#only temporary

You balanced your glass of wine on the side of the bath to grab a loofah and a bar of soap. Raising one shiny thigh out of the bubbles, you lathered it like a war veteran would proudly shine up his medals. 

Round and round in little circles, clockwise, then anti-clockwise, sloughing off dead skin, pounding cellulite and kneading dimples. 

Something a little hypnotising about it. Soothingly so.

Discarding the loofah, you reached for the razor and inspected the blade. It was dull and stuffed full of bristles from the last time you used it. 

And it was your last one. 

See? 

“Shit.”

Life was shit.

You gave the blade a quick rinse under the tap and got to work, cutting through the lather with well-practised strokes, even though the blades were dull. 

Shin, calf, ankle, knee. 

Ouch. 

You watched a spot of blood appear like a red bubble on your leg.

“Shit.” 

You were quick to grab a flannel, folding it into a makeshift bandage and pressing it to your knee when suddenly, your phone rang. You listened to it echo from your bedroom and wondered who it could be. 

Your dad, maybe. To ask if there was any news on the front.

There wasn’t.

You decided against answering, because that wasn’t a conversation you wanted to have right now, and you submerged yourself further into the duvet of scented bubbles, waiting for your phone to stop ringing. 

Whoever it was could wait.

It did stop, eventually. But it only took a few seconds for it to start again. 

You hesitated. 

Should you make a dash for it? 

Your mind quickly went over why someone would call you again instead of leaving a voicemail, and with every scenario worse than the previous one your brain could think up, you ended up vaulting out of the bath and dashing into your living room completely naked, dripping soapy water onto the floor.

Uknown number.

It was an unknown number calling you. 

Did you get out of the bath for a stranger? 

Or worse, telemarketing?

“Hello?”

“Hey, hi, I’m calling about the ad? For a room?”

A prospective flatmate. 

Oh no. 

Suddenly you were very aware that you were a prospective landlady, and you should probably also sound like one. But you were stood naked in the middle of your living room and...

“Shit!”

You noticed that your blinds weren’t closed all the way.

“Do I... I’m sorry, do I have the right number?” he asked but was met by a loud yelp from you that escaped your throat as you nearly slipped in the puddle you’d created on your laminate flooring.

“Sorry, yes. Hello. You, um... I’m sorry, you caught me in the bath,” you broke off, silently wincing and pausing. 

Why did you tell him that?

You didn't need to tell him that. 

“Yes, the ad! That’s me. I’ve got a room to let.”

“Great,” he said, followed by an awkward silence. 

He was probably deciding whether or not to hang up on you, you thought, assuming you had blown it with your bath comment.

“I’m Joe,”

“Cool,” you blurted, immediately closing your eyes in shame. 

What kind of reaction was that to someone introducing themselves? You quickly gave him your name in return.

“Erm, so I was wondering… about the room?”

“The room!” you snapped back.

Fuck, you were all over the place. And naked still. In front of your open blinds still.

“Is it still available?”

“Well, there has been a lot of interest,” you fibbed, sneaking over to the window in an attempt to properly close the blinds all the way.

“Oh, well, in that case, don’t worry about it. I was only looking for something temporary.”

“Temporary?” your ears pricked up.

“Yes, it would only be a month, maybe five weeks. Six at most.”

You liked the sound of a month. It was nice and short-term. You could charge him by the week which would be enough to pay off at least one credit card. 

And if you got your ass in gear, it might just be long enough for you to find a new job that would hopefully pay enough so you wouldn’t have to share a toilet-seat with a total stranger for ages.

“I’ve not made a decision yet, I’m still interviewing people,” you added, accidentally jerking the blinds for them to shoot up, leaving your windows bare and exposed. 

Not to mention, yourself. 

At that exact moment, your neighbour was drawing his curtain in his apartment across the street from you and got an eyeful.

You shrieked in horror.

“Shit!”

There was a silence at the other end of the line as you repeatedly muttered silent shits under your breath, and then, a few seconds later, “Hi, sorry, I dropped the phone. Are you still there?”

“Are you, um... are you all right?”

Having jumped away from the window into the corner by the mirror, you glanced sideways at your reflection. 

“Yes, I’m fine,” you replied in a strangled voice. 

My God. 

So, this is what your neighbour had just seen. Shiny boobs, streaky mascara, wet hair, naked thighs.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.” You replied firmly, edging forward to peer around the corner like a sniper. 

You glanced back across the street. Your neighbour was still at the window, no doubt frozen with shock. You instantly threw yourself to the ground in an army dive.

“Perhaps this isn’t a good time,”

“No, now’s a great time!” you panted, inching forward on your elbows as if you were on an assault course. You winced as your jute rug gave your nipples a nasty case of carpet burn.

“In fact,” you reached for the coat rack and stood upright, grabbing a jacket from a hook, and quickly wrapping it around yourself protectively. “Why don’t you come along and take a look at the room. See how you like it. See how you like me.” You laughed nervously. Were sure he was going to turn the offer down, because what the fuck must all of this even sound like?

Not one second of this phone call had been normal.

“Sure. When?”

Oh.

Shit.

“Next week?” you were playing for time, and sole usage of your bathroom.

“What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” you squeaked, panicked.

“Sorry, I forgot tomorrow’s Saturday, you’ve probably got plans.”

“Well, actually…” your voice trailed off as you remembered the truth. 

You had no plans. 

You were single. 

Staying in alone. 

On a Saturday.

“Am I being pushy? Sorry, I don’t mean to be,” his voice interrupted your awkwardness, and he sounded kind. Friendly. Almost like he was making fun of himself a little, and his own joke had made himself laugh.

“Yes, I mean, no. No, not at all, actually, no.” you were babbling. 

For fuck’s sake, stop being such an idiot. 

Think of your credit card bills, your mortgage, the fact that you’ve been advertising your spare room for weeks and this being the first reply you’d had.

“Tomorrow’s fine.”

“Great! I’ll um, I’ll need your address. The ad’s a bit vague...”

And for good reason. You didn’t need the exact address out there. People were weirdos and you didn’t know weirdos looking for a spare room knowing where to ring the doorbell.

You proceeded to gabble your address so quickly, Joe had to ask you to repeat it twice.

“Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow? Around seven?”

“PM?”

“Yea,” Joe spoke on a laugh. 

Of course PM, you fucking idiot.

“That’s fine, yes. See you then.”

You hadn’t thought much about what you were going to say to your prospective flatmate. In fact, since you’d put down the phone after your conversation last night, you hadn’t given the stranger a second thought. 

Your mind had been reeling at the unexpected speed of events that involved your neighbour, and his huge bulging eyes as he’d seen your naked tits through his window last night. 

It wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if you didn’t have the biggest crush on him. 

But you did. 

And so it was the worst thing in the world.

But now it was six o’clock and Joe was due to turn up in an hour. You were wondering what on earth you were going to say, what you’d ask him, what rules you were going to be laying down. And, most importantly, as you stood in front of your wardrobe in your bobbly old dressing-gown with a towel wrapped around your sopping wet hair: what the hell were you going to wear?

You were no closer to answering this question thirty minutes later when every inch of your bedroom floor was covered with clothes. 

Perched on the edge of the bed, you stared at the empty wire hangers clanging dolefully inside your wardrobe. Usually in a moment of crisis you’d ring your best friend for advice, but her job as a flight attendant meant she wouldn’t be able to answer her phone right now. 

You picked at your cuticles for a few minutes, and then, in desperation, called her anyways. 

It went straight to voicemail. 

Shit. 

Life was shit.

At five past seven, there was no sign of Joe and you realised the way you’d rushed into your current outfit had been futile. 

Joe was late. 

You puffed nervously at a cigarette, which as a non-smoker made you dart up and down the living room nervously. 

You were a social smoker, but nerves had gotten the better of you, and when piling all your discarded clothes onto your bed, a packet that had a couple remaining had fallen out of a pocket. Excellent timing.

You tried to peer out of the window without anyone seeing you. 

Nothing. 

You fiddled absentmindedly with your hair as you blew smoke against the glass pane. 

You caught yourself. 

Jesus. 

You thought back to the list of house rules you’d come up with when you had put the ad online.

Rule number one: no smoking indoors.

You hauled open a window and wafted your arms around manically in a bid to get rid of the smoke, before realising that you were still holding the cigarette which obviously didn’t help. You were quick to stub it out in an empty coffee cup on the mantelpiece.

Oh, shit.

Rule number two: no using the crockery as ashtrays.

At twelve past seven, you thought Joe had probably gotten lost. Standing by the back door that opened out onto the tiny patch of grass and honeysuckle that you liked to call your garden, you sipped your drink. 

You’d moved on to gin and tonic. 

Less smelly than a fag. 

And, you were a social smoker, remember? Not a social drinker. An issue for another day.

Twenty-three past seven. 

Where the fuck was he?! 

You had downed two gin and tonics by now and were starting to get antsy. 

“Don’t tell me I’m being stood up,” you huffed at yourself as you decided to peek through the window one last time, and if there was no sign of him, you’d abandon the whole thing and would defrost a pizza. 

Climbing up onto the sofa to peer out, the plan hadn’t been to have your face squashed up against the glass when someone knocked on your front door, but, here you were.

Shit. 

Startled you peeled your face off the glass and eyed the man at your front step. He was checking his reflection in the bass door knocker – brushing his slightly shaggy curls up out of his face, lifting his chin, and rubbing a rogue patch of his bristles, turning his head from one side to the other. 

Then suddenly the stranger was staring right at you, his large brown eyes filled with curiosity. It threw you off balance, giving a muffled squeak and promptly falling down the back of the sofa.

“I’m Joe,”

Opening the door after having him look at you scramble up from behind a sofa was embarrassing. 

It felt like you'd already been on quite the journey together. Yesterday’s terrible phonecall. Now this. 

With the two of you standing by your front step, the first thing you noticed were his eyes. 

Those eyes. 

They were brown, and big, and beautiful, and usually it was blue eyes that could really mesmerize you, but there was something about these big brown orbs staring straight back at you.

You introduced yourself, rubbing your elbow nervously which you’d hurt in your fall down the back of the sofa, and showed him into your flat. 

“I was, er… just doing a spot of housework. Cleaning the windows,” you laughed awkwardly. “A tidy flat makes for a tidy mind and all that,” you cringed inwardly. 

Shut up. 

Just, shut up.

“I’m a complete pig.”

“You are?”

“No. I was joking,” Joe grinned at you and then laughed. 

“Hard to believe, I know,” Joe held out both arms and looked down at his outfit. It was a wrinkled mess, definitely ill-fitting. The jacket, the shirt, the trousers - all slightly too large for his frame, and it had coffee stains all down the front. 

“I thought I could go for a quick coffee before coming over. Hence why I’m late,”

“Oh, right,” 

His attempt to break the ice failed and a toe-curling silence followed in which you smiled uncomfortably.  

“So, can I see the room?”

“Of course,” you said hastily and lead him down the hallway. 

“This is it.” Pushing open the door, you stood back. 

“It’s not very big, I’m afraid. But it’s got everything. Double bed, cupboard, chest of drawers, a desk…”

As you were listing off everything you could see in the L-shaped room, Joe walked in and regarded the beige walls and the polished mahogany wardrobe with its delicate inlay and curved doors that the man at the market who sold it to you said was from the 1930s. Probably wasn’t, but it looked nice anyway.

Earlier you had opened the window wide to give a full view of your garden, and Joe walked over to it. With his back to you, he leant against its sill but didn’t speak. 

Obviously not much of a talker, you thought, tracing the silhouette of his shoulders. 

He was tall. Sort of. Taller than you, and much broader than you’d first thought.

“I’ll take it.”

His voice zoned you back in.

Huh?

“Oh,” you weren’t prepared for this. 

You’d expected lots of questions, and had rehearsed lots of answers for them. But now, faced with this situation, you were suddenly unsure. 

Did you really want a stranger living in your flat? 

You don’t even know each other, piped up a little voice inside of you.

“Okay, so what do you want to know about me?”

As Joe turned, you realised you’d spoken aloud and you blushed hotly.

“Sorry, I think we should get to know each other a bit first, you know, talk about our… hobbies?”

Hobbies?! 

As soon as the word popped out of your mouth, the flush on your cheeks deepend. You sounded like a twelve-year-old.

It amused Joe, who smiled mischievously. “Like we’re on a date?”

“No, I…” you faltered. You knew you were being ridiculous, so you tried your best to relax.

“Sorry, I’m not used to this,” you confessed. “I’ve never let a room before and it just feels... I don’t know, a little weird, I guess.”

“That’s alright, I understand,” Joe sat on the windowsill, pushed a lone curl from his face and fixed you with a steady gaze. 

“Fire away. Ask me anything you'd like.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Well, in that case… 

You disappeared out of the room for a few moments and when you returned with a notebook, Joe was on the windowsill still. Only now he had company in the shape of a large orange tomcat, curled up on his knee like a croissant, head tucked in one end, tail in the other, purring loudly.

“Oh, you’ve met Eddie,” you said, surprised to see your cat snuggled up in his crotch.

“Eddie?” Joe’s eyes found yours and he grinned. 

You nodded, not entirely reading his expression right, and then Joe's grin grew wider.

“What?” you asked for clarification.

“It's... it's nothing,” Joe tickled Eddie between the ears, and he was rewarded by loud purring.

This was the same cat that hissed and dug claws into anyone he didn’t know who tried so much as to stroke him gently. 

“He normally doesn’t really like strangers.” 

Eddie gazed at you languidly without any sign of recognition before closing his eyes again. 

Traitor, you hissed silently.

“Animals usually like me. It’s people I have more of a problem with.” Joe’s face was serious, but this time you recognized the joke and smiled. 

Despite your reservations, you were warming up to him. 

That didn’t let Eddie off the hook though, and as you glared at your cat, he gave you a yawn and used his tail to wrap himself up like a parcel, turning his back to you.

Plopping down on the bed, you turned over to the first page of your spiral notebook and looked up at Joe, like a secretary about to do a spot of shorthand.

“I jotted down a few things I needed to ask you, in case I forgot,” you began. 

Actually, that was a lie, you didn’t jot. 

Jot gave the impression that you casually scribbled down a few reminders. You wrote three pages of a list that took nearly a week of countless revisions and a wastepaper bin full of scrunched-up bits of paper before it was finished. You even typed it up on your laptop at work and were going to print it out and give it to prospective flatmates as a questionnaire, but your best friend had advised you that that might be a bit much.

“All right, let’s go,” Joe said, ready for his interview.

You cleared your throat. 

“Do you smoke?”

“I’m trying to take it up,” he grinned. 

You weren’t sure if he was making fun of you, but you took a note of it anyway. 

“Well, there’s no smoking indoors. By all means, smoke in the garden and don’t use crockery, plant pots of my flowerbeds as ashtrays.”

“Yes ma’am,”

“Drugs?”

“Only prescription.” He answered solemnly.

You scribbled in your notebook and moved onto the next rule. 

“No leaving teabags in the sink.”

“But… but that’s where they go,” a smirk played on Joe’s face. Teasing.

“Not in my flat.” you answered flatly.

If you were being honest, you’d been secretly hoping your rules would deter him from wanting the room. Joe answering all of your rules with humour wasn’t how you’d expected this to go. From under your eyelashes, you watched him stroke your cat. He seemed very pleasant and everything – if you’d bumped into him in a bar. 

But, outside your bathroom? 

At seven in the morning? 

In his underwear?

Panic grabbed you. 

This was never going to work. 

You needed to put him off wanting to move in here with you.

“Moving onto the kitchen,” you stood up hastily. “No leaving the dishes. I don’t have a dishwasher, so you’ll have to wash up after every meal. And no filling a dirty pan with water and leaving it in the sink for days. Soaking is not washing-up.” You barked bossily.

Joe gave you a mock-salute and then laughed. 

You didn’t.

“As for the fridge. You can have the top shelf and if you want to put meat in there, make sure it’s covered. I’m not a vegetarian, but I hate the smell of meat in the fridge.”

“All right.” 

He was accepting this too easily.

Shit.

You marched into the bathroom. 

“I only have one bathroom, so we’ll have to share.” 

You pushed open the door and let Joe peer inside. Your bathroom was only small, and inherently girly. Everything pink. Everything floral scented.

“See that toilet seat? How it’s down?” you could be an expert nagger if you had to be. “It’s going to remain like that. No taking your socks off and leaving them in little balls on the floor. And no shaving and leaving your... your bristles all over the basin,” you paused, only to draw a breath. 

Now you were in full swing, there was no stopping you. 

“And please use the air freshener. It’s there for a reason.”

“Right. Yes, of course,” he nodded with a furrowed brow and rubbed the end of his nose. 

You took a moment to look at him, standing in your bathroom, holding your cat in his arms, as his eyes panned around the room.

“Rule number ten?”

“Ten?”

“I’ve been counting.”

“Oh, right… yes.” Your eyes darted back to the notebook still in your hands.

“The TV.” You strode past him into the living room. “I have Sky, but no hogging the sports channels and watching football every night. Football’s boring.”

Right. 

That must’ve done it. 

You had called football boring. 

He should’ve been out of that door in less than five seconds.

“Don’t worry, I won’t have the time,” he ran his fingers along Eddie’s spine.

And... hang on a minute. 

Joe wasn’t moving. 

You watched him tickle Eddie’s ears like a pro. 

Perhaps having a flatmate wouldn’t be as bad as you’d imagined. Look at how much your cat was enjoying this.

Shit.

There was a pause, which Joe broke first.

“So, do I pass?”

You consulted your notebook. Admittedly, he had ticked most of the boxes. But, you hesitated. 

You still weren’t sure. 

Joe seemed nice, but maybe you should wait. Interview more applicants. Not that there actually were any more applicants, but there might be if you gave it a few more weeks. Wait for a non-smoking, female, tidy Japanese student who would disinfect the house every day when she’d come back from lectures. 

But looking at Eddie, it was actually quite the miracle someone stepped into your flat who was so readily accepted by him.

And so fine.

You let Eddie decide for you.

You smiled at Joe for a second and raised your eyebrows in question. 

“When do you want to move in?” -----