Page 74 of The Fallback

Ben looked at her in confusion again before regaining his composure and leaning back in his chair as if he was about to unveil a great secret to Rosie. ‘So, Mitch is always meeting new girls, isn’t he? And none of them last long.’ She nodded. ‘Jenny just happens to be the most recent. But what I think is this: he likes her, sure, I think that’s obvious, but he’s also hoping that if he pretends hereallylikes her then it might push you into admitting that you want to follow through on this plan for real, not as a fallback option.’

Rosie resisted the urge to tell Ben that he wasn’t the first person to give her this theory, not even the second. And that he was bottom of the list in terms of people she would normally trust. But hewasthe first person who had no skin in the game, he had no interest in pandering to Rosie, or trying to cheer her up, so maybe, ironically, he was the one she should actually hear.

‘Remember, I heard quite a lot of your row with Mitch, Rosie, and what I heard was someone trying to get you to admit to your feelings for him.’

’What’s in this for you?’ she asked.

Ben shook his head. ‘What do you mean?’ he replied.

‘I mean,’ she said, ‘why are you telling me this? Why are you even here? No offence, Ben, but based on your past behaviour this seems a little out of character.’ Rosie searched his face for sign of a reaction. ‘You’ve just told me that you enjoyed winding Mitch up. So why tell me this? What’s in it for you?’

Ben sighed and pulled a face then picked up his beer, swirling the dregs of it around the bottom of the glass. ‘I said I had been doing some soul searching,’ he finally said. ‘I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on your argument. I couldn’t help but hear, I think most of your neighbours heard as well.’ Rosie winced at that. ‘But seeing you two so worked up over each other, made me realise that I would quite like to find someone that I felt so worked up over, rather than…’ here he looked down at the table sheepishly ‘…hitting on girls who aren't interested.’

Rosie raised her eyebrows.

‘OK,’ she said, ‘but I still don’t see why coming here to tell me your theory helps your soul searching?’ She fixed him with a stare, willing him to look up from the table, which he did.

‘Call it karma?’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I realised how sad it would be if the two of you lost each other because of stupidity or cowardice.’ Rosie opened her mouth to argue but he stopped her. ‘And I thought if I could help you both see sense then maybe the universe might repay me the favour and introduce me to the girl of my dreams.’

He looked at Rosie and grinned. ‘Also, Mitch has been an absolute nightmare at work since that argument. He thinks you and I are sleeping together and nothing I can say or do will make him change his mind.’

Rosie began to protest.

‘I know, I’ve tried everything,’ Ben said, ‘but he has a huge bee in his bonnet about seeing me at your flat that morning, even though I’ve told him absolutely nothing happened and you were just being kind and letting me sleep on your sofa. And to top it all off we're supposed to be working on a project together and I need him to start talking to me and pulling his weight because I don't want to end up doing all the work on this.’

Rosie smiled. ‘OK, now we get to the truth, it’s making life awkward for you at work and you need to get it sorted?’ She cocked her head to the side and gave Ben a thin smile.

'That, as well,’ he confirmed and drained the rest of his pint.

‘Well, I appreciate you coming to tell me your theory, Ben,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m not sure it stands up to scrutiny. And also I’m not sure I can help you straighten things out with Mitch as he’s not talking to me at the moment either.’

Ben looked distraught. ‘Please, Rosie, you must be able to do something,’ he begged, ‘I can’t stand this atmosphere any longer.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said, ‘I’ll think about what you said, and as and when Mitch decides to start talking to me again, I’ll tell him straight out that nothing happened.’ And she fixed him with a look. ‘And nothing ever will, OK?’

Ben nodded enthusiastically. ‘Thanks, Rosie,’ he said, ‘I appreciate anything you can do to help. Also,’ he continued, ‘now that I am a reformed character and not just on the lookout for one-night stands, if you’ve got any single friends to set me up with then that would be great.’

‘Enough!’ Rosie protested, trying not to laugh at his cheek. ‘Look, I appreciate the drink and the “advice”,’ she made air quotes, ‘but I really do have to go.’ She stood and picked her coat and bag up. Waving to Ben as she left, she headed back out into the street and towards the sandwich that she now needed to soak up the wine and the nonsense that Ben had been spouting.

ChapterTwenty

Rosie’s mind raced as she laid out her equipment on the lab bench. She was supposed to be concentrating on this experiment, with getting the right data for Rachel this time. Not on dissecting the ramblings of Ben. So what if he had a theory about her and Mitch? It wasn’t as if he was some kind of expert on romantic engagements; his track record with relationships was about as strong as hers.

She tried to put Ben from her mind; she couldn’t afford to mess this experiment up again. Her plan was to email Rachel before she left for the day and give her an update on how things were looking. Also, she could check in on whether Rachel had sent her that press release yet. Rosie was dreading having to deal with it but at least once she had it, she could send it off and get it over and done with.

As she walked back into her office several hours later, her phone rang, Jasmine’s name flashing on the screen.

’Hey!’ Rosie said as she picked up, ‘How are you doing?’

‘Yeah, OK, I’m getting there,’ Jasmine said. ‘Work want me to take more time off but I’m itching to get back, I need some distraction.’

‘I get it,’ said Rosie and she really did. ‘But please promise me you’ll take it easy? You’ve been through a lot and rushing back to work isn’t necessary.’

Jasmine said nothing. Rosie knew that there was no way Jasmine would be listening to anyone but herself on this matter.

‘So, erm, what’s up?’ Rosie asked.

‘Well I was ringing to see if you're OK, after Mitch’s post?’ Jasmine said carefully.

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