Page 46 of The Man Upstairs

His eyes met mine again.

“Katreya was cheating before I was, actually. A guy at Grace’s gym club when she was fourteen. An ex-Olympian. I don’t blame her, in all fairness. He was quite an athlete.”

He put his whisky bottle back down on the floor, opting for the orange juice from the coffee table instead.

“There is a reason divorce rates are so high,” he said. “Katreya and I got married under the tension of a positive pregnancy test, and our relationship ended in the shambles of a dead, sexless co-habitation. That with the addition of my role as a sex-addicted alcoholic, who has a craving for barely legal girls.”

I stared mute. Unsure what the hell to say.

He smirked at that, pointing over at the door.

“I’ll understand if you would prefer to stay at Trisha’s. Don’t worry, either way. I’ll still help you resolve the Scottie situation. Just make sure you don’t go back to the apartment.”

“No!” I said, right off the mark. “I want to stay here.”

“Even though you’ve just had my seedy mouth all over you? I’m not a good man, as you now well know.”

He was trying to put me off, but it wouldn’t work. His conscience could eat him up all he wanted, but it wouldn’t push me away. I was already in deep with him, a sex addict alcoholic or not. There was something brewing in me to match his honesty. My own tales wanted to show their faces and get a hearing from someone who was interested enough to listen. Not like the token school counsellors I’d had when I was thirteen, pretending they gave a shit in in my lunch hour for six weeks running – the allotted time. I couldn’t talk to Mum because she always took anything I ever wanted to say personally. She’d blame herself and cry over everything possible, and I’d feel like I’d hurt her. So, I kept it to myself. It was easier that way. Or so I thought until I was right here with Julian.

It put the state of my own hidden soul into perspective. I wanted someone who I could be myself with. Who I could speak the truth with. I didn’t want to move from Julian’s apartment. Ever. All I wanted was to be at his side.

At his side and in his bed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him, and took my own orange juice, downing it in one. “I’ll stay here as long as you’ll have me.”

“Really? As long as I’ll have you? That’s quite a statement, Rosie.”

“Really,” I said. “I feel safer here than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

He took a cigarette from a pack on the coffee table. “That’s an even greater statement.”

“I don’t care,” I told him. “It’s true. We can both do honesty. You’ve given me some of yours, so how about I give you some of mine?”

He didn’t flinch or look away. He met my eyes with a calmness that soothed my soul, giving me a glimpse of true, unbiased companionship for once in my life.

“I’m all ears,” he said.

Chapter Twelve

Julian

Rosie’s beautywas truly divine. A little angel on my sofa, dwarfed by one of my shirts.

She was a blend I hadn’t known before. A tantalising mixture of sexual naivety and a strange sense of wisdom. The tiny goddess was young in body, but not in mind.

She most certainly wasn’t the type of girl who’d usually be spreading her legs for me. My conquests had always been flirtatious to the extreme, displaying their curves, pouts and giggles. They were used to being the centre of attention, comfortable and spoiled – like my own daughter was – showered in compliments and gifts from the moment they were born. Grace and her friends had never had to handle the wordno.Neither had most of my Oxford students.

Rosie was very, very different.

She pulled her legs up under herself before she began talking. I loved how comfortable she looked in this place. How comfortable she was with me.

“I’m not like people think I am,” she said. “So, I guess that makes two of us, doesn’t it? People think I’m just a little girl in thick-rimmed glasses, chewing up regular teenage drama around my mum being caught up with losers. You probably think that, too. But I’m not.”

“On the contrary,” I told her. “If anything, I think the opposite. I doubt you’ve had the freedom of swimming in the innocence of life. I’m sure you’ve witnessed the dregs of human behaviour in this place, right from the very beginning. What should have been your formative years have not been very kind to you.”

The truth in my words seemed to subdue her. She fiddled with one of the buttons on the shirt she was wearing. She’d taken me aback with the randomness of her Katreya questions earlier, so I opted to dig deep with my own.

“How manyfathershave you known? A fair few? Have your mother’s partners stepped in like shining stepdaddies in the main, until their relationship turned sour?”