22. TWENTY-TWO
“What’s in it for you?” asked Poppy, watching Roscoe root around in the fridge for something to make them a very late lunch. She’d just finished stowing the last of the bags and boxes in her room—it hadn’t taken long—and was now sitting at the kitchen island. Ogling Roscoe Blackton’s bum. She dragged her eyes away, picked up an apple from the fruit bowl, and took a large bite.
“For me? What do you mean?”
He set some things on the counter. Eggs. Chicken. Vegetables. Was he making an omelette? Frittata? Some kind of weird high-protein gym-bunny concoction? It would explain the physique.
“I just… I feel like this is all a bit uneven. You said you wanted to understand my life. And I know the life-swap thing had to get cancelled because of…” He still hadn’t told her exactly what happened that Easter Weekend. All she knew—guessed—was that his father had been seriously ill. “…Because of work and things. But now I’m here, and you’ve given me a laptop, and acted as my removal guy, and you’re buying all the groceries—or I assume you are, because a delivery magically appears every week—and you’ve said you’ll help me with my studies and I just… I can’t help but feel like I need to even things up a little. Pay you back. Although I’ve no idea how.”
Roscoe clattered a frying pan onto the metal hob, flinging a tea towel over his shoulder then rubbing a hand through his hair. “No. No. I’m not expecting anything. It’s not… Honestly, no. You don’t owe me anything.”
“But I want to.”
His eyes flicked to hers, then away. “You already do enough.”
“Like?”
“You are very good at deflecting Miriam in Compliance.”
“That’s just my job.”
“And you make excellent bagels. The perfect ratio of cream cheese to smoked salmon…” He ducked to the side, laughing, as she mimed throwing her apple at his head.
“Poppy, really. You don’t owe me anything. I’m just being a friend. Helping out a friend.”
Ah, yes. Of course. The friend word. “Believe it or not, Dave, I’m perfectly capable of being friends with a woman and not wanting to sleep with her.” She wasn’t dumb enough to think she hadn’t been meant to overhear that.
“I could do chores? Cleaning?”
“There’s a daily cleaner.”
“Laundry?”
“Laundry service.”
“Grocery shopping?”
“Delivered weekly.”
Poppy ate her apple, ruminating. “I could teach you to speak Cockney.” She said it smiling.
Roscoe grinned back at her. He nodded at the apple in her hand. “Apple and pears? That sort of thing?”
She gestured to the frying pan. “Borrow and beg. Egg.” Then pointed to herself. “Artful Dodger. Lodger. Coals and coke. Broke.”
Roscoe chuckled. “And me? I dread to ask.”
“Hmm. Bees and honey.” She tilted her head, considering. “China plate.”
Roscoe thought for a moment. “Bees and honey… Money? China plate… Mate?”
“Yeah. Mate. Friend.” She finished her apple, got up and dropped the core in the bin. “Anyway, it was my grandad who was the real Cockney. He taught me it all. He loved wordplay and puns.”
“So you’re not a Cockney?”
“Just East End. Born in Peckham.”
“Is that where your mum lives?”
“No. Lewisham now. And my brothers.”
“And your dad?”
She leant back against the counter and shrugged. “No idea.”
“Do you…” Roscoe gave the sizzling frying pan a careful stir. “Do you see him?”
“Never met him.”
Roscoe flashed her a look, surprise softening to sympathy as she spoke.
“He was fifteen when they… When my mum got pregnant. So was she. From what I’ve been told, the minute his parents knew my mum was pregnant, they moved away. Don’t even know where. My mum was sixteen when I was born. Missed her GCSE year. But she went back to school after she had me and did them then. My grandparents basically raised me.”
Ugh. Why was she saying all this? Was it all part of Roscoe’s education—helping him understand her life? Or did she just want him to know? Why? It wasn’t like it painted her in a flattering light. But friends didn’t need to be flattered.
She put the kettle on. They spoke about her grandparents while Roscoe finished cooking, a conversation which, for Poppy, was equal parts pleasure and pain. How she missed them. An unfillable gap in the middle of her life.
When Roscoe passed her a plate, she made an appreciative noise. As she’d guessed, it was a frittata. Roscoe admitted it was about the only thing he knew how to make.
“Thank you,” she said. “I am Hank Marvin like you wouldn’t Adam and Eve.”
Roscoe winked. “Time to fill your Chevy Chase.”
Of course. Because if there was going to be anyone in the world fluent in both Latin and Cockney rhyming slang, it was Roscoe Blackton.
“How’s it going then? In Team Blackton Jnr?” asked Adjoa as she queued with Poppy for lunch in the staff cafe. It wasn’t quite lunch out, but it was definitely a treat compared to Poppy’s usual peanut butter sandwich—cheaper per calorie than cheese.
“Busy. Really busy.”
“Ah, so that’s why we haven’t seen you. I thought you were just too busy drawing love hearts on your stationery and sighing.”
“Please. A month working for him has well and truly rubbed away the Roscoe Blackton mystique.”
A ferocious lie.
Or rather…it had rubbed away the mystique, but what had been revealed in its place was something surprising. And infinitely better. Devastatingly so.
“Oh no,” said Adjoa, shaking her head as she picked through the pre-made sandwiches on offer. “Don’t go ruining the fantasy of RB Goldy for me. If he makes you collect his hemorrhoid cream on your lunch break, or you catch him watching chipmunk porn, I do not want to know.”
“Gross. No.”
“There’s got to be something though? Some gossip. Please, I need something. It’s been all doom and gloom on the exec floor for weeks.”
“But George is back now.”
Adjoa gave a wan cheer. “I am glad, though. I guess it was serious, whatever it was. They said stomach flu, but I don’t buy it. Don’t suppose you got any hints from Roscoe?”
“No. Seriously, life with Golden Boy is very dull. Tell me your news.”
Lunch with Adjoa was a nice interlude in a week that was otherwise a repeat of the one before it. Roscoe worked too hard and too late, and she hardly ever saw him. She was convinced there were some nights he didn’t come back to the flat at all. Of course, that made her wonder exactly where he did spend those nights. But he was a young man, and single. It was none of her business.
On Friday, though, she was determined to rescue him from his desk again if she needed to. It was well past six, nearly seven, and most of the office had cleared out. Roscoe was still in his office, but he was in there with Aubrey Ford, and from the occasional laughter she heard, she was at least reassured he wasn’t suffering.
She started to write a to-do list, getting everything she needed to do next week lined up while it was fresh in her mind, and tidied up the various papers on her desk.
“Friday night, Poppy Fields, which means the Hop and Hare is calling our names.”
She looked up. Aubrey was standing by her desk. Roscoe appeared in the door to his office and leant there, arms folded, surveying the pair of them with a tilted smile. “Didn’t they bar her after last time?” he said.
She narrowed her eyes at him and stapled a document unnecessarily, and with unnecessary force. “No. They did not.”
“Bit of an oversight. A known lush like you.”
Now Aubrey turned to look at Roscoe and surveyed the pair of them, smiling his own slight smile. “Well… I’ll leave the persuading to you, Ross. You’re doing such a charming job of it. Do join us, though, Poppy. You’ll be far more welcome than the boss.”
Roscoe rolled his eyes. Aubrey departed, directing a smile at Poppy that held more than the hint of a wink. She laughed to herself as she watched him walk off to the lifts, then resumed her work, pretending not to know that Roscoe still stood in his doorway watching her.
He came over to her desk.
“Will you? Come for a drink?”
“Probably not.”
“But you’re celebrating.”
She looked up, confused. “Celebrating what?”
“It’s officially the end of your tenancy with Lecherous Dave. You are no longer renting a room from the worst man in Britain.”
“Debatable.”
“Nice.” He held out his hand, and she lightly high-fived it. “I suppose I walked into that one. But Poppy…” He crouched down now, so his eyes were level with hers, looking at her across the desk. His hands rested on the edge of it, strong fingers, strong wrists, leather watch strap, white cuffs… It was a dick move and completely unfair. If he added the puppy dog eyes, she was going to staple his face.
“Seriously now,” he urged. “This is cause for celebration.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Oh?”
“Because now I can never subject you to my terrible living conditions. You did one night, then managed to escape. It’s not fair.”
“I know, I know. And I’ve been forcing you to live in my prestige penthouse for weeks. I am such an arsehole.”
“Right?”
He thought for a moment, tapping his fingers on her desk, then stood up, all energy. “I’ve got it.”
“Are you about to say ‘I have a cunning plan’?”
“Poppy Fields…I have a cunning plan.”