Her kitchen could just about cope with her and Amelie, and even squeeze in Lauren. But they were all, in their own way, small people—which was one of the many things Lauren had in common with Napoleon. Harry, though, while shorter than Alain, could not be described as small in any meaningful way. This should have made Rosaline feel crowded. Except, somehow, it didn’t. It was nice to . . . share the space. Step around each other. Pass things across the hob.
“I might be,” she admitted. “But I was thinking how betrayed Amelie would feel right now. She’s convinced grown-ups start having fun the moment she goes to bed. And if I tell her we made fish finger sandwiches at ten o’clock, she’ll never sleep again.”
“We could have ice-cream sundaes after.”
“And then go on the secret adults-only merry-go-round. Oh wait. No. That sounds incredibly wrong.”
The fish fingers gave a merry crackle as they hit the pan. “Yeah, my sister had one of them on her hen-do.”
Rosaline laughed, remembering abruptly that she was supposed to be making tea rather than watching Harry fry battered cod sticks. It shouldn’t have been a particularly attractive thing for a man to be doing, but right then, it struck this incongruous balance between cosy and sexy that she wasn’t at all prepared for. Maybe she could blame the fact he’d come to her rescue like a blue-collar knight in denim armour. Or his T-shirts. He really could afford to wear slightly looser-fitting T-shirts.
A kettle, four slices of bread, and a lot of butter later, they were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, knees almost touching beneath it—something else that was not a hazard with either Amelie or Lauren.
“They’re better with white bread,” said Harry.
“I know, but I’m trying to make sure my daughter grows up with a healthy bowel.”
Harry gave her a playfully appalled look. “Thanks for talking about bowels while I’m trying to have a sarnie.”
“Sorry.” She winced. “Between Amelie and Lauren, I’m used to far worse mealtime conversation.”
“Just taking the piss, mate. Besides, posh voice like yours, ‘bowels’ sounds like what you call your chihuahua.”
“You do know I’m not that posh.”
“Your kid’s named Amelie, you eat wholemeal bread, and you ain’t got no salad cream in your fridge.”
“There’s mayonnaise.”
“It’s not the same thing, and you know it.”
She took a sip of tea. “What even is salad cream? I mean, I know what it is. But nobody knows what it is.”
“Well, it’s one of them things like Branston pickle, init? It’s made of Branston. You put it on sandwiches.”
“And Marmite,” she offered in her best academic tone, which, thanks to her mother, was pretty good, “is made of marm.”
“Oh, them poor little marms. They’re an endangered species now. Bloody shocking.”
Giggling, she turned her attention to her food. “I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I’ve never had a fish finger sandwich before.”
“Well, since you got no salad cream or white bread, you basically still haven’t.”
This observation did not help her giggling, which made eating difficult. It wasn’t fair. Men who looked like Harry did not have the right to be funny as well. “Um,” she heard herself say out of nowhere, “sorry I was such a dick to you that first week.”
He gave one of his slow blinks. “Didn’t think you were, mate. But now I know you was, I’m a bit offended.”
“You don’t have to make a joke out of it.”
“And you don’t have to feel guilty about telling me you didn’t like how I was talking to you.”
It shouldn’t have kept surprising her—Harry’s general willingness to . . . well . . . care about things because someone else did? But she kept waiting for the bridge too far or the straw that broke the camel’s back or the compromise he wasn’t willing to make. And the more she let herself relax, the more she let herself enjoy his company, the worse it was going to hurt when it finally happened.
“But I’m really good at feeling guilty,” she protested. “I’ve had a lot of practice. And anyway, it’s not what I said, it’s . . . it’s sort of . . . I just think I had you wrong.”
“I mean”—he shrugged—“I’m not sure I had you had right either. Like, I only talked to you because I reckoned you was this pretty posh bird and you wouldn’t give me the time of day anyway so if I fucked it up it wouldn’t matter. Course I still fucked it up by calling you ‘love’ and all that. And now I think about it, you probably don’t like bird either, do you?”
“Not a huge fan of bird, no.”
“See”—he made a defeated gesture—“fucked it up again.”
“It’s . . . it’s fine. And for what it’s worth, Jennifer Hallet thinks I’m just a pretty posh bird too.”
He laughed. “I bet she don’t after the way you yelled at her in bread week.”
“I’m not sure that’s better. You can’t go around yelling at people.”
“Well, it depends on who’s doing the yelling and who’s getting yelled at. You gotta stand up for yourself, mate.”
In Rosaline’s experience, people who told her to stand up for herself meant “to everybody except me.” So it was an idea she approached warily at best.
“And anyway,” Harry went on, “I never said you was just a pretty posh bird. I mean, you are still posh. And you look the way you look. But I also know you’re not scared to have a go at someone what could kick you off a show, and you brung up a daughter who’s well into ugly fish, which means she probably knows you’ll love her whatever she does, and that’s really important. And when everybody else is pantsing about making flowers out of bread you make an actual heart what bleeds because you’re a fucking weirdo. And I also know you’re with another bloke so I should probably shut up.”
Rosaline opened her mouth and—realising she had absolutely no idea what to say—closed it again. Because she was kind of with another bloke. So probably letting stone-cold hotties tell her she was a fucking weirdo was over some hypothetical but very specific line.
Except what if Alain had been right however many weeks ago and she was desperate for . . . something? Because she didn’t actually want Harry to shut up at all. She needed more of—actually, she wasn’t quite sure what. If it was the quiet otherworldly feeling of your child being in bed. Or not having to worry about the electricity going off for no reason or about how she’d pay to fix it if it did. Maybe it was because she’d come first on biscuits, and every time she thought about it she had to stop herself bouncing like Tigger. Or maybe it was the company. Being with someone who’d seen her house and met her kid and knew what her life was like. Someone who seemed to care about who she was. Not who she should have been.
Standing, Harry gathered up their plates and then took them over to the sink—where he started to wash up.
“You cooked,” she said. “You shouldn’t be—”
“I stuck some fish fingers in a frying plan. Marcus Wareing ain’t gonna be knocking on my door anytime soon.”