Me: Jack…
Jack: I won’t even charge you rent.
Won’t charge me rent?
How can he NOT charge me rent? He could be making at least six hundred dollars or more, depending on what his place is like, and he wants to charge me NOTHING?
Is he out of his mind?
He knows that is a deal I could never refuse.
Never.
It’s a deal I would consider even if I had a place to live. Living rent-free when every single nickel, dime, and dollar counts?
Me: You really are out of your mind.
Jack: But you’re considering it, aren’t you?
Me: You know I have to, you bastard.
Jack: Oh I love it when you talk dirty.
Me: Don’t do that—do not start flirting with me on the cusp of asking me to live with you.
Jack: I mean, it could be ‘just as friends,’ as much as I’d bloody LOATHE it with every fiber of my manly being.
Me: That would probably be for the best.
Jack: But how realistic do you think it would be, on a scale of 1 to 10?
Me: Oh, 10, for SURE. I resisted you this long, I can do it longer.
Jack: Why are you so mean?
Me: I’m just trying to be professional.
Jack: Now is not the time to throw down, Eliza.
Me: Okay, be serious for one second. How do I get this furniture out of here?
Jack: Honestly? Don’t. Leave that shite there, I have whatever you need here.
Me: You have a bed in the spare room?
Jack: Yes. And a desk, and a chair. Bathroom en suite.
Me: En suite? What does that mean?
Jack: It means your bedroom has its own attached bathroom. You won’t have to go out into the hall.
Me: Well LA DI DA, this offer gets better and better with every breath I take!!!
Jack: So is that a yes?
Me: How soon can you get here with your truck?
Jack: Whenever you want me to be there with my truck.
Me: See you in an hour.
Lord help me.
Fifteen
Jack
Well.
I wanted to follow in my brother’s footsteps, and now I’ve really gone and done it. Pulled an Ashley, as it were, moving a girl I’m attracted to into my house for a seemingly selfless cause, and lord only knows what’s going to happen.
Nothing, jackarse—she’s your new roommate.
You didn’t want a roommate, jackarse. You wanted to live alone.
No going back now. She needs help.
Since when are you into charity?
Since now. Shut your gobber and drive.
We make quick work of her few things; she doesn’t come with much, not even furniture, her two flatmates gone when I arrive at her place with my shiny black pickup truck, empty bed for all her boxes.
There are only eight of them.
Easy.
Eliza wrings her hands as if they were wet rags all the way back to my house—her house now, too—and I glance over at her before we hop out of the cab.
“Are you nervous?”
“Yes. I want to puke.”
Okay then. “Don’t do that—not in here. I’ll charge you fifty quid.”
Ha. Just like the fee if you toss chunks in the back seat of an Uber.
“Funny.”
I thought so.
We’re out and inside in a jiff, Eliza standing at the side staring up at the brick façade of the place I’ve called home this half a semester.
“Wow.” She looks over at me. “You didn’t tell me how nice this is. Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind about charging me rent?”
“I’m not charging you rent.” I nudge her with a box so I can access the keypad on the door, entering the short code and shoving through to the kitchen. “After you, ma’am.”
Eliza steps inside tentatively—as if she’s never been inside a residence before, eyes roaming, head turning this way and that.
“Wow. This is…” She spins on her heels to face me. “This is too much. You have to let me pay rent.”
I admit the place is indeed ‘too much’, as she put it. Mum rented it through a realtor and insisted we live somewhere nice while in the States. An actual ‘home away from home.’
The kitchen has been remodeled and updated within the last few years, and modern amenities abound. Granite countertops and stainless steel faucet—even the refrigerator gleams. It helps that I am clean and like things tidy; every Sunday afternoon I spiff the place up of my own accord, wiping down the floors on my hands and knees, cleaning the bathrooms—showers and floors. Wipe the piss from the toilet.
Looks as if I have a cleaning service come, but it’s just me at the helm making the ship sail. I’ve always been this way, even at boarding school, keeping my room tiptop when all my mates were throwing their things on the floor, piles of laundry and garbage.
“Jack, this is gorgeous.”
A bit of an exaggeration—I’ve seen palaces, for goodness’ sake, but I have no idea what Eliza’s background is, so perhaps this is the fanciest kitchen she’s been in?