His confusion doesn’t stop him doing as I ask as he pulls out a folded cloth from a drawer. He chucks it at me and I catch it before opening it up and putting it under my bare feet. I shuffle over his clean floor, keeping my feet on the tea towel. I know I look ridiculous, belly wobbling and my man boobs jiggling but when he gives me a smile that finally blossoms I feel like it’s worth it.
“Everything I need over here?” I ask, pointing at where his kettle stands.
“Cupboard above.” He nods.
“Okay. Get back to it then,” I say and do more silly shuffling to fill the kettle and turn it on.
As I’m readying myself to make the tea, and waiting for the kettle to boil, I try not to watch Giles. But I fail. I think I can be forgiven for staring as his back muscles pop and pull as he moves to the other end of the floor, finishing his mopping.
Except he doesn’t finish. He does indeed disappear into the bathroom to pour the dirty water down the toilet, but when he returns, he goes to the sink and fills the bucket up again, adding more detergent to it. I open my mouth to say something but when I purposefully see him avoid my eye contact, his jaw so tense his cheekbones are more pronounced, I close my lips.
Giles proceeds to start mopping the floor again as if it isn’t sparkly clean under our feet. It’s a relief when the kettle clicks off as it reaches its boil so I can focus on making us both a cup of tea rather than questioning what exactly Giles is doing.
“Tea’s up,” I say when two mugs stand full and steaming in front of me. Giles is nearly at the end of this round of mopping and so when he looks up, I nod at the sofa at the other end of the room.
“You go sit down,” he says. “I’ll just do the windows.”
Oh yeah. He said he wanted to do them. But maybe they could wait until after he has a cup of tea? Again I open my mouth to suggest this but he’s left the room, taking the bucket with him, which I’m almost certain isn’t full of dirty water this time on account of the floor already being squeaky clean.
Deciding against saying anything, I pick up the mugs, carefully do my shuffle across the kitchen floor and then step off the tea towel once I’m on the carpet that covers the rest of the room. I sit down and place the mugs on two coasters from a pile standing on the coffee table. I sit back on the sofa and watch as Giles crosses the room with spray, a cloth and a squeegee in his hands.
And I stay like that as Giles proceeds to clean his windows. Three times.
At first I think he’s just going back to find spots he missed, but when he gets the stool he used the first time to reach the highest parts of the glass, I see he’s cleaning it all, all over again, every single inch. And then he does it a third time.
The whole time he’s cleaning, we’re silent. Not a word is shared between us and it gets to the point where I find it difficult to even look at him. Like I’m witnessing something personal or private. Maybe I should have left after all… But a moment later, I feel privileged to be in the same room. Like he's trusting me with something deeply intimate. So I stay. I stay and I don’t stare at him, but I also don’t take my eyes off him for very long. I’m always aware of where he is and what he’s doing.
When he finally sits on the sofa next to me, he sighs, heavily.
“If it’s cold, I’ll make you another,” I say when he picks up his mug.
“It’s fine,” he says, eyes on his tea. He takes a sip, and then another. And finally one more before he places the drink back on the coaster.
“So, three, huh?” I say.
He looks at me for a long moment. It’s an unreadable expression and I don’t like it. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on in his head.
“It’s sort of my lucky number,” he says eventually.
I nod. “That’s cool.”
He snorts. “It’s really not.”
I turn to him, bringing my bent leg up on the sofa. It’s an invitation for him to share more, if he wants to.
When he doesn’t say anything further, and keeps his side profile to me as he rests his elbows on his legs, I speak. “You do it in the gym too. And on our runs. All the weights, the reps and the kilometres we run. They’re all divisible by three.”
“Yeah.” His throat bobs as he swallows.
“It must be exhausting to always be thinking in threes. To always be counting.”
He looks at me for a long time and we lock eyes. His sea-coloured irises look smaller than usual. In fact, all his features look smaller than they normally do.
“It is,” he says and then releases another long, deep sigh, his shoulders not only sinking but rounding, making his body shrink.
I have this sudden urge to hold his hand. So I do.
He seems startled by this and looks at where my fingers hold his for a long moment, neither of us speaking.
