‘You’re not hungry?’ Bel asked, hopping out of the cab and onto the ground. ‘I thought maybe we could get pizza.’
Ren closed his door gently, wincing as she slammed hers shut. ‘How about Hail Mary?’ he suggested.
‘No, they don’t deliver,’ Bel cocked her head to one side, her fresh ponytail swishing in the breeze. ‘What about Tomato Pie?’
‘I don’t mind going to pick it up,’ Ren said. ‘They’re not far away.’
‘But delivery is so much easier,’ she countered. ‘Why go to the hassle?’
‘Because I’m happy to make the effort for something good?’ he replied, climbing back into the truck. With a stiff wave, he pulled away from the kerb and drove down the street, the sound of the vintage engine echoing through the neighbourhood.
‘It’s like he wants to make his life more difficult,’ Bel said, pouting with frustration. ‘Like, why doesn’t he get a new truck? That thing must cost a million dollars to run and you know it’s going to break down eventually.’
‘I think it was his grandad’s?’ I replied, poking around in my bag for my house keys. ‘You can’t put a value on sentimental things like that.’
‘Yeah, you can, it’s about fifty grand, I looked online.’ She raised an eyebrow as she let down her hair and shook it loose around her shoulders. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I said as I started up the steps to the house, Bel close behind. ‘It might be a good idea to be a bit more supportive of your soulmate’s family stuff though – it’s important to him.’
‘Then it’s important to me,’ she announced, slipping her arm through mine before immediately pulling away. ‘As is you taking a shower ASAP.’
Even when she made it very clear she’d rather roll around in fox shit than touch me with a ten-foot pole, I couldn’t be mad at her. There was something about Bel that made you want to protect her. She didn’t have a malicious bone in her body and I simply could not imagine her ever doing anything to hurt another human being on purpose. She simply wasn’t wired that way. I opened the front door and she skipped inside.
‘I’d say make yourself at home but that’s clearly not an issue.’
‘Way ahead of you,’ she replied, helping herself to half the contents of the fridge while I plugged my phone into the charger that lived next to the never-been-used oven. ‘Now go clean up before I turn the hose on you.’
And since I wasn’t sure if it was an empty threat or not, I ran all the way upstairs, just in case.
I knew Suzanne’s en suite bathroom must be something special when it was the only room that wasn’t included in the house tour, but I hadn’t expected to find a complete spa on the other side of her bedroom. It was bigger than my living room and kitchen combined and full of natural light that streamed from huge floor-to-ceiling windows fitted with one-way glass so you could see out but no one else could see in. I had always been a bath girl. I loved a good soak, any time of day or night. Happy? Take a bath. Sad? Take a bath. Too hot? Cool bath. Too cold? Hot bath. Baths were the answer to most of life’s problems, but against all odds, the deep soaking tub that curved like a giant pebble in the centre of the room, so big it almost put the swimming pool to shame, was not the most impressive thing in this room. My sister had built the greatest shower known to man. In fact, it wasn’t a shower so much as a harnessed monsoon where you could lather, rinse and repeat. With the push of a button and the turn of a knob, the heavens opened and half the bathroom was consumed with a warm, eucalyptus-scented downpour and it was all I could do not to jump in, fully clothed.
I closed my eyes and waited for the water to drown out all my unwelcome thoughts. The way Ren’s muscles moved under his skin when he shrugged off his shirt. How his eyes came alive in the forest. The way I felt whenhe took my hand in the waterfall pool, and the slightest, tiniest possibility that he might have felt something too?
It was no good. What kind of friend helped someone get together with the man of their dreams then started lusting after him herself? A shit friend, that’s what kind. It was time for a reality check. If life was a TV show, I was a guest star, the quirky British neighbour who popped in for one short storyline before disappearing forever. Ren and Bel were the regulars. They could recast my role if they needed more help.
I squeezed an obscene amount of Suzanne’s designer shampoo into my palm and lathered up my hair. The answer was not complicated. I simply would not think about Ren. I would not think about his thick, gorgeous hair or his broad chest or his fine, high cheekbones. I would not think about the way his hiking shorts clung to his body or how his strong legs glistened with sweat as we climbed higher up the hiking trail. And I definitely wouldn’t entertain the idea of what might have happened if I’d told him the letter was from me instead of Bel, or if I hadn’t pulled away at the waterfall but instead pulled him closer and moved his hand between my legs and – I didn’t realize how shallow my breath had become or how my heart was racing until I had to reach for the wall to steady myself. With my palms flat against the glass, I closed my eyes, taking deep and controlled breaths until I was steady again.
‘I simply will not think about it,’ I repeated into the water. ‘Because there’s nothing to think about.’
There. Problem solved.
‘Ren’s amazing pizza won’t be ready for at least another thirty minutes,’ Bel said without looking up from her phone as I padded across the kitchen with bare, clean feet. ‘Told you we should have gotten Tomato Pie.’
‘What are you reading?’ I asked, opening the fridge to choose between one of the eight different flavours of fizzy water. The people of Los Angeles bloody loved their fizzy water.
‘Nothing, just scrolling.’ She put down her phone and dropped her head back against the sofa with a smile. ‘Did you have fun this morning?’
‘I don’t know if I’d call it fun,’ I replied. ‘It was an experience.’
‘It was a sneak attack,’ she huffed. ‘I told you, cute hikes only. If he’d told me he wanted to climb a mountain then jump in a leech-infested lake, I’d have said no Lyme disease for me thank you.’
‘Lyme disease?’ I pressed a hand against my forehead as I settled on the stool across from her, pulling down the long sleeves of my light hoodie. Was the house colder than usual or did I have the chills?
‘But I’m glad I went,’ she added. ‘It’s important to share common interests with your partner.’
I put a pin in my Lyme disease panic and reached for a bag of crisps to stave off my hunger pangs. If a packet of Red Hot Cheetos couldn’t sort me out, nothing would. ‘But you didn’t actually hike. I don’t know if driving to the location together counts as sharing an interest.’
‘It’s also important to have separate interests to help you grow as people.’ Bel untied the plaid shirt still around her waist and slipped it over her shoulders. ‘Is it me or is it cold in here?’
