Page 32 of The Wedding Pact
‘I would have asked you first but you seemed deeply invested in organising your shirts by colour, so I thought I’d better leave you to it.’
Flynn took a seat and a long, grateful gulp of Fanta. ‘How else would I organise my shirts?’
August mulled on this for a minute. ‘I don’t know. I guess I never organise mine, so I don’t know all the wonderful ways it could be done.’
‘How’s your unpacking going?’ he asked.
‘Well, firstly, thank you for the chest of drawers that we took out of your room. I now have some of my clothes and all my underwear put away. I also nicked a side-table that was under the window in here for my bedside table, so now my book and two used tea mugs have somewhere to live. And then I wanted to make sure our Wi-Fi was all up and running, so I watched two episodes ofBrooklyn Nine-Nine.’
‘Good progress,’ Flynn nodded, and reached for his phone to open the notes app. ‘All right, let’s make a shopping list. What do we already have?’
August looked at the living room. ‘We have a sofa, my armchair, a TV and this table with four chairs. We did have a small table by the window, but that’s now in my room. And it’s very small. More a stool.’
‘We don’t need loads of tables in the living room. Might we want a coffee table though?’
August pondered this. ‘Not with any great rush. A coffee table’s always the kind of thing you can just find, anyway.’
‘It is?’
‘It is if you’re happy with an old pallet with a blanket draped over it,’ she said with a shrug.
Flynn smiled. That sounded good to him. ‘So nothing else for in here for now?’
‘Pictures would be nice,’ August replied. ‘Although the view is pretty picturesque in itself.’
‘What would you like pictures of?’
She thought about this and then joked, ‘Of our honeymoon?’
‘And where do you think we would have gone on our honeymoon?’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, the strategy meeting is tonight. But maybe New York?’
‘How about Japan? I have a lot of photos of that?’
‘But none of them have me in.’
‘If the criterion is that you – and I – are both in them we’ll have to have honeymooned in Bath,’ Flynn pointed out.
August looked to be thinking through the logistics of photoshopping herself into his travel pictures, before saying, ‘This isn’t important right now. If we come across a great picture, we can always claim we bought it on our honeymoon, even if it doesn’t show a destination. What does your bedroom need?’
Craning his head back to look through his door, Flynn said, ‘Not much. The wardrobe is built-in, there are curtains, the bed, a bedside table … I feel terrible, you know,’ he turned back to her with a bashful smile.
‘Don’t,’ she said, firmly. ‘I’m fine with it, it was always the deal. All right, my room. So I have a built-in wardrobe in there too, plus curtains. I think storage is basically fine – you might not believe this, but I did actually have a clear-out before I moved in. So I need bed, mattress … I brought a lamp with me but … do you need a lamp?’
‘I could take a lamp,’ Flynn agreed, noting it in his phone. ‘Hey, do you want us to get some bolts for our doors?’
August paused. ‘I’m not sure we’d be allowed to add such things, to be honest. But thanks for the suggestion, it’s noted that you’re a gentleman.’ She stood and performed an elaborate curtsy.
‘All right, well, if you change your mind that’s totally fine, I can fit them. I want you to, you know, know you’re safe.’ He felt himself blushing, but she just smiled, and moved on past him.
Poking her head through the door, she called, ‘Bathroom seems fine, nothing we need there.’
‘Wait, I could do with a couple of towels.’
‘Let’s also get a couple of bath mats.’
‘How about we also get one of those “his and hers” toothbrush stands?’
