Page 2 of Topped

Rupert, the intriguing and adorable owner of Saltgate Sweets—the vintage sweet shop that shared a wall with Lick It!.

He had a long, royal blue wool coat on, the collar pulled up against the rain, and a yellow umbrella clutched in his gloved hands. He was wearing a flat cap, his dark hair neatly tucked underneath it, and I could only smile because it was like he’d taken Tommy Shelby’s wardrobe and combined it with the colour palette of Peter Rabbit.

He didn’t seem to have spotted me, which was good. If he had, he might have diverted down some alleyway or turned around and walked away. And I didn’t want that to happen.

We hadn’t gotten off on the best terms back in the spring… mostly because I thought he was an uptight, finickety wanker who was more interested in being right than being neighbourly. And I was terrible at pushing people’s buttons when they annoyed me, because half the time I thought it was funny.

Alfie was probably right when he’d said I was being a dickhead.

If Darcy had been less stressed about the whole opening a new business thing, there was a good chance he’d have marched me straight into Rupert’s shop and made me apologise. But as he’d had a laundry list of his own issues to deal with, I’d been left to my own devices.

Which again, in hindsight, hadn’t been a good thing.

Luckily the local seagull population had turned out to be much harder to train than I’d anticipated.

“Sorry,” Rupert said as he tried to duck around me, catching me slightly with his shoulder as he attempted to stop his umbrella from smacking me in the face. “I didn’t see—Oh, it’s you.”

“Morning Rupert,” I said with the most winning smile I possessed. More recently I had been trying to mend fences between us, but not necessarily for the most altruistic reasons.

Rupert fascinated me in more ways than I could count, and his bristling determination to keep me at arm’s length, no matter how charming I was, was like dangling an ostrich-egg sized diamond in front of a jewel thief.

Plus, if Darcy came back from Australia and realised he was in for a repeat of this summer—where Rupert and I spend months pettily lashing out at each other—then he might finally snap. And I wasn’t about to put one of my longest friendships to the test simply because I liked being an annoying wanker.

“Good morning.” He stared at me for a long moment, a frown appearing between his eyebrows as he scrutinised me. There were a few spots of rain on the front of his glasses, but I could still see his dark eyes behind them. Like deep pools you could get lost in. “You shaved your moustache off. That’s why I didn’t recognise you.”

“Yeah, I was bored. Time for a change.” I grinned and tugged the edge of my beanie up. “Did my hair too.”

“All of it?”

“Yeah. Unless I missed a spot.” I pulled my hat off and ran my hand over my head, triple-checking in case I really had missed a bit. I couldn’t feel anything amiss though.

“Oh… that’s… quite a dramatic change,” Rupert said. He didn’t look startled or horrified. More like he was taking it all in and processing. “It looks nice.”

“Yeah? You think so?”

“It’s different but, yes, I think it suits you.”

“Thanks.” I tugged my hat back on, because my head was getting very cold and wet. That was going to take some getting used to. Maybe I’d made a mistake. But it wasn’t like I could do anything about it. I’d simply have to wait for it to grow back.

“What do your friends think?”

“Dunno yet. I literally just did it this morning. So if you hear screaming through the walls, you can assume they hate it.”

Rupert’s lip twitched into a small smile and delight ignited in my chest. I didn’t know if I’d ever seen him smile. Not that I could remember anyway… and I’d remember something like that. “Wouldn’t that be a little dramatic?”

“Darcy’s middle name is dramatic,” I said with a chuckle. “I love him, but he can be overdramatic as fuck. Especially when he’s stressed. But hey, we’ve all got friends like that. It’s why we love them.”

“I suppose,” Rupert said. There was a sudden stiffness to his posture, and I wondered what the hell I’d said wrong. Did he think I’d meant he was overdramatic? Or was that something he’d been accused of in the past? I mean, if this was his reaction then maybe they weren’t far wrong.

“Excuse me,” Rupert continued, taking a step around me. “I really need to get to work.”

“Yeah, all right.” I watched him for a second, my head still spinning. It was like Rupert had pulled the floor out from under my feet and I wasn’t sure why. I mean, I knew I could be a dickhead. But I didn’t think I had been that time. “By the way,” I added, before he disappeared down the small road beside Lick It! which led to the small area we shared for deliveries and the bins. “I meant to ask, are you closing this winter?”

“No. I may do reduced hours, but I’ll still be open. Why?”

“Oh, er, we’re closing up for a few months over the winter. From the end of October. Just in case you worry about not seeing us around. Wouldn’t want you to worry about me.” I grinned at him and tried a wink.

I’d never seen a man look so unimpressed.