by Cranford, B.
His sister, Sasha, maybe. Or perhaps Tanzi. Although, she’d asked him during one of their “getting to know you” conversations about her, and he’d said there wasn’t anything between them. He then proceeded to tell her about how Tanzi’s wife, Ellie, had tripped on the train of Tanzi’s wedding dress and fallen face-first into their wedding cake. Rose had been in stitches before he’d pulled out video and photographic evidence, and after? Well, it had taken some time to get the conversation back on track.
“I like your place,” she offered as he pulled back one of the high-top stools for her to sit on. “Did you decorate it?”
She expected him to say no, to tell her about some other girl who’d lived here with him, but instead he nodded. “Yeah, kind of.”
“Kind of?”
He nodded again, this time sheepishly. “It’s mostly just IKEA stuff. When I moved in here, Sasha dragged me out there and made me pick things. I literally just picked one of the lounge room sets and bought everything in it.”
“Wait, like, you saw one of the set-ups and copied it . . . exactly?”
“Down to the fluffy throw pillow that I actually secretly love.” He lowered his voice, and she leaned in, enjoying the act that he was about to confide something scandalous to her. “It’s so soft, sometimes I just sit there and stroke it while I watch repeats of The West Wing.”
Her giggle started low and soft, but built as she imagined him sitting on his couch, fervently rubbing the fluffiness as some fast-talking political maneuvering happened on the tele. It wasn’t until he joined her that she felt the last remnants of her awkward “I’m tracking you” joke fall away.
God, she’d been mortified at how badly that had gone over, and yet she should have realized that maybe it was a little ill-advised. After all, stalking was not a joke.
Except on Twitter. But then again, everything on Twitter was a joke that shouldn’t be repeated in real life.
“So that’s your deep, dark secret,” she said as her laughter ebbed, throwing the conversation back to the one they’d had by the door. “You sit on your couch and stroke it.”
“It being my fluffy white pillow?”
“Ah, yeah. Why, what did you think I was talking about?”
“No, nothing. The stroking thing is only one of my deep, dark secrets. I have plenty more. Just wait until you see my bedroom.”
She snorted at that, and looked pointedly down then back up, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Surprisingly, that was not what I meant. Besides, that’s not a deep secret, it’s a”—he paused, she assumed for dramatic effect, because that’s exactly what she would have done—“big secret. Really big.”
“Huge?” she asked, playing along.
“Oh, Babe, you have no idea.”
Shaking her head at his continued use of her baseball nickname—she had a feeling he was never going to let that go—she decided to change the topic because the current one, although just a joke, was making her hot.
Very hot.
But before she could do or say anything, he preempted her with his own subject change. “Is Wilbur working hard for the money right now?”
Snickering, she shook her head. “No, he doesn’t put in overtime like some people.” She gestured toward him. “He has a bed in the laundry room, so when we aren’t home, he just snuggles in there. That way we can keep him inside but not have to worry about him trashing the joint.”
“Probably smart.”
“Kassi will be home before too long anyway, and she’ll let him out. They’ll probably cuddle up together, watching reality TV. Or he’ll help her work on her thesis.”
“He is a very smart dog.”
She nodded proudly, and even though she was just going along with him, her pride was very real. “So,” she said, pointing to the logo on his polo shirt, wondering if it was the same one he’d been wearing the first day they’d come in contact. “Tell me about Pupp’s. I know you own it, and that’s about all.”
He looked down at the logo and back up, his face lit with pride. “I do. It’s still pretty new, which I think I already told you?”
She nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“Well, before it was Pupp’s, it was owned by the vet that we used to use when I was a kid. It was Sands Veterinary Clinic, run by Doctor Sands.”
“Original name,” she joked, getting a smile in return. “You grew up around here?”
“Yep, sure did.”
She fluttered her eyes at him. “Aw, cute. A hometown boy. Wait, does this mean your surname is Pupp?” She grinned over at him, amusement laced through her question and written on her face. “I just realized I have no idea what it actually is.”
“Really? It’s Wood.”
“I feel like maybe I should’ve know that before now, what with the kissing and the dates and whatnot, but okay.” She swiped a hand through the air like it was no big deal, but then really thought about his name.
And that’s when she realized . . .
“What’s wrong?” he asked, concern in the quickly spoken words.
“I can’t marry you.” She scrunched up her face in thought, deciding to play it up. This, she thought, has to be funnier than the stalking thing. “No, wait. I can, I just can’t take your name.”
Shaking his head, he asked the obvious question. “Why’s that?”
“Oh my God, isn’t it obvious? I’d be Rose Wood. Like rosewood?”
He snorted, probably at the way she stared at him.
She really was milking it.
“Don’t rule it out, Babe. We could get married, have babies and start a theme.”
“A theme?” She dropped her head a little and glared at him, her laughter bubbling up and threatening to break past the faux-horror on her face. “What, like, Cedar Wood?”
“Yes, exactly, our first son will be Cedar. Then Sandal. He’s going to be a hippie, I think.”
“There’s no way to avoid it with a name like Sandal Wood,” she deadpanned. “I’d suggest Drift, but I read a book once called Driftwood and I don’t think I could ever love anything with that name as much as I loved it.”
“I’ll take it off the list of possibles, in that case. Can’t have our child come in second to a novel.”
“So true. Now, what if we have a daughter?” She was fairly confident that she’d stumped him, but he was ready.
“Please, you don’t go all the way through life with the last name Wood and not pick up a thing or two. Our daughter will be Lemon.”
“Lemon Wood.”
“And actually, it’s kind of too bad you already settled on Wilbur, because—”
She interrupted, a giggle finally breaking through her deadpan exterior. “Dogwood. Bloody hell, that’s terrible.” She smiled at him, tears forming in her eyes from her amusement. “I love it.”
There was a moment where they both just looked at one another, and Rose had the sudden feeling that marrying this man and naming their children to an arboreal theme wouldn’t be a hardship at all. If you took out the fact they would soon be living in different countries, that is.
Clearing her throat, she steered the conversation back to safer, if less funny, ground. “Why Pupp’s then, and not Wood’s Vet Clinic?”
“Pupp was my first rescue dog. I only had him for about a year, but after we saved him—after Doctor Sands saved him—that’s when I knew I wanted to be a vet. I went to work for him when I was in high school for the experience and I worked there off and on over the years. When I was home from college, too.”
“You’ve got a lot of history with the place?” she asked like it was a question, but it was more of a statement. She could tell from the fond way he was talking, and even just from the words themselves, that he did. He cared about the place and had for a long time—long before it was his.
That feeling of loss, of longing, she’d felt several times since she’d met him, reared its ugly head, but she forced it back and kept listening.
“Ye
ah, it’s been my goal since I was, what, fourteen? Fifteen?” He rocked his hand in a thereabouts gesture, then added, “Doctor Sands offered me a job before I’d even graduated, so it was a sure thing. Well, as long as I didn’t fail.”
“I can’t imagine you failing at anything.”
“Oh, that’s because I haven’t cooked for you yet. Don’t worry, with time you’ll wonder how I succeeded at anything instead.” His laugh was brief but happy, and ugh, it made her feel—
Good? Bad? She didn’t know.
“I doubt that. Did you ever think about doing anything else, though?”
“Nope. Once I knew, I knew. I made my plan, stuck to it and here I am.”
“Mission accomplished?”
“Not quite. I’m still working on it. But it’s getting there. It’s going to get there.”
God, he sounded so certain. Which was great, because she liked Liam, a whole hell of a lot, and she wanted him to be happy. Fulfilled. To enjoy his work and his life.
But then again, the selfish side of her—which was becoming more and more attached to him with each day that passed—didn’t want to have such a clear understanding of what his business and his career meant to him.
Because then there was no denying the fact that she’d come to associate with that feeling of loss and longing.
His life was here.
And hers was in Australia.
“Anyway, when Doctor Sands retired, he gave me a stupidly good price to buy the business from him, which was—I mean, think about it. An established business with a good reputation? That’s something that money can’t really buy.”
She thought back to the day she’d been looking for a nearby vet. She’d gotten the feeling then that the business was new and it had worried her a little. But of course, she was only seeing it as Pupp’s. To someone who’d lived in the area for long enough, they’d probably know it used to be something else, and that it had changed hands not so long ago.
And he was right. Having that kind of place in the community was a massive leg-up on starting a brand-new business from scratch.
Goodwill was damn near priceless, and it sounded like Sands—and therefore, Pupp’s—had it in spades.
Rose smiled, telling herself to quit being so negative, and said, “I’m glad for you. God, I wish I knew what I wanted to do with my life like you always have.”
“Will you tell me some more about what you did back home?”
She shrugged, as if it wasn’t a big deal, but the fact was, it was a big deal. Her job and what had happened there was a large part of the reason she was even in America. And which led her to Liam. Clearing her throat, she opened her mouth to explain and . . . nothing came out.
She balked at the idea of telling him. It wasn’t like she didn’t trust him, she just felt so uncertain of her place in this life—not to mention her place in his life.
“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.” He offered the reprieve easily, so obviously she wasn’t doing so great at not making it seem like a big deal. “We can talk about something else.”
She shook her head, his understanding the catalyst for her finally being able to explain. “No, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not totally fine. But, ultimately, there’s not really a lot to tell. I worked at a bank, at the same branch since I was eighteen, and even though I really liked the clients, everything else was not that great. Aside from the fact it was too sales focused—and I hated that—the actual work atmosphere had become”—she searched for the right word—“toxic. My boss was okay, but her boss was really hard to work with.”
“How so?”
“So, I told you I have my master’s, right?” With his nod, she continued, “Well, Mister Bradley didn’t really seem to think much of my education. I didn’t mind working in customer service, but the fact was, I was qualified to do more. I’ve always been good with numbers and the plan was to, like, work my way up the ladder, so to speak.”
“Maybe one day replace this Mister Bradley?” Liam asked, a furrow between his brows telling her that he’d figured out that her boss’ boss was the villain in her story.
“Yeah, and then some. But when jobs on a higher tier would become available, he’d always have a reason why I wasn’t the right person for the job. Which I could totally buy once or twice, but come on. I had years of practical experience within the branch and a graduate level degree.”
“He was holding you back . . . on purpose?”
“I think so. I don’t have any real proof, except his behavior toward me was always suss.”
His head tilted a little. “Suss?” he asked, clearly looking for clarification.
“Suspect. Sorry.” She smiled softly at him, but kept talking, because, well, she had to. Now she’d started, she was determined to finish. “I’d just turned twenty-five when he called me in for a meeting. One-on-one, he said, to discuss my future with the bank. I thought, stupidly, I guess, that he was finally going to let me move up from being a CSS”—she hooked her fingers into air quotes—“a ‘customer service specialist.’ And he did, but not the way I expected.”
The furrow in Liam’s brow deepened and just a glimmer of the dread she’d felt in the office that day awakened in her belly. “Basically, the gist was that if I played my cards right and did him some special favors, he’d make it easier for me to transition into roles that were ‘more suited to my level of education.’ That’s a direct quote.”
“He wanted you to fuck him in exchange for career advancement.” Liam’s jaw was hard, clenched tightly, and his words came out gritty. Like he couldn’t relax enough to speak clearly.
“More or less.” She paused, reevaluating the expression. “More or more, really. Anyway, I’m sure you can imagine I was not exactly happy about it.”
“Understatement.”
“A bloody big one, actually. Anyway, the rest was pretty simple. I reported him to HR, but not much happened because it was my word against his, and my dissatisfaction with the job itself became colored by the entire ordeal. It was hard for me to go into work in the mornings, even though he’d been moved to another region not long after I reported him. And I started to realize . . . I didn’t want to be a banker. Not in a branch, not on a more corporate level. I mean, I like numbers and I’m good with them, just like I like people and am good with them, but, no. That job was”—she drew in a long breath and looked at Liam’s hand, realizing for the first time his fist was clenching and unclenching—“not for me.”
His laugh was harsh, though his eyes when they met hers were gentle, understanding. “Not for you? Another understatement.”
She merely nodded, because what else was there to say?
“So, you came over here after that?”
“Not right away.” Not that she hadn’t wanted to leave right away; not that she hadn’t felt driven away by that man and his actions. Except . . . “Visas aren’t exactly a walk in the park to obtain, and there are certain hoops that have to be jumped through before the American government will let a US-based business hire out of country. But yeah, about a year or so later, I was on the plane, and now here I am.”
“Here you are.” He gave her a smile that told her without words that he was glad she was there, and so was she.
“Here I am. With no idea what I want to be when I grow up.” He laughed at her throwback comment, and in that moment, her homesickness and the nausea that had risen with the recounting of her story fell away and it was just her and him. In his kitchen. Looking at each other like it was all they wanted to do.
Now and maybe for always.
Liam cleared his throat and adopted a more upbeat tone. “So, Rosie,” he started, opening his hands in a gesture that indicated he was about to change the tempo of their conversation. “Let’s figure this out, you and me. Do you have hobbies? Something you could spin into a career?”
She tapped at her chin in emphasized thoughtfulness. “I like sleeping,” she joked. “Oh, maybe I could be one of those professional cu
ddlers.”
Liam looked thoughtful. “I’d hire you.”
“I wouldn’t charge you, though. You could just call me for a cuddle whenever.” She meant it, too. Way more than she probably should.
“Is that right?” He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and held it to his ear, looking over at her with one raised eyebrow and a look on his face that told her he was teasing her.
She liked it. A lot. Especially since only moments ago they were talking about something hard and heavy and hurtful.
And now, he was playing around with her. Not treating her like a broken doll or a victim, or anyone other than the Rose he’d been getting to know.
She loved him for it.
Loved him? She thought about it for a second, shrugging it off. It was just an expression.
Waiting a beat, presumably for the nonexistent person on the other end to answer, Liam said, “Hello, is this Rose? Yeah, um, I’m in need of some emergency cuddling and I was wondering if you had a gap in your busy schedule for me?” He widened his eyes and feigned a gasp, which caused an involuntary eye roll in Rose.
He was being ridiculous.
She loved him for that, too.
You really need to rein in these love thoughts.
“Right now? That would be perfect, thank you. I can’t believe you’d squeeze me in like that. Okay, thanks, bye.”
“Should I leave? Sounds like you have a big date coming.” She slid off the stool she’d been sitting on and moved around until she was standing in front of him.
“How convenient that you’re already here,” he said instead of answering, grabbing her hand and pulling her out of the kitchen and back toward his lounge room. “Come on, you owe me cuddling and I can show you my favorite pillow.” He stopped and looked down at her, the seriousness in his face making her bite her lip to keep from laughing. “As long as you promise not to steal it from me.”
She pressed her free hand to her chest and let her mouth open in affronted shock. “I would never!”
“I don’t know. Any woman who’s cool with casual stalking is probably willing to cross the line straight into theft given half the opportunity. And it is a really nice pillow.”