Page 22 of The Fallback

‘I was talking to someone in the shop. I’m in Sainsbury’s.’

‘So you’re staying in tonight?’ Mitch asked.

‘Mm-hmm.’ Rosie picked up some peppers with her spare hand, trying to remember if she had any at home; she thought that she probably didn’t. ‘What about you?’ she asked as she put them into her basket.

‘Well, I was just leaving the office,’ Mitch said. Rosie could hear the sound of him walking. ‘And I was going to stop at the shop on my way home to get some food.’ She felt a little sick at how accurate she had been, ‘But then I wondered if perhaps you wanted to meet up?’ he continued hopefully.

Rosie contemplated the rows of pineapples in front of her and said nothing.

’Rosie? Rosie are you still there?’

‘Oh, yeah, no I am. Sorry, you cut out a bit then,’ she lied, ‘what were you saying?’

‘I wondered if you wanted to meet up tonight?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I’m er, busy tonight,’ she said awkwardly, distinctly aware that apart from that time when she was writing up her thesis, this was probably the first time in their entire relationship that she had told Mitch she couldn’t meet up. Already his stupid plan was having an impact on their relationship, she thought.

‘I thought you said you were staying in tonight?’ Mitch sounded confused.

‘Yeah, but…’ Rosie realised she was sounding panicked. ‘I have some stuff to read for work.’

‘Oh.’ Mitch sounded put out. There was a pause and Rosie held her breath, hoping she had succeeded in putting him off.

‘What if I came round and cooked while you read?’ he suggested, bouncing back from her knock-back with remarkable speed.

‘Well…’ Rosie’s eyes darted around as if she hoped her local Sainsbury’s might offer a well-lit exit from an awkward conversation with a friend. ‘I don’t have any food!’ she announced triumphantly.

There was a long pause. ‘I thought you just said you were in Sainsbury’s?’ Mitch said doubtfully.

‘I am! Or I was! But I’ve just paid and I only bought enough food for one.’ She felt bad, she never lied to Mitch and now she didn’t seem to be able to help herself, the lies were tripping off her tongue. This was definitely a bad sign.

‘No problem!’ Mitch said enthusiastically. ‘What were you thinking of cooking? I can just pick up some extra on my way to yours!’

Rosie sighed. In her previous life she would have leapt at the chance to have Mitch come over and cook for her, have her best friend to herself, no need to cook, no need to leave the house. In fact, one of the best things about secretly being in love with her best friend was that it never mattered what she looked like. She could go home, tie her hair up and put on some joggers. She was never going to put Mitch off with her appearance because he wasn’t interested in the first place.

But this was not like her ‘before’ life. Something had shifted.

‘OK,’ she relented, ‘I was planning a risotto, just get some extra chicken and we should be fine.’ She looked down at the things in her basket. Of course, she could just get the extra chicken now, but then she would have to admit she had been lying.

‘Great!’ Mitch exclaimed. ‘I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.’

Rosie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Fifteen minutes?’ she queried, ‘Mitch, where are you?’

‘Yep, about that, I was actually halfway round to yours before I called you.’

Rosie smiled despite herself. Frustrating though it was that he had just presumed he could come over to hers, it also meant that he too knew exactly where to find her on a Thursday night.

Five minutes later, she was putting her shopping away. This was one of the things she loved about living in London. At any time of day or night she could walk down her road and buy emergency chocolate or wine. It wasn’t as if she had grown up in the sticks, but the charming English village that her mother still lived in had just one parade of shops and most of them closed at 5pm and they certainly didn’t open before 11am on a Sunday. If you wanted snacks at night you needed a car, or stronger willpower. Rosie was pleased not to need either.

She checked herself in the mirror in the hallway and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to decide whether she needed blusher or not, and decided against it. What if Mitch noticed and then wondered why she was wearing make-up? And then she might be forced to explain that it was because she now cared whether he found her attractive and that although sheknewhe wasn’t interested in her inthatway, everything had now changed because oftheconversation. And there wasn’t enough wine in the world to cover the fallout from that.

She looked around her flat. It could probably do with a clean but that would have to wait. Probably indefinitely, if they were going to introduce a baby into the surroundings. There would be toys and nappies, food splattered up the walls. What was Mitch thinking? He hated mess. He really wasn’t thinking this through, maybe she needed to remind him of just how much mess babies made. Rosie shook her head, she couldn’t believe that thought had just popped into her head. She needed to stop imagining cosy (yet messy) domestic scenes of her and Mitch and a faceless baby.

The doorbell rang, shattering Rosie’s spiralling nightmare. She felt momentarily grateful that she had made Mitch give her the spare key back when she had needed it for her mum, and so far she hadn’t got around to handing it back to him.

‘You need to give me my key back,’ was the first thing Mitch said when she opened the door. She rolled her eyes at how in sync they were.

‘Yes, yes, alright, come in,’ she said, hurrying him through the door. She tried not to notice that the walk to her flat had given him an attractively flushed look; on anyone else the slight sheen on their skin from walking fast through the still warm evening air would be off-putting. It was really annoying how little about Mitch she found off-putting.

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