know, with the bounty hunter and the baby—”
“I know it.” She navigated to it. “It says you’re up to…episode one. Of the first series.”
“That’s as far as I got.”
“You know this show’s been out for years now?”
“I was a bit busy.”
“It’s up to the third series.”
“Shit. Really?”
“The little guy has aname now.”
“Shh. No spoilers!”
Laughing, she put it on.
Roscoe was—he could freely admit to himself, if to no one else—a bit of a nerd. He worked with numbers. Liked numbers. Data. Analysis. Of course he was a nerd.
And so, it turned out, was Poppy.
He could tell by the avid way she watched the show, the comments she made that showed her understanding of the franchise. He did exactly the same, and together, as a big silver guy saved a little green guy, they got their nerd on.
When the show ended, Poppy turned the TV off.
“Noooo,” he protested. “Let’s watch the next one.”
“You’re yawning your head off. You nearly fell asleep in your Pad Thai.”
“Did not.”
“Did so.”
“Are we really doing this?”
“You started it.”
He laughed. But he really was exhausted, had nearly drifted off a couple of times, eyelids heavy. The food filling his stomach wasn’t helping, or the beer in his veins. The only thing keeping him alert was the woman sitting nearby. He never lost his awareness of her.
She had been sitting with her legs curled under her. Now they were stretched out, bare feet resting on the edge of the coffee table. She was wearing black leggings. There was no varnish on her toenails, just pale pink shells at the tips of her pale pink feet. His eyes tracked up to her calves, her knees…
He reached for his beer, picking up his phone at the same time. He quickly checked his emails, pulled up some market reports… And Poppy plucked the phone from his hand.
“Time for bed, Mr Blackton.”
Which dialled straight into just about every secretary-slash-stern nurse fantasy he’d ever had. However, on the less arousing side, she had his phone. His very important work phone.
He held his hand out. She shook her head.
“Seriously?” he asked.
She held it behind her back. “You need a lie in.”
“I need the phone. It has my alarm on, all my alerts.”
“Your four AM alarm? Do you think I don’t hear it go off?”
“I need to check the markets.”
“No, you do not. Not on a Saturday.”
“Poppy, you don’t—”
“And even in the week, they close at seven AM GMT, or Shanghai does. Hong Kong closes at eight!”
“But there’s the pre-market movements, too, all the world news to catch up on, brokerage—”
“All your strategies are medium- to long-term—”
“We rebalance portfolios daily—”
“No, you do, but that’s not—”
“It’s the BlacktonGold touch—responsive management—”
“It’s making you sick, Roscoe!”
She got to her feet, too angry to stay sitting.
Roscoe stood, too. “It’s the job, Poppy.”
“Well it doesn’t need to be. You’re letting it be.”
Roscoe let out a breath, trying to push down the irritation that was rapidly turning to anger. Did she really think he was allowed to switch off at the end of the day like she did? That a beer and TV show was going to make it all go away, all the nagging undones, the what-ifs, the need-tos…
“Please. Give me my phone.”
She shook her head, the glitter of tears in her eyes. Roscoe felt a pang at that—guilt, and sorrow at the evening ending like this. But it annoyed him, too, that she was trying to care, trying to sympathise, pitying him, when he didn’t need any of that. He just needed his bloody God-damned phone.
“Poppy. I have to, OK? People are relying on me. Clients trust me. I have to do my job properly.”
“You’re talking fractions of a percentage point. That’s all your over-managing achieves.”
“Over-managing?”
“Yes. You’re trigger happy. You’re getting twitchy. Switching positions too often. The team can’t keep up. I ran an analysis—tracked the performance against what it would have been if you’d done nothing—”
“And?”
“Barely a percentage point.”
“Of a billion pounds, Poppy. Do you know what one percent of one billion is?”
“Yes. Ten million. Barely the price of this flat, right?”
“No. It’s the difference between being the best and being mediocre. It’s why clients come to BlacktonGold.”
“But it’s not worth your sanity, is it? You’re worth more than that, Roscoe. You’re worth more than a percentage point.”
He glared at her, jaw tense, words lost somewhere in an avalanche of emotion, a crumbling, breaking, shifting landscape going on behind his eyes. Anger and fear and shame and…and…
He didn’t want to shout at her. But he couldn’t think what else to do about the cutting challenge in her eyes. Because she didn’t understand that he had no choice—he couldn’t just coast, take it easy, work nine to five and walk out whistling. He had to prove himself. Over and over again. Every single fucking day, he needed to prove that he deserved to be there, that it wasn’t just a fluke. He needed to make his father proud because his father demanded it of him and because his brother never would, and so someone had to do it, didn’t they? Someone had to be the son his father wanted.
But he just stood there. Because shouting wasn’t an option. And neither was sinking to his knees in tears. Neither was wrestling her for his phone, grabbing her wrist and pinning her down—
Her chest was rising and falling. Sorrow and tears and pity and apology in her eyes as she stood up to him. Stood up for him. Defended him from himself.
“Roscoe…”
“Keep the phone. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He went to his room. The guest room in his own flat. And he closed the door none-too-quietly.
He sat on the bed, oddly bereft, his hands wanting to reach for something. Hold something.
And he wasn’t sure it was his phone.