Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
ROMAN
For two days, I’ve kept checking my phone, hoping that a message from Maggie would pop up.
And the lack of her message is worse than the headlines. Worse than the rage-inducing headlines and the kiss-and-tells.
Is it too little, too late? Or maybe I vastly overplayed the relationship between us in my head.
My phone now sits face down on the coffee table with the sound off. It was worth checking when I waited on Maggie, but now it’s just hate from everyone online, and questions from the people I know in the real world. Although the vibration is off, I still hear occasional phantom buzz.
My fingers clench every time I imagine it.
My apartment is the cleanest it’s ever been. Stress scrubbing usually alleviates the anxiety, but this time, all it’s got me is a bleach-scented house and aching elbows.
I lay back on the sofa and stare at the ceiling.
There’s enough in my bank to cover a few months, but god knows what I’ll do after that. I only hoped the world would move on to the next scandal before long.
So much for the idea that the truth will set you free. I’d spilt everything.
I wasn’t celibate.
I wasn’t a liar.
I believed it for a while, but I continued my platform long after my views had changed.
It’s amazing, really, how quickly your supporters can turn on you. And the glee with which they’ll tear you apart when you show the slightest weakness.
Sponsorships sank like boulders, while a mass exodus of followers ensued. The remaining ones seemed to stay only to watch my world implode.
A woman I recognised from two years ago sold a story about how I cried after sex. Another one said I couldn’t even finish because the guilt ate at me. Someone else said that I’d begged her not to tell anyone my real name.
They all stung, but the last one the most. Because it was true. She’d seen my name on a letter that had fallen down the side of the sofa.
The screen holds hundreds of notifications when I finally pick it up.
I’m going to delete it all. Disappear from the internet and figure out my next steps away from it all.
I pull up Instagram first, delete my account, then delete the app. The sense of relief that washes over me is instant. Then TikTok. Then Threads. The podcast feed. The mailing list.
When each one asks me multiple times if I’m sure, I hit yes. I’ve never been more sure of something in my life.
Placing the phone on the table, screen facing me, I stare. The lack of notifications is almost louder than the chaos before.
No red dots or flashing banners dragging me back into the online world. Nobody is demanding my attention, whether I want to give it or not. The only people who can reach me are those who have my personal number, and those are few and far between.
Fuck.
It’s glorious.
Lying back, I focus on box breathing and bathing in the quiet.
It feels like stepping outside after being in prison, or how I imagine it anyway. It’s wild that in one of the busiest cities in the world, I can find peace without the outside world having instant access to me via my bloody phone.
And in that quiet space, I think of Maggie. No matter how hard I try to avoid her from infiltrating my brain.
The truth is, I fell for her in Scotland, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get her out of my head. Not that I want to. What I want is to storm into her apartment and beg her to give me a chance.
But what if she’d played me the whole time?
What if she’d found it amusing to make me believe there was a genuine intimacy within the chaos?
There was no doubt that she was brought up with a completely different set of morals than is generally standard; had I been nothing more than a means to an end?
No.
Not with Maggie.
There is a sincerity to her that can’t be faked.
She never asked me to tell the world, and I can’t hold it against her if it doesn’t change our outcome.
Maggie may be the catalyst for pushing me over the edge, but I was teetering there anyway. Reluctant to let go of the financial tether and afraid of what happens when I let go. I have to believe that there’s more after this chapter.
The question is whether she’ll want to stand next to me now that I’ve burned my world down.
I sit there until night falls, having nowhere else to be, and little else to do. Outside, people carry on with their lives, the city never ceasing. In that, I find a kernel of peace. While my immediate problems feel huge, give it time, and they’ll shrink to just a blip in my story.
I reach for my phone and scroll to my message with Maggie.
My thumb hovers over the digital keyboard. What do you say when you’ve already left the ball in the other person’s court?
I type.
And delete.
Type again.
Delete again.
‘Shit,’ I say, hitting the tap and sticking my finger under the lukewarm water.
The burn isn’t bad, but it stings like a motherfucker. How can baking cookies be so bloody stressful?
I’m on batch number six, because I need them to be perfect. The smell of burnt sugar and butter fills the air, and I’m thankful that the fire alarm hasn’t started screaming.
They’re for her.
Which is probably utterly ridiculous, but it’s a last-ditch attempt to close the chasm that the hall between our flats feels like.
My phone is on speaker on the counter. Gran’s voice crackles out. ‘You’ve gone quiet. What have you done now?’
‘They aren’t perfect.’
A pause.
‘Did you burn them again?’
‘No, but there aren’t enough chocolate chips on the surface.’
‘Roman, stop stalling.’
‘I’m not stalling.’ Maybe I am.
‘Yes, you are. This girl won’t give a flying fuck whether the cookies are perfect,’ she says. ‘It’s about the gesture, not impressing Mary-bleeding-Berry.’
‘It can’t hurt for them to be perfect.’
Gran sighs. ‘Oh, you’re in deep, love.’
I lean back against the counter, flexing my abused finger and staring at the tray of treats. ‘I am. And I’m nervous.’
‘Good.’
‘Good?’
‘Nerves are a sign that you care about things.’
I turn off the oven and accept that the cookies will be the best I can make them. ‘What if she says no? It’ll break my heart.’
‘A broken heart proves you’re still alive. Better than sitting in your flat and telling stories to weird blokes on the internet. If she’s not the one, there will be another.’
‘She’s the one, Gran.’ As crazy as it is to admit, I can feel it deep in my bones. Maggie has consumed me since the moment she threw me in her car and hot-footed it to Scotland.
‘Stop being such a wuss and take the cookies over. Otherwise I will.’
God. No. I glance at the clock. Then at the cookies.
Fuck.
‘Okay. I’m going.’
‘Good. And if she slams the door in your face, you come round here and share your cookies with me. Now off you go.’
She hangs up, and I groan.
It’s now or never.
Maggie’s door is only eight steps from mine, but it might as well be six miles by the way I’m sweating when I get there.
I clutch the plate of cookies like a Girl Scout, but lacking their confidence.
My heart thumps so hard I’m mildly concerned that I’m having a heart attack, and I really don’t want to go dying on her doorstep.
Breathe.
You can do this. You’ve done far scarier things.
I’m not convinced that that’s true. Even having Eddie going at me with a knife had me marginally less stressed than putting myself on the line emotionally does. She might choose to slam the door. To discard me like everyone but Gran always has.
I raise my hand, then lower it.
Raise it again.
Finally, I knock.
The plate shakes until I grip it so hard it stills. There’s a scuffing noise on the other side of the door that has my jaw clenching.
The door swings back, and she’s there. Inches away.
Maggie wears an oversized T-shirt that’s slipped off one shoulder, her curls in absolute disarray. Her glasses are smudged with a fingerprint where she must have grabbed them in a hurry.
When I see her, I feel the warm sensation of home.
‘Roman?’
I swallow and stick out my hand.
‘I’m your neighbour, Roman. Unemployed former douchebag.’ I lift the plate slightly. ‘I made you some cookies.’
She stares at the cookies. Then at me.
‘What are you doing?’
My throat bobs, and I feel like a twat, standing there with one hand out and the other holding the plate. ‘I’m introducing myself, like I should have the first time I saw you. Starting again the way I would have if I hadn’t had my head so far up my own ass.’
Her brows lift as she leans against the door frame and surveys my face.
‘I do very much like cookies,’ she says, reaching out and shaking my hand.
‘I’m Maggie, former failed contract killer and knitter of wonky socks.’
Her phrasing makes me freeze. ‘Former as in you’re now a successful contract killer?’
‘Would that be a problem?’ she asks.
I consider it. Will I still want to be with her if she follows in her family’s footsteps? My head says no, but my heart doesn’t give a fuck what my brain thinks. He had his turn at controlling the situation, and look where that got me.
‘I’ll run the bath for you when you come home bloody. I don’t care, Maggie.’
The little inhale she does sends my stomach into orbit.
‘Former as in I’m out. Just a regular old PA for a boring office job.’
Relief hits me so hard I laugh.
‘Do you think we can really start over? Even though I kidnapped you?’
I grin. ‘You can kidnap me anytime, Princess. I’ll bring the zip ties myself.’
Her smile lights my soul, and then she’s close enough that I can see the shitty overhead lights glittering in her eyes.
She slips her arms around my neck, knocking a cookie to the floor. ‘How about you kidnap me next time?’
Good god, the way she can slay me with one filthy sentence.
I put the cookies down on the dresser inside her door and backed her against the wall, taking her jaw in my hand.
‘It’s been torture being next door to you,’ I murmur. ‘Knowing you’re right here and not being able to talk to you.’
She searches my face. ‘You’re sure about this? You know who I am. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows.’
‘Maggie. I’m all in. No matter what happens, I want to make this work. Even if it means moving to Scotland and becoming your very enthusiastic, if slightly terrified, sidekick.’
Her eyes widen. ‘We don’t need to move to Scotland. I finally stood up to my dad. I’m off the hook.’
‘Oh, thank god.’
I can’t wait a moment longer. Tilting her chin, our mouths meet in a flurry of emotion. Maggie melts into me in a tangle of curls and the sweetest of moans. I slide my hands into her hair, losing myself in her.
‘Princess,’ I whisper. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
With a breathless grin, she tugs me inside by the front of my t-shirt.
‘Get your arse in here.’
And I follow her, knowing I’m exactly where I want to be.