“Nice to meet you,” he replied, stepping forward to offer a firm handshake.
“Aah,” I replied. “Ashleyis a woman.”
“Oh no,” he replied. “Oh shit.”
I must have looked horrified, because he immediately threw his hands in the air and apologized profusely for the mistake.
“I’m really sorry, Mara,” he said, “I didn’t mean to... I can leave?”
He was so sincere, I ended up insisting that it didn’t matter at all, and he should come on in and see the room. Besides, I had no specific reasonnotto live with a man, only that I’d never done it.
But right now, I don’t want to live with anyone at all. All I want to do is be in my room, alone. Alone, googling, and fantasizing about Joe.
I look to the sky and pray to Jupiter as I slide the key into the little blue front door; hopefully Ash is not in, or maybe already in his room. Then I can avoid him altogether.
But no. He’s the first thing I see when I swing the tiny front door open. Ash leaning over something that, admittedly, smells majestic.
“Mara Williams. Sagittarius,” he says, raising both hands in delight. “I’ve made us some dinner!”
Ash is tall like Joe is tall. But where Joe is tall and lean, Ash is tall and bearlike. A great barrel of a chest, with large sloping shoulders. The next thing I notice is the splodges of plaster all over him; his job, I learned, was the same as my dad’s. A plasterer. There is something so weirdly familiar about the cracked smear of paint on his forearm. Dulux emulsion in Cream Biscuit for halls and ceilings, I imagine.
Ash turns a bright smile toward me—one of those easy, full-face ones that appear on his boyish face with zero effort. A flick of the hair and a shrug of those big shoulders to tell me everything is all right in his world.
“Hi,” I say, smiling back, dropping my keys into the bowl by the door. “Well. Welcome?”
“Welcome to you too,” he says, raising his hands again, this time as if he is expecting to shake my hand or even hug me, but I am not sure which, so I just freeze on the spot and he drops them.
“Oh yes, but I already live here,” I say, confused, “so it’s me, welcoming you, to my house.”
“Yes,” he says, laughing, “welcome back, I mean. From the trip!”
“Ah, I see.” I laugh a kind of skittish giggle and cringe at myself.Loosen up, Mara. Relax. Everything is fine.
When he motions for me to sit at my own dinner table like I am a guest, I prickle at the dynamic. He is clearly feeling rather more at home here than I am ready for. I spot my mail on the side table under a very large stone object.That’s new.And there is a pile of books on the coffee table I don’t recognize. I take a breath.
This is what it means to share your space with someone new, Mara. It’s his space too. He is allowed to feel at home.
“Thank you,” I say. I need friends, but I want to keep this relationship at arm’s length; get too close too quickly and you risk them getting too comfortable. Like some kind ofNotting Hillsituation, where your flatmate is always walking around in his underpants, and you’re just here trying to be normal and date Julia Roberts.
“I’m all moved in,” he replies as he leans over to set the table. His face is flushed from the heat of the stove, and there’s a shimmer of moisture on his forehead. It looks as though this has been a monster effort.
“Great,” I say, “I hope you found some room in the bathroom. And somewhere to park.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” he says, nodding.
“You did? It took me ages to find somewhere, and I still have to walk eight minutes to get here.”
“The church at the end of the street,” he says.
I laugh at this. “Are you kidding?”
“No, tell Reggie that you’re living on Sandhill Way, and he won’t mind. Half the street parks there. Keeps it feeling popular, he says.”
“Reggie?”
“The vicar,” he says, as if everyone knows Reggie. “It’s literally fifty meters up the road.”
Ash is from Broadgate. He grew up here. His parents live here. That much I know from the flatmate interview. That means the only place in a twenty-mile radius that feels more mine than his is my bedroom. It dawns on me that he is at home already because this townishis home. So now, suddenly, I’m the new girl again.
