‘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.
Maybe I could ask Emma about renting a two-bedroom for the pair of us to share? Or was that asking too much of a friend who was also my employee? It was looking increasingly as if I was going to be moving back in with Mum and Dad. I’d have to ring them sooner rather than later. God, the thought of explaining everything to them made me feel so tired. It wasn’t that I thought they wouldn’t understand, but they’d be so… hurt by what Richard had done. To me and to them. Because they’d had a lot of hopes pinned on him, on ‘Richard and Tabitha’, the unit. Hopes of weddings and grandchildren. Hopes I was about to crush.
Mum especially wasn’t going to take it well. I could already feel the ‘but I don’t understand, you were so happy together’ coming. Somehow this was all going to be my fault, I knew it. If I was permanently in Weightwatchers, or making a roast every Sunday, or making sure Richard never saw me without lippy on, he never would have strayed.
‘Um… Tabby?’
I looked up and found Emma standing in front of the counter, holding her phone. She looked nervous, her mouth downturned. Whatever she was looking at, it wasn’t good news.
‘What is it?’
‘I set up an alert on my eBay profile yesterday, just in case that guy tried to flip your stuff? Not that I could stop him doing that, but I thought it might be a bit of a boost if it did end up selling for a lot?’
My stomach dropped. ‘He’s listed stuff, hasn’t he?’
Why was I surprised? More than that, hurt. I’d barely met the man. He was just a stranger, like I’d said. Even if he did hand hot mugs over the right way. I didn’t even know his last name. Come to think of it, for all I’d opened up to him about Richard, he hadn’t so much as told me why he was on the boat or what he did for a living. For all I knew, he was some sort of fly-by-night crochet dealer, already pootling off to another small town. It was unlikely, but still.
‘Do you want to know or…?’ Emma asked, biting her lip uncertainly.
