Page 52 of The Wedding Pact
‘Good plan,’ August agreed. ‘I’ll change my bed covers in the morning, so my bed doesn’t look slept in.’
‘So are we done?’ Flynn asked.
‘We should clean, I guess,’ August answered, and then went and made them both a cup of tea.
‘I can do that – you wanted to rehearse this weekend,’ countered Flynn.
‘You know what though? It’s actually been nice taking my mind off it a little. I know that scene like the back of my hand. I know Catherine Morland like the back of my hand. Maybe having a day off is what I need.’
He looked at her. ‘Okay, but if you want to run lines while we’re cleaning just say the word.’
‘You know me so well,’ she laughed. ‘Are you still all right with this whole arrangement?’ August enquired, handing Flynn’s mug to him a few minutes later, and they took a walk out of the building to sit on the wall and relax.
‘Living with you?’
‘That, but also this whole … ’ August checked behind her to make sure they were alone and then lowered her voice. ‘This whole “fake marriage” thing?’
Flynn nodded and sipped his tea. ‘Sure. It seems to be working pretty well so far. Are you?’
‘Yes. I’m so … ’ She inhaled the fresh, Bath air. ‘ … happy … living here. And you’re a great flatmate. But there have been a few occasions where we’ve had to cover our tracks, or things have got more complicated than I imagined they would.’
‘I see what you mean. But I think we’ve handled it all well so far, don’t you?’
‘I do, so far.’ She crinkled her nose at him. ‘Sorry for any tricky bits though. I’m sure spending your Saturday prepping your home to make it look like you’re married to your flatmate wasn’t how you expected your life to be when you were thinking about moving from Japan. Hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly.’
‘It’ll go fine,’ Flynn replied.
‘Did you live with somebody in Japan?’ she asked him outright, for the first time. ‘Did you live with your ex-girlfriend? Tell me to mind my own beeswax if you want.’
Flynn had been expecting this question at some point. Well, not necessarily that exact question, but he’d never really discussed Yui, or the exact details of his life in Japan, with August. Even when she’d told him about James, he’d still not opened up much. It had felt too fresh, too personal, to start sharing. But maybe now was a good time.
He took a long gulp of his tea. ‘Yep, I lived with Yui, for about a year.’
‘Oh,’ August replied, her eyebrows raising involuntarily. ‘I hadn’t realised. So it was pretty serious.’
‘It was. We’d been together for a couple of years before I moved.’
‘Did you … ’ she trailed off.
‘Did we … do it?’ Flynn teased.
‘No,’ August laughed. ‘Did you move to England because you broke up?’
‘That’s a difficult question.’ Flynn had never tried too hard to see through the frosted glass window to the end of his relationship with Yui. Sometimes he felt like it ended because he chose to go to England, and that’s certainly the narrative she’d chosen. But other times it felt like he’d chosen to move back because he knew things were over between them, like he didn’t feel wanted anymore, and that’s why he’d started to think about starting afresh.
August let silence fall over them while he thought. She moved her arm like she wanted to put it around him but thought twice. Instead she waited.
‘If I really think about it, the break-up started when Yui and I moved in together,’ Flynn started, his gaze never leaving the vista ahead of them. ‘We had a great first year together, obviously, that’s why we took the next step. We found a nice apartment, equidistant from both our work-places, cosy, lots of natural light. It had this big window seat we could both lie out on – you would have liked it.’ Why did he say that? He hadn’t meant to insert her into the tableau.
‘It sounds lovely,’ said August.
‘But I think Yui … no, both of us … assumed moving in together would mean being able to spend more time together. In reality it only highlighted how many hours we both put into our jobs and how neither of us wanted to argue about it when we finally came home.’
‘And that went on for a year?’
‘Not continually, it’s more that the cracks started to form, and niggles became pain points, which became arguments. But we didn’t really want to break up, we just didn’t know the solution. At least that’s how I felt. Then I found this job transfer and I thought maybe if we both moved over here for a while it would be a change of scene, a change of pace, a new adventure. But Yui saw it as a break-up.’
‘Did she want you to stay?’ asked August, treading carefully.
