‘It’s only temporary, so I’m sure I can endure it. The toilet training needs to improve though, or all bets are off.’
He reached back into the backpack, and pulled out a baby’s nappy. ‘Got it covered. Hans gave me one.’
‘Bollocks,’ she said, starting to laugh. ‘I was going to rib you myself later.’ He visibly relaxed in front of her and put the nappy back into the bag. ‘Okay Marco Pierre White, you go and make a start. I’ll lock up.’
She took her time cleaning down the rest of the work surfaces, enjoying the silence of the space. Once she was done, she headed to the bottom of the stairs, listening in on what Luke was up to. She checked herself out in the oven door, pulling a face at her red cheeks and slightly dishevelled hair. She gave up and scraping the worst clumps of hair back into her bobble, she listened in again, trying to time her entrance. Luke was murdering some song off the radio, and she could hear things being banged around in the kitchen. Taking out her phone, she kept one ear on the door and logged into Facebook.
Her page loaded, and she suddenly felt overwhelmed by how different she was to the person that originally set up this profile. Her photo looked like a different person altogether, living a different life. I want to give her a huge shake, and tell her to wise up. To do better, do things differently. She brought up her friends list, and scrolled through for what she was looking for. Hans, and his friends list.
‘Rebecca?’ Luke called from upstairs. ‘Where’s the pepper?’
She jumped, almost dropping her phone. She felt guilty, but he didn’t know, did he? It was what people did these days, checked people out online. She was hardly hacking MI6.
‘It’s on the top of the microwave! In a pink pot!’
Further shuffling from upstairs. She could hear him walk across the kitchen, his steps coming to a soft halt. It felt strange to hear someone moving about. It felt like forever since Hans and Holly had left.
‘Do you know that these are breasts?’ he shouted down, amusement curling his words. ‘The pots?’
Does he think I walk around in the dark?
‘Yes, I bought them. Cute, aren’t they!’ She’d bought her mother a matching ‘pair’. Suffice to say, she’d never seen them in the background anywhere when she FaceTimed her parents. Logging back out of Facebook after deleting her search from the history to stop herself being tempted again, she headed up the stairs to the flat.
‘Cute, sure,’ he drawled as she entered. He was shaking a boob-shaped pepper pot over a huge pair of steaks that were sizzling in her favourite griddle pan. It smelled amazing, and Rebecca’s treacherous stomach started to get a bit vocal. ‘Just surprised me. Would you like some wine?’
Throwing a raised brow in his direction as she headed to the cabinet where her last two crappy wine glasses sat, she grabbed them and headed over to him.
‘Does a bear do his business in the woods?’ She held out the glasses to him, grateful that they were actually clean and streak-free. He probably already thought she was a bit mad but she found herself caring, just a little, about what he might think about her living arrangements. He laughed and filled both of their glasses up.
‘I set us up to eat in the lounge, if that’s okay?’ He took a slow, deep sip of his wine, closing his eyes and letting his head roll back. ‘Ah, better now.’ He tapped his chest once, twice gently with an open palm. Rebecca drank from her own glass, trying not to laugh. She failed and he turned to look at her.
‘What?’
‘Did you really need that wine? What’s with the little taps?’
His cheeks went bright red, which was both a dead giveaway and almost adorable.
‘Oh, that. It’s just a thing I do sometimes.’
‘Crack cocaine is a thing people do sometimes, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. Looks like a therapy move to me.’ She didn’t wait to hear his answer, taking her wine through into her small, neat living room and plonking herself down on her crappy little sofa.
‘Maybe it is,’ he called from the kitchen, in between the sound of a knife scraping the chopping board and his humming along to the latest song she’d never heard. ‘Maybe not. You ready for this culinary delight?’
He came in, a tea towel hanging off his trousers like a waiter, two plates full of food in his arms. ‘The French have nothing on this. Feast your eyes!’
He put the plates down on the coffee table, which he had thrown a clean white bath towel over, and looked at her like a child with a crayon drawing to his adoring parent. Full of excitement and nervous energy. Anyone would think he was serving the Royals afternoon tea, not steak, chips, and salad to a fed-up baker with a sarcasm problem. He was openly grinning at her, waiting for a gold star. She smiled back as best she could, feeling awkward, and sat forward in her seat to fully appreciate the meal. It did look lovely, and her stomach was gurgling in anticipation, rather loudly. Her body betrayed her once again on the food front.
‘Thanks, this looks amazing.’ His grin widened even further, taking it to Joker proportions, and he passed her one of the plates. The one without the chip in it. She looked across, and he was eating his meal from it, taking a seat on the other side of the couch. It wasn’t very big in the first place, and they were practically sitting on top of each other, but it wasn’t totally awful. Rebecca flicked the TV on and he grabbed the remote from her, flicking the channel over.
‘Hey!’ She jabbed him in the hand with the fork. ‘Off
