Chapter 11
‘Are you okay?’ Emma asked when I met her outside the shop thirty minutes later.
‘Yeah, no… sort of.’ I got my keys out, juggling a bag of baps and two takeaway coffees as I unlocked the door. Bless her, but Maeve must have noticed my bloodshot eyes because those rolls were stuffed with a worrying amount of bacon. ‘Richard came back to the flat this morning.’
‘Shit!’ Emma followed me inside, well-kohled eyes round like those of a bushbaby. ‘Did he come to get his stuff, or to apologise and get back together? Either way, I hope you told him where to go. Slimy little weasel.’
‘Um… well, he didn’t actually think we’d broken up and neither was he sorry…
but he did pack some stuff,’ I said, hearing how brittle my voice sounded and hating it.
I’d cried while I finished up my hair and then tried to erase the evidence with probably too much of my precious Erborian concealer.
No wonder Emma could tell I was shaken up.
I probably looked like a weird reverse panda.
‘Ugh, what a dick!’ She screwed her face up and pulled out a stool for me. ‘I’ll open us up. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Thanks… I’m sorry for being such a mess the past couple of—’
Emma cut me off with a raised hand. ‘No apology needed. You were together for three years. It’s going to take more than a few days to feel like yourself again.’
I wished she wasn’t right. More than anything, I wanted my body to catch up with where my brain was.
Intellectually, I was angry at Richard, so very angry.
But my chest was still carved out with sadness and my stomach churned with regrets.
How long would that last? How long would I be mourning a man that my higher reasoning told me wasn’t worth so much as a proper goodbye?
Emma went around the shop and pulled up the blinds behind the window displays. The lights came up one after the other and she moved the display baskets of half-price yarn out of the corner where they were stored while we hoovered every night. That done, she sat down and we ate breakfast together.
‘Do you think he gets it now – that you’re broken up?’ Emma asked, tearing open a sachet of ketchup and piping it evenly into her roll.
Looking at mine, I tried to muster some appetite. ‘I think so. He uh… kind of freaked out because there were men’s clothes drying on the airer when he came in.’
Her eyes widened and she paused with the bap halfway to her mouth. ‘Fill me in.’
‘Nothing happened!’ I exclaimed at her salacious tone. ‘It was… okay, so I went for a walk by the canal after work—’
‘Aww, you should have said, I’d have come with you,’ Emma interrupted.
I laughed, because I’d known that was exactly what she’d say. ‘I know, I just wanted to be by myself for a bit but I was walking that way and I found that narrowboat everyone’s been gossiping about and it turns out that jumper-man lives on it.’
A grin spread across her face. ‘You got with boat man?’
I swatted at her arm playfully, amusement and embarrassment at least making a nice change from hurt and doubt. ‘No! I was in a weird mood and I confronted him about the jumper… and then I fell into the canal and he had to rescue me.’
The noise Emma made could only be described as a squeal. ‘He rescued you from the water? I’ve seen this film. Did his shirt go see-through? Did he give you the kiss of life?’
‘It is really not the Colin Firth moment you’re picturing,’ I said, stirring two sugars into my coffee. ‘More like… grumpy dog begrudgingly fetches tennis ball from filthy canal.’
‘… hot,’ Emma raised her eyebrows. ‘Come on you’re telling me it wasn’t the least bit sexy? Because I did a rune reading for you and it did say you’d be meeting someone new.’
‘… did it really?’ I asked, narrowing my eyes.
‘Well, meeting someone new or that you’d be given a gift… or give birth. I’m still learning all the configurations but it was very positive.’
I laughed. It hurt all the tummy muscles I’d pulled whilst crying but felt good.
‘But he lent you clothes,’ Emma pressed, ‘and you’re telling me there was no spark at all? Not even a little tiny whiff of sexiness?’
The back of my neck went hot as I thought of Cooper’s crooked, slightly foxy smirk and his cold, nimble fingers. Heartbroken I might feel inside, but I wasn’t immune to… whatever that had been. I cleared my throat.
‘More like a whiff of canal. The presence of about five hundred Princess Diana pictures also gave the moment a weird vibe,’ I said and then, as Emma’s nose scrunched in confusion, I elaborated.
‘The boat’s full of some older couple’s royal family merchandise.
He’s cleaning it up. And… maybe there was a tiny moment where I thought about…
I mean I did see him naked. Ish. Briefly. From behind.’
Emma took a chomp of her roll and nodded sagely. ‘From behind is probably for the best.’
‘Why?’ I felt my face go a bit hot, remembering the moment I’d walked in on him changing. ‘Because I’m not ready to see a new dick yet?’
Cock, I corrected myself mentally. Richard had a dick but Cooper definitely seemed like the kind of man to have a cock.
I tried to ignore the hot squirmy feeling in my belly at the thought. I’d probably caught a deadly parasite from the canal water. I was absolutely not getting all wriggly thinking about Cooper’s…
‘Because he’d just taken a dip in the canal… which I expect was freezing,’ Emma said pointedly, screwing up her napkin. ‘Did he have a nice bum?’
‘Oh God, yes,’ I said, before I could filter my thoughts.
‘Was he… nice?’ Emma asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘I’m not exactly sure. He was… kind of mean, but funny? And a bit nice, but a lot strange. But it was sort of fun bantering with him. He wasn’t exactly Prince Charming but he was… something. It took my mind off things.’
‘Well, that’s good – that it distracted you a bit. Also… Richard doesn’t really do that, does he? The banter thing.’ Emma said and pulled a face. ‘I saw him parking up at Asda all crooked once and I said “parked or abandoned?” and he literally just ignored me.’
‘Yeah, he doesn’t really like being the butt of jokes,’ I muttered.
‘Hmm.’ Emma clicked her tongue and looked contemplatively at the lid of her coffee. ‘Do you know his star sign? Boat guy, I mean.’
‘No.’ I couldn’t help but laugh as I imagined Cooper’s reaction to me asking. ‘I am almost completely positive that he doesn’t believe in astrology.’
Or underwear, I thought but did not say.
‘Are you going to see him again?’ Emma asked. ‘You could find out his birth date and hour for me.’
‘I mean… I do have to return the clothes he lent me, but I probably won’t hang around for tea and a chat again. He seemed like he had a lot going on.’
‘Again?’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘You had tea?’
I narrowed my eyes at her in admonishment. ‘Like you said, the canal was cold. And we didn’t talk long. He just asked me about the crochet and the jumper, which by the way he’s keeping – all of it – he just wanted to be warm on the boat, so… and… I told him about Richard.’
That seemed to sober Emma. She reached over and took my hand. ‘Tabitha…’
‘I know it was… but it sort of helped, a bit. I mean, you’ve got to take my side because we’re friends but he’s a stranger and, if he thinks Richard’s a piece of shit, then… that helps. It makes me feel like I’m making the right decision.’
‘I can see that,’ Emma allowed. ‘But just be careful, okay? All jokes aside, you don’t want to go straight from Richard into a rebound with some… stranger on a boat.’
‘I’m not,’ I insisted, but felt my cheeks burn all over again. ‘It was just one of those moments, you know? The kind you can only have with a stranger and then they never go anywhere and you never really see them again.’
‘Except to return their clothes?’ Emma said, sceptically.
‘I’ll probably just drop them off in a bag and not see him,’ I said firmly. ‘Like I said, he’s probably busy de-Diana-ing his boat. Anyway… as we’re probably not going to be busy today – again – I think I’ll flat-hunt out at the counter on the work laptop.’
‘Cool. I think I’ll do some affirmations and recharge the crystals before people start coming in.’
Emma bustled off to do just that and I unlocked the drawer under the counter, which held the laptop I’d bought for ordering and bookkeeping.
It was second-hand, obviously, a bargain from Teddy who ran the garage and also did computer fixes and refurbished tech on the side.
He’d even thrown in a new mouse, two memory sticks and new brake pads.
It was time to trawl through the local property listings and try to find somewhere I could afford to rent by myself, whilst also paying rent on the shop in a few months’ time.
While it booted up, I drank my coffee and probed my feelings experimentally.
Was I thinking about Cooper as a potential rebound?
I had been flirting maybe. A bit. I wasn’t even really sure.
We’d both been sort of bantering back and forth and it had felt natural and easy.
The way it felt when I talked to Emma. Friendly.
That was all. Casual. Fun. So what if seeing his collection of well-loved Horowitz books had sent me to the storage cupboard to dig out my own copies?
That was just because they comforted me.
It wasn’t about him or how it had felt to be held tightly and towed to safety.
I thought about his bum again and caught sight of my own panicked expression in the laptop screen. That was enough of that. I was off men for a while, and that included their bums.
I sat and doom-scrolled flats for about half an hour, finding nothing in my price range.
Sadly, no wormholes had opened up to the 1980s, where rent wasn’t the same price as the ransom for a minor TV star.
Leaford property prices were out of control, even for rentals.
The quaint streets came at a price, as did our commutable distance to London.
The only place I found in my budget was a garage, and even that had a waiting list.