‘I have no doubt you were a lovely child who absolutely deserved access to glittery, eye-wateringly colourful footwear with wheels,’ Aled insisted. ‘We are going to right this wrong today, Ms Butler.’
Rosie laughed. ‘Thanks, but no – I was just being silly. I can’t go roller skating for the first time at thirty-two.’
‘Youcan, and you will,’ Aled said, his face alight with determination. ‘This is not going to be the day you had an awkward confrontation with your ex – it’s going to be the day you got the wheels you always wanted.’
‘I don’t know where you can evendoroller skating nowadays,’ Rosie protested. ‘It’s kind of old-fashioned, isn’t it? It’s probably not even possible.’
‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned since coming to London, it’s that very little is impossible in this city,’ he said sagely. ‘You finish getting ready and I bet by the time you’re done, I’ll have found us a place to go.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Rosie asked, taken aback – not to mention slightly swept away by his sudden dedication to the cause.
‘As sure as I am that Josh Holloway won’t hand in hisDr Faustushomework on time,’ Aled said. ‘Leave it to me.’
Chapter 19
Half an hour later, Rosie was putting on her trainers and her new winter coat. She’d retired the navy blue number in favour of a checked wool jacket in autumnal shades of orange, red, black and beige. Aled was ready to go and stood waiting in his charcoal-coloured pea coat and leather lace-up boots – both of which looked so good she could easily have believed he’d been paid to model them.
Rosie felt a pang of worry about what she’d got herself into here. The undercurrent of attraction she’d recently been feeling towards Aled felt increasingly like a wave that might swell to twice her height, then pull her below the surface. At this thought, a bolt of excitement went through her: what would it be like to justgive into it, she wondered?
Hideously embarrassing, she chided herself a second later.Epically humiliating. The sort ofI only see you as a friendmortifying that there’s no recovering from.
As he locked up, Rosie riffled through the envelopes on the post table for the sake of hiding her pink face. There were several letters for Val and Pat, some sort of catalogue for James (which she immediately chucked into the recycling bin) and several things addressed to ‘A. Thomas’. Rosie shook her head in wonder as she piled them up. It seemed slightly mad that until very recently she’d had no idea what the ‘A’ signified – yet now she was having to talk herself out of trying to jump him in the minutes before they embarked on a joint roller-skating adventure.
She noted that several of the letters for Aled had local estate agents’ logos stamped on them. He’d told her not long ago that he’d been asked to have valuations of the building done for insurance purposes; property in their neighbourhood was so sought-after that every firm was doubtless keen to handle managing the building on his behalf.
‘Crikey, you’re popular,’ she said, stacking his mail into a neat pile he could pick up later.
‘Oh,’ he murmured, frowning. ‘I suppose so. I’ll have a look at them when we get back. Just … leave them.’
‘Sure,’ Rosie said. He looked almost rattled, and seemed on the point of offering an explanation for his sudden stiffness when Rosie decided not to push for one. It must be weird to feel suddenly responsible for the roof over a bunch of strangers’ heads, so instead she asked: ‘Am I allowed to know where we’re going yet?’
‘If you insist,’ Aled said, seeming to recover himself. He gave her his trademark half-smile and opened the building’s front door. ‘Regent’s Park. As luck would have it, there’s some kind of outdoor festival happening there this week – for the school holidays, I guess. There’s a company renting out roller skates by the hour, provided you’re willing to sign seven different disclaimers that mean you can’t sue if you break your leg.’
‘Oh my god, really?’ Rosie cried, not sure whether to feel excited or terrified.
‘Really,’ Aled confirmed. ‘We can skate around for a bit, then walk on to Primrose Hill. It’s all planned.’
Rosie’s heart skipped a beat at his use of the word ‘we’.
‘You’re going to roller skate with me?’ she asked, looking up at him in disbelief.
‘Why not?’ he said, pointing at the bus stop they needed to head for. ‘At no point on my travels have I attached wheels to my feet and tried not to fall over, so I think now’s the time.’
‘Bravo,’ Rosie laughed. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘I’d hold back with the praise if I were you,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ve got a feeling it’s not going to be pretty.’
‘Ha!’ Rosie grumbled. ‘You strike me as one of those effortlessly sporty people – the sort who’s good at athletic things but doesn’t make a song and dance about it. I, on the other hand, am truly graceless – as you well know. I’ll be on my arse within minutes, but sod it. You only live once.’
‘Too true,’ Aled agreed, smiling. ‘“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now”.’
‘More poetry?’ she said, squinting at him and grinning.
‘It is,’ he said, colouring a little. ‘Sorry, bad habit.’
‘I like it,’ Rosie said, realising it was true. The random quotations could have been pretentious and grating, like James’s tendency to rattle off technical computing terms she couldn’t understand – but Aled’s delivery of them was unstudied and spontaneous. She wondered whether other people’s words came more easily to him than his own.
Either way, the sharing felt special; he’d memorised these lines because they meant something to him, and he was letting Rosie in on their secret. At least, he would be if he explained them.
