Page 23 of You Only Live Once
They totally didn’t believe me. Well, there was little I could do about it now. Hopefully, by tomorrow, they’d have found something else to gossip about.
* * *
It was a few days before I saw Jack, other than briefly. Word had got around that he was back and available for work. I had a feeling that word had got around he was available for other things as well, and that might have been another reason for his absences. It didn’t bother me. In fact, I was quite glad of it. If it was known he was seeing somebody else, the gossips would have less inclination to talk about me and I could go back to my quiet life.
‘You don’t have to leave me food out every time, you know?’ Jack’s deep voice made me jump. I’d been dishing out shepherd’s pie into individual portions, freezing a couple and putting a couple aside to be reheated for dinner time, my mind elsewhere as I turned over a plot dilemma in my head. The spoon clattered to the floor. Jack reached it before I could and moved to the sink to rinse it off before handing it back to me and then quickly cleaning the floor where it had landed.
‘Thanks,’ I said taking it from him and continuing with my task.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ he asked.
‘Are you complaining?’
‘Of course not, the meals are always delicious, but that’s not the point.’
‘What is the point?’ I asked, moving him aside as I finished up and bent to get the labels from the drawer behind him.
‘The point is you don’t have to cook for me. That wasn’t the agreement.’
‘It wasn’t not the agreement, either. And we’ve had this conversation.’
A soft rumble of laughter wafted itself around me. ‘You have an answer for everything. You always did. I wasn’t surprised when I heard your writing had really taken off. You always seem to have the right words.’
‘I’m not sure about that but, as far as this is concerned, I’m cooking anyway. The only thing it means is that there’s one less portion in the freezer, which is neither here nor there. You may as well eat it. It’s better than you having to cook when you come in late or eating a ready meal.’
‘I’d still feel better if you let me pay for my bed and board.’
‘Only if you let me pay for all the work you’re doing outside. Plus the shelf you put up in my study, and don’t think I haven’t noticed that the utility door isn’t creaking anymore. I find it hard to believe the garden shed painted itself either.’
‘The paint was there,’ said Jack.
‘Yes. The paint’s been there for the last two years. And now it’s actually on the shed, which is where it was supposed to be, saving me time if I were to do it myself, or money if I had to pay someone else to do it. Stop banging on about paying me rent. I think we’re even.’
‘I still think I’m getting the better deal, but I’m not going to win on this, am I?’
‘Nope,’ I said. ‘And I’m glad you finally realise that so that we can move on. Are you ready for dinner or are you going out?’
‘Nope. No plans.’
‘I was just going to dish mine up, but you can eat later if you like.’
‘I’m happy to eat with you if I’m not in your way.’
‘Of course not. Take a seat.’
‘Can I get us some drinks?’ Jack asked.
‘That would be good, thank you.’
He opened the fridge. ‘Champagne? Something to celebrate?’
‘Don’t you start.’ I gave him a brief smile as I put the two plates down on the table.
‘That sounds like a story,’ he replied, returning the smile with a fuller one of his own.
I glanced up at him, my eyes shifting to the champagne and then back again.
‘Oh, sod it, why not? Don’t open that one, though. There’s a nicer one in the cooler underneath.’ I pulled two champagne flutes from the cupboard and set them on the table as he pulled out a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from the cooler, opening it like an expert and pouring the golden fizzing liquid into the two glasses.
