Chapter 10 Aurora
Aurora
‘So good,’ I hum around a mouthful of crisp shards.
I’ve combined prawn cocktail with ready salted in a six-layer stack and am merrily crunching away as I watch Gladiators on TV.
I swallow and suck my fingers as Legend prepares to take on a contender on the climbing wall.
There’s a knock at the door and I peel my eyes away from the screen, crossing the room to answer it.
It’s probably my neighbour asking me to turn the volume down again.
The walls are paper thin, a fact the middle-aged guy loves to remind me about whenever he can.
I don’t like to point out that if he can hear my TV, I can also hear his phone calls.
I wiggle the door because it always jams.
‘Hey, Mike,’ I sigh as I manage to get it open.
The space where Mike’s face would be is filled with the perfect knot of a forest-green silk tie.
‘Oh.’ My gaze climbs up a thick neck and over the bump of a strong Adam’s apple before sliding over a sharply cut jaw, lips that are set in a grim line, and finally . . . deep bronze eyes that are pinched at the corners, studying me.
My stomach drops to my feet. How the hell did he find out where I live?
‘What are you doing here?’ I balk.
‘Expecting Mike instead?’ Rafael clips, his gaze boring into me.
‘Yes,’ I splutter. ‘Actually, that’s exactly who I was expecting.’
His lips thin into a grimace.
‘Why are you here? Is Dove okay? Did something happen?’ My heart races.
‘Nothing’s happened. She’s fine. May I come in?’
His eyes hold mine, his broad frame filling my doorway like a huge shadow that’s sucking the air from the space.
‘Um . . . sure,’ I say, standing aside to let him enter.
He steps inside the room that makes up my lounge, kitchen, and bedroom, and scans it coolly, before his gaze tracks over to the only other door – leading to a tiny bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower so small I can barely lift my arms to wash my hair.
There’s an open box of tampons sitting on the side of the sink in full view and a muscle in his jaw clenches as he stares at them.
I cross the room in a few small steps and pull the door shut, leaning back against it like I’m standing guard over what’s behind it.
‘So, why are you here?’
His attention turns to the TV, where the camera is spanning the view from the top of the wall the gladiators and contenders just raced to climb. He screws his face up like he’s tasted something sour and turns away.
I get it. He probably only watches boring insurance programmes that no one with any personality would find remotely interesting. But he doesn’t have to be so damn obvious over his clear disdain.
‘I came to return this.’
He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket, and I get a flash of forest-green silk lining that matches his tie. He looks so out of place in my bedsit in his bespoke suit that it’s laughable.
Sliding a brown envelope out, his eyes snag on my face. Instead of taking it straight away, I look back at him in challenge. Doesn’t he know it’s rude to stare?
‘Those . . .’ He lifts his free hand and gestures to my face with his index finger. ‘Is one supposed to be that far down your cheek, and the other beneath your eye?’
I reach up to the cheek he’s pointing at.
‘Yeah, that’s how they’re designed,’ I lie, quickly peeling the bright green under-eye pad from where it’s slid down my cheek like a blob of snot.
I grab the other that’s still in place and yank that one off too, squishing them into a ball and stuffing it in the pocket of the pyjama shorts I’m wearing.
Rafael’s attention drops to the shorts, sliding over my thighs and making my cheeks heat.
I tilt my chin up, waiting for him to pass a comment on the potato print that’s all over them. They were a birthday gift from my father – a joke because of how much I like crisps.
‘It’s yours,’ he says, his jaw tightening as he holds the envelope out to me.
I take it and lift the unsealed flap up. ‘Why are you returning my money? I owed it to you.’
‘Did I say it was a loan?’
‘Um . . . no, but you didn’t say it wasn’t either.’
He pushes his hands into his trouser pockets, his lips curling down in disapproval as he looks around the one room that I exist in when I’m not working, seeing Dove, or visiting my father in prison.
At least I made my bed, which is squashed into an alcove so small I have to climb into it from the foot end.
Silence engulfs the room, and I swear I can actually hear his thoughts, about how he can’t wait to escape back to his immaculate Bugatti that smells like a walking cologne advert. Maybe he thinks he’ll need a tetanus booster when he leaves.
‘My sister said you lived in Chelsea,’ he says finally, his eyes fixing on my gold sequinned top that’s hanging on the end of the exposed rail that serves as my wardrobe. I got it from a charity shop, and it leans to one side, but as long as I don’t overload it then it works just fine.
‘My father and I did. Until it got seized.’
I cross my arms, waiting for him to finish his scrutiny of my home.
It might not be much, but it’s clean, and filled with my favourite photographs of my father and me.
Years ago, before Dad started doing well at his job and got headhunted to work for his old firm, we were doing okay.
We weren’t wealthy, but it wasn’t bedsits like this one, or big houses in Chelsea, either. That only came in the last few years.
But we had enough. And we had each other.
‘Are you safe here? There isn’t even a doorman.’ Rafael’s upper lip curls in disgust and I could roll my eyes at how pretentious he sounds.
‘It’s fine.’
‘Fine?’ he echoes, like he isn’t convinced at all.
I wait for him to say something else demeaning about my home.
Muffled voices on the other side of the wall grow louder.
‘You’re a dirty little liar,’ a woman scorns.
‘Oh yes. Yes, I am. I’m sorry, Mistress.’
‘You told me you had money, but the only thing big about you is your ego. What’s fifty quid? It’s nothing. Send me more, you disgusting little cockroach. I deserve much more for having to talk to you.’
There’s a deep groan, followed by a feminine drawl. ‘It’ll do . . . for a start. You’re not touching that ridiculously sad excuse for a dick, are you?’
‘I-I’m sorry, Mistress.’
‘If you’re going to do that and make me listen then you’d better send more money right now.’
Another groan.
‘My neighbour, Mike,’ I explain as Rafael looks at me with horrified eyes, like he just licked the bowl of a public toilet.
‘Mike?’ he growls, glaring at the wall through which Mike’s moans of clear enjoyment are audible. ‘You have to listen to this shit?’
‘Yeah, but I mean . . . she’s actually very skilled. Her name’s Mistress of Mockery, and I don’t think I could do what she does and keep a straight face. She called Mike a selfish little turd last week. He really liked that.’
I’ve never seen Rafael look flustered before, but the wide flare of his nostrils tells me he’s one breath away from marching next door and telling Mike to quieten the hell down. Which would be ironic seeing as that’s what Mike’s always telling me to do with the TV.
‘He’s done this before?’ he growls.
I nod. ‘Twice a week since I moved in. Then the other nights he listens to the replays.’
‘Replays?’ His rich bronze eyes widen, which I take as an invitation to continue, although it’s second-hand embarrassment that keeps me talking as a way of covering the sounds of Mike’s laboured pants coming through the wall.
‘Yeah. It’s all online. He pays to video call with her. And when he can’t, he watches the replays . . . on repeat.’
Rafael stares at me. ‘This guy plays recordings of the same woman every day . . . so he can wank to them?’
My cheeks burn at the way ‘wank’ sounds being growled from his lips.
‘Yeah. But she only wants his money.’ I shrug. ‘Bet you think that’s kind of . . . sad?’
His mouth drops open, and he takes a breath like he’s about to say something, but then decides against it.
‘Oh, Mistress,’ Mike moans.
Rafael’s eyes bulge. ‘I’ll damn well insult him for free!’ he snarls, striding to the wall. ‘Hey, arsehole!’ He hammers on it. ‘We don’t want to hear you bashing one out.’
‘A-Aurora?’ a confused voice calls back.
‘It’s fine, Mike,’ I shout.
The last thing I need is for him to find a reason to complain to the landlord about me. Mike’s been here longer than I have, and even though it’s not The Ritz, living here is better than having to rent a room in a house-share with strangers. Ones who might ask questions about my father.
Rafael whips his head and gives me a warning look. ‘It’s not bloody fine,’ he hisses, before turning back to the wall and banging on it again.
‘Who are you?’ Mike asks in a strained voice.
‘I’m her bloody boyfriend, Mike,’ Rafael snaps, making sure to bite out Mike’s name with extra wrath. ‘So you’d better damn well keep the sounds of you and your dick to yourself unless you want me to rip it off and choke you with it.’
There’s a female purr from the other side of the wall. ‘You heard the sexy-sounding man. Even he thinks you’re pathetic, you sad little toad.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t stop it, I-I . . . Oh God,’ Mike gasps out a choked cry, Mistress’s final insult hitting the spot.
Rafael’s eyes take on a wild sheen. ‘That bloody—’
I grab the cuff of his suit before he can storm out of my front door and bang on Mike’s.
‘It’s not your problem!’ I hiss. ‘Why’d you tell him you’re my boyfriend? You think that’ll make him stop?’
‘It better,’ Rafael snaps. ‘You shouldn’t have to listen to that.’
‘It’s not that bad. He has to listen to me too.’
He reels back, his brows shooting up his forehead.
‘Not like that,’ I splutter. ‘My TV. He’s always complaining it’s too loud.’
He presses his lips together, his eyes flicking to the wall like he’s still deciding whether to go and rip Mike’s dick off like he threatened to.