Page 43 of Going Overboard

Brody stares at me, his head cocked, a faint smirk on his lips like he can’t decide if he’s offended or entertained.

‘All right then, princess, impress me,’ he says. ‘What do you do for work? Assuming you’re a working royal…’

I fuss with the buttons on the exercise bike. One of them turns on the fan, blowing cool air in my face.

‘I do high-end property staging,’ I tell him.

‘What’s that when it’s at home?’ he asks.

‘When people are selling their houses, I go in and stage them,’ I explain. ‘I dress them up to look their best. Set the scene. Help them to get the most out of the place to attract the right kind of buyer.’

‘What does that even mean?’ he asks, one eyebrow raised – almost sceptically.

‘Sometimes I bring furniture, sometimes it’s more like décor,’ I tell him. ‘It’s all about telling a story, selling a lifestyle to potential buyers.’

‘Do they get to keep the furniture?’ he asks.

‘No, it’s just for staging,’ I reply. ‘Think of it like a set.’

He lets out a laugh and lies back down, arms stretched behind his head.

‘That’s not a real job,’ he concludes.

‘Erm, it is,’ I correct him.

‘It’s literally playing house in other people’s houses,’ he points out.

‘Says the man who does PE in other people’s fields,’ I clap back.

‘Fair play,’ he says, smiling to himself. ‘As long as we’re both happy, eh?’

I guess he’s right.

And I am – happy with my job, at least. I love it. Transforming spaces, making them what people want them to be, telling a story. Perhaps that’s why I’m getting a kick out of faking it with Brody, it’s just a different sort of staging.

Sort of like me sitting here, in the gym, not working out. Sometimes how things look matters much more than how they are.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

18

Despite getting up early this morning for what turned out to be a sparring session in the gym, I actually feel great, and I think it might be all thanks to the bed in our suite. Even after Brody seemingly beat the hell out of it, I think it only made it comfier, like beating pillows or tenderising meat.

I’ll never understand why people say they slept like a baby because I remember what my little brother was like when he was a baby and he screamed all night long. Really, going off what it was like in my family home, a more appropriate way of saying I had an amazing, uninterrupted night of sleep would be to say: I slept like a dad.

The bed was great, the pillows perfectly plump, the sheets felt so good on my skin. And, best of all, I didn’t have to share it. I could stretch out, move to the cool side, starfish – the works. I could almost feel sorry for poor Brody, after his night in the bath, but I doubt he’d feel sorry for me, so screw him.

‘My spine is ruined,’ he groans for the – I don’t know – eighth or ninth time, dragging his feet as we hit up the breakfast buffet. ‘Completely destroyed. I’m an athlete, Jessa. I have to take care of my body.’

I glance down at his plate and notice that he’s got four croissants on it.

‘Then why are you eating four croissants?’ I ask, deadpan.

‘For energy,’ he replies. ‘And for morale.’

I’ve been there, I can’t say anything about that. In fact, maybe I need more croissants.

You really can’t beat a breakfast buffet, can you? Even the bad ones struggle to be truly terrible, because there’s always something good to have for breakfast, even if it’s just a tiny box of cereal in a hotel followed by toast that you get to feed through that fun little conveyor belt toaster yourself.

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