Page 32 of One Last Try (Try for Love #1)

Owen

I jolt up in bed, torn from an intense and strange dream.

It’s fading fast, and I don’t remember any details except that it was one of those dreams you’re disappointed to wake from.

I’m not wearing pyjamas, in fact, I’m only in pants—weird—and I can’t seem to find my slippers.

I must have left them downstairs again. I hate walking across that stone floor with bare feet.

Even if it is almost summer, it’s always freezing.

A half yawn, half groan leaves my throat as I take in my bedroom, pre-readying myself for getting out of bed.

Always the hardest part of any day. My eyes fall to the dressing table with .

. . the girls’ baby blanket, the one we used to drape over them when they were feeling poorly, folded up on the pouffe. How did that get there?

There’s a book on the nightstand that I don’t remember buying, and a suit jacket hanging on the wardrobe door that’s definitely not mine. And there’s a fucking flatscreen TV above the drawers, and . . .

Holy fuck! I don’t live here any more.

Suddenly other details come crashing into clarity, as though they’re being thrown at me—the other trinkets and photos that don’t belong to me, the smell of bacon frying and fresh coffee brewing, the sound of a radio playing.

I can’t tell what station, but an indistinct feminine voice is chattering away, and someone is pottering around downstairs.

Who I first assumed was Daisy, is in fact . . .

Mathias Jones.

Oh my god, I fell asleep.

And last night . . . oh my god, last night.

I run a hand over my stomach at the memory of Mathias on top of me, spraying me with his orgasm. Damn, it wasn’t a dream. It really fucking happened.

I find my clothes, claw my way into them, and scramble downstairs.

The radio isn’t a radio at all, but the TV with the volume turned down low. On it, an American woman is doing a YouTube review of . . . some kind of fancy as heck blanket. Okay, sure, whatever floats his boat, I guess.

“Wild Card, good morning.” I meet him in the kitchen. “I slept over. I’m so sorry.”

He stops plating up whatever he’s plating and turns to me.

Smiles. It’s genuine and warm and a little shy, and I physically feel my heart tripping over itself.

“I was gonna bring it up to you. I’ve already eaten mine.

” He checks his watch. “Have to be at the grounds in—shit, about thirty minutes. I’d better go. ”

Breakfast is lean bacon medallions, scrambled egg, half an avocado, and buttered brown toast with a glass of OJ and a freshly brewed coffee.

From a coffee press, not from his posh machine.

He’s arranged it artfully on the dish, like something I’d ask Tyler to do for presentation reasons but never bother with myself.

I get the distinct feeling Mathias is trying to impress me, or thank me, or maybe this is how he starts every morning.

“Thanks for breakfast, by the way. You didn’t have to.” I take my plate to the table. “I haven’t had breakfast made for me since . . . the Father’s Day before covid.”

Mathias laughs as though I’m joking, then instantly sobers when he sees I’m serious. “You haven’t been on holiday or to a hotel for five years?”

“Nope. No time.” I’m breezy as I dismiss it, but I only now realise how sad it all sounds. How tragic it makes me seem. “Pub’s open seven days a week. I’ve got too much to do, too much to pay for.”

“Like thatched roofs,” he says.

“Exactly, like thatched roofs.”

“I’ve had an idea . . . about that. What if you had some kind of community event to raise money, like, I dunno, a gigantic pub quiz, or a rugby-a-thon.

We could get all the sevens boys and girls to join in.

Or like a bake sale, or a raffle, or even better .

. . a fair. Like a summer fair. You could set it up at the club grounds. ”

I shovel eggs into my mouth so I don’t have to respond right away. “I’ll think about it,” I eventually say, so that I’m not outright dismissing his ideas. He seems so eager and genuine, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but . . .

My pub is not a charity. It’s a registered business. Its sole purpose is to make me, the proprietor, money so I can pay my grocery bills. It’d feel wrong setting up a community event that would benefit only me. Like stealing from a good cause. In fact, it might not even be legal.

“I’ll eat up and head off. Gotta finish the quiz before we open. Though, mind you, it won’t be the first time I’ve had to scramble around on a Thursday afternoon pulling questions out of my ass.”

“I’ve done it already. Printed it out for you. It’s in the study, but I’ve got to go.” He picks up a holdall .

“You . . .” I can’t quite formulate my sentence. Instead, I swallow down the weird ache in my throat. I need Mathias to leave for training so I can be alone with my brooding teenager thoughts.

What is fucking happening to me?

“Well, see you tonight.” Mathias bounces from one foot to the other beside the table. It’s possible he’s deciding whether to kiss me goodbye. He doesn’t. He just leaves with a friendly and awkward as fuck wave.

After I finish my breakfast, I hang around Fernbank Cottage for what feels like an unjustifiably long time. I read through Mathias’s final quiz questions, and I do that thing people in movies and TV programmes do where they walk through each room and sigh. I miss this place.

I miss the bath tub. I miss having actual baths instead of only showers.

I miss swiping the girls’ Lush bathbombs when they’d go out and I wanted to feel fancy.

I miss the way the pond in the back garden throws shimmering wavy light onto the dining room ceiling.

I even miss the fucking wood pigeon that sits on the branch outside the master bedroom window and shrieked me awake every morning.

I miss shitting my pants at five thirty a.m. every day at the noise.

After I clean away my plates, I head over the road. Since Mathias has already finished the quiz, and it’s only nine twenty and The Little Thatch doesn’t open to the public until midday, I have some surprise unaccounted for time on my hands.

Might have a nap and a wank. Or a wank and a nap. Or a wank followed by a nap followed by another wank. Treat yo’self.

But alas, Daisy’s already in the pub, perched on one of the tall bar stools with a laptop open in front of her.

I can’t catch a break.

“Spend the night with Matty baby, did you?” She raises an eyebrow at me.

I could lie, tell her I got up early to go into Hookborough for some supplies, but I don’t bother. She’s too smart for that. “Maybe I did. On a completely unrelated note, I need to take a shower. ”

“Oh my god, ew,” she says. She’s grinning from ear to ear. “But yay. So . . . are you two like a thing now? Because Lando told me Mathias has deleted his Grindr.”

I stumble over my next thoughts. He deleted his hookup app? Because of me? “No, we’re not a thing. We just—”

“Ahhh! I don’t need details,” she screams.

“Jesus, I’m not about to give you any details.

I was gonna say that whatever we have, Mathias and me, it’s only temporary.

He’s going back to Wales after the summer.

Even if they offer him another season with the Cents, I’m not sure he’d take it.

So I’m not going to . . .” Fall in love with a boy who’s leaving.

“We’re not going to be anything more than just friends. ”

“Friends with benefits?”

“Yes.”

She sighs. “Oh.” She seems genuinely disappointed, and it’s all I can do not to join in, mirror her crumpled facial expression, her deflated shoulders. “Well, in other fantastic news today, Ryan called.”

“Ryan?”

“Yeah, Ryan Whatshisname from the thatchers.”

“Ah, fuck. What did he want?” A ball of dread blossoms in my stomach, burns down the length of my gullet like I didn’t blow on a scalding piece of pie.

“He’s booking us in for the eighth of August. He said after that, their availability is shit and it’ll be twenty twenty-seven if we don’t have it done then. I haven’t said yes to him yet. Said I’d talk it over with you.”

I puff all the air out of my lungs as slowly as I can, as though if I spend the rest of forever exhaling, I’ll never have to deal with my grown-up problems. “What’s the damage?”

Daisy pulls a face, sucking her lips right up under her nose. “Fifty per cent deposit by the eighteenth of July for materials.”

I want to swear, curse, rue my life, but I have no words. Fifty per cent deposit is close to twenty thousand pounds. Over double what I have in the bank .

Daisy must sense the distress in my silence. “What if we leave it until twenty-seven?”

“We can’t.” It’s been on the agenda for so long now.

It leaks when it rains, it has black mould, and practically a metropolis of mice calling it home.

Thatched roofs are supposed to be replaced every twenty to thirty years with some minor ongoing maintenance, but the records show the last time my pub had a new roof was in 1990.

Plus, it’s a listed building, and there are certain regulations I need to adhere to in order to keep my license.

“It has to be this August. I’ll call the bank again.

” See if their answer to another mortgage extension is still a firm no.

“How much money are you getting from Mathias? He’s staying, isn’t he?”

I scrub my hand down my face. I hate that this has become Daisy’s problem too.

“Yes, he’s staying, at least until the end of his contract with the Cents.

He pays fifteen hundred a month, but then you gotta take into account property tax and agent fees, so were looking at about seven grand, maybe less, for the six months.

Minus the money we already spent on new carpets and doing it up. So five grand, probably.”

“Fuck!” Daisy says, and I don’t reprimand her for swearing.

“Right,” I sigh.

We’re quiet for a few moments while we think over money problems, only I know neither of us is actually thinking. I’ve had a few years to come up with a solution, and aside from renting out my own fucking home, I’ve drawn a blank.

“I’ll speak to Lan. Maybe his dad can—”

“No, Daze.”

“Mathias, then. He’s got loads—”

“No.”

“But—”

“Daisy, I said no. I’m not a fucking charity.”

She slumps in her chair and puffs out her breath like she used to when she was fourteen, but she doesn’t bring it up again .

I cannot accept gifts of that magnitude, and I can’t owe any friends that kind of cash. Not that Lando’s father is a friend, but he’s definitely the type of person you don’t want to be borrowing money from. Especially if you’ll struggle to pay it back. Pretty sure that man has . . . connections.

“Whilst you’re in this super happy mood . . .” Daisy says, her face expressionless. “Can I finish at eight tonight?”

“Why?” I’m trying not to be grumpy. I’m really, really trying.

“I have a date.”

“How old is she?”

“Says the forty-five-year-old man shagging the twenty-nine-year-old,” she snipes back.

I feel my blood pressure spike. “That’s different. You’re eighteen. Age gaps are bigger when one of you is still that young.”

“Chill, she’s twenty. And it’s not really a date. It’s more like what you have with Mathias Jones.”

I hold my hands up. “Spare me the details, please and thank you.”

This manages to get a laugh out of her. She places her hands in front of her, palms together as though she’s praying. “So can I pleeeeeease? Lando said he’ll cover my shift.”

“Fuck that. That kid drinks more in booze than I’ll save by not paying him. I’ll ask Mathias to emcee again.”

“Exactly. You can pay Matty in other ways,” she says, and immediately jumps out of her seat, knowing she’s taken it too far.

“Daisy May Bosley, go wash that mouth out,” I yell. “What are you even looking at on this laptop anyway?”

Daisy reaches out a hand to stop me, but it’s too late. I’ve already swivelled the screen around to see a spreadsheet . . . columns of figures that look like costs and projected revenue. The searing burn in my oesophagus returns.

“Oh, Daze.” I hold my arms open, and she slots herself between them. “We’ll figure this out, I promise.”