CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
August
‘Surprise!’ the room full of people shouts at Josh as he walks into the farmhouse sitting room after work on Friday evening.
He looks genuinely surprised as party-poppers spray around him and thirty-four people shout and cheer his arrival.
‘Happy birthday!’ I call over to him as people start surrounding him and wishing him the same.
I watch his reaction go from surprise to happy confusion, and then he glances at me as his dad puts a glass of red wine in his hand. Josh narrows his eyes. ‘Did you do this?’ he mouths from across the room.
‘Might have done,’ I mouth back, and he holds his glass up in the air to cheers me from the other side of the room. Next to him, his father misunderstands and lifts his glass high to clink it against Josh’s, which makes Josh and me laugh together conspiratorially. And then I lose him to the crowd as he’s engulfed in birthday wishes.
‘You make my son very happy,’ Josh’s mum, Cassandra, says to me later that evening. ‘I hope you know that.’
I’m sure I’m blushing. ‘I do. I think I do. He makes me very happy too,’ I reply as we’re hovering over the remaining canapés by the sideboard in the sitting room, hoovering them down together, one after the other.
She gives me an encouraging smile and then says she’s off to talk to my mum again, as she’s remembered the name of the book she was trying to describe to her earlier.
I’d invited my mum and dad along to the party, which in hindsight was a brave move, considering Josh has never met them before. But then, even though they live in the next village, I’d only met Josh’s parents a few times for some kitchen suppers now and then. Josh has been so protective of our time together, seeing as we hardly get any. We’ve been together nearly a year. A year ago this month I met Josh. And Chris. Two different men and two different stories. My life has changed so much since that day.
Today, at this party, I have killed all the birds with all the stones. Everyone’s met everyone. Scarlet and her boyfriend Rory travelled separately from London and Scotland respectively, and are shooting off for the rest of the weekend to explore the Cotswolds as he’s never been to this part of the world.
Scarlet was desperate to meet Josh again, after that one time on the terrace at the wedding back in August, and he was excited to see her again too. He confides in me later, when we’re standing in the hallway as the last guests are trickling out the door, that he thinks he’s passed the Scarlet Test, and I don’t pretend not to know what he’s talking about.
‘Yeah, she likes you. Sings your praises from afar. Liked you from the wedding where we met, and I leapt on you and snogged your face off.’
‘Oh, you’ve admitted it was you who made the first move then, have you? Even though I allegedly “goaded” you into kissing me.’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll let you have that win, but only because it’s your birthday.’
‘Thank you for this.’ He gestures around us at the detritus from the night. ‘No one’s ever thrown me a surprise party before.’ He pulls me into his arms and kisses me deeply in the hallway until Tamara appears, coughs loudly and laughs, hand-in-hand with Mark.
‘Happy birthday for yesterday,’ I tell her as I remind myself again that she and Josh met after being born only a day apart.
‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘We’re off now,’ she smiles warmly.
‘Great party,’ Mark says.
‘Thanks for coming,’ Josh and I both say together and then laugh.
‘You two are just too cute,’ Tamara replies as she and Mark hug us and leave.
‘I think that went really well,’ I say to Josh when we’re alone. ‘It was such a good way for everyone to meet each other and, as a bonus, you got loads of presents.’
‘Mostly wine, I think,’ he says happily as he heads towards the collection of bottle bags lined up. ‘I’m glad our friends and family had a good time. They’re all so generous.’
‘You’re very loved,’ I tell him.
‘I feel it,’ he says, moving away from his new hoard of wine bottles and coming back over to me. He looks at me for a long time, as if deciding something.
‘What?’ I ask gently.
‘Would you like to move in with me?’
My eyes widen. Although I’d been wondering if this sort of invite might eventually be dispensed, as we’d talked about it briefly a while ago, I wasn’t really expecting it – not now, not after Josh had had rather a lot of wine. Surely this sort of chat should be reserved for a sober occasion?
He asks me, ‘What’s wrong?’ as I continue to look at him.
‘Really?’ I ask.
‘Really,’ he confirms. ‘Do you think I’m not being genuine? It’s a very big decision to make, asking a woman to move in with me. I’ve never done this before. I wanted to wait for the right time.
‘And that time is now?’ I ask warmly. I’m fishing for compliments, clearly.
He smiles. ‘It is, yes.’ With that he reaches into the pocket of his jeans, struggling to retrieve whatever it is he’s looking for. For one tiny fraction of a second, I wonder if it’s a ring. That would be two shocks in one night and I’m not sure I could cope with that.
But it’s not a ring. It’s a key, on a key chain with a huge glittery L on it.
I beam as he passes it to me. ‘I don’t need this,’ I joke. ‘Your front door’s usually unlocked – which, to me as a Londoner, is just asking for it.’
‘It’s for those rare occasions when it’s locked,’ Josh says, playing along. ‘Consider it a symbolic gesture. We’re moving along, you and me. You know my parents, and now I’ve met yours. It’s been almost a whole year of us going back and forth, back and forth,’ he goes on. ‘Or, rather, it’s been nearly a whole year of you doing this. I’ve stayed right here. And every time you go back to yours to appease Scarlet, I miss you.’
‘I miss you too,’ I reply and then realise what he’s said. ‘I don’t appease Scarlet. I have meetings.’
‘Which you spread out across the days you’re back in London, Monday to Friday. Why not condense them into one day and commute from here for that one day? Plenty of people do it.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’ve seen them getting off the train with me on a Friday night.’
‘In fairness, some of them might be second-homers,’ Josh replies, undoing his own argument.
I’d worked that out for myself, but don’t like to say so.
‘But not all of them,’ he’s quick to point out. ‘Being with me, here …’ He shrugs, lets his sentence hang in mid-air. ‘I mean,’ he continues, ‘I’d love that. And it’d mean you’re not paying rent with Scarlet for a flat you’re only living in half the week.’
‘I live there for most of the week,’ I say. ‘And I’m not going to move in with you just so I can pay less rent. I’d be moving in with you because I want to move in with you.’ Josh looks pleased at that until I say, ‘Hang on, how much rent do you want?’
He’s taken aback. ‘I don’t want any rent.’
‘Why not?’ I ask.
‘The house doesn’t have a mortgage.’
‘That’s the dream, right there,’ I say, glancing around at my surroundings. Faces in portraits a hundred years old glance back at me, and I silently thank them for doing whatever it was they did that got this giant hulk of a house mortgage-free in time for my arrival.
‘My grandparents paid it off years ago,’ Josh tells me. ‘Mum and Dad got the benefit of that when they raised us here. And now it’s my turn to make a life here with someone.’
‘Someone?’
‘With you.’
‘Oh my gosh, Josh,’ I say in awe and then try not to laugh as I realise that rhymes. He notices it too and emits a brief chuckle.
‘I love you,’ he continues. ‘And this is the next step. We know it works when you live here, because you practically moved in with me five minutes after we met.’
I thump him playfully, ‘It wasn’t five minutes, and it was only for a few weeks.’ I think of all the things we do together – there’s quite a bit of sex, and he’s taking the time to teach me how to drive. He’s been gradually letting me into his world and now he wants me to live in it fully. It’s going to be such a change from my own world. I make jokes about becoming a country bumpkin, though I’m not sure I am one at heart. I’m going to have to learn how, if I move to Somerset full-time.
I reason it’s not the other side of the world. And then my mind flicks to the alternate life I could have had on the other side of the world in New York with Chris. I force him from my thoughts and bring myself back to the here and now. Somerset is a train journey away from friends and family – that’s it. And moving in would be the perfect next step. But it still feels like such a huge step for me. I’d be leaving Scarlet, for one thing. I wonder if I need time to think about it. I can hardly say that, though.
‘I’ll need to talk to Scarlet about it,’ I respond, buying myself a little time, and Josh adopts a look of confusion.
‘Why?’ he asks. ‘You want her permission?’
‘No,’ I say, slightly taken aback. ‘We share a flat. I can’t leave her with all the bills. We’d need to discuss how me moving out would work – if she would want to sublet my room or if we’d end the tenancy together. Either way, it’ll take time, so I can’t just move out. Not that quickly.’
‘Ah, I see,’ Josh says more gently, now he understands.
‘It might take a while to sort,’ I say.
I watch hope rise on his face as it dawns on him. ‘Does that mean … Are you saying yes?’ he asks. He looks so concerned that I might say no. This handsome kind man, who I do love – I do – has asked me to move in with him.
‘Yes,’ I say, realising this at the same time as he does. ‘Yes, I am.’