Chapter 17
Exiting the building, the cold air hit me like a welcome slap in the face. The suit Rosie picked out stuck to my body, a few inches too small, and since I hadn’t got it altered, one wrong move could be the end.
Not that it fucking mattered anymore. It was the end.
Walking down the street, I tugged on the tie that was slowly suffocating me, yanking it free and tossing it into the nearest bin.
What a waste of fucking time. Their superior expressions looking back at me from across the table as they practically sneered at the hours of work I’d put into my business plan.
It was a solid plan and had taken up every spare minute of the past week.
I’d barely eaten or slept, trying to get it finished and polished enough that they would look at it and see what I saw.
A business worth saving. A store worth investing in.
But no.
They took less than half a second to flip through the pages before closing it up and giving me the look my dad used to give me when I was doing something stupid, and he had to let me down easy.
In simple terms, I was fucked.
I couldn’t get a loan because my credit score had dipped so low because of the amount of debt I was in. Debt I’d been forced to go into because the store was struggling. Debt I was now beginning to see as a giant brick wall, reaching up so high I couldn’t climb over it.
I slammed the car door of my truck closed, chucking the proposal onto the passenger seat, not bothering to pick up the papers when they went flying.
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the wheel.
No amount of swallowing got rid of the lump forming in my throat. I pinched my eyes closed, feeling hot tears prickle behind my eyelids.
I was losing it. Losing her.
Losing the very thing my mother had wanted more than anything. Something I couldn’t give her whilst she breathed but honoured her with in death. And I was fucking losing it.
Without thinking, I reached into the pocket of this ridiculous suit and pulled out my phone, then stopped. I couldn’t call my brother. This wasn’t his burden to carry.
My friends were pretty much nonexistent. Since I worked all the time, it didn’t lend itself to connecting with people. Heading for forty quicker than I’d like, and I could count on one hand the friends I had, one of those doubled as my brother.
Like I always did, even when I didn’t want to, I thought about Rosie. Her message yesterday, asking if I’d forgotten about the trip away to surprise Oliver, was the first contact we’d had since our date.
Since the kiss that had lingered on my lips for days.
Panic clawed its way up my throat. All I wanted was to hear her voice. The soft cadence that could always ease the growing knot inside my stomach.
My thumb hovered over her name. What would I even say?
Had a shit day and wanted to hear your voice because you make me feel better.
That’s the kind of thing you do with a partner. Not someone you were helping win a bet. And not someone like Rosie. Someone who viewed relationships like an anchor pulling you down to the depths of the ocean.
Our kiss hadn’t been the only thing that replayed over and over again in my head.
Our conversation that night had solidified things.
I’m not sure why her aversion to anything more than a quick fuck was so strong, but hearing her talk was enough to know that this thing between us wasn’t real.
I’d offered to help her out, no strings attached.
That fact needed to get nailed through my goddamn skull.
We had chemistry. That spark had been there from day one. But Rosie had chemistry with everyone. I’d witnessed how she’d shine in a room full of people, all of them staring in awe at this person who didn’t seem quite real. She was magnetic.
If we gave into the attraction, I had no doubt she’d kick me to the curb the moment it was over.
That thought was almost as devastating as watching my life’s work go up in flames.
I needed to keep a safe distance away from her.
Difficult thing to do when we were headed for a weekend away together with another couple who were sickeningly in love.
I dropped the phone into the passenger seat, no calmer than I was ten minutes ago, and started driving.
Two days later, I was hauling stock around the store room, when my phone buzzed.
Oliver had been messaging me all morning.
In the hurry of putting together a proposal for the bank, I’d neglected him.
And apparently two weeks was as long as my brother’s patience lasted. I ignored it and carried on working.
A bead of sweat trickled down my spine as I hiked the last bag of mulch over my shoulder and dropped it onto the trailer. The physical exertion wasn’t doing much to lift the black cloud hanging over my head.
I rubbed at the spot above my chest. Where the only piece of ink I had was etched into my skin.
‘Hey, boss.’ Tim’s head peeked around the door. His fingers were dirty from repotting some of the older plants. ‘Some guy is here to see you and Steve has spent the last ten minutes talking his ear off. Thought you might want to know.’
‘Thanks, Tim.’ I clapped him on the shoulder as I passed.
He headed back to work and my phone rang.
A grunt of irritation rumbled up my throat.
Oliver needed to chill the fuck out. Since the season had ended, he was acting like a kid on school holidays.
Moping about, bored. I was about to pull it out and tell him to get a grip when my eyes snagged on a head of thin grey hair in the corner, nodding enthusiastically to Steve, who was holding up a fern and pointing excitedly to its leaves.
Forgetting about answering the phone, I hightailed it across the room.
‘These are notoriously difficult to kill. However, I’ve owned three in the past year, and all have succumbed to an untimely death. I’m not sure why precisely, but I plan to find out.’ Steve nodded firmly, as if it was a murder enquiry, and he was the lead detective.
‘Dad.’ My voice sounded breathless as I stopped next to the two men.
A smile pulled on Dad’s lips as soon as he turned around. ‘George.’ His face was wrinkled and aged, each line testament to the amount of life he’d lived. ‘How are you, son?’
His arms immediately opened—I didn’t think twice before stepping into his embrace.
Wrapping my arms around him, I was conscious of how frail he felt under my hands.
How thin. But the comfort of his hugs never failed to restore my flagging energy.
When we pulled away, I noted the bags under his eyes were more pronounced than ever.
‘I’ll leave you both to it. It’s lovely to see you again, Peter.’ Steve smiled at him, giving me a swift nod, whistling as he headed back to the register.
Dad stared after him, amusement sparking in his eyes. ‘The man can’t keep a fern alive. Are you sure he’s the right fit here?’
Steve might not have a single green finger, but he made up for it in customer service. The man was relentless in his positivity. I trusted him to keep the store running in my absence, so I could forgive his lack of plant knowledge.
‘What are you doing here?’ I placed my hands on my hips.
‘Can’t a man come visit his son?’ His thick northern accent instantly catapulted me back in time.
Over the years of being in London, my own accent had diluted somewhat, not as much as Oliver’s, which only came out when he was pissed.
Hearing it now, and seeing Dad after a shitty morning, loosened some of the tension in my shoulders.
‘Course, it’s just a surprise,’ I said, softening my tone. ‘You drove here?’
I jutted my head to the window of the car park.
Since Oliver’s career in football had taken off, and the press around him heightened.
Journalists and paps would start sniffing around his relatives, digging through our bins to find scraps of information on him.
It got so bad paparazzi had nearly run Dad off the road when he was coming home from a doctor’s appointment.
He was edging into his late seventies. The experience had shaken him more than he let on.
In the past few years, he rarely left the house, relying on delivery services, Oliver, or myself to take him places.
I didn’t mind, and neither did my brother.
But Dad hadn’t come to see the shop in over a year.
Having him see it now, with the paint peeling and the significant lack of customers coming in and out, made me self-conscious.
He waved a hand, batting away the concern on my face. ‘Needed to get out of the house. Being cooped up for so long, ain’t good for me.’
My old friend, guilt, prodded me with his long finger.
Scratching the back of my neck. ‘I was planning on stopping by in a few days to check Mum’s plants.
Give them a weeding and tidy up.’ It had been too long since I was there.
Usually, I stopped by weekly to tend to his garden to stop it getting out of hand.
As he got older, it was getting harder for him to get around as easily as he once did.
He put up a weathered hand. ‘None of that. You’ve got your own life. It’s not your job to look after me. I just came to pop my head in.’ His head craned to the side. ‘You know that sign outside could use a lick of paint.’
Along with everything else in this place.
I forced a smile. ‘I’m working on it.’
His head bobbed as he looked around the room. A wistful glimmer in his pale eyes. ‘She would have loved this place.’ The emotion was thick in his voice. ‘You’ve done so well, son.’
Fuck. I schooled my expression, careful not to let it show how close I was to breaking over those words. How much I wanted to let this facade drop and say that I didn’t have anything together. It was all falling apart, slipping through my fingers like sand.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ I choked.