Page 5 of The Wedding Pact
‘I know,’ the agent replied. ‘But it got snapped up, it’s a popular road, this one. You sounded keen though so I wanted to show you another place we have that’s not even made it online yet, just in case. It’s a short walk away from here. It’s more than your budget, if I’m honest, but it’s not available until October, so maybe you could look into your finances and see if that would be doable by then.’ The agent started to walk away, expecting Flynn to follow him.
‘So it’s over budget and not available for three months?’ he clarified.
‘Erm … yep.’
If he could have given up, got back on a plane, and pretended that this whole ‘adventure’ had never happened, in that moment he would have. ‘I think I’ll leave it,’ he told the agent. ‘I need something now.’
The agent nodded. ‘Slim pickings for something immediately, I’m afraid. Come back to us on Monday? You never know.’
Monday he would be at work, all day, but he nodded nonetheless, tiredness pulling him to sit on a low wall at the top of the hill.
The agent went to leave before turning to Flynn and shielding his eyes from the dipping sun. ‘I shouldn’t say this because it’s not one of ours, but I saw in the paper this morning that there’s another flat on this street having an open house tomorrow, looking for tenants ASAP. I didn’t pay attention to which place it was, or if it was in your budget, but you won’t find a lot else to go and look at tomorrow so it might be worth a try?’
‘In today’s paper?’ Flynn asked.
‘Yeah, the local one. You’ll find it in all the newsagents.’
He sat on the wall for a little longer, taking in the view before he lost it to the shadows. Then he straightened out the cracks and crumples from his back, and allowed one last trickle of hope back in at finding a place to call home.
Chapter 5
August
On Sunday morning, August arrived on Elizabeth Street early for the open house. Not a little early, but three hours early. It was 7 a.m.
August lifted her face to the sunshine, which beamed strong over Bath, a warm pool of summer light even at this time. She sat on the wall at the top of the hill in front of the house and pictured herself coming out through the front door of a morning, coffee in hand, slippers on feet, and breathing in the city. Before her, Bath, yellowed by the dawn, stretched and yawned. The cream stone of the buildings wove like threads beside wide, nearly empty streets and green flashes of parkland. And where the city blended into countryside, the green became denser and took the eye on a journey to the horizon.
This view had always soothed her, in the way that a feeling of home often does. August glanced back at the house behind, and hoped she would, indeed, be able to finally call this home. Just as her grandma had predicted.
Three hours to go.
Hmm. Maybe this was a littletookeen. After a while, she needed something to distract her from the anxious merry-go-round of thoughts that whirled through her mind:What if I don’t get the house? What if a bidding war breaks out between prospective tenants and they eat me and my meagre salary alive? What if I do get the house and then can’t find a flatmate and have to go into debt trying to pay for a swanky two-bed flat by myself? What if I do get the house, do get a flatmate, but then don’t have the talent or ability to make any of my other dreams happen after all?
Standing, with one last look at the house, she dragged herself away and made her way back down to the bottom of the hill, for now.
August pushed open the door to the coffee shop with a tinkle, taking a huge inhale of the warm, sweet pastries piled in powdery mountains on the counter. Even her showdown here with James on Friday night couldn’t taint her love for this place, somewhere she considered her ‘local’ coffee shop even though she, at the moment, lived a good thirty minutes’ walk away. Not for much longer, though!
‘Good morning,’ she sang to the barista, whose sleepy face visibly woke up at such a sunny greeting.
‘Morning; what can I get for you?’
‘Please could I have … ’ August looked up at the menu as is compulsory even though she knew exactly what she wanted. ‘A double shot, whole milk latte with whipped cream and hazelnut syrup. No! Vanilla syrup. No! Hazelnut syrup. Extra large. And an almond croissant. Please. Thank you.’
‘Will you be having those in or to take away?’
August checked her watch. ‘In, please.’
‘Coming right up.’
She was the only one in the cafe at this time on a Sunday, though it would certainly be filling up soon, so she took her coffee and croissant to sit at the bench in front of the window and let it frame her beloved Bath for her.
The sun was dazzling in, hitting the pane of glass and glinting throughout the coffee shop, kissing the dangling copper lights, and stroking the hot-chocolate-coloured walls. For a moment she closed her eyes and imagined herself coming here every morning. The door tinkled with another customer coming in, and with her eyes still closed, she smiled. As predicted, the place was already coming alive.
At the sound of a man’s voice chatting to the barista and asking what she’d recommend, August brought herself back to the present, lifting her cup up to her face and taking a big sniff of the delicious cinnamon powder sprinkled atop the whipped cream.
Slightlytoobig a sniff.
Without a second’s notice, the cinnamon shot up her nose, and expulsed itself back out again as a sudden sneeze that sent the whipped cream topping flying splat onto the window.
