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Carts looked dubious. “What about?”
“You knowwhoabout.”
Carts stared at his coffee cup. “Right-oh.”
Aaron’s throat didn’t seem to want to get the words out. “Alice and I—” That sounded weirdly formal. “I mean, me and Al—”
“You can cut the crap,” Carts butted in. “I already know.”
Aaron frowned, his heart pounding against his ribs. “Know what?”
Carts let out a big huff. “Sunday I popped round to see Al. I hadn’t realised she was away. Or that Rowena was home. Or any of the stuff about her dad.”
“It wasn’t common knowledge,” Aaron said stiffly.
Carts shrugged. “Yeah, well, anyway, Rowena had a migraine. She told me the whole history of Alice’s conception with an ice pack over her eyes and a towel wound round her head, which was a tad strange but I got the gist of it. Polly wasn’t home, Rowena couldn’t move off the sofa, so I went to pick up Alice at the airport.”
A spasm of jealousy hit Aaron in the solar plexus.
It must have flitted across his face because Carts said, “Don’t get stroppy, mate, you don’t own her. Anyway, I met her at the airport and she’s so excited and tells me about meeting her dad—sounds like a nice bloke, by the way—and we get home and Rowena’s kind of wailing and crying and laughing all at once. She is seriously melodramatic, that woman. So anyway, as Alice walks me out, I kind of hint.”
“Hint?”
“Yeah, you know,hint.Like the, ‘how’s things with you and Aaron’ hint? The hint that someone else might be interested if…”
Aaron scowled. Carts ignored it. “Anyway, as soon as I mention your name she goes all kind of soft and mushy and says she’s got to give you a chance to explain yourself and… then she gives me this frowny stare, not like Alice at all, and asks was I trying to ask her out? So I said, ‘yes maybe’, and she said—these were her words, I remember because they were kind of harsh—‘I really like you, Carts, but it will never be in that special way’. So I asked, ‘Have you got that special feeling for Aaron?’ and she goes bright red. And so then I say, ‘Don’t answer that.’ And that was my cue to make myself scarce.”
A huge grin swept away Aaron’s scowl. Carts looked disgusted. “So it’s serious then? This thing between you and Alice?”
“Yes.”
Carts sniffed like there was a garbage bin close by. “Thought as much. Never seen you like this around a woman before.”
“Like what?”
“A total mess. Even your hair’s gone to shit.”
Aaron took a sip of his coffee to hide the way his blush seemed to be spreading. How his neck, his cheeks, even the tips of his ears were burning.
Carts looked away, as though Aaron the colour of a ripe tomato was equivalent to him stripping his clothes off in front of a café full of customers. Then he sighed heavily. “Well, anyway, I was feeling a bit depressed after Al told me I was permanently friend-zoned, so I went and saw Polly.”
Aaron nearly dropped his coffee cup. “What for?”
“A bit of advice. I caught up with her at the hospital. She took me into one of those counselling rooms. It was pretty calming. Pictures of mountains with sayings like ‘Be your best self’. Tissues. Flowers, though they might have been plastic. Not what I imagined a psych ward would be like at all. And I tell you what, she’s good. If you need counselling, Poll’s the real deal.”
“Think I’ll pass on that,” Aaron muttered. Christ, he couldn’t think of anything worse than opening up to Polly. She’d break a guy, have him on his knees, weeping like a baby.
Carts continued, “She gave me a bit of a serve, in a nice way. Told me I was in love with the idea of being in love. That I had to start taking care of myself, respecting myself, stop letting women walk all over me.”
“She broke your balls, right?”
“It was a wake-up call, to be honest.” Carts grinned. “So that’s when I thought, right, that’s it. I’m going to stop drinking eight coffees a day, wiping myself out every Friday at the Shamrock. I’ll drop the carbs, go for high nutrition foods. Exercise. Build some real muscle. It’s time. I’ll never find the right woman if I don’t respect myself first.”
Aaron’s lips twitched. Carts looked happy. Like he’d been scrubbed clean.
“So I’m taking a six-month hiatus from women.”
“I think that’s a sound decision.”
