The Love of My Afterlife(62)

“Do you have rooms available?” Cooper asks the bartender.

“Rooms?” I pull a face. “I can’t stay here. Just call the AA or something. They’ll fix your car. Or let’s get a cab. I really do just want to go home.”

Cooper huffs. “I wouldn’t feel great about asking anyone to drive out to us in these terrible conditions. Would you?” He looks at me like I’ve just suggested he shit in a Jiffy bag and post it to his mum.

He’s right, though. It’s apocalyptic out there. I definitely don’t want anyone driving in that. I shake my head.

“Look,” Cooper says, his eyes softening a smidge. “We’ll wait it out and I’ll call my friend in the morning. He has a spare set of keys to the car.”

What other choice do we have?

I look up at the bartender. “What he said. We need a couple of rooms.”

“That won’t be a problem,” The barman says, indicating the empty pub. “Now what do you two want to drink?”

“Alcohol,” Cooper says bluntly.

“And plenty of it,” I add, burying my wet head in my hands.



* * *





As pubs go, it’s not the worst one to be stuck in—it’s cosy, the chairs are soft, and the alcohol in Duckett’s Edge is half as expensive as it is in London. Cooper and I have settled ourselves into a corner by a crammed gallery wall filled with oil paintings of women, each one in a different artistic style—an abstract nude, an Impressionist woman in a wild garden, a full-on portrait in a classical Renaissance sort of style. Cooper is drinking whisky neat because of course he is, and I am having vodka martinis, sans olives. The drinks have been made with a very old, very sweet, possibly out-of-date vermouth because—as the barman said—this is not Chiltern bloody Firehouse.

I reach into my bag for some bobby pins and braid my wet hair right back up into its usual style until it’s safe and secure.

A young, extremely pretty woman in denim shorts walks by our table. I wait for Cooper to meet her gaze with that flirty look he’s always dishing out, but he doesn’t. He just plays with a beer mat, brows furrowed.

“Are you okay?” I ask. “Only a very hot woman just walked past and you didn’t notice.”

“I’m not some sort of Casanova, you know.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Tell that to the queue of women outside your flat.”

Cooper shakes his head. “Humans need company.”

“Sure,” I say with an eye roll. “Company.”

He looks at me then, serious. “I assume you’ve never felt lonely then. If you had, you wouldn’t be so judgy about people doing whatever they can to avoid that particular feeling.” He sighs lightly. “Even if it doesn’t work.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, my gaze flicking up to meet his. “I didn’t know.”

He tears a bit of cardboard from the corner of the beer mat. I watch him fiddle with it, feeling ignorant for making such assumptions. Surely I know him better than that now.

“So then…” I start to ask, and then clamp my mouth shut.

“What? Go on?”

“Why not one woman? If you’re lonely, surely sticking with one person—regularly—would be better?”

Cooper puts down his scrap of beer mat. “I don’t date because I’ve never met anyone that made me feel like—”

“Oh fuck,” I yell, my heart suddenly lurching as I remember. “I won’t be there tonight to check on Mr. Yoon.”

“Why do you need to check on Mr. Yoon?”

I shrug. “I check he’s put his cigarettes out at night and turns off his gas, you know.”

“Has he left his cigarettes lit before?”

“Well, no. But his memory is foggy. He’s become pretty forgetful this past year.”

“Mr. Yoon will be fine,” Cooper says, taking a sip of his drink. “He might be getting older, but that man is sharper than the pair of us.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I’ve yet to beat him at a game of poker.”

I frown. “You play cards with Mr. Yoon?”

Cooper nods, flipping his beer mat between his hands. “Three weekday afternoons a week. We have lunch and a game.”

“You make him lunch?”

“I buy him lunch. He would not like my cooking.”

“Wait, are you the one who got him hooked on those fizzy cola bottle sweets?”

Cooper laughs. “I brought them once. He wolfed them down, so I brought them again.”

I exhale. “You can’t keep buying them. They’re not good for him.”

“Delphie, he’s eightysomething. Let him have some joy.”

“I just want him to be okay,” I say. I bite my lip as I think about what the hell is going to happen to him when I’m gone.

“Listen.” I lean closer to Cooper. “Mr. Yoon is waiting for a council assessment. He needs extra care. But the waiting list is long.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. And I was going to take over his care until they sorted it but…if for some reason I’m, you know…”

“What?”