We’d got into bed together, me in a sleep tee and PJ bottoms, and Harry in his underpants. That didn’t last long at all. I’ve never known anyone to toss and turn so much. The man was clearly uncomfortable. He’d somehow dislodged my bottom sheet from all four corners and kicked me several times with his crusty, callousy rugby talons. Also, he wouldn’t fucking stop moaning.
“Just take them off!” I’d shouted after about twenty minutes of being assaulted. “If they’re bothering you that much, just take off your damn pants.”
“You don’t mind?” he’d asked for the eightieth time.
“It’s either take them off and get your junk essence all over my blankets, or fuck off and sleep next door with Hooke Manor’s other resident, Mary. Though she died in seventeen eighteen and isn’t corporeal, and she has a habit of lowering the room temperature by about ten degrees too.”
“Yeah, no. Nothing against Mary, I’m sure her death was tragic and all . . .” Harry said, whipping off his underpants without any shame or self-awareness and climbing under the covers. “But to fuck am I sharing a room with a ghost.”
Four and a half minutes later—I’d timed it—he was snoring.
Now it’s Saturday morning—no wait, afternoon—and Harry is stretching beside me, the duvet pushed into the middle of the mattress, and yes, he’s still completely naked.
“Your bed is so comfortable,” he says, letting his hand drift softly over his chest and tummy.
“Please, can you put some clothes on now?” I ask.
He hops out of bed, heads straight to my bathroom, and pees with the door wide open. I can’t see him, thankfully, but it’s fucking loud. Who does that?
“I forgot to ask you yesterday if anyone else was home. You don’t live on your own, do you?” he says when he returns, still stark-bollock naked.
Last night I would have been mistaken for thinking Harry Ellis was shy, but I guess that had only been in relation to his sexual prowess. He’d been nervous, I realised, but never shy.
A part of me is impressed by his utter disregard for self-consciousness, that he’s so immediately comfortable being his full self in front of me. I’m still a stranger to him. I can only assume he didn’t google the living daylights out of me as I had with him, and therefore only knows me from what I’ve told him.
Is it his upbringing? Growing up with four boys in one house probably contributed to his warped view of personal space. Or is it his sixteen years of playing rugby with its communal showers and locker-room culture and lads, lads, lads, that have made him so uninhibited?
He does have a nice body, though, I’ll give him that. He’s thick and muscular, and the softer flesh around his hips and waist is begging me to dig my fingers in. I refrain. He has enormous thighs and glutes, and his biceps doin fact bulge. Freckles cover his skin like a blanket of stars. They’re everywhere, including his feet and foreskin, but they seem especially concentrated on his shoulders, arms, and lower legs.
“In theory, my dad and stepmum live here too, but in practice . . .” I try to remember the last time I saw my father and give up mid thought. “Sometimes Dad will let his friends stay here for a week or two. Most of the time he forgets the heads-up text, so I’ll often find randos milling about the house.”
Harry sits his naked, freckly ass on the edge of my bed. “Doesn’t that bother you? I think that might weird me out if I kept finding strangers in my house. Like, how do you know they’re not burglars?”
“Well, not that I’m being classist or anything, but generally burglars don’t wear Prada slippers to breakfast,” I say. “I don’t know, I kinda like it when there’s people about.” I shrug, hoping in that one gesture Harry will understand just how mind-numbingly lonely it can be to live in a Grade II listed, eight-bedroomed manor house in the middle of fucking nowhere pretty much by yourself.
“Where’s your dad and stepmum?” he asks.
“Right now, or in general?”
“Either. Both.”
“Right now I believe my dad is in Paris, which I think is the closest to home he’s been in a few months, and Juliette is . . . I actually have no idea. She’s twenty-five. My dad’s fifty-five. She’s wife number four. I’ll let you decide what to do with that information.”
“Oh,” he says.
“I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment.”
“Hey,” Harry says after a few moments of looking off into the distance. “Can I use your shower?”
“Sure. Towels are in the top cupboard, the one next to the bath,” I reply.
“Wait, there are cupboards in there?” He’s already on his feet, heading towards the bathroom.
I tap the wall between the sink and the bathtub, and the marble-coated panel springs open. A light flicks on inside the cavity, and I grab a towel from the top of the pile. It’s black, like every other piece of fabric I own.
“Oh my days, what the heck? I’d’ve had no idea there were towels behind there.” Harry starts randomly pushing sections of the walls. “Are there cupboards everywhere?”
On his third random push, a door springs open, revealing my collection of everyday skincare products like serums, moisturisers, eye creams, et cetera. Another lucky push on a wall opens the small cleaning supplies cupboard, and another reveals my toilet paper stash.
