The Spare Bedroom: by Elizabeth Neep

Author:Elizabeth Neep [Neep, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838886387
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2020-04-30T18:30:00+00:00

I collapsed on the Coogee Beach steps as Joshua strode away in search of coffee – a search that in a suburb where there was a 1:3 coffee-shop-to-person ratio took him all of three minutes. I looked across the ocean, trying to slow the rapid pace of my heart. A heart recently and repeatedly submerged in the Tasman Sea.

Along the beach I could spy Joshua returning, both hands clutching steaming cups of coffee towards his bare chest. His turned-down wetsuit top trailed behind him, as did three other figures walking with him on either side.

‘Look who I found,’ he hollered. Through my salt-stung eyes the faces of Alice, Andrew and Mark came into view. Sam and Jamie’s church crew. I tried to flatten down my sea-slung hair. Randomly bumping into people on a Saturday? It was the kind of community I’d naively hoped we’d all have in London. Instead, I’d found myself forty-five minutes from everyone – and made to think that ‘wasn’t all that bad’.

‘I didn’t know you were a surfer,’ Alice said, a raised eyebrow stretching above her Ray-Bans, cup of coffee clutched in her manicured hand – it wasn’t even sunny. Just once, I wished she wasn’t seeing me sweaty, wet or out of my depth.

‘I’m really not, I’m—’ I began, before Joshua cut me off.

‘She’s great. You should have seen her out there.’ He sat down beside me, smiling and handing me my coffee. I let the heat of it warm through my hands and lifted the steam closer to my face. I’d earnt this.

‘You should see Mark.’ Andrew lifted his own cup to take a sip. ‘Words cannot describe—’

‘How great I am?’ Mark interjected, exchanging smirks with his partner, trying and failing to hold back a laugh.

‘Sure,’ Andrew agreed, his words dripping with sarcasm, ‘that’s exactly what I was going to say.’ He looked at me, rolling his eyes. ‘Just like you’re an amazing flower-arranger.’ Andrew and Alice laughed in unison as Mark faked disdain.

‘Sam kind of… double-booked himself.’ Alice turned to me to explain, even more bronzed again a backdrop of beach. I tried my best not to think about what else Sam had been double-booking: he had me and Jamie living in his house, didn’t he?

‘To taste cake or select centrepieces, that is the quest—’ Andrew began.

‘A question no one ever asks,’ Mark interrupted again, as they all laughed.

‘Anyway,’ Alice pressed on in spite of them, ‘Jamie asked us whether we could fill in for one of their appointments, check out some blooms for their big day.’ A familiar sinking feeling filled my belly.

‘Jamie must have been so mad.’ Joshua shook his head, covering a smile with his coffee cup, another image of Jamie jarring with the ‘little Miss Perfect’ I’d been shacked up with all week. Did she even get mad? So far, she’d been able to keep her cool with me but something about their nods told me she could blow.

‘I said we could take the cake-tasting,’ Andrew continued in between sips of coffee.

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