Page 27 of The Wedding Pact
August gave her friend a thumbs up, and then lingered in the cafe a while longer after she’d gone. She wasn’t letting the house cloud her judgement; she was sure of it. Flynn really did seem like he’d make a great flatmate. Though if she was honest with herself, really honest, she probably would have shacked up with Charles Manson if he was residing in the house on Elizabeth Street.
Chapter 18
Flynn
Flynn had a recurring tension headache that pulsed at his temples every time he gave himself thirty seconds to stop for a breather on his first day. He felt like a rookie, a fresh graduate, rather than someone with close to eight years working in law. The still-present jet lag, worsened by the still-present lack of sleep in his hot hotel room, the mountain of corporate policies and jargon for his new firm to learn, the volume of new names to remember and the knowledge he wasn’t going to be getting a day off for nearly two weeks thanks to the conference at the weekend all culminated in this little gift to himself: the headache.
‘It’s a lot to take in,’ said Shelly, his new manager, presenting him with a coffee he hadn’t asked for but accepted gratefully. ‘Is everything at your desk working okay?’
‘Yes, seems great,’ Flynn replied, clearing his throat, pasting on a smile, and pushing acknowledgement of the pain quite literally to the back of his head.
‘Bath must seem pretty different to life in Tokyo,’ she smiled.
‘It’s definitely a culture shock,’ Flynn laughed. But possibly not for the reason Shelly was thinking. Sure, Tokyo was a million times faster paced than this cathedral city in England, but right now he felt a lot more frazzled than he ever did in Japan. It would be different when he was settled, in his own place, caught up on sleep. He thought back to his apartment that he’d shared with Yui, with its calming décor, clean lines and tranquil lighting. Oh to be back there, napping on the window seat under a soft, cloudy sky, listening to the gentle rain on the glass.
He wondered if Yui was there now, on the window seat, dressed in her light grey dressing gown that she always wore. She said she might keep living there even when he was gone, but part of him wondered if she was just saying that to spite him.
Shelly walked away, leaving him to continue navigating his way through the company intranet. And it was at that moment his phone flashed up with a text.
A smile spread across Flynn’s face. He hadn’t noticed that she’d done this when he’d given August his phone at the end of dinner yesterday, to put her number into his contacts. She’d named herself ‘The Wife’.
‘Still want to live with me? In other words, do you have enough jet lag brain to make you still want to do this?’
He replied with,‘Yes, to both. And you?’
August replied with four house emojis, four wedding ring emojis, and a gif of Chandler fromFriendsdoing a happy dance. He took that as a yes.
In truth, he was a little apprehensive about moving in with a stranger, especially one he had to act like he was married to should the landlady ever come around. But this person had a way of bringing smiles to his face and bubbles of laughter from out of him, which felt like an energiser in this upheaval of a time.
Now he just had to get through the next two weeks in that hot hotel room and he would be in his very own home.
The days were busy, full of learning on the job, conference preparation and coffee-fuelled mornings, and, thankfully, those two weeks rushed by like a fast-moving river after a heavy rainfall.
Chapter 19
August
August spent the fortnight packing up her flat, removing traces of James, and having a clear-out. Come the weekend before the big move on Monday, her abode was wonderfully organised chaos. On one side of the living room (if you could even call it a room, it was sort of a snug with a kitchenette at one end) were bags of clothes, books and objects that hadn’t ‘sparked enough joy’ during her Marie Kondo-style clear out. She was proud of those bags.
On the other side of the living room were all the boxes of clothes, books and objects, that, apparently,didspark joy. And so she’d kept them. Though looking at the shell lamp teetering perilously out of the top of one of them, she wasn’t sure she’d been entirely ruthless enough. And then on the floor, like a scene from the latter half ofHome Alone, were little mounds of ‘stuff’. Stuff that didn’t fit into a neat category and so didn’t belong to a box. Stuff that was an odd shape. Stuff August couldn’t decide if she loved or actually hated. Stuff that was tiny and looking to be swept up together with other tiny things in a pretty pouch of some kind to be forever left in the back of a drawer because who knows what to do with tiny things like that.
Her doorbell buzzed and August sighed, picking up the smallest box from the pile and tiptoeing over her things.
She opened the door to James. Seeing him again was … well, what was it exactly? She had expected in this moment to feel a rush of sadness, or embarrassment, or something akin to the feelings she once held for him. But although it was strange not to reach for him or kiss him, she was missing a longing to do so.
‘All right?’ he asked, looking like he wanted to be done with this as fast as possible.
Relax, she wanted to say to him.This isn’t some ruse to try and get you back together with me. ‘Hi, James, thanks for stopping by, here are your things.’
He peered past her into her flat. ‘Are you moving?’
‘Yep.’
‘To that house at the top of the hill?’
August laughed a little. ‘On Elizabeth Street, yes.’
‘Without me?’
