Page 12 of The Missus
Seven
Alanna was sitting at Keira’s kitchen table, watching Keira make coffee from a rather fancy looking bean-to-cup machine while she checked out the place where she would now be living. She hadn’t taken much in the last few times she’d been here. The flat was a similar layout to hers and Benjamin’s—open plan, with a kitchen off the living room and hall at the other end connecting to a series of doors. But it was a little bigger, and it had a different vibe. That vibe was messy. Laptop and cables spread all over the coffee table, laundry piled in a corner, an almost overflowing bin in the kitchen. Something was comforting about that mess coming straight from living with obsessive Benjamin. Comforting was good right now. Because Alanna didn’t understand how the hell she’d gotten here.
Alanna didn’t ordinarily like to use words like ‘Crazy’, but what Keira had proposed was batshit banana-pants crazy. Mad as fish. Nutty as a pistachio wearing a walnut shell coat and a hat made of almond.
However, she was offering a hell of a deal. Alanna had no idea what people usually had to do to live in places for free, but this felt like very little to ask. That worried Alanna. It was too good of an offer. When something seemed too good to be true, there was usually a cost you weren’t seeing.
But the thing was, Keira seemed like a bit of a mess in all senses, but not a monster. What could she get out of Alanna that she didn’t want to give? They’d addressed the sex issue, albeit accidentally. Keira had been horrified at the thought that she’d been trying to procure those kinds of services. Was it possible that this was an upfront deal?
Alanna couldn’t be completely sure. But she knew two things. The first thing was that no one was exactly queuing up to give her a place to live. The other thing was that if this didn’t work, she could leave and be no worse off than she was right now.
‘Milk?’ Keira asked, pouring some into a metal jug.
‘Er, yes. Please.’
She put it under a small nozzle on the machine and hit a button. It began to buzz.
‘Are you actually frothing that?’ Alanna asked.
‘Yep.’
‘I’d have been happy with a Nescafe.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t. Syrup? I’ve got vanilla, hazelnut, salted caramel...’
‘Vanilla, please.’
Keira handed her the coffee a moment later, and when Alanna took a sip, she was wondering where the catch was again. On top of offering to let her live free from rent and utilities, the woman was a fricking professional level barista. ‘That’sincredible,’ Alanna said, savouring the flavour.
‘I know,’ Keira said, taking a sip. ‘I love coffee, but I hate coffee shops, so I learned how to make it properly at home.’ She leant back in her chair. ‘So, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened with you and Benjamin?’
Alanna looked at her without any attempt to answer.
Keira got the hint. ‘Gotcha. Beeswax, none of mine. Understood.’
‘I’m surprised you want to know,’ Alanna noted.
‘Why?’ Keira asked, unoffended.
‘You’ve never asked me a personal question,’ Alanna told her.
‘Neither have you,’ Keira pointed out.
‘Fair enough,’ Alanna acquiesced. ‘Maybe we should leave it that way?’ She couldn’t believe she was being snippy with Keira, given that she’d saved her bacon. But it was only about twenty minutes since she’d left her flat and her relationship. She wasn’t in a great place.
Her mood worsened a moment later when she realised something that had gotten lost in amongst the madness of Keira’s proposal. She would now be living across the hall from her former boyfriend. That was going to suck. Hard.
‘I don’t mind if you want to keep things on a strictly business basis,’ Keira said evenly. ‘But I do have one semi-personal question and I don’t have any choice but to ask it. Do you happen to own a bed?’
Alanna frowned. ‘Shit. No. I’ll get one soon. Can I sleep on the sofa until then?’
‘There’s a sofa in the study. You can take that until you’re sorted.’
One less problem. ‘That’s great. Should we…’
‘What?’
‘Run down how this is going to work?’
