Chapter thirty-three
rory
The estate agent keeps saying the word potential like it’s meant to mean something. “Lovely potential if you knock through here,” she says brightly, gesturing at a wall that absolutely does not look like it wants to be knocked through. “And the garden gets the sun all afternoon in summer.”
I stand in the middle of the living room with my hands in my coat pockets and nod like a man seriously weighing structural possibilities, when really I’m just trying to work out why none of these places feel right.
It’s a good house. Three bedrooms. Clean lines. Neutral walls. The kind of place you could move into without having to do anything to it.
I walk upstairs while she continues talking about resale value and school catchments, my boots heavy on the carpet, and pause in what would be Isla’s room.
There’s a small window overlooking the back garden, light pooling in through thin winter sun, the sort of space you could paint pink and fill with Lego and soft toys and the chaos of a seven-year-old who believes every room is a stage.
I can see her in here, but I can’t feel it.
That’s the bit that keeps tripping me up.
Every house I’ve looked at since moving back has been fine on paper, exactly what I should want.
A place to build something stable. A place that says I’ve grown up.
A place that isn’t my childhood bedroom with rugby medals still pinned to the corkboard.
And yet every time I stand in one, there’s this quiet resistance in my chest, like something in me is waiting for a different answer or for something else.
It’s not about the size of the kitchen or the postcode.
It’s not even about money because as a professional rugby player, I pretty much have the choice of any house in Oakwood.
It’s about the fact that none of them feel like home.
Home, apparently, smells like cinnamon candles from a garden centre and slightly overdone sausages and someone laughing in the next room while my mum pretends she’s not crying at a cartoon.
Home, inconveniently, also looks like Freya.
I leave the spare room and head back downstairs, the estate agent smiling at me like she can sense a sale hovering in the air.
“So?” she asks, hopeful.
“It’s lovely,” I reply honestly, because it is. “I just need to think about it.”
I have said that about every house so far.
Outside, the air bites hard enough to wake me up properly.
I button my coat and walk back towards the car.
Maybe I’m just being difficult. Maybe I’m stalling.
Maybe the reason none of these places feel right is because I’m still, stupidly, measuring them against a life I don’t technically have and have never had.
I turn the corner and see her before I register that I’ve seen her.
Freya is standing outside Rose’s Café with Clara, scarves wrapped high around their necks, takeaway cups steaming in their hands.
They’re laughing at something, properly laughing, Clara’s hand on Freya’s arm, Freya’s head tipped all the way back, her hair trailing down her back.
My first instinct is to go over. Just park up, get out and walk across the road like a normal person and say hi.
Be easy. Be casual. Be the version of myself who can exist in her orbit without internally detonating.
I deserve a coffee and a croissant anyway. House hunting is exhausting.
I pull into a space on the opposite side of the road.
I glance up before opening the car door and stop dead in my tracks as Ben appears.
He’s walking down from the direction of the hardware shop with a paper bag tucked under his arm.
He spots them and lifts a hand, and Freya turns at the sound of her name.
She smiles. It’s not the smile itself that bothers me but the way she smiles.
It’s not the polite school gate smile. It’s warmer than that.
Like the kind of smile she would give me.
Clara clocks it immediately, because Clara clocks everything, and I can practically see the wheels turning in her head from here.
She says something I can’t hear, nudges Freya, then with the subtlety of a sledgehammer announces something and disappears into Rose’s, leaving the two of them alone on the pavement.
Which is how I find myself sitting in my car, hand on the handle, watching a man I barely know talk to the woman I have absolutely no claim over but apparently can’t stand seeing talking to anyone else.
Fuck.
Ben says something. Freya laughs and it kills me a little that another man can make her laugh like that.
He shifts his weight, says something else and gestures lightly toward the café door.
She tucks her hair behind her ear and a hint of pink travels up her neck and into her cheeks. My jaw tightens before I can stop it.
Don’t. We agreed.
Friends don’t monitor interactions from across the road like jealous idiots who peaked in secondary school.
He leans in slightly, not in a way that would set off alarms, just closer, more deliberate now. The posture shift is subtle but obvious if you know what to look for, and I know what to look for. He’s asking her something that a man doesn’t ask just anyone.
There’s a pause. Freya doesn’t answer immediately.
She glances down at her cup, then back up at him.
Her cheeks are flushed pink now and she looks ever so slightly awkward.
I don’t wait to see what she says. I look forward and put the key in the ignition because the alternative is sitting there long enough to confirm something I may not want confirmed.
If he’s asking her out, that is exactly what a decent man should do.
If she says yes, that is exactly what a woman who deserves someone decent should consider.
That is how grown adults behave. But I can’t bear to see it.
I start the engine and grip the steering wheel harder than necessary. My knuckles turn white and my jaw is clenched tighter than ever.
This is what being noble looks like, apparently. And being noble feels like utter shit if I’m honest. But I’m Staying out of it. Not interfering. Not inserting myself where I don’t belong. If she’s happy, that’s the point.
Rowan’s voice surfaces unhelpfully in my head.
“If you’re still pretending you’re friends when some other man asks her out, you deserve everything you get.”
I exhale slowly through my nose. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the part where I finally learn to live with wanting something and not having it.
I check the mirror before pulling away, and that’s when I see it.
She’s still standing there but she’s not looking at Ben.
She’s looking across the road at my car.
For a fraction of a second our eyes meet through the glass.
I hold her gaze for a split second then I drive off anyway.
Because that is what friends do. And I am nothing if not committed to this very stupid plan.