Chapter 14
Carter
Icould smell Rose’s bath stuff even from the living room, could hear the sound of music playing from her bedroom, although I hadn’t noticed it before.
She was the first person I’d told about the wedding; as far as I was concerned nobody else needed to know, not from my family anyway.
I needed to have a few guests there and someone to act as best man, and I knew how people would judge if they knew it was a favour because what was I getting out of it?
When I’d suggested it, I’d gotten a lot.
I couldn’t sit still and didn’t want to dive into the cesspit of doom scrolling on social media until Rose came back, which I knew would be longer than she’d said because she’d get lost in her thoughts.
So I went into the kitchen area and checked the dishwasher.
It needed emptying, and if I knew Rose, and Harriet was away, it would be emptied as she needed items and then a stack of dirty dishes would be precariously left next to the sink.
Everything was where it was the last time I’d done this, which was more than a couple of years ago, before I’d started my residency in New York.
Both she and Harriet were creatures of habit, which somehow worked even though Rose was not the tidiest and Harriet had a place for everything.
Plates, bowls, cutlery, mugs – she still had a mug I’d bought for her years ago, a Shakespeare quote about a Rose with any other name.
I left the mug next to the kettle, figuring she wouldn’t finish the beer when she came in.
I noticed the pile of books on the dining table, a couple of new hardbacks and a volume of poetry, a bookmark sticking out of it.
Rose had always read voraciously, that had been one of the things we’d talked about the way home from school.
When I did my exams at sixteen, she’d coached me through one of the set texts, Great Expectations, because I’d not really paid much attention in lessons, thinking about girls instead of what techniques the author had used, and what techniques I could use, more about whichever girl would be at Friday night’s party rather than what I’d use in an exam.
Rose had been a good teacher, and at that age, she somehow kept me focused on studying, helping me revise, offering something I’d needed then – friendship.
It hadn’t stayed that way.
I plumped up the cushions on the sofa and straightened the blankets Rose and Harriet would bury themselves in, then caught sight of the pile of magazine strewn around the back of a chair.
I suspected Rose, especially when I saw that they were Psychology Today, so I piled them up, in date order with the most recent on top.
The first time I’d kissed Rose had been at a party on a dare. She’d said she’d already kissed someone, perpetuating a lie for the sake of her friends, and not wanted to feel like she was the only one who hadn’t been kissed. It’d been her first kiss and for some reason, it’d made me insanely happy.
That had been when it’d started. Not just my friend anymore. Not just Rose who I walked home from school with. Not just a kid who knew the house where I lived.
I sat down on the sofa, two seats away from where Rose usually curled up and pulled one of the blankets over me.
It smelled of Rose’s body cream, sweet and fruity.
I thought it would’ve made me tense because of what was happening right now, but it had the opposite effect.
It was calming, and strangely not calming at the same time.
I had made an almighty cock-up suggesting marrying Laurie. If Rose had just told me she was marrying someone else as a favour, I wouldn’t have reacted in the same way as she had done. I’d have set his house on fire by now.
The problem was, I hadn’t said anything to her to make her realise that was how I felt. Probably because it’d taken me too long to realise.
The door clicked open, and the airwaves were disturbed. I looked over to the door into the lounge area and waited for her to come in.
Her hair was wild when she entered, blown around by the wind and dampened, so it must’ve been raining.
“I know. I look like I’ve been living in a cave on the Yorkshire moors.
” She ran her fingers through her hair, dark red and thick.
She’d taught me how to plait it once, sitting in front of me and demonstrating with her hands behind her head.
I’d practiced, not because I’d wanted to learn to plait a girl’s hair, but because I was obsessed with it. That was the summer of Clapham Common.
“You look like you.”
“I’m not sure how to take that.”
“However, you think you should.”
She didn’t smile at me, just paused what she was doing and glared. “Sometimes you talk in riddles. Sometimes I don’t understand where you’re coming from.”
“I can give you some context if you’re referring to Laurie.”
“I am. Let me make a cup of tea first.”
We didn’t speak as she boiled the kettle. She didn’t comment on the cup I’d left out, the tea bag already in it. This was akin to the point in an operation that success hinged on, that crucial second where it would either work smoothly or not.
She came back over to the sofa and sat in her usual spot, putting the mug of tea on the coffee table and pulling a blanket over her.
“Thank you for emptying the dishwasher.” It sounded like an apology.
“I wanted to keep busy.”
She nodded, observing me and making no secret of it.
“Carter, why did you offer to marry Laurie?”
“I’m not sure I want to tell you.”
“I’m sure I want to know because I need to understand why. In my head you were in love with her and hoping that she’d fall for you, because isn’t that what always happens when there’s a fake marriage.”
“Only in books.”
“So enlighten me.”
I didn’t stop looking at her. I wanted to soak her in, looking like this, serious and curious and giving me a chance to talk me out of the mess I’d got us in.
“You were single. I knew I’d have the chance coming up to come back to London and for the first time we were both adults and single and I was wondering if something might happen.
We were talking loads on the phone and messaging, and I was wondering what if.
” I paused, wanting to see if she remembered.
She picked up her mug and sipped her tea, not focusing on me for a moment.
“I wasn’t sure what you were going to decide,” she said, putting the tea back down, half drunk. “I knew talking to you was different and you’d stopped talking about dates you’d been on or seeing anyone. You mentioned Laurie.”
“But never as a date or a girlfriend. Do you remember talking about meeting someone called Theo?” I knew she would.
She nodded. “He worked at the hospital as a psychiatrist.”
“You talked about him loads. You hadn’t been on a date for ages and then you mentioned him at least once each time we spoke and sent me a selfie of you together at drinks after work one Friday.” I’d hated that photo, Rose smiling, Fallon next to her, and Theo’s arm around Rose’s shoulders.
“I remember.”
“I messaged Fallon to find out what he was like and whether you were interested in him.”
She raised her brows, studying. “I didn’t know that. What did Fallon say?”
“That Theo really liked you and he’d asked her to set the two of you up. That was the same day I offered to marry Laurie.” I rubbed my hair, hearing how pathetic it sounded.
“You idiot.” She said the words softly, making them hit all the harder.
I took a long hard lungful of air. “I know. Maybe I hoped something would happen with Laurie because I didn’t like the idea of you seeing someone and me moping over it.”
“But I wasn’t interested in Theo – I mean I was at first, he was a flirt and a proper rake.
He did ask me out but I knew he’d shagged one of the women who worked on reception the night before and she hadn’t exactly given him a good review.
” Rose was chuckling now. “That’s why I stopped talking about him.
Do you remember, you even asked why I hadn’t mentioned him. ”
“And you said you hadn’t seen much of him.” That was when I’d realised I’d made a fuck up of things.
“I’d avoided him. But you’re still marrying Laurie.”
I nodded. “I am. It gets her out of a bind, and if it weren’t for you, it wouldn’t matter anyway.” My throat felt tight and everything had tensed, because I was laying everything out to potentially get trampled on.
“Okay. But what if you came back and we don’t work out? What if we find out we were better off as friends but in the process we ruin that?” She edged closer to me, blanket askew.
I stretched, needing to move and took another deep breath. “Remember when Fallon jumped off that cliff?”
“And you followed her? I do. It was terrifying.”
“Sometimes you’ve just got to trust your gut.”
She looked concerned and I remembered this was Rose. Decisions and their possibly outcomes had to be considered seven ways till Sunday before committing.
“That’s not always easy to do.”
“Depends on who you are. I’m sorry about Laurie and that situation, but it’s performative. It helps her out and I’m not going back on it, that’s not me.” I’d considered what would happen if Rose said she couldn’t handle that, but I knew her and I knew how rational she could be.
She nodded slowly, then finished the rest of her tea. “We need to just hang out anyway. Slow things down because you’ve just moved back and Harriet’s moving away and the Laurie thing. There’s a lot going on.”
“There is. I can wait, Rosie.”
“It might not work.”
“It might not.”
“But I want to know if it would.” She edged closer again, pushing the palm of her hand against mine, entwining our fingers, the first time we’d touched since the last time I’d kissed her. “Not every relationship works out.”
“It doesn’t. There would be no guarantee that it would.” My fingers wrapped around hers and I tugged her closer, relief and something like hope that I hadn’t fucked things up with a moment of impulsivity combined with self-pity.