She flushes a shade of puce to match her chipping nail polish. “Oh, um, actually, we wanted to live, you know, just the two of us.”
My heart drops to somewhere near my ankles as I process thiscurveball. The image of the Westlife boys flies unbidden into my mind. “Oh.” It’s all I can say. What leverage do I have—and, honestly, why would I want to stay anyway? I’ve been the third wheel in a relationship before, and look how that turned out. “When would you want me gone?”
“Oh, take your time, babes. End of the weekend is absolutely fine.”
Four days. How generous.
“Cool. Cool. Okay, cool.”
Fiona looks at me over the rim of her mug, eyes expectant. “Yeah?”
I just nod at her and pick up my bag from where I dropped it (I thought it would be more dramatic that way when they realized I’d caught them). I can hear her asking several logistical questions I’m not prepared to answer, but I’m already out the door and back down to street level. The bus to city center is pulling up to the stop, and I jog a bit to catch it before taking my seat, breathless, next to an old woman with one of those plaid grocery store trolleys nestled between her knees. She gives me a kind smile, but she also smells deeply of wet dog, and my mood sinks even lower as I remember how much bus time living with the Iqbals adds to my commute. I know Amina would let me crash on her couch, but she’s just entered her third trimester and I don’t want to get in the way. So the Iqbals are my only option, at least until I can find a new place.
I should have known Lachlan would have a different opinion.
“Why don’t you move in here?”
He suggests it like he’s proposing we go get a cup of coffee, like it’s nothing at all—but it’s not nothing to me. I’m pretty sure all I do is blink for a solid thirty seconds—but maybe that’s just mybrain trying to clear out the insistent buzzing noise that’s reverberating around my skull. “Move in…here?” I ask, like I’m parroting back vocab words in a language class. “Herehere?”
His grin widens. “Yes, Abigail.Herehere.”
“Huh.” I suddenly want to sit down—I barged into his house, told him about my flatmate’s jiggly boobs, and dumped all of this on his lap without even taking off my coat.
He scoots over and pats the bit of couch next to him. “Can you give me an estimate on when you think you’ll resume the capacity for speech? I’m wondering if I have time to go for a wee.”
Lachlan saying the wordweeknocks me out of my trance and I plop down next to him. “Lachlan, it’s seriously so kind of you to offer, but I can’t move in with you.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t even know where to start!” I say. And that’s true, but only because I can’t, at this moment, come up with a single reason why I shouldn’t. I know theremustbe thousands, if I could just overcome that damned ringing noise…
“Abby, don’t be stupid. I have an enormous house that is currently bereft of sex-crazed marketing managers with asymmetric nipples. You have a need for a bed where onlyyoudecide who gets to fuck in it. I’m not asking you to put your name on the door, I’m just saying you could come crash for a while until you find your own place. There’s literally a whole wing of the house you can have to yourself: bedroom, bathroom, even a little study which would be the perfect place to set up your shrine to me.”
“I just…”
“No, stop. No ‘just’ anything. I won’t have you getting your apologies and second-guessing all over this. Come on, Stripes, be reasonable. You’re here all the time anyway—what’s thedifference if you also sleep here?” His grin is cheeky, adorable, vibrant. “It’ll be so fun, and I promise I’ll only sniff your dirty laundry on alternate Tuesdays.”
I let that one slide. “But what about work? Won’t people notice? Would we tell anyone?” A frisson of panic pinballs its way around my chest at the thought of what Charlotte would do if she found out, how personally disappointed she’d be, how I certainly would not get a third chance from her.
Lachlan puts his hand on his heart. “I promise I won’t tell Mummy Collins. Anyway, she’s already taken you away from me at the training center, so really, she owes me this.”
“Well, what about—” I can’t say her name, but she’s there, hovering in the ether between us. The wife. What about the wife?!There’sa pretty good reason not to move in, Abby. He’smarried.
His mouth flattens into a grim line, and I get the same shiver of nerves I do anytime we approach talking about her. “Don’t worry about her.”
“But…” I stammer. “But isn’t it…Isn’t it weird? Wouldn’t it be weird?”
“Hey, if it’s going to make you uncomfortable, forget I said anything.” He shifts away from me, and it’s like I can see a physical wall being built up in the invisible space between us. It’s this more than anything that makes my mind up.
“No, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. In fact, it makes me incredibly happy. I’m touched that you’d offer.”
The wall crumbles and the only thing behind it is Lachlan’s enormous smile. “Yeah?”
“Okay. Yeah. Okay. Maybe this could work.”
“Maybe it could be fucking brilliant.”
There’s a little fluttering sensation winging in my heart that must be squashed. “It’s just a few weeks, though. Just until I can find a new place.”
