Page 5 of The Way We Fell

I could sit and read here, but I’d rather just go home. I’ve just finished a run of early shifts at the supermarket and I’m exhausted, desperate for some time away frompeople. And I have a lot of laundry catch-up to do. I check the book out using the snazzy new self-service machine, tuck it into my bag, and walk home.

Three loads of laundry and one beige plate of chicken tenders and potato wedges later, I swap my jeans and sweater for my favourite pyjamas and flip the switch on my pink bedside lamp. I love this lamp. The bulb is fitted inside a frosted pink lava lamp-style glass structure and it bathes the room in a soft, rosy glow. Between the lamp and the Himalayan salt string lights around my headboard, my bedroom ambience is perfect for curling up with a book, a blanket and a cup of tea.

Except, tonight’s reading is decidedly less cosy than my usual steamy novels.

I crack open the book, using my finger to trace down the contents page until I find the chapter that sounds most like what I’m looking for.How to support your veteran when they return home.

Not that he’smyveteran. Nothing about him is mine.

But something about him—in Pacifica, and again last night at Ruth’s place—told me to hang on to him. Something told me he needs me, and that maybe I could need him, too. In spite of the things he’s seen, somewhere underneath the guarded persona and quiet bravado, there’s a man with very human emotions, skeletons in his closet that are threatening to spill out through every pore. And they’re reaching out to me. So I ignore the peril of the best friend’s brother trope, flip to page thirty-six, and start to read.

Katy

Kitkats, toothpaste, dandruff shampoo and gin on special offer this week ladies. Any takers?

Lolo

ill take the gin pls K

ROO

Go on then, I’ll take some kitkats

Amie

I’ll have some kitkats too please! Maisy nicked the last one and I’m desperate.

Lolo

oh pls can i have some toothy p too pls

ROO

Toothy P…

Katy

Got it. Fairy GodSister will deliver it all asap.

Work is never especially exciting. I don’t hate my job, which is probably a good thing. I guess I’m lucky. But I don’t love it, either. I never exactly planned to be a store supervisor in a supermarket, but it happened, and it keeps my bills paid with some change leftover to feed my reading habit, so I’ve never really bothered to look elsewhere.

On this particular Tuesday, nearly a week after my trip to the library, I find myself in the tiny box room we call an office, fanning myself with a laminated sheet of paper, trying to figure out staff deployment for the next week. I have team members who aren’t trained on tills, team members who have medical conditions that prevent them from lifting boxes and stocking shelves, team members who don’t have the correct level of training for various other roles, and not a single useful combination of any of the above on any given day. I frisbee the laminated paper to the back of the desk and lean back in the chair.

I’d rather be at home under a blanket with a cup of tea, reading a saucy romance novel. Maybe one with cowboys. Maybe that one I keep hearing about, where the cowboy hates her at first but then he ties her up in the stables and—

Anyway.

One of the young cashiers pokes his head around the office door and summons me to the shop floor. The schedule will have to wait. Maybe I’ll leave it for the night shift supervisor to deal with. Or, considering he’s the world’s most useless fuckweasel, maybe I’ll just woman up and do it myself.

A few hours later, before I leave the store for the evening, I fill a basket with some food and a new book I’ve been eyeing up before heading to the checkout. The night shift supervisor is at the till, and I load the conveyer belt with my groceries and book. He scans them through, lips lifting into a smirk as he handles the book.

“You actually read this kind of thing? Smut?”

“You don’t?”

“Isn’t it just like… porn?”

“Richard,” I rest my elbows on the top of the till screen and lean in with a sugary smile. “Richard, Richard, Richard. Are you telling me you’ve never looked at porn before? I understand you not reading books because—well, you probably can’t. But porn? Surely you sit there with your hand at night.”

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