Maybe there’s hope for us as friends… We used to get on so well…
‘Can I see upstairs?’ I keep my tone light as I add, ‘I want the full tour, Whittaker.’
He smiles and nods, leading the way. ‘Spare room.’ He opens the first door off the corridor. It’s at the front, above the kitchen. ‘Bathroom,’ he says of the second room. I glance inside. Sparkling clean and white, with bright blue towels. ‘And my room,’ he says, opening the last door off the corridor.
I walk past him, into his room. It’s very stylish and quite masculine with a black, grey and green colour scheme and a graphic bedspread. But I can’t really take in my surroundings because I’m too distracted by the smell.
‘Fucking hell!’ I snap, looking around and spying another door that I’m guessing leads to his en-suite. ‘Where is it?’ I storm across the room and open the door.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Your aftershave, Alex. I can’t stand it any longer.’
I switch on his bathroom light and open the mirrored wall cabinet, scanning the contents.
‘Christ!’ he says, slightly affronted as he comes into the room. ‘I didn’t realise it was that offensive.’
‘It’s not offensive,’ I retort. ‘It drives me absolutely crazy. I can’t bear it. What is it? What do you use?’
He looks bemused as he reaches past me and pulls out a small rectangular glass bottle with clear, caramel-coloured liquid inside, and hands it over. I put it to my nose and inhale, closing my eyes briefly before looking up at him, straight into his amused blue eyes.
The room suddenly feels very small.
And itissmall. We’re in his flipping en-suite. I jerk my head towards the door. ‘Let’s go back downstairs.’
He leads the way out, but I quickly spritz his aftershave onto my wrist before following him. He throws a look at me over his shoulder, his pursed lips telling me that he knows full well what I just did. I shrug cheekily and he laughs.
‘Well, you have a very nice place,’ I say decisively when we’re back downstairs. ‘I like it. It’s very grown up,’ I add.
‘That’s a good thing?’ he checks with a frown.
‘Yes.’
He goes into the kitchen. I pull up a stool at his bar table. The whole of the downstairs is open plan with a countertop bar area separating the kitchen from the living room.
‘Drink?’ he offers.
‘Sure. What are you having?’
‘I fancy a beer.’
‘What else have you got?’
He peers in the fridge. ‘Beer,’ he states, glancing over at me apologetically. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t expecting company.’
‘I’ll have one, then,’ I tell him with a grin.
I have a flashback to Lachie cracking open a couple of bottles and chinking them as he hands them over. The image makes me wince and suddenly my nose is prickling. I quickly hop down from the stool.
‘Is this a loo?’ I call of the door under the stairs, hoping he can’t hear the tremor in my voice.
‘Yep,’ he replies.
I go into the cloakroom and lock the door behind me, catching a glimpse of my reflection through blurry vision.
There’s a lump in my throat the size of a golf ball and suddenly I miss Lachie so much, I want to sob my heart out.
I try very, very hard not to, but it’s a while before my throat returns to normal and the pricking at the back of my eyes recedes.
