‘Thanks… come in.’ I let him into the flat and watched him start looking through the kitchen cabinets and depositing protein-shake tubs and sports bottles into a bag for life.
‘Do you want a tea?’ I asked.
‘Mmm? Oh, sure,’ he smiled at me shyly. ‘Got a bit caught in the rain when I popped to the shop for some bags.’
I held out a hand. ‘Let me put your coat on the heated airer.’
He looked pleasantly surprised by the offer and handed it over to me. Once I’d plugged the airer in and draped the coat over it, I made two mugs of tea and slid one across the counter to him. By that time, Richard was packing his car-cleaning stuff from under the sink.
‘I uh… went to see Mum today,’ I said, breaking the silence. ‘Had a bit of a weird day all round, to be honest.’
‘Is it the shop?’ Richard frowned.
‘No… not really. But I went over there just to have a chat, you know what it’s like when you just need to go home for a bit.’
‘Yeah.’ Richard took a seat on one of the breakfast-bar stools and gave me a slight smile. ‘I’ve been going to see Dad more than usual since… mostly he just tells me I’m an idiot and that you deserved better – which is true.’
I huffed a laugh. Richard’s dad had always liked me. He thought I was a ‘good match’ for his son, probably because I was different from Richard’s exes, most of whom would have been at home competing onThe Apprentice. His mother had never really treated me badly but she’d been a bit cool to me ever since I’d brought homemade tiramisu to her New Year’s Eve party. This was apparently interpreted as me ‘showboating’ my baking skills. Which was laughable, because I couldn’t bake, the sum total of my skills with dessert could be described as ‘assembling’. No matter how many times I complimented her pre-packaged petits fours, the insult had already been dealt. Still, we got along fine outside of that.
‘Well, mine told me I should give you another chance,’ I said. It just sort of came out. I was still too busy processing to engage my filter.
Richard looked at me, hope evident in his dark eyes. He looked so soft and hesitant that for a moment he wasn’t my ex who cheated on me; he was the man I’d fallen for when we’d met by chance at the library.
Thinking of the library brought Cooper to mind and I felt a stab of shame and annoyance at myself. I’d really misjudged things with him and made an idiot out of myself. What else had I been wrong about – the shop? Leaving Richard?
I took a deep breath. ‘It turns out Mum knows a little bit about second chances and forgiveness and if she didn’t, then I wouldn’t be here, so… there’s that.’
Richard swallowed hard. ‘So… does that mean you’re… that you want to give us a second chance?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Givemea second chance?’
There it was, the pivotal moment in all my imagined futures. Forgive or walk away. I looked at Richard, really looked at him. The man I’d been with for three years, through birthdays and summer holidays, broken appliances and heatwaves, lazy Sunday mornings and getting stuck on the M25. We had a life together and a history. Ballast, to keep us grounded. He wasn’t some mysterious stranger with a pack of secrets and no first name in a house that could literally float away. He was a good bet, a solid guy. For the future.
‘… I think so,’ I said quietly. ‘If you can promise it won’t happen again, then…’
‘It won’t.’ He reached out and took my hand, earnest and intense. ‘Tabs, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. She meant nothing to me. Less than nothing. And I know that doesn’t make it better – shit, it makes it worse – but I would give anything to go back and never make such a stupid mistake again. I know now that… you’re everything. You mean everything to me.’
My eyes welled up, an ache in my chest making me sniffle. Richard set his mug down and rounded the counter. He put his arms around me and held me to his chest. It felt so familiar and safe. He smelled the way he always did, like Paco Rabanne 1 Million and flat whites. He pressed his cheek against the top of my head.
‘I’m so, so sorry, Tabs,’ he said softly. ‘Not just for what you walked in on but… I shouldn’t have sold the stuff you made for my family. I shouldn’t have blown up about it but I think I was just angry because the only other option was feeling guilty and I couldn’t take it.’
I sniffled into his chest, half laughing, half crying. It was so Richard – the way he’d said it. But he meant it. Hearing him finally admit to what he’d done, instead of brushing it off, had brought me to the edge of tears. The anger drained out of me. He knew he was in the wrong. He knew and he was admitting it to me. For the first time ever, really, in our relationship. Just like things with Mum, this felt like a watershed. We were growing, together.
‘Why didn’t you give them their presents when I made them?’ I asked, sniffling. ‘Why lie to me about it?’
Richard was silent for a long moment and then he sighed. ‘You remember the tiramisu fiasco – they would have seen it as showing off or something. But you liked making the stuff so much and I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth… so I just bought gift sets and said they were from you.’
I pulled away a little bit and looked him in the eye. Despite the quaver in his tone, his eyes were dry, but he looked deeply apologetic. ‘You have to promise that we’re going to be honest with each other from now on.’
‘I will,’ he said immediately. ‘Completely and totally honest… Tabs… were you seeing someone else? The guy from the boat that’s been hanging around town? I don’t care if you were, but I just want to know.’
I shook my head. ‘No. It was just… I don’t know what I thought was going to happen but it was just a few chance meetings. Nothing happened.’ My heart felt heavy, sore as if it was bruised. Nothing had happened. So why did I feel so sad, so lost?
Richard seemed to relax a little.
‘And… her,’ I said, hating myself. ‘The woman you were with… is she…?’
‘She’s gone,’ Richard said quickly. ‘I haven’t spoken to her since that day, just told her it was all a mistake and it was never going to happen again. I meant it, Tabs. I only want you.’ He cupped my face. ‘I want a future with you.’
I sniffed, offering him a watery smile. ‘I want that too.’
