Page 93 of The Fallback

Ben, of course. Of course, she would bump into Ben outside Mitch’s work, on the morning after she and Mitch had spent the night together and immediately after Rosie had probably destroyed the whole thing. How many times had she stood waiting for Mitch outside his building and she had never once bumped into Ben. She looked up at the heavens and wondered why someone had it in for her.

Ben had obviously spotted her from a distance and had run towards her. He stopped as he reached her, slightly out of breath.

‘Er, that looked cosy.’ His eyes went past Rosie to the entrance toThe Postwhich Mitch had just gone through. Ben winked at Rosie and she sighed in response. ‘Funny because I was just thinking about you.’

Rosie blanched.Please, god, could this not be happening, she thought to herself. Whatever sleazy thing Ben was going to say, could he keep it to himself? Maybe he could be struck temporarily mute or, better still, make it permanent. Maybe a minor but seemingly dramatic traffic accident could occur right this instance and prevent him from uttering whatever horror was about to issue from his mouth. Or maybe a wormhole could just swallow her up and spit her back out into Mitch’s bedroom where she would never have started the stupid baby conversation this morning, and saved it for a later date, or maybe never. And then she could have got the damn tube straight to her work and dealt with wearing the same pants two days in a row. Really any of these things would be fine right now.

‘Yeah,’ Ben continued, grinning, ‘I was out with the comms team last night. One of them showed me that email you sent over yesterday.’

‘And?’ asked Rosie in confusion.

‘I’m guessing you didn’t mean to leave that attachment on the press release.’ Ben was openly laughing now.

The colour immediately poured from Rosie’s face. Her stomach soured and she felt her knees go. ‘Oh, god.’ She put her hand out to steady herself against the wall. ‘Oh, god. Oh, fuck. Oh, no, this can’t be happening.’

She looked up at Ben, who at least had the decency to look slightly concerned about her. She put her hands on her knees and bent over as if she was about to be sick, her head was pounding in panic. She hadn’t? She couldn’t have? Could she? She thought back to the day before, to Rachel’s urgent message telling her to send the damn press release. To her scrolling through her emails, half listening to her mother, to find the version she had saved to forward. She couldn’t have sent the wrong one? Could she? And then she realised how easy it was to mix up the two, to have forwarded the press release that had Rachel’s private email correspondence attached at the bottom. She really could have, and it really looked like she had.

‘I’ve really messed up.’ She looked desperately up at Ben. ‘Rachel’s going to kill me when she finds out. What am I going to do?’ she asked, not expecting Ben to come up with any kind of useful response.

‘I guess you could ask Mitch if he can help?’ Ben reached up and scratched the back of his neck thoughtfully. ‘Although he’s probably got enough on his plate with his upcoming transfer. He might not have time to ask for any favours.’

‘What?’ asked Rosie, beginning to straighten up.

There was a long, tense pause. Rosie felt yet another weight drop out of her stomach. It wasn’t even 9am and it looked like yet another nausea-inducing revelation was headed her way.

‘What do you mean, Ben?’ she eventually asked in a strangled tone.

Ben looked at her almost apologetically, and took a deep breath. ‘He hasn’t told you about his transfer?’ he asked quietly.

‘Transfer?’ asked Rosie turning to look back in the direction Mitch had gone, hoping he might magically reappear and be able to rescue her from what was now becoming a nightmare. ‘Ben, are you going to tell me what you mean?’ she demanded.

‘I just, I thought,’ stammered Ben, ‘I thought Mitch would have told you.’

‘Told me what!’ Rosie stamped her foot.

‘That he put in a transfer for work, and it got accepted yesterday.’

‘What?’ Rosie asked weakly.

‘I’m sorry, Rosie. I heard the announcement at work and I just presumed you knew.’

Rosie shook her head numbly. Ben looked nervously at her, starting to regret his meddling. ‘I mean, it’s not insurmountable,’ he said in what he hoped was an encouraging tone. ‘Plenty of people do long distance.’

Rosie said nothing, her head spinning from this new revelation.

‘You just need to plan things a bit better. Work out a travel budget and things.’

‘A travel budget?’ Rosie asked weakly.

‘Yeah, if you book them far enough in advance, transatlantic flights can be really affordable…’ Ben’s voice tailed off as he saw the look on Rosie’s face.

‘Transatlantic?’ she questioned. ‘Where exactly is he being transferred to?’

There was a long pause. ‘New York,’ he confirmed reluctantly.

Distantly, she heard him calling her name repeatedly as she ran down the street away from this mess. Her mind was racing as fast as her heart was pumping. She couldn’t do this. It was just like Connor all over again, except this time it was Mitch and Mitch was ten times the guy that Connor had been. Or was he? She began to reevaluate. When had Mitch put in this request and why hadn’t he told her? What exactly was his plan? Why had he let last night happen without telling her any of this? And what the hell was she going to do about that email? She was about to lose her career along with her best friend. For a moment she thought she might be about to lose her breakfast, too. And if she was going to be sick and Mitch wasn’t around to hold back her hair, she knew where she would go.

ChapterTwenty-Four

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