Page 186 of The Problem With Pretending

WILLIAM: I think you let her live with you so she doesn’t have to pay extortionate rental prices in the southeast.

ME: Rent is extortionate everywhere.

WILLIAM: You didn’t deny it.

ME: She’s my best friend, and I don’t want to live alone. Plus, she pays half the electric bill. Have you seen the price of that these days? Rent wishes it was that much of a rip-off.

WILLIAM: Says the one without a mortgage.

ME: Bit rich coming from the guy who’s going to inherit a whole-ass castle.

WILLIAM: Have you seen inheritance tax? I’ll have to renovate the basement to dungeons just to rent them out.

ME: If Glenroch was in the southeast, you’d be able to charge two grand a month for those prison cells.

WILLIAM: I know. It’s unfortunate.

ME: And would probably violate several laws.

WILLIAM: Like the government, then.

ME: Meow.

WILLIAM: Tell me I’m wrong.

ME: I was taught not to lie.

Ironic, given how my grandmother and father had lied for almost twenty years.

WILLIAM: Exactly. How was your day?

And there was the million-pound question.

ME: Pretty shit, honestly.

WILLIAM: Want to talk about it?

ME: In person, yeah. But my dad said the funeral is this weekend. Are you going?

WILLIAM: Of course. Are you?

ME: Yeah, just me and Dad. I think we’re travelling up on Friday afternoon.

WILLIAM: Same here. I’m home tomorrow… Do you have time to talk on Thursday?

I hesitated. It seemed like so much, to tell him everything, to say out loud what I’d just been told.

To tell him how I really felt.

But I was going to.

ME: Yes. In person.

WILLIAM: Stop, you’re flirting with me.

I burst out laughing.

ME: OMG. Shut up.

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