1. LARRY
1
LARRY
“I can’t thank you enough for this,” I say as I walk into the apartment with the final box. I head down the hallway and put it on the counter in the kitchen, hearing a slight rattle from the plates that are in there and praying there were no breakages on the journey between my parents’ house and here. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“You’d have still been stuck living with your parents if it wasn’t for me, and you know it!” Rosemary calls from the bedroom. She steps out and models herself in the doorway—head thrown back and giving me her best model face, which apparently translates to narrowed eyes and pouty lips. I can’t help but laugh.
She’s wearing a floral sundress, her pale legs on full display as she cocks one up against the wall. Her ginger hair, which she’d had tied when we first started bringing the boxes up the three flights of stairs to my apartment, is now hanging loose and messy around her shoulders. She’s dressed for a day at the beach rather than a day as a removalist, but I’m not about to complain.
“Correct,” I say. “This place is great.”
“And you’re getting it for an absolute steal because the landlord is my mum’s best friend’s sister, or something like that,” she says, crossing the room to me. “It hadn’t even gone on the market yet, and Grovemoor is a hot place to live.”
“It is?”
“Don’t joke, you’re one of us now!”
I grabbed a suitcase full of stuff when I first moved out of the apartment I shared with Wes, running away to my parents’ house. They didn’t live a million miles away, just a little outside of London. I cried the entire train ride. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know where to turn. It was only as I made it to my parents’ house that I realised just how much I relied on Wes, just how much of myself I had poured into him. I didn’t have friends that weren’t his friends too. I didn’t have a life that didn’t have him implicitly tied to it. And that made things incredibly complicated.
I forget how many days I cried for—how many days of wallowing and feeling sorry for myself it took before I eventually bounced back—but even when I did, I was still pretty fragile.
It was a message from Rosemary that helped pull me out of it.
ROSEMARY
I swear I just saw you driving around Grovemoor with your parents. Either that or it’s your doppelg?nger. If it is you, we should catch up. If it’s not… well… we should catch up anyway.
I was friends with Rosemary at school, but once we went to uni we sort of drifted apart. We still liked each other’s posts on Instagram, still commented on things, but we never really reached out and connected with one another on a deeper level than that. Her messaging me by chance might have been the thing that saved me from myself, though.
She pulled me together. She made sure I went to the clinic because, not to be a slut shamer or anything, who knows who else Wes could have been sleeping with? She was with me when I got the all-clear, went full ally and made sure I got on PrEP— “Just in case you want to start putting it about again. Rebound sex is great!” —and then there was the apartment of my dreams. Dreams, I say!
“So, you really like it?” she says, tossing her ginger hair over her shoulder again.
“I really do,” I say, because it’s the truth. It’s a third-floor apartment in a really nice part of town. It’s not a million miles away from the high street, and it’s far enough away from London that I feel like I can make a fresh start. It’s everything I need.
“When do you start the new job?”
“Induction tomorrow morning,” I say. “Which is why I had to hurry you up and get moved in today.”
“Excuse me? You hurrying me up?” she exclaims, hand to chest, full drama, as if Rosemary could do anything less. “These guns were made to lift boxes, and I’m pretty sure I was carrying all the heavy ones.”
“I brought this last kitchen box up.”
“Yeah, you also brought up the pillows,” she says. “Those books? That was all me, sweetheart. You owe me a drink.”
“I owe you several drinks.”
She smiles. “That’s what I like to hear,” she replies. “So, drinks tomorrow night then? Celebrate the new job, new apartment, new life?”
I let out a sigh, contented… happy. “Yeah, that sounds perfect.”
She pulls me into a hug. “I’ll leave you to get yourself settled,” she says. “Just shout if you need anything.”
“I will.”
“I really do mean anything.” She removes herself from the hug but holds on to my shoulders, looking me in the eye. There’s a meaningful, earnest look on her face now. “Larry Miller, you are going to be fine. I just know it.”
“How about great?” I reply. “I don’t like the word fine.”
“What if I say it like this—” She clears her throat. “Larry Miller, you are going to be fiiiiiiiiine.”
“Oh, then I’d have to ask you leave,” I reply.
She pushes me away, laughing. “You’re an idiot,” she says. “But a loveable idiot, lucky for you.”
“Thanks again, Rosie, really,” I say. “I… I’d be a little bit lost if you hadn’t messaged me.” I look around the apartment— my apartment—unable to keep the smile off my face. I breathe it all in. This is going to be my fresh start, away from London, away from Wes. This is going to be everything I need.
“What can I say?” she says. “The universe and timing were on our side that day.”
“You don’t believe in all that, do you?”
“I absolutely do,” she says. “And you should too. It smiled down on you. It brought you to me, to this town. It brought you this apartment. Who knows what it’ll bring next. A new man?”
“Absolutely not,” I reply. “I need freedom right now.”
“I never said a new man to settle down with,” Rosemary replies. “You’ve got a whole new apartment here, Larry. You’ve got to christen it somehow.”
“And on that bombshell!”
She lifts her arms up. “Alright, alright, but you’ve got to rebound at some point, and now you can host.”
“You should not be saying words like that.”
She laughs as she makes her way to the door. “Seriously though, Larry, I’m happy you’re here and I’m happy to help. See you tomorrow night. Text me tomorrow so I know everything’s going alright.”
“I’ll keep you updated.”
Rosemary walks out of the apartment, leaving me in the relative silence of the afternoon. She’s really been a godsend. When we’d caught up for drinks she’d really talked up Grovemoor. My parents and I had driven through it on the way back from picking up the last of my stuff from the apartment, and they love the idea of me living here. It means I’m not too far away for visits, so maybe they’ll see me more.
I looked at a couple of places, but when this came on the market I jumped at it, and then the admin assistant job at Duncan & Howe had fallen into my lap too. It was all timed just right.
I try not to let my brain overthink itself into oblivion and convince me it’s all been too perfect. I’m due a bit of good luck. Long may that string of good luck continue. I may not want a man, but I definitely feel like dusting off the cobwebs of my sex life wouldn’t be the end of the world.
I take out my phone and download an app. Yes, one of those apps… the yellow one… and no, I will not be accepting judgments at this time. The immediate jolt of excitement in my crotch when I see the bevy of beautiful men that litters the front page is hard to deny. I lock my phone and pocket it.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say out loud as I look around at the state of my apartment. “Let’s unpack before we start anything like that.”
I look around at the boxes littering my new home. I’m going to be fine, I’m going to be just fine.