Chapter forty-seven #2
The men drift over a few minutes later, chairs being dragged over, pints arriving, everyone folding back into the familiar ease of Oakwood social life where nothing stays separate for long and all roads seem to lead to one pub eventually.
Rory takes the seat diagonally opposite me at first, which I tell myself is fine.
Then twenty minutes later someone swaps for a clearer view of the football and suddenly Rory is next to me in the booth, his thigh warm against mine through denim.
I do not react. Outwardly. Inwardly I am basically one long air-scream.
“You alright?” he asks quietly while everyone else is busy arguing about whether Mark actually cheated at darts last month.
“Yes,” I say, too quickly. “Fine. Why?”
He glances at my glass. “You drank that wine in basically a single gulp.”
I let out a surprised laugh. “That obvious?”
“A bit.”
“Well,” I say, trying for lightness and only partly succeeding, “it’s been a long week.”
His eyes flick to mine, something softer passing through them for a second. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “It has.”
The conversation around us rises and falls.
People order chips. Hannah is telling a story about a recent date she went on and I should be listening, I know I should, but Rory is beside me and every now and then his arm brushes mine or his knee nudges mine under the table and I feel fourteen and forty at the same time.
At some point Dan leans across Rory to ask me something about school pickup next week and I answer it while very consciously not noticing the way Rory’s body shifts slightly closer when he does it, like the space between us belongs to him now.
Which is a thought I should absolutely not be having in a crowded pub with three of my closest friends watching me like I am a nature documentary.
Clara catches my eye over Rory’s shoulder and mouths, “tell him.”
I shake my head almost imperceptibly and open my eyes widely at her with pursed lips. She rolls hers dramatically and looks away.
The men gradually disperse toward the bar for another round. Clara leans across the table. “This is ridiculous.”
“What is?”
“You two.”
“We are sitting in a pub.”
“You are one accidental hand brush away from combustion.”
I try to look offended. It is difficult because she is not wrong. “He looks at you like he’s trying not to smile every two seconds,” she continues. “And you have that face.”
“What face?”
“That face you do when you’re pretending you’re not extremely pleased with yourself.”
“I do not have a face for that.”
“You absolutely do.”
I pick up my drink and take a large sip because unfortunately there is no argument I can make that doesn’t sound like an admission.
Clara softens again then, her expression shifting. “Freya,” she says quietly, “if this is real, tell him how you feel.”
My stomach tightens. “I don’t even know what I feel.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s not a lie, it’s admitting the truth to myself because the truth is too scary.”
She smiles a little. “Same thing.”
Before I can answer, Rory returns with fresh drinks and drops one in front of me.
“I didn’t ask for another,” I say.
“No,” he replies, sliding back into the seat beside me. “But you looked like you were thinking too much and I support preventative measures.”
I laugh. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
His hand lingers on the glass for half a second too long before he lets go, and the small, stupid tenderness of that almost does me in more than anything else has all evening.
Because that’s the problem now, I think.
It isn’t just that I want him. It’s that I want all the bits around it too.
The easy banter. The looking over. The instinctive kindness.
The way he notices things before I say them out loud.
And that is a much more alarming kind of want.
As the evening wears on the group gets louder, looser, softened at the edges by alcohol and familiarity.
Stories get retold. Someone puts money in the jukebox.
The room feels golden and warm and full in that particular Friday night way, and all the while something private hums beneath the surface between Rory and me.
The quiet “you cold?” when he notices me rubbing my arms. The way he leans in when he speaks so I can hear him over the noise and suddenly I can smell him, clean and warm and familiar, and my whole body goes traitorously still.
The way he is resting his head on his hand, and his elbow on the back of the booth behind me as he talks to me.
At one point he says something quietly that makes me laugh so suddenly I nearly spill my drink, and when I turn back toward him we are much too close for a second, our faces only inches apart, the noise of the pub blurring around the edges.
Neither of us moves immediately. Then someone at the bar shouts Rory’s name and the moment breaks.
But not properly. Because it leaves something behind.
And I know, with a certainty that settles low and warm inside me, that tonight has shifted things again.
The girls noticed. The men probably have too.
And more importantly, I noticed. The way he keeps finding his way back to me in a crowded room.
The way I keep turning toward him without thinking.
The way this already feels like more than just what happened in Wales.
Which is thrilling and equally terrifying.
And, if I’m honest, probably exactly why I curled my hair.