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It had become a habit, to call into the bar on the way home. To sit and sort out her diary for the next day as Bas closed up, writing shopping lists as he did the till and swapping stories of their days. It was… nice, comfortable, even, though there was often a certain sort of current beneath his words.
The till slid shut with a click as he finished up, and he offered her the sure-fire smirk that always tied her stomach in a knot.
"Now, not that I'm one to question your taste, darling," laughed Bas, plucking at one of the straps of her dungarees, "But why do you look like you're ready to do a stint on Andy Pandy?"
"Oh, don't," she blushed, "Ellie spilt pasta all down me, this was all Lizzie had that fit."
She knew she looked scruffy, curls tossed up in a haphazard bun and in hand-me-down clothes. It had been enough to have her hesitating at the door, not sure she wanted him to see her in such a state. Still, she'd gone in— she wouldn't always be put together, after all. Bas might have been used to the glamourous girls of Rutshire, but Taggie was never going to be one of them.
"Sorry," he smiled, "You know I'm only teasing."
The Bar was all but empty now, the last of the regulars having filed out with their usual drunken camaraderie, and Taggie's stomach swooped as she realised they were alone.
He rounded the bar, skimming a gentle touch down her arm until his fingers tangled with hers. "Are you coming up?
"I— " God, could she? It would be for more than a nightcap, she was sure, and for all she wanted to jump, to finally get her life moving again, hesitation still sat heavy in her stomach.
She might have tried to persuade herself. Might have talked herself right into Bas' bed. But then she spotted the figure propped up in the corner of a booth, head bowed over a bottle of whiskey, black curls spilling over his face.
Taggie's brow crinkled as she took him in, and she tilted her head. "Is that Rupert?"
"It will be." Bas turned, following her gaze with a sigh. "He's been haunting that booth all week."
"Is he alright?"
Bas' lips tilted into something of a smirk as his gaze returned to her. "Just nursing a broken heart. It always hits you hard, the first time."
She looked to him with alarm, horrified at the idea of him knowing, but then he carried on.
"Come on, Agatha. He'll pour himself into a taxi when he's had his fill of sulking over Cameron, don't worry."
After so long, it still stung, to realise that it had been Cameron to claim his heart. But of course it had been. His first foray into love was always going to be with someone far stronger, far smarter, than Taggie.
Her gaze was pulled from Rupert as Bas' palms framed her face. The press of his lips to hers wasn't enough to soothe the ache, and she parted from him as his tongue began to trace the seam of her lips. It was pointless to try and persuade herself into anything tonight. Her heart had returned, as it always did, to the familiar rhythm of RupertRupertRupert.
"S-sorry," she stuttered. "Sorry, but I- I think I'd better get him home."
The look Bas gave her was nothing short of stunned, and his face twisted into something complicated as he twined his arms around her waist.
"Darling, don't be silly. Rupert knows how to get himself out of a tight spot." His breath was hot against her ear as he pulled her close, hands drifting down her spine. "Besides, I'm far more interested in a certain tight spot of yours."
Taggie jumped as he palmed her bum, hands against his chest before she had consciously decided to push him away. "I-I've had a lovely night. I'll see you tomorrow."
Whatever Bas said as she bolted over to Rupert's booth, it was lost to the frantic thump of her heart. Rupert raised bleary eyes to her as she approached, and the broad grin he gave her only made it beat faster.
"Darling! What're you doin'here?"
His speech was terribly slurred, and Taggie winced as she took in the near-empty bottle beside him.
"Let's get you home, shall we?"
"No." He frowned. "S'too quiet. S'better here."
"Bar's closing, Rupert, it's late. Come on, the dogs will be wondering where you are."
For a moment, Taggie thought she would have to pull him out of the booth herself, but then he nodded, head flopping like a ragdoll, and scooted down the leather. He stumbled as he stood, tipping forward, and Taggie found herself with an armful of Olympian as she tried to hold him up.
She turned back to the bar as she slung Rupert's arm over her shoulder, hoping Bas would help her get him to the car, but the polo player had already disappeared. Guilt churned in her gut to have abandoned him for his friend, but then Rupert tripped once more, and she forgot all about it.
"I don't think I've ever seen you this drunk," said Taggie.
"Liar," replied Rupert, "Like yu've forgotten Mel's deb. I vommed r-right down your… your dress."
It was Taggie's turn to stumble, and she almost sent them both careening into the Bar's double doors as confusion washed over her. God, how drunk was he, that he didn't even recognise her?
"W-well. Let's not do that again?" she said, perplexed, and the question as to who he thought she was was answered a moment later.
"N-no. You'd get suchan earful from James. Franchising with the enemy."
Lizzie. He thought she was Lizzie. Better than an old girlfriend, she supposed, but it still didn't sit right with her. A silly part of her was certain she could have picked Rupert out of a crowd by sense alone, and it stung to find that the same wasn't true in reverse.
Shaking her head, she forced out a little laugh. "Do you mean fraternising?"
"Thas the word. You always were s'much smarter than me."
Try as she might to cling onto the prickliness between them, there was something oddly charming about Rupert, drunk. Like a lost puppy, bumbling around a room, oblivious to the mess it left behind. He pressed a sloppy kiss into her hair as they stepped out onto the pavement, and a shiver worked down her spine that had nothing to do with the chill November air.
The few steps between the Bar's doors and the car seemed to take an eternity. Her hand dug into his hip as she guided him over the cracked pavement, his weight growing heavier as he started to drunkenly mumble through a song.
Unsteady on her own feet with the way he leaned over her, getting the car unlocked was something of a juggling act. In the end, she let her drunken neighbour flop onto the cool metal of the car's door while she fumbled with the keys, pulling him out of the way as she levered the door open.
Rupert landed in the Mini's bucket seat with a thump, needing an extra shove back into the leather before she could close the door on him. He was slumped in her direction as she slid behind the wheel, curls flopping over his face as he gave a happy sigh.
"You're too good t'me."
It had been so long since she had seen him without stress carved into his face. He'd softened with the drink, mouth ticked up into a half smile as he gazed up at her. He was close, close enough that Taggie couldn't resist the urge to brush his hair back from his face. He gave a happy hum as she did, leaning into her hand like one of their pups.
Get a grip, she told herself, and moved away from him. It was only to be drawn back a moment later, moving him back to his side of the car with careful hands. Safely ensconced in the leather, there was still one small problem left to solve.
"Just— Just hold still a minute, okay?"
Trying not to breathe, Taggie leant over him, drawing the seatbelt across his body and buckling him in. Memories of another day, another drive, washed forward in her mind, and she suppressed them with a swallow. They were far from what they had been then, and even that had been nothing at all.
As if he wanted to prove her wrong, Rupert's warm hand clasped around hers as Taggie retreated back across the console. She shivered as he brushed a kiss across the back of it, and sternly reminded herself that the affection wasn't for her, even as her foolish heart basked in it.
It was beating a mile a minute as she got them moving, pulling onto the streets of Cotchester with half an eye on the mumbling man beside her. "You're not going to be sick, are you?"
"No," he said quickly, then, "I don't think'so."
The speedometer ticked up a few extra notches as she pressed down on the accelerator. They had spent so long running away from each other, these last few months, there was a dull note of wrongwrongwrong ringing in her ears to be so close to him, yet just as utterly unable to speak to him.
The streets of Cotchester were lit up in a yellow monotone as they made their way out of town, nothing but the night air and a scant few headlights keeping them company. Taggie could almost have pretended she was alone as she turned onto the road for Penscombe. The silence between them was so complete, she jumped when the sound of Rupert's voice broke it.
"I really don't mean to be useless, y'know?"
She looked at him askance, and her response spilled out of her on instinct. "You're not useless."
"Definition of!" he snorted, "Olympian who can't com-compete, father who can't see his children. What's the point of me?"
He jerked as Taggie slipped on the breaks, barely making the bend onto Penscombe's land. There was something mean in his tone as he spoke, the same disgust that had dripped from his voice that day on the tennis courts. Only, it wasn't aimed at some interloper now. It was aimed at himself.
Oh, Rupert.
She was still trying to find the words to tell him how wrong he was when he carried on.
"I've lost everything. Everything. I might as well be dead."
"Don't say that," she hissed, "Don't ever say that, it's not true."
"It feels true."
Her hands shook as they pulled up in front of the house, dread pooling low and insistent in her belly. Was this what she had left him to? What they had all left him to? A man who had moved mountains for her, left alone to crumble into dust.
Taggie swallowed as she tried to find a response, determined her voice would be steady, that he would hear every word as she meant them. But what was there to say? How could she tell him that he was her first and last thought everyday? That she looked for him between every leaf and branch on every walk? That there were a thousand jokes she had never made, because the only person she wanted to tell them to was him.
If he died, it would kill her too.
"D'you think she's happy?" he said, slicing through her thoughts, "I think I could bear it, if I knew she was happy."
Even drunk, Rupert leapt from topic to topic with the same ease Rocky took the Priory's fence, while Taggie was left scrambling to keep up.
Heartbreak always hits you hard, the first time.
It was a special type of misery, to have to try and comfort him over Cameron.
"You could call her. I know she's gone back to America but—"
"Not Cameron!" he slurred, head thumping back into the leather. "Christ, I've fucked her up enough already. That's the thing though, isn't it? I can't do the same to Tag."
Taggie's breath caught in her chest. They were in the same spot, near enough. The same place where he'd uttered words she'd only half believed at the time. I won't break you too. There was a difference, she knew, between an excuse and a reason. As she'd spun his words in her head night after night, she'd settled on the former. A clean cut, a finite ending. A line drawn beneath the Rupert and Taggie of it all to make room for the new lady of Penscombe.
Looking at him now, though, she thought she might have gotten it wrong. Even in the dark, she could see the misery etched into his expression, and grief poured out of him with every whiskey-soaked word. It left her too scared to speak, terrified that she would shatter the illusion and lose this rare moment of honesty.
"I wish I could have told her," he whispered, "Just once."
His words spilled into the night like it was a conversation they'd had a thousand times. Maybe it was. Maybe this was a path he and Lizzie had trodden together time and time again, unbeknownst to Taggie and her broken heart.
She shouldn't have asked. But if this was her only opportunity to know, she had to take it.
"Told her what?"
Taggie couldn't stop the quaver of her voice as she asked, but it hardly mattered. If Rupert had heard her at all, he gave no indication. His head tipped back, and he spoke his next words to stars blinking through the windscreen.
"She was so scared no one would ever love her… I wish—"
Pain lanced through her, and Taggie leaned towards him, insistent. "Rupert— Told her what?"
But he gave her no answer, had drifted, tracing a constellation across the slowly fogging glass.
"She's s'beautiful. Her mouth tilts a little when she smiles, have you noticed? Lovley and l-lopsided."
"You can't—" mean that you love me. He couldn't. It was an impossibility. A dream she would never have dared speak out loud.
"I know." He gave a wet chuckle, voice thick with emotion. "I know. Don't worry, darling. I won't m-make her deal with my bloody- bloodymindedness. I love her too much for that."
The world fell out from under Taggie, the scruffy dashboard and scratched leather disappearing as her world narrowed down to Rupert. In the inky black of the night, he looked nothing like the man she'd first fallen in love with. He'd lost the sure swagger, and the last few months had rounded off his sharper edges. But time had left behind something that felt far truer to her heart. A kind man. A good one.
She was reaching for him before she could stop herself, her hand coming to cup a stubbled cheek. "You should tell her."
If the world was kind, the illusion would have shattered then. He would have looked into her eyes and realised just what those words meant, just who they were coming from. But the world had run out of kindness for them a long time ago.
Rupert leant into her touch even as he shook his head. "You know she's better off without me."
"I— I—" Frustration stole her words, and she let out a puff of hot air as she tried to find them again. "No, she's not."
"Yes, she is," he insisted, and then, because nothing was ever easy— "Lizzie— I think I'm going to—"
The curve of his spine as he heaved was one Taggie knew too well from nights spent nursing Caitlin. She counted her blessings as he lunged for the door, mirroring his movement as she sprinted for the other side of the car. A slash of spittle landed on her shoes as she reached him, an entire bottle of Bar Sinister's scotch upending itself from his stomach and onto the gravel.
Casting her eyes skyward, she cursed the stars Rupert had just confessed to.
"Sorry, sorry," Rupert cried as she reached for him, and her heart broke at the sight of tears in his eyes. "Told you. 'M useless."
"You're a-a—" she searched for the word, and felt the warmth of it as it rolled off her tongue. "A plonker. It's only a little sick, the rain will wash it away. Let's get you to bed, hm?"
He had been made no lighter by the loss of his stomach contents, and his steps had only gotten less co-ordinated. Taggie would have thought him half asleep, if the slow path they wove into the house wasn't accompanied by his self-flagellation.
"Hey, shh, shh," she said as she manoeuvred him through the door. "Enough of that, that's my friend you're talking about."
They were greeted by the dogs, six sets of blinking eyes staring at her as she shouldered their master into the house. It was dark, and chill, and Taggie shuddered at the thought of Rupert rattling around the house by himself, not a soul to keep him company.
The pack parted for her as she led Rupert to the stairs, all of them scattering away from the stranger in their midst. All of them, that was, except Beaver, who took up sentry at Rupert's side, as close as he could be without getting underfoot.
"Pfffft. You're m'only friend." For a moment, Taggie didn't know if he meant her, or the dog. "You 'nd Freddie. Even Bas has—"
She tightened her grip on him as he shook his head with such vigour he nearly toppled over. She knew what he was going to say, anyway. Even Bas had left him. Left him for her.
"I'm sure he'd still be there, when you needed him," Taggie said, though it rang hollow. He hadn't exactly been on hand to help tonight, afterall.
"S'okay. Course she likes him better. Younger. Prettier. Not all sh-shopspoiled like me."
"I don't like him better," she said without thinking, and it was her turn to almost send them toppling down the stairs. It was true, wasn't it? It was what had been holding her back, all this time. Try as she might, there was no one in the world she liked better than the man pressed against her side.
"Thas you," slurred Rupert. "Not her."
"I— She— You were close, weren't you?" Taggie said, grasping at straws.
She wanted to shake him, to reason with him. Realise its me. Tell me. Just talk to me. But all she could do was carry on with the twisted play pretend her night had turned into.
"Before. Before. But who could love me, knowing—" He gestured widely, almost taking her out as they reached the landing— "Everything?"
I could. I could love you knowing anything.
Her appetite for honesty deserted her. The odds that Rupert would remember any of this in the morning were terrible, and she suddenly couldn't spare the breath to feed her own misery.
"Come on," she said, voice desolate, "Bed for you, and home for me."
Getting Rupert into bed wasn't difficult. He put his petulance aside as their conversation died, back to the pliability of a puppy as she settled him onto the mattress. His shoes, then his socks came off in her hands, and she even managed to get him to gulp down a glass of water before he flopped back onto the mattress.
"Thank you," he said, catching her hand as she went to leave, "I don't know what I'd do without you."
Swallowing, Taggie allowed herself to make a hopeless promise. "You'll never have to find out."
Rupert let out a hum, and his eyes finally drifted closed, his face relaxing into something peaceful as he stopped fighting sleep. Taggie turned once more for the door, only to find a different pair of hazel eyes staring up at her.
"You'll keep watch, won't you Beaver? Daddy's going to have one hell of a headache when he wakes up in the morning."
The dog's head tilted to the side as he gave a whine, and then he was stepping forward, nosing at her thigh.
"I left him some para-paracetamol, don't worry," she told him, smoothing a hand over his head in reassurance. "He'll be alright."
More insistent now, Beaver whined at her again, crowding her back towards the bed. "Oh, no darling, I can't stay. I have to get home to Gertrude and Claudius!"
Beaver was unmoved, staring at her as he stood between her and the door.
"I'm sorry, boy, I am."
The tremble of her voice was nothing compared to the shakiness of her steps, loss digging its claws into her with every extra inch she put between her and Rupert. He loved her. He loved her. After so long wondering, she finally knew.
Could she really just leave him, after all that had been said between them? Would nothing more come of it, except for another secret between her and the night?
It was only as she stepped across the threshold of his bedroom that she knew the answer.
No.
Taggie couldn't pretend tonight never happened. I might as well be dead, he'd said. Who could love me? It was unthinkable, that a man who made her smile just by stepping into a room could truly believe he was as unlovable as that.
She retraced her steps to his bedside in the blink of an eye, brushing past Beaver as she headed for Rupert's bedside table. Her hands were steady as she rifled through his drawer, tugging out a diary and a pen.
Leafing through it, she ripped out a page at random, the sight of Rupert's swooping handwriting filling her with an odd affection as she folded the paper over, gripping the pen as she added her own ink marks to his.
I love you eneway. Come find me.
Taggie x