Take My Breath Away by Ali Ryecart
Chapter Ten
PERRY
“All the fleas washed away, I hope?” James asks, as he dishes out the pizza and pours a couple of large glasses of wine.
“Think so, but I’m not so sure of the lice.” I rub at my hair, still damp from the soak in the bath. I smile but there’s a sting in our words.
The houses we saw earlier were disgusting and from what I’ve looked at online, it’s depressingly clear I’m just going to find more of the same crappy, slummy rooms.
“Thanks,” I mumble as I take a seat at the kitchen table.
It’s only early evening, but the sky outside is dark with heavy rain clouds. It’s a dank, chilly, English summer evening, and the perfect match for my mood. At least here in the kitchen it’s warm and the air’s laced with oil, garlic and herbs. In the background, bluesy jazz is playing. It’s not what I’d normally listen to but I like it.
Taking a sip of the chilled wine, I sigh, and sink back into my chair.
It’s lovely here, in this beautiful kitchen in this amazing house. But it’s not just the bricks and mortar, it’s James. The sexy silver fox with the come to bed eyes has been so good to me when he really has no reason to. The man who every time he turned up to visit Elliot would flirt outrageously with me… I know he was having a bit of harmless fun at my expense, but it didn’t stop the tingle dancing down my spine, or the flutter deep in my belly, but I suppose that’s what happens when you have a crush.
Crush. Jesus, I’m twenty-five, not fifteen. I’m not supposed to have a crush. Or at least I don’t think I am. It’s my little secret and I’m going to have to keep it tucked away and out of sight from a certain pair of moss green eyes, because if he guesses…
Oh, God, talk about embarrassing…
But, however lovely the house is, and however good James is to me, I have to remember it’s nothing more than a stop gap. At some point soon I’ll be moving on and this little breathing space, us sharing a meal at the blond wood table, will be over. And for what? Blocked toilets, a space in a fridge that stank like it had a corpse thawing out in it, and the dubious company of a guy with a flaking skin complaint.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Stop looking at the pizza and get your chops around it. I could say it’ll make you feel better, but I think it’d take a lot more than one of Angelo’s finest.”
“They were so, so awful,” I blurt out, taking no notice of the food on my plate.
James throws back his head and laughs, filling the kitchen with its rich rumble.
“Awful? Well I must say, that’s a very polite way of putting it. Perry, my dear, I’ve shat in better — and cleaner — places than any of those hovels we looked at earlier.”
I glare at him across the table. Even though I don’t doubt that at all, I don’t want to be told.
“Yes, they’re nasty but those hovels are within my price range. And I don’t like being laughed at because of it. I’m sorry they’re not Highgate, that they’re grotty terraces and badly converted semis, but they’re all I can stretch to at the moment.”
He stops laughing and stares at me, his expression unreadable. I’ve snapped, and bitched, and been bad tempered when all he’s done is lend me a hand and pointed out the truth. I’m ashamed of myself, and he deserves an apology.
“James, I—”
“You don’t have to move anywhere like those places. I’ve told you.”
“For a little while, yes, and I’m grateful I really am but—”
“Will you just stop being grateful? Stop bloody apologising.”
His words take me aback, not so much by what he says but by the steely edge to them which matches the edge I see in his eyes.
“Look,” he says, leaning forward, all his focus on me. “You can trawl the internet, look at rooms for rent signs in shop windows and local papers until you’re blue in the face, but you’ll find the same thing over and over: substandard accommodation I wouldn’t house my pet rat in. If I had a pet rat, which I don’t. But you get the idea. To get anywhere reasonable, let alone good, you have to pay out a lot in this wonderful but undeniably overpriced city of ours. I have no doubt Elliot pays you well, but it’d still be more than you could afford on your own. I’m sorry, Perry, it’s a plain, hard fact,” he adds, his voice softening.
He’s right, I know he is, but it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try… The basement’s looking more and more appealing.
“But I’ve got a proposition for you. One that if we can agree to the arrangements will work for us both. Rent a room from me. For as long as you need to. If you’re determined to shell out on rent, you can pay it to me.”
I blink at him, as I try to make sense of his words. Letting me stay for a while is one thing, but proposing he becomes my landlord…
“But you weren’t looking for a lodger. Were you?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Then why turn your life upside down? I don’t get it.”
From staying a few days, a couple of weeks maybe, to something longer term, something more settled… I can’t push down the rise of excitement in my stomach… This lovely house, the comfortable room upstairs overlooking the secluded garden… This fabulous kitchen… And, well, James himself… It’s tempting beyond belief, but he hasn’t answered my question.
“Why, James?”
He tilts his head and studies me. He’s got beautiful cat-like eyes, and they’re just as hard to read, but he’s assessing me, weighing me up, and for a second I wonder what it is he sees.
“Those places we saw earlier, living somewhere like that, they’d grind you down. They’d crush your spirit.”
“I think that’s over-egging it…”
“Is it?”
I don’t answer because what he says sounds too much like the truth.
“Perry, I’m not offering you charity — I wouldn’t dare to because I know you’d refuse — I’m offering you a place to live. Without fleas, and dead things under the floorboards, if the stench in that last place was anything to go by. But just listen to me, to what I have to say, and then make your mind up properly now that you’ve seen what’s out there. I know you’ll refuse to be a kind of long term guest, so become that lodger I didn’t think I was looking for.”
He’s smiling at me, and I can’t help but smile back.
“Pay me rent each month…” He names a figure that’s just under half of the rental on the rooms and I open my mouth to protest, but he holds up his hand and his face is so stern, my protest dies on my lips. “But in addition, you take care of the cooking. I can rustle up a fry up or throw a steak on the grill, but not a lot else, and I’m getting tired of restaurant food and takeaways — sorry Angelo,” he says, as he takes a bite from his pizza. “We’ll both put in a set sum into the pot each week, as well, to cover essential food items. Like biscuits. And chocolate.”
“Biscuits? And chocolate? Any particular kind?” I ask, as laughter bubbles up inside me.
“I’m not fussy. Or not about chocolate. Just as long as it’s sweet, so none of that dark stuff for me.”
His face is deadpan but it’s impossible to miss the laughter in his eyes. There’s no way I’m going to say no, and I know there’s no way he’ll let me.
“Can you guarantee a lice-free environment, and a lack of blocked toilets?”
“That’s open for negotiation. So, are you saying yes?”
I nod. “I am. I don’t know what to say—”
“Then don’t say anything.”
Across the table, James turns all his attention to the food. The conversation’s over, the decision’s been made. The invisible weight that’s been pressing down on my shoulders lifts, and in the first time since what feels like forever, I’m calm.
