Page 20 of Frosted Fakes

Elliott stood in the doorway, wearing an oversized t-shirt and an expression of profound irritation. "The light is keeping me awake."

"I'll turn the brightness down."

"You'll turn it off."

"I'm in the middle of an episode."

"I don't care."

Julia looked at the screen, where a very handsome doctor was about to perform emergency surgery on a very ill patient. She looked at Elliott, who was clearly about to perform emergency surgery on Julia's laptop. "Five more minutes?"

"No."

Julia sighed and closed the laptop. The room plunged into darkness.

"Thank you," Elliott said, and the bedroom door closed again.

Julia lay on the uncomfortable couch, staring at the ceiling, and tried to remember why she'd thought this arrangement was a good idea.

Oh, right. Because she was incapable of asking Elliott to leave. Despite the fact that Elliott clearly couldn't stand her, criticized everything she did, had claimed the only comfortable chair and the entire bathroom and apparently also the right to dictate Julia's viewing schedule.

This couldn't continue. Something had to change.

Tomorrow, Julia promised herself. Tomorrow I'll talk to her. I'll be firm. I'll be direct. I'll explain that this living situation isn't working, and that she needs to find somewhere else to stay.

She rehearsed the conversation in her head, trying out different phrasings, imagining Elliott's responses. In her imagination, Elliott was reasonable and understanding. In her imagination, the conversation went smoothly and they parted on good terms.

In reality, Julia knew, it would be a disaster.

But she had to try. She couldn't spend the next twelve months sleeping on a couch that was slowly fusing her vertebrae together, tiptoeing around someone who seemed to actively dislike her existence.

Before the end of the week, she told herself firmly. I'll ask her to leave before the end of the week.

The ceiling offered no response.

Julia pulled the thin blanket over her shoulders, tried to find a position that didn't make her back scream, and eventually fell into an uneasy sleep.

In her dreams, she was baking the perfect scone, golden and flaky and beautiful. Elliott was there, watching with something that might have been approval.

Then the fire alarm went off, and Julia woke up to discover the alarm was ringing, it was morning, she'd overslept, and the whole thing started all over again.

Chapter Eight

The flat door crashed open at half past eight on Saturday morning, and Elliott wondered if she could replace the door with some form of reinforced steel.

"Emergency! Code red! All hands on deck!"

Shay burst in like a hurricane in human form, curly red hair flying, oversized jacket nearly falling off one shoulder. She was carrying two coffees and wearing an expression that suggested the world was either ending or beginning anew. With Shay, it was usually the latter.

"Some of us," Elliott said from the kitchen counter, where she'd been peacefully editing cookbook photos, "were having a quiet morning."

"Quiet mornings are for people who aren't in crisis." Shay thrust a coffee at her. "Drink this. You'll need caffeine for what I'm about to tell you."

"I already have caffeine."

"Then you'll have more caffeine." Shay threw herself onto the sofa with the dramatic flair of a Victorian woman about to faint. "I've met the one."

Elliott didn't look up from her laptop. "Again?"