Page 18 of Cosy & Chill
Finn finished the row and laid his half-finished scarf aside. “All of this is happening so fast. It’s unreal. Does it feel… too good to be true? I mean, Richmond’s a prosperous place and the prices reflect that. Rents are crazy, council tax is a joke. And here we’re being offered a shopfront on the High Street, with three floors of living accommodation above, for what you’re paying for a bedsit?”
“Maybe we just got lucky,” Leo said. “You wished for that last night, remember?”
“You’re saying that someone listened?”
“I don’t know. I’m not religious or anything. My grandma always said that opportunities will arrive when you’re ready to make the most of them. Maybe… maybe it was too big a project for you on your own. Then we met and—”
“They offered us a fab store at an ultra-cheap rent?”
“Something like that. You said the store’s been empty since the spring. Mr Tienfield told me they had lots of enquiries, but none of them wanted to keep the store as a store. Maybe wewerejust lucky. It happens.”
“It never happened to me.”
“It did to me, sort of,” Leo confided. “My grandma died a year ago. She knew I wasn’t happy at home. She also knew that I needed a push to get off my backside and change things. She left me money in her will so that I could find a place for myself and decide what I wanted to do.”
Finn had lost his grandmother four years earlier, and the memory still hurt. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you remember something sad.”
“It’s fine. What I meant to say is… sometimes good things happen just like that. We don’t have to sign the rental agreement if you don’t feel it’s what you want to do.”
“It is! I just feel… I don’t know. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re nothing of the sort. You’re sensible and cautious, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Let’s see what happens when we meet with Mr Tienfield again. He said he’ll answer all our questions.”
Leo’s smile didn’t hold the disappointment Finn was used to seeing on people’s faces when he was too slow, too stupid, or too cautious. In fact, all Finn saw was excitement. Maybe a touch of mischief.
It made everything easier.
“We can’t just keep calling it ‘the store’,” Finn said when they’d finished their dinner. “We need a proper name for it.”
“I’ve been calling it Cosy & Chill in my head,” Leo said. “How about that?”
“Cosy & Chill.” Finn mouthed the name. “I like it. It’s short and… I canseeit. Two sides, matching perfectly.” He held up his beer in a toast. “Cosy & Chill it is.”
