Page 5 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)

But then we’d broken up. I actually preferred to say I broke up with him, because that’s technically how it had happened.

But he hadn’t exactly asked me not to, and I’d found him in bed with my supposed best friend, so maybe it would have been more accurate to say it was mutual?

Either way, I’d come home with my tail between my legs, and I’d been in a sort of stasis since then.

I’d picked up enough virtual assistant work and admin hours at Dad’s contracting business to build up a tiny bit of savings, but I had very little else going on in my life, which was incredibly depressing if I let myself think too hard about it.

I pulled into the drive and parked behind Mum’s Subaru, grateful that at least I wouldn’t have to walk down to Jack’s to get the car in the morning.

He technically lived on the farm with us, but on his own slice of the land about a quarter mile further down the drive, in a house he’d built himself when he’d moved home a few years ago.

Then again, none of us lived on the farm, really.

Dad’s brother John owned the farm and his own house over the hill, and Mum and Dad lived in the old stone farmhouse.

Not that we saw much of Uncle John; his house was even further away than Chloe’s parents’ house, which wasn’t quite visible from ours.

I walked through the front door, unsurprised to find Mum watching TV in the lounge.

“How was your game?” she asked as I slipped off my shoes and dropped Jack’s keys on the hall table. “Did you win?”

“I don’t think it’s the type of game you win,” I said, walking into the lounge and sinking into Dad’s armchair since he was nowhere to be seen.

“What kind of game is it then?”

“The kind where I annoy Phil to no end apparently.”

“Well, you always were good at that.”

I laughed. “How was Masterchef ?”

“Good. My money’s on that Brin.”

“If you say so,” I said, though I’d already stopped paying attention, thinking instead about the notification I’d dismissed earlier.

It was the third email I’d gotten from Chris this week, and I needed to deal with it eventually.

But after the way things had ended, with me having to leave Manchester to get away from the whole situation, I just didn’t want to open up that can of worms.

Though I was already thinking about it plenty, so he’d kind of already won, hadn’t he? Maybe I could just do a reading to figure out what this was all about instead of actually having to talk to him?

“What do you think?” Mum asked, and I blinked myself back into the room.

“Sorry, about what?”

“Head in the stars again?”

“Something like that,” I muttered. Mum was the last person I would tell about Chris reaching out; she didn’t know exactly what had happened between us, and I just knew she’d tell me to give him another chance, which was not an option.

“I asked if you wanted to come along to one of the rewilding expeditions this summer,” she repeated. “We’re short on volunteers, and I think you’d really enjoy it.”

Mum had volunteered for the local rewilding trust for years now, and she was so serious about it. I was pretty sure the scope of their work extended to planting wildflowers on verges, but she acted like it was this intense job.

“I really don’t think I would,” I said. Jack had been her little flower child, paying rapt attention when she named every plant and every bird on our camping trips growing up. It had never really appealed to me.

“Suit yourself,” she said, then turned her gaze back to the TV and turned up the volume.

I hated how disappointed she sounded, but the last thing I wanted was to start volunteering with Mum and stay stuck in the same holding pattern I’d been in for the last few months.

Living with my parents, working crappy online jobs whilst having to beg my own father for hours at the family business, tagging along with my brother and his friends when they hung out.

Not that I had any idea what I should be doing instead, of course.

I said goodnight to Mum and took myself upstairs to my childhood bedroom where, even after months, most of my belongings still sat packed in boxes around me. I didn’t want to get too comfortable in my situation, because I didn’t trust myself to be able to get anything done if I did.

I undertook the most aspirational version of my bedtime routine, every skincare step giving me a few seconds where I didn’t have to deal with the emails waiting for me.

But eventually I ran out of K-beauty products, and I sat down on my bed, bracing myself for whatever nonsense Chris was bringing with him on his way out of the woodwork.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: URGENT - please don’t ignore this

I assume you’ve got me blocked everywhere else, and I don’t blame you.

But this is now extremely time sensitive.

We’re coming through your little town on Saturday, and there should be no reason why you can’t meet up at some point.

Any time is fine. But it’s urgent that we speak in person.

You have my number. Text me a time and place, or I’ll come to the address I still have for your parents.

I could taste bile in the back of my throat as I read the email. The casual condescension of “your little town,” the threat to show up at Mum and Dad’s house, the insinuation that I had nothing better going on than to meet up with my cheating ex-boyfriend on a Saturday night…

Okay, that last part wasn’t untrue exactly, especially now that Phil had cancelled on me, but how dare he anyway.

Mum and Dad would be a problem. Well, really just Mum; she’d taken my breakup harder than she had any right to, despite never having met Chris.

So letting him show up at the house was not an option.

But Mum was nosy enough that going out to meet him would be a challenge, too.

Wouldn’t she notice if I was out at an odd time?

Given how pushy she’d been about me meeting up with old school friends or letting myself be set up with her friends’ adult children (most of whom I’d also known since school), all of which I’d firmly rejected, going out would absolutely raise her suspicions.

Except, I was always out on a Saturday night, wasn’t I? Or in , rather, but at Phil and Ethel’s instead of at home.

“Shit,” I muttered, knowing my hands were tied; I’d have to do exactly what he wanted me to do if I wanted to minimise the damage. So I typed out a reply:

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: RE: URGENT - please don’t ignore this

Don’t be so dramatic, Chris. It’s not a good look on you. Saturday night, 7PM. The Old Coffer.

Sent from my iPhone

It would have to do– it was the only nice bar in town, and a drink felt much more palatable than a meal.

Fuck . What the hell did he want? Why was he going to be in town? And importantly, what should I wear to communicate both that I was completely unbothered about his existence, and that I was better than him in every way?

I’d just started mentally cataloguing every item of clothing I owned when my phone lit up again on the nightstand. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath, assuming Chris had already responded with something else underhanded and condescending.

But it wasn’t an email from Chris. It was a text from Phil; he’d sent me a photo. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was already smiling as I tapped the notification.

My screen filled with an image so dark I could barely make it out, but when I squinted, my smile widened. It was a pink and black rhodonite freeform on the plastic table in Ethel’s garden, charging under the new moon.