Rosie still loved the Walthamstow flat.
She loved the life she led inside it – but also the new understanding she’d gleaned that, for the most part, its crucial components were adjustable. Adaptable. Transferable.
She loved her quirky knick-knacks, the bookshelves stuffed with favourite stories and the many framed photographs of her most-loved people. Just lately, there were more of them than ever. A candid photograph of herself and Michael, snapped as she showed her terrified brother how to soak a Christmas pudding in brandy, then set it alight, had pride of place on the mantelpiece.
She loved the silver tabby cat who made it known that she and Aled were lucky to have him; who blessed them with his presence in exchange for belly rubs on demand, first dibs on his favourite chair and a daily diet of overpriced, extremely malodorous food. (She didn’t love the lecture she’d recently had from the vet. Springsteen was bordering on obese, Rosie had been informed, and he needed to lay off the Dreamies with immediate effect.)
She loved being able to walk to the Red Fox Deli. She adored working there, just as she adored Rhianne and her crack team of coffee-making, karaoke-loving weirdos.
Most of all, she loved Aled. She loved his quiet steadiness, his thoughtfulness, his gentleness and intensity. She loved that when he laughed, he laughed with his whole body – and that he kissed that way, too.
She loved that they fell asleep together every night, dovetailed into one another like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Every morning, they awoke still connected: her head on his chest, or his arm flung around her. She loved that he could make her breathless with a single, careful touch; that he could tell her he adored her with no words at all, or with famous ones he’d found in poetry books.
She loved the desk she’d set up in what was once the spare room – the university text books stacked on top of it and the journal Aled had given her on the day she’d started her course: a cherry-red Moleskine with ‘RB’ embossed in gold on the cover.
She loved the room’s recently painted ‘gender neutral’ yellow walls, the slightly wonky light fitting and its scratched-but-salvageable original floorboards.
It was a room with possibilities. With a future that hadn’t been written yet.
Did Rosie and Aled capture your hearts in The Spare Room? Then don’t miss out on more wonderfully heart-warming romcoms from Laura Starkey!
And make sure you keep reading for an exclusive extract from Rachel Ryan’s Resolutions…