Page 45 of Just Say (Hell) No
“Go on and laugh,” Marko said, picking up the cue. “And no, I did not buy this bloody nuisance of a cat a princess bed. Already bought her a luxury bed, didn’t I, and woke up to find her inmybed instead the first night. I put her out, and she meowed outside the bloody door until I let her in again. She won’t use her gym, either. Catch me buying her anything else.”
“Big talker,” Nyree said. “When I find the cat dishes with her name specially printed on them, I’ll remind you of that.”
“Since her name is ‘Cat,’ Ella told Tom, “it could happen.”
Marko said, “Do you want a present or not?”
“What? Me?” Ella sat up straight. “I definitely want one.”
“Hang on, then.” He got up from the table, came back a minute later, dumped two plastic carrier bags beside her, and said, “There.”
As a gift-giving ceremony, it left something to be desired. Ella didn’t seem to mind, though. She just opened the first bag and pulled out two sets of towels and facecloths. Which were yellow.Tooyellow, perhaps, closer to gold than the pale shade of Ella’s bedroom, but definitely yellow.
“Marko,” Ella said.“Thankyou.”
“As you couldn’t find the right color on Sunday,” Marko said, “and there was a shop next to the pet place and I was there anyway, I popped in. Thought it would make the bath more friendly for you and Nyree. Keep you from having to paint it, is the dream, though I won’t get my hopes up. There’s another bag as well.”
“Oh.” This time, there was no question that it was right. The sheets were lavender. “Oh, they’re beautiful.Thankyou.”
“Yeh, well,” Marko said. “Nyree said you were doing the room in yellow and purple. I thought they were good, in a girly sort of way.” He looked at Nyree. “I didn’t buy orange towels. First off, they didn’t have them. Second, there’s a limit.”
Hard man? Maybe not so much.
Tom went home after tea. Once he’d helped with the washing up, that is. Marko had to concede that at least he’d done that. He’d chatted to Nyree, but he hadn’t actually done anything Marko could object to. Pity.
After he left, Ella took her new towels and sheets out of the bags, cut off the tags, and said, “I’m going upstairs after I wash these. So you know. All done for tonight. Closing my door and all. Announcement.”
What?Marko thought. Nervous about school tomorrow? Texting friends? Sending nudes to some forty-five-year-old pervert in Los Angeles who got off on pregnant schoolgirls? How much was he meant to supervise, and how would he even start? He decided to address the simplest issue and work up to the rest. “No need to wash them, surely. They’re new.”
“They have chemicals on them,” Ella said.
“What, towels are sprayed with dangerous chemicals before sale? No. You can’t believe everything you read on the internet.”
“Excuse me,” Ella said. “Sizing? It’s a thing. And the tadpole’s systems are still developing. Do you want it to come out with a hole in its spine because I didn’t wash my sheets?”
She didn’t wait for his answer, just headed for the laundry room bearing an armful of linens, and Marko asked Nyree, “Seriously?”
“Yes,” she said, still drying her hands on a tea towel. “About the sizing, anyway. About the rest of it, she probably knows more than I do. It’s good that she’s doing her best by the baby, at least.”
“Hopefully not because she’s thinking of keeping it.” He said it quietly, so Ella wouldn’t hear. “What was all that announcement about closing her door, though?”
“Dunno,” Nyree said. “Statement of boundaries? That I can’t tell her not to use her phone in bed? Something like that, I’d guess. I doubt she’d decide to keep the baby. She seems more realistic than that. But then, I’ve never grown a human inside me. First midwife appointment Friday, by the way.”
“Whose idea?”
“Hers. She said she needed to know when it was due so she could start looking at parents, so that’s a positive sign. I sat beside her while she researched her options and chose a midwife, but she did the rest. She rang the office up, too, explained her situation, and asked if they could deal with it.”
“That’s good, then.” He wasn’t even a week into this, and his life was already more complicated and distracting than anything he could have imagined. It had better not get worse, that was all.
“Another good idea,” she said, “would be telling me whether you’ve got some kind of issue with my bringing friends into your house, since you seemed fairly gobsmacked tonight. Are they restricted to my bedroom, maybe? Or not at all? If that’s your idea, I’m telling you now. Too extreme, boy.”
Bang. There it was. His life getting—yes, more complicated and distracting. He needed his guitar to talk about this. The music would help him think and give him an excuse to take his time to do it. Plus, she liked it.
When he didn’t answer straight away, she said, “And, yes, it’s your house, and, yes, I still have my garage. I could go there, but it would mean I wouldn’t be with Ella, which would be—oh, yeh. Stupid. I can even go there ifyouwant to entertain, though I can’t imagine you being that squeamish. You’re a big boy who likes blondes. That’s no secret. It’s a big house, Ella and I are big girls ourselves, and you’ve had flatmates forever.”
“How do you know I’ll be wanting to entertain?” he asked. “And what the hell does ‘entertain’ mean, anyway?”
“Oh,” she said, “I think you can probably imagine the various scenarios that could arise. Ranging from my having Victoria in for tea to you having a few blondes over to try out that spa bath while you film. Do we just shut our doors so Ella doesn’t see the ropes come out, or are we going for total privacy? Let me know. Your house. Your rules.”
