AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes. And naturally, I assumed the worst, and the very same night Mum’s package arrived with you in it. Well, not literallyyou, but all the articles and features about you, and obviously my life changed. And I had this light-bulb moment, this amazing clarity that I couldn’t put up with waiting in the wings—hoping, and praying, though they’re actually Polly’s words not mine, but that’s apparently what I do. I realised I had to be true to myself and not settle for anything less than the real deal.” Her shoulders slumped with the effort of getting all that off her chest.
“Have you spoken to him since?” Henry asked.
“Oh yes, just before I came here he said hekind ofliked me, well, more than liked me, and would I consider continuing with the arrangement.”
“I see.” Henry’s lips twitched. “The—how did you describe it earlier?—friends-with-benefits arrangement?”
Alice nodded. “And I stupidly told him how I’d loved him for five years, ever since we met, basically. So I couldn’t ever be accused of behaving like Mum and hiding the truth.” She bit her lip and gulped. “And all Aaron said was ‘oh no’. That was it. Just ‘oh no’.”
“Then what?”
“Well—nothing. I got up and left.”
Henry played with the stem of his wine glass. “Do you think it’s possible you might have misunderstood?”
“Oh noseems quite conclusive, don’t you think?”
“To be honest, it doesn’t sound like you gave the poor fellow a chance.”
Alice stared at him, suddenly lost for words.
“When I was first with Gabe, we had a big fight. I’d been with someone who was unfaithful before, and Gabe being a flirt and so theatrical made me very insecure. He was showing off by being over-friendly to some other fellow at a party. I’m not proud of it, but I stormed off and wouldn’t let him explain. Wouldn’t take his calls, then when I did, we kept saying the wrong things, putting our foot in it. But we were just talking at cross purposes, because underneath we were totally smitten with each other. It took us a while to sort out, backwards and forwards…”
Alice couldn’t help smiling. “Like the Push-Me-Pull-You?”
Henry looked perplexed.
“Out ofDoctor Dolittle. The Push-Me-Pull-You.”
Henry’s eyes crinkled with sudden recognition. “Oh yes, I remember, I took Felicity to that film when she was a little girl. The weird creature that resembled a two-headed llama?”
“Yes. Polly said that’s what love is like, especially at the beginning. You both push and pull and get kind of stuck.”
“I agree,” Henry said. “I think I’d like Polly.”
“Everyone likes Polly. She’s loud and beautiful and unfailingly optimistic.”
“Remarkably like Rowena, then?”
Alice’s lips quirked. “Yes, they could probably be clones.”
Henry laughed, and when Henry laughed the whole world seemed more manageable somehow.
For a moment he looked thoughtful, as though considering her statement. “In the early stages when you’re dancing around each other, yes, I’d grant there’s a fair bit of push and pull.”
“So how did you and Gabe resolve it?”
“Eventually, we sat down and talked and talked, and argued and made up. And we did that quite a few times, if I remember rightly. But finally, we worked out it was our insecurities getting in the way. Our fear of rejection. Past traumas. My father’s rejection. Gabe losing his mother as a teenager to cancer. Gabe was extremely close to her and it hit him very hard.”
Alice’s heart did a strange flip-flop in her chest. “Aaron lost his mother too, when he was twelve. In a car accident. He’s never talked about it to me, not in any detail, but then Oliver told me just recently that—”
“And Oliver is?”
“Aaron’s older brother. Oliver said it affected Aaron a lot. He even said I was the only girl Aaron had ever formed any real connection with.”
“Interesting.”
Alice chewed on her lower lip, a glimmer of hope in her heart. “I guess.” She thought about that morning, after the amazing night where they’d made love for hours, that wonderful feeling of closeness, of intimacy, of belonging. Before she’d blown it all by asking Aaron how he felt after his mum died. Maybe she’d dug too deep too soon? Maybe he’d needed more time to process it all?
