Chapter 28 Wesley
WESLEY
Irang the doorbell, my palms sweating, unsure what I was going to say.
I think of you all the time.
I didn’t realize. Now, I do.
I’m sorry.
I rang the doorbell again. The lights were on, so someone had to be home. I had to restrain myself from banging on the door. I didn’t want to scare Rosie.
“Hold your horses. My gosh. I’m coming, I’m coming.” A woman I didn’t know flung open the door. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Uh, I’m Wesley. I’m looking for Rosie. Is she home?” All I got in response was crossed arms, snapping of gum, and a smirk.
“So you’re Wesley,” she taunted. “Rosie isn’t here. I’m babysitting.”
“Babysitting?” I asked in surprise. Who?
“Lionel,” she stated matter-of-factly, inspecting her hands like she was bored.
“The tortoise?”
“Sh! He will hear you. Lionel is a very needy creature, so yes, I’m babysitting him.” She continued to point daggers at me, giving me a feeling that she knew exactly who I was—and she was not a fan.
“Will Rosie be back soon…or…”
“She’s on a date. I don’t expect her back tonight.” She smiled with all her teeth when she told me, and I faltered in her confession.
“Date?”
“Yes, date,” she reiterated, for what felt like the hundredth time.
“I’ll wait,” I told her.
“You can wait outside. I don’t know you from Adam.” She waggled her fingers in my direction and promptly shut the door in my face.
I decided it was a nice enough night to sit on the bench on the front porch. Rosie kept overstuffed pillows and a large blanket draped over the back for the nights she liked to sit out there and drink wine or a whiskey on the rocks. I settled in.
I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake by the woman I was waiting for. “Wesley.”
“Mmm,” I complained. I was warm and comfy.
“Wesley, you can’t sleep out here all night.” Rosie’s voice brought me closer and closer to awareness.
“Can too,” I informed her.
“Wesley,” She sounded tired, and that had me opening my eyes to take her in. She was in a black dress that hit mid-thigh. It went perfectly with her hair color and light makeup.
“You look beautiful,” I told her. She took a step back at the reverence in my tone, and looked me up and down as if to make sure it was really me. “Uh…what are you doing here?” she asked, ignoring my comment altogether. Not that I blamed her.
“I needed to see you, and you didn't answer my calls or texts.”
“I asked for space. Usually, that implies no calling or texting.” I knew she was going to say something.
“You didn’t have a problem with that when you thought Lionel was my boyfriend.
” She called me out, and she was right. I had completely written her off because I was mad at her, and now I had a feeling it was jealousy that had me reacting that way.
The feeling I had felt when I thought she was flared to life in my chest, and now, after Lake’s words and my own revelation, my eyes were starting to open.
“I’m an ass.”
“You say that a lot, you know,” she told me.
“Does it make it better if I’m self-aware now?” I asked, wondering if she caught my double meaning. Her hesitation made me feel like maybe she did.
“I don’t know, Wesley,” she said softly. “Why are you here?”
“I think I’m in love with you,” I blurted out. Rosie’s jaw dropped.
“What?”
“See, I was getting dinner with Lake, and he told me that—”
“Wait, Lake informed you that you’re in love with me?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed. But once I did, it looked like Rosie had been smacked in the face. “No! I mean, yes, but it isn’t what you’re thinking.”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking.” Her tone was void of emotion, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This is not going well.
“I mean—no, you don’t understand,” I pleaded. “That came out wrong.”
“No, I think it came out perfectly. I think I’ve been in love with you for years, waiting in the shadows, perfect best friend Rosie.
I think you ended a relationship, and now you’re looking for something to make you feel good.
And of course that’s me. Good, ol’ reliable best friend Rosie.
” She spit the words best friend out like they were a sin, and I knew I had completely messed this up.
“I’d like you to leave, Wesley.” Rosie was already turning around, unwilling to hear anything else, and I was reaching through air in the space she had just been in. “And stop calling and texting me.” She was in and closing her front door before I could even mutter a single word.
I stood outside for who knew how long, staring at her front door long enough to hear laughing.
Long enough for different lights to turn off and on again.
Long enough for it to be socially unacceptable.
How did I fuck that up so badly? How has Rosie been right in front of me all these years, and I’ve never put two and two together?
The reality wasn’t anything large or crazy, no trauma or anything that I had to work through.
I had never allowed myself to think of her that way because I shut it down in my mind a long time ago.
At first, I thought it was because I wasn’t ready to settle down.
Rosie was the kind of girl you settled down with—she was a forever girl—and then I thought it was because you don’t think of your friends that way.
And it had been years, so I just…didn’t even think of it.
But certain parts of me must have, at least subconsciously, because I was dreaming of her long before I realized, and reaching for her in the parts of my mind I thought I’d closed off. How in the ever-loving hell am I going to convince Rosie that she is meant to be mine?