8. ELLY
8
ELLY
I t’s time for me and the slippers to part ways. Maybe it was the fast cars or the sweat or the desperate ‘ kiss me ’, or the way he admitted he wanted me, like it was an undeniable fact, but I cannot be dealing with constant reminders of my interactions with Jack Lansen. Enough is enough. It has to end. He's not a viable option for me, and I won’t entertain the thought of him any longer.
I slam my foot on the pedal to open the kitchen bin and drop the slippers in. Goodbye, bitches.
I dust my hands off like I’ve just achieved some pivotal ‘moving on’ moment. Symbolic . No more thoughts of Jack Lansen, thank you very much. I have to focus on the important stuff in my life, like my music, and my upcoming interview with Robert Lloyd.
The buzzer goes, and I jump at the interruption. Who the hell is here now?
The buzzer goes again. Okay, chill out.
I pace to the intercom and press the button. “Hello?”
“It’s Jack.”
Jack? What’s he doing here? Nerves tingle through me, making my knees weak. So much for my symbolic moving on moment.
“Kate’s at Nico’s,” I blurt.
He pauses. “I’m here to see you. Let me up.” Oh. Butterflies burst to life in my stomach. His disembodied voice sounds way hotter than I’ve ever noticed before, probably because his face is so distracting. And damn it, my heart is pounding at the demanding tone of it.
“Good morning to you too,” I reprimand, trying my best to sound like him turning up here is no big deal, and that it might even be a tad inconvenient rather than the most exciting thing that could have happened.
I press the button to let him in, and his footsteps pound up the stairs. A wave of panic seizes me. I’m not ready to see him, not after the intensity of that moment in the dark after the race last night. Shit . My insides roil at the thought of it, almost as though I might throw up. I cannot be in the same room as him. Maybe I can fold myself into a kitchen cupboard or lock myself in the bathroom.
But I’m not quick enough. The door flies open, and Jack stands there in his cashmere overcoat, irritation scrawled over his handsome face, my sheepskin coat draped over his forearm.
His gaze snags on me, dipping right to the toes of my cowboy boots, and my breath stutters. After a beat, he lurches into motion again, unhooking my coat— my favourite coat —from his arm and handing it to me.
“Oh. Thanks.” My voice sounds weak as I take it. I clear my throat and add, “I was about to start mourning for it.”
Mourning for it? I cringe. Shut up, Elly.
A muscle flickering in Jack’s jaw is the only acknowledgment of my joke. “I picked everyone’s coats up from the track this morning. It doesn’t smell like smoke.” He nods at my coat. “It still smells…” His words trail off, and his focus shifts from me to the middle distance. Oh, crap. He thinks my coat stinks. He must notice my grimace because he collects himself and adds, “Like you. It smells like you.”
Like me? Is that good or bad? He’s been here thirty seconds and he has me second-guessing myself already. “Okay, well—”
Before I can finish, he pulls a thick wad of papers out of an interior pocket of his coat and throws them onto the kitchen table.
“There’s asbestos in the roof and it’s suspected in the external pipework. Maybe in the flue of that blocked-up fireplace.” He drags a hand through his hair. “You’re going to have to move out.”
Asbestos? Is that dangerous? “You’re kicking me out?”
“No,” Jack insists. “I’m making sure you don’t die from asbestos poisoning when we tear the roof down. It’s going to be a pain to rectify, but I’ve got to do it if I want to renovate this place. Look, I’m sorry, but you can’t stay.”
My body is buzzing, and I can’t tell if it’s Jack being near, or the panicked thoughts racing through my mind. Where the hell am I meant to go? What if I need to pay more rent somewhere else? I’m already stretched to the limit to pay the rent here.
“How long do I have?”
“We need to make it happen yesterday,” Jack states, and somehow, through the fog of panic, it occurs to me that this might be what he’s like in the office. All bossy and demanding. Is it hot? Am I finding this attractive?
Yes.
But then the panic takes hold for real, and my heart is thumping, anxiety threading through my veins as Jack rants about Kate moving in with Nico, building schedules, a buyer in the spring, and the deal falling through if he can’t finish the work on time, and I can’t follow everything he’s saying.
“Where am I supposed to go?” I whimper. “Aren’t you supposed to give me notice about this? You can’t throw me out.”
He stalks from one side of the kitchen to the other, impatience steaming off him. “I’m not throwing you out. I was walking home last night, and I thought of you in this shitty flat, and…” He breaks off and stands still, breathing a little heavily, one hand resting on his hip. “I wouldn’t want to live here, and the idea of you being here alone most of the time now that Kate’s with Nico… it just didn’t sit right. And this morning I opened the report, and thought, ‘fuck it, let’s expedite this’. Let’s get you out of here.” He aborts his monologue, frowning as if catching himself doing something he doesn’t want to.
“That still sounds like you’re throwing me out,” I mutter.
His eyes shut for a beat. “Do you have friends you can live with? Family?”
Family? There’s no way I’m going back to my parents’ place with my tail between my legs. They already think I’m a lost cause. Nearly thirty and only just scraping by.
But wait, he can’t throw me out. “As the landlord, it’s your legal responsibility to house me elsewhere for the duration of my lease.”
He braces, casting an assessing look over me as I stand in the middle of the kitchen, obviously freaking out, and his own harassed demeanour cools, like he knows he has to calm this situation down before I disintegrate. “I’m not going to leave you high and dry. We can work this out. Sit down.” At his command, I sink into the nearest chair. “I’ll make you tea.”
Oh, phew. He’s not going to abandon me. “Thank you.”
He starts banging around, getting out mugs, filling the kettle and turning it on. He comes to sit opposite me as it boils, and his concerned gaze meets my own. Is there a hint of last night’s heat there? Even if there isn’t, I can feel it. I’m suddenly as hot as the water in that damn kettle.
“I could live with Kate and Nico,” I say, more to distract him from the sheen of sweat that’s pearling on my forehead than anything else. Their relationship is new, and I don’t want to intrude on their first weeks as a couple sharing a home. They’ll probably want to be alone so they can have amazing sex in every room. Ugh. I might be the teensiest bit jealous.
He scoffs as though a similar thought has occurred to him. “Sure, ask her.”
Okay, fine. “What about one of your other rental properties? I know you have loads. Don’t you own half of London?”
“They’re full,” he replies. “Let me think for a moment.”
The kettle reaches boiling point and clicks off. Jack stands and pours the water into the mugs, allowing it to brew before he pours in the milk. He’s not talking, but he’s soaking up my attention like a giant, hulking sea sponge. A hot one. Even when making tea, he moves with an authoritative purpose that’s incredibly appealing. And the way his navy coat fits his broad frame, sliding over his shoulders and hanging down his back is really… something else.
I need to stop perving over Kate’s brother. Ugh. He’s off-limits. Off-limits.
He uses the teaspoon to squeeze the tea bag against the side of one of the mugs, and then, to my horror, he presses his loafer to the pedal for the bin, and the lid swings up. He takes one look inside and freezes, teaspoon hovering over the abyss.
My heart leaps up my throat, blocking the air to my lungs, because I know what he’s looking at. My slippers.
He lets the bin lid close slowly, resting the teaspoon with the tea bag still squashed into it on the counter. My stomach churns. There’s no way Jack Lansen isn’t going to have something to say about the fact I’ve thrown away my slippers.
Tension fills the air, and with each inhalation it seems to solidify my lungs. The silence sparks, exploding abruptly when Jack spins to face me. “Three months,” he announces.
I lean back from his outburst, both surprised and relieved that he’s ignoring the slippers. “Huh?”
“That’s what’s left on your lease. And you have nowhere else to go.” I wait as he seemingly mulls over his own statement, unsure what he expects me to say. Suddenly, his expression brightens with the lightning strike of an idea. “Move in with me.”
What? Live with Jack? I’m freefalling at the thought.
I want to say no—I should say no—but a frisson of energy is filtering through me. Hope? Excitement? I wouldn’t have felt this way about the prospect of living with Jack Lansen a few weeks ago, but something is different now.
I should never have sung for him.
Living with him would be an inevitable disaster. I know that, and I’m sure he does too. We’re combustible. We shouldn’t be left in close proximity.
But despite all that, I want to say yes.
“No,” I confirm, ignoring the impulse to do the opposite. “I’m not living with you. I bet you snore like a rocket launch.”
Jack’s brows dip over his blue eyes, which gleam as though my protests amuse him. “You’ve got damp in the ceiling, a boiler that’s always breaking, intermittent hot water and fucking asbestos in the roof, and you’re worried about me snoring?”
I glare at him. He must know it’s not the snoring I’m worried about. Not really. It’s him, the way he flirts, his gorgeous smile… the way my heart is beating out of control just because he’s in the same room.
“You can’t stay here,” he says slowly, as though he thinks I don’t understand the issue. He finishes the tea he’s making, putting one of the mugs on the table and pushing it towards me. “Strong. Dash of milk. Two sugars,” he says, not taking his eyes off me. “The way you like it.”
He knows how I take my tea? When did he work that one out?
As he continues staring, making my heart beat fast enough to win one of his damn car races, I realise that he might not feel the same way I do. He flirts with everyone . There might be nothing special about me. He did kiss Lydia at the racetrack, after all. And for all I know, he took her home after I left and had wild, sweaty sex with her.
Images of Jack, naked and sweat-covered, ambush me, and heat floods my core. Fuck . I can’t live with this man. He’s not even doing anything, and I’m aroused.
I try my best to anchor my unruly imagination to the real-life version of him, wearing his tailored suit and cashmere overcoat. But it doesn’t help because this man is veritable suit-porn.
“You’d be doing me a huge favour,” he adds, eyeing me carefully. I suspect he thinks my silence is reluctance. “But if there is someone else you could live with, I can reimburse your rent.”
I run through my options and come up short. Even if I wanted to live with my parents, which I don’t, I can’t because they don’t live in London, and I need to be here for work. Maybe I could ask my friend Marie, but her new place only has one bedroom. She used to live here with me and Kate until she moved in with her boyfriend, and I can’t see him wanting me hanging around.
A fiery heat rises to my cheeks and worsens with each passing second that I’m not offering an alternative. In my peripheral vision, I can see Jack’s brows rising.
“Just come and live with me, El,” he says so gently that something inside me turns gooey and warm. “I promise I don’t snore.”
The only sound in the flat is our tandem breathing. The moment feels potent, as though anything could happen. Jack could shove me against the wall and kiss me, and I wouldn't object.
He picks up the tea he made for me, which I still haven’t touched, and holds it out. “You want this?”
I take it from him, cupping it with both hands. “Thank you.” He watches my fingers, and I eye him over the rim of the mug. “I’m not living with you,” I add.
He flashes that handsome smile. “Come on. You know you want to. Pack your stuff. I’ll get you moved in next week.”
“What? No. You can’t do that. You—”
He hovers his foot over the pedal bin, shooting me a cheeky grin.
Oh, no. “Stop!”
Ignoring my interjection, he presses his foot down, and the bin lid squeals wide, revealing my slippers again, right there on the top. Perfect. Almost new. I cringe at how obvious it is that there’s nothing wrong with them. It’s like they’re screaming all my secrets, revealing that I threw them away in a strop because they prevented me and Jack hooking up.
He picks them out and holds them up. “You might want to bring these though. You know… for when I do want to fuck you.”
My mouth opens and closes, but words fail me. Fucking arsehole . He tosses the slippers across the room, and they land by my chair.
He’s smirking, clearly enjoying my discomfort. “Why did you throw them away? Having regrets about the other night?”
Yes. “No,” I spit, but Jack’s so amused that he barely takes a breath before he continues.
“Wish we’d fucked instead?”
That’s it. That’s enough. I slam the tea down on the table, and liquid slops over the edge as I leap from my seat. “You are such an arsehole. Fuck.” I shift from foot to foot, pumped full of nervous energy that I can’t control, while Jack keeps grinning at me like he’s enjoying the show. “I am not living with you. I refuse. I absolutely refuse.”
There’s an angry scrape to my words. I bend down, grab the slippers, and hurl them at him in rapid fire, one after the other.
He ducks, hands over his head, as they hit his arms and fall to the floor. He looks like he’s desperately trying to contain laughter, his face contorting with the effort. And damn it, it makes me want to laugh too, because this is ridiculous. We’re ridiculous. I’m ridiculous.
Everything about this is stupid.
But I don’t laugh. Instead, I stalk right over to him and start tugging off my cowboy boots. He watches me, eyes twinkling like I’m the best thing he’s ever seen.
Vaguely, through the haze of irritation, I’m aware that I like the feel of his eyes on me. I don’t want him to stop watching.
I’m hopping on one foot to tug the boot off, then the other, and finally, when I’m free, I slide my feet into the slippers and put my hands on my hips.
“Go on.” I jerk my chin at the door, trying to convince him— to convince myself —that I’m mad at him, when really, I’m full of a strange, bubbling warmth. “Go and find someone else to play your stupid games with. I’m not interested. Get out.”
Jack doesn’t move, and the air between us crackles. He takes a small step towards me, his voice soft when he says, “I only want to play with you.”
I’m speechless. What?
“Three months, El,” he whispers. “We can manage that, can’t we?”
I frown. It’s not that long.
He must notice my hesitation because he leans a little closer, and says, “Come and live with me, please.”
Please.
I’m undone.
The energy skating between us prickles against my skin, and the sweetness of the tension feels like temptation. I want to do this. “I don’t want to share a bathroom with you.”
He pulls back, his lips tipping up at the corners. “You won’t have to.”
“Or a bedroom.”
Jack’s full on smiling at me now, making my heart flutter. “I promise, no shared bedrooms.”
“Okay, then.”
His smile disappears, and he goes still. He wasn’t expecting me to agree. “Okay?”
“Yes. I’ll move in with you for three months. But I’m assuming we’ll never see one another because you’ll be off earning all that money, and I’ll be working tables. Or at gigs.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Perfect.” I nod at the door. “You can go now.”
He performs an elaborate mock bow, making laughter bubble up my throat, and this time I let it out, and he grins at the sound.
This is fun. Being with Jack feels so good.
Jack must agree, because he looks thrilled, and it warms my heart to see it. “I’ll send a van for your stuff next week.” He pushes open the front door, then pauses, looking back at me. “And, El?"
“Yeah?”
“Don’t forget those slippers.”
I smile as he turns away, and I can hear him chuckling all the way down the stairs and out onto the street.