“Nah, I just like the clothes.”
His smile almost widens. But whatever’s got hold of him tonight tightens its grip and his humour fades. “I need to go. I left my dog alone.”
He retreats a little, and it should be my cue to let it go. But I don’t move. And for long moments, neither does he, and it feels like we know each other. Or as if we should. But feelings like this—they’re clouds, floating on by, and the reality that we’re strangers in the dark is hard to ignore.
I step back.
He nods and spins around, walking away. He doesn’t look back and it feels right.
Until it doesn’t. But that doesn’t hit me until I’m walking away too, and by then, I’m late to the twelve-hour shift I have to get through before I move into a property I haven’t seen, attached to the house of someone I’ve never met, and I don’t have the headspace for a handsome enigma.
But the thing is, my heart might be on lockdown, but my brain has other ideas, and I know this dude will be on my mind for the rest of the night.
And for whatever reason, I’m okay with that.
Two
BHODI
I’m less okay with it, and pretty much everything else, by the time the morning rolls around. Night shifts suck, and navigating a new place made this one more intense than I’m used to after sticking it out in Truro longer than I ever have anywhere else.
New people.
New protocols.
Newgreenscrubs that remind me of the slime a toddler once puked on me in A&E too many years ago to count.
I shouldn’t be thinking about puke. I’m hungry. But I climb into my car with a brain like sludge and it’s hard to contain.
Fighting withMapsdistracts me. I punch in the postcode for my new digs, grateful I took the time for a drive-by the day before, just to check the road name was real.
Stardust Lane.
Sounds magical, but the way my luck has gone recently, Ibet it’s a dump. Serves me right for signing a lease without viewing the studio flat attached to it first, but that’s my life. It’s how I roll, and I’ll roll with this until it’s over.
My phone finally plays ball. I point my car north, out of the city and into the sticks, and pray I’ll stay awake all the way to my new home.
A dangerous game. One I’ve seen the consequences of too many times to play fast and loose with the road. But it’s a short journey, and I make it to Stardust Lane before fatigue eats me whole, and ditch my car next to the road sign I spotted yesterday.
Like everything else, it’s covered in frost. And I stagger out of my car to the tiniest snowflakes falling from the dawn sky. If I wasn’t delirious with exhaustion, I’d hold my hands out and spin around. But as it goes, it takes all my energy to grab a bag from the boot of my car and shuffle for the lock box where the letting agent promised I’d find my keys.
“The landlord wants to keep things separate from his living space. Chances are, you’ll never see him.”
Suits me. I’m a people person when my mood’s right. But night shifts suck the life out of me. I need a bed to fall face-first into. I’ll worry about avoiding my reclusive landlord later.
I retrieve the keys and navigate to the side gate. It’s secured by another combination lock and it takes me a second to recall the code. Then it sticks, and I have to shake the gate to open it.
The commotion is louder than the frosty sunrise glittering over Stardust Lane deserves, and it wakes a dog somewhere.
Somewhereclose. I shove the gate open as the deep bark reaches the fence and cringe. If this is me every morning for the next week, my landlord is going toloveme.
The barking gets louder. I shut the gate and follow the pathto a white building I assume is where I live now. I get my key in the lock, seconds from being blessedly inside, but as the lock clicks, all hell breaks loose.
Hell in the body of the smallest, cutest dog I’ve ever seen.
It bursts through the fence, taking a panel with it, and hurls itself at my legs, still barking up a storm. If it wasn’t so small, I’d be scared, but it’s no bigger than an angry squirrel and I laugh, letting it do its thing while I wince at the wrecked fence.
“Didn’t like that panel, eh?”
