Okay, that bit where she told herself it was fine? Not fine. Because her mum had been right for years: being in a situation where you needed a guy to rescue you just fucking sucked. “Harry, I’m sorry to ask. But I’m at Alain’s. Can you come and get me?”
“Has something happened?”
“Yes. No. Sort of.”
“You safe, mate?”
“I’m . . . locked in the bathroom.”
Mercifully, he didn’t ask any further questions. “All right. Stay there. Send me the address. I’ll be with you as soon as I can. I’ll text you when I’m outside.”
Rosaline let out a trembly breath. “Okay. Thanks.” She didn’t want to hang up. But she couldn’t afford to run the battery of her mobile down. “Um. Bye? See you soon.”
It was not the best two hours of Rosaline’s life. Alain had made another attempt to convince her she was being silly for not wanting to help him live out some fantasy he must have been cooking up in his head since they’d first met. But after the third time she’d told him to fuck off he’d given up. Leaving her to stare at her phone in peace, until she heard the rumble of a van outside and saw a text pop up.
Here, it said.
Which was exactly the word she needed to see right then.
Rosaline heard the doorbell jingle. Then the hum of conversation below. And footsteps in the downstairs hall.
She’d been wanting to leave Alain’s bijou sex cottage since, if she was honest, some time before Liv had taken her kit off. But now the moment had come, she was finding it hard to move. Pulling herself up on the towel rack, she got unsteadily to her feet and unlocked the door as quietly as she could.
“—the fuck are you doing?” Alain was saying.
“Come to get Rosaline.”
“Rosaline’s my guest. I’m not going to let you drag her off in the middle of the night.”
“She asked me to come pick her up.”
Alain, as far as Rosaline could tell from his back and the tone of his voice, seemed genuinely surprised by this. “Whatever for? We had a bit of a misunderstanding, but we’re having a perfectly pleasant evening.”
“Not my call, mate.”
“Well, I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey, but—”
“I’m here.” Rosaline hurried down the stairs. “Let me get my bag and coat.”
“Rosaline, darling, you’re not leaving?” called Liv plaintively from the living room. “We were just getting started.”
So she was still pissed then.
“Don’t think I can’t see what you’re trying to do here.” Alain took a step forward, looking down at Harry in a way that made it very clear he was the taller of the two. “You’ve been after her for weeks.”
“Alain, mate. I can see you’ve had a few. We’re all tired. But I’m gonna ask you to take a step back, please.”
“Take a step back? It’s my own fucking house. And you have no fucking right to be here.”
Harry had lifted his hands in the universal symbol of Chill out. “I’m not in your house. I’m on your doorstep. And I’m about to leave.”
Coat bundled under one arm and bag clutched to her chest, Rosaline squeezed past Alain and out into the night. “Okay, let’s go.”
“You got it, mate.” Harry turned, but Alain seized him by the sleeve of his T-shirt and yanked him back.
“Do you think,” he sneered, “I’m going to let you walk away with my fucking girlfriend.”
That brought Rosaline up short. “Sorry, do you still think I’m your girlfriend after everything that’s happened?”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Rosaline.” Alain tightened his grip as Harry tried to step away.
“Don’t wanna be rude”—although Harry’s voice was low, Rosaline thought she could see tension in his neck and shoulders—“but I’m gonna need you to take your hand off me.”
Alain grabbed his other sleeve.
“Mate,” Harry sighed. “You do not wanna do this.”
“Oh, who the fuck do you think you are? You thick Cockney c—”
Anvita, Rosaline reflected, had been right about Harry’s arms. And one of them now shot upwards with remarkable speed, driving his knuckles squarely into Alain’s jaw. In response, Alain took two paces backwards and fell over.
“You all right, mate?” Harry asked.
“You fucking hit me, you fucking thug.”
He shrugged. “I did say to get your hands off me.”
“Have I got a concussion?” Alain was still on one knee and clutching his face, like he was doing the world’s shittiest proposal. “Did you give me a fucking concussion?”
“Nah. You didn’t bash your head or nothing. Just got a bit of whiplash. Put some peas on it, you’ll be fine. See you at the weekend.”
Alain said some more things after that, but Rosaline wasn’t listening, and she didn’t think Harry was either.
He took her bag and let her in the passenger side of his van. “Mind the toolbox, mate.”
She got herself settled and Harry climbed into the driver’s seat, closing the door behind him with a satisfying air of finality.
They drove along in silence for a while, twisting country roads giving way to the flat grey haze of the M40.
“I,” said Rosaline, curling over her knees, “am a fucking idiot.”
Harry’s eyes flicked briefly to her. “Nah you’re not. You just went out with a dickhead for a bit. Lots of people do.”
“Except this whole time he clearly saw me as some kind of slutty bisexual sex toy, and I don’t know, is that who I am? Is that who I appear to be on television? Is that going to be me forever now?”
“Well . . . no. Like, any of ’em.”
“I mean, you spoke to me that first day. So you must have been thinking something.”
“I thought you was pretty and that you might want a cup of tea. That’s not the same as thinking you’re a slutty bisexual sex-whatsit. And even if I did, I know a lot of slutty birds and they’re all-right people. Terry’s sister, Shirl, she’s had more cock than Colonel Sanders, but she ain’t hurting no one, and when Sam’s fella walked out she was right there for her.”
“Sorry”—Rosaline hugged her knees harder—“are you saying you don’t think I’m a slut or it’s okay if I am?”
“Both. With the baking and the kid, I don’t reckon you’ve got much time for getting yourself some, but if I’m wrong, so what? And as for TV, well it’s just TV, init? I’ve never watched a series of Bake Expectations and come away thinking She’s well up for it. It’s not the show’s . . . what’s the word. Brand.”
She sighed. “I know. It’s always in the back of your mind, though, isn’t it? The whole stereotype. Except it turned out that was exactly what Alain wanted. So that’s fun.”
“Yeah, but that’s on him, not on you.”
“Then why am I the one in your van, feeling shit about myself, while he’s probably banging his drunk ex-girlfriend and complaining about what a complete bitch I am?”