Chapter 33
I hadn’t slept well since we’d come back.
Trying to get stuff done when you have a beehive in the centre of your chest turned out to be more difficult than I thought.
I was filled with nervous energy that swarmed through my veins and nothing seemed to shake it out.
I’d even taken up running again to see if that helped.
Apart from giving me a pulled muscle in my calf, it did zilch.
After the weekend that, despite its ups and downs, had turned out to be the most fun I’d had in a long time, it had taken a while to slip back into my usual routine.
Fallon and Oliver had hit the ground running with their house hunt.
Every day, they had at least three houses they were going to inspect, much to Fallon’s chagrin.
Technically, I still had the week off, but the thought of going home and doing nothing for the next five days had sent me into a mental spiral, so Monday morning, I packed up Roxy, dropped her off at Mum’s and headed to work.
The second I stepped through the door, I was immediately met with Lawrence sitting behind the reception desk.
He looked up from where he’d been showing Jean something on the computer, and stood up so quickly he sent the chair he was perched on toppling over.
His face contorted into one of utter exasperation.
‘Absolutely not, go away. You’re not working. Shoo.’ He waved his hands at me, causing the few patients sitting and waiting to all peer over at us.
‘Are you seriously shooing me?’ I said, swatting his hands that were trying to shunt me back out the door. He put zero weight behind it, so I slipped past him effortlessly.
His glare followed me across the room. ‘You need a holiday, Rosie. For God’s sake, you’re going to get an ulcer the way you carry on.
’ He blew out a breath, placing his hands on his hips.
The loose button-down shirt he wore tucked into his black jeans was rolled at the elbow.
Making him look the picture of a disgruntled boss.
‘I’m bored. And I looked at the schedule and saw you were fully booked.’
‘That’s why I employ people other than you. This place won’t sink if you take a week off.’
I propped my elbow on the counter, wearing a wry smile. Jean chuckled beside me, telling me I wasn’t the only one enjoying Lawrence’s display.
‘I’m getting the feeling you didn’t miss me.’ I placed a hand over my chest in mock hurt.
His glower that I’d seen cause the new interns to scurry away terrified made my smile widen.
‘I’m not paying you,’ he tossed out.
‘Technically, she’s already on paid leave, so you’d be paying her either way, boss.’ Alistair came out of an exam room, a tiny kitten cradled in his arms.
His cocky smirk grew when Lawrence growled. That nugget of information registered, and Lawrence’s shoulders sagged in defeat. He threw his hands up in the air.
‘I give up. Work yourself to the ground, see if I care.’
Seeing him so worked up shouldn’t have eased some of the anxiety in my chest. But it was the fact that he cared about me so much, he hated seeing me work myself to the ground.
I didn’t bother to tell him that work wasn’t really work to me, not in the way most people see it.
Coming to the clinic gave me a sense of fulfilment I struggled to find anywhere else.
I skirted around the reception desk and wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. ‘Thanks for worrying about me.’
The sincerity in my tone stunned him into speechlessness. He cleared his throat, patting me awkwardly on the back before pulling away and stalking back to his office without a word. A flush steadily worked its way up his throat.
Monday slipped easily into Tuesday. Each morning, I grabbed my phone to see the good morning text George had taken to sending. And every night after my shift , I slipped into bed and spent the next hour convincing myself not to call or message him. I failed every time.
Hearing his rough gravelly voice as I nestled under the duvet, was turning me into a giddy teenager.
Sometimes he’d tell me about his day, explaining how he was still trying to figure out a way to fix his cash-flow issues.
Every time I brought up his brother, he’d clam up.
Eventually, I stopped suggesting it. Most of the time, when his voice came through the receiver, we barely made it through the standard small talk before he was asking me if I was wet.
The answer: always when he was involved.
By Wednesday, I was getting antsy. I wanted to see him. Calls and texts weren’t enough. He’d been scrambling to get meetings with other banks and catching up on deliveries, so we hadn’t set up another date. My worry for him reached new heights every time he told me about his day.
Lawrence might joke about me getting an ulcer for how much I worked, but George was doing the jobs of two people.
He couldn’t keep it up forever, but after the third time of him shutting down my suggestion of talking to his brother, I let it lie.
Knowing better than anyone that you couldn’t force someone to accept help, no matter how much they needed it.
By the time I crawled into bed on Wednesday night, I could barely keep my eyes open. Roxy shifted on the mattress beside me, snuggling up. Despite the exhaustion weighing heavy on my eyelids, I called George.
The line kept ringing.
‘Hi, this is George Blake. Leave your number and I’ll get back to you.’
I pulled the phone away from my ear with a frown.
It was possible he was asleep—I glanced at the time on my phone—at eleven o’clock at night?
I’d called him at two in the morning before now, not realising how late it had was and he’d still answered.
That rough, raspy voice he had when he just woke up was so fucking sexy, making me wish he was right beside me.
Roxy huffed out a sigh, pressing her head into the crook of my arm as if to say I’m not good enough for you?
I ran a hand down her back.
He’s asleep. Or busy. I didn’t need to call him again. He’d see I tried to call and message me back.
Deciding to ignore that knot in my gut that told me something was wrong, I turned off the light and tried to go to sleep.
I might be nearly thirty, have a stable job, and be able to afford a flat in London—which was almost unheard of in the current climate—but that didn’t mean I’d lost the ability to act like a toddler when the mood suited me.
As I stared at my phone for the millionth time the next day, I reached the pinnacle of an adult tantrum. Halfway through getting dressed that morning, I caved and called George again. When it went straight to voicemail, I sent another text.
He hadn’t replied to any of them.
My sour mood must have been written all over my face because everyone in the clinic avoided me, shooting me polite smiles as they passed and only speaking to me to hand me a chart or X-ray.
The only person who either seemed oblivious to the black cloud thundering above my head or simply didn’t care was Alistair.
He pushed open the door to the staff room, a tin foiled burrito in his hand, and pulled out the chair next to me.
I glowered at him from over the lip of my instant noodles.
Noodles that tasted more like cardboard than ever.
I couldn’t help but notice the fake taste and texture of the cheap ones I bought.
Nothing like the food George had been making me for the past few weeks.
It never bothered me before, and that only added to my foul mood.
‘Do you mind?’ I snapped, eyeing the extra chair he pulled up to rest his feet on. Alistair crossed his ankles, unwrapped his burrito that smelled incredible, and took a giant bite out of it.
‘Who pissed in your coffee this morning?’ he asked once he’d finished chewing.
I pushed my half eaten lunch away and drained the last of my energy drink. My lunch break was nearly over and my patient list for the rest of the day was full, so I needed as much caffeine as possible.
‘I’m fine.’
Alistair barked out a laugh. ‘Yeah right, and I’m Pamela Anderson.’
‘You don’t have the hair for it.’
He shot me a devilish grin that I’m sure made several women blush. I was not one of them.
‘But I’ve definitely got the cheekbones.’
Alistair had striking features. He was clean shaven, and for a second, a stab of disappointment struck me.
He didn’t have a scruffy beard that he scratched when he was nervous, and he didn’t have thick brown hair that always sat in a mess on top of his head.
I mentally slapped some sense into myself. No. Stop.
I eyed my phone again.
Alistair continued to casually eat his burrito as his eyes darted from me to the offending phone.
‘That got something to do with yer shitty mood?’
I just needed to get through this day without actually murdering someone, and this conversation was making me feel a little stabby.
I shook out my twitching fingers, feeling them start to tremble. Alistair watched with casual curiosity as he took another bite of his lunch.
The feeling of falling off a ledge, unsure if there was anything at the bottom to catch you, crept up my spine.
Chewing on my bottom lip, I finally blurted, ‘How do you know if someone likes you?’
He paused. The last mouthful of food halfway to his mouth. ‘I beg yer fucking pardon?’
I sighed. ‘You heard me.’
‘No. I’m not sure I did, cause the Rosie I know doesn’t give two shits if people like her.’
I grabbed my phone and swiped up the lock screen, scrolling through all my texts with George from the past week.
‘I’m losing my mind. That’s the only answer I have.
He’s addled me with his beard, and sexy voice, and smelling like a goddamn forest, and now I’ve lost all sense.
’ I flung my arms into the air. Voice cracking, I sank back into the chair.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Alistair breathed, popping the last bite into his mouth and sitting up straight. Leaning his elbows on the table, he swiped a hand down his face. ‘Alright talk.’
I hesitated for a second, not wanting to give voice to the emotions running rampant around my body.
After biting down on my lips so hard I tasted the metallic tang of blood, everything spilled out.
The bet, the dates, the conversations, the weekend away.
It all tumbled out of me in a muddle of half-finished thoughts and several curses.
Alistair listened without interruption. When nothing was left and the last vestiges of my energy seeped out of me, I let my forehead flop onto the table with a soft thud.
‘Hang on a sec,’ he said, and I tilted my head to look at him. ‘He bought you a pile of rare and expensive books?’ Alistair’s eyes creased in confusion.
Which was fair because I wasn’t making much sense, even to my own ears.
‘Yes. And then acted like it was nothing.’
‘Right, so he loves you.’ Alistair shrugged.
My back snapped upright so fast it clicked. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
He frowned, staring at me like I was the idiot. ‘He loves you. Is that really coming as a shock to you?’
‘He doesn’t,’ I blurted. ‘It was the bet and then-’
Alistair sighed like he was talking to a child barely able to speak in full sentences.
‘Okay, let me put it this way. If I came to you and told you I’d brought a girl dinner late one night when she was working, and bought her a bunch of expensive things and talked to her every night on the phone, what would you say? ’
‘That you’d gone insane.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Humour me.’
The corners of his brown eyes crinkled when he saw the realisation slowly dawn on my face.
I shook my head, heart slamming an unrelenting beat behind my ribs. ‘No. No. He doesn’t, he can’t. I’m—’
‘In love with him too,’ he finished for me.
My eyes bulged. ‘I didn’t say that. You take it back.’
‘So you’ve not been about to murder anybody who crosses your path today simply because he hasn’t answered your texts?’
‘I told you,’ I cried. ‘I’m losing my mind.’
His hand reached over the table and gripped my shoulder. ‘That is pretty much synonymous with falling in love. Alright, I can see yer about to explode. Let me just ask you one question.’
I sat frozen in my seat, body too numb to function properly.
‘How would you feel if he never answered your message? If you never spoke to him again?’
That small crater in the middle of my chest grew even wider at that thought.
My eyes widened. ‘Fuck.’
Alistair chuckled. ‘Ay, that’s one way to put it.’